Politics & Science
Just another blogs.scienceforums.net weblog

These are articles I’ve recently posted to our new “Reading List” thread at SFN.

Slate op/ed on changing the War Powers Act:
http://www.slate.com/id/2195152?nav=wp

Howard Kurtz on the death of Tony Snow:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/13/AR2008071302054.html

From the Wall Street Journal and Cook Political Report. What’s interesting about this image is mainly the lower portion, which indicates how currently-competitive seats are leaning amongst voters in those districts.

[IMG]http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NA-AR345A_COATT_20080713205616.gif[/IMG]

Interesting article from Politico.com about Oliver Stone’s efforts to make his upcoming film “W” as realistic as possible.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11776.html

Whadya know, turns out daisies are liberal and fishes are conservative.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/04/AR2008070401185.html?hpid=sec-politics

Is it time to throw ‘under the bus’ under the bus?

The euphemistic phrase, which now also means jettisoning a political liability, has taken on a twisted and ubiquitous life of its own. The presumptive Democratic nominee seems to be a leader of the pack among under-the-bus flingers, slingers and tossers, according to cable news pundits and blogosphere scribes.

Mr. Obama has been accused of heaving his white grandmother; his former foreign policy adviser, Samantha Power; the former head of his vice presidential vetting committee, Jim Johnson; the Muslim community; public financing of presidential campaigns; his not-quite-e-mail-pal, Scarlett Johansson; and even his short-lived customized presidential seal — all under the bus.

He’s not alone. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, has been accused of flinging conservative radio talk-show host Bill Cunningham and the Revs. John Hagee and Ron Parsley under the bus, too.

The Wikipedia entry on the phrase has an amusing sidebar, fleshing out a tidbit from the above article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throw_under_the_bus

Etymologists trace the popularization of the expression to Cyndi Lauper[1], who was quoted by The Washington Post in 1984: “In the rock ’n’ roll business, you are either on the bus or under it. Playing “Feelings” with Eddie and the Condos in a buffet bar in Butte is under the bus.”

ROFL! There’s also a great example from the same entry:

[quote] * “He not only threw me under the bus, he backed up and ran over me again.” Larry Craig on Mitt Romney
[/quote]

Anyway, the Wikipedia article cites an NPR story saying the phrase has been used in over 400 political stories over the last six months. Time to throw it under the bus!

Friends of the Earth convinced the press to make a big deal last week out of a very routine thing — a major airline having to fly a jet only partially full. In this particular case, a Boeing 777 flew its regular hop from Chicago to London, but there were only five passengers on board. The FotE was certainly correct in pointing out the wastefulness of this flight, but they mislead the public (and more importantly mislead a major newspaper, its editor, and millions of readers) by ignoring significant factors.

1) The airline was contractually bound to fly that airplane.

2) The airplane was scheduled to make a return flight the next day, in which it could (and generally does) carry hundreds of passengers.

3) The flight lost a lot of money for the airline.

The last point above is particularly important with regard to the FotE’s complaint about the environment. Why? Because it demonstrates that this is, ultimately, a self-correcting problem. It doesn’t require any intervention or effort whatsoever to fix this problem, because if the line continues to be unprofitable then the carrier will stop flying it!

But even worse is the fact that this complaint comes a time when carriers are routinely setting records for percentage of seats filled! When combined with newer engine designs (the plane they complained about is brand spanking new!) means that air travel is more fuel-efficient than its ever been before.

Aren’t we supposed to WANT more efficient mass transit? I don’t hear FotE complaining about that empty bus my local transit authority sends down Martin Luther King Blvd during mid-day, week-day hours when everyone is already at work. What’s the difference?

Some scandal!

The story:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2008/03/05/nplane105.xml

The play-up on the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/05/ecoscandal-aa-plane-fli_n_90032.html

PBS Frontline tackles Haditha. The whole episode is available for online viewing at this URL:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/haditha/

I put off watching this for a couple of weeks because I assumed it would be pretty ugly and uncomplimentary of the Marines. Boy was I wrong. They completely destroyed Iraqi eyewitness testimony and in the end seemed to support the overall exoneration of the Marines, focusing instead on the complexities of ground combat. And John Murtha does not make out well in this at all.

I tell you what, anybody who believes in liberal bias in the media should watch this.

And of course anybody who thinks Haditha was a massacre should watch it as well. They will not be pleased.

But the main thing is that what ultimately exonerates these Marines is scientific investigation and evidence. A brief example of this can be seen in the situation with House 4, which Marines claimed contained men who were aiming AK-47s at them. Iraqi eyewitnesses claimed that the men were unarmed and shot execution-style in another building and then dragged into House 4. But those eyewitnesses had an obvious motivation for deception, and bullet holes in the walls of the room the men were found in directly contradict their testimony. Another example of this surrounds the men who were in the white car, where eyewitness claims were refuted by live video shot from a drone circling above the area at the time.

Science trumps human eyewitnesses. As it should be.

This is another question I hope to tackle on this blog.  In the video below, Professor Mike Hulme of the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, and the founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, discusses the pitfalls of using scientific evidence to determine political policy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuxDkXwhtSo

This blog will be about the intersection between politics and science.  I thought I’d start out with this excellent documentary sent to me by one of our members (iNow) on global warming and denial of it.  This is an area that will likely receive considerable focus on this blog, given that it is obviously one of the main battlegrounds between science and politics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio

Welcome to blogs.scienceforums.net. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!