Politics
esiegel | April 16, 2010I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.
-John F. Kennedy, 1961
The entire human endeavor of spaceflight is -- without a doubt -- one of the greatest achievements in the history of humanity. Looking up into the heavens certainly provides some spectacular sights and a huge amount of insight into how space, stars, and galaxies work, among a myriad of other things. (And click the image below for an amazing high-resolution version.)
But my two biggest complaints about the…
elerner | April 16, 2010[This post comes courtesy of the State Department's Katherine Musgrove, who is an economic officer in the Office of Economic Policy and Summit Coordination in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. The Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas is having its first ministerial right now in Washington D.C., and you can watch the end of it here
Katherine is ready to field any questions you have about the ECPA and the Ministerial, so ask away in comments.]
In the Western Hemisphere Affairs bureau at the U.S. Department of State, we have been working to advance policies and programs to…
sa smith | April 16, 2010I dont like the US Senator from Oklahoma, Tom Coburn (lol, like I 'like' the other one, LOL!).
Generic humanoid that cares more about being a robot than contributing anything useful and good to this planet.
But when someone is right, they are right, end of story. Tom Coburn was right in this instance (video via H*ffP*st):
elerner | April 16, 2010The webcast of day two is , starting at 8:30 Eastern.
Update:The feed is down until 12:30, when Todd Stern (U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change) and Jacques Gabriel (Minister of Transportation and Communications, Haiti) will speak.
jstemwedel | April 15, 2010Making good ethical choices in the real world is hard, in large part because it requires us to find the best balance in responding to interested parties whose legitimate interests pull in different directions. The situation is further complicated by the fact that as we are trying to make the best ethical decision we can, or evaluating the ethical decision-making of others, we can't help but notice that there is not universal agreement about who counts as a party with legitimate interests that ought to be taken into account, let alone about how to weight the competing interests in the ethical…
oracknows | April 15, 2010Today is a great day.
Today, British science writer Simon Singh accomplished something I would never have believed possible, given British libel laws and a very bad ruling by Sir David Eady, the presiding judge, a ruling characterized as astonishingly illiberal. Despite the long odds, Singh appealed the ruling and actually won.
As a result, the British Chiropractic Association has thrown in the towel on its bogus libel action against Singh:
Having carefully considered its position in the light of the judgment of the Court of Appeal (1st April 2010), the British Chiropractic Association (BCA)…
grrlscientist | April 14, 2010tags: The REAL Gay Agenda, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender, LGBT, politics, cultural observation, social commentary, humor, funny, satire, fucking hilarious, streaming video
You hear a lot about the gay agenda in political talk. If you ever wondered what the hell they were talking about, well, watch this revealing video (apparently, it is based upon a real-life email string).
This video (which forgot to mention cruising gay bars and watching porn) was created by Sean Chapin.
stoat | April 14, 2010There is a very nice posting by CM about wealth and taxes. Striking: the right-wing complain that 47% of Americans pay no Federal tax. But the real problem is that the bottom 50% measured by wealth only hold 2.5% of the wealth, so no matter how hard you tax them you'll get very little.
elerner | April 14, 2010At last summer's Summit of the Americas, President Obama announced the formation of a multinational organization aimed at increasing renewable energy usage, confronting climate change, and promoting tech transfer and sustainability practices amongst its members.
The Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas is holding its first ministerial in DC tomorrow and Friday, and The Inter-American Development Bank is hosting a live webcast of it, which you can watch here.
The event starts tomorrow at 8:30am Eastern, with Energy Secretary Stephen Chu speaking at 8:50. Hillary Clinton will also…
clock | April 14, 2010If you attended ScienceOnline2010, either physically or virtually, you know that Anil Dash was there, leading a session called Government 2.0.
Anil Dash is a pioneer blogger (and of course twitterer) and the very first employee of Six Apart, the company that built blogging platforms including MoveableType (which is used by Scienceblogs.com) and Typepad.
Just before ScienceOnline2010, Anil made an official announcement that he will be leading Expert Labs (also on Twitter) which is a new project funded by AAAS to facilitate feedback by the experts (including scientists, of course) to the Obama…
catdynamics | April 13, 2010The RNA committee of the Icelandic Alþingi has, finally, issued its Black Report, into the collapse of the Icelandic economy and the events leading up to it.
The entire report, all 2000 pages or so, are being read aloud by a series of actors at the City Theater.
Initial reactions range from the weasel "mistakes were made", through blunt assertions of robbery and treason.
It can be done...
I remember, as an idealistic teenager, being outraged as I became conscious of the ongoing political corruption in Iceland.
Yet, there was some reassurance in noting its pettiness.
It was a bottle, or a…
pharyngula | April 13, 2010Then you must read this wonderfully written piece in the Atlantic. The author's argument is powerful, but the section with the excerpts from the declarations of seccession by various southern states settles the facts of the case. Here's what Mississippi had to say:
…Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an…
terrasig | April 12, 2010If you've never heard of Mark Fiore, you should. And will.
Mark Fiore of the San Francisco Chronicle was recognized today with the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.
For a distinguished cartoon or portfolio of cartoons characterized by originality, editorial effectiveness, quality of drawing and pictorial effect, in print or online or both, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to Mark Fiore, self syndicated, for his animated cartoons appearing on SFGate.com, the San Francisco Chronicle Web site, where his biting wit, extensive research and ability to distill complex issues set a…
palmd | April 12, 2010In the Soviet Union, party membership was everything. Your job, your access to food and other consumer goods, and your apartment all depended on your standing with the party. And votes were simply a tool to provide a patina of legitimacy. No one who liked warm weather voted against the Party.
One of the many advantages of the protections provided by the U.S. constitution is that we generally cannot be hired or fired based on our personal or political beliefs. We also get to elect our leaders frequently. So it should be with a great sense of irony that various teabagger groups shout and…
pharyngula | April 12, 2010I'm a shoo-in now. Although my mind may have just blown up.
In what may come as a surprise for some, Huckabee agreed that an atheist could be fit to serve as president. "I'd rather have an honest atheist than a dishonest religious person," he said.
Don't worry. He didn't mean it. He's actually just doing some sneaky sniping at Mitt Romney. He continues with a clarification of what he really meant.
It's better to have a person who says, 'Look, I just don't believe, and that's where my honest position happens to be. I'm frankly more OK with that than a person who says, 'Oh, I am very much a…
aardvarchaeology | April 10, 2010In the context of religion versus atheism. Dear Reader Jason has expressed a need for moral absolutes that is quite common among conservatives. Wrote he,
"The bane of atheistic thought based on naturalism is that it cannot account for objective moral absolutes. All that is left is societal ideals and individual preference."
"There are two tribes, A and B. Tribe A is composed of hunters and warriors; however, within the community itself they are loving and caring to one another. Tribe is B is composed of farmers and gatherers; they are peaceful and loving to one another. Tribe A decides that…
pharyngula | April 10, 2010
For many years, the NSF has been producing a biennial report on American attitudes (and many other statistics) about science called Science and Engineering Indicators. This year, as they have every year, they got the uncomfortable news that a majority of our compatriots reject human evolution and the Big Bang (that last one might have been partly because of the dumb way the question is phrased). What's different, though, is that for the first time the NSF has decided to omit the fact.
This is very strange. It is a serious problem in our educational system that so much of the public is vocal…
emjohnson | April 9, 2010With yesterday's announcement of the historic nuclear arms treaty signed by Russia and the United States (that would reduce existing stockpiles by as much as 30%) I thought I would repost my piece on Edward Teller's nuclear legacy from September, 2003 that was originally commissioned by The Nation magazine (though ultimately went unpublished). Also see my posts Intimidating the Soviets: A Hiroshima Anniversary Memorial and The Population Bomb, Nuclear Winter and the Role of Science in Public Advocacy. Yesterday's treaty is the first step in dismantling the nuclear policies that this would-…
drorzel | April 9, 2010The National Science Board made a deeply regrettable decision to omit questions on evolution and the Big Bang from the Science and Engineering Indicators report for 2010. As you might expect, this has stirred up some controversy.
I wasn't surprised to learn this, as I had already noticed the omission a couple of months ago, when I updated the slides for my talk on public communication of science-- the figure showing survey data in the current talk doesn't include those questions, while the original version has them in there. I noticed it, and thought it was a little odd, but it had no effect…