American Politics from a Progressive Perspective

Migrating to a new blog!

2005-11-27T21:26:00.000-05:00

This blog has now migrated to my new site, CriticalExponent (RSS).

Old entries from this blog may be found here (RSS).

Please update your bookmarks and feeds. New entries will only appear on the new site!

Leader of Reform Judaism blasts the Religious Right

2005-11-22T06:30:00.000-05:00

Here's what he says:

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the liberal Union for Reform Judaism, said "religious right" leaders believe "unless you attend my church, accept my God and study my sacred text you cannot be a moral person."

"What could be more bigoted than to claim that you have a monopoly on God?" he said during the movement's national assembly in Houston, which runs through Sunday....

He used particularly strong language to condemn conservative attitudes toward homosexuals. He said he understood that traditionalists have concluded gay marriage violates Scripture, but he said that did not justify denying legal protections to same-sex partners and their children.

"We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations," Yoffie said. "Yes, we can disagree about gay marriage. But there is no excuse for hateful rhetoric that fuels the hellfires of anti-gay bigotry."...

Yoffie said liberals and conservatives share some concerns, such as the potential damage to children from violent or highly sexual TV shows and other popular media. But he said, overall, conservatives too narrowly define family values, making a "frozen embryo in a fertility clinic" more important than a child, and ignoring poverty and other social ills.

Cut from the poor, give to the rich

2005-11-18T12:35:00.000-05:00

Robin Hood it ain't. After narrowly voting to decrease funding to important social programs for the neediest Americans, the US House of Representatives is set to consider tax cuts for the wealthy. Hear the NPR story here.

Conservatives against "Intelligent (sic) Design"

2005-11-18T06:04:00.000-05:00

Charles Krauthammer comes out against ID:

Let's be clear. Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological "theory" whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge -- in this case, evolution -- they are to be filled by God. It is a "theory" that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species but also says that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, "I think I'll make me a lemur today." A "theory" that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science -- that it be empirically disprovable. How does one empirically disprove the proposition that God was behind the lemur, or evolution -- or behind the motion of the tides or the "strong force" that holds the atom together?

US tradition of torture

2005-11-17T12:10:00.000-05:00

Read how the CIA developed its torture methods.

Liars and Hypocrites

2005-11-16T19:01:00.000-05:00

Contrary to earlier statements, US forces
are using white phosphorus in Iraq; that makes the administration either incompetent or a liar.

Supposedly we went to Iraq to make the world safer by ferreting out weapons of mass destruction-- including chemical weapons-- that Hussein would have used on his enemies or on his own people. Now here we are using chemical weapons on our enemies and the Iraqi people. That makes the administration hypocritical.

So, can we go ahead with a war crimes tribunal for George W. Bush?

Document Says Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force

2005-11-16T10:22:00.000-05:00

Here's proof that the White House was cozying up to big-business while refusing to hear environmentalists:

A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress....

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who posed the question about the task force, said he will ask the Justice Department today to investigate. "The White House went to great lengths to keep these meetings secret, and now oil executives may be lying to Congress about their role in the Cheney task force," Lautenberg said.

And this guy wants national office?

2005-11-15T13:32:00.000-05:00

Mitt Romney, while saying we need to improve our education standards, could not resist taking a gratuitous jab at France:

"We cannot continue to have an excellence gap with the rest of the world and intend to remain the economic superpower and military superpower of the planet. That's just not going to happen," Romney said. "We're in a position where unless we take action, we'll end up being the France of the 21st century: A lot of talk, but not a lot of strength behind it in terms of economic capability."

I guess that's the way to court conservatives in this day and age: insult other countries who don't follow along, even if they have been and continue to be your allies.

America is realizing Bush lied

2005-11-15T06:35:00.000-05:00

Read Froomkin's column:

Amid all the tumbling poll numbers of late, Bush's biggest problem is this: A sizeable majority of Americans -- 55 percent according to the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll -- believe that he intentionally misled the American public in making his case for war in Iraq.

To "mislead intentionally": that means "to lie."

GAO report details dogma, politics at the FDA

2005-11-15T06:21:00.000-05:00

The New Yok Times tells of a report by the Government Acountability Office on the unusual, political treatment given to the "morning-after" pill by the FDA:

Top agency officials were deeply involved in the decision, which was "very, very rare," a top F.D.A. review official told investigators. The officials' decision to ignore the recommendation of an independent advisory committee as well as the agency's own scientific review staff was unprecedented, the report found. And a top official's "novel" rationale for rejecting the application contradicted past agency practices, it concluded....

The report suggested that it quickly became apparent that the agency was not going to follow its usual path when it came to the pill. "For example," it said, "F.D.A. review staff told us that they were told early in the review process that the decision would be made by high-level management."

It gets better:

Congressional investigators had been unable to uncover the role in the Plan B decision played by the former agency commissioner, Dr. Mark B. McClellan, because agency officials told investigators that all of his e-mail messages and written correspondence on the subject had been deleted or thrown out. The Democrats charged that these acts contravened federal records laws.

And how does the extreme right feel about dogma overruling science and politics overruling protocol? Gee, surprise:

Wendy Wright, executive vice president of Concerned Women for America, a conservative women's advocacy group in Washington, said that the report's finding that top agency officials had overruled staffers was comforting. "The F.D.A. has been making some pretty serious mistakes lately," Ms. Wright said.

Target "Plan B" response

2005-11-14T15:56:00.000-05:00

Here's a response I got from Target about the whole emergency contraception situation:

Dear Target Guest

In our ongoing effort to provide great service to our guests, Target consistently ensures that prescriptions for the emergency contraceptive Plan B are filled. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also requires us to accommodate our team members’ sincerely held religious beliefs.

In the rare event that a pharmacist’s beliefs conflict with filling a guest’s prescription for the emergency contraceptive Plan B, our policy requires our pharmacists to take responsibility for ensuring that the guest’s prescription is filled in a timely and respectful manner, either by another Target pharmacist or a different pharmacy.

The emergency contraceptive Plan B is the only medication for which this policy applies.Under no circumstances can the pharmacist prevent the prescription from being filled, make discourteous or judgmental remarks, or discuss his or her religious beliefs with the guest.

Target abides by all state and local laws and, in the event that other laws conflict with our policy, we follow the law.

We're surprised and disappointed by Planned Parenthood’s negative campaign. We’ve been talking with Planned Parenthood to clarify our policy and reinforce our commitment to ensuring that our guests’ prescriptions for the emergency contraceptive Plan B are filled. Our policy is similar to that of many other retailers and follows the recommendations of the American Pharmacists Association. That’s why it’s unclear why Target is being singled out.

We’re committed to meeting the needs of our female guests and will continue to deliver upon that commitment.

Sincerely,

[ name deleted ]
Target Executive Offices

Kansas: Dogma over Scientific Method

2005-11-09T05:41:00.000-05:00

The Kansas Board of Education backs "Intelligent (sic) Design," as a "conservative Republican majority [on the Board] overruled a 26-member science committee and turned aside the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association."

It's funny, I(sic)D proponents claim they are not injecting religion into schools while at the same time their central claim is that life is too complicated to have arisen without a "higher power." Higher power? Helloooo? I don't care whether it's Jesus on the cross or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it's religion. I don't care much whether someone has a failure of the imagination to understand how complex structures can arise from simple rules, but it is so wrong to indoctrinate our children out of their natural curiosity and capacity for critical thinking: if they can't understand something, it's obviously non-understandable and must be God's business but not ours.

"This is a sad day, not only for Kansas kids, but for Kansas," said Janet Waugh, who voted against the new standards. "We're becoming a laughingstock, not only of the nation, but of the world."

Yep.

The Patriot Act in practice: Big Brother comes knocking

2005-11-06T10:33:00.000-05:00

The U.N. Isn't a Threat to the Net

2005-11-05T08:24:00.000-05:00

An opinion piece by Kofi Annan.

The Climate Warriors

2005-11-04T11:13:00.000-05:00

Salon and Rolling Stone applaud some of the climate heroes battling our incipient planetary crisis:

The climate warriors and heroes honored here embody the environment's best defense. They are scientists, ministers, students, politicians, activists, lawyers, celebrities, inventors, and world leaders. As Al Gore says in his accompanying essay, they share little in common. "But each of them recognized the threat that climate change poses to the planet -- and responded by taking immediate action to stop it," Gore writes.

Bush's (un)popularity

2005-11-03T05:53:00.000-05:00

Look at this interactive graphic from CNN.

Overview of Alito's record

2005-11-03T05:30:00.000-05:00

From The Washington Post.

From The New York Times.

Slate: Alito more conservative than Scalia.

Smoking gun: fraud in the 2004 election

2005-11-02T21:14:00.000-05:00

You didn't think we lived in a democracy, did you?

Here is a press release by ElectionArchive.org on fraud during the 2004 elections. If this is correct, fraud in Ohio gave Bush the election, thereby causing, among other things, further troops to die, natural disasters to be mismanaged, and conservative justices to be given lifetime appointments. The American people deserve a full investigation.

Release: November 2, 2005 The National Election Data Archive (NEDA)

The Gun is Smoking: Ohio Exit Poll Data Provides Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount

Summary: New analysis of the precinct-level Ohio exit poll data provides virtually irrefutable evidence of large scale vote miscounts in Ohio during the 2004 presidential election. 6% of Ohio's exit-polled precincts had impossible vote counts and 57% had significant discrepancies (with less than 5% chance of occurring in any one precinct). The pattern of Ohio's exit poll results is not consistent with any exit poll error hypothesis. However, it is consistent with pro-Bush vote miscounts.

NEDA's full paper 'The Gun is Smoking: Ohio Precinct-level Exit Poll Data Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount' is available at http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/OH/Ohio-Exit-Polls-2004.pdf

In two Ohio precincts, even if all voters who did not complete exit polls had voted for Bush, the total Bush vote count would have been less than the official count. In a third precinct, all voters who did not complete exit polls would have had to vote for Bush to equal the official count. Unless Bush voters lied much more than Kerry voters on exit polls, or massive exit poll error occurred that was not detected by the pollsters, the results are mathematically impossible.

The Ohio exit poll data are a smoking gun for vote miscounts in Ohio. Ohio exit poll results are consistent with earlier findings of similar unexplained and implausible exit poll discrepancies in the national exit poll sample as described in the January 19, 2005 Edison/Mitofsky report.

Alito defended privacy, gay rights

2005-11-02T21:03:00.000-05:00

The Boston Globe:

As a senior at Princeton University, Samuel A. Alito Jr. chaired an undergraduate task force that recommended the decriminalization of sodomy, accused the CIA and the FBI of invading the privacy of citizens, and said discrimination against gays in hiring ''should be forbidden."

From the AP:

In college, Samuel Alito led a student conference that urged legalization of sodomy and curbs on domestic intelligence, a sweeping defense of privacy rights he said were under threat by the government and the dawning computer age....

Three decades before the Supreme Court decriminalized gay sex, Alito declared on behalf of his group of fellow Princeton students that "no private sexual act between consenting adults should be forbidden." Alito also called for an end to discrimination against homosexuals in hiring.

Read the original report at Campus Progress.

So, the question now is: does he still support the opinions he wrote in college?

Americans: Ethics declining under GWB

2005-11-01T12:42:00.000-05:00

"By 46 percent to 15 percent, Americans say the level of honesty and ethics in the government has declined rather than risen under Bush."

Did Judith Miller cost Kerry the election?

2005-11-01T08:24:00.000-05:00

Interesting point here and here.

Thomas Oliphant of The Boston Globe agrees.

John Kerry is still easy to lampoon, as if his narrow loss were in fact a 20-point landslide. But imagine last week's astonishing developments unfolding in the fall of 2004. Imagine not only the large book of perjury that Fitzgerald threw at I. Lewis Libby, but also the still-tangled web of the infamous Official A in the grand jury's indictment and imagine President Bush trying to explain in the midst of a presidential campaign what that official is still doing on the public payroll.

"Alito Leans Right Where O'Connor Swung Left"

2005-11-01T08:15:00.000-05:00

An overview of Alito vs. O'Connor.

And a preview of what's to come...

Wal-Mart and Target

2005-10-31T12:23:00.000-05:00

Wal-Mart gets vilified, so why does Target seem to get away scot-free?

The name of the game

2005-10-26T12:09:00.000-04:00

The New York Times reports on an internal memo leaked by WalMart Watch that explores ways to cut costs by, for example, discouraging unhealthy people from applying for work and reducing 401(k) contributions.

I'm sure this goes on at many, many companies; it just so happens to WalMart is high-profile. But what is it all about? Apparently, lucre. Not content to have $10.5 billion in earnings last year, WalMart seeks to maximize its profit at the expense of workers, if necessary. But if you're already making a profit, surely it is inhumane to sacrifice workers solely to make that profit (which goes to the big wigs) even bigger.

Think about it this way: classical economics teaches, and most companies follow, the principle of fundamentally maximizing profits. Looked at it this way, employee benefits are simply operating costs that must be paid to comply with laws or to obtain necessary resources (workers). Any way to cut these costs will increase profits, whether it be by loosening labor laws or by a down market that causes competitors to decrease their benefits, thereby allowing one to decrease one's own costs and still retain access to these human resources.

But why should greed trump all? What is the point of it all? Once, say, the top executives have a basic comfortable lifestyle, any additional profit goes to luxuries that marginally increase their standard of living. The same money could go to the workers, who (certainly as an aggregate) are just as responsible for the success of the company. Since they're typically much poorer, their marginal utility is greater, so their standard of living would increase much more than the top execs', even if each individual share of the profits is smaller in absolute dollars. From a metric of collective utility, this would be the more socially beneficial distribution.

Let's leave economics aside, though, and focus on the ethical questions. You're a CEO, say, and you make more than enough money to have the basic necessities and comforts of life: food, shelter, health care, education, leisure time, and cultural pursuits. Is it not plain greedy to keep accumulating more when fellow human beings do not have such basics? Are you not simply piling on luxuries in your mansion at the expense of others (who happen to have worked to make your profits possible in the first place)? Whether you're the owner, president, or founder, how does that entitle you to make so many orders of magnitude more money than the other people who are just as important to the success of your enterprise?

So here's a radical (but not new, I'm sure) suggestion. Instead of looking at the bottom line as a pure profit-maximization problem, why not look at it as a constrained maximization problem? This approach would seek to make a company as profitable as possible, subject to the constraints that its workers all have a decent minimum standard of living. Sure, the big-wigs may have to do with one fewer private jet, but the workers will have access to health care and vacation time. Let's take this one step further: one can be revolutionay and consider a company's performance as an optimization problem where both profits and employees' standards of living are factors in the objective function to be maximized. Under this scenario, if the company does well, employees are able to achieve an even higher standard of living themselves.

What do you think?

Bush's seal

2005-10-26T06:16:00.000-04:00

You might have thought that the White House had enough on its plate late last month, what with its search for a new Supreme Court nominee, the continuing war in Iraq and the C.I.A. leak investigation. But it found time to add another item to its agenda - stopping The Onion, the satirical newspaper, from using the presidential seal.

Redistricting a rigged system

2005-10-24T08:48:00.000-04:00

The Washinton Post has an editorial on initiatives in California and Ohio that would seek to make re-districting a fairer, more apolitical process.

Presidential fundraisers more important than Americans commuting to work

2005-10-23T08:36:00.000-04:00

This might be petty, but, coincidentally or not, it speaks volumes about Bush's relationship to common Americans:

On Friday, police were alerted just before Bush began his commute. With only a few minutes' notice from the U.S. Secret Service, LAPD and city Department of Transportation cops shut down Sunset Boulevard west of the San Diego Freeway from 8:15 a.m. to 10 a.m.

One commuter commented, "If he can sneak in and out of Baghdad without anybody knowing it, it seems like he could slip in and out of L.A. without disrupting rush hour - twice."

Target pharmacist as moral judge

2005-10-19T08:41:00.000-04:00

A pharmacist at Target refused to fill an emergency contraception prescription. This is not the first instance this has happened. Where will this stop? If someone believes they are entitled to sit in judgment as to whether a patient is entitled to having a prescription filled, they are not qualified to be pharmacists.

This is just another instance of religious dogma (or, to be precise, evangelical Christian dogma, currently the loudest in the American public square) trying to shape and control civic life. Please stand up for the independence of church and state and for individuals' right to the medical treatment they and their doctors choose.

All God, all the time

2005-10-18T08:48:00.000-04:00

This op-ed muses on everyone taking on the mantle of God to kill, to dominate, to express thanks, or to harbor ill-wishes. Worth a read.

US could be losing the edge on science

2005-10-13T12:08:00.000-04:00

Gee, do you think? When there's such a will in this country to look no further than the Bible, suppress all questions, and indoctrinate religion in our public schools?

World climate going to hell in a handbasket

2005-10-13T09:00:00.000-04:00

Why doesn't the US government take the lead in slowing down and stopping global warming? We could have such a positive effect if we only had the political will to think about the future and eschew entrenched interests.

New international climate data show that 2005 is on track to be the hottest year on record, continuing a 25-year trend of rising global temperatures....

The new analysis comes as government and independent scientists are reporting other dramatic signs of global warming, such as the record shrinkage of the Arctic sea ice cover and unprecedented high ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico.

Government unexamined

2005-10-10T14:38:00.000-04:00

On Nov. 1, 2001, "President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, under which a former president's private papers can be released only with the approval of both that former president (or his heirs) and the current one." Previously, papers were released by the National Archives 12 years after a president left office.

In other words, not only is Bush intent on stifling dissent in real-time, he is also doing everything he can to put ex post facto analysis of the government beyond the reach of the citizenry.

Where is our democracy disappearing?

Jesus Christ, hijacked

2005-10-10T14:17:00.000-04:00

Here is yet another cogent statement of why the religious right is anything but Christ-like:

The American Christian right has hijacked Jesus Christ. It has made him into a brand, a logo, a bumper sticker. It celebrates his suffering on the cross, but largely neglects what he had to say. It prefers an Old Testament God, a "Jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children." It elevates success to proof of God's favor, and washes its hands of responsibility for the poor. It combines a self-righteous vision of Americans as the chosen people with shrill intimations of imminent apocalypse, to justify indifference to the rest of the world and to the planet itself. It sticks to the letter of the Bible with arbitrary selectiveness, so that it can endorse creationism and condemn homosexuality while acknowledging that (contrary to Old Testament wisdom) the earth is in fact round, and slavery is not OK.

Creation and Evolution in the Grand Canyon

2005-10-06T14:00:00.000-04:00

Yet another article on cretion vs. evolution, this time in the Grand Canyon.

While it is important that we defeat attempts to inculcate ignorance and religion in our public schools, and while it is true that we must "know our enemy," it bothers me that all this attention is legitimizing the debate over what should be a no-brainer. I can't believe this graphic for instance, which has the two positions side by side, as though they were remotely comparable. They're not! They're not! One takes an observed body of evidence to deduce a view of the world, the other accepts a view of the world based on faith as the basis for interpreting its evidence. The former is inductive, logical, and tentative; the latter is circular and tautological.

Wal-Mart and the Secret Service vs. Freedom of Speech

2005-10-06T08:00:00.000-04:00

A Wal-Mart employee alerted the Secret Service about a high school student who designed an anti-Bush poster.

Conservative rift: evangelicals vs. secularists

2005-10-06T07:16:00.000-04:00

The rift is apparent in the Miers nomination.

Plame case indictments imminent?

2005-10-06T07:07:00.000-04:00

Blogosphere chatter: Bush directly involved in CIA leak scandal?

2005-10-02T17:06:00.000-04:00

Think Progress � Source to Stephanopoulos: President Bush Directly Involved In Leak Scandal

Hillary Clinton in The New York Times

2005-10-02T11:56:00.000-04:00

The New York Times Magazine is carrying an article on Hillary Clinton and her politics.

The truth that emerges from talking to many of those who have worked closely with the Clintons is that Hillary's ideology is best understood through the prism of her upbringing. She was raised as a Republican and a devout Methodist in suburban Chicago, and these influences, particularly in the turbulence of the 60's, created two philosophical impulses that were commonly linked in that era. The first is an unshakable notion of right and wrong and an almost missionary zeal for imposing it on others, mainly through political action. The second is a strand of moral conservatism that borders on prudishness....

Clinton is very much a Southern Democrat like her husband (or, for that matter, an Eisenhower Republican like her father) and less of a social liberal than she is often portrayed. When she talks about her opposition to gay marriage, her preference for abstinence or her disapproval of violent movies, she means it....There's not much evidence to suggest that Clinton has changed her rhetoric on any of these social issues....

Among the Senate as a whole, according to National Journal's latest rankings, Clinton's voting record on foreign policy last year was more conservative than all but five current Democratic senators. Overall, she ranked among the dozen most conservative Democrats now in the Senate, although the bulk of her record is still comfortably within the parameters of party orthodoxy....

And the thinking among her closest advisers holds that unlike other prospective candidates with conservative leanings, like Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana or Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, Clinton doesn't have to worry about winning over more liberal base voters; she's an icon of the left, and short of climbing into a tank and invading a country all by herself, she couldn't do much to change that. By this theory, Clinton gets to have it both ways: her consistent centrist record will convince general-election voters that she is not the archetype they thought she was, and Democratic-primary voters will forgive her more conservative positions because, in their minds, she is saying such things only to make herself "electable." It's a strategy so elegant that even Karl Rove would have to smile in appreciation.

Barney Frank profile in The Boston Globe

2005-10-02T11:52:00.000-04:00

The Boston Globe Magazine cover story today is about Barney Frank, my representative.

Yikes!

2005-09-29T12:21:00.000-04:00

Roberts confirmed.

Corruption allegations and GOP woes

2005-09-29T08:41:00.000-04:00

Salon: The Hammer falls. "It isn't just Tom DeLay. The vast corrupt money machine that funded the Republican Revolution is exploding before our eyes"

Washington Post: "Troubled year gets worse for the GOP"

Washington Post: "Frist denies wrongdoing in stock sale"

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government (CREW) lists the thirteen most corrupt in Congress:

The 13 members of Congress recommended for investigation by the watchdog group are:

• Sen. Bill Frist: The report accuses him of violating federal campaign finance laws in how he disclosed a campaign loan. It also calls for an inquiry over his recent sale of stock in HCA Inc., his family's hospital corporation. The sale has raised questions about possible insider dealing. Frist aides confirmed Friday that the SEC was investigating. They have denied claims of campaign finance violations.

• Rep. Roy Blunt: The report criticizes him for trying to insert provisions into bills that would have benefited, in one case, a client of his lobbyist son and in another case, the employer of his lobbyist girlfriend, now his wife.

• Sen. Conrad Burns: The report says that questions arose over $3 million in appropriations he earmarked for an Indian tribe in Michigan that was a client of lobbyist Abramoff. The senator received substantial campaign contributions from Abramoff and various clients.

"Sen. Burns did nothing wrong, and any accusation to the contrary is pure politics," said James Pendleton, his director of communications. He said Burns had earmarked the appropriation at the request of the Michigan congressional delegation.

• Rep. Bob Ney: The report says the chairman of the House Administration Committee went on a golf outing to Scotland in 2002, arranged by Abramoff, at a time when the congressman was trying to insert a provision into legislation to benefit one of Abramoff's tribal clients.

Ney reported to the House that the trip was paid for entirely by the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank, which denied paying any of the costs. Ney has said he had been duped by Abramoff.

• Rep. Tom Feeney: The report says he incorrectly reported that a golf trip to Scotland with Abramoff in 2003 was paid for by the National Center for Public Policy Research, which denied it. A Feeney aide said the congressman had been misled. Questions also have arisen about two other privately funded trips.

• Rep. Richard W. Pombo: He paid his wife and brother $357,325 in campaign funds in the last four years, the report says. He also supported the wind-power industry before the Department of Interior without disclosing that his parents received hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties from wind-power turbines on their ranch.

Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for Pombo, said that "each of the charges is baseless." He called the watchdog group "a Democratic attack group, and all of their charges should be taken with a grain of salt."

• Rep. Maxine Waters: The report cites a December 2004 Los Angeles Times investigation disclosing how members of the congresswoman's family have made more than $1 million in the last eight years by doing business with companies, candidates and causes that Waters has helped. Before publication of the Times investigation last year, Waters declined to be interviewed, but said of her family members: "They do their business, and I do mine."

• Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.): The report says he encountered controversy over disclosures that Pennsylvania taxpayers paid for his children's schooling while they lived in Virginia. Santorum maintained he did nothing wrong, and has pulled his children out of the school, according to reports.

• Reps. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and William J. Jefferson: Both congressional veterans are under federal investigation.

Cunningham, who has announced that he will not run for reelection, faces questions over his dealings with a defense contractor who allegedly overpaid him when he purchased Cunningham's house. Jefferson is under scrutiny for his role in an overseas business deal. Normally the House ethics committee does not hold inquiries while criminal investigations are underway.

• Rep. Charles H. Taylor (R-N.C.): The report says that questions have been raised about his private business interests, including a savings and loan in Asheville, N.C., and personal business interests in Russia.

• Rep. Marilyn N. Musgrave (R-Colo.) and Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.): Both second-term House members encountered criticisms tied to campaign activities, the report says.

Musgrave was accused of misusing her congressional office for campaign purposes. Renzi was accused of financing portions of his 2002 campaign with improper loans.

Newsflash: Poverty makes it hard to eat well

2005-09-28T06:12:00.000-04:00

Gee, who would have guessed? It's harder to eat healthy when you're struggling to get by:

[T]he foods on the government's new food pyramid are too expensive. Boxed macaroni and cheese costs less than a dollar to feed the whole family; a fresh chicken breast and steamed vegetables cost about $2.60.
...

Fast food restaurants are more common in their neighborhoods than fresh produce markets. Many parents, sometimes working two jobs, don't have the time to cook healthy meals. And fresh food is more costly.

"Energy-dense foods rich in starch, sugar or fat are the cheapest option for the consumer," said Adam Drewnowski, director of the Center for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Washington. "As long as the healthier lean meats, fish and fresh produce are more expensive, obesity will continue to be a problem for the working poor."

Hurricane Cruise?

2005-09-28T06:03:00.000-04:00

FEMA's lack of preparation is allegedly costing taxpayers millions to pay for half-empty cruise ships:

On Sept. 1, as tens of thousands of desperate Louisianans packed the New Orleans Superdome and convention center, the Federal Emergency Management Agency pleaded with the U.S. Military Sealift Command: The government needed 10,000 berths on full-service cruise ships, FEMA said, and it needed the deal done by noon the next day.

The hasty appeal yielded one of the most controversial contracts of the Hurricane Katrina relief operation, a $236 million agreement with Carnival Cruise Lines for three ships that now bob more than half empty in the Mississippi River and Mobile Bay. The six-month contract -- staunchly defended by Carnival but castigated by politicians from both parties -- has come to exemplify the cost of haste that followed Katrina's strike and FEMA's lack of preparation...

The Carnival deal is only one of several instances in which a lack of FEMA preparation may have left federal taxpayers with an outsized bill. Despite its experiences with last year's busy hurricane season, FEMA found itself without standing contracts for standard relief items such as blue tarps to cover damaged roofs, according to Thomas A. Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste.

Rage and despair

2005-09-27T20:27:00.000-04:00

A reader writes to Cary Tennis about rage at the system.

The sense of disorientation that [Jonathan Raban in the New York Review of Books] describes strikes me as central to what many of us are feeling: It is not so much that we disagree with specific policies as that, as he puts it, someone keeps rearranging the furniture. It would be tempting, if also paranoid, to consider us as the victims of a kind of shock-and-awe campaign, orchestrated not with bombs but with media and a planned concatenation of events, a bombardment from all sides on all our privileges and freedoms, beliefs and assumptions, wholly ideological in its content but military in its precision and its strategic concentration of force. The purpose of such an assault would be not just to win a series of individual battles but to systematically demoralize and disorient the left so that it becomes ineffective for a generation or two to come. After all, a confused and enraged enemy without a plan is a weak enemy indeed. The fact that we increasingly wander alone in the night, dumbly wanting only to club somebody with a stick, is evidence that, intentional or not, such a strategy seems to be working.

Pigs fly: Bush calls for conservation

2005-09-26T16:41:00.000-04:00

In the wake of the hurricanes, GWB said something surprising:

[Bush] called on Americans to 'pitch in' and conserve gas by reducing non-essential travel, teaming up in carpools and using mass transit.

Of course, the motivation for this seemingly miraculous statement isn't saving the planet, but just keeping oil prices down. He may even tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for that purpose.

It was too good to be true.

Another front in the evolution wars: museums

2005-09-20T13:30:00.000-04:00

This is how museums are fighting back against the attacks of the anti-evolutionists.

Nobel Laureates urge Kansas to reject I.D.

2005-09-18T09:44:00.000-04:00

Salon.com Wire Story

One doctor's account

2005-09-18T06:45:00.000-04:00

Here's one doctor's account of helping the Katrina victims:

It reminded me of my previous work in field clinics in India and Ethiopia, where, with so few medical resources at hand, the careful listening, the thorough exam, the laying of hands was the therapy. And I felt the same helplessness, knowing that the illness here was inextricably linked to the bigger problem of homelessness, disenfranchisement and despair.

The Case For a 'No' Vote on Roberts

2005-09-17T20:05:00.000-04:00

The Roberts hearings highlight the question of what it means for the Senate to provide "advice and consent" on SCOTUS nominees. Should a nominee commit or pretend to commit to how he or she would rule on specific cases? Certainly not. But surely, the Senate is entitled to know a nominee's view on jurisprudence and his or her past record. On both counts, Roberts is less than forthcoming. No one expects a justice nominated by a conservative administration for approval by a conservative Senate to be liberal, but surely we all must have grounds for understanding how Roberts' politics will influence his rulings (as they do all justices) so as to rest assured that the rule of law will take precedence over dogma should he be confirmed.

Here's what E. J. Dionne Jr of The Washington Post has to say :

But the doubts about Roberts have nothing to do with his good heart. The issue is the power about to be put in his hands and into the hands of President Bush's next appointee -- power both will enjoy for life. The Senate and the public have a right to far more assurance about how Roberts would use that power than they have been given in these hearings. The Senate is under no obligation to give the president or Roberts the benefit of the doubt.

Snapshot of dogma

2005-09-16T08:38:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I wonder that dogmatists don't have a better use of their time. Latest example: the Vatican. Consider two stories from today's New York Times:

Vatican to Check U.S. Seminaries on Gay Presence

Vatican:The Importance of Being an Exorcist (scroll down)

Tackle social problems? Spread understanding? No! Let's scapegoat our problems and distract people with ritual!

Another Katrina Timeline

2005-09-15T06:04:00.000-04:00

This time from Salon.com .

Science, ignored

2005-09-14T06:46:00.000-04:00

Salon's Andrew O'Hehir has a fascinating review of Chris Mooney's new book The Republican War on Science". Well worth a read.

In essence, the Republicans find some fringe "scientist" willing to dispute the scientific establishment in a way that supports their agendas and latch on to that as an excuse to continue their anti-scientific policies. They exploit not only science's refutability (its openness to change when disproven or when a better explanation comes along) but also the desire for certainty in a public increasingly less used to the rigors of science.

What isn't legitimate is for politicians like Inhofe to stage pseudo-scientific show trials, pitting one lonely contrarian against the overwhelming weight of scientific opinion, and then use the scintilla of doubt thereby created as a reason to do nothing about global warming.

In the words of Rep. George Brown, a California Democrat who has been a leading science watchdog on Capitol Hill, congressional Republicans with little or no scientific background seem to have convinced themselves that "scientific truth is more likely to be found at the fringes of science than at the center." This is an ideological or perhaps a theological view, but if science is to have any validity in the formation of public policy, then political leaders must understand and respect the scientific consensus...

Harvard physicist Lewis Branscomb has written that science as an element of democratic governance, formerly "a strong source of unity in the electorate," has been fatally eroded. "Policymaking by ideology requires that reality be set aside," he goes on; "it can be maintained only by moving towards ever more authoritarian forms of government."

Katrina displaces thousands with HIV

2005-09-13T06:30:00.000-04:00

Salon.com Wire Story

America, is this a leader?

2005-09-13T06:13:00.000-04:00

Dan Froomkin of the Post has a round-up of coverage on the administration's handling of Katrina.

Judging from the blistering analyses in Time, Newsweek, and elsewhere these past few days, it turns out that Bush is in fact fidgety, cold and snappish in private. He yells at those who dare give him bad news and is therefore not surprisingly surrounded by an echo chamber of terrified sycophants. He is slow to comprehend concepts that don't emerge from his gut. He is uncomprehending of the speeches that he is given to read. And oh yes, one of his most significant legacies -- the immense post-Sept. 11 reorganization of the federal government which created the Homeland Security Department -- has failed a big test.

Maybe it's Bush's sinking poll numbers -- he is, after all, undeniably an unpopular president now. Maybe it's the way that the federal response to the flood has cut so deeply against Bush's most compelling claim to greatness: His resoluteness when it comes to protecting Americans.

But for whatever reason, critical observations and insights that for so long have been zealously guarded by mainstream journalists, and only doled out in teaspoons if at all, now seem to be flooding into the public sphere.

"Unfit to Wield Power"

2005-09-11T22:29:00.000-04:00

Joe Conason at Salon hits the nail on the head in his opinion piece on what an utter, dismal failure the Bush administration has been.

How Bush Blew It

2005-09-11T22:00:00.000-04:00

Newsweek has a scathing report on how Bush (as well as state and local officials) botched handling Hurricane Katrina

How this could be—how the president of the United States could have even less "situational awareness," as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century—is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace.
...

Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it's mostly a one-way street. Most presidents keep a devil's advocate around. Lyndon Johnson had George Ball on Vietnam; President Ronald Reagan and Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, grudgingly listened to the arguments of Budget Director Richard Darman, who told them what they didn't wish to hear: that they would have to raise taxes. When Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President Bush the plain truth: that the state and local governments had been overwhelmed, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not up to the job and that the military, the only institution with the resources to cope, couldn't act without a declaration from the president overriding all other authority....

Bad news rarely flows up in bureaucracies. For most of those first few days, Bush was hearing what a good job the Feds were doing. Bush likes "metrics," numbers to measure performance, so the bureaucrats gave him reassuring statistics. At a press availability on Wednesday, Bush duly rattled them off: there were 400 trucks transporting 5.4 million meals and 13.4 million liters of water along with 3.4 million pounds of ice. Yet it was obvious to anyone watching TV that New Orleans had turned into a Third World hellhole.

AMERICAblog has a summary of this article.

Taking Stock of the Forever War

2005-09-11T16:40:00.000-04:00

The New York Times Magazine looks back on the past four years and the War on Terror.

Rehnquist's legacy

2005-09-10T13:43:00.000-04:00

Derrick Jackson of The Boston Globe talks about Rehnquist's achievements--- nothing to be proud of.

Establishment winks at Rehnquist's addiction

2005-09-10T12:50:00.000-04:00

Interesting Slate article on Chief Justice Rehnquist's drug habit:

The Rehnquist story deserves a third airing today if only to illustrate the ugly double standards that excuse extreme drug use by the powerful, especially if their connection is a prescribing doctor, and condemns to draconian prison terms the guy who purchases his drugs on the street.
Reviewing Rehnquist's tale one more time also demonstrates the reluctance of the Senate—and some members of the press—to grade the mental competency of judges and judicial nominees.

Brown lied on his resume

2005-09-09T21:11:00.000-04:00

So the Bush White House, concerned as it is with national security and violating everyone's rights with the Patriot Act, cannot verify a resume while TIME magazine can? See, it turns out that the resume of Michael D. Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is chock-full of lies.

Does anyone doubt that the White House gives a rat's ass about national security? It's all about cronyism and getting rich, under pretext of moral values, compassionate conservatism, and a war for righteousness that can conveniently be used to distract the masses.

This is sickening.

Due process falls prey to the war on terror

2005-09-09T21:01:00.000-04:00

The US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled in the Padilla case that the U.S. can indefinitely detain citizens in wartime.

Ye gods.

Katrina Timeline

2005-09-08T13:20:00.000-04:00

Think Progress brings us the Katrina Timeline.

Wikipedia also has a timeline.

Censoring tragedy and incompetence

2005-09-08T06:33:00.000-04:00

FEMA refusing to allow photographers to take pictures.

Heard of Hurricane Pam?

2005-09-07T15:21:00.000-04:00

Hurricane Pam was a 2004 simulation of what would happen if a real hurricane struck New Orleans.

View from abroad: the soul of America

2005-09-06T06:54:00.000-04:00

Commentary from The Independent

Barbara Bush: Things Working Out 'Very Well' for Poor Evacuees from New Orleans

2005-09-06T06:52:00.000-04:00

Wow.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist Dies

2005-09-04T07:47:00.000-04:00

Condolences to Rehnquist's family. What does two SCOTUS vacancies mean for the future of America? With Bush in office, I shudder to think.

Newscasters lambast the government

2005-09-03T09:10:00.000-04:00

Is a catastrophe what it takes to wake America up?

Govt disconnect--- or is it propaganda?

2005-09-03T09:00:00.000-04:00

CNN documents discrepancies between the official line about how things are going, and reports from the trenches.

For a while, watching this administration has felt like living in Orwell's 1984. I'm glad a MSM outlet is finally highlighting reality.

Interactive map, pics of devastation

2005-09-03T08:49:00.000-04:00

Fundies blame hurricane on sin

2005-09-03T00:51:00.000-04:00

They're at it yet again. Read this report from AMERICAblog.

[Rev. Shanks of the New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans] explains that for years he has warned people that unless Christians in New Orleans took a strong stand against such things as local abortion clinics, the yearly Mardi Gras celebrations, and the annual event known as "Southern Decadence" -- an annual six-day "gay pride" event scheduled to be hosted by the city this week -- God's judgment would be felt.

“New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again."

Gee, I predict some day there will another airplane crash and it will be Allah's judgement on the right-wingers on board. Wow, look at me, I'm a prophet!

What a nutcase. Your merciful(!) god also wiped out all the people you would consider righteous. Or pardon me, do all the poor refugees not qualify?

Krugman on gov't response

2005-09-02T06:56:00.000-04:00

Krugman of The New York Times raisesrelevant points. He concludes:

Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk.

So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it makes those excuses, Americans are dying.

Government response to Katrina

2005-09-01T21:54:00.000-04:00

AMERICAblog has an excellent compilation of articles on the response to Katrina. I link to their posts here for convenience.

Inadequate response

Lautenberg blasts Bush

NY Times Commentary

Commentary

Disaster was foreseen

Military sends troops 4 days after catastrophe

US refusing Canadian aid . And Jamaican aid as well.

CNN's Cafferty blasts Bush

Cluelessness

Department of Homeland Security: National Preparedness Month

HHS: Go to 9/11 party

Condi Rice enjoying Broadway, shopping. And tennis .

Shirking Responsibility

Gov. Barbour lies on TV

"Looting" vs "finding"

2005-09-01T11:05:00.000-04:00

Is there racial bias in the AP photo captions?

"Waiting for a Leader"

2005-09-01T06:08:00.000-04:00

So says The New York Times:

Sacrifices may be necessary to make sure that all these [hurricane recovery efforts] happen in an orderly, efficient way. But this administration has never been one to counsel sacrifice. And nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis.

Top DoJ priority: prosecuting adult porn

2005-08-31T20:48:00.000-04:00

Forget terrorism, corruption, and blown CIA covers. The top enforcement priority in the Bush/Gonzales Department of Justice is prosecuting consensual adult porn.

How patriotic.

People pay for government inaction as fat cats get rich

2005-08-31T17:22:00.000-04:00

Here's a thought:

The administration knew that a hurricane battering New Orleans was a pending catastrophe of national significance, yet it cut hurricane and flood funds.

Bush and his cronies embarked on an oil war in Iraq that will help them get rich(er). Their actions took away National Guard units from their home posts, where they are needed now.

While Louisiana will now get some relief and emergency funds from the feds, common folks are driven by basic decency to pitch in their own money to aid their fellow citizens.

Net result: the rich get richer, the government spends more, regular folks dig into their own pockets.

What we see here is not only plutocrats' self-interest at the expense of community, but also a very common, very human, and very short-sighted tendency to put present self-interest ahead of long term common benefits. Other political examples of this abound:

Propping up dictators to serve moneyed interests or short term political goals, who then proceed to limit human rights and whose regimes later need to be deposed when the political winds change

Destroying the environment (whether it's furthering our dependence on oil or opening up national parks to destructive private activites), when we will have to live with the costly consequences of clean-up, health care, and worse quality of life

Refusing to embark on large-scale social programs to improve quality of life and thus reduce crime, opting instead to prosecute and jail people, at huge expense, once they've committed crimes

Pandering to special interests and dogmatic agendas by refusing to provide much needed sex education or facilitate birth control, thus increasing the demand for abortion and adoptions, much more expensive and disruptive propositions

etc., etc.

Where are all those "moral values" I keep hearing about?

Warning unheeded, America unprepared

2005-08-31T13:54:00.000-04:00

Bush was warned about the threat of a hurricane wiping out New Orleans. His response? Cutting funding for flood and hurricane projects.

Meanwhile, Bush pursues an oil war that drains our manpower to deal with domestic emergencies.

Bush. He really cares.

Hurricane as punishment

2005-08-31T13:50:00.000-04:00

Recall that Jerry Falwell blamed 9/11 on abortionists, gays, pagans, and feminists?

Well, I was wondering how long it would take for some fanatic to invoke God's punishment as a reason for Katrina's damage. This time, Columbia Christians for Life say it's abortion. Repent America differs and blames it on gays.

Hmmm, if this "God of love" and "Saviour" is so intent on punishing America, maybe it's judgement for our war on Iraq. Just a thought...

Destroying the National Parks

2005-08-31T06:21:00.000-04:00

This New York Times editorial talks about a draft document circulating at the Interior Department, drafted by Bush political appointtee Paul Hoffman without consultation with the National Park Service, which would make it harder to prove commercial activity presents an "impairment" of the parks' resources:

Mr. Hoffman's rewrite would open up nearly every park in the nation to off-road vehicles, snowmobiles and Jet Skis. According to his revision, the use of such vehicles would become one of the parks' purposes. To accommodate such activities, he redefines impairment to mean an irreversible impact. To prove that an activity is impairing the parks, under Mr. Hoffman's rules, you would have to prove that it is doing so irreversibly - a very high standard of proof. This would have a genuinely erosive effect on the standards used to protect the national parks.
..

There are other issues too. Mr. Hoffman would explicitly allow the sale of religious merchandise, and he removes from the policy document any reference to evolution or evolutionary processes. He does everything possible to strip away a scientific basis for park management. His rules would essentially require park superintendents to subordinate the management of their parks to local and state agendas. He also envisions a much wider range of commercial activity within the parks.

Ill-equipped, ill-willed for disaster at home

2005-08-30T21:30:00.000-04:00

Bush has activated many National Guard units for his war in Iraq. That means over 6000 Guard units are unavailable to deal with Hurricane Katrina. To make matters worse, he also dispatched amphibious vehicles to the desert-- where they may have contributed to troop deaths.

But at least now, Bush is cutting his vacation short. Never mind that it's a few days after what was expected and proved to be one of the nation's worst natural disasters struck.

How patriotic of him.

The Hoax of "Intelligent Design"

2005-08-30T15:26:00.000-04:00

Daniel C. Dennet offers an excellent critique of "Intelligent Design.". Not only does he describe how evolution could indeed come up with the observable complexity in the biological world around us, but he also hits the nail right on the head as to why ID claims are not science:

To formulate a competing hypothesis, you have to get down in the trenches and offer details that have testable implications. So far, intelligent design proponents have conveniently sidestepped that requirement, claiming that they have no specifics in mind about who or what the intelligent designer might be.

Air Force issues guidelines on religion

2005-08-30T13:33:00.000-04:00

The Air Force issued guidelines encouraging non-endorsement of religion. A good first step, perhaps, but they remain just guidelines with no real teeth.

Evangelicals taking over the military?

2005-08-30T11:23:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post reports on the rising number of evangelical preachers who pray in a non-inclusive way. They see pluralism as a bad thing.

Does the military really need chaplains? If so, how should they fairly serve all the faiths that make up America?

Intelligent Falling

2005-08-30T08:31:00.000-04:00

What if we secular physicists were wrong?

I got this from Pharyngula, which seems to contain interesting biology-related posts.

What computers teach us about evolution

2005-08-29T22:03:00.000-04:00

Lee Spector talks about genetic programming and how complexity can arise from simple ingredients.

Who designed the Designer?

2005-08-29T22:00:00.000-04:00

Marcelo Geiser of Dartmouth College speaks out about "Intelligent Design."

Ask Roberts about the Church

2005-08-03T06:52:00.000-04:00

Catholic Justice - Quit tiptoeing around John Roberts' faith. By Christopher Hitchens

Bush: faith trumps evidence

2005-08-03T06:39:00.000-04:00

The Man Who Lied to Get Us Into a War and Who Speaks With God endorsed intelligent design yesterday:

"Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about," [Bush] said, according to an official transcript of the session.

Mr Bush, there is no debate. One side is dogma: you base it on a text that has been passed down for thousands of years, and you accept it on faith whether or not the physical evidence supports it; it is a framework where the facts must be made to conform to the explanation at all costs. The other side is science: it is an explanation founded on the observed evidence and based on a thought process that anyone can duplicate and challenge; it is a framework that is ready to adapt or even abandon a theory if it doesn't fit the facts. See the difference? There can't even be a debate, simply because those who base their beliefs on the matter on faith are not going to be swayed by any amount of physical evidence.

The dangers of Bush's words are obvious:

"With the president endorsing it, at the very least it makes Americans who have that position more respectable, for lack of a better phrase," said Gary L. Bauer, a Christian conservative leader who ran for president against Bush in the 2000 Republican primaries. "It's not some backwater view. It's a view held by the majority of Americans."

Actually, Mr. Bauer, reality is not a popularity contest. If 90% or 100% of the people thought the earth was flat, it would not make it so. Even if they read it in a religious text.

Should it surprise us that Mr. Faith-Based-President has this view? Once again, who dragged us into a war on Iraq on the pretext of fighting terrorism, even though there is and was no evidence of an Iraq/al-Qaida link at that time? Who expresses his full support for Karl Rove in spite of the evidence of questionable judgment (at best) and knowingly endangering national intelligence (at worst)?

18 years removed from life

2005-08-02T06:29:00.000-04:00

The system is so not perfect. Why do people have such faith in the death penalty, say? Here's a report on a man wrongly imprisoned for 18 years, denied parole because he wouldn't "take responsibility" for the crime. Here's the part that makes me angry (emphasis added):

Prosecutors originally opposed DNA testing for Doswell, but a judge ordered it. When the tests came back last month showing that semen taken from the victim was not from Doswell, prosecutors filed motions to vacate his sentence and release him.

The President should apologize

2005-08-01T15:29:00.000-04:00

So says a Reaganite conservative.

Indoctrination: coming to a public school near you

2005-08-01T07:11:00.000-04:00

An elective Bible course appears to be a thinly-veiled attempt to propagate dogma at the expense of science:

Some of the claims made in the national council's curriculum are laughable, said Mark A. Chancey, professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who spent seven weeks studying the syllabus for the freedom network. Mr. Chancey said he found it "riddled with errors" of facts, dates, definitions and incorrect spellings. It cites supposed NASA findings to suggest that the earth stopped twice in its orbit, in support of the literal truth of the biblical text that the sun stood still in Joshua and II Kings.

Science in support of a cause

2005-07-31T21:34:00.000-04:00

Scientific rigor is giving way to personal agendas. This is disturbing.

Dubbed by Dubya

2005-07-29T06:57:00.000-04:00

I stumbled across a nicknaming contest for Judge roberts in Slate, and that led me to this February 12, 2001 article by Garry Trudeau on GWB's use of nicknames as a means to establish his dominance over subordinates:

Moreover, the nicknaming transaction is unilateral, thereby maintaining hierarchical order. Despite the ubiquity of his own countrified nickname in the media, Dubya has never been commonly used in Bush's presence. Even calling the President by his first name seems an unlikely response from Freddy Boy or Big George, who have no choice but to either endure the folksy nomenclature or, putting the best face on it, play into the implied closeness, as if the President and they go way, way back to the sandlots of Midland.

Forgetting History

2005-07-28T06:26:00.000-04:00

Here's a column by David S. Broder at The Washington Post on our increasing ignorance of history.

Strange bedfellows

2005-07-24T11:08:00.000-04:00

The New York Times Magazine features an article about Yechiel Eckstein, an orthodox rabbi who courts Christian evangelicals for support for pro-Israeli causes. He maintains that the evangelicals support Israel out of the goodness of their hearts and because the Bible tells them to.

''I'm a nonevangelical defender of evangelicals,'' [Eckstein] said. ''Jews have such a cynical, negative view of these people. There are all sorts of crazy conspiracy theories out there about how evangelicals only support Israel to bring on Armageddon or because they want to convert the Jews to Christianity. That's just not true. You saw the people there today,'' he said, pointing backward, toward a rapidly receding Indiana. ''They're not religious fanatics, and they don't have ulterior motives. These are good, religious people who love Israel and want to help. What's the matter with that?''

Interestingly, the recently-hired (and since fired) vice president for programming Sandy Rios (whose previous credentials include the presidency of Concerned Women for America), belied that assertion:

''You know,'' she said, ''the truth is, Christians do want to convert Jews....Not by some bait-and-switch trick. But we believe it's part of God's plan.'' Eckstein winced the way he had when Pastor Munsey called him a born-again Christian.

''Anyway,'' Rios said, ''we love Jews, notwithstanding their rudeness and hatred for us.''

Roberts reserved on his politics

2005-07-24T00:46:00.000-04:00

This Washington Post report suggests Roberts may, possibly, not be a dogmatic conservative. Certainly, he is an accomplished jurist who has kept his personal politics close to his heart.

CIA Leak Investigation Turns to Possible Perjury, Obstruction

2005-07-23T08:37:00.000-04:00

From the LA Times:

WASHINGTON — The special prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation has shifted his focus from determining whether White House officials violated a law against exposing undercover agents to determining whether evidence exists to bring perjury or obstruction of justice charges, according to people briefed in recent days on the inquiry's status.

Ex-CIA Officers Rip Bush Over Rove Leak

2005-07-23T08:35:00.000-04:00

From the AP via the WP:

WASHINGTON -- Former U.S. intelligence officers criticized President Bush on Friday for not disciplining Karl Rove in connection with the leak of the name of a CIA officer, saying Bush's lack of action has jeopardized national security.