Politics
drorzel | August 28, 2010I've never thought of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. I haven't had to, since I don't live in The City, so about all I remember about him is that his choice of party back when he was first running seemed awfully opportunistic. I was really impressed with his appearance on the Daily Show this week:
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This is about the best response to the endless mosque nonsense that I've seen from an elected official. Granted, he's not…
drorzel | August 27, 2010I've said before that I think Fred Clark of Slacktivist is the very best blogger writing about religion and politics in America today. It's not even close. His recent series on things the government ought to be doing to help the economy is also outstanding-- that link goes to the most recent, and you can check my Links dump posts for most of the rest of the series.
I end up tagging a lot of his posts for the Links Dumps, but he's good enough that every now and then I feel I need to give him a little more prominence. His Wednesday post is one that deserves more. He describes two occasions…
stoat | August 25, 2010Back in 2008, I examined the Oreskes vs Nierenberg affair and concluded that Nicolas Nierenberg was correct and Oreskes was wrong. And then NN capped that by actually writing stuff up into a paper, published in July of this year: Early Climate Change Consensus at the National Academy: The Origins and Making of Changing Climate.
And (I missed this at the time I think), Nature published a letter from Nierenberg, Tschinkel & Tschinkel, titled "An independent thinker, willing to say what he thought":
We object to the inaccurate and misleading characterization of William Nierenberg by Naomi…
illconsidered | August 24, 2010I know we have a few denizens of the lands down under (I include New Zeland in that) so I thought there might be some interest in this analysis by George Monbiot of the recent national elections in Australia.
Apropos for this blog his take is all about climate change policy. Be sure to read to the end for this well supported clincher: "Right-wingers are making monkeys of themselves over climate change not just because their beliefs take precedence over the evidence, but also because their interests take precedence over their beliefs." Amen!
Mandas, crakar, Deepwater, adelady, does he get…
jrosenhouse | August 22, 2010For the past few days I have been intending to do a big post about the proposed “Ground Zero Mosque,” in which I would gather up and comment on what various other people had said. Alas, I have not had time for that. So let me instead just do a quick post.
I have no problem whatsoever with the proposed cultural center (it's not a mosque for heaven's sake, though it would not change my opinion if it was). They have an absolute right to build it, and if they decide to exercise that right it will be a complete non-story as far as I am concerned. Of course, as an anti-religion kind of guy I do…
pharyngula | August 22, 2010Amnesty International reports that:
Reports say a court in Tabuk, in the north-west of the country, had approached a number of hospitals about the possibility of cutting the man's spinal cord to carry out the punishment of qisas (retribution), as requested by the injured victim.
I don't know how you find a doctor willing to commit such a violation of medical ethics, but then, I don't understand how we can have doctors to carry out the death penalty, either.
pharyngula | August 21, 2010This is revoltingly narrow-minded and stupid behavior by our military. We've got a Christian kook, a Major General James Chambers, who has mistaken morale and discipline for indoctrination in the Christian faith. He's running a program called the Spiritual Fitness (whatever the hell that means) Concert Series at army posts in Virginia. This program brought in a Christian rock group to perform, which is annoying enough, but then attendance was optional in name only. At least one company was marched to the doors of the event, and then told they had a choice: attend or be disciplined.
Those of…
drorzel | August 21, 2010I'm probably about the last person with an interest in such things to get around to watching Phil Plait's (in)famous "Don't Be a Dick" speech, but I finally got around to it, and it's really excellent:
Phil Plait - Don't Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.
Phil has posted about the speech itself, online reactions to it, and the in-person response after the talk. His thoughts are well worth reading, to put the whole thing it better context.
I really don't have anything to add, which is fine, because I should spend less time typing blog stuff anyway.
pharyngula | August 19, 2010I keep hearing from official sources that we're getting Afghanistan under control, but I don't believe it. If we are, how is this happening?
The Taliban in Afghanistan has publicly stoned to death a man and a woman over an alleged love affair, government officials said.
I guess a mass of soldiers sitting in your country really doesn't do much to change your quaint ancestral folkways.
drorzel | August 19, 2010Everybody's favorite science-and-politics blogger has posted a video clip showing part of what's wrong in science communication. It's a clip from the BBC from last December, featuring one of those head-to-head quasi-debates about "Climategate" between Prof. Andrew Watson of the University of East Anglia and political consultant Marc Morano, who has made himself a nice little media niche as the go-to guy for climate change denial:
I don't think this is quite as damning as Chris says, but it's pretty bad. What you see here is a competition between a scientist and somebody who knows how the…
drorzel | August 19, 2010Kevin Drum posts about the latest outrage from the airline industry:
To summarize, then: (1) Airlines spent years hassling customers about their carry-on bags and persuading them to check their luggage instead. (2) After that finally started to work, they suddenly began charging for checked luggage. (3) As customers scurried to adapt once again, overhead space disappeared. (4) So now they begin charging for early boarding to avoid the crush of bags in the overhead bin.
Has there ever before been an industry that's so actively tried to piss off their entire customer base? You almost have to…
pharyngula | August 19, 2010Quite the little hissyfit is brewing on the far right. One one side is Joseph Farah, lunatic publisher of the online teabagging journal, World Net Daily, better known as Wing Nut Daily to rational people. Farah organizes something called the "Taking America Back National Conference", in which the not-very-bright half of America gets together to piously discuss how they can complete the total trashing of the country.
On the other side is crazy flaming psycho goon Ann Coulter, who would have been a headliner at the WND conference — she's exactly the kind of nut WND loves. Unfortunately, Coulter…
gregladen | August 17, 2010But Conservapedia is going to fix that.
... apparently Conservapedia is unhappy that after Terence Tao got the Fields Medal four years ago he then endorsed Barack Obama for President, ... To deal with this apparent liberal bias and affirmative action in the Fields Medal, Conservapedia is starting its own award for mathematicians
Read about the ConservaMath Medal here!
drorzel | August 17, 2010At Inside Higher Ed this morning, they have a news squib about a new report blaming the high cost of college on "administrative bloat." Coincidentally, the Dean Dad has a post pre-emptively responding to this in the course of arguing with a different group:
In terms of administration, what would you cut? Should we stop trying to comply with the ADA? Should we stop evaluating faculty altogether, and just trust that everybody is perfect? Perhaps we should stop giving financial aid, since it requires so many staff. Who cares about accreditation? Who cares about IT? Who cares about payroll? (…
pharyngula | August 16, 2010The Australians are having an election, and one of the parties is the Family First Party — a Christianist group — and another is the Australian Sex Party, which would have my vote just for the name, if I were Australian. And after watching this debate between the two, I am confirmed in my bias.
I'm a bit disillusioned with Julia Gillard, who's a bit too quick to throw away principles to pander for votes (which probably means she'll get elected). Fiona Patten, though, seems quite nice and forthright. And I like their ads.
Now if only the US had a party like that…
pharyngula | August 15, 2010Australia is not a particularly religious nation, and they've got the same problems we all do—a sagging economy, and essential demands for social programs that ought to be met…but compromises have to be made. Here, though, is a compromise I can't understand: the Labor government has decided to throw away huge sums of money on something ridiculous.
That something else is school chaplaincy. Last week the Gillard government pre-empted its own review and increased the program's funding by more than a third. The total cost to the taxpayer now stands at $437 million.
What are these chaplains…
pharyngula | August 14, 2010
12 September will be Burn the Confederate Flag Day.
Burn the Confederate Flag Day is a protest against the right's exploitation of racial prejudice for political gain. We urge you to burn the Confederate flag, a long-time symbol of racial hatred, on Sept 12, the date when the racially-divisive Tea Party holds its annual hate fest.
Now I just have to figure out where to get a cheap traitor's flag in Minnesota. Hmm…it sounds like the kind of thing a truck stop might sell.
gregladen | August 13, 2010There was an election in November of 2008, but you probably knew that already. You cast a vote for a presidential candidate, and if you were especially interested, put a bumper sticker on your car and a sign in your yard. If you're a typical Minnesotan, somewhat more engaged in the process than is usual with Americans, statistically speaking, you also voted for a U.S. Senate candidate, and you remember who it was, even if your candidate didn't win. That's already quite a bit going on for one election cycle, but of course there was also an election for the U.S. House of Representatives in your…
illconsidered | August 11, 2010It seems, like Galileo before him, Lord Monckton is facing persecution from the established institutions of his day.
This has Mike Mann's fingerprints all over it. Will "The Team" stop at nothing?