Mar 19th, 2017 12:40 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Massive cuts to federal funding of science research? Not really such a great idea.
For about a decade, stagnant funding at the NIH was considered a serious impediment to scientific progress. Now, scientists say they are facing something much worse.
I asked more than a dozen scientists—across a wide range of disciplines, with affiliations to private schools, public schools, and private foundations—and their concern about the proposed budget was resounding. The consequences of such a dramatic reduction in public spending on science and medicine would be deadly, they told me. More than one person said that losing public funding on this scale would dramatically lower the country’s global scientific standing. One doctor said he believed Trump’s proposal, if passed,
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Mar 19th, 2017 11:50 am |
By Ophelia Benson
There are factions in the White House.
Inside the White House, they are dismissed by their rivals as “the Democrats.”
Outspoken, worldly and polished, this coterie of ascendant Manhattan business figures-turned-presidential advisers is scrambling the still-evolving power centers swirling around President Trump.
Led by Gary Cohn and Dina Powell — two former Goldman Sachs executives often aligned with Trump’s eldest daughter and his son-in-law — the group and its broad network of allies are the targets of suspicion, loathing and jealousy from their more ideological West Wing colleagues.
Of course this is all relative. “Worldly and polished” compared to Trump…which could mean not all that worldly and polished by most standards.
On the other side are the Republican
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Tags: Trump
Mar 18th, 2017 4:30 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Another bit of nonsense from the far-right trolls:
It has shown up on Irish trivia Facebook pages, in Scientific American magazine, and on white nationalist message boards: the little-known story of the Irish slaves who built America, who are sometimes said to have outnumbered and been treated worse than slaves from Africa.
But it’s not true.
Historians say the idea of Irish slaves is based on a misreading of history and that the distortion is often politically motivated. Far-right memes have taken off online and are used as racist barbs against African-Americans. “The Irish were slaves, too,” the memes often say. “We got over it, so why can’t you?”
Got over it? Oh really? So there’s no such thing … Read the rest
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6 comments
Mar 18th, 2017 12:42 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The BBC reports on the response to its own horrible question:
The BBC has apologised after a tweet from the Asian Network account asked, “What is the right punishment for blasphemy?”.
The tweet provoked criticism that the BBC appeared to be endorsing harsh restrictions on speech.
Well no. The BBC appeared to be endorsing the whole idea that dissent from religion should be impermissible and illegal and should be harshly punished. That’s what the BBC appeared to be doing.
In an apology posted on Twitter, the network said it intended to debate concerns about blasphemy on social media in Pakistan.
“We never intended to imply that blasphemy should be punished,” it said.
The post on Twitter was intended to publicise
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Tags: Blasphemy
Mar 18th, 2017 11:40 am |
By Ophelia Benson
The Times of India reports:
H Farook, 31, from Bilal Estate in South Ukkadam here, was hacked to death by a four-member gang, late Thursday night. He was a member of Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam (DVK), and an atheist. According to police, Farook was administering a WhatsApp group where he posted rationalistic views against his religion. He also posted rationalistic messages on his Facebook page which came in for criticism by members of the community.
Meanwhile, Ansath, 30, a Muslim realtor, surrendered before the judicial magistrate court -V on Friday evening in connection with the murder.
“Farook’s anti-Muslim sentiments had angered people. This may be a possible motive for murder,” said S Saravanan, DCP, Coimbatore.
Yesterday BBC Asian Network tweeted … Read the rest
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Tags: Blasphemy, Theocracy
Mar 17th, 2017 5:48 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Deutsche Welle on the meeting of Merkel and Trump.
Superficially it went pretty well.
The obvious exception was Trump’s joking comparison of Merkel’s surveillance experience, which was real, with his, for which no evidence is known to exist.
“Joking about the US surveillance of Merkel is probably the most tone deaf moment so far of Trump’s time on the international stage,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a scholar of the presidency and the media at Mary Washington University. “Trump needs to remember that he doesn’t need to crack jokes like he is still on reality television’s ‘The Apprentice.'”
Farnsworth pointed out that the two leaders didn’t even engage in the traditional handshake during an Oval Office photo opportunity earlier in the
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Tags: Trump
Mar 17th, 2017 4:17 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
More from the Annals of Nonstop Shame and Embarrassment: Trump still refuses to withdraw or apologize for Spicer’s claim that British spies secretly monitored him during last year’s campaign at the behest of Obama.
Although his aides in private conversations since Thursday night had tried to calm British officials who were livid over the claim, Mr. Trump made clear that he felt the White House had nothing to retract or apologize for. He said his spokesman was simply repeating an assertion made by a Fox News commentator.
“We said nothing,” Mr. Trump told a German reporter who asked about the matter at a joint White House news conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel. “All we did was quote a certain very
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Tags: Trump
Mar 17th, 2017 1:18 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
So in addition to everything else Trump behaves like a boor toward Angela Merkel.
Photographers ask “Handshake? Handshake?” Merkel says sotta voce to The Boor: “You want to handshake?” He ignores her and continues to scowl in the direction of the cameras.
You always think you can’t loathe him more, and then he makes you loathe him more.… Read the rest
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11 comments
Tags: President Pig, Trump
Mar 17th, 2017 12:58 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
I’ve been meaning to share passages from the ruling on the travel ban.
It is undisputed that the Executive Order does not facially discriminate for or
against any particular religion, or for or against religion versus non-religion. There
is no express reference, for instance, to any religion nor does the Executive
Order—unlike its predecessor—contain any term or phrase that can be reasonably
characterized as having a religious origin or connotation.
Indeed, the Government defends the Executive Order principally because of
its religiously neutral text —“[i]t applies to six countries that Congress and the prior
Administration determined posed special risks of terrorism. [The Executive Order]
applies to all individuals in those countries, regardless of their religion.” Gov’t.
Mem. in Opp’n
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Tags: Trump
Mar 17th, 2017 10:47 am |
By Ophelia Benson
They did what now?
The White House has tried to soothe an angry Britain after suggesting that President Barack Obama used London’s spy agency to conduct secret surveillance on President Trump while he was a candidate last year but offered no public apology on Friday.
They WHAT?
The reassurances came after British officials complained to Trump administration officials. Kim Darroch, the British ambassador to Washington, spoke with Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, at a St. Patrick’s Day reception in Washington on Thursday night just hours after Mr. Spicer aired the assertion at his daily briefing. Mark Lyall Grant, the prime minister’s national security adviser, spoke separately with his American counterpart, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.
“Ambassador Kim Darroch and
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Tags: Trump
Mar 16th, 2017 5:33 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Science. Trump don’t want no stinkin science. Trump wants JOBS, not science. Science never created any jobs for anybody. Hell no, it’s selling overpriced condos that creates jobs. Somebody has to paint all those faucets gold-color.
The scientists of course are having a big hissy fit. They’re such prima donnas.
[T]he extent of the cuts in the proposed budget unveiled early Thursday shocked scientists, researchers and program administrators. The reductions include $5.8 billion, or 18 percent, from the National Institutes of Health, which funds thousands of researchers working on cancer and other diseases, and $900 million, or a little less than 20 percent, from the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which funds the national laboratories, considered among the
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Tags: Trump
Mar 16th, 2017 4:50 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Trump’s budget proposals are what you’d expect from a loathsome human being like him.
If Americans were taken aback by the restrained, highly scripted President Trump that addressed Congress last month, they should recognize a lot more of the blustery, law-and-order candidate they elected in the budget blueprint the White House released on Thursday.
“If he said it on the campaign, it’s in the budget,” the president’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters in a Wednesday briefing previewing the proposal’s release.
That means more money—some $54 billion in extra defense spending—for the military generals Trump loves to quote so much, and a lot less for the diplomatic niceties and programs combatting climate change that he so often dismissed. The State
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Tags: Trump