Politics
oracknows | March 13, 2006
He'll build a glass asylum
With just a hint of mayhem
He'll build a better whirlpool
We'll be living from sin, then we can really begin
Please savior, saviour, show us
Hear me, I'm graphically yours
Someone to claim us, someone to follow
Someone to shame us, some brave Apollo
Someone to fool us, someone like you
We want you Big Brother
Song: Big Brother. Album: Diamond Dogs (1974)
Why this song?
Given what's going in over the last few years, you have to ask?
oracknows | March 13, 2006A new RINO Sightings: Monday the 13th Horror Edition is up at Searchlight Crusade.
tsmith | March 13, 2006A bit busy today, so I'll direct you elsewhere for some good reading.
First, afarensis is thinking about re-naming his blog Aetiology Jr. after writing another post on bacterial meta-genomics in the sea; Mike discusses the Republican War on Epidemiology; John has more about the candiru I mentioned here, and Joseph revisits probiotics.
Second, as mentioned, an appeal. Some of you who are Panda's Thumb readers may remember this post from November, mentioning the death of Allan Glenn (aka "WinAce" from Wonderful World of WinAce). If you've not seen that site before, check it out--it's…
pharyngula | March 13, 2006The thin-skinned Religious Left whimpers some more. What is it with Kevin Drum and his constant sucking up to the delusional fantasist wing of the Democratic party? Usually it's Amy Sullivan, but this time it's Steve Waldman who gets to be the representative pantywaist for poor oppressed Christianity. He wants to claim that liberals are hostile to evangelicals.
I had been making a narrower point—that many liberals carry an elitist attitude toward evangelical Christians. Lerner's indictment is far more sweeping. Is he being unfair? I think a distinction should be made between the elites and…
pharyngula | March 12, 2006I seem to recall not long ago that in one of those usual "where da wimmin at?" web contretemps, there were claims that women just weren't loud and bold enough to make their voices heard.
All you have to do is read Helen Thomas's "Lap Dogs of the Press" and Molly Ivins' "Enough of the D.C. Dems" to know that that isn't true. They're exactly spot on, and it's good to see some uncompromising criticisms of the feeble old men of the media and the Democratic party.
(via Echidne and Phronesisaical)
pharyngula | March 12, 2006Shame on you, South Dakota. Watch this clip of SD's abortion politics; on the one hand, you have to respect people who have been providing abortion services to the state for years, like Dr Miriam McCreary (now criminalized), and the few representatives, like Elaine Roberts, who have opposed the law, but you also have to see that sexist asshat, Bill Napoli, ramble on about how he might make exceptions for religious virgins who had been brutally raped.
He's probably going to get reelected, when in a just world he ought to be embarrassed to be seen in public without a bag over his head.
I hadn't…
jlynch | March 10, 2006Over at Rationally Speaking, Massimo Pigulicci hits the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned regarding nuclear weapons:
I am baffled by the fact that nobody seems to notice the obvious flaw in the US, Russian and European effort to stop Iran's path toward nuclear weaponry: we have them, why not them?
Because they are not a democracy, you might say. I have news for you: neither is Pakistan, but they have nukes, and yet this apparently isn't keeping Bush up at night. Well, but Iran is a "rogue state." What the hell does that mean, anyway? Is a rogue state a state whose policies we don't…
tsmith | March 10, 2006Or, y'know, the Mike Brown disaster? Think again.
We don't need none o' that fancy learnin'! We'll just repeat our mistakes until people stop noticing. Besides, who needs someone actually qualified in a boring department like Homeland Security?
stcynic | March 10, 2006Interesting development:
A Dubai-owned company abruptly abandoned its plans for managing U.S. ports on Thursday, defusing an election-year showdown between President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress over an issue that had become a political land mine for the GOP.
"DP World will transfer fully the U.S. operations ... to a United States entity," H. Edward Bilkey, the company's top executive, said in the surprise announcement that seemed to spread relief throughout the Capitol and the White House. It was unclear which American business might get the port operations.
Just hours earlier…
grrlscientist | March 9, 2006
Klamath River, Oregon.
Photo by Dave Menke, USFWS.
Click on image for a MUCH larger view in its own window.
Do you wonder what happened with that online letter to the US Senate that I posted to my blog awhile ago, soliciting scientists' signatures regarding the upcoming rewrite of the 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA)?
I finally have some good news to share with you.
As some of you might remember, the 1973 ESA is currently being considered for reauthorization by congress, and a rewrite by California Congressman Richard Pombo, a Republican who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee,…
drorzel | March 9, 2006I'm generally sort of hesitant to take part in the various "meme" things that float around the Internet, because I'm just contrarian enough that it feels wrong to link to something just because everybody else is. Orac's got a good one, though, for a worthy cause.
Recently, somebody tried to burn down the Holocaust History Project, an organization dedicated to fighting Holocaust denial on the Internet. This is a typically craven attempt to suppress facts through violence, by people who don't like the truth, and would prefer that nobody else know it, either. Happily, the attempt failed.
At Orac…
oracknows | March 8, 2006Today's regularly scheduled post has been delayed due to an important and tragic development.
Something bad happened a couple of days ago, something that cuts rather close to home.
Arsonists targeted the offices used as a mailing address for the Holocaust History Project (THHP). (Video here, but only if you have IE and Active X installed, unfortunately.) The fire caused considerable damage to a warehouse complex and caused smoke damage to nearby businesses. Although the perpetrators have not been identified, there is good reason to suspect that it was not the business that was targeted, but…
stcynic | March 8, 2006By executive order, President Bush has created the "Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the Department of Homeland Security". Apparently it hasn't occured to him that the primary enemy against which DHS ostensibly protects us is also a faith-based initiative.
pharyngula | March 7, 2006DFLers, today is the day for the precinct caucuses. Here in Morris, we're meeting in Old Number One Southside at 7 PM—be there! Most importantly, Pete Wyckoff is running for the chairmanship of the Stevens County DFL party. We need to get a scientist elected for the position, since this is our first step in American domination, which will culminate in the election of a philosopher-king to run the country.
First Stevens County, Minnesota…then the world!
grrlscientist | March 7, 2006A colleague apparently read the essay about avian influenza that I wrote this past weekend and was inspired to send me a portion of an email written by Ted Cable, Assistant Chairman for the Department of Horticulture, Forestry and Recreational Resources at Kansas State University. Cable is currently on a sabbatical leave in France. In his message, Cable is very concerned about the "bird flu" misinformation presented to the public and the effect that this is, and will, have on wild birds. He writes;
On another note, here in France there is tremendous panic about the bird flu and it is causing…
pharyngula | March 7, 2006Minnesota had a vampire running for governor, which was pretty messed up…but Pandagon has found a couple of real prizes among the new crop of candidates, Merrill Keiser and Larry Kilgore. Keiser is anti-abortion and anti-homosexuals—he thinks homosexuality should be punishable by death. Kilgore wants the same thing, and also thinks adultery warrants execution. Just crazy stuff, huh?
There is a difference between our Jonathan the Impaler and these two Christian wingnuts: the vampire is a joke without a prayer of victory, but Keiser and Kilgore are typical excrescences of Christian…
jlynch | March 6, 2006Max Blumenthal has an interesting piece in last week's Nation discussing Robert "Robby" George, a Princeton professor of jurisprudence, and his James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Of interest is that the Program is supported by many of the conservative foundations that fund the Discovery Institute and that George himself is a darling within conservative Catholic circles.
That aside, the following in particular caught my eye:
"The only way I made it is that there were honorable liberals prepared to support me," George told me. "But today, the hegemonic point of view is…
grrlscientist | March 6, 2006
A friend sent me this poem (below the fold), which is written entirely from actual quotations from George W. Bush. These quotes were arranged for poetic purposes by Washington Post writer, Richard Thompson. Of course, I had to share this with you, especially since it is such a powerful testament to the lasting damage resulting from habitual overconsumption of drugs and alcohol.
Make The Pie Higher!
by George W. Bush
and arranged by Richard Thompson
Washington Post
I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
And potential…
grrlscientist | March 6, 2006Over the weekend, I found this new report [PDF] by GRAIN that shows that the global poultry farming industry is, as I suspected, the primary cause of H5N1 avian influenza, NOT wild birds and backyard free-range poultry farmers as is so widely reported by the media. Further, this report claims that the probable cause for the increased lethality of the avian influenza virus is a direct result of the horrible conditions perpetuated by poultry industry (as I have stated).
This linked report is quite long, but it is important because it claims that the primary source for avian influenza is, and…
pharyngula | March 6, 2006Amy Sullivan is not one of the people I want advising the Democratic party…unless, that is I suddenly decided I wanted to be a Republican, and was feeling too lazy to change my voter registration. She's got one note that she plays loudly over and over again: Democrats need to be more religious. Why? So we can get more religious people to vote for our candidates, and so we can steal the Republicans' identification as the party of faith.
Nationally, and in states like Alabama, the GOP cannot afford to allow Democrats a victory on anything that might be perceived as benefiting people of faith.…