A lot of people think George W. Bush is stupid. It’s an understandable mistake: he often acts as though he is. But the truth is worse. . . . → Read More: Let’s have no more talk about Bush’s stupidity
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It should come as little surprise that this administration’s first veto is used to stymie science. The administration has had a bone to pick with any science that brushes up against its own notions of morality and sense of manifest destiny from climate change to evolution to biology in the classroom. . . . → Read More: Vetoing Science… Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has told US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to back off with respect to Israel’s attack on Lebanon. That’s according to Steve Clemons, who writes on foreign policy and has what he describes as reliable sources within the state department. . . . → Read More: Israel to Rice: “Back off.” Rice to Israel: “Okay.” Comparing illegal immigrants to cattle, Congressman Peter King has proposed erecting an electrified fence along the US-Mexico border. King, a Republican from Iowa, made the remarks on the House floor Tuesday. He also brought along a model of his proposed fence, but refrained perhaps due to logistical challenges, from actually electrocuting an illegal immigrant stand-in. . . . → Read More: In which Steve King (R-IA) solves the immigration problem Last Wednesday, Marco Mancini, the head of counterintelligence at SISMI, the Italian military intelligence agency, was arrested for allegedly abetting the CIA’s 2003 kidnap and rendition to Egypt of Muslim cleric Hassan Nasr. . . . → Read More: Startling new developments in Italian CIA kidnapping case Michigan Republican Peter Hoekstra wrote a strong letter in May accusing the White House of concealing intelligence activities from Congress. Hoekstra, who chairs the House intelligence committee and, with Pennsylvania Republican senator Rick Santorum, has accused intelligence czar John Negroponte of downplaying the import of rusty chemical munitions found in Iraq, says that any concealed programs might amount to “a violation of the law.” . . . → Read More: Hoekstra throws a hissy over intelligence briefings President Bush says he has the authority to order people kidnapped, tortured and held forever without charges. Is anything off limits? . . . → Read More: Greenhouse Gasses: Kryptonite To The Unitary Executive A Pentagon investigator says recruiting woes have effectively destroyed a zero-tolerance policy against neo-Nazis in the US military. . . . → Read More: Report: Iraq-related recruiting woes a boon to neo-Nazis One man I respect says that he’d no longer support another one. It’s no fun when your friends start fighting, is it? PZ Myers of Pharyngula, like many good liberals, reacted quite strongly to Barack Obama’s recent speech suggesting that liberals take into account the role of faith in American life. Now I certainly have my own reservations about invoking religion in public debates, as I’ve expressed before (here and here). But those objections are philosophical rather than pragmatic. From the point of view of liberal philosophy, I think that the use of religious justification in political debate is tantamount to theocratic politics. But from the tactical point of view, it makes a lot of sense – in fact it is almost imperative – to speak to the religious sensibilities of America if liberals are going to persuade those who don’t already agree with us. |
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The Enron administration: reality as they wish it to be
An op-ed column in the San Frnacisco Chronicle suggests some close parallels between the respective failures of Enron and George Bush. The fraud that led to Enron’s collapse, according to Alex Epstein, was the outcome of a determined effort to elevate ideology above reality and then to conceal the predictable results of that effort. . . . → Read More: The Enron administration: reality as they wish it to be