Politics
grrlscientist | February 25, 2006
WASHINGTON, D.C. - A White House source stated that Congress is considering awarding Vice-President Dick Cheney the Medal of Freedom, the national highest civilian commendation, for his act of bravery in shooting an attorney.
The source was quoted to say "All Americans have wanted to shoot a lawyer at one time or another and Cheney actually had the balls to do it."
In a related story, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, which issues hunting licenses, said that it will start requiring hunters wishing to bag a lawyer to have the new "lawyer's stamp" on their hunting license. Currently…
oracknows | February 25, 2006You can't make stuff like this up. You really can't.
Did you know that Tom and Jerry are in reality a clever secret nefarious plot by the Jews?
That's what Professor Hassan Bolkhari, who teaches philosophy of art at Tabatabaei and Al-Zahra Universities in Iran and is a member of the Film Council of the Islamic Republic of Iran and a cultural advisor to the Iranian Education Ministry, asserts (if you understand the language, feel free to check out the original video here):
There is a cartoon that children like. They like it very much, and so do adults - Tom and Jerry.
[...]
Some say that this…
grrlscientist | February 23, 2006
Stunningly, the Fundamentalist State of South Dakota has enacted a ban on all abortions under any circumstances. According to the news story;
Proposed amendments to the law to create exceptions to specifically protect the health of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest, were voted down. Also defeated was an amendment to put the proposal in the hands of voters.
So these legislators apparently believe that these very same voters who put all their sorry asses into office as public servants, are too stupid to decide for themselves on this very important issue that will affect each and…
tsmith | February 23, 2006You don't need to worry about security.
I don't know whether having a UAE company manage our ports would increase our vulnerability to terrorism or not, but I find it highly, highly ironic that an administration who's spent so much time telling us how *not* safe we are (wasn't electing Kerry going to bring on another terrorist attack?) are now reassuring us that there's nothing to worry about. I bet the folks in New Orleans would beg to differ.
grrlscientist | February 23, 2006
This was sent by a friend and colleague who actually likes the weasel .. er, cough, man .. in the picture, so I am guessing that he is trying to cheer me up. Thanks, R. Yes, I did smile a little bit, although I never will understand how you can approve of his administration's arrogance misbehavior. Even Colin Powell couldn't wait to get the hell outta Dodge, so to speak.
By the way, dear readers, click on the image for an even larger version that you can print out and glue to your desk for all to see.
stcynic | February 22, 2006I'm afraid I just don't get the Bush administration's position on turning the control of our major ports over to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates. It's just obviously a bad idea, obvious enough that even the Congressional leadership of both parties seem to be able to recognize it. And yet on this issue, of all places, Bush is drawing a line in the sand:
Brushing aside objections from Republicans and Democrats alike, President Bush endorsed the takeover of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports by a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates. He pledged to veto any…
oracknows | February 22, 2006Austrian prosecutors think Irving's jail term is too short:
Austrian prosecutors have filed an appeal against the three-year prison sentence handed to the British historian David Irving, arguing that he escaped too lightly for the crime of Holocaust denial.
Irving was left stunned and open-mouthed when the sentence was handed down after a one-day trial in a Vienna court yesterday.
After entering a guilty plea and publicly accepting that he had made a mistake when denying existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz, Irving had clearly expected a more lenient punishment over two speeches made to…
tlambert | February 22, 2006Here's Silas standing in front of one of the ports that have been sold to Dubai Port World. Don't worry, he'll protect us from the terrorists! Unless they gave him food or something. See Dennis the Peasant or Kevin Drum for a more serious treatment of this matter.
razib | February 21, 2006Below the fold are the results from a politics quiz I took. Nothing surprising, but just a testament that Seed is politically latitudinarian....
You are a Social Liberal (71% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (68% permissive) You are best described as a: Libertarian
Link: The Politics Test on Ok CupidAlso: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test
pharyngula | February 21, 2006Say, would the nice person who sent me the Roy Zimmerman CDs care to 'fess up in the comments?
I need to turn you in for sedition. There might be a reward.
pharyngula | February 19, 2006Here's the difference between me and Michael Bérubé: he gets labeled a dangerous radical and profiled in David Horowitz's new book, while all I get is a
mild squeak in our weekly campus newspaper and our local conservative rag.
While perusing the UMM main page, I happened upon the website http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula which belongs to UMM's own Professor of Biology Dr. Meyers. Upon closer inspection I found content relating to my religious beliefs that offended me beyond belief. Not only was this speech sacrilegious and offensive, but it was readily available to anyone who happens across…
grrlscientist | February 18, 2006Today, I received a book about Darwin in the mail that is hot off the presses (release date: 7 march 2006). I will post a review of this book sometime late this week. I also just finished browsing "the big three" journals (Nature, Science and PNAS) for the week so I will have some cool science to tell you about very soon. But until that time, I have something that you might enjoy (click on the image to stream).
Thanks, Dawn!
pharyngula | February 18, 2006It's just a photo set of pictures of quail, but I noticed that my right forefinger reflexively twitched at the photo of the Republican lawyer in the middle of them. There may be a neurological explanation for Cheney's shotgun error, after all.
jlynch | February 17, 2006
Quailtard: farm-raised quail released for the hunters to fire at. As in: "Look, the mere fact that we're even talking about how the vice president drives up with his rich friends in cars to shoot farm-raised wingless quailtards is letting the quail know 'how' we're hunting them" (Rob Corrdry, The Daily Show, 2/13/06).
(via Boingboing)
pharyngula | February 16, 2006Chris Mooney sets up an interesting dilemma:
It's hard to decide what's the bigger outrage here: 1) That Bush didn't tell the public his real "dissenter" view on global warming; or 2) that Karl Rove set up a secret science advisory session for the president with a novelist.
Hmmm. Lying and misrepresenting his views, vs. wallowing stupidly in ignorance…which is more damning? Fortunately, since he's guilty of both, we don't have to make a decision and can just spit and curse with a little extra disgust.
tlambert | February 15, 2006Test yourself: can you detect what is dishonest about this argument in a Mirada Devine column about RU486 published in the Sydney Morning Herald today:
And, despite the hype about a gender divide in the Senate last week, about the same number of men (21) and women (24) voted in favour of removing Abbott's authority.
The answer is here
oracknows | February 15, 2006Alright, everyone, who's responsible? Someone out there must have done it. Someone out there must have nominated me for a Koufax Award for Best Overall Writing by a Lefty Blogger? (True, it's my old blog that's listed, but I am listed!)
Come on. 'Fess up.
It's not that I'm not honored that someone would consider me for such an award (I am), it's just that I'm afraid that my membership in the Raging RINOs could be in jeopardy...
Fortunately for my membership (but unfortunately for my ego) I have a snowball's chance in hell of winning, given the huge numbers of nominees and their quality. Hell…
stcynic | February 14, 2006My first thought when I heard on Saturday that Cheney had shot someone by accident on a hunting trip was, "Jay Leno just got very excited." These incidents are a dream for comedy writers and last night, they teed off on it. The best lines, predictably, came from Jon Stewart on the Daily Show:
"Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a man during a quail hunt ... making 78-year-old Harry Whittington the first person shot by a sitting veep since Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, of course, (was) shot in a duel with Aaron Burr over issues of honor, integrity and political maneuvering.…