Politics
esiegel | December 6, 2009Earlier this week, I was reading one of Ed's posts, and I followed the link to the original post, where I found this gem of a comment (and I would link to it, but the blog owner has reconsidered what he wants to make public):
'Freedom of speech' does not mean 'freedom from mockery.'
Well, mockery has all sorts of uses, from a Tom Lehrer song...
...to making a political statement. As many of you know, a bill to legalize gay marriage in New York was defeated last week, which is a disappointing setback for anyone interested in equal rights. But there was a stroke of brilliance in all of this…
drorzel | December 6, 2009I'm kind of fried from all the recent driving, and I've got some stuff to catch up on. So we'll ease back into regular blogging, by posting a clip from last week's Colbert Report with everybody's favorite Jesuit, Brother Guy Consolmagno, talking about how alien life would affect Christianity:
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Gold, Frankincense and Mars - Guy Consolmagno
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There's your "science and religion are compatible" item for this month, as well.
pharyngula | December 6, 2009Who will be the last man to die in Obama's war? And what will he have accomplished?
grrlscientist | December 5, 2009tags: religion, fundamentalism, christianity, Islam, Islam Not A Religion, Pat Robinson, streaming video
A Muslim takes on Pat Robertson and his form of fundamentalist wingnuttery known as "evangelical religion". Pat Robinson demonstrates nicely that even religious people of different denominations do not respect each other even though they supposedly are on the same side. They are so busy pointing fingers and making judgments about each others' faith that it's beyond silly for them to try to convert atheists .. because they can't agree as to which religion is "the one true faith" nor can…
pharyngula | December 5, 2009This is going to go on for years and years, isn't it? Sarah Palin is going to keep on saying stupid things to keep herself in the news.
No one person has all the right answers. It takes a united nation, and it does take godly counsel, and it takes prayer and answers to prayer - and a collective humble heart of a nation seeking God's hand of protection and his blessings of prosperity.
I think if we can get back to that, our country will be a safer, more prosperous and healthier nation.
No, it won't. God does not provide, OK?
clock | December 4, 2009It was 25 years ago yesterday that thousands dies in the Bhopal disaster.
Yesterday, Rhitu Chatterjee did the story about it (listen or read the transcript) on PRI The World.
Also yesterday, Rhittu and Elsa Youngsteadt interviewed Henrik Selin of Boston University about the topic (download the MP3 of the podcast here) and you can ask questions and join the discussion in the forums. Dr. Selin will be checking in and responding from now until next Thursday, December 10th.
emjohnson | December 4, 2009 In the recent incarnation of Battlestar Galactica, the cylons were a human creation who turned on their creator. Such a motif is a classic literary form and can be found in Shelley's Frankenstein, Goethe's The Sorcerer's Apprentice and in the 16th century Jewish folktale of the golem. In the latter, the golem is animated by a Rabbi when the word emeth (truth) is carved into the clay figure's forehead. The golem was initially a protector of the Jewish population, but, as a testament to human hubris, the golem broke free and began to wreak havoc. In an attempt to contain the golem the…
emjohnson | December 4, 2009
From the brilliant minds at ThankYouJennyMcCarthy.com. WTF, indeed. I got my vaccine, have you?
emjohnson | December 3, 2009
Okay, so this is actually from last year's anniversary of the Bhopal disaster. And it's not actually a representative from Dow, but Andy Bichlbaum of The Yes Men. But wouldn't it be nice if the perpetrators of this tragedy actually had come clean?
drorzel | December 3, 2009As a companion piece to Steve Albini's famous rant about how the pop music industry systematically screws its artist, theToo Much Joy blog provides a look at their royalty statement:
I got something in the mail last week I'd been wanting for years: a Too Much Joy royalty statement from Warner Brothers that finally included our digital earnings. Though our catalog has been out of print physically since the late-1990s, the three albums we released on Giant/WB have been available digitally for about five years. Yet the royalty statements I received every six months kept insisting we had zero…
emjohnson | December 2, 2009
Bill Moyer's Journal - LBJ's Road to War, Part 2November 20, 2009Part 1 / Part 2
It is interesting to note that the suggestion I made earlier about creating "shovel ready" projects in Afghanistan was one of the key approaches that Johnson originally considered but was unable to adopt forty years ago. The reference made to a "Vietnamese New Deal" as a means to end the civil war was made impossible thanks to the US support for a series of corrupt client regimes in South Vietnam. Today, the Hamid Karzai government has made Afghanistan "the fifth most corrupt country in the world" according to…
pharyngula | December 2, 2009Michael Moore wrote a friendly letter to Obama before his announcement to expand the war in Afghanistan. It's worth reading.
Your potential decision to expand the war (while saying that you're doing it so you can "end the war") will do more to set your legacy in stone than any of the great things you've said and done in your first year. One more throwing a bone from you to the Republicans and the coalition of the hopeful and the hopeless may be gone -- and this nation will be back in the hands of the haters quicker than you can shout "tea bag!"
Choose carefully, Mr. President. Your corporate…
gregladen | December 2, 2009As a strategy, Obama's plan for Afghanistan is an order of magnitude better then what we were doing before, and an order of magnitude worse than walking away from the region. Or at least, that is my opinion at the moment. Here's some interesting discussion on it:
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emjohnson | December 2, 2009
Bill Moyer's Journal - LBJ's Road to War, Part 1Novemeber 20, 2009Part 1 / Part 2
Bill Moyers has this brilliant piece of journalism pointing out the similar difficulties faced by President Johnson in Vietnam and President Obama in Afghanistan. Quite obviously there are important differences, but the basic issues are the same. Both inherited an unpopular war and were pressured by the Joint Chiefs and the Republican hawks to commit further troops to what everyone acknowledged could not result in victory. Political calculations took precedence over strategic wisdom.
In both wars the goal…
milhayser | December 2, 2009
In the nearly thirty years since AIDS was first diagnosed, the disease has killed tens of millions of people, and more than 33 million are currently infected with HIV worldwide. Although recent UN reports show the number of new infections is falling, AIDS remains a major global issue. So take some time today for a retroviral education on ERV. New vaccine research suggests that inoculating cells with a gene that produces a protein found in HIV's envelope can "prime" the immune system to start recognizing the invader. Refuting bigots, ERV also says that "HIV/AIDS research does not only…
pharyngula | December 2, 2009I had my reservations before the election, but I voted for Obama as the better choice (and I have not changed my opinion on that at all). I had hopes that he'd get in office and stand up for some principles…but no such luck. There are several reasons for my dissatisfaction.
He has failed to support gay civil rights.
The Stupak amendment to the health care bill seems to be sailing through unopposed.
His cozy relationship with Wall Street.
And now, his expansion of the war in Afghanistan, and his support for a corrupt and failed state.
Looking at his record (which isn't just his…
drorzel | December 2, 2009The big topic-of-the-moment is the hacked stash of emails from a major climate research group. The whole climate change discussion is one of those "no upside" topics that I try to stay out of, but I have some thoughts and comments about issues surrounding the email incident. These are largely based on reactions to yesterday's posts by Derek Lowe and Coby Beck, so if you're looking for something to read to understand what I'm talking about, those are the two.
The unifying thing in all of these is the intersection of science and politics. Most of what's described is normal scientific behavior…
emjohnson | December 2, 2009
Take a good look at the chart above. This represents the increase in the number of troops in Afghanistan since 2001. The number of soldiers that are presently in country might be a little high on this chart, given that The New York Times estimates 68,000 soldiers currently in Afghanistan. However, this lower estimate is still more than double the number of soldiers that were in Afghanistan at the end of President Bush's term. With the additional 30,000 troops requested this would be three times what it was when Obama first stepped foot in the White House.
What hasn't been discussed is…
razib | December 1, 2009In the comments below, vanya states:
But razib, upstate New York is not New England. I've never heard of "Greater New England." As a kid in New Hampshire I always understood that New England was superior to New York state, which was mostly a nest of Dutchmen and Tories in 1776 anyway.
I never heard of "Greater New England" explicitly until I read this article by Michael Lind. I say explicitly because implicitly the region is obvious. You even know this from the biographies of prominent New Englanders, the perigrinations of Joseph Smith and John Brown follow the arc of Greater New England,…