Policy and Politics
tfk | April 5, 2013In the poll on conspiracy theories I mentioned a few days ago, I mostly focused on the item about vaccines, mentioning in passing the fact that Democrats (and liberals) bought into far fewer conspiracy theories than Republicans (or conservatives). I didn't point out that, of the "conspiracy theories" Democrats were more likely to accept, several require a rather fine parsing to register as conspiracy theories (rather than simply an over-broad but accurate account of history).
For instance, the PPP poll asked whether "the CIA was instrumental in distributing crack cocaine into America’s inner…
tfk | April 3, 2013Ever since Chris Mooney's Republican War on Science was published in 2005, folks have been looking for a way to argue that Democrats are just as bad. The standard example for this counternarrative, one which Mooney even offered in his book, was vaccine denial – the claim that vaccines cause autism or are otherwise dangerous.
Intuitively, this seems right. The folks and venues touting antivaxx conspiracy theories tended to be New Agey outlets, and the places facing outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases tended to be liberal strongholds, like Boulder, CO or Marin County, CA. That must mean…
tfk | April 2, 2013"The president says that the jury's out on evolution. Here in New Jersey, we're counting on it."
–Bruce Springsteen, May 21, 2005
"Folks in Dover [PA] aren't sure about evolution. Here in New Jersey, we're counting on it."
–Bruce Springsteen, August, 2005
"This issue [marriage equality] is in a state of evolution."
–Hillary Clinton for Senate spokesperson Karen Dunn, July 3, 2003
"I have been to this point unwilling to sign on to same-sex marriage primarily because of my understandings of the traditional definitions of marriage. But I also think you’re right that attitudes evolve,…
tfk | April 1, 2013The University of Notre Dame's Center for the Study of Social Movements is hosting a dialogue on science and politics, and I'm rather pleased with my contribution: "Will Climate Change Denial Inherit the Wind?" Do check out the other essays in the dialogue, especially Jeffrey Guhin's discussion of some results from his observations of creationist Muslim and evangelical Christian schools in New York, and Kelly Moore's debunking of 5 myths about science and politics.
I've been noodling around with the ideas in my essay for a while, ever since reading Michael Lienesch's In the Beginning, which…
tfk | December 12, 2012A month ago, I had a bit of fun at Senator Marco Rubio's expense over his "I'm not a scientist, man" response to GQ's question about the age of the earth.
I brought up his comments again in my talk last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting, to much audience amusement. It served as a perfect example of the Pillars of Science denial, and the geologists were especially intrigued by his view that the understanding the age of the earth "has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States." Accurately dating rocks and knowing how that fits into…
tfk | December 4, 2012ThinkProgress reports on an interview with Jennifer Roback Morse of the National Organization for Marriage [sic]. The explain:
Jennifer Roback Morse of the National Organization for Marriage’s Ruth Institute has been particularly vocal over the past few months, promoting ex-gay therapy and suggesting that young people not have gay friends. In an interview published in Salvo Magazine in September, she was quite candid about the archaic stereotypes about same-sex couples that inform her anti-gay positions:
Morse tells Salvo:
MORSE: If you look at same-sex couples, both at what they say and…
tfk | November 22, 2012M.K. Hobson describes a very happy Thanksgiving:
I want to share the story of a very interesting Thanksgiving had by 46 members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in Washington State. Having been arrested in North Yakima during a large street meeting intended to persuade apple pickers to ask for a better wage, they were taken to the decrepit Yakima City Jail, which was crawling with lice. The incarcerated men, apparently believers in due process, first voted to condemn the jail before proceeding to demolish it from the inside out.
In response, a vigilante squad composed of 200 local…
tfk | November 21, 2012Slate's Daniel Engber is upset. People are making fun of Marco Rubio's "I'm not a scientist, man" response to a question about the age of the earth, and he wants to insist that "Willful ignorance of science is a bipartisan value." As evidence for this claim, he contrasts Rubio:
Q: How old do you think the Earth is?A: I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of…
tfk | November 19, 2012After their thrashing in the 2012 elections, Republicans are casting about for a new standardbearer, and Marco Rubio is a leading candidate for that post. One consequence of that attention is this GQ interview with Rubio, which includes this awesome exchange:
GQ: How old do you think the Earth is?
Marco Rubio: I'm not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says,but I think that's a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the…
tfk | August 17, 2012The excellent Slacktivist notes, once more, that Ken Ham’s biblical exegesis is just as sound as his science. But there's a twist. He writes, "For decades I’ve been having this argument:"
YOUNG-EARTH CREATIONIST: The Bible clearly says that God created the universe in six days, 6,000 years ago.
ME: No, actually, it doesn’t. [Insert everything I've ever written or said about the Bible for the past 25 years.]
YEC: Does too.
That argument was exhausting and depressing. But the new variation of it is even more so:
YEC: The Bible clearly says that God created the universe in six days, 6,000 years…
tfk | August 16, 2012
America is a very religious country, and has been for a long time. Regardless of broad cultural revolutions and trends in the culture wars, about the same number of people say religion is "very important" in their lives today as 35 years ago.
Other measure of religiosity shift, as Gallup points out. "Self-reported church or synagogue membership has drifted slowly downward over the past 70 years," they found in 2007, a year when perception of religion's influence in society plummeted. Confidence in organized religion has dropped by a third since the '70s.
But whatever people might think of…
tfk | August 16, 2012The AP reports a dude went to the headquarters of hate group based in Washington, DC, and shot a security guard:
Federal authorities say Floyd Lee Corkins II told a guard at the Family Research Council, "I don't like your politics" before shooting him in the arm. The guard and others helped subdue Corkins, who was taken into custody. …
Authorities found a box of ammunition and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches in his backpack.
Now, I understand that – as with the last month's mass shootings in Aurora, CO, the Sikh gurdwara in Wisconsin, and near the Texas A&M campus – the time is not right to…
tfk | August 15, 2012Many cruel things can be said about the mendacity of David Horowitz. Few of them were not already said by the brilliant Michael Bérubé, but he-of-the-accents doesn't seem to blog any more, while D. Ho. remains as prolific as ever in his search for Reds in the Ivory Tower. RightWingWatch observes Horowitz first suggesting that Anthony Weiner is a s3kr1t Mussulman*, and then that Holocaust survivor George Soros is a Communist Nazi, or something. He told hate group leader Tim Wildmon:
George Soros, who is an evil man, who has evil designs on this country, once said, he said he aspired to be…
tfk | August 7, 2012
"High Flight"
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace. Where never lark, or ever eagle flew — And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod The high…
tfk | August 2, 2012Shorter Martin Cothran, spokesman for Kentucky's Focus on the Family affiliate: Is Romney chicken on the same-sex marriage issue?:
Mitt Romney doesn't deserve conservative support because didn't eat a chicken sandwich to demonstrate his anti-gay bigotry.
But really, here's Cothran's argument:
Maybe someone could explain to me why the people who stood in line yesterday to show their support for traditional values should publicly support Romney when Romney won't publicly support what they were publicly supporting.
To be clear, "stood in line…to show their support for traditional marriage" means…
tfk | July 30, 2012A conservative columnist writes at Townhall: Bloomberg to New Mothers: You Really Should Be Breastfeeding, You Know:
Apparently, carrying a baby for nine months just isn't hard enough. Don't you think new mothers deserve a lecture about how to feed their baby.....just hours after they endure hard labor and are still in the hospital? New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg has moved from his sugary drink ban onto the breasts of new mothers. That's right, Michael Nanny Bloomberg is now asking hospitals to lock up and strictly regulate baby formula. He wants nurses and doctors to give mothers who ask…
tfk | July 27, 2012There's a tale told about grandparents who refused to take the grandkids to see a classical orchestra perform. Asked why, they explained that it was a bad influence. Too much sax and violins.
I was reminded of that joke by fantasy author George R. R. Martin's reply to those concerned about the graphic sex in his books (and the TV show based on them) (via BoingBoing):
“I can describe an axe entering a human skull in great explicit detail and no one will blink twice at it. I provide a similar description, just as detailed, of a penis entering a vagina, and I get letters about it and people…
tfk | July 27, 2012Shorter David Klinghoffer, Disco. 'tute scrivener: We Called Out Darwinist Critic Carl Zimmer, He Folded, and Now He's a Darwinist Hero:
We called out Carl Zimmer, he kicked our asses, and now we're butthurt about it.
Klinghoffer is peeved that when knowledgeable people are asked to abandon standard tools of scientific discourse in exchange from an offer to "debate" Disco. staff on the Disco. blog, about a book written by Disco. staff, published by the Disco. press, those people offer a polite "I would prefer not." Klinghoffer's under the misimpression that "the debate about evolution is…
tfk | July 19, 2012
Shorter David Klinghoffer, Disco. 'tute scrivener, We Called Out Darwinist Critic Carl Zimmer, and He Folded:
Why won't anyone play my game?
Klinghoffer is upset that no one will come to the Disco. blog, let Disco. staff ban any outside comment, and debate the merits of the book which several Disco. staffers wrote and which Disco. self-published.
Instead, critics are feeling free to explore the book's many failings on their own blogs, and in comments on Disco.-affiliated Facebook pages.
And when these critics offer a gentle "I would prefer not to" in answer to Klinghoffer's poorly-…
tfk | July 19, 2012As Steve Benen notes at Rachel Maddow's blog, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker draws his governing lessons from interesting sources:
Just imagine. Then imagine that Noah had to build his ark in a capitalist market economy, and had to be able to turn a profit on the deal simply in order to start construction. He might have to charge admission, treat it like a zoo or a theme park or something.
Now imagine that Noah's business plan didn't appeal to bankers, and even the people who supported his past ventures (like, perhaps, a museum about how the planet and all life on it was created a mere…