Politics
pharyngula | May 17, 2006We become more cosmopolitan day by day. As of tomorrow, our fair city will have its very own Drinking Liberally chapter (it's even on the map!). I can walk to it, instead of driving for three hours. Here's the info:
When: Thursday, May 18, from 6:00 pm to 8:00 or whenever.
Where: Old #1 in Morris, near the horseshoe-shaped part of the bar.
Why: To have a relaxed, informal place for progressive political
discussion and socializing.
For more information, visit drinkingliberally.org, or contact local
host Jeff Lamberty (Lambo) at morris@drinkingliberally.org.
oracknows | May 17, 2006This has to be one of the most idiotic laws I've ever heard of. It's so mind-bogglingly unjust that no further comment is really necessary other than that it would have been a minor matter indeed to fix the law so it could achieve its intended purpose (to prevent overcrowding) while not tearing families apart. The City Council had a chance to do just that that and explicitly voted not to.
Afarensis has more.
I tell ya, I have to stop with the political blogging and get back to something medicine-, science-, or skepticism-related. First the atheist Holocaust denier and white supremacist, Fred…
grrlscientist | May 17, 2006Here is yet another story of utter ridiculousness, this time from a St. Louis (Missouri) suburb; an unmarried couple with three children are being threatened with eviction due to a dumbass ordinance that prohibits more than three people from living together unless they are related by "blood, marriage or adoption."
"I'm just shocked," said Olivia Shelltrack, the unwed mother of three. "I really thought this [the city council's decision] would all be over, and we could go on with our lives."
Hrm. I suppose it would be alright if this couple (and their kids) lived together without getting…
stcynic | May 17, 2006A beautiful quote from John McCain during the 2000 election, when he was trying hard to distinguish himself as the moderate candidate in relation to Bush:
"Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right."
Now, of course, he's delivering commencement addresses at Falwell's university. Which one has changed in the last 6 years, Falwell or McCain?
grrlscientist | May 17, 2006I just learned that new federal guidelines recommend that all human female Americans between their first menstrual period and menopause should be treated as pre-pregnant, regardless of their future reproductive plans.
Does this sound rather like .. er, The Handmaid's Tale to you?
It certainly does to me!
According to this Washington Post article, what does it mean to be a member of the pre-pregnant? This means that, among other things, all "pre-pregnant" women should take folic acid supplements, refrain from smoking and using alcohol, avoid contact with cat feces and lead-based paint,…
pharyngula | May 17, 2006Amanda Marcotte on Pandagon discusses Sam Harris on Alternet, and they've both got smart things to say…but you have got to read the comments. Sam Harris says things like this:
On the subject of religious belief, we relax standards of reasonableness and evidence that we rely on in every other area of our lives. We relax so totally that people believe the most ludicrous propositions, and are willing to organize their lives around them. Propositions like "Jesus is going to come back in the next fifty years and rectify every problem that human beings create"--or, in the Muslim world, "death in…
oracknows | May 17, 2006Dang it all. I'm not a political blogger by nature, but this week I just can't seem to help myself, and getting this e-mailed to me didn't help. I suppose that I can console myself by reminding myself that this is about academic misconduct. I may not be in the social sciences, but certain practices just aren't right regardless of academic specialty.
It turns out that University of Colorado's investigation of allegations of academic misconduct by Ward Churchill (famous for his referring to those in the World Trade Center as "little Eichmanns") has been published, and it's way more scathing…
jrosenhouse | May 16, 2006As a coda to the previous post, consider this article, from yesterday's The New York Times. It's headline is the title of this entry.
Some of President Bush's most influential conservative Christian allies are becoming openly critical of the White House and Republicans in Congress, warning that they will withhold their support in the midterm elections unless Congress does more to oppose same-sex marriage, obscenity and abortion.
“There is a growing feeling among conservatives that the only way to cure the problem is for Republicans to lose the Congressional elections this fall,” said…
jrosenhouse | May 16, 2006In Sunday's post I wrote the following:
People like [Kevin] Shapiro, George Will, or Charles Krauthammer are lonely voices in the conservative wilderness, accorded about as much respect in the Republican party as pro-lifers are in the Democratic party. Every conservative politican of any prominence is anti-Darwin, and virtually every right-wing media outlet publishes anti-evolution articles on a regular basis. Indeed, as Chris Mooney documented at book length, hostility towards science is an integral part of Republican politics today.
Over at Gene Expression, Razib took issue with these…
pharyngula | May 16, 2006The cheerleaders are losing their enthusiasm. I don't think we ought to let them off the hook: the policies and plans they went rah-rah over are imploding, and they don't get to foist all the blame on their new scapegoat, Bush. Bush is merely the protruding tip of their inane ideas, and that they've lost the courage of their congenital idiocy does not excuse them.
oracknows | May 16, 2006While I'm being more political than usual, how about one more...
I normally detest Sean Hannity. Basically, he's Rush Limbaugh without the flashes of cleverness or humor. However, this time, he's got it right on. I may be around three or four weeks behind the curve on this, but it's worth looking at the video below of Hannity & Colmes interviewing Shirley Phelps Roper, of the Westboro Baptist Church, a group of religious loonies of God Hates Fags infamy. This is the first time I encountered this video, and, given that none of my fellow SB'ers seems to have mentioned it, I don't feel so…
stcynic | May 16, 2006Gene Healy, writing at the Cato blog, has an important message for all those alleged conservatives cheering on Bush's vast expansion of Presidential power. Commenting on a new book from John Podhoretz called Can She Be Stopped? Hillary Clinton Will Be the Next President of the United States Unless..., he writes:
What I do know is that if Hillary is the next president, she'll be able to lay claim to a number of vast, extraconstitutional powers championed by right-wingers like, uh, John Podhoretz. Among those powers is the "inherent executive authority" to wiretap at will and, perhaps, to…
oracknows | May 16, 2006NOTE (7/27/2016): People have been telling me, based on this post written over ten years ago, how Donald Trump sounds just like Vox Day. It's true. He does. It's also true that the thought of exporting 11-12 million people in 4-8 years is just as ridiculous now as it was ten years ago. I weep that so many in the Republican Party not only take this nonsense seriously but voted for Donald Trump based on a promise very much like what Vox Day described, so many that Donald Trump is now the Republican Party nominee for President. So I added this note. I also note that some of the links are dead…
pharyngula | May 16, 2006Watch this video of police action against an anti-war protest in Portland. It clubs you over the head with the Nazi imagery interspersed with video footage taken from police cameras, which is unfortunate and unnecessary overkill: they could have left it out, and you'd still be thinking it. The most effective moments are when the television airheads all parrot the claim that the hoses and pepper spray and pellet guns and nightsticks were all applied in response to someone in the crowd "throwing a bottle", which is already a rather lame excuse…but then you get to see the police making their…
pharyngula | May 16, 2006Tristero hits the nail on the head with his post about the possibility of a National Christian party (NaXis)—as much as we liberals would like to see the Republicans self-destruct under the influence of the Religious Right, it does us more harm than good if it further weakens the Rational Right.
So, yes, Republicans should boot the Bible-thumpers out of positions of serious influence in their party. But no, the christianists should not be encouraged to form a NaXi Party as that could rapidly lead to Very Bad Things which all of us, especially liberals, would come to regret. And let's not make…
stcynic | May 15, 2006I mentioned in a recent post that I thought a writer on an Alan Keyes-related website must be using a refrigerator magnet game with a bunch of conservative catchphrases just jumbled together randomly. A commenter thinks that would make a fun game and I think so too. So all we need is a list of catchphrases used constantly by conservatives. Here are a few that come immediately to mind:
Judicial activism
Judicial tyranny
Culture of death/Culture of life
Support our troops
Smaller government
Academic elite
Cultural elite
Hollywood elite
Feel free to add your favorites in the comments.
pharyngula | May 15, 2006Al Gore is looking awfully good right now. Josh Marshall thinks he has a shot at the presidency; Blog of the Moderate Left has an interesting ranking of potential candidates, and while he puts Gore at #5, he says this:
Last time around, I said, "I just don't see Al running, and I really don't see Al winning." I think both of those statements may be wrong. He's pure on the left, he's got a film about global warming in the hopper, he seems to have found his passion for the issues again. Like Nixon in '68, he's tanned, he's rested, he's ready. And he's the best-situated candidate to play Anti-…
oracknows | May 15, 2006The other day, I mentioned an atheist named Larry Darby who happened to be an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier. I was perturbed because this clown was coming far too close to my neck of the woods for comfort, and the stench of his vileness offended me. Because Darby is an atheist, not surprisingly fellow ScienceBloggers PZ and Ed both noticed his making news lately, although Razib had the far more interesting take on this clown when he pointed out that the racialist radical right actually has more atheists in it than one might expect. He's quite correct. Having waded into the cesspools that…
pharyngula | May 14, 2006Here's a controversial topic to discuss, especially for a science blogger.
Science is overrated. This is my contention.
Last night in chat I evidently hit a nerve by (perhaps not so) casually suggesting that maybe it's not the end of the world that fewer and fewer American students are going into the sciences.
I read that first bit, and you may be shocked to learn that I'm willing to agree. There are some really good arguments to support the position. Science is hard, and it's true that the majority of people aren't going to be able to grasp it. We're oversubscribed and overextended right…
pharyngula | May 14, 2006That nice guy Chris Clarke has written a paean to speaking one's mind. It's wonderfully not-nice.
My point: it is not civil to discuss things quietly and collegially while people are dying because they can't afford medicine. It is not civil to speak in even, chuckling sardonicism as one beleaguered wild place after another is paved for profit. It is not civil to calmly raise logical arguments against torture, against kidnapping, against using nuclear weapons on civilians to show our resolve.
There's also a bit in there about "Minnesota Nice liberals." I should explain that when you first…