The Importance of Being Reality-Based

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Friday June 24, 2005 · 2:27 PM PDT

2005/06/24 · 14:27

Kevin Drum today links to this article in the LA Times in which the author explains how corporations and the Bush administration, when faced with unfavorable scientific data, attempt to create doubt in the minds of the public about how valid or conclusive the data is:

An official at Brown & Williamson, a cigarette maker now owned by R.J. Reynolds, once noted in a memo: "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the mind of the general public."

...

Among themselves, these product-defense lobbyists and their clients make no secret of what they're doing. Republican political consultant Frank Luntz wrote in a memo, later leaked to the press: "The scientific debate remains open.... Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly."

The objective of this strategy is to create inaction. But they don't stop with science. Read More

"The Bell Curve" Lives

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Wednesday June 08, 2005 · 1:45 PM PDT

2005/06/08 · 13:45

I recently began reading "Measured Lies, The Bell Curve Examined", a response published in 1996 to Richard Herrnstein & Charles Murray's infamous book. Written by a group of educators and social theorists, Measured Lies dissects and destroys The Bell Curve's arguments while exposing the racism at it's core. I found particularly interesting the explanation of how The Bell Curve fits into the context of the conservative cultural and political movement; it's purpose was to provide pseudo-scientific justification for the dismantling of social democratic programs in order to "undermine the educational and economic mobility of the non-white and the poor" (and to solidify the social standing of the dominant - i.e. rich, white - cultural class). As the authors conclude in their introduction, it "is the social blueprint for the Fascist future." Scary stuff, if old hat to most of us here on Daily Kos.

More below the fold... Read More

Fair and Balanced Science

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Friday March 18, 2005 · 7:13 AM PST

2005/03/18 · 07:13

In this month's issue of Scientific American, the editors announce that they have finally given in to their critics' demands and will no longer continue their politically biased reporting on issues such as global warming and evolution. Formerly proud members of the reality-based community, Scientific American now enters a new realm - the world of fair and balanced reporting.

More below the fold... Read More

Fallujah Me Twice...

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Monday December 06, 2004 · 10:46 AM PST

2004/12/06 · 10:46

Even as the U.S. media moves on to coverage of insurgent activities in Mosul and Baghdad, reports are coming out that suggest that Fallujah is not even nominally under the control of the U.S. military. This morning it was reported that the Iraqi Red Crescent is pulling out of Fallujah, after waiting weeks to get in to deliver humanitarian assistance, due to unsafe conditions:

"Multinational forces asked the IRC to withdraw from Fallujah for security reasons and until further notice," the organisation's spokeswoman Ferdus Al Ibadi told AFP.

Ms Ibadi, speaking in Baghdad, had said earlier that the agency left of its own free will, but she said she was only informed after the IRC left the city that it had been told to do so by US marines.

The Asia Times Online published an interesting article on December 2nd titled From Guernica to Fallujah (a comparison made right here a week earlier by Avila). This article confirms that the U.S. does not control the city: Read More

Red States Feed at the Trough - another perspective

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Tuesday November 30, 2004 · 1:47 PM PST

2004/11/30 · 13:47

Since the election a lot of anger and indignation has been expressed by liberals over the fact that the "red" states typically take in more in Federal Aid per tax dollar than the "blue" states do. Cries of "cut them off" and suggestions that these states are somehow not voting in their best interests have been widespread.

The data supporting this comes from a recent Tax Foundation report that was summarized here and is illustrated by a map that deliberately mirrors the electoral college map in it's use of the colors blue and red:

This map suggests a strong correlation between voting habits and federal aid per tax dollar. However, I believe that it is as fundamentally misleading as the typical electoral map that shows states won by Kerry as all blue and states won by Bush as all red. Read More

Bush using DM to Challenge Voter Regs

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Friday October 29, 2004 · 8:53 AM PDT

2004/10/29 · 08:53

As discussed elsewhere here on Kos, Greg Palast has reported on the BBC on a new potential vote scandal in Florida:

A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.

Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".

It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.

An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."

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Thursday October 21, 2004 · 9:18 AM PDT

2004/10/21 · 09:18

These days one often hears that, unless you live in a "battleground" state, your vote doesn't really count. For example, Lewis Lapham in the November issue of Harper's, writes

If I lived in Cleveland or Detroit, my vote in the November presidential election might count for something in the eventual result; because I live in New York, it will count for nothing, as pointless as would be my vote for the next president of Uzbekistan or France.

Putting aside Lapham's central argument, which is that the electoral college should be eliminated (I agree), this statement is demonstrably false. Here's why. Read More

Fun Presidential Trivia

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Thursday October 21, 2004 · 7:28 AM PDT

2004/10/21 · 07:28

On re-election:

No president with four letters in their last name served more than one term: James Polk 1845, Howard Taft 1909, Gerald Ford 1974, and George Bush 1989. George W. Bush has four.
No president whose last name began with the letter B was re-elected: Buchanan 1857, and Bush 1989.
The three presidents who failed the first time around to win the popular vote did not return to the White House. In 1828, John Quincy Adams lost to Andrew Jackson. In 1880, Rutherford Hayes, derided as "Rutherfraud'' for his court-mandated victory, did not run for re-election. In 1888, his fellow Ohioan, Benjamin Harrison, won the Electoral College, but not the popular vote. In 1892, Harrison lost both to the Democratic nominee, Grover Cleveland.

Also, note the 20-year curse:

Beginning in 1840, and in each consecutive twenty-year presidential administration through 1960, the incumbent President has died in office. The "Twenty Year Curse" was supposedly cast upon the presidency at the hands of an unknown Indian Chief.

1840 - William Henry Harrison......pneumonia
1860 - Abraham Lincoln......assassination
1880 - James Garfield......assassination
1900 - William McKinley.......assassination
1920 - Warren Harding........heart failure
1940 - Franklin Roosevelt.......cerebral hemorrhage
1960 - John Kennedy.....assassinated

1980 - President Reagan...Although he did not die in office, he was shot and nearly killed by an assassin.
The President was also diagnosed by some as having developed Alzheimer's disease while in office.

Feel free to draw your own conclusions about our current President's prospects based on these historical trends

Falluja Clerics Threaten Nationwide Jihad

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Friday October 15, 2004 · 9:14 AM PDT

2004/10/15 · 09:14

on CNN just now. yep, we're making progress.

Bush's Civil Rights Record

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Friday October 15, 2004 · 8:48 AM PDT

2004/10/15 · 08:48

Civil rights issues have, for some inexplicable reason, been nearly absent from the campaign trail this year. This report, issued by the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in September, 2004, has received scant mention in the media and, to my knowledge, no mention by Kerry/Edwards. However, it's analysis of the Bush Administration's civil rights record is damning and deserves much wider attention. This affects us all! and based on the record over the last four years, we should be very, very concerned... Read More

Flip Flop Catalog

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Friday October 01, 2004 · 1:51 PM PDT

2004/10/01 · 13:51

A very creative person I work with put this together: Flip Flop Catalog

The most important threat - Kerry frames the issue

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Friday October 01, 2004 · 9:17 AM PDT

2004/10/01 · 09:17

I haven't seen any comment here yet on what I considered to be one of Kerry's best moments in last night's debate. When asked by Jim Lehrer what he considered to be the most serious threat to the national security to the United States, Kerry answered "nuclear proliferation". A brilliant answer! Read More

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