February 28, 2009
Category: Policy and Politics
Following weeks of speculation, President Obama nominated Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services. She will be responsible for shepherding the president's promise of universal health care through Congress, and for carrying out his promises to reform health care in America. In last week's address to Congress, Obama stated: we can no longer afford to put health care reform on hold. [Our budget] includes an historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform – a down-payment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable health care for every American. It's a commitment that's...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 4:37 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 26, 2009
Category: Policy and Politics
Outgoing KS GOP boss Christian Morgan reacts to the response to President Obama's address to Congress: Governor Jindal from Louisiana is fantastic.But other conservatives aren't so sure: David Brooks: "In a moment when only the federal government is actually big enough to do stuff, to just ignore all that and just say ‘government is the problem, corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending,’ it’s just a form of nihilism. It’s just not where the country is, it’s not where the future of the country is." Kathryn Jean Lopez: "E-mails I’m getting are from disappointed conservatives. They wanted a full-throated response to Obama and...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 6:19 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Policy and Politics
I'm still confused. Did Bobby Jindal really dis volcano monitoring, of the sort that saved lives when Mt. St. Helens erupted? He really doesn't care for science, does he?...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 4:00 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Policy and Politics
Last year, we spent a lot of time mocking the self-righteous bigotry of Martin Cothran. Cothran, who works for the Kentucky affiliate of Focus on the Family and blogs for the Disco. Inst., objects to gays having an equal right to marriage, and thinks it's hateful to call him a bigot for his anti-gay bigotry. Ah, well. I mention all of this as preface to his latest round of bigotry. Today, he's complaining about gays having equal access to adoption, and especially to a discussion on a local newspaper's blog, in which he feel's it's been misunderstood: that I was...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 1:29 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 24, 2009
Category: Policy and Politics
Will Bobby Jindal suggest faith healing or exorcism as solutions to our nation's challenges?...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 6:38 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 23, 2009
Category: Culture Wars
At the AAAS meetings in Chicago two weeks ago, I was privileged to be on a panel with such luminaries as Olivia Judson, David Deamer, Neil Shubin, and this year's winner of the AAAS Award for the Public Understanding of Science, Ken Miller. It was a great occasion, and afterward I got to shake hands with the original Tiktaalik fossil at Neil Shubin's lab, conveniently located catty-corner to my old dorm at the University of Chicago. I plan to make slidecasts of several of those talks to post on Youtube or Slideshare when I get the time. Until then, we...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 6:26 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Policy and Politics
DaveScot, at ID creationist Bill Dembski's place, is on a climate change denial binge. Dave writes: that antarctic sea ice is at a record high (at least since 1980 when measurement started). The new high is REALLY high. It’s 50% greater than the old record set in 1995. In case anyone is laboring under the misapprehension that antarctic sea is retreating, it ain’t. The 30-year trend is up 2.5% per decade.He seems to take this to mean that: As the northern hemisphere warmed the southern hemisphere cooled.But no! Temperature is rising globally, it's rising in the Northern hemisphere, and it's...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 6:24 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 20, 2009
Category: Culture Wars
Disco. Inst. honcho Bruce Chapman is upset at The Weakness at the Center of the Conservative Coalition. Shorter Bruce Chapman: No one wants to have anything to do with social conservatives. Waaaaah! We'll take our ball and go home.Yesterday, Chapman was going ape about … well, it's hard to be sure. Shorter Bruce Chapman: Apes aren't people because apes sometimes injure people. After all, no one would keep a tiger as a pet, claim it was like a child, and be shocked when it attacked him. Oh, um, even though he did, it is surely be the fault of Charles...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 2:29 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 19, 2009
Category: Biology
More here, via Glenn Branch....
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 3:50 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 10, 2009
Category: Policy and Politics
Blogging is slow this week. I've got a talk at AAAS in Chicago to prepare, an abstract for a conference in Montreal to prepare, and a dissertation to complete. So let it be known that creationism still sucks, that I'm glad a bill forcing evolution disclaimers into Mississippi textbooks failed, that creationist bills in Iowa and New Mexico are lame and should go away (as should similar legislation in Alabama and Oklahoma), and that the Disco. Inst.'s attempt to co-opt the anniversary of Darwin's birth is pretty damn lame. More blogging anon....
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 12:58 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Joshua Rosenau spends his days defending the teaching of evolution at 
