Politics
pharyngula | March 21, 2006Let us continue our Ben Domenech bashing. He's got this somewhat high profile gig at the Washington Post, and one has to wonder what his qualifications are. I think we can rule out "intelligence."
GWW made an interesting discovery: he's a creationist. I don't understand why the Right is constantly elevating these ignoramuses; there must still be a few conservatives who read this site (I can't possibly have driven you all away)…aren't you embarrassed by this kind of thing?
For instance, here's some dumb-as-a-post reasoning:
I personally don't have a problem with evolution being taught in…
pharyngula | March 21, 2006Apparently, it's going to cost me my credibility as bona fide liberal left-wing moonbat, but yes, I have seen Red Dawn. You know, the movie that that wacky new Washington Post blog touted as a talisman of righteous manliness.
Red Dawn? You must know it—the greatest pro-gun movie ever? I mean, they actually show the jackbooted communist thugs prying the guns from cold dead hands.
Saying it's the greatest pro-gun movie ever is like saying mucous and sawdust make the best sandwich ever—it either says your taste is something execrable, or you've just insulted every other sandwich on earth. It…
pharyngula | March 21, 2006You have a couple of bills working their way through the state house that offer aid and comfort to the Intelligent Design wackos. You don't want that, do you? If you live in Maryland, are a scientist, teacher, or dependent on science research, sign the online petition to oppose these nasty little bills. Work fast, too, you don't have much time.
oracknows | March 21, 2006Now here's something you don't see every day: a news analysis article pointing out a politician's love of a logical fallacy:
WASHINGTON - "Some look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day," President Bush said recently.
Another time he said, "Some say that if you're Muslim you can't be free."
"There are some really decent people," the president said earlier this year, "who believe that the federal government ought to be the decider of health care ... for all people."
Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made…
oracknows | March 20, 2006American soldiers are still fighting and dying in Afghanistan. It's not nearly as many as in Iraq, and there aren't nearly as many news stories about it, to be sure, but we are still spending blood and treasure to "stabilize" this supremely dysfunctional nation. The reason, we are told, is to bring freedom and to prevent the Taliban from coming to power again.
Well, here's what we're spending our blood and treasure for: To protect a theocracy that punishes infidels with death:
An Afghan man is being tried in a court in the capital, Kabul, for converting from Islam to Christianity.
Abdul…
jlynch | March 20, 2006George says:
"The Afghan people are building a vibrant young democracy that is an ally in the war on terror - and America is proud to have such a determined partner in the cause of freedom."
Meanwhile, back in Kabul:
An Afghan man is being prosecuted in a Kabul court and could be sentenced to death on a charge of converting from Islam to Christianity, a crime under this country's Islamic laws, a judge said Sunday.
No comment necessary.
grrlscientist | March 20, 2006So, dear readers, it appears that there is a movement underway to convene a congressional hearing to investigate the current administration's hostility towards scientists whose data are not in harmony with the party line. Do you know of any examples of scientists who have been muzzled by the current administration? Or perhaps you are one of these scientists? If so, please contact legislative assistant, Heather Parsons, or Dan Pearson, a democrat on the Science Committee.
pharyngula | March 19, 2006When I say it, I get a rush of protest proclaiming that not all Christians are like that. I know they aren't, but we ignore the theocratic Right at our peril.
Prophetic Christians, Phillips writes, often shape their view of politics and the world around signs that charlatan biblical scholars have identified as predictors of the apocalypse—among them a war in Iraq, the Jewish settlement of the whole of biblical Israel, even the rise of terrorism. [Phillips] convincingly demonstrates that the Bush administration has calculatedly reached out to such believers and encouraged them to see the…
razib | March 18, 2006I often read the weblog Sepia Mutiny, and today there was a post about a pair of men flying while brown. They were pulled off the plane and their bags were sent ahead. It was a big foul up. Now, here is the kicker: the men were wearing "traditional" South Asian clothes and skull caps and one of them was reading the Koran. This scared the crap out of a flight attendent. Now, I pointed out that dressing likes this was likely to scare the crap out of people on a plane, so it is a really idiotic modus operandi for a terrorist, so the response was probably irrational. Frankly, the people…
pharyngula | March 18, 2006I slept in this morning, got up, had a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of orange juice, and read about the probability that we'll go to war with Iran.
I sat down in my easy chair and put my feet up and read that yesterday was the 38th anniversary of My Lai. As long as I'm looking at old atrocities, new atrocities are only a click away.
I sip some coffee while reading about yet more war drums in the distance, and my country's security plan.
The document ["America's National Security Strategy"], published yesterday, reasserts the right to pre-emptive strikes as a means of self-defence should the…
pharyngula | March 17, 2006More SF indulgence, excuse me: Gary Farber has been reading Heinlein's rediscovered "first" novel (brief summary: it's very bad), and Kevin Drum raises the question of correlation between early SF preferences and later political biases, with Heinlein inspiring conservatives and Asimov motivating liberals (Drum says, "Well, I liked 'em both, but I liked Heinlein more and I turned into a liberal." I'm not touching that straight line.)
I disliked Heinlein's stuff intensely. It was badly written, with a patronizing tone, and always smugly assumed that his simplistic opinions were absolutely true…
stcynic | March 16, 2006I find myself constantly vacillating between taking politics seriously and viewing it solely as a form of entertainment. As Mencken noted so famously, democracy is the only truly amusing form of government ever invented. On those days when I'm looking only for entertainment from the political system, I want all the Katherine Harris I can get.
You may remember Harris as the Florida elections official during the 2000 election, where she resembled nothing so much as a demented Stepford Wife with her bad makeup and her deer-caught-in-headlights facial expression on camera. Well she's now running…
pharyngula | March 16, 2006Check out these compendia of blogginess and comment on them, or anything else that strikes your fancy.
Skeptics' Circle
I and the Bird
Carnival of the Liberals
oracknows | March 15, 2006Evolgen and I both wrote about this earlier, when the Genetics Society of America urged people to contact their Senators. Now the biggest organization dedicated to cancer research, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), has weighed in. Received in my e-mail today:
To: All AACR Members
From: Dr. Margaret Foti, Chief Executive Officer; Dr. William G. Nelson V, Chairperson, Science Policy & Legislative Affairs Committee
Date: Wednesday, March 15, 2006 by e-mail
Re:'Please Contact Your Senators TODAY or TOMORROW in Support of the Specter-Harkin Budget Amendment and the…
oracknows | March 15, 2006Excerpts from an e-mail to Professor Deborah Lipstadt criticizing her for taking Holocaust denier Arthur Butz to task during an interview on FOX News:
Although I am not anti-semitic, your Jewish greed is overbearing and crippling. The world is beginning to see the collective Jewish attempt to control the world economy and world media.
[...]
Another example: the recent killing of the French Jew raises interesting questions. There is no doubt that the world is beginning to feel the oppression of Jewish greed.
Why have attacks on Jews been increasing in Europe and Russia? Why is the Jewish media…
pharyngula | March 15, 2006It's a battle between the Bible and a secular Constitution.
On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, was requested to testify.
At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?"
Raskin replied: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the…
oracknows | March 15, 2006After yesterday's all-out frontal assault on a dubious scientific journal (which, by the way, you should still read if you haven't already), how about some lighter fare for today?
A couple of months ago, when the fury of fundamentalist Muslims was directed at Denmark for the publication by one of its newspapers of cartoons portraying the Prophet Mohammed, I wrote articles arguing that freedom of speech demands that religion not be exempt from criticism or satire. Indeed, religion is such a powerful and pervasive influence on so many people and societies that freedom of speech almost demands…
pharyngula | March 14, 2006Atrios was getting some heat (most of it misplaced) for saying he was sick of the Christian whiners on the Left who make up stories of their martyrdom in the Democratic party—the same nonsense I was snarling about. While Atrios can say he's not hostile to religion—he's just apathetic—I can't, and reading some of the other reactions to the whole business just confirms my contempt.
I like Avedon Carol, but she just doesn't get it. Explaining that the Right has successfully portrayed the Left as "godless" and then talking about how wrong they are because the Left is full of good religious people…
oracknows | March 14, 2006I'm beginning to fear for Kathleen Seidel.
No, I don't fear for her safety, but I do fear for her sanity. You see, she's spent way too much time delving into the house organ of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), namely The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (with the unfortunate abbreviation JAPS, which is why they probably insist on using JPANDS), formerly known as Medical Sentinel. I've written about JPANDS before, pointing out that its claim of peer review is a sham and that it has an explicitly antivaccine agenda, not to mention its far right wing…