RationalWiki:What is going on in the blogosphere?/March 2011

March 2011
VIDEO: A Wisconsin capitol policeman basically tells a woman and her two kids that the First Amendment is only in effect on the first floor of the capitol, not in the rotunda.  Oh, well. No doubt he was just following orders. Paul B. Farrell, a columnist at MarketWatch -- a Wall Street Journal website and a sister company of Faux News -- commits a bit of heresy with this proposition: "Tax the Super Rich now or face a revolution: A ‘Super-Rich Delusion’ is leading us to ruin" The next wave in the wingnut flood of crazy: Remember when Utah Sen. Mike Lee said child labor laws were unconstitutional? Some people took him seriously. A bill to repeal certain child labor laws and safety standards recently shot down in Missouri is followed up by bills in Ohio and Maine to loosen child labor restrictions. Please sir, can we have some more? Edge special on black swan events. The new wingnut anti-abortion angle seems to be some kind of deranged amalgam of Jerry Falwell and Louis Farrakhan. Time magazine's Joe Klein on the GOP presidential field so far: "This is my 10th presidential campaign, Lord help me. I have never before seen such a bunch of vile, desperate-to-please, shameless, embarrassing losers coagulated under a single party's banner. They are the most compelling argument I've seen against American exceptionalism." We should stop running away from radiation. Nuclear physicist and author, Wade Allison, suggests we need a sea-change in peoples attitudes to radiation to put things into perspective. 10,000? 100,000? No, wait a MILLION! So how do you count the number of people at a protest or a march and do people alter the number for political gain? Paul Krugman on European austerity and confidence fairies. Chickenhawks become chicken...doves? A time-lapse map of all 2053 nuke detonation between 1945 and 1998. (Can you guess which nation detonated 50.3 percent of all the nukes?) Come one, come all! Hear arguments in the biggest sex-discrimination case in history as six women sue Wal-Mart in the Supreme Court. The Guardian offers the public an alternative census - help make Brian Cox a new religion! A First Amendment lawyer knows the law and does not like it. His dream: Scrap the First Amendment so we can ban "lying in journalism." Joe "EPA regulations are anti-free market" Barton drops his latest "pearl of wisdom": Oil subsidies are all about the free market! Skippy gives us the rules of debating on the internet. <vote poll=blog1409 closed="yes">If UK universities get to charge £9000 per year, it means 70% of graduates will never pay off the loan and the government would end up spending more money to subsidise that loss. Government response: shit, we didn't think of that. <vote poll=blog1408 closed="yes">A new study by the UK Govt examines how the global food business will have to change to feed a world of 9 billion people by 2050. <vote poll=blog1407 closed="yes">Turnabout is fair play: NPR's On the Media re-edits an interview with James O'Keefe. <vote poll=blog1406 closed="yes">James Fallows asks of Libya, happens then?" <vote poll=blog1405 closed="yes">Has all the talk of sieverts and ionizing radiation in the scaremongering media left you dazed and confused? Here is a little graphical perspective. <vote poll=blog1404 closed="yes">Well worth a read of the comments thread. Count the logical fallacies. The homeopath who 'discovered' the magical Venus light remedy finds a skeptical blog post about it. <vote poll=blog1403 closed="yes">Andrew Sullivan: "This is not a no-fly zone." <vote poll=blog1402 closed="yes">[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/03/18/kryptonite-for-the-supermoon/ Can you guess what I think of the "supermoon"? Hint: the blog is called Bad Astronomy.] <vote poll=blog1401 closed="yes">Totalitarianism has come to the U.S., masquerading as corporatist neoliberalism. <vote poll=blog1400 closed="yes">Toll roads lead to serfdom, probably by the same means that Medicare leads to socialism. <vote poll=blog1399 closed="yes">Disaster areas: How to - and importantly, how not to - help. <vote poll=blog1398 closed="yes">Liveblogging from the protests in Lansing, Michigan. <vote poll=blog1397 closed="yes">Michael Pirsch: There's so much democracy down in Venezuela that the imperialist American pigs are getting nervous, which means that U.S. class warfare is in its final chapter (but don't get excited; class warfare's been that way for a century and a half). <vote poll=blog1396 closed="yes">The Nation: It is wrong for Rep. Peter King to demonize Muslims because extremists are individuals, not a community. But it is, of course, perfectly all right to wonder why a certain extremist community is not being investigated for the crime of being admired by Scott Roeder. <vote poll=blog1395 closed="yes">You might be a teabagger if... <vote poll=blog1394 closed="yes">Nuclear reactor or nightclub? We report, you decide! <vote poll=blog1393 closed="yes">Somebody finally asked the question: What happens when a couple dozen children are homeschooled by a nitwit? <vote poll=blog1392 closed="yes">From the Obvious Department: James O'Keefe selectively edited the NPR tapes. Ironically, Glenn Beck's site The Blaze was the first to release unedited segments and analysis of the videos. <vote poll=blog1391 closed="yes">How dare my favourite quack take down their website before I could complain about it? The UK Advertising Standards Authority now has powers to regulate claims on websites. Some skeptics seem to be upset that the website they were about to complain about was taken down voluntarily. Is this "job done"? Why do some people seem to need the ASA to slap some wrists? <vote poll=blog1390 closed="yes">Bill Moyers and Michael Winship write to defend NPR against congressional budget-slashers and allegations of bias. <vote poll=blog1389 closed="yes">You're next, Michigan! <vote poll=blog1388 closed="yes">Perhaps more relevant to UK RationalWikians...A guide to studying with the Open University <vote poll=blog1387 closed="yes">Will Wilkinson on Bobo's new book. <vote poll=blog1386 closed="yes">Kevin Drum says manufactroversies are the wave of the future. <vote poll=blog1385 closed="yes">William Rivers Pitt, being ever so slightly upset about the recent union snafu, recites that well-known poetic line, "Then they came for the trade unionists..." <vote poll=blog1384 closed="yes">Psychoanalyst Peter Michaelson: The only reason conservatives dislike government is because they are psychosocially stunted and acting out teenage rebellion. Whatever happened to the good old days, when "progressives" encouraged teenage rebellion instead of aping Lyle Rossiter? This is what pi sounds like. <vote poll=blog1382 closed="yes">Robert Naiman: Sen. John Kerry, the anti-Vietnam-War Democrat, should know better than to act in ways suggesting that the U.N. charter is not the Constitution of the world. <vote poll=blog1381 closed="yes">Prof. Henry A. Giroux enters his umpteenth week of being upset about "formative cultures;" specifically such things as the welfare state, unions, public values, young people, and public schools, which, as everyone knows, are essential to democracy. <vote poll=blog1380 closed="yes">How to beat the Watson Jeopardy computer <vote poll=blog1379 closed="yes">"The Lord is my shepherd" - kind of a dumb metaphor, really. <vote poll=blog1378 closed="yes">If RationalWiki is looking for a theme song, here's a candidate. <vote poll=blog1377 closed="yes">Republicans still acting cartoonishly evil when it comes to the environment. What's next on the agenda, "Screw the Earth" Day? <vote poll=blog1366 closed="yes">It's time to play Sheen, Beck or Qaddafi! <vote poll=blog1365 closed="yes">Glenn Beck, wanting to outdo himself talking to cupcakes, has recycled a decades old tin foil hatter story as "breaking news" (again) that Socialist chants are being taught to grade school children on his "news" site The Blaze. Morons are obviously shocked. <vote poll=blog1364 closed="yes">Glenn Beck seems to have gone off the deep end in trying to link money supply and inflation to cupcakes. During the confusing analogy, which only goes further to prove the definition of "currency" eludes him completely, he spends some quality time talking to the cupcakes. <vote poll=blog1363 closed="yes">WBC taunts Anonymous. Anonymous show their teeth. <vote poll=blog1362 closed="yes">Would Superman pass the birther test and other legal questions faced by comic book characters. <vote poll=blog1361 closed="yes">William Rivers Pitt will puke if he hears the phrase "liberal media" again. Why? Media outlets are owned by corporations, therefore, as everyone should know, they're the neoliberal media. (Makes a person wonder how Democratic candidates ever manage to get any editorial endorsements.) <vote poll=blog1360 closed="yes">Wanted: Your DNA for National Geographic's Genographic Project Trace the migration route of your ancestors over tens of thousands of years.