22 Fanatics

Here’s a handy list of the 22 fanatics who voted against John Roberts: Akaka (D-HI) Bayh (D-IN) Biden (D-DE) Boxer (D-CA) Cantwell (D-WA) Clinton (D-NY) Corzine (D-NJ) Dayton (D-MN) Durbin (D-IL) Feinstein (D-CA) Harkin (D-IA) Inouye (D-HI) Kennedy (D-MA) Kerry (D-MA) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Mikulski (D-MD) Obama (D-IL) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Sarbanes (D-MD) Schumer (D-NY) … Continue reading “22 Fanatics”

Here’s a handy list of the 22 fanatics who voted against John Roberts:

Akaka (D-HI)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Boxer (D-CA)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Corzine (D-NJ)
Dayton (D-MN)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)

Given that Ginsburg was confirmed with 98 votes, this is really a disgrace to the Democratic Party.

Don’t let the terrorists win

Roger Simon is taking on the Intelligent Design fanatics. Students in Dover, Pennsylvania and other rural areas are just as entitled to a real education as those in Los Angeles and New York. In fact the country needs them to have it, especially in science and math. And in the case of public education, it … Continue reading “Don’t let the terrorists win”

Roger Simon is taking on the Intelligent Design fanatics.

Students in Dover, Pennsylvania and other rural areas are just as entitled to a real education as those in Los Angeles and New York. In fact the country needs them to have it, especially in science and math. And in the case of public education, it is not in our interest to waste precious taxpayer dollars teaching mythology in biology.

I’m glad to see him taking on this issue. We Americans are tolerant people, so we’re inclined to say “what’s the harm?” and accede to angry mobs trying to introduce crazy ideas like ID into the school curriculum. We’ve done this sort of misplaced tolerance thing about a thousand times, and the result is a dysfunctional education system where kids seem to spend more time undergoing therapy than learning science and the liberal arts.

I think we have to call a spade a spade: ID isn’t an alternative scientific theory, or an alternative philosophy of science, it’s a piece of bad theology masquerading as science. I’ve studied its origins at the Discovery Institute and come away convinced that it’s more than anything an attempt to circumvent court decisions banning creationism by dressing creationism up in pseudo-scientific language.

Science attempts to uncover laws of nature than can be used to make predictions. Pursuing this path, we’ve learned that genes mutate randomly, and that successful mutations survive, especially when environmental changes make previous adaptations less successful. This is a valuable discovery that has practical applications in the understanding of disease, the breeding of plants and animals, and in the search for previously unknown life forms. ID destroys the rules, asserting that each life form was produced by divine whim so there’s no sense in trying to understand genetics, variation, selection, or mutation; in fact, it ultimately condemns biological science as an act of hubris, an affront to god. We don’t need anti-scientific interests directing science education in the USA.

It’s interesting to note that ID is very popular among Islamists – I don’t have the reference handy, but there was a poll that indicated overwhelming support for it among fundamentalist Muslim, even more than among fundy Christians.

That being the case, we should understand that if we teach ID in our science classes, the terrorists will have won, and the same goes for other pseudo-science doctrines such as the “AZT causes AIDS” and “Ebonics is a language” notions floated notoriously in the blogosphere.

See Cathy Young for more.

Dem coloreds shaw be crazy

The latest excuse for the Katrina media riot is all about race: Times-Picayune Editor Jim Amoss cited telephone breakdowns as a primary cause of reporting errors, but said the fact that most evacuees were poor African Americans also played a part. “If the dome and Convention Center had harbored large numbers of middle class white … Continue reading “Dem coloreds shaw be crazy”

The latest excuse for the Katrina media riot is all about race:

Times-Picayune Editor Jim Amoss cited telephone breakdowns as a primary cause of reporting errors, but said the fact that most evacuees were poor African Americans also played a part.

“If the dome and Convention Center had harbored large numbers of middle class white people,” Amoss said, “it would not have been a fertile ground for this kind of rumor-mongering.”

As I live in a part of country bereft of black people (Pacific Northwest) I can’t comment on this except to say it strikes me as rather remarkable. I mean, this guy works for a newspaper that can’t tell what’s happening right before its eyes, yet he feels competent to analyze an alternate reality that doesn’t even exist?

Oh, I forgot, “facts are commodities, we want lessons to live by.”

Jamaican Coalition may lead Germany

The inconclusive German election was thrown that poor country into chaos: At the moment no party has an overall majority in the new parliament – with the CDU on 225 seats, the SPD on 222, the FDP on 61, the Left party on 54, and the Greens on 51. The only way for either Merkel … Continue reading “Jamaican Coalition may lead Germany”

The inconclusive German election was thrown that poor country into chaos:

At the moment no party has an overall majority in the new parliament – with the CDU on 225 seats, the SPD on 222, the FDP on 61, the Left party on 54, and the Greens on 51. The only way for either Merkel or Schröder to govern is at the head of a coalition. The problem is: which coalition? The FDP’s Guido Westerwelle has ruled out doing a deal with Mr Schröder; Mr Schröder has ruled out forming a ‘grand coalition’ with the CDU under Mrs Merkel; and everybody has ruled out doing a deal with the new Left Party.

Based on those exclusions, the only remaining option that gets a majority of the seats is the so-called Jamaican Coalition of the CDU, FDP, and Greens (black, yellow, and green like the Jamaican flag). They’re going to have to settle the fate of Germany’s nukes, where the smart bet is to build more with better technology to keep the air clean and all that. The Greens in many countries are anti-immigration and reactionary on a host of issues, so it’s not as far fetched as it might be for them to be allied with capitalists, at least for the power-grabbing aspect of it.

A minority government is also possible, but in any case it appears to me that Schroeder is toast.

On the other hand, the analysis I quoted comes from The Grauniad, so there’s likely a bit of self-deception involved in it, if not outright spin. Ideologically, the CDU has more in common with the SPD (Schroeder’s party) than with the Greens, so the Grand Coalition is the combination most likely to prevail if the decision is to be made on anything but a bare-knuckle politics basis. The CDU would then drag the SPD to the right, and the FDP would be included for their partnership in the next election, so Germany would be able to modernize its labor and environmental laws without too much trouble.

Too Much Confusion, Can’t Get No Relief

Liberals are confused about John Roberts: the New York Times is against him and the Washington Post is for him. Germans are confused about who should lead their country, slightly more favorable to Angela Merkel than discredited buffoon Gerhard Schroeder, but not enough to give her a mandate. Do you believe North Korea is out … Continue reading “Too Much Confusion, Can’t Get No Relief”

Liberals are confused about John Roberts: the New York Times is against him and the Washington Post is for him.

Germans are confused about who should lead their country, slightly more favorable to Angela Merkel than discredited buffoon Gerhard Schroeder, but not enough to give her a mandate.

Do you believe North Korea is out of the nuke business? I don’t.

World Oil Supply

Will we ever run out of oil? Probably not, but that’s not necessarily a source of comfort: Will the world ever physically run out of crude oil? No, but only because it will eventually become very expensive in absence of lower-cost alternatives. When will worldwide production of conventionally reservoired crude oil peak? That will in … Continue reading “World Oil Supply”

Will we ever run out of oil? Probably not, but that’s not necessarily a source of comfort:

Will the world ever physically run out of crude oil? No, but only because it will eventually become very expensive in absence of lower-cost alternatives. When will worldwide production of conventionally reservoired crude oil peak? That will in part depend on the rate of demand growth, which is subject to reduction via both technological advancements in petroleum product usage such as hybrid-powered automobiles and the substitution of new energy source technologies such as hydrogen-fed fuel cells where the hydrogen is obtained, for example, from natural gas, other hydrogen-rich organic compounds, or electrolysis of water. It will also depend in part on the rate at which technological advancement, operating in concert with world oil market economics, accelerates large-scale development of unconventional sources of crude such as tar sands and very heavy oils. Production from some of the Canadian tar sands and Venezuelan heavy oil deposits is already economic and growing.

In any event, the world production peak for conventionally reservoired crude is unlikely to be “right around the corner” as so many other estimators have been predicting. Our analysis shows that it will be closer to the middle of the 21st century than to its beginning. Given the long lead times required for significant mass-market penetration of new energy technologies, this result in no way justifpenetration of new energy technologies, this result in no way justifies complacency about both supply-side and demand-side research and development.

Get humping.

Silicon Valley still sucks

No recovery in Silicon Valley so far: Employers in Santa Clara and San Benito counties added 200 jobs to their payrolls in August. But compared to a year ago, Silicon Valley has 2,400 fewer jobs, a decrease of 0.3 percent. Economists say the annual comparison is more important than the monthly one, which is easily … Continue reading “Silicon Valley still sucks”

No recovery in Silicon Valley so far:

Employers in Santa Clara and San Benito counties added 200 jobs to their payrolls in August. But compared to a year ago, Silicon Valley has 2,400 fewer jobs, a decrease of 0.3 percent. Economists say the annual comparison is more important than the monthly one, which is easily swayed by seasonal shifts in employment. And for the past five months, the year-over-year changes has stayed fairly close to zero, wavering on either side of it.

But the stock-scammers are still active:

EBay Inc. said it agreed to acquire Internet-calling start-up Skype Technologies SA for about $2.6 billion in cash and stock, posing a new threat to phone companies and expanding the online-auction company’s revenue sources.

Somebody’s smoking drugs at EBay.

Little government worked

Big government certainly failed in New Orleans: the levees weren’t in good shape, the evacuation was a disaster, the Red Cross was not permitted to feed the hungry, and FEMA didn’t perform the miracle of driving upon water. But there were some little-heralded successes that have escaped the notice of our rioting media establishment: Meanwhile … Continue reading “Little government worked”

Big government certainly failed in New Orleans: the levees weren’t in good shape, the evacuation was a disaster, the Red Cross was not permitted to feed the hungry, and FEMA didn’t perform the miracle of driving upon water. But there were some little-heralded successes that have escaped the notice of our rioting media establishment:

Meanwhile the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, claimed 20,000 rescues by Sept. 8 at which point it suspended calls for more volunteers and boats. While it is unclear how many of these rescues took place in the critical time frame, the only mention of this staggering achievement came in the Sept. 8 press release. How many national reporters thought to call the Wildlife department, or even thought it was a go-to agency?

By the time these stories come out, will the people still be paying attention?

Vint Cerf on the future of the Internet

I don’t know about this stuff: A couple of things are pretty clear: One of is that what we call broadband today isn’t going to be broadband tomorrow. It’s not just a matter of speed; it’s a matter of symmetry. A lot of the broadband services are asymmetric, which means you can’t do things you … Continue reading “Vint Cerf on the future of the Internet”

I don’t know about this stuff:

A couple of things are pretty clear: One of is that what we call broadband today isn’t going to be broadband tomorrow. It’s not just a matter of speed; it’s a matter of symmetry. A lot of the broadband services are asymmetric, which means you can’t do things you might want to do. If you look at BitTorrent, which is one of today’s most popular and demanding applications for exchanging large files, you’ll see that it’s symmetric in its use of the network.

BitTorrent is mainly used for theft of copyright material, so I’m not completely convinced that it legitimately demands a re-wiring of America.