Propaganda
j7uy5 | June 30, 2010From Media Matters:
It is difficult to understand how so many errors could be crammed into
one simple chart, merely by accident. It is even harder to
understand how the artist could end up with a straight line, after
incorporating numerous errors, unless it was an done with the intention
of being misleading.
First, (problem #1) the Y-axis does not start at zero. That is a
fairly
common error. Sometimes it is done innocently, and a notice is
posted. For example, "Y-axis does not start at zero, to better
show the change," or something like that. OK. That's minor.
The Fed does the same…
grrlscientist | May 28, 2010tags: Inside a School for Suicide Bombers, Taliban, brainwashing, mind control, suicide bombers, propaganda, religion, cults, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, TEDTalks, TED Talks, streaming video
Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy takes on a terrifying question: How does the Taliban convince children to become suicide bombers? Propaganda footage from a training camp is intercut with interviews of young camp graduates. A shocking vision.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in…
mikethemadbiologist | February 15, 2010ScienceBlogling Matt Nisbet throws down the gauntlet about anonymity:
Much of the incivility online can be attributed to anonymity. And with a rare few exceptions, if you can't participate in a dialogue about issues without using your full name and true identity, then what you have to say is probably not that valuable.
It's a silly argument for many reasons (some people should be treated with incivility; they've earned it), but there are a couple points I haven't seen mentioned (Drugmonkey has a very good response). But ultimately, the decision to be anonymous boils down to why one blogs. I…
mikethemadbiologist | January 25, 2010In the battle of ideas, what things are called matters (e.g., the 'death tax' instead of the estate tax). So I'm utterly puzzled as to why Paul Krugman is calling the current state of play in healthcare centrist:
The fact is that the Senate bill is a centrist document, which moderate Republicans should find entirely acceptable. In fact, it's very similar to the plan Mitt Romney introduced in Massachusetts just a few years ago.
This is not a centrist bill. After one considers everything that those left-of-center bargained away, it's hard to see how this bill could be any farther to the right…
j7uy5 | January 1, 2010...for canceling the showing of a creationist film, Darwin's
Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record. The
background is on Greg Laden's Blog,
href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2009/10/los_angeles_venue_cancels_inte.php">Los
Angeles Venue Cancels Intelligent Design Film:
You'll recall that it was recently reported that the
California Science Center, which is loosely affiliated with the
Smithsonian Institution, had planned a screening of "Darwin's Dilemma:
The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record" which is apparently a
creationist documentary.
Well, now, the venue has…
mikethemadbiologist | December 13, 2009I've described the Mad Biologist's Rule of Base Ten Numbers before:
My colleagues have all heard of the Mad Biologist's Rule of Base Ten Numbers: when you see too many numbers that end with zero, become skeptical. That's because only one in ten numbers should do should end in zero.
I then added:
...if you read news reports that routinely say, "Today, American forces blew the crap out of [number that ends with zero] enemy forces" (and with a globe-spanning garrison empire, we do read a lot of those, don't we?), nobody has a good idea what actually happened.
Sadly, thirty has become the new…
j7uy5 | August 24, 2009
href="http://www.researchblogging.org">
alt="ResearchBlogging.org"
src="http://www.researchblogging.org/public/citation_icons/rb2_large_gray.png"
style="border: 0pt none ;">
A fair amount has been written about the topic of motivated
reasoning. Jonah Lehrer
href="http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/09/motivated_reasoning.php">explains
the relationship between motivated reasoning and the political process;
Orac
href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/04/why_projection_isnt_all_its_cracked_up_t.php">addresses
the issue with regard to quantum woo. (Plus more at Mixing…
Corruption Is Integral to the 'Intellects' of the Conservative Movement: Why This Matters to Science
mikethemadbiologist | July 20, 2009One of the advantages the conservative movement has is that it can be very lucrative to be a professional conservative, whereas being a professional liberal is rather difficult. There isn't the tight integration of think tanks, conservative magazines, cozy book deals, and the occasional faculty sinecure (e.g., torturer John Yoo) on the left. What keeps this beast fed is money. Last week, Politico described the fickle ideological allegiance of one conservative think tank:
The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the group's support…
mikethemadbiologist | March 22, 2009Always listen to the Mad Biologist. By way of Joe Windish at The Moderate Voice, we find out, just as I predicted, that the pork lobby would claim we don't know enough about the MRSA ST398 problem:
Livestock scientists call the opinion piece "highly speculative", and point to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statements on MRSA that say most if not all cases of MRSA come from person to person contact, not person to animal. The column also does not define this strain as one that is found on any swine farm in the vicinity of Camden, Ind.
"They are making a huge leap…
j7uy5 | March 20, 2009When I was at work today, I saw a headline that irritated me. I decided
I would blog about it when I got home. But now the headline has
been changed. I will still blog about it, though.
The original headline was: Report: Alternative energy quest endangering
birds. Now, it is worded differently:
href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/ENERGY_BIRDS?SITE=TXWIC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT">Report:
Birds endangered by energy development
By DINA CAPPIELLO - 4 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) -- As the Obama administration pursues more homegrown
energy sources, a new government…
mikethemadbiologist | February 24, 2009Digby makes a very good point about the real world effects of conservative propaganda:
I'm convinced that one of the mistakes we've made over the years is not telling enough stories of real people who were affected by the conservative movement's deregulation fervor. When they can keep it all abstract and clean it sounds great. It's not so impressive when you see the human results of their "ideology."
With that in mind, consider Senator Orrin Hatch's (R-Wackaloon) claim that Utah doesn't need the stimulus money ("Utah is going to get by fine whether we get that money or not.") in light of what…
j7uy5 | February 13, 2009A minor controversy has erupted over the health care provisions that
were slipped in to the economic stimulus bill without discussion.
It has provisions such that..
Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a
federal system...One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of
Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure
your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and
cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and "guide" your doctor's
decisions.
This verbiage is found in a
href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039…
mikethemadbiologist | December 15, 2008By way of Atrios, we discover that Google has moved away from its pro-net neutrality position:
Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers.
At risk is a principle known as network neutrality: Cable and phone companies that operate the data pipelines are supposed to treat all traffic the same -- nobody is supposed to jump the…
j7uy5 | October 8, 2008Computer experts have been weighing in for years about design flaws in
electronic voting systems. Now a computer expert goes a step
farther, saying the whole system is flawed.
From
href="http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2008/10/stranger-in-strange-land.html">Linus'
Blog:
That's when you also notice that the whole US voting
system is apparently expressly designed to be polarizing
(winner-take-all electoral system etc). To somebody from Finland, that
looks like a rather obvious and fundamental design flaw. In Finland,
government is quite commonly a quilt-work of different parties,…
j7uy5 | October 2, 2008From the
href="http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/debate.transcript/">vice-Presidential
debate.
"building our embassy, also, in Jerusalem"
"That world view that says that America is a nation of exceptionalism.
And we are to be that shining city on a hill, as President Reagan so
beautifully said, that we are a beacon of hope and that we are
unapologetic here."
"freedom is always just one generation away from extinction"
All of these seemed just slightly out of place, as though part of a
subtext that could be woven -- artfully, but not
quite seamlessly -- into the main text…
mikethemadbiologist | September 16, 2008If Al Gore were dead, he would be spinning in his grave:
Asked what work John McCain did as Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee that helped him understand the financial markets, the candidate's top economic adviser wielded visual evidence: his BlackBerry.
"He did this," Douglas Holtz-Eakin told reporters this morning, holding up his BlackBerry. "Telecommunications of the United States is a premier innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce committee so you're looking at the miracle John McCain helped create and that's what he did.
Sigh. Actually, Democrats…
mikethemadbiologist | September 10, 2008Recently, a loyal reader related to me that the house next door to where I grew up sold at about fifteen percent less than the original asking price (not two years ago, housing prices were still climbing). This slashing of housing prices was euphemistically referred to by the broker as a "price enhancement." Some might call that turning a frown upside down, but its proper name is spin.
While the term price enhancement is spin, it does bear some relationship to truth: after all, it did encourage the buyer to buy. From the buyer's perspective, this is an enhancement--less money, same amount…
mikethemadbiologist | September 4, 2008First, Roland Martin attacks Palin for her comments about community organizers:
And ScienceBlogling Matt Nisbet has the quote of the day:
Weren't Jesus and Mother Teresa community organizers? Didn't they, in the words of Palin, have "actual responsibilities?" Aren't Evangelicals such as this group "Christians for Community Organizing" or this group "Evangelicals for Social Action" dedicated to community organizing? Aren't faith based initiatives built on community organizing?
Matt is absolutely right on the merits, but, make no mistake about it, "community organizers" is code for 'uppity…
mikethemadbiologist | August 3, 2008Glenn Greenwald's recent post about the botched anthrax investigation reminds me of a colleague who was investigated by the FBI after the anthrax attacks (and check out the letter claiming that Bruce Ivins was yet another scientist wrongfully accused).
When I heard that he was under investigation, I was shocked: he is one of the nicer scientists I know. Ultimately, he was cleared, and in a bizarre reversal, the government asked him for help in typing the anthrax strain.
The reason I bring this up is not to demonstrate that the FBI couldn't investigate its way out of a paper bag, but to note…