WASHINGTON, DC (UP News Service)– In a move that supporters say shows sensitivity and compassion, President Bush today commuted the sentence of the planet Pluto, which was demoted to a “dwarf planet” by the International Astronomical Union in August of 2006. Under the President’s new order, Pluto will once more be regarded as a full-fledged… Continue reading Bush Commutes Pluto’s Sentence
Category: Politics
Outstanding Offers
I’m still looking for charity suggestions to help prove that atheists aren’t just cynical misers. Again, I’m offering to donate $200 to worthy non-religious charities suggested in comments. I’ve gotten some good suggestions already, but more are always welcome. On a less serious note, nobody has yet taken me up on my offer to endorse… Continue reading Outstanding Offers
Charity, Mission Trips, and Mandatory Service
Not long before the Matthew Nisbet post about uncharitable atheists crossed my RSS feeds, I had marked a Fred Clark post about mission trips that has some really good thoughts about the mechanics of charity: But the point of these mission trips is not only to get [a rural school in Haiti] built. That’s part… Continue reading Charity, Mission Trips, and Mandatory Service
Parents These Days
Ethan Zuckerman has an interesting addition to the discussion of class and networking, offering a description of a talk by danah boyd (whose name I have been capitalizing, which apparently isn’t right) about the history and usage of MySpace and Facebook. What’s particularly striking is the opening: danah began her discussion with two quotes, one… Continue reading Parents These Days
Stem Cells: It’s All About Timing
President Bush vetoed a bill that would have allowed more funding for stem cell research, saying that it would force taxpayers to support the destruction of life: “Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical,” Mr. Bush said in a brief ceremony in the East Room of the White House.… Continue reading Stem Cells: It’s All About Timing
Marriage News from Massachusetts
As several of you know very well, Kate and I were married five years ago in Massachusetts, near where her family lives. Which, of course, means that our marriage was totally cheapened and rendered meaningless by today’s vote against an anti-gay-marriage amendment to the state constitution. Or– wait, let me check– no, no it wasn’t.… Continue reading Marriage News from Massachusetts
TED Global
Ethan Zuckerman is blogging from the TED Global conference on Technology, Enetertainment, and Design as they apply to Africa. He’s live-blogging the talks by people ranging from Ethiopian paleontologist Zeray Alemseged to some mononymic Irish singer. This is one of those things where reading Ethan’s blog makes me feel like a schmuck. I mean, he’s… Continue reading TED Global
The Crucial Lunchtime Hoops Demographic
Setshot lurches back to life to point out the only Democratic primary coverage I need to read: a New York Times piece on Barack Obama’s love of pick-up basketball: From John F. Kennedy’s sailing to Bill Clinton’s golf mulligans to John Kerry’s windsurfing, sports has been used, correctly or incorrectly, as a personality decoder for… Continue reading The Crucial Lunchtime Hoops Demographic
Framing Science: Look Inside the Sausage Factory
A bit over a month ago, “framing” was the hot argument in these parts (see here, here, and here, and links therein), with zillions of comments about how difficult it was to understand what Mooney and Nisbet were advocating. Today, Matt Nisbet appears to endorse a suggestion made in a letter to Science, namely that… Continue reading Framing Science: Look Inside the Sausage Factory
Laws of Discourse?
Two more quick observations from last night’s Wesley Clark event. Or, rather, one from the event, and one from dinner beforehand. Both strike me as fairly general principles about political discourse: 1) Your current political opinions are interesting in inverse proportion to the number of times you use the word “fascist” or variants thereof. Likewise… Continue reading Laws of Discourse?