Month: July 2008

Robin Hanson reflects on the connection between the three.

(Hat tip: Tyler Cowen)

Mike Nizza on the continual need to counter claims that we’ve discovered WMD’s in Iraq.

Dick Morris says the race is tied:

After almost six weeks of a constant Obama lead, generally in the five- to seven-point range, Scott Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll records two consecutive days of a tie race (July 12-13) and a one-point Obama lead on July 14. What happened to the Democrat’s lead?

It’s here, I think:

When was the last time Dick Morris got anything right? He’s not as wrong as Karl Rove usually is, but close.

I’m a wreck, I’m afraid, waiting for the votes. We’ll know this evening, it seems likely. Know hope.

Hilzoy hammers McCain for edging towards Obama on Afghanistan.

It’s the Republican Song! Video here. Lyrics:

The Democrat secular progressive move,
political correctness is killing us too.
They want to take the money from the hard workin man,
and give it to the lazy folks that don’t give a damn.

Chorus

Democrats and Liberals, shame on you,
don’t punish us all just to please a few,
Your holdin people back while we’re pickin up the slack,
and that’s why we can’t vote for a Democrat.
Oh no, a no, no, no, no, no, no…
Oh no, a no, no, no, no, no, nooo…
Yeah, your holding people back, while we’re pickin up the tax,
Oh no, no please don’t vote for a Democrat.

Now we’re trying to win a war and wipe out the terrorists,
We’re not fightin for oil we got plenty if we drill it.
But the liberals and the media are spreading their lies,
Get the hell out of our way and let our soldiers fight.

Democrats and Liberals shame on you,
don’t punish us all just to please a few.
No we can’t afford to have another attack,
and that’s why we can’t vote for a Democrat.
Oh no, a no, no, no, no, no ,no…
Oh no, a no, no, no, no, no, no..
No we can’t afford to have another attack,
Oh no, please don’t vote for a Democrat.

Republicans, we’re not perfect but we know the truth
We uphold the Constitution and the Golden Rule.
We believe a mans freedom is a God given right,
the USA is the beacon to the whole world in sight.

Chorus

Democrats and Liberals shame on you,
don’t punish us all just to please a few.
our Constitution, Nation and God are under attack,
and that’s why we can’t vote for a Democrat.
Oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no, no…
oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no, no…
Our Constitution, Nation and God are under attack,
Oh no, please, oh no please, don’t vote for a Democrat.

Our Constitution, Nation and God are under attack,
Oh no, please, oh no please, don’t vote for a Democrat.

I simply have no words in the face of Liddy Dole’s attempt to attach Jesse Helms’ name to the PEPFAR renewal. Helms did everything he could to ensure the deaths of thousands of gay men from HIV in the 1980s and 1990s; he never recanted his despicable hatred of those who struggled alone with this disease in the darkest days of the epidemic, and did all he could to make sure nothing was ever done to help them. That he should be honored now, especially when he was single-handedly responsible for adding a unique stigma to HIV-positive people in immigration law is just … well, unfathomable.

Olivia Judson is tired of the term:

I’d like to abolish the insidious terms Darwinism, Darwinist and Darwinian. They suggest a false narrowness to the field of modern evolutionary biology, as though it was the brainchild of a single person 150 years ago, rather than a vast, complex and evolving subject to which many other great figures have contributed. (The science would be in a sorry state if one man 150 years ago had, in fact, discovered everything there was to say.) Obsessively focusing on Darwin, perpetually asking whether he was right about this or that, implies that the discovery of something he didn’t think of or know about somehow undermines or threatens the whole enterprise of evolutionary biology today…

Darwin was an amazing man, and the principal founder of evolutionary biology. But his was the first major statement on the subject, not the last. Calling evolutionary biology “Darwinism,” and evolution by natural selection “Darwinian” evolution, is like calling aeronautical engineering “Wrightism,” and fixed-wing aircraft “Wrightian” planes, after those pioneers of fixed-wing flight, the Wright brothers. The best tribute we could give Darwin is to call him the founder — and leave it at that. Plenty of people in history have had an -ism named after them. Only a handful can claim truly to have given birth to an entire field of modern science.

A reader writes:

I was backpacking about twenty five years ago through Portland, Oregon and stopped to ask directions from a woman putting up marquee letters on a Baptist church sign (some message about Jesus but it was just started so I don’t know what she intended to write). 

I was looking for directions to a hostel.  She was there with her son (I think he was about seven) and said perhaps she could give me a ride, but she had to pray on it.  She paused and quietly prayed and then said, no, she could not give me a ride.  She did not know where the hostel was.  Still, she was pleasant enough, if a bit weird. I thanked her for considering it. 

I enjoyed the encounter for its unique strangeness, but I really did not want a ride, so I was secretly relieved.  Did God answer my prayer or hers?