Politics
pharyngula | June 20, 2006I'm feeling a bit peevish about the Democrats right now. I got some email from people promoting Gary Hart, mentioning that he is berating congressional Democrats for failing to stand up against the administration.
There is integrity, there is conviction, and there is courage. History's jury will sit in judgment today on those Democrats and will find wanting those without the conviction and courage to say "enough".
I'm sensing a pattern here. Democrats run for president as cautious cowards who avoid standing up for progressive policies, they get mauled by the media anyway, they lose, and then…
pharyngula | June 20, 2006The Rude Pundit makes a rude point here: two American soldiers have been captured by the bad guys in Iraq. I can, in good conscience, sit here and hope that they are treated in a civilized fashion by their captors, and are eventually released unharmed; this will, of course, make American treatment of Iraqis look beastly and barbaric by comparison. If they are abused and humiliated, smeared with excrement, photographed naked in degrading poses, attacked by dogs, or otherwise maltreated, I can again in good conscience condemn their captors as barbarous animals; I'm not sure what the right wing…
hrynyshyn | June 20, 2006Yesterday's non-decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on just how far the Army Corps of Engineers can go in telling developers what they can and cannot build produced no identifiable winners or losers. But a close look at the rulings hints at how the court will treat science in future cases.
In the end, the court couldn't agree on what the Clean Water Act was meant to do, so it sent Rapanos et ux., et al, v. United States back to the lower courts to sort out just what constitutes a wetland deserving of protection. One of properties in contention is depicted at right. You can see why there's no…
jrosenhouse | June 19, 2006If you're wondering why only a small handful of prominent conservatives and Republicans have publicly criticized Ann Coulter, the answer is simple: Most of them agree with her, and the ones who don't are still happy to have her on their side.
Coulter is what right-wingers are all about, you see. They are constantly attacking, rather like those genetically engineered super-soldiers you see in bad science fiction movies. Getting the basic facts right means nothing to them. No one seriously believes, for example, that Coulter's arguments about evolution are the result of a detailed…
grrlscientist | June 19, 2006
Every time I heard that stupid song, that's what I thought the Beach Boys were singing, too! It took years before I could hear them singing "Barbra Ann" instead.
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tags: streaming video, satire, parody, humor, Iran
clock | June 19, 2006 Want this badge?
The 32nd edition of the Carnival of the Green is now up on Savvy Vegetarian.
clock | June 19, 2006The July issue of Discover Magazine has an excellent article on The Future of Terrorism. You should readthe whole thing, online or in hardcopy. Here are some choice quotes by people interviewed for the article:
"The war on terrorism is really a proxy for saying what is really a war on militant Islam. If we can't confront the ideology, if you're not willing to take on the ideology and try to develop a reformist, moderate Islam that makes militant Islam a fringe element, we haven't much hope to stamp it out."
Andrew C. McCarthy, former federal prosecutor who led the case against Sheik Omar…
razib | June 18, 2006I will be contributing to the new blog Nation Building, which was the weblog "Dean Nation." Though I am generally of the opinion that the 4-year-election-cycle is generally characterized by transient epiphenomena on a substantive level (though there's a lot of tribalism and "my team won!" going around), I do think the long-term health of the republic (long term as in 20-40 years) is important. My opinions will be more philosophical and historical, but they will have some political relevance. I'll be offering my idiosyncratic perspective as a libertarian/Burkean/transhumanist/evolutionist…
clock | June 17, 2006Back To The Woom is a blog that needs to get much more exposure. It is written by a very smart couple here in Raleigh, NC. The posts are always very thoughtfull and well-researched and the topics range from Ann Raynd to immigration, from capital punishment to harsh capitalism. Always worth your time to read (even if you disagree on a detail or two).
This time, I'd like to point your attention to the latest post - The moral majority is watching your inner child molester:
The implication is that, without the threat of eventual punishment at the hands of an omniscient cosmic dictator, many…
evolvingthoughts | June 16, 2006Courtesy of Unscrewing the Inscrutable, comes this video of Stephen Colbert interviewing Georgia Congressman Lynn Westmoreland about a Bill he sponsored for putting the Ten Commandments up in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Wtach what happens when he asks the Congresscritter to name them. Colbert's final comment is priceless.
clock | June 16, 2006 Want this badge?
Message from the proprietors of the Carnival of the Liberals:
Dear Liberal Carnivalers,
Did you think we'd disappeared? Don't worry (or celebrate), you're not getting rid of us that easily!
Some logistical issues caused a bit of a delay and resulted in The Uncredible Hallq swapping hosting slots with Varkam at Neural Gourmet. Varkam will be hosting Carnival of the Liberals #15 on Wednesday, June 21st and and the deadline is Tuesday, June 20th by 7PM EDT. So, what are you waiting for? Get to sending in those submissions!
Note: Anyone who sent in something prior to this…
clock | June 16, 2006Greensmile of The Executioners Thong blog has a question. He (sorry for gender confusion - edited) is offering to set up an automated webpage which people can use to send letters to the advertisers and sponsors of TV shows that allow right-wing talking points (e.g., having Coulter a as a guest) to be aired unchallenged. Woudl you be interested? If so (or if not and have a good reason to explain why not), go over there and chime in in the comments.
What kind of people on what kind of shows? Here is a short sampler.
pharyngula | June 16, 2006I've been listening to Bethell vs. Mooney on Science Friday, and I've come to one conclusion: I really need to slap Ira Flatow. Repeatedly. And maybe kick him a few times, too.
He was playing right into Bethell's hands. Bethell was rambling and vague, and he went on and on, and Flatow fed into it. Mooney had to interrupt several times and demand a chance to rebut (and good for him—he was on the attack, as he needed to be), and at least once Flatow stopped Mooney for a commercial and then asked Bethell to follow up afterwards.
Worse, Flatow wouldn't allow any depth. They'd start getting into…
drorzel | June 16, 2006The Dean Dad has some interesting comments regarding this depressing New York Times article about the departure of young adults from Upstate New York:
From 1990 to 2004, the number of 25-to-34-year-old residents in the 52 counties north of Rockland and Putnam declined by more than 25 percent. In 13 counties that include cities like Buffalo, Syracuse and Binghamton, the population of young adults fell by more than 30 percent. In Tioga County, part of Appalachia in New York's Southern Tier, 42 percent fewer young adults were counted in 2004 than in 1990.
This echoes the article about the…
stcynic | June 16, 2006The other day I posted about Arlen Specter's "compromise" with the administration on oversight of the NSA's various surveillance programs, the ones they refuse to submit to the FISA court. My post was based on the Washington Post's report on Specter's compromise legislation and included the fact that Specter had proposed total immunity for anyone found in the future to have violated the constitution. Specter immediately went on CNN and denied having offered any immunity at all:
Absolutely not. That was an erroneous report. If anybody has violated the law, they'll be held accountable, both as…
clock | June 16, 2006
This was first posted on http://www.jregrassroots.org/ forums on July 10, 2004, then republished on Science And Politics on August 18, 2004. That was to be just the first, and most raw, post on this topic on my blog. It was followed by about a 100 more posts building on this idea, modifying it, and changing my mind in the process. You can see some of the better follow-ups here. Also, I have since then read Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage by Stephanie Coontz, which is a much better and more scholarly work than E.J.Graff's book. Below the…
pharyngula | June 16, 2006Darksyde has a summary of the science panel in which he says nice things about us speakers…but I'm sure that what everyone will want to see is the link to a transcript of Wes Clark's speech.
oracknows | June 16, 2006Yesterday, I wrote a bit about Michael Savage's attack on George Soros, in which he stated that "people like you give Jews a bad name, Soros. It's people like you who brought about the Holocaust, Soros. I stand by those words."
Admittedly, at the time I wrote my little rant, I didn't know that Michael Savage is, in fact, Jewish himself. My bad. I should have checked and was a bit embarrassed to have to have it pointed out to me by a reader. In actuality, after it was pointed out to me I did remember that I had heard somewhere that Savage's real name is Michael Alan Weiner. Sadly, the fact…
oracknows | June 15, 2006I don't know if it's possible to be to the right of Ann Coulter, but Spacemonkey over at IMAO gives it a try.
I'm not sure that he succeeds. After all, he says, "We let God's will or survival of the fittest, if you swing that way, be the appeals process."
I don't think that Coulter would never concede even in the least that anything even remotely connected with evolution could be true--at least not in public.