Agonist (via Melissa and Amanda) reports that “comma” is a dog-whistle code word that Bush used to signal to the Fundies:
The phrase is: “Never put a period where God has put a comma.” Which is to say – it ain’t over yet, and God may well make it better. So Iraq’s bad, but if we trust in God, he’ll make it better.
Mark Liberman of Language Log, after a couple of funny riffs on “comma”, starts digging into the dog-whistle theory and uncovers the antcecedents here and here.
Opinions are split.
Matt Nisbett think it is bad here, here and here.
Sara Robinson thinks it was good here and here.
Although I have no great love for Bill Clinton, I am siding with Sara here (read her posts to see why), just on gut feeling. But also, check out this AOL poll (never known to be a bastion of liberalism):
Who do you find more convincing?
Clinton 62%
Rice 38%
Total Votes: 67,769
Do you blame either administration for failing to prevent 9/11?
Yes, the Bush administration 39%
Yes, the Clinton administration 22%
Yes, both administrations 22%
No 16%
Total Votes: 69,827
What’s your impression of Clinton in this interview?
Mostly positive 62%
Mostly negative 38%
Total Votes: 45,960
What’s your impression of Wallace in this interview?
Mostly negative 61%
Mostly positive 39%
Total Votes: 44,447
How fairly do you think journalists treat politicians?
Somewhat 52%
Not at all 40%
Very 8%
Total Votes: 42,719
How fairly do you think politicians treat journalists?
Somewhat 60%
Not at all 23%
Very 17%
Total Votes: 42,332
This suggests that Sara is more right than Matt, methinks.
Posted in Politics
I heard this on NPR and now it is available online on Bloomberg.com: USA has slipped from 1st to 6th place in the World Economic Forum’s annual rankings.
As I have predicted immediately after the 2004 election, US is not going to survive another 4 years of Bush and retain primacy in anything – economy, scientific/technological leadership, military might, or moral high ground. Moral high ground is hard to quantify but do you really believe we are still Number One, the Shining Light, Beacon of Democracy, etc.? Military might – you decide. Now, economy is officially gone. Science/technology is next.
Posted in Politics
Pam found the link to this article from LA Times in which Rev.Jerry Falwell compares Hillary Clinton with the Devil:
“I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate,” Falwell said, according to the recording. “She has $300 million so far. But I hope she’s the candidate. Because nothing will energize my [constituency] like Hillary Clinton.”
Cheers and laughter filled the room as Falwell continued: “If Lucifer ran, he wouldn’t.”
At that moment in the recording, Falwell’s voice is drowned out by hoots of approval. But two in attendance, including a Falwell staff member, confirmed that Falwell said that even Lucifer, the fallen angel synonymous with Satan in Christian theology, would not mobilize his followers as much as the New York senator and former first lady would.
One critic who has been observing the conference said Saturday that Falwell’s words offered a rare glimpse into how religious conservative leaders were planning to inflame opposition to the Democrats with below-the-radar messages that are often more scorching than the ones showing up in public.
“He was calling Hillary Clinton a demonic figure and openly arguing that God is a Republican,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of the advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “It’s hard to know whether people thought he was joking or serious, but once you start using religious imagery and invoking a politician in this way, it’s not funny. A lot of people who listen to him do think that she’s a dark force of evil in America.”
Lukewarm handwaiving afterwards does not mean that he did not really mean it, nor that his followers do not really believe it. Everyone who has read The Wimp Factor and Great Limbaugh Con understands how Hillary got turned into a Devil, something that has been hammered since 1992 and is now so deeply ingrained in the national psyche, that even those of us who personally like Hillary realize that she cannot possibly win. She is a personification of Evil for just too many Americans.
On the other hand, Sara Robinson reports that rural voters, religious fundamentalists aside, are not as squarely in the Republican field as previously believed. Thus, Democratic candidates this November can make serious inroads by addressing issues important to rural voters. And the same goes for presidential candidates two years from now.
Here is a nice article about Elizabeth Edwards and her new book and here is a nice interview with her. She is such a wonderful person. She should run for President herself!
As for her husband, a new poll from Iowa does not look good for Democrats, but of all Dem potential presidential candidates, Edwards still does the best of all of them. It looks really bad for Hillary, though, with negatives far higher than the positives.
There were a number of polls over the past couple of months, some polled everyone, some polled potential Democratic voters, some polled the Dem grassroots, and some polled the Dem netroots. It is interesting to compare these polls as they appear to be mirror images of each other, i.e., if you take the ranking order of potential candidates from a poll of Dem voters or grassroots and turn it upside down you get the ranking order of the netroots.
So, for instance, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Joe Biden rank high on the polls of Dem voters yet barely register in the opinions of the bloggers who generally despise those candidates. The netroots darlings – Al Gore, Russ Feingold, Mark Warner, Evan Bayh and Wes Clark are usually in single digits – or less! – in the polls of the average, non-informed citizens.
The only person who consistently polls 1st or 2nd in all polls – both superinformed netroots and uninformed Dem voters – is John Edwards. Perhaps that is the one we can all agree on and work for all together.
Posted in Politics
Revere and Lindsay now report that the Tripoli Six story has spread from science blogosphere to both Left and Right political blogs, ranging from DailyKos to Instapundit (gosh, even Free Republic!). This is certainly not just a science/medicine issue, and is certainly not a partisan issue – it is a matter of saving innocent lives!
Declan Butler, who has been on top of this, has already collected 82 blog links on Connotea and is working on the next step – getting the MSM to place this story on front pages. Can you help? Blogswarm this story by blogging about this, or blogging about this again, and again. Urge your readers to peruse this list of contact information and ask the congrescritters to pay attention and do something. If you know anyone in the MSM, hound them to write about this. This is not about the self-congratulatory pat-on-the-back about the “power of the blogosphere” – it is about righting a wrong and saving innocent lives.
From October 09, 2004. I’d write it differently today, but the main point still stands.
Posted in Basic Biology, Ideology, Politics
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Posted in Politics
Comments Off on Obligatory Reading of the Day – Clinton Dinner w/ Bloggers
Posted in Politics
Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor have been wrongfully charged and are awaiting execution by firing squad in Libya for allegedly infecting children with HIV. They were tortured and forced to sign “confessions” written in Arabic they did not understand. In fact, the poor hygiene and bad practices in the hospital are to blame.
You can get more information in Nature (free access) editorial and news report and even more detail in an official report (pdf) and a letter (pdf) to Qaddafi.
What can you do?
First, ask your congresscritters what are they going to do about this – are they going to put international pressure on Libya to release the prisoners?
Second, e-mail your story to friends and, if you have a blog, write a post about this. Make sure that you have the words “Tripoli Six” in your post so that it gets picked up by Connotea, Technorati and Google blogsearch engines. Update: For Google (and Google News) you can also use “Benghazi Six” as well as “Tripoli Six”.
You can also see what my SciBlings have written about it so far.
More information and commentary:
Saratoga Spirit
Declan Butler
Pharyngula
Method
Thoughts In A Haystack
Gene Expression
Stranger Fruit
Effect Measure
Deltoid
Adventures in Ethics and Science
Dr. Joan Bushwell’s Chimpanzee Refuge
Pure Pedantry
Respectful Insolence
Aetiology
Uncertain Principles
The Questionable Authority (the best source of action/contact information)
Science Ripsaw
Firedoglake
LeftWorld
DailyKos
The World’s Fair
Majikthise
Terra Sigillata
Open Reading Frame
Maya’s Corner
Maya’s Corner
Maya’s Corner
Tinkerty Tonk
Thoughts From Kansas
Ovidio
Cyberspace Rendezvous
Effect Measure
Lingual Tremors
Crooked Timber
Cosmic Variance
BlinkBits
Nascent
Malaysian Medical Resources
Serialdeviant
Paeonia
Bouphonia
Alternet PEEK
This is an excerpt from the first chapter of George Lakoff’s new book Thinking Points. You can read more here or download a PDF of the first chapter here.
You have heard many of these ideas before, including repeatedly on my blog, but it is nice to see them all stated succintly and collected in one place:
1. The Issue Trap
We hear it said all the time: Progressives won’t unite behind any set of ideas. We all have different ideas and care about different issues. The truth is that progressives do agree at the level of values and that there is a real basis for progressive unity. Progressive values cut across issues. So do principles and forms of argument. Conservatives argue conservatism, no matter what the issue. Progressives should argue progressivism. We need to get out of issue silos that isolate arguments and keep us from the values and principles that define an overall progressive vision.
2. The Poll Trap
Many progressives slavishly follow polls. The job of leaders is to lead, not follow. Besides, contrary to popular belief, polls in themselves do not present accurate empirical evidence. Polls are only as accurate as the framing of their questions, which is often inadequate. Real leaders don’t use polls to find out what positions to take; they lead people to new positions.
3. The Laundry List Trap
Progressives tend to believe that people vote on the basis of lists of programs and policies. In fact, people vote based on values, connection, authenticity, trust, and identity.
4. The Rationalism Trap
There is a commonplace–and false–theory that reason is completely conscious, literal (applies directly to the objective world), logical, universal, and unemotional. Cognitive science has shown that every one of these assumptions is false. These assumptions lead progressives into other traps: assuming that hard facts will persuade voters, that voters are “rational” and vote in their self-interest and on the issues, and that negating a frame is an effective way to argue against it.
5. The No-Framing-Necessary Trap
Progressives often argue that “truth doesn’t need to be framed” and that the “facts speak for themselves.” People use frames–deep-seated mental structures about how the world works–to understand facts. Frames are in our brains and define our common sense. It is impossible to think or communicate without activating frames, and so which frame is activated is of crucial importance. Truths need to be framed appropriately to be seen as truths. Facts need a context.
6. The Policies-Are-Values Trap
Progressives regularly mistake policies with values, which are ethical ideas like empathy, responsibility, fairness, freedom, justice, and so on. Policies are not themselves values, though they are, or should be, based on values. Thus, Social Security and universal health insurance are not values; they are policies meant to reflect and codify the values of human dignity, the common good, fairness, and equality.
7. The Centrist Trap
There is a common belief that there is an ideological “center”–a large group of voters either with a consistent ideology of their own or lined up left to right on the issues or forming a “mainstream,” all with the same positions on issues. In fact, the so-called center is actually made up of biconceptuals, people who are conservative in some aspects of life and progressive in others. Voters who self-identify as “conservative” often have significant progressive values in important areas of life. We should address these “partial progressive” biconceptuals through their progressive identities, which are often systematic and extensive.
A common mistaken ideology has convinced many progressives that they must “move to the right” to get more votes. In reality, this is counterproductive. By moving to the right, progressives actually help activate the right’s values and give up on their own. In the process, they also alienate their base.
8. The “Misunderestimating” Trap
Too many progressives think that people who vote conservative are just stupid, especially those who vote against their economic self-interest. Progressives believe that we only have to tell them the real economic facts, and they will change the way they vote. The reality is that those who vote conservative have their reasons, and we had better understand them. Conservative populism is cultural–not economic–in nature. Conservative populists see themselves as oppressed by elitist liberals who look down their noses at them, when they are just ordinary, moral, right-thinking folks. They see liberals as trying to impose an immoral “political correctness” on them, and they are angry about it.
Progressives also paint conservative leaders as incompetent and not very smart, based on a misunderstanding of the conservative agenda. This results from looking at conservative goals through progressive values. Looking at conservative goals through conservative values yields insight and shows just how effective conservatives really are.
9. The Reactive Trap
For the most part, we have been letting conservatives frame the debate. Conservatives are taking the initiative on policy making and getting their ideas out to the public. When progressives react, we echo the conservative frames and values, so our message is not heard or, even worse, reinforces their ideas. Progressives need a collection of proactive policies and communication techniques to get our own values out on our own terms. “War rooms” and “truth squads” must change frames, not reinforce conservative frames. But even then, they are not nearly enough. Progressive leaders, outside of any party, must come together in an ongoing, long-term, organized national campaign that honestly conveys progressive values to the public–day after day, week after week, year after year, no matter what the specific issues of the day are.
10. The Spin Trap
Some progressives believe that winning elections or getting public support is a matter of clever spin and catchy slogans–what we call “surface framing.” Surface framing is meaningless without deep framing–our deepest moral convictions and political principles. Framing, used honestly at both the deep and surface levels, is needed to make the truth visible and our values clear. Spin, on the other hand, is the dishonest use of surface linguistic frames to hide the truth. And progressive values and principles–the deep frames–must be in place before slogans can have an effect; slogans alone accomplish nothing. Conservative slogans work because they have been communicating their deep frames for decades.
11. The Policyspeak Trap
Progressives consistently use legislative jargon and bureaucratic solutions, like “Medicare prescription drug benefits,” to speak to the public about their positions. Instead, progressives should speak in terms of the common concerns of voters–for instance, how a policy will let you send your daughter to college, or how it will let you launch your own business.
12. The Blame Game Trap
It is convenient to blame our problems on the media and on conservative lies. Yes, conservative leaders have regularly lied and used Orwellian language to distort the truth, and yes, the media have been lax, repeating the conservatives’ frames. But we have little control over that. We can control only how we communicate. Simply correcting a lie with the truth is not enough. We must reframe from our moral perspective so that the truth can be understood. This reframing is needed to get our deep frames into public discourse. If enough people around the country honestly, effectively, and regularly express a progressive vision, the media will be much more likely to adopt our frames.
And yeah, the book is also listed somewhere on my wish list…
Its’a all about sex, sexual repression and sexual politics:
Jessica
Lindsay
Ezra
David Neiwert
Lance
Berube
Jill
Zuzu
PZ
Sisyphus Shrugged
Scott
Echidne
Amanda
Roy
Jessica
Lauren
Amanda
Heretic
Jane
Scott
Jessica
Driftglass
Pam
Lance
Posted in Politics
Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the anthrax attack. It was the Big Topic for the media for about as long as any Missing White Woman story, …. or was it until it was realized that the perpetrators were not “Islamofascists” (the term that was not, but could have been, invented at the time) but the more domestic kind?
Dave and Tara have much more.
Demand an Exit Strategy Not a Facelift:
By pointing the finger at Rumsfeld, they deflect blame from Bush’s neo-conservative agenda. It is that agenda that drew the nation to Iraq, that has distracted from a smarter struggle against terrorists and terrorism, that has resulted in the erosion of our civil liberties, that has incurred the wrath of the international community.
Identifying Rumsfeld as the problem reinforces the “bad apple frame,” which is among the common frames we examine in our new book, Thinking Points. This frame derives from the old saying that one bad apple spoils the barrel. The implication is that if you get rid of that one bad apple, the rest of the apples in the barrel will be fine. Replacing Rumsfeld is hardly a solution to the problem. Every apple remaining in the Bush administration barrel will be no less rotten when he is removed.
Publius has an interesting hypothesis about the way the torture/Geneva convention issue may blow back into BushCo face. Publius has been over optimistic before, but do you think he is overoptimistic now?
My feeling was that the split between two alternative military commission bills was a ruse – there is hardly any difference between them. By letting the McCain version win, Bush gets to do torture as much as he wants, while getting an opportunity to show public humility and going along with “the way the system works” and duping the nation that the “softer” version of the bill does not actually condone torture.
But even if that may have been correct initially, Publius argues that it has gone much further than Rove wanted and turned into a debate of what America stands for – something that BushCo does not want to have, of course. In the end, it may work well for those Republicans who have distanced themselves from Bush – and these are legion – and help them win in November, so who knows who the winner is going to be in the end. Your thoughts?
Posted in Politics
This post from November 26, 2004 was my fourth (out of five), and longest, analysis of the 2004 election. With Balkans and Creationism sprinkled in. How did it stand the test of time over the past two years?
Comments Off on Two Americas: Past, Present and Future
Posted in Politics
I’m glad I am not the only one majorly pissed I was not invited to the secret meeting of Chapel Hill (and area) bloggers wih John Edwards (some of which were not even supporting him back in 2003 and 2004). So is Anton. He is doubly pissed and rightly so.
Ed and Pam were there, though.
Posted in Blogging, North Carolina, Politics
About a year ago, on October 01, 2005, I did a little stats on the self-described political affiliation of NCSU students with Facebook profiles and posted it here. I reposted it here on January 16, 2006. I was thinking about doing the same thing exactly a year later, but the new Facebook News-Feed is making many students nervous, so they delete a lot of their information from their profiles. Political and religious affiliations are usually the first to go. I was interested if there would be any noticable change from one year to another, particularly in light of increased dissatisfaction with the GOP in the general population. Unofrtunately, I don’t feel like I can get a good sample right now. The original post from last year is under the fold…
A few days ago, my son told me that one of his teachers (he is in 8th grade), after decorating the whole school with American flags, announced that they will be reciting the Pledge of Allegiance every morning.
I was not aware at the time that this is a new State Law, snuck under the radar during the summer. But it is. It was enacted on July, 12th 2006, as a change in general powers and duties of the state concerning the educational system. You can see the history of how the statute was changed here and the final version of the bill here (PDF).
The press only noted this the other day. Some were good, i.e., using precise language of the law, e.g., the Raleigh News & Observer, which stated correctly:
A new state law requiring schools to schedule time each day for students to recite the pledge has revived a tradition right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
On the other hand, every newspaper that carried the Associated Press article got it wrong:
A shortage of flags, questions about patriotism, and confusion among teachers have greeted a new state law requiring public school students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in the classroom.
The latter would be unconstitutional, according to this Supreme Court decision (which is a great read actually).
Apparently, the bill was snuck in so silently that even our local bloggers, who are usually very alert to everything happening at the state and local level, missed it. Only Dave commented at the time, with the predictable and correct outrage, and suggested an alternative version that reflects reality in a less ambigious way:
I pledge to honor and defend the flag, our nation, and the principles that make them great: the right to choose our leaders, freedom to worship, freedom of speech, and justice for all.
Even Will Raymond, who is a watch-dog and hound-dog of local politics missed it until this week. He provides more detail on the history of the way the bill was worded.
Not everyone is outraged, of course.
Although the NC House is controlled by Democrats, the bill passed with only one “No” vote. The lone dissenter is State Representative from Durham Paul Luebke (more here and here). I am assuming that he is in a very safe district and I am not sure if he even has an opponent this Fall, so he probably does not need campaign contributions (though you can ask). But you can send him a thank-you note if you wish at: paull AT ncleg DOT net.
As a naturalized U.S. citizen, I follow the stereotype of foreign-born citizens knowing American history, geography, civics and law better than many locals (because I had to study it, instead of just organically grow in it), so I was quite aware what the constitutional/legal issues are regarding the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in schools.
So, I told my son that he has several choices: go along and recite it (with ot without the salute); recite the original version by skipping over the 1954 “under God” insertion; or remain silent (while either standing up, sitting down or exiting the classroom). I told him that the Constitution gives him the choice and that nobody could take that choice away from him. It is the “under God” clause that bothers him the most and he wanted to make sure that he had the right to omit it on the days he decides to say the Pledge, as well as right to not say the Pledge at all on days in which he is not in the mood to do so.
On Monday, after I picked him up, he was really distressed. He chose not to say the Pledge. He told the teacher that he is an atheist and does not believe in that stuff and does not wish to say a pledge that includes “under God” in it.
She threatened to made him call his parents if he does not shape up and he immediately went to the classroom phone and started dialing, but she stopped him. At the time, I was still at home and she would have gotten an earful from me, as you can imagine.
Then he told her that his Dad told him that he has the right to remain silent. In the end, after much questioning and threatening, both in front of his friends and out in the hall, she FORCED him to say the Pledge, every word of it. She was giving him mean looks for the rest of the first two periods.
Yesterday morning I went to school and talked with the vice-principal. She was appalled that such a thing happened in her school, apologized profusely, and reassured me that she will make sure that such a thing does not happen again. This made me happy – the system DOES work.
After all, one of the main reasons why people from the area, no matter if they work in one of the big companies or institutes in the Research Triangle Park, or at NCSU, UNC, Duke or other local colleges, choose to live in Chapel Hill despite outrageously expensive housing – the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system is the best in the state and one of the best in the country. This is an island of sanity in the ocean of irrationality. But this incident goes to show that such things can happen even in the most enlightened of places.
And I agree, my son’s school is excellent, I love all of his teachers of the past three years, and he is really thriving there. The teacher who did all this flag-waving is a brand new hire and you cannot really blame the school for not knowing she would be a frenzied, jingoistic nationalist and a rabid evangelical, frenetically worshiping a piece of cloth that stands as a symbol of the state instead of the people.
In the meantime, my daughter is in the 5th grade. Her teacher, who is just absolutely fantastic (she was my son’s 5th grade teacher as well), told the class in advance what their rights were. Some chose to say it, some chose not to. My daugther chose to stand up and remain silent – she could always have the excuse of being shy to speak out loud in front of other people.
Tuesday morning at Pledge time – I guess someone told my son’s teacher something in the meantime – she told the kids to exit the room if they did not want to recite the pledge and ALL but one kid went out, with my son in the lead (it’s a small elective class – so it is not like 25 kids walked out, more like 5). She is still not 100% right, though, as they had the right to remain inside the classroom if they so desired and remain silent. I will see what happens today, after she has been briefed by the vice-principal.
I am so proud of my son for thinking about the issue with his own head, getting the relevant information and acting according to his rights. All I provided was information and support – all choices were his. It takes guts to do so.
Also, see Ed Brayton’s take on this here and here.
Update: Will R, Lindsay Beyerstein, TNG, Timelady, Northstate Science, Alon Levy and Faux Real have commented on this and you should also check out what their comenters say.
Posted in Education, North Carolina, Personal, Politics
Why are religious people religious, in two parts: Why do religious wingnuts think the way they do? Part I and Why do religious wingnuts think the way they do? Part II
Why are creationists creationists, in three parts: Why are creationists creationist?, Why are creationists creationist? 2 – conceptual spaces and Why are creationists creationist? 3: compartments and coherence.
Why conservatives take conservative jobs and suck if sucked into liberal professions, in two parts: It takes talent to make good schlock TV and Conservatives in the classroom
Comments Off on Obligatory Readings of the Day – why, why, why?
Posted in Creationism, Ideology, Politics, Religion
Thank you all for being here. With the fifth anniversary of 9/11 upon us, the Federal Aviation Administration has been asked to project developments in air safety over the next five years. We thought this could best be conveyed from the perspective of a typical passenger in the year 2011.
Read the whole thing – it is hillarious, yet scary.
Lance Mannion: It takes talent to make good schlock TV
Andrew Sullivan: The Rove Campaign
Paul Craig Roberts: Bush the Pitiful
The Nation: Bush Aims to Kill War Crimes Act
Publus: THE TWO 9/11s
Comments Off on Obligatory Readings of the Day
Posted in Politics
“Greenwashing is what corporations do when they try to make themselves look more environmentally friendly than they really are.”
Posted in Environment, Politics
From a press release (via e-mail):
U.S. Congressional Scorecards
109th Congress:
Washington, D.C. – The Secular Coalition for America (SCA) today released its House and Senate Scorecards of the 109th Congress. The SCA, an advocacy group for atheists, humanists, freethinkers, and other nontheists, provides roll-call votes to demonstrate the members’ commitment to the separation of church and state and their willingness to protect the interests of the nontheistic community.
The scorecards cover votes taken from January 2005 until August 2006. The SCA used ten key votes in both the House and Senate. Votes include: allowing organizations that receive federal funds to discriminate based on religion; promoting narrow religious beliefs over secular needs in science, marriage contracts, and the military; the confirmation of judicial appointees who seek to weaken the protections provided by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment; and, stripping federal courts of their ability to decide constitutional issues.
In the House, only seven members of Congress earned a perfect score of 100 percent: Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), Pete Stark (D-Calif.), and Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.). From their records these Representatives demonstrate their strong support for the separation of church and state and the protection of minority rights.
“With the political strength of the religious right and the irrational demonizing of the nontheist community, I am very proud of these members of Congress,” SCA Director Lori Lipman Brown said. “Our republican form of government was designed to protect the rights of individuals and minorities over the whims of the majority. It is very sad that so few members of Congress fully live up to the ideals embodied in our Constitution.”
The scorecards, with voting descriptions and ratings of the members of Congress, can be found at the SCA website.
My copy of the paperback edition of Chris Mooney’s important book Republcan War On Science arrived in my mailbox yesterday. As there are substantial changes since the hardcover came out, I’ll be taking a good look and, one of these days soon, post about it.
Comments Off on RWOS
Posted in Politics
The best local newspaper is free. Independent Weekly is excellent every week, but today, you have to read these two articles:
Godfrey Cheshire: Five years later: We’re defeating ourselves
Bob Geary: In America, terror goes both ways
Posted in Politics
Obligatory Readings of the Day:
Amanda: Disney emerges from the grave, demands right wing propaganda so he can stop spinning
Publius: ABOUT THAT LENIN ANALOGY
David Neiwert: Projecting fascism
Sara Robinson: Tunnels and Bridges: A Short Detour
RobertDFeinmanOvercoming the Authoritarian Personality
Archy: I break with Olbermann
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Posted in Ideology, Politics, Psychology
There has been a lot of commentary online about the Inside Higher Ed article about an UCLA primate researcher who quit his research due to being terrorised by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and the follow up article about the steps UCLA and other Universities are taking to ensure the safety of their faculty and staff:
Posted in Animal Rights, Ideology, Politics, Society
Nicotine Up Sharply In Many Cigarettes:
The amount of nicotine in most cigarettes rose an average of almost 10 percent from 1998 to 2004, with brands most popular with young people and minorities registering the biggest increases and highest nicotine content, according to a new study. Nicotine is highly addictive, and while no one has studied the effect of the increases on smokers, the higher levels theoretically could make new smokers more easily addicted and make it harder for established smokers to quit.
Posted in Medicine, Politics, Science News
Since Chris Mooney’s book has just come out in paperback and the critics often invoke false equivalence between abuses of science on the Right and the Left, I thought this would be a good time to repost this August 05, 2005 post (reposted here on January 16, 2006):
Posted in Politics, Pseudoscience
Frist might face fine on M.D. license renewal
The senator, a surgeon, failed to complete continuing education required by Tennessee.
Comments Off on The First Doctor….
Posted in Politics
Joe Lieberman’s communications director, Dan Gerstein, claims the sun rises in the West. Seriously. And will not back down. What more proof you need to know that Lieberman is a Republican, waging his own “independent” war on science in hope of appeasing Inhofe & Co. all in the spirit of moderaiton and bipartisanship?
Posted in Politics
Rush thinks one needs to slaughter a cow in order to get butter. And he blames liberals and the UN for being a fat idiot.
Posted in Politics
Previously unopposed, “…the most notorious creationist on the Ohio State Board of Education, Deborah Owens Fink, has a challenger in the Novemeber 7th election.” The election is non-partisan and the serious challenger is Tom Sawyer. You can get all of the details from Ed Brayton (as well as additional views by Chad, John and Kevin). Ed writes:
“Sawyer is the former mayor of Akron, a former state legislator and an 8 term US congressman from Ohio. Sawyer’s bonafides for a board of education seat are impressive. He is a former school teacher, and husband of a school teacher. He was the chairman of the House Education Committee during his time in the state legislature of Ohio, and was a member of the education committee in the US House of Representatives as well. So this is a guy who brings an enormous amount of experience to the job, which has Owens Fink scared.”
So, this is a good opportunity to replace the Queen of Darkness with a serious person, and thus ensure that kids in Ohio get served education instead of indoctrination.
What can you do to help?
Visit Tom Sawyer’s campaign website, where you can get informed, volunteer to help if you live in Ohio, or donate to the campaign if you live elsewhere. This is a fight worth fighting and let’s do everything we can to help Sawyer get elected.
Posted in Creationism, Education, Politics, Science Education
My SciBling Chris Mooney, the first science blogger I ever discovered (and whose blogroll let me into the scienceblogging world) is the author of one of the most important books of last year, The Republican War On Science.
I have read the hardcover as soon as I got it (and my copy was shipped in the first batch) and intend to read the paperback as soon as it arrives in my mailbox – which should be today or tomorrow as the book started shipping yesterday. Until your own copy arrives in the mail (and it will be soon, of course, as you are about to order it), you should check out the book homepage where you can learn more about the book, read the new Introduction which explains how much difference there is between harcover and paperback versions, you can read an excerpt and see if there will be a book-signing event in your town this fall.
So much has already been said about the book and so many reviews have been published, I never managed to find my own angle to write a review myself. Perhaps reading the new edition will give me an inspiration for an outrageous rant in the near future!
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Posted in Politics
Last year, there was so much blogging about Katrina, I thought that the best thing I could do was create a large linkfest of everyone else’s posts. That is what I did – check it out here, a nice one-stop-shopping for the analysis and opinion at the time. If you need to refresh your memory that is the place to go. You can also find most of the iconic images collected in one place here.
But I did not entirely abstain from commenting myself, though I was trying to look for angles nobody else covered and news nobody else had – which was hard to find at that time. So, I blogged about how animals fared in the hurricane, especially horses.
I wrote about the refusal to take an offer of aid from Cuba and how free market killed NoLa.
I think I was the very first to blog about Kanye West and what he said on TV (as I was watching as it happened). I was also one of the first to report when Brownie was fired (or resigned).
I found four separate timelines. The frame of a looting mob was recognized and attacked early. And there were touching (and telling!) survivor stories that needed a wider audience.
There was humor.There was inside-the-Beltline politics.
I looked for what other people said at the time, including Lakoff, Kerry, Edwards and some others (and recognized early that the events may favour Edwards for 2008).
And there was much, much more.
I wrote two less newsy and more opinionated posts – Stop Beating on Bush! and We The People and upon re-readng them a year later, I still agree with every word in them.
Finally, when I wrote this – Ghost Town – many people scolded me for being so pessimistic. It turns out, I was right. New Orleans has still not recovered its population.
A large chunk of that population is not back yet. Some plan to come back, a year later, but still do not have a place to live. Others have assimilated in other places. The magic of living in New Orleans is dwarfed by the reality of survival.
The place has not been fixed yet. The dams are not built to sustain another hurricane of that size. The wetlands have not been restored. The big river is still fighting to change its course.
And the locals are still fighting over the urban project for the city: some have a vision of Disneyfied, white, upper-middle-class New Orleans; others react by insisting on restoring the city exactly as it was, warts and all, good and bad, shacks and slums and everything else. Voices of moderation and smart urban planning are overpowered by emotionally-charged voices of the two extremes. It is unfortunate that I was right. I wish I wasn’t.
Yup, the Katrina blogswarm is supposed to be tomorrow, but Publius and The Science Pundit could not wait.
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Posted in Politics
A year ago this Monday, Katrina hit the Gulf states. We all blogged like crazy.
Since Bush Administration is desparately trying to supress the memory of their debacle, King Cranky and Melissa suggest we do a blogswarm – everyone blogs about Katrina on Monday and Shakes will collect the posts in a huge linkfest.
Need a reminder and a collection of facts? Check this Katrina timeline (via Arse Poetica)
Posted in Politics
From January 15, 2006, another good book….
You probably know that I am quite interested in the history, current state, evolution and future of the institution of marriage, mainly because it is an important indicator of societal attitudes towards sex and towards gender-relations, which is the key to understanding political ideology. Between May 29, 2005 and February 23, 2006 I frequently mentioned Stephanie Coontz and particularly her latest book – Marriage, A History, e.g., in New History Of Marriage, Stephanie Coontz On Marriage, Op-Ed on the ‘End of Marriage’, Don’t Know Much About History…. and What ‘traditional’ marriage?. Amanda of Pandagon also wrote two good posts about it: Nothing to it and How to save your marriage (or at least give it a fighting chance). While I never really reviewed the book, here is a post with some thoughts and several good links to other people’s reviews as well as her own articles:
It is great when you write a blog post about somebody, then that somebody shows up in the comments and clarifies his position thus starting an interesting conversation (both in the comments and via e-mail), then you realize that his book-signing tour is bringing that somebody to your town, so you go there and meet that somebody in person and have a great conversation, which inspires you to write yet another blog post – the one under the fold….
A very brief review from April 17, 2005….
I wrote this post on Dec 23, 2004 and posted it both on Science And Politics and DailyKos. Then, on April 03, 2005, I reposted it on my blog again. Many good books have been published since then, but the list would not have changed too much if I have made it today, e.g., I would have replaced E.J.Graff’s book on the history of marriage with much better book on the same topic by Stephanie Coontz, and I probably would have replaced the last two on the list with new books by John Dean and Geoffrey Nunberg on the strength of reviews and what some smart bloggers said, as I have not read them yet (yup, they are on my amazon wishlist….), or perhaps with the Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney. Continue under the fold….
This is the movie I want to see next:
Profits on a plane:
In truth, the film’s title is more of an attention-grabber than an accurate representation of a film that should be considered the human race’s nightmare. Sauper’s film is a punishing account of global free trade as a zero sum game. Everything the affluent West takes from Africa makes it richer, and all of Africa’s recompense comes in the inverted form of suffering at the hands of war, famine and pestilence.
Posted in Politics
Ezra Klein: BOOKS OF SAND (in keeping with my blog’s book theme this week) and The Job Sen. Clinton Should Want
Amanda: Money and divorce go together like a horse and carriage
Dave Neiwert: Terror and Hate
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Posted in Politics
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