Politics
drorzel | April 10, 2006One of the standard conservatarian responses to anyone suggesting government-funded universal health care is to start talking about how universal health care will inevitably lead to faceless, heartless bureaucrats denying or delaying treatment for stupid reasons. My response to these stories is "Who's supplying your health insurance? And how do I get on that plan?"
Through my employer, I have a pretty generous health plan, administered by one of the most highly-regarded health insurance companies in the region. And this week, for the second time in two weeks, they refused to cover my…
pharyngula | April 9, 2006Man, I step away from the ol' blog for a day, and what do I get? A rash of the right-wing dingleberries. Come on, everyone, ignore them, they're nuts.
I do notice a few things, though. My post was about the concern that we would use nuclear weapons against Iran in an unprovoked attack. Read the wingnut comments, and what do we see?
A great deal of pussyfooting around the issue. None are coming right out and saying that nuking Iran is justifiable. How about stating clearly that you agree that while Iran is a deplorable mess, you find the idea of using our nuclear arsenal against it…
razib | April 9, 2006A week ago I interviewed cogntive psychologist Justin L. Barrett. Dr. Barrett studies religion as a natural phenomenon, and I asked about the nature of individuals who are atheists. He responded:
As self-proclaimed atheist Jesse Bering has observed it can be very hard to identify true atheists. He even suspects that they comprise a very tiny number of people. By true atheists, I mean people that consistently hold no belief (cognitive commitment that motivates behavior) in superhuman agency. Lots of people say they don't believe in superhuman agency (including gods and ghosts) but will…
pharyngula | April 9, 2006Everyone has read Seymour Hersh's exposé of our government's plan for Iran by now, I'm sure, and today there is an article in the Washington Post backing it up. Our leader is pushing for a fast strike to cripple Iranian military capabilities.
The rationale is that the Iranians are followers of an "apocalyptic" religion who "believe that they are stronger than ever" and think, "To hell with the [other side]. You can do as much as you like." Their leader is erratic and dogmatically hostile to Israel, and is compared to Hitler. There's a real risk that they would use nuclear weapons to blow up a…
stcynic | April 7, 2006On the other side of the aisle from the last story, we have the spectacle of Cynthia McKinney and her ridiculous performance over the last week concerning her incident with the Capitol Police. After more than a week of trying to deflect responsibility and change the subject to racial profiling, she's now apologizing and backing down:
"There should not have been any physical contact in this incident," McKinney said.
"I am sorry that this misunderstanding happened at all, and I regret its escalation and I apologize," she said surrounded by colleagues on the House floor.
She said she would vote…
pharyngula | April 7, 2006Eric Pianka is eccentric, opinionated, and outspoken; many people might disagree with specific bits and pieces of his position. But I don't think that he is a eugenicist, a hate-filled fan of the Third Reich, an advocate of planned genocide, anti-human, or a crazed scientist planning the death of humanity. Nick Matzke has compiled a list of the slander that's been aimed at Pianka. It ain't pretty.
Transcripts of his talks are beginning to emerge; he has given this same talk, "The Vanishing Book of Life", seven times now, and the only time it has received this level of vituperation is when a…
pharyngula | April 6, 2006Two carnivals under my purview are coming up next week, both on Wednesday, 12 April, so let's get rolling on bringing in exciting links.
The Tangled Bank will be held at Discovering Biology in a Digital World, under the care of Sandra Porter. Send links to interesting science writing to her, to me, or to host@tangledbank.net by Tuesday.
For the first time, I'm going to be hosting the Carnival of the Liberals. The hosting guidelines for this one are interesting: it's competitive. I'm only going to post what I think are the ten best submissions. You can guess what I like: uncompromising…
pharyngula | April 6, 2006There has been an oddly evasive struggle going on in Washington DC for the last several years. We have a safe, easy method of emergency contraception that has been turned into a political football, with Republicans playing their usual role of criminally stupid thugs, trying to crush a simple idea: Plan B contraception. It illustrates exactly how the Religious Right is trying to intrude on your private life, and in particular, how they want to control women.
I'll explain how Plan B works, but to do so I'm going to have to explain some basics of the hormonal control of the menstrual cycle.
This…
jlynch | April 6, 2006"Scooter" Libby was told by Cheney that Bush "specifically had authorized" him to "disclose certain information" from the classified National Intelligence Estimate to Judith Miller (source). Will the Democrats finally develop a backbone and go after the administration? Don't hold your breath.
tlambert | April 6, 2006Tim Blair grasps at a straw, I mean perfume sprayer:
Frank Gaffney is interviewed by the ABC's Tony Jones, who confidently deploys the "Saddam had no WMD" argument:
TONY JONES: Except for the fact as it turns out -- I'm sorry to interrupt you there -- except for the fact as it turns out, he didn't have any?
FRANK GAFFNEY: No, it doesn't turn out at all that he didn't have any. It turns out we haven't found what he had. But what we did find, what the Iraq Survey Group did find, is plans to use the in place dual-use manufacturing facilities once sanctions were lifted to put chemical and…
pharyngula | April 5, 2006Please, please, please…I want to cast my vote for Al Franken in 2008, and I want him to be my representative in the Senate.
Why don't our official news media ever dig into the truth as plainly as our comedians?
stcynic | April 4, 2006Tom DeLay is going to announce this morning that he is resigning from Congress. But gosh, I thought God himself had appointed DeLay to "represent righteousness in government"? If that's true - and DeLay didn't deny it when Scarborough said it - wouldn't it be blasphemy to refuse to carry out the role God appointed him for? Ah, what tangled webs of absurdity are weaved by huckster manipulating religion for political gain. Here's my favorite part of the article:
"He has served our nation with integrity and honor," said Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, who succeeded DeLay in his leadership…
pharyngula | April 4, 2006Pianka speaks out. Nick Matzke has a good post on Pianka at the Thumb, addressing the smear campaign against him*. He links to an interview with the good Dr—what he's saying is simple sense, common in the biological community, and he's not endorsing mass murder…he's talking about conservation and planning ahead. Mims is a "crazy kook" who distorted the story and turned it into screaming match.
Get used to it. This is part of the right-wing strategy to attack the academy: when scientists honestly state bad news (and there is much bad news, and it's growing), they are going to be rabidly…
stcynic | April 3, 2006I'm sitting here watching Cynthia McKinney and her attorneys being interviewed by Wolf Blitzer and it's cracking me up. I've always considered McKinney to be little more than a buffoon and a huckster. The moment you submit a bill to crack the government conspiracy against Tupac Shakur, you've pretty much lost your credibility with me. But what cracks me up, as always, is how inept the media is and how politicians get away with idiotic answers without being challenged. Blitzer asked her point blank, "Did you strike the police officer at the capital building?" McKinney didn't even attempt to…
stcynic | April 3, 2006Tim Russert interviewed General Anthony Zinni last night. In the early stages of the Iraq war, I wrote about Zinni a lot. He was the head of the US Central Command, the chief American military officer in the Middle East, until just before the war broke out. He was also one of the generals, along with Eric Shinseki, who spoke out publicly about the massive mistakes and ridiculously rosy scenarios being thrown out by the administration in the media. I said then that if we didn't listen to Zinni and Shinseki we were going to end up with a disaster on our hands in Iraq, and that has proven true.…
tsmith | April 3, 2006 As conferences covering both emerging infectious diseases and emerging zoonoses, influenza H5N1 was obviously a prominent topic of discussion. The big question wasn't really answered--what is the most important mechanism of spread from country-to-country: wild birds, or domestic poultry? The only thing that was clear is that the answer, well, isn't. I know grrlscientist has written extensively about the evidence against wild birds as a vector (using search word "influenza" here brings up many of them; more on her old site), and there certainly was a lot of discussion about farming and…
grrlscientist | April 3, 2006The Carnival of the Green is a new blog carnival for me, and probably for you, too. It is a weekly blog festival that discusses Green Politics and sustainability issues, and shares ideas for living in a more earth-friendly way. The 21st edition was published today with 14 interesting essays, including one written by me.
tags: blog carnival
pharyngula | April 3, 2006The Pianka situation is getting very, very ugly. I've been chatting with a member of the Texas Academy of Science, and people there are getting death threats over it. Here's one example of the kind of email they're getting:
While Heinrich Himmler's "final solution" was limited to exterminating the Jews,
Dr. Eric R. Pianka promotes a FINAL SOLUTION for 90% of earth's population. In
accepting the 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist award, Heir Pianka was
interrupted with applause and received a standing ovation.
"Soylent Green is people." And the way cinema's futurist society dealt
with over…
drorzel | April 3, 2006While I managed to correctly re-set the clock yesterday, in the process, I turned my alarm off, so I'm running late. Which means no lengthy science blogging this morning. Even running late, though, I can't pass over Fred Clark's message to the evangelicals who organized an anti-pop-culture rally in San Francisco:
Stop it. Just stop. Stop pissing on trees. Stop "reclaiming America for Christ." Christ already has a kingdom, an upside-down, mustard-seed kingdom without a flag. And while you people are so busy trying to create an alternative kingdom called "Christian America," the prostitutes and…
pharyngula | April 2, 2006I'm getting some email requests to state my opinion on some claims by Forrest M. Mims. Mims attended a talk by Eric Pianka, in which he claims Pianka advocated the "slow and torturous death of over five billion human beings." I wasn't there, and I don't know exactly what was said, but I will venture a few opinions and suggestions.
Read Wesley Elsberry, who does know Pianka's work and has his own take on the interpretation of the talk.
I assure you that biologists do not have a secret plan to deliberately murder nine-tenths of the planet's human beings in order to make room for more bacteria…