Policy and Politics
tfk | March 7, 2008What John said:
those of us who do not condemn someone for holding religious beliefs were caricatured as "feeling good that someone has religion somewhere". Bullshit. That is not why we dislike the Us'n'Themism of TGD. We dislike it because no matter what other beliefs an intelligent person may hold, so long as they accept the importance of science and the need for a secular society, we simply do not care if they also like the taste of ear wax, having sex with trees, or believing in a deity or two. Way to go, Richard. Good bit of framing and parodying the opposition. Real rational.
… he seems…
tfk | March 6, 2008The American Friends Service Committee has a great video about the cost of the war in Iraq:
tfk | March 4, 2008I think there were other contests today, but the important thing is that creationist challengers for two Texas Board of Education seats failed:
Veteran State Board of Education member Pat Hardy of Fort Worth [has] defeat[ed] a challenger in the GOP primary Tuesday night, holding off an effort by social conservatives to gain a working majority on the politically divided board. …
The Fort Worth Republican had been targeted by some social conservative groups for her independent voting ways and her frequent opposition to a bloc of seven social conservatives on the 15-member board.
Social…
tfk | March 4, 2008Congresswoman Nancy Boyda, recently elected from the Kansas 2nd, took a strong stance against granting retroactive immunity for telecoms that broke the law by letting the government listen to your phone calls without a warrant.
"I am adamant about protecting the Constitution," she explained. "They're giving nothing in return for it. We're not getting any more security and they're shredding the Constitution."
It's worth pointing out that the telecom trade association isn't even interested in this immunity.
But that isn't the only sanity growing in the Sunflower State these days. A grand…
tfk | March 3, 2008I think it's time to replace my bumper stickers from Kansas and Ohio with more regionally relevant stickers. Hopefully even with stickers that will remain relevant in a few years.
That means "Obama '08," while admirable in many ways, is suboptimal. And Diane Feinstein won't face a primary challenge until 2012, by which time my car will be 20, and due for replacement. There'll be a gubernatorial election in 2010, so I could gear up for that, but it seems early.
What I'd really like is a sticker either advocating against propositions in general, or at least advocating against Proposition…
tfk | March 3, 2008I've said it before, and will keep saying it until it becomes some sort of meme: Like all great indie acts, John McCain's early work was better.
There was a time when McCain at least put on a good show, presenting himself as an opponent of the corrosive effects of money on politics, and working to close loopholes. He was also slightly saner than other Republicans on global warming, though that hasn't translated to policy. And, while he shares their atrocious opposition to a woman's right to control her own body, he was also willing to denounce Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as "agents of…
tfk | March 1, 2008Bush's Czar to Rebuild Gulf Coast Is Resigning - New York Times:
The White House said Friday that the administration's Gulf Coast reconstruction czar, Donald E. Powell, was resigning to return to his family in Texas. ...
Despite the billions of dollars spent, much of the city remains vacant and crumbling....
Some New Orleans officials noted that he was not a constant presence, appearing and dropping out of sight.
Mr. Powell said: "I've been doing this two years, and I think I have spent in excess of 200 some-odd nights in New Orleans. My wife says I live in New Orleans."
I'm stunned by that…
tfk | February 28, 2008As Barack Obama clears his millionth individual contributor, the Congressional influence of large corporate donors continues to generate controversy.
The fight currently focuses on the question of warrantless wiretapping. The story goes like this:
Some time in 2001 (before 9/11), the Bush administration started leaning on telecoms to give broad access to telephone calls involving American citizens, without any warrants.
After 9/11, that program ramped up, sweeping up phone calls from innocent Americans, without any evidence that any terrorist activity has been detected.
The New York Times…
tfk | February 25, 2008Americans Change Faiths at Rising Rate, Report Finds - New York Times:
More than a quarter of adult Americans have left the faith of their childhood to join another religion or no religion, according to a new survey of religious affiliation by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
The report, titled “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey,” depicts a highly fluid and diverse national religious life. If shifts among Protestant denominations are included, then it appears that 44 percent of Americans have switched religious affiliations.…
The report shows, for example, that every religion is…
tfk | February 24, 2008During Robert F. Kennedy's candidacy, he gave an anti-war speech at K-State. At this comparatively conservative outpost, the crowds went crazy. A speechwriter remembers looking at the wild crowd reaction and saying, "This is Kansas, fucking Kansas. He's going all the fucking way!"
I thought of that when I saw a set of new polls comparing Hillary and Obama to McCain in several key states. Surprisingly, Obama has a decent shot at winning Kansas. The results in KS are close to a statistical tie with those in Oregon, a state that swings politically, but usually winds up voting for Dems.…
tfk | February 24, 2008It's two days short of the 5th anniversary of this question:
can anyone… give me one single example of something with the following three characteristics:
1. It is a policy initiative of the current Bush administration
2. It was significant enough in scale that I'd have heard of it (at a pinch, that I should have heard of it)
3. It wasn't in some important way completely fucked up during the execution.
I still haven't got an answer.
tfk | February 22, 2008
Kevin Drum notes that Moqtada al-Sadr has extended his cease-fire for another six months. This is abundantly good news, and as the Washington Post points out, this cease-fire is at least as significant a factor in the drop in violence as the "surge".
I've updated the figure above from what I posted at the State of the Union. It remains the case that a model of fatalities since the ceasefire is a much stronger fit than a model of fatalities since the
surge" began. Coalition fatalities have been flat since last October, and fell substantially in September. The long-term trend was upward…
tfk | February 21, 2008Many innocent electrons have been spilt in discussions of John McCain's apparent dalliance with a lobbyist from Paxson Communication. The discourse has largely focused on whether he had an affair (probably), and whether the New York Times and Washington Post did the right thing in reporting on it (definitely).
I say he probably had an affair not only because of what the Times and Post reported, but because McCain's two wives look quite similar to each other (and to the lobbyist), and because his first marriage ended because of an affair with his second wife. In 1979, Steve Benen reminds us…
tfk | February 20, 2008It's immensely exciting to see Larry Lessig thinking about a run for the House, filling the vacancy left by the passing of Tom Lantos. As Lessig notes, the other candidate in the primary is an exceptional politician, and he isn't considering the run because of any animus against her. I've no doubt they will work together as colleagues if she wins the primary.
If he runs, and I suspect he will, it will be to fight against the corrupting influence of cash on politics. A political system where individual citizens giving small donation dominate the race for political office is a far better…
tfk | February 20, 2008At DailyKos, known outpost of optimism, brownsox considers the National Review Online's argument that Obama is a Communist half-Jew and, rather than banging his/her head repeatedly into a wall, simply concludes:
Well, at least they've abandoned the "Muslim" thing...
This is the power of hope. It is undoubtedly bolstered by Senator Obama's fairly resounding victory in Hawaii (predictably) and Wisconsin (against longer odds). Turnout in Wisconsin was higher than it's been in four decades, despite fairly atrocious weather there.
Meanwhile, Michael Berubé considers the Clinton campaign's…
tfk | February 19, 2008The Florida Board of Education passed new science standards on a 4-3 vote. The old standards got an F in a national survey by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, which noted errors like the claim that "a thermometer measures the amount of heat absorbed by an object," that "The classification of simple machines is naive…[e]nergetics of phase change is presented misleadingly; treatment of electricity and magnetism…is minimal… The treatment of chemistry content in K-8 is scanty; but—as one reviewer observed—"Even less is required in 9-12."
They concluded "The superficiality of the treatment of…
tfk | February 19, 2008Florida Citizens for Science is liveblogging the Florida Board of Education meeting on science standards.
tfk | February 18, 2008I'm currently obsessed with my desire to cause various Floridians to be beaten with sacks of California oranges. For a sense of who I'd like to see pulped, check out Carl Hiassen's excellent survey of the situation. In between fancying citrussy punishments for people who needlessly complicate science education, I've become aware that the framing of science is yet again controversial.
Mike Dunford responds with a parable:
Suppose that you are taking a walk through the hills above a town, and you reach the foot of a dam. There's a crack in the dam, and it's getting wider. You run back down to…
tfk | February 12, 2008Earlier I quoted Hillary Clinton asking:
So when I hear Senator Obama talk about that, I wonder which fights he wouldn't fight.… It's all this kind of abstract, general talk about how we all need to get along. I want to get along, and I have gotten along in the Senate. I will work with Republicans to find common cause whenever I can, but I will also stand my ground, because there are fights worth having.
Obama was in the Senate today, and voted against granting retroactive immunity to telecom companies that broke the law by letting the government listen to private citizens' phone calls…