Month: November 2008

Progress on the Progressive Front

jacob9 Comments

There’s been a lot of bitching on the left about the dearth of progressives in Obama’s cabinet choices. I haven’t any sympathy. Obama didn’t promise us a progressive rose garden. He flat-out told us he’s going to go post-partisan on our asses. And when he has chosen progressives to help him transition and govern – John Podesta comes to mind – there’s been, at most, a smattering of applause before people are right back to the whining, moaning and complaining.

Maybe it’s because I came late to the game, but I’ve been quite satisfied in most of his choices. He’s picking intelligent, qualified people who will extract the maximum of milk with the minimum of moo (h/t Terry Pratchett). If he packed his administration with far left progressives, the Con roadblocks thrown up in his way would become Berlin Walls. He knows that. I’d rather see him pick people that will help him govern – especially since most of what he’s said about the economy and the environment and even a few things on national security have been in accord with what we’ve been wanting.

Steve Benen has a nice piece up about why he’s not concerned about Obama’s cabinet choices. And today, there comes word that Obama’s economic team will include a dyed-in-the-wool progressive:

…Obama announced his selection of Timothy Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury; Lawrence Summers as the Director of our National Economic Council; Christina Romer as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors; and Melody Barnes as Director of the Domestic Policy Council.

[snip]

But it’s Barnes, moving to the White House by way of the Center for American Progress, who’s of particular interest. Yglesias had a good post on Barnes and the Domestic Policy Council.

[snip]

Barnes has some of the liberal credentials that people have seen lacking in some other Obama appointments. She served as Chief Counsel to Ted Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1995 to 2003, was CAP’s Executive Vice President for Policy, and then left to join Obama’s campaign as policy director.

That’s the second person he’s tapped from CAP that I know of. So yes, he’s bringing progressives on board, and yes, the next four years are likely to see advancement on the progressive front.

A line from Alias keeps coming to mind every time I consider progressives’ efforts to shift the country left: “It’s not about cutting off the head off the monster. It’s about killing the monster. The work is complicated, it’s political, and it is long term.”

It is going to take time and a herculean effort to wean this country off of it’s conservative dependency and get them used to progressive ideas. We can’t just elect a progressive president and have him appoint a progressive cabinet and call victory. The Cons did that with their neocon agenda. It didn’t last. I don’t want us to suffer the same fate.

Our work is going to be complicated, political and long term. We have to build a progressive country from the ground up. We have to elect progressive politicians, encourage progressive policies, and bust our asses to make sure those politicians and policies make a real, positive difference in American lives. We have to show that the progressive agenda, unlike the conservative one, actually works. It’s the only way a progressive agenda can succeed, and it’s the only way it deserves to.

We have to rid ourselves of the reactionary elements in our own party by voting them out in favor of progressives. Until we can put the Blue Dogs down, we’re going to have to work with what we’ve got. What we have is Obama, and he’s proving that while he’s more centrist than we may have wished, he’s sympathetic to our ideas. He’s also pragmatic enough to realize you don’t merely steamroll your enemies – you make it impossible for them to resist you. Progressive ideas coming from a centrist, bipartisan administration will be far harder for the Cons to obstruct. Selling those progressive ideas to the American people as a moderate, post-partisan package means they’re more likely to buy. Once they’ve tried it, they’ll like it and they’ll keep buying, even if we later change the packaging to read “Now With More Progressive!”

Even the Cons know that. It’s why they’ll fight like grim death to keep things like universal healthcare off the table – they know that once Americans get a hit of the pure progressive, they’ll never go back to that conservative trash they’ve been mainlining.

Obama’s not the magic man who will sweep progressives into power with a wave of his wand. He’s simply a president we can work with, one who’s not afraid to bring progressives on board. We’ve been given a gift. Instead of whining that it’s not quite the progressive gift we wanted, let’s get the work done. Let’s do it right, so that the country may go left.

Progress on the Progressive Front
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Happy Hour Discurso

jacob2 Comments

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Just remember: Republicons aren’t racists:

At the 2000 Republican convention, Chambliss — along with then-lawmakers Bob Ney and Tom DeLay, who have both faced significant legal and ethical troubles — hosted a golf event for lobbyists at Aronimink Golf Club in Philadelphia, which has a long history of discrimination against people of color. As the New York Times reported in 1993:

Unable to meet the requirement that clubs must have nondiscriminatory membership policies to host tournaments, the Aronimink Golf Club has asked to be relieved of its agreement to be the site of the 1993 P.G.A. Championship, the Professional Golfers’ Association of America said tonight.

Aronimink, a private club in Newtown Square, Pa., near Philadelphia, has no minority-group members. […]

O’Brien said the club had told the P.G.A. it had a seven-year waiting list for new members, but asked that it be considered as the site for a future championship when is is able to conform to the national association’s policy on membership.

ThinkProgress reports that, ten years later, Chambliss’s pet golf club still hasn’t made clear progress on the non-discrimination front.

More in whites-only golf:

TPM Election Central notes today that South Carolina Republican Party Chairman and recently declared candidate for RNC chairman, Katon Dawson, was formerly a member of a the 80-year-old whites-only Forest Lake country club:

Back in September, when Dawson was first quietly laying the groundwork for his RNC run, The State newspaper reported that he resigned his membership in the nearly 80-year-old Forest Lake Club. Members told the newspaper at the time that the club’s deed has a whites-only restriction and has no black members.

Dawson claimed to the paper that he’d actually been working since August to change the club’s admission practices after reading about them in the press.

Somehow, Dawson spent twelve years there without ever finding out that the reason there were no black people golfing with him was that the club didn’t allow them membership. My bullshit detector is twitching.

Why not screaming? Because it’s feeling rather smug about having called the “but of course we would never spy on anybody but terrorists!” bullshit:

And to think, some of us nervous nellies were concerned that the NSA might abuse its surveillance powers and listen in on communications it shouldn’t have.

A former communications intercept operator says U.S. intelligence snooped on the private lives of two of America’s most important allies in fighting al Qaeda: British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Iraq’s first interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer.

David Murfee Faulk told ABCNews.com he saw and read a file on Blair’s “private life” and heard “pillow talk” phone calls of al-Yawer when he worked as an Army Arab linguist assigned to a secret NSA facility at Fort Gordon, Georgia between 2003 and 2007.

Last month, Faulk and another former military intercept operator assigned to the NSA facility triggered calls for an investigation when they revealed U.S. intelligence intercepted the private phone calls of American journalists, aid workers and soldiers stationed in Iraq.

Faulk says his top secret clearance at Ft. Gordon gave him access to an intelligence data base, called “Anchory,” where he says he saw the file on then-British prime minister Tony Blair in 2006.

Faulk declined to provide details other than to say it contained information of a personal nature.

Surveillance on foreign heads of state is not especially uncommon, but as Zachary Roth reminds us, “the U.S. and Britain have pledged not to collect information covertly on each other.”

Yeah. That Tony Blair, man – total terrorist. And, of course, every spy knows that important terrorist secrets might slip out when our ostensible allies are talking dirty on the phone.

In other bullshit news, Republicons are still stuck in the tax-cut rut:

In a time of severe economic crisis, it’s important that all of us — voters, policy makers, investors — remember to do two key things. First, keep a cool head and avoid panic. Second, pay absolutely no attention to congressional Republicans, who have no idea what they’re talking about.

Republicans quickly criticized the idea of such a vast [stimulus] initiative, saying Congress should instead cut taxes to spur economic growth.

“Democrats can’t seem to stop trying to outbid each other
— with the taxpayers’ money,” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement. “We’re in tough economic times. Folks are hurting. But the American people know that more Washington spending isn’t the answer.”

I realize that Boehner and congressional Republicans don’t want to deliberately hurt the country, so perhaps it’s best if they take this opportunity to enjoy a little quiet time.

We need to sit these children in the corner and keep their noses to the wall for, oh, say, the next four years. They can’t behave, they’re threatening to throw tantrums because they can’t get their way, and they just keep screaming the same words over and over again. Useless fucking baggage.

It would just be nice if they’d have at least one new idea once in a decade or so.

Two pieces of good news when it comes to right-wing fucktards, though. Virgil Goode’s on his way out, even though they’re having to drag him kicking and screaming:

Here’s one Republican Congressman who just won’t give up, no matter how long the odds.

A source close to Rep. Virgil Goode — the colorful Virginia Republican best known for fiercely denouncing the 2006 election of Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) as the first Muslim member of Congress — tells Election Central that Goode will call for a recount at a press conference set to begin shortly, after the state elections board today certified a 745-vote margin of victory for Dem opponent Tom Perriello.

The final numbers: Perriello 158,712 votes, Goode 157,967.

And we’re soon going to be celebrating a funeral:

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports today that Freedom’s Watch, the right-wing advocacy group founded by Ari Fleischer and funded by Sheldon Adelson, “is pretty much kaput.” Freedom’s Watch spokesman Ed Patru “confirmed that much of the staff was on its way out,” but refused to say if the group would continue in the future:

As for the organization’s future, Patru maintained it was yet to be decided by the board of directors, which includes former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and Sands Corp. President Bill Weidner.“In the coming weeks and months, the organization will downsize,” Patru said.

“In terms of the future and what role
the organization will play, those decisions will be made in the very near future.”

It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving group. Our national discourse will improve by a factor of 10 overnight.

It’s nice having adults in charge and screaming fucking infants being put to bed, isn’t it?

Happy Hour Discurso

Progress Report: Mwah

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35,433

Mwah. That’s all I’ve really got to say.

Here’s the end of the chapter on science:

BUT THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN SCIENCE, I HEAR YOU CRY

Myself, I’m not so sure that’s true anymore.

I used to subscribe to the idea that science explained the how while religion explained the why, but science is getting closer to why all the time. Religion used to have the monopoly on morality, for instance – the big question, why are we moral? Well, science has an answer for that, now: reciprocal altruism. Did you know that chimpanzees display a moral sense? It’s because being moral is the only way to get along in a group. We evolved a moral sense because those individuals who didn’t get along with others, couldn’t be trusted, and were such selfish little bastards that nobody would share with them anymore didn’t survive long enough to produce a lot of offspring.

Science will one day explain why I love mythology and allegory, but don’t believe in gods at all, whereas you believe one book contains the literal truth of God and all others are useless bunkum. I have no doubt of that. Science has a proven track record of explaining things that people swore it never could, so there’s nothing I put past it now – except proving that Bob the Invisible Unicorn lives under my bed. Still, science is closing in on the reasons I why might believe such a thing, even if my Bob hypothesis is one of those that science can’t do a damned thing with.

A lot of people think that science is a cold, clinical thing. Nothing to do with art, imagination, or mystery. It solves mysteries, it takes all of the intrigue out of life. It’s sad that people think that, because it’s not strictly true.

Science is gorgeous. I do a weekly feature on my blog called Sunday Sensational Science, and I’m never short of material. I can always find something sensational, awe-inspiring, or intriguing. There are still plenty of mysteries to be solved, and once we solve one, another pops up – we’ll probably never run out of mystery. And the thing you discover is that the mysteries get more interesting as you go along.

More and more art is being inspired by science. Just recently, an opera called Doctor Atomic finished a successful Broadway run. It’s all about a physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and the creation of the atomic bomb. The music is just fantastic. Another one, The Origin, came out in time for Darwin’s two hundreth birthday, and was inspired by The Origin of Species. Both of them have all of the passion, humanity, and drama you could ever want. It’s not just God or mystery that inspires great music.

Science has been the driving force behind great works of art in painting, sculpture, literature, philosophy, and theatre. Science not only informs, but entertains, invigorates, intrigues, and impassions.

One of the most beautiful books I have ever read was The Dancing Wu Li Masters, which tells the story of quantum physics mixed in with a bit of Eastern philosophy. You can indeed merge the sacred and the scientific. Ask Ken Miller, who recently wrote Finding Darwin’s God. Science itself isn’t religious, and the scientific method doesn’t allow religion to dictate the answers science gives, but that doesn’t mean that you, yourself, can’t let science become part of your religious experience. Listen. If you believe God created the world, and science shows us just how incredible that world is, how can you not stand in awe when the true scope of that creation is revealed by science?

I’m not the person to help you reconcile science and your religion, but I hope I’ve at least encouraged you to try.

Don’t yell at me for not trying to convert them to atheism here, or taking the purist view that science and religion can’t coexist. This book is not a manual for conversion, and that goes both ways. If they’re not going to throw off religion and become dyed-in-the-wool atheists, I’d at least like them to see science as something other than the enemy of their religion.

Right, then. I must go collapse. I feel like the walking dead.

Progress Report: Mwah

Truth and Reconciliation

jacob

If we can’t have war crimes tribunals, at least let us have this:

Getting a sense of what the nation doesn’t know about the Bush administration’s secrets is not only daunting, it’s hard to know where to start. In the soon-to-be-published December issue of the Washington Monthly, editor Charles Homans has a must-read cover story: “Last Secrets of the Bush Administration: How to find out what we still don’t know.”

The thought of revisiting this history after living through it for eight years is exhausting, and both President Barack Obama and Congress will have every political reason to just move on. But we can’t — it’s too important. Fortunately, an accounting of the Bush years is a less daunting prospect than it seems from the outset. If the new president and leaders on Capitol Hill act shrewdly, they can pull it off while successfully navigating the political realities and expectations they now face. A few key actions will take us much of the distance between what we know and what we need to know.

That these “few key actions” seem necessary is an understatement. Homans’ prescription — treat the Naval Observatory like a crime scene; quickly declassify the Bush administration’s deliberations and policy implementations (especially from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel); and use commissions instead of subpoenas — offers a realistic blueprint to policy makers on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Take a look.

Part of me is hoping against hope that the Hague decides to do what we don’t have the political stomach for, and will indict Bush et al for their war crimes and human rights violations. We can’t just pretend the last eight years didn’t happen. We used to hang people for less than what Bush and his buffoons did. Turning a blind eye is out of the question.

At least some sort of commission will lance the abcess. We need at least that much if we’re going to heal as a nation and regain our international health.

Truth and Reconciliation

Intolerancia

jacob

Today’s smiting of intolerant bastards.

We haven’t done Intolerancia in a while, have we? It’s time to bring it back, because the chorus of whines from right-wing religious morons is swelling to a crescendo, and it’s time to raise a counterpoint.

I’ve also come up with a new motto, which I’m probably going to have to get on a t-shirt someday: “I’ve lost my tolerance for your intolerance.” It’s the refrain that’s been going through my head tonight, along with a leitmotif of disgust.

We begin our recital with a rococo duet on the theme of “they did so why can’t he?” Gemito espressivo, per favore:

President-elect Barack Obama has yet to attend church services since winning the White House earlier this month, a departure from the example of his two immediate predecessors.

On the three Sundays since his election, Obama has instead used his free time to get in workouts at a Chicago gym.

[snip]

Both President-elect George W. Bush and President-elect Bill Clinton managed to attend church in the weeks after they were elected.

It goes on. And on. And on and on and on. The authors just can’t seem to get over the fact that our last two presidents went to church a lot, while this one, having had his pastor go down in flames last February, would prefer not to drag the media circus into some unsuspecting service. Mr. Martin, Ms. Lee, allow me to just say a little something here: There is no fucking religious test for office in this country. Get the fuck over it.

This is also my advice to Charles Lynch, who now joins the chorus with a tired little ostinato:

A 70-year-old resident spent Monday night in the Marion County Jail after praying aloud during a moment of silence at the City Council meeting.

Charles Lynch was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after causing a disturbance during the meeting, according to a police report from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.

At the onset of the meeting, Mayor Rob Thoman read a statement of disorderly conduct and stated anyone who talked out of turn would be in violation of the statement.

During the moment of silence, Lynch began reading a prayer out loud; when asked to be quiet, Lynch began to pray louder, according to the report.

Lynch was then asked to leave the meeting. He refused and grabbed a chair, prompting Southport assistant Chief Mark Myers to forcibly pry Lynch’s hands from the chair, according to the report.

[snip]

“I’m not promoting any church or any religion,” Lynch said. “All I want is the way it was. Why take away our rights as citizens to have a word of prayer, because we’ve always had it.”

Guess what, Chuck? Absolutely no one was taking away your right as a citizen to have a word of prayer. In fact, they bunged a moment of silence in there at the beginning so you could pray. All they wanted you to do, in fact, was keep that prayer between yourself and your God so that other people’s right to have a word of prayer with their God wasn’t drowned by your obbligato.

Ed Brayton had a good point on this: for people like this, it isn’t about the right to pray, but the desire to force others to pray the same way they do.

Chuck got us warmed up with the “they’re taking away our rights!” refrain. Are you ready for the persecution rondo?

Kalamazoo to Persecute Christians

The city of Kalamazoo is discussing an ordinance to discriminate against Christians. Of course, that’s not how they put it.

Proposed Kalamazoo ordinance would ban discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered individuals

KALAMAZOO — A proposed Kalamazoo city ordinance aimed at protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals from discrimination will be introduced Monday before the City Commission.

[snip]

So Christian bookstores would be forced to hire crossdressers. This proposal would take away everyone’s right to hire or not hire whomever they please. This is a violation of the freedom of association.

That’s the persecution. Somehow, the fact that the ordinance has about 67,982 exemptions written in for religious entities that want to retain the right to discriminate at will and call it “religion” escapes this fucktard. He dismisses it with a breathless, “How long will churches and private citizens be exempt if this proposal is passed?”

Like, ZOMG. Someone may have to allow some dude in a dress into church. How very terrifying. Why, it’s almost as bad as getting torn limb-from-limb by wild beasts, or burned alive, or murdered en masse by the established Church’s soldiers.

At least the overwhelming majority of his commenters ripped him a new one. Several new ones, in fact. Not that it will matter, because Christians who believe that anti-discrimination laws passed by Christian officials and supported by Christian citizens discriminate against Christians aren’t going to be swayed by a lil ol’ thing like reality.

Refrain: “I’ve lost my tolerance for your intolerance.”

Maybe the more compassionate Christians could get busy teaching their brethern how to sing a new song.

(Tip o’ the shot glass to Attaturk and Ed Brayton. For those who’d like to know what the hell all those classical music terms meant, see here. The one thing you won’t find is gemito. It’s Italian for “whine.”)

Intolerancia

Happy Hour Discurso

jacob1 Comment

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Those of you who have been with me for a while remember the glorious fun we had beating up Ben Stein over his Expelled fuckery. He proved himself a complete raging IDiot, said about 10,000 things per day that were outrageously stupid, and generally earned himself the enthusiastic bashings he received from the Smack-o-Matic 3000.

So you’ll understand why this dropped my jaw:

Neil Cavuto and Ben Stein got into a screaming match over the state of the economy after the bailout Saturday morning on Fox’s Cavuto for Business. I’ve never seen them go at it like that before. It started immediately when Cavuto opened up the segment by saying we’ve spent 2 trillion dollars so far to fix the problem, which is patently false, and Stein called him out on it. (rough transcript.)

Stein: The $2 trillion dollar number you cited at the beginning is a completely made up number, I don’t know where you got it from.

We asked, no, no no Ben.,..

Cavuto: What do you think it is?

Stein: Closer to $300 billion…

Cavuto: Oh, no, no, no, Ben I gotta stop you there…

Stein: Could I answer your question?

Cavuto: When you are supporting one institution after the other …

Stein: You are doing the classic post hoc ergo prop drop fallacy. You may as well say because there was a World Series, the market dropped 4000 points. The Federal government has to stabilize this economy.

Cavuto: No it doesn’t, Ben. No, no, and by the way, we were pre-hocking on this …

Stein: The Federal government is the only one that can stabilize this economy.

Cavuto: It is a slippery slope Ben…

Stein: Then otherwise we fall into a great depression. Maybe not a problem for you, but a problem for everybody else.

Cavuto: Oh, stop the nonsense.

Stein: It isn’t nonsense.

Cavuto: Where do you draw the nonsensical line.

Stein: We go in for as much Federal stimulus as it takes keep us out of a great depression. That is basic common sense … We need to bail out the auto companies, we need to have a massive stimulus package. This economy is about to fall off a cliff. We need major stimulus.


I cannot fucking believe I’m actually agreeing with Ben Fucking Stein. I can’t believe I’m listening to the words coming out of his mouth, applauding their good sense, and cheering him on. Watching him spank Cavuto was a thing of beauty.

As Digby said, “That is so disorienting I think I need to go have a drink.”

I think I need two.

Ben wasn’t a good attack dog against evolution, but he’s proved himself enough of an economic hound that I’m wanting to set him on George Will next:

Economists on both the left and right broadly agree that the need for stimulative government spending is necessary to prevent a further collapse of the global economic system — just as the New Deal and the deficit spending of World War II restored the health of the global economy in the last century.

This morning on ABC’s This Week, conservative columnist George Will echoed the false right-wing meme that FDR’s New Deal policies made the Depression worse:

Before we go into a new New Deal, can we just acknowledge that the first New Deal didn’t work?

[snip]

As Nobel-laureate Paul Krugman wrote recently in the New York Times, “There’s a whole intellectual industry, mainly operating out of right-wing think tanks, devoted to propagating the idea that F.D.R. actually made the Depression worse. So it’s important to know that most of what you hear along those lines is based on deliberate misrepresentation of the facts. The New Deal brought real relief to most Americans.”Krugman observed that the true short-comings of the New Deal policies resulted from the fact that they were not bold enough over the short-term…

I’d dearly love to see Krugman and Stein tag-team to beat up Will. The man’s been descending into unremitting fuckwittery – someone needs to slap some sense into him.

Sympathy for Eric Holder, Obama’s pick for Attorney General, has been noticably lacking around Firedoglake, but most bloggers seem to think he’s a good choice. The thing is, it might be best for the poor man if the folks at FDL got their way and he didn’t get the job. Look at the catastrophe he’s expected to solve:

Dahlia Lithwick has a new piece exploring the mess Eric Holder is walking into as the next Attorney General. In the process, she summarizes the extent to which the “loyal Bushies” who’ve run the Justice Department over the last eight years have just trashed the place.

What Holder stands to inherit from Michael Mukasey and his predecessor Alberto Gonzales is not a Justice Department that was slightly confused about where the law began and politics ended. If confirmed, he will take over an institution where, at least in recent years, politics sometimes had no end. The department became fodder for late-night TV monologues in 2007 when former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his staff flimflammed their way through congressional hearings about the partisan firings of eight U.S. attorneys. Those independent prosecutors were let go for failing to be — in the parlance of Gonzales’ underage underlings — “loyal Bushies.” More than a dozen officials resigned in the wake of that scandal.

Things at Justice worsened with internal reports finding the department had hired career civil servants, law student interns, assistant U.S. attorneys, and even immigration judges based on their loyalty to the GOP. Secret memos produced by the department’s Office of Legal Counsel authorized brutal interrogation techniques and warrantless government eavesdropping. The subordination of law enforcement to politics led to the flight of career attorneys in the department’s Civil Rights Division and especially the Voting Section, where by 2007 reportedly between 55 percent to 60 percent had transferred or left the DoJ.

If the rot at Justice could have been cured by simply replacing Gonzales, the appointment of Michael Mukasey, a respected retired federal judge in 2007, might have been enough. It wasn’t. To be sure, Mukasey said noble things about the evils of torture and made moves toward disentangling the department from the White House. But more often than not, Mukasey declined to lance t
he boil. He r
efused to call water-boarding torture. He insisted no crimes were committed when department officials violated civil service laws. And he criticized those seeking accountability for the architects of the administration’s torture policy as “relentless,” “hostile,” and “unforgiving.” Mukasey collapsed while giving a speech this past week, but thankfully the incident seems not to have been serious.

It’s fair to say there isn’t a single cabinet agency that’s better now than when Bush took office — better managed, better organized, more efficient, more competent — but to see what the Bush gang has done to the Justice Department is practically a crime in and of itself.

No kidding. The fact that Holder’s apparently willing to take this one and clean up the debris is impressive.

Finally, no day would be complete without the highly enjoyable Chambliss-bashing. He’s certainly providing ample material:

Since 2005, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), who is currently locked in a tough run-off election battle against Democrat Jim Martin, has been in charge of the Republican Majority Fund. The PAC, established in the 1970s, was set up to help fund GOP candidates. However, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports today, Chambliss has instead used it as a personal fund to ingratiate himself to lobbyists, reward his political contributors, and fund his golfing habit:

Under Chambliss, however, 68 percent of the Majority Fund’s spending – about $1 million – has gone for travel, golf events, meals and administrative costs, reports to the Federal Election Commission show. Political contributions comprised just 32 percent of the committee’s spending, or $472,500.

In 2007 and 2008, the Majority Fund’s political donations accounted for 26 percent of its spending, the second-lowest among the 25 largest leadership groups. […]

[O]f the top 10 recipients of the Majority Fund’s money since 2007, only one was a political organization.

Five were golf resorts.

Fantastic. He’s a Con, all right. Treating the funds of the organizations he’s responsible for as his own private piggy bank certainly gives him creds among the in-this-for-themselves crowd. It’s just that most of them aren’t quite so… obvious… about it.

I hope Georgians have the great good sense to boot this fucker out of D.C. come December 2.

Happy Hour Discurso

Progress Report: Shoot Me Now

jacob4 Comments

33,429

I really shouldn’t have punked off the week of the election. Argh. Ah, well, we’re closing in, and as long as I live off of frozen dinners and energy drinks, we’ll get there.

Have a snippet from ye olde chapter on science:

A SCIENCE PRIMER

There are lots of groups out there now who are attempting to prove that the Bible is scientifically accurate. You may have run across some of them: The Discovery Institute and Answers in Genesis are the two that come immediately to my mind. They claim to be doing science, they have people with “Dr.” in front of their names working for them, and they publish “scientific” papers, but what they do isn’t science. That’s why if you cite them as authorites, atheists will scoff.

Here’s a good rule of thumb to remember: just because someone’s calling themselves a scientist and using sciency-sounding words doesn’t mean they’re actually doing science. A lot of us get snookered because we don’t really know what science is, we just know we’re supposed to be impressed by it. That’s why companies get away with selling “ionized” water as a super-strong cleaning solution. So this chapter really serves two purposes: it will help you avoid the common misunderstandings between believers and atheists when science comes up, and you’ll be able to debunk late-night infomercials for fun and profit.

Let me give you a crash course in what science is. We’ll start with a definition, and what could be more appropriate for a simple course than to take that definition from ScienceMadeSimple.com:

The word science comes from the Latin “scientia,” meaning knowledge…

Science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge. This system uses observation and experimentation to describe and explain natural phenomena. The term science also refers to the organized body of knowledge people have gained using that system.

That’s how simple science is. Of course, it’s a little more complicated in the execution, but it’s not really hard to grasp the basics.

No, but it’s fucking hard to explain them. Argh argh argh. But I think it’s coming together all right – you’ll be the judges of that when the thing’s complete and you can get your very own draft copy to rip to shreds.

I’m in the no-sleep stage of NaNo. It’s only going to get worse as the week goes on, alas. So if I start to speak in incoherent sentences, please don’t think my brain’s done a Bush – it’s just the sleep deprivation, and things’ll improve once December 1st rolls round.

Progress Report: Shoot Me Now

Sunday Sensational Science

jacob

Mixing the science up with the opera

Lab coats on Broadway – aside from mad scientists, when have we ever seen such a thing? Science is seen as useful, practical, often beautiful, but hardly an inspiration for librettos.

But that’s changing.

Darwin’s getting an opera-oratorio. Genetic science inspired a chamber opera. And now, a physicist has a full-blown opera:

There are certain characters in science who stand out for their larger-than-science characteristics: Galileo and his conflicts with Papal authorities; Albert Einstein and his political dabblings and pacifist overtures; Richard Feynman and his safecracking, storytelling antics; Stephen Hawking and his ethereal brain trapped in a frozen body. Biographies, documentaries, films, and even plays have attempted to capture the essence of these giants (see QED, for example, the play starring Alan Alda as Feynman). But to my knowledge, none have had an opera produced in their likeness.

Enter Doctor Atomic, a look at the meaning behind the making of the atomic bomb from the perspective of its paterfamilias J. Robert Oppenheimer and his disparate struggles: with nature to reveal her secrets, with his conscious to ease his guilt. He also struggles with General Leslie R. Groves, the titular military head of the Manhattan Project, and with fellow physicist and future father of the H-Bomb, Edward Teller.

Fantastic, isn’t it? With this, science has a solid claim to high culture.

Have a listen to the Bhagavad Gita Chorus from Doctor Atomic:

“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds” floated through Oppenheimer’s mind as he watched the first bomb burst at Trinity Site. It’s tremendous to see that moment captured in music.

Our own incisive regular, Cujo359, has an excellent post up on this opera and Oppenheimer’s life. And, just in case you’ve got an hour on your hands and want the backstory on the opera, I’ve included “Science and the Soul: J. Robert Oppenheimer and Doctor Atomic” for your viewing pleasure:

Celebrating San Francisco Opera’s world premiere of Doctor Atomic, this symposium brings together composer John Adams, director Peter Sellars, and UC Berkeley’s Marvin Cohen and Mark Richards to explore J. Robert Oppenheimer’s role in the creation of the first atomic bomb and examines the historical, scientific, and musical background of “Doctor Atomic.”

This isn’t science’s first foray into opera. In 2004, genetic science became the basis for a charming little chamber opera:

A fusion of music, art and science, inspired by contemporary genetic discovery and brought together in the style of a chamber opera, is to have its world premiere at Baltic, the Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead.

‘Hidden States’ is the result of a trans-Atlantic collaboration involving music scholars and visual artists from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. It will be performed publicly for the first time at Baltic on Friday 26 November.

The project is the first collaboration on a music theatre project between British composer Jonathan Owen Clark, formerly a lecturer in the International Centre for Music Studies at Newcastle University, and American opera specialist and librettist, David Moody, who is Assistant Director of the Opera Company of Philadelphia.

Conceived as a chamber opera for a small ensemble and baritone performed alongside specially-commissioned synchronised video projections, ‘Hidden States’ draws parallels between alchemy – the forerunner of modern chemistry – and contemporary genetic science.

In a sequence of five monologues, Paracelcus the alchemist – sung by baritone Paul Carey Jones – articulates his hopes and dreams for the creation of a living human being from inanimate matter.

Composer Jonathan Owen Clark said: ‘Collaboration between artists and scientists in the quest to explain some of the myths and mysteries of cutting edge science and its history is not a new idea, but in Hidden States the aim is to provide, in perhaps a new format, an account of certain key concepts in contemporary genomics and bioinformatics. These include sequencing and cloning, and how they fit within the broader themes of cultural, literary and scientific history.

Alas, YouTube has failed me here. But there were plans to turn “Hidden States” into a full opera, and with the success of Doctor Atomic, we might be seeing that happen very soon.

We’ll be celebrating Darwin’s 200th with Tristero’s glorious The Origin, which I’ve mentioned here in the cantina before:

After a year and a half of near-daily composing, I have finally finished The Origin, an opera-oratorio inspired by the life and works of Charles Darwin. It was a challenging, and very enjoyable, project and will premiere February 9, 2009 at the State University of New York, Oswego – that’s 3 days before Darwin’s 200th birthday!

The music is scored for Soprano, Baritone, chorus, orchestra, and the wonderful Eastern European female choir, Kitka. In addition, the brilliant filmmaker Bill Morrison – known for his work with Ridge Theater, Michael Gordon, and others – will be creating films and other visuals for the performance.

[snip]

The texts used in the Origin are taken entirely from the writings of Charles Darwin – with a brief cameo by his wife, Emma. They were compiled and arranged by poet Catherine Barnett and myself. Most of the words come from The Origin of Species; the so-called “transmutation notebooks;” Darwin’s autobiography; The Voyage of the Beagle; and his letters (you can find a huge selection of Darwin’s writings at this incredible site). My purpose was to celebrate Darwin’s thought and life in music, concentrating specifically on the writing and ideas in The Origin of Species.

So far, there’s only two clips up, but they show that this opera-oratorio is going to make Darwin proud.

Annie’s Memorial

Representations of Chaos

We science-lovers have always known that science has the kind of power, beauty and wonder than can inspire incredible works of art. Now, with science on Broadway, we can show the rest of the world what they’ve been missing.

(Special bonus points to anyone who figured out that this Sunday’s Sensational Science title is a paraphrase from Operatica. Free booze for life for anyone who convinces Operatica to do a concept album around science.)

Sunday Sensational Science

Obama Needs More than One Dog

jacob

He’s going to need an entire fucking army of rat terriers to deal with this:

The Bush administration will leave us with another legacy: unqualified Republican ideologues receiving appointments in various institutions, including scientific organizations, as their ship of state sinks. The rats are scuttling overboard, and are being rewarded with captaincies on any available vessel. An article in the Washington post discusses the trend.

PZ hammers on specific examples while Steve Benen, after linking to PZ (two of my favorite bloggers in one place! Yowsa!), highlights the statement of a man in dire need of a Smack-o-Matic:

He’s referring to this.

The president of the nation’s largest general science organization yesterday sharply criticized recent cases of Bush administration political appointees gaining permanent federal jobs with responsibility for making or administering scientific policies, saying the result would be “to leave wreckage behind.”

“It’s ludicrous to have people who do not have a scientific background, who are not trained and skilled in the ways of science, make decisions that involve resources, that involve facilities in the scientific infrastructure,” said James McCarthy, a Harvard University oceanographer who is president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “You’d just like to think people have more respect for the institution of government than to leave wreckage behind with these appointments.”

Well, yes, one would like to think that. But we’re talking about the Bush gang here.

Alas, we are. Which means that not only are the rats burrowing, they’re of the extremely incompetent variety. The only thing they’re good at, in fact, is looking after themselves.

So. Does anybody know of a hypoallergenic breed of rat terrier that could go after the burrowing Bush rats and drag them out? And if so, can you secure us about a dozen to start with?

Obama Needs More than One Dog

BJU Sez: "Sorry We Were Racists – Culture Made Us Do It!"

jacob3 Comments

My bullshit detector is in overdrive, and the Smack-o-Matic is screaming for action (h/t):

Bob Jones University is apologizing for racist policies that included a one-time ban on interracial dating and its unwillingness to admit black students until 1971.

In a statement posted Thursday on its Web site, the fundamentalist Christian school founded in 1927 in northwestern South Carolina says its rules on race were shaped by culture instead of the Bible. […]

“BJU’s history has been chiefly characterized by striving to achieve those goals; but like any human institution, we have failures as well. For almost two centuries American Christianity, including BJU in its early stages, was characterized by the segregationist ethos of American culture. Consequently, for far too long, we allowed institutional policies regarding race to be shaped more directly by that ethos than by the principles and precepts of the Scriptures. We conformed to the culture rather than provide a clear Christian counterpoint to it.

“In so doing, we failed to accurately represent the Lord and to fulfill the commandment to love others as ourselves. For these failures we are profoundly sorry. Though no known antagonism toward minorities or expressions of racism on a personal level have ever been tolerated on our campus, we allowed institutional policies to remain in place that were racially hurtful.”

Utter. Fucking. Bullshit.

There was no “clear Christian counterpoint” to the slavery/segregation culture. Christianity and slavery were bestest buddies:

…[A]s the abolition movement took shape across the globe, groups who advocated slavery’s abolition attempted to harness Christian teachings in support of their positions. However, they were forced to refer to the ‘spirit of Christianity’ rather than quote the Bible. On the other hand, those opposed to abolition and equal rights were able to and did quote numerous Biblical passages that directly supported the practice of Slavery.

[snip]

“Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.” (1 Peter 2:18)

[snip]

“Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism.” (Colossians 3:22-25)

So don’t give me that bullshit about “culture made me do it” when your own fucking Bible was happy to condone slavery, and you tell me you’re trying to live by Biblical principles. And you can’t weasel out with that “new covenant” crap because this shit’s in the New fucking Testament.

Then you want to sell me the line of snake oil about how, while you institutionalized racism, it’s okay because you don’t know of any instances of racial antagonism on a personal level? That’s worse, you fuckwits. Individuals can be educated, their dumbfuckery can be put down to personal failings, and the institution can work to prevent ugly, violent acts from recurring. But when you institutionalize segregation, when you officially sanction racism, you’ve just officially made a whole group of people less than human for the color of their skin. Do you think it really matters how nice individuals are to people of color when the institution itself is telling them they’re subhuman? Are you fucking kidding me?

And then, and then, let’s look at the calendar. It’s 2008. The Civil Rights Movement happened in the Sixties. You’re just now getting around to apologizing for your official racism?

I can’t speak for people of color. But I can tell you that, as a human being, this is insulting. It’s nice that BJU wants to make nice, but they could’ve done it without whining that culture made them do it, they could have done it without trumpeting their supposed personal successes while downplaying their institutional failings, and they could have done it a lot fucking sooner.

Apologizing: Ur doin it rong.

BJU Sez: "Sorry We Were Racists – Culture Made Us Do It!"