An Amercian Original Dies at 93
On February 22, 2006, the New York Timesannounced Theodore Draper, Freelance Historian, Is Dead at 93. Ted Draper made very significant contributions to the history of, and the theorizing of, the...
View ArticleAre we all entitled to our opinions?
Aren't you entitled to your opinions? And can't you just say what you think? There's free speech in this country, isn't there? Maybe it is just me, but I've worried sometimes when I've seen people on...
View ArticleIs making war in our genes? UPDATED
Science (2/24/06), which just arrived today, notes:Watch the 6 o'clock news or stroll through a natural history museum of spear-wielding cavemen, and you might think humans have been killers since the...
View ArticleUPDATE: Drudge/Nielson on Kos's book sales
UPDATE: A few minutes after I posted this, Kos himself adressed the issue. I'd remove the diary, but that would mean removing points from people, I think. So I'm leaving it. And the comments are good...
View ArticleSo you've told the troll he's a pervert ...Can he sue? W/ a poll
The Guardian today reports a landmark legal ruling. A political disagreement let to what was counted as severe verbal abuse from a Ms Williams, who said Mr. Smith was a "nonce" (only in England!) who...
View ArticleThe fundamental attribution error. Or: How do I understand thee? Let me count...
Any diary on understanding people today is going to be about you know what. So be warned. A lot of recent research strongly suggests that human beings form very quick judgments because we use rules of...
View ArticleScalia vs. McKinney: An Uppity Woman Wins Our Attention
Well, it's one of those days. There's an interesting and important topic and I don't have much time. The topic is uppity women and what we think of them. In some ways, this topic is covered with...
View ArticleA new step in understanding evolution
There is an important report in the NY Times. Under the direction of Dr. Joseph W. Thornton, professor of biology at the University of Oregon, researchers have traced the steps in the evolution of a...
View ArticleA Farewell to Memes?
We want our best ideas to catch on and influence voters. We have some understanding of how this is done. One thing we know is that framing makes a difference. For example, roughly speaking, the...
View ArticleMSOC/Beckel/Gibson: A first attempt at an analysis
One of the most interesting questions about a public performance concerns how the context affects the message. We need to understand this because we are influenced by such factors and because we want...
View Article9/11: How can we tell what happened? UPDATED
Maybe it is because I'm flying to NYC tomorrow to meet up with my son and friends in a hotel right across from the WTC, but I'm finding conjecturesabout whether or not there was a conspiracy difficult....
View ArticleArmando's Diary and DKos's effectiveness
Armando's interesting diary raised some questions for me about what we really know about DKos's influence. The following discussion made me wonder what is really happening in research on blogs. The...
View Articlerape and common sense
Mcjoan has written a criticism of a right wing article attack on feminism. The attack states that feminism has been combating common sense and so making young women more vulnerable to rape. In...
View ArticleFiling a sexual harassment suit: What to expect
The Houston Chronicle has a report about a sexual harassment suit filed by a male dancer with the Houston Ballet. I felt like both laughing and crying when I read it; it is such a classic display of...
View ArticleMore politicized medicine...
In the Alice in Wonderland world of the FDA, "no scientific evidence" means, apparentlly, "we won't fund the trials and we'll ignore the ones that are out there." That's why the NY Times ends up...
View ArticleGive me a break! Or: who's biased now? w/ poll
Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist, had great op-ed piecelast Sunday in the NY Times. I haven't seen anyone mention it, and since this is probably the last day you can get it for free, it seems a...
View ArticleA rare day: Listening to Rush Limbaugh is almost a pleasure.
Normally it takes about 2 to 5 seconds before I have to turn him off, even when I have a long car ride and nothing more to listen to than my siamese cats who insist on parodying the Star Spangle...
View Article"Vatican rethinks condom ban"
Many of us worried about the spread of AIDS were dismayed by the late pope's insistence that the use of condoms is unacceptable in any circumstances, even to protect oneself against AIDS. At the same...
View ArticleWaiting for Catastrophe
Right now the Gulf tide is coming in some floors down from me and about 400 feet out. I spend most weekends here, with spouse and our pets companion animals, who are curled up with me on this stormy...
View ArticleAl Gore: Do Men Like Him? with poll
This diary is so massively indebted to an earlier one that I'm worried I might be breaking some rule. See what you think. -------------------------------- He got kicked around a lot, here and...
View ArticlePlease, tell me I didn't see this on DKos: Updated
Update: This diary is just an hour or two short of 6 days old as this update is written. Every day people come along to feed it comments. I'm sure it appreciates that, but I think it is tired. Most...
View ArticleRacism and Science Education: Poll Added
There's a typical pattern of conversation that I've witnessed too many times. It goes like this: Administrator: Of course, we are firmly pledged to hire more women and minorities in the STEM...
View Article(Heart) Breaking: NYT on needing illegal immigrants
Maybe there will be some rethinking when the US faces the fact that some illegal immigrants are fighting fires to save forests, property and lives. A new article on the Times' electronic front page...
View ArticlePoor Press for Pooties: Updated w/ Pic & better spelling
Or not. Apparently, a domestic cat in New Jersey chased a bear up a tree. In England, a nation of animal lovers (children are another thing*), The Guardian is using the occasion for examining human...
View ArticleFor women, girls and transfolk: Southern Girls Convention
I got this notice yesterday and thought it might be worth a diary space. I got it from a good source and, despite the title, it looks really interesting. I can't go, but wish I could. Eighth Annual...
View ArticleHow to have both Science and Religion: Updated title
I just received this notice: The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion is an academic research enterprise based at St Edmund's College, Cambridge. Its website offers a number of lectures on...
View ArticleTenure for professors: It is important? w/ a poll
Proceedings against Ward Churchill have attracted interest here, and I'm hoping to get some more input from Kossacks about the general issue of tenure for college and university professors. I'm writing...
View ArticleOur President (!) on Larry King tomorrow night
George W. and Laura both will be on Larry King tomorrow night. You can send in questions at www.cnn.com/larryking So we have a major international crisis. Everyone here knows the details. Iraq, Iran...
View Article"Give me a break!" Have some animal stories
This is a tense week! If you feel like taking a break, you might enjoy some thinking about some events in the world of animal companions. Today's Guardian, for example, has the tale of Barney, the...
View ArticleWould you fly to England this weekend on continental?
There's a valuable discussion on the recommend list that is discussing the high alert airports are on. But it has framed this discussion in terms of a likelihood that it is all a tempest in a teapot....
View Article"The Death of a President" (w/ a poll)
The British television station More(subscript 4) is going to show a pseudodocumentary that depicts Bush being assassinated and explores the aftermath. There is no doubt that the character of the...
View ArticleHouston Justice: little boy who killed his father sentenced.
From the Houston Chronicle: http://www.chron.com/Boy who killed dad gets 10-year sentence -- A jury decided today that a 12-year-old boy who shot his father to death two years ago as the man waited...
View Article"Give me a break!" No. 2 Have some animal cams w/poll
This is an escape diary. It's also an invitation to slow way down. One way to do that is to watch hens. (We're talking really slowing down.) You can look at the yard or go inside the hen house....
View ArticleDaily Kos in an academic journal
Well, this was fun. I was commenting on an article in a very academic journal; it was about tenure. The authors were arguing that tenure for professors didn't serve much purpose. I strongly...
View ArticleWhat's wrong with calling them mentally ill, sociopaths, etc.
I did a search on DKos on comments for "psychotic" (36) and "sociopaths"(93)for the last week It's hard not to understand the impulse to see Bush as a sociopath; his justifications seem so phoney that...
View ArticlePharmaceuticals and US breast cancer rates: just announced
The NYTimes just reported that breast cancer rates in the US "dropped dramatically" in 2003.The "experts" conjecture that it is due to women's stopping taking HRT for menopause symptoms.Find some...
View ArticleGo figure: Gore, Drudge, NYTIMES
According to Drudge,NY TIMES PLANS TUESDAY HIT ON GORE, NEWSROOM SOURCES TELL DRUDGE: 'Scientists argue that Gore's warnings are full of exaggerated claims and startling errors'... Developing... The...
View ArticleHillary and Homosexuality
O boy, I really don't want to do this. But since Hillary is being skewered for saying "I'm going to leave that to others to conclude" about the morality of homosexuality, it really is worth noting...
View Article"Fatal Errors," former British defence secretary admits.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Geoff Hoon, British defence secretary during the initial phases of the Iraq war/occupation, details fatal errors in planning.Geoff Hoon reveals that Britain...
View ArticleGlobal Warming: Could the G8 be irrelevant?
It was very hard to see today that Europe is capitulating to Bush on global warming. To say this is not at all the blame the messanger; Jerome has important news. But if despair can just hit you...
View ArticleCindy Sheehan on Democracy Now
Cindy Sheehan's diary here on Memorial Day has gotten some press attention. Tomorrow she'll be on Democracy Now. I just got this email:On Wednesday, Cindy Sheehan will join us for an exclusive...
View ArticleMichael Moore on Democracy Now today/and an accidental reflection
There is an hour long interview with Michael Moore today on Democrycy Now. The site says that it is about the making of Sicko and health care policy issues.If you go to the site, you'll find lots of...
View ArticleThousands of rubber ducks to land on British shores after 15 year journey:...
The silly news can be a relief on a day like today, with Sotus dismantling Brown v. Board of Ed, and removing a 96-year old protection for consumers. True, they did block the execution of a possibly...
View ArticleCan you trust your mind? A science+poll diary
I just discovered that a cool experiment, which was devised in 1999, can be done on the web. AND you can take part. Your results may end up surprising you a lot. In fact, if you haven't heard about...
View ArticleOn interpreting a diary: Cindy's and others
I've spent a lot of time both reading others' papers and manuscripts, writing my own stuff and then reading what others think of what I've written.In thinking about reading something you think is...
View Article"Our country is in a constitutional crisis."
Bill Moyers has reminded us. The president has greatly extended the claims for power for the president. That is a fundamental challenge to the checks and balances our constitution provides. He will...
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BBC News: The goldfish rescue.
This was just too hard to resist. I was looking on the BBC web site for news of the recent floods, especially in Oxford. Now our CNN is perfectly capable of doing animal stories, but the lovely...
View ArticleNot really GBCW, but...
I've learned a great deal from DKos and I've really valued a lot in my experience here. I don't want just to fade away, but I now have a lot less time to track diaries and comments. And I think that...
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The news of my demise/banning
is premature. When I drop by I've been so surprised to see people suppose I have various sock puppets. I couldn't figure that one out until I heard today that someone was saying I've been banned....
View ArticleDumbfounded
Sometime ago - maybe about two or three years ago - DKos seemed to me a site of enormous conflict and upheaval. There were extraordinary voices of deeply committed people, and they made what were...
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