Politics
tlambert | May 4, 2006Glenn Reynolds has kept adding updates to his "seize the oilfields" post, including a response to my post that managed to entirely miss my point. (Invading Iraq has reduced its oil production.) The resulting post is rather confused. Fortunately Jim Henley has decoded it and connected it to the collapse of belief in small government in the American Right. Tom Hilton has some more apt comments on Reynolds' post.
stcynic | May 4, 2006This is the kind of shallow, pointless, purely symbolic political gesture that absolutely drives me up the wall:
A new resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives calls for the recitation and singing of the Pledge of Allegiance, National Anthem and new citizens' oaths in English only.
Cosponsored by Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., and Rep. Jim Ryun, R-Kan., the legislation would be advisory and not enforceable by law. Even so, the congressmen believe it is needed in the wake of a new Spanish version of "The Star Spangled Banner" recently recorded by Latino stars Carlos Ponce, Gloria Trevi and…
stcynic | May 4, 2006Sandefur sent me a link to this article about a ridiculous case of government micro-management of something that should simply be none of their business - the absolute absurdity of telling farmers that they can't grow or sell more than a certain amount of crops. I'll past an excerpt from the article below the fold with some commentary:
The fresh green shoots emerging from Marvin Horne's gnarled grapevines offer the promise of a new crop of raisins and, perhaps, the farmer's ruin.
Horne plans to sell every morsel of the sun-dried fruit, bypassing a middleman and defying a decades-old rule…
pharyngula | May 4, 2006You know I'm no fan of Richard Cohen. He's not the person I'd go to for some sharp insight or even for the ability to recognize humor, so it should be no surprise that he failed to see the humor in Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Comedy is a matter of taste, so that Cohen didn't find it funny is no big deal…but this comment shows off Cohen's typical obliviousness and tin ear.
In Washington he was playing to a different crowd, and he failed dismally in the funny person's most solemn obligation: to use absurdity or contrast or hyperbole to…
stcynic | May 3, 2006Judge Roy Moore, a genuine theocrat, is running for governor in his home state of Alabama and he's currently not doing very well. The polls show that he is trailing by a 2-1 margin to incumbent Bob Riley. And I found this rationalization from one of his pals rather amusing:
The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition in Washington, D.C., and a good friend of Moore's, said he believes Moore's support is stronger than the polls indicate.
"He seems to have strong grass-roots support that doesn't poll strongly," he said.
I think he might be right. After all, how many of…
pharyngula | May 3, 2006Christopher Hitchens is one of those guys who sometimes takes your breath away with his strong writing, but then a moment later you want to retch as he goes haring off on some sodden militaristic crusade. It's with some sadness that I see that he deserves to be minced by Juan Cole. Although when Cole has him writhing on the ground and turns around to put the boot in…well, maybe that's a bit harsh.
Nah, he deserved that, too. Kick him again, Juan! Harder!
pharyngula | May 3, 2006What a strange thing; it's the third of May, and I was thinking about one of my favorite paintings. Go ahead and take a moment and just look at it—you can click on it and see a larger version, if you want. Think about it.
Goya's The Third of May
The painting commemorates an event in history: almost 200 years ago, in 1808, Napoleon's armies occupied Spain, and the people of Madrid rioted on the second of May. On the third, the troops rounded up people off the street, lined them up, and executed them. These were just ordinary people, peasants and shopkeepers and students, and probably many of…
stcynic | May 3, 2006The Cato Institute has a new group blog that includes some very good writers like Radley Balko and Tim Lynch. Michael Cannon files this report about the new Medicare and Social Security trustees' annual reports that were just released. Some of the, err, highlights of those reports:
The unfunded liability of the Social Security program grew by 20 percent (from $12.8 trillion to $15.3 trillion) while Congress dithered over reform proposals.
But the Social Security gap is still smaller than the unfunded liability of just the Medicare prescription drug program, which weighs in at a robust $16.2…
tlambert | May 3, 2006Glenn Reynolds:
Of course, if we seized the Saudi and Iranian oil fields and ran the pumps full speed, oil prices would plummet, dictators would be broke, and poor nations would benefit from cheap energy.
Yeah, because that's pretty much the way it worked out in Iraq.
Update: Rob Sama on the same Reynolds post:
Was just listening to Rush. As usual, it sounded like a regurgitation of the best that the blogosphere has to offer. He quoted this newspaper column by Max Boot, which was also quoted by Instapundit this morning. Rush read the same quote that Instapundit cited, but then he went on,…
oracknows | May 2, 2006Yesterday was May Day, and Catallarchy has posted its annual Day of Remembrance for for the victims of Communism.
Of particular interest to readers of this blog is a rather extensive article about just what can happen when political ideology is allowed to warp science, specifically what happened to science under Communism because of Trofim Lysenko:
Lysenko's doctrines were an unholy merger of Lamarckism with Stalinism: the infinite malleability of man was mirrored by the infinite malleability of plants. (Lysenko claimed that if you grew plants incrementally further and further North each year…
oracknows | May 1, 2006As you may know, I'm totally hooked on 24, and with only four episodes to go I'm getting antsy to see how it all ends. In the meantime, however, it's hard not to be amused by Tom Tomorrow's appropriation of one of my favorite shows:
I wonder if they're referring to this blog?
jlynch | May 1, 2006PZ says:
I'm willing to get along with and even support the religious, as long as they don't threaten to suborn secular institutions to privilege religious belief.
And I agree.
jlynch | May 1, 2006
As of today, 2,401 US soldiers dead; over 2,150 since "major combat operations" were declared to be finished.
Over 34,000 civilian deaths.
Glad it's working out so well for everyone.
Edit: I'll note that Scott McClellan, when asked today whether the mission has been accomplished, replied "We are on the way to accomplishing the mission and achieving victory."
pharyngula | May 1, 2006How else can you explain why those adorable screaming moonbats at the Daily Kos have come up with a science book? I'm kind of dismayed that good science has become a partisan issue, but don't blame us—our side puts out stuff like Kosmos: You Are Here, while the righties seem to have a surfeit of Lotts and Bethells.
stcynic | May 1, 2006I didn't catch Stephen Colbert's lampooning of Bush at the White House Correspondents' dinner on C-SPAN, so I was thrilled to see that Crooks and Liars has the video available for download. This was brilliantly funny stuff. Editor and Publisher has some funny excerpts from the monologue. I'll print a bunch of those excerpts below the fold:
Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, "and reality has a well-known liberal bias."
He attacked those in…
stcynic | May 1, 2006Another one of those perfect moments where Bill O'Reilly shows the world what a buffoon he is, this time from Media Matters. On his radio show recently, he was talking about how kids who fail a civics test should be shipped to Canada. Gee Bill, maybe if the schools actually taught civics classes, they could pass the test. But best of all, early on in the broadcast O'Reilly was bleating on, in his famously self-righteous manner, about how no one knows who the energy secretary is:
Does everybody understand that? Well, Spencer Abraham doesn't understand it. He is -- in case you didn't know,…
pharyngula | May 1, 2006
I'm on the road again for a big chunk of today, so let's just contemplate this icon for a failed, dishonest presidency—not only was the Iraq War a failed endeavor, but we have here an administration that relied entirely on propaganda and illusion…and they were incompetent at even that.
While you're considering that, you've also got to wonder how Chris Matthews can look himself in the mirror every morning. Why do these men still have their jobs?
jlynch | April 30, 2006
Seems that Stephen Colbert made things a little uncomfortable for Shrub at the White House Correspondent Dinner on Saturday night. He and Laura Bush were unsmiling at the end of Colbert's wonderful takedown. You can read more here, there is a transcript here, and a torrent of the video here.
As Colbert walked from the podium, when it was over, the president and First Lady gave him quick nods, unsmiling. The president shook his hand and tapped his elbow, and left immediately.
Those seated near Bush told [Editor & Publisher]'s Joe Strupp, who was elsewhere in the room, that Bush had…
oracknows | April 29, 2006Having lived in Cleveland for 8 years, I appreciate a Cleveland guy Derf's take on things. Even as a conserative-leaning sort, I have come to the conclusion that I'm with Barney as far as our President goes:
Click for the full size version.