Clipmarks | Political animal Clips

Palin as Russia Expert Becomes GOP Talking Point

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 17:47:31 GMT

clipped by: Wisco
clipper's remarks: It's a measure of how weak the pro-Palin argument is that this becomes a Republican talking point. Cindy McCain could be excused for saying it, but John "former Ambassador to the UN" Bolton? He knows it's total BS.

The Palin part of the team offers a very weak agreement with this argument, revealing that they're aware of just how lame it is; "Alaska’s geographic location certainly contributes to Governor Palin’s experience since she has dealt with trade and economic issues as a result, but it is only one part of her overall experience."

Clip Source: blogs.dw-world.de

It looks like this is turning into some kind a talking point: On Sunday, in remarks to ABC, Cindy McCain said Sarah Palin had foreign policy experience because the state she governs, Alaska, is near Russia; then, to a fellow CQ reporter, former Bush administration official John Bolton offered the same defense of her, adding proximity to Canada as a qualification.

It really is a bemusing strategy. Of all the arguments one could make for John McCain picking Palin, it offers the least. Via Political Animal: "Has Palin ever been to Russia? No. Has she ever demonstrated any expertise on U.S. policy towards Russia? No. Does she have any background in international relations at any level? No. But for Republicans, the fact that she's lived near Russia is somehow a qualification for national office. The mind reels."

Tags: news

Scientists Reprogram Adult Cell's Function

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:25:55 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: This is great news for those people who are against using stem cells. We have the cells we need within our own bodies.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Scientists have transformed one type of fully developed adult cell directly into another inside a living animal, a startling advance that could lead to cures for a variety of illnesses and sidestep the political and ethical quagmires

associated with embryonic stem cell research.

Through a series of painstaking experiments involving mice, the Harvard biologists pinpointed three crucial molecular switches that, when flipped, completely convert a common cell in the pancreas into the more precious insulin-producing ones that diabetics need to survive.

The experiments, detailed online yesterday in the journal Nature, raise the prospect that patients suffering from not only diabetes but also heart disease, strokes and many other ailments could eventually have some of their cells reprogrammed to cure their afflictions without the need for drugs, transplants or other therapies.

Tags: medical, science, stem cells, disease control

Strange Laws

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 01:38:12 GMT

clipped by: sahara
clipper's remarks: In Phoenix, Arizona, you can't walk through a hotel lobby with spurs on.

In California, a law created in 1925 makes it illegal to wiggle while dancing.

In Utah, daylight must be visible between dancing couples.

In Michigan, it is against the law for a lady to lift her skirt more than 6 inches while walking through a mud puddle.

In North Carolina, it is against the law for a rabbit to race down the street.

In Georgia, it's against the law to spread a false rumor.

In West Virginia, one can't cook sauerkraut or cabbage due to the odors and the offence is subject to imprisonment.

In Missouri, a man must have a permit to shave.

The law states that more than 3000 sheep cannot be herded down Hollywood Blvd. at any one time.

In Texas, it is still a "hanging offense" to steal cattle.

In Virginia, the Code of 1930 has a statute which prohibits corrupt practices or bribery by any person other than political candidates.

Clip Source: www.strangefacts.com

*Laws shown here have been collected from sources believed to be
reliable, however, there are no guarantees. We recommend that
you conduct further research if you plan on using any of these in a publication!

In Texas, it's against the law for anyone to have a pair of pliers in his or her possession.

In Miami, it is forbidden to imitate an animal.

It is against the law to mispronounce the name of the State of Arkansas in that State.

In Tennessee, it is against the law to drive a car while sleeping.

In New York, it is against the law for a blind person to drive an automobile.

In West Virginia, only babies can ride in a baby carriage.

In Georgia, it is against the law to slap a man on the back or front.

In Tennessee, a law exists which prohibits the sale of bologna (sandwich meat) on Sunday.

In New Jersey, cabbage can't be sold on Sunday.

In North Carolina, it is against the law for dogs and cats to fight.

In the state of Colorado, a pet cat, if loose, must have a tail-light !

Tags: laws

Stumble 'Knowledge' Results - LectureFox

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:03:17 GMT

clipped by: skwirlinator
clipper's remarks: LectureFox - free university lectures

Clip Source: lecturefox.com

free university lectures

The Future of Science and Technology in Europe

The City Car

Nanophotonics: Magic of Light in Nanostructures

Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher

Input/Output-Algorithms

Mechanical Behavior of Materials

Communication System Design

Polymer Physics

Principles of Microeconomics

Marine Chemistry

Teaching the Second Law

Advancements in Underwater Vehicles

The Second Law and Biophysics

Ideal Language Learning

Open Science and Scientific Publishing

Games and Civic Engagement

Animal Behavior

Foundations of the Second Law

The World is Flat 3.0

Electricity and Magnetism

Explorations in Language Learnability

The Second Law and Cosmology

Bioelectronic Interfaces

Fundamentals of Physics

Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics

Introduction to Psychology

Death

Modern Poetry

Introduction to Political Philosophy

Introduction to the Old Testament

Practical Aspects of Modern Cryptography

Thermodynamics and Kinetics

Microscale Engineering

Marine Organic Geochemistry

The Second Law and Quantum Physics

Tags: stumble, knowledge, lecturefox, experiment

A Sustainable Future

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 03:33:12 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad

Clip Source: www.pbs.org

What Is Sustainable Agriculture?
by Dr. Gail W. Feenstra
Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program
University of California - Davis

1. Introduction

2. Concept Themes

3. Farming and Natural Resources

4. Plant Production Practices

5. Animal Production Practices

6. The Economic, Social & Political Context

Introduction

Agriculture has changed dramatically, especially since the end of World War II. Food and fiber productivity soared due to new technologies, mechanization, increased chemical use, specialization and government policies that favored maximizing production. These changes allowed fewer farmers with reduced labor demands to produce the majority of the food and fiber in the U.S.

Clip: Philanthropy

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 17:51:57 GMT

clipped by: altaloman

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

For-profit fundraisers collect loads, but nonprofits see a sliver

The problem affects charities large and small, and causes including child and animal welfare, health research and opposition to drunk driving.

For 24 years, Citizens Against Government Waste has exposed pork-barrel spenders and rallied tax critics.

Its "Pig Book" and "porker" awards, meant to shame congressional leaders who exploit the public purse, have made the group a media darling and a political force.

But when it comes to policing its own fundraising practices, America's self-proclaimed "#1 taxpayer watchdog" seems to have lost its bite.

Humane Society Legislative Fund

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:35:22 GMT

clipped by: dmccluredvm
clipper's remarks: A political approach for the animal protectionists is much better than domestic terrorism!

Clip Source: hslf.typepad.com

Get Political for Animals

Michael Markarian is the president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization that lobbies for animal welfare legislation and works to elect humane-minded candidates to public office. In almost 15 years in the animal protection movement, Markarian has worked for the passage of countless state laws and federal statutes to protect animals, in addition to helping defeat some of the strongest anti-animal welfare politicians in the United States. ...More

Tags: animal welfare, animal protection

Jane Goodall: We Need A New Mindset

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:09:39 GMT

clipped by: gingembre
clipper's remarks: "We should admit that the infliction of suffering on beings who are capable of feeling is ethically problematic and that the amazing human brain should set to work to find new ways of testing and experimenting that will not involve the use of live, sentient beings."

"Her call comes as the European Commission prepares to publish draft legislation to update the EU’s animal experiments directive (Directive 86/609 EEC). The existing law is out of date (over 20 years old), with hundreds of thousands of animals currently receiving no protection at all."

"Dr Goodall was joined by biomedical researchers, MEPs and animal protectionists at a Replace Animal Experiments in Europe event in Brussels. Event organisers, the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research and the Humane Society International (HSI), are spearheading a campaign to accelerate European efforts to replace animal experiments with more ethical and reliable methods."

Clip Source: ga0.org

Jane Goodall Proposes Nobel Prize for
Alternatives to Animal Experimentation

World-renowned primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall has proposed the creation of a new Nobel Prize category for scientists who advance medical knowledge through the development of working alternatives to animal experimentation. Goodall, whose pioneering work with chimpanzees in the wild changed the face of ethology, said that curtailing and eventually eliminating animal research is a "goal towards which all civilized nations should be moving."

"As we move into the 21st century we need a new mindset," she told attendees of a symposium organized by animal rights groups and political leaders in the European Union. "We should admit that the infliction of suffering on beings who are capable of feeling is ethically problematic and that the amazing human brain should set to work to find new ways of testing and experimenting that will not involve the use of live, sentient beings."

Clip Source: www.politics.co.uk

Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research

Tags: animal experimentation, ethics, science, humane research, nobel prize

This Crumbling Empire

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:58:21 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: I don't agree with the essay in its entirety, but thought it was thought-provoking.

Clip Source: www.consortiumnews.com

Fastened to a Dying Animal

Here in this crumbling empire once known as the American Republic, here in a nation that, at present, for all practical purposes, only produces Cheetos and killer drones, whose architecture is being winnowed down to thriving rural meth houses and foreclosed upon suburban mchouses, whose corrupt corporate culture has bequeathed upon our suffering planet dying oceans and the hyper-caffeinated tsunami of Red Bull Capitalism -- the essential question confronts us -- how does one retain (not retail) one's humanity amid the catastrophic machinery and inane accouterment of our age?

Seemingly, their creed is: Let the ignorant multitudes languish on the low nutrient, junk news we serve them from the drive thru windows of our corporate media outlets, while the political and business elite cannibalize what is left of the republic.

Yet, we, against all evidence, believe we are free actors in a spontaneous, unfolding democratic drama.

Only a Beast or a God can Ignore the Political

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:06:04 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: Aristotle, the father of science, and Aquinas, one of the founders of modern Christianity. For them to claim separation from society (and politics) makes you beast, sinner, saint or god.

Clip Source: www.iep.utm.edu

To be fully human is to live in political society, and Aquinas makes a great deal of Aristotle's claim that one who is separated from society so as to be completely a-political must be either sub-human or super-human, either a "beast or a god." (Aristotle's Politics, 1253a27; Cf. Aquinas' Commentary, Book 1, Lesson 1 [39]).

Aquinas admits, of course, that political society is not the only natural community. The family is natural in perhaps an even stronger sense and is prior to political society. The priority of the family, however, is not a priority of importance, since politics aims at a higher and nobler good than the family. It is rather a priority of development. In other words, politics surpasses all other communities in dignity while at the same time depending upon and presupposing the family. On this point Aquinas follows Aristotle's explanation of how political society develops from other lower societies including both the family and the village.

Tags: political animal, aristotle, aquinas

Top 25 liberal blogs

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:13:53 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: from American Street's Top 100 list

Clip Source: www.reachm.com

THE TOP 100 LIST

At the very top, Dkos had 515,821 visits/day per TTLB and had 600,307 visits/day on LBAN as of 12/19/07 when this was written. For guide purposes, it makes more sense to report groups within a traffic range and assume the order is very close to correct (with Huffington Post and Glenn Greenwald being the only purely speculative ones in the list.)
.

600,000 - 300,000 visits/day

Daily Kos 600,307 views/day
Huffington Post … [numbers unknown; purely speculative]
The Raw Story 330,231 views/day
.

300,000 - 100,000 visits/day

TPM
AlterNet
Crooks and Liars
Democratic Underground
Common Dreams
.

100,000 - 65,000 visits/day

Eschaton
Firedoglake

That’s the top 10.
.

65,000 - 40,000 visits/day

Treehugger
Glenn Greenwald (probably considerably higher)
AMERICAblog
The Agonist
MyDD
.

40,000 - 30,000 visits/day

Feministing
BartCop.com
Washington Monthly/Political Animal
Drudge Retort
News Hounds

Truthdig
Politics1
Pharyngula
Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire
The Smirking Chimp

That’s the top 25.
.

Tags: blogs, politics, liberal

Human-Animal Embryos

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:02:30 GMT

clipped by: skwirlinator

Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Human-Animal Embryos Announced in U.K.

April 2, 2008 -- For the first time in Britain, researchers at Newcastle University in northern England said Tuesday they had created human-animal hybrid embryos, amid a political row over a disputed embryo research bill in parliament.

The embryos were created by injecting DNA taken from human skin cells into eggs derived from cow ovaries with almost all their genetic material stripped away, and lasted for three days in a laboratory.

Tags: science, genes, embryos

British researchers create human-animal hybrid embryo amid political row

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:31:17 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

For the first time in Britain, researchers at Newcastle University said Tuesday they had created human-animal hybrid embryos, amid a political row over a disputed embryo research bill in parliament.

The revelation comes with British MPs engaged in a fierce battle over the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which allows the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos for medical research.

The government says that the scientific advantages of allowing the creation of hybrid embryos for research purposes could help millions of people to recover from illness or disease.

Religious leaders, however, have argued against the bill, with the leader of Catholics in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, using his Easter Sunday sermon to brand the bill a "monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life" which will allow experiments of "Frankenstein proportion".

Tags: biology, biotechnology, bioethics, hybrids

The Paradox of Political Animals

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:29:31 GMT

clipped by: Djiezes
clipper's remarks:

“The paradox of a highly social species like rhesus monkeys and humans is that our complex sociality is the reason for our success, but it’s also the source of our greatest troubles,” he said. “Throughout human history, you see that the worst problems for people almost always come from other people, and it’s the same for the monkeys. You can put them anywhere, but their main problem is always going to be other rhesus monkeys.”

aka 'le condition social'?

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Political Animals

Just as there are myriad strategies open to the human political animal with White House ambitions, so there are a number of nonhuman animals that behave like textbook politicians. Researchers who study highly gregarious and relatively brainy species like rhesus monkeys, baboons, dolphins, sperm whales, elephants and wolves have lately uncovered evidence that the creatures engage in extraordinarily sophisticated forms of politicking, often across large and far-flung social networks.

Male dolphins, for example, organize themselves into at least three nested tiers of friends and accomplices

rather like the way human societies are constructed of small kin groups allied into larger tribes allied into still larger nation-states.

Wherever animals must pool their talents and numbers into cohesive social groups

the better to protect against predators, defend or enlarge choice real estate or acquire mates, the stage will be set for the appearance of political skills

Tags: society, social, animals, biology, evolution, politics, maestripieri, monkey, rhesus, macachiavellian intelligence

Political Animals (Yes, Animals)

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:11:07 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

As the candidates have shown us in the succulent telenovela that is the 2008 presidential race, there are many ways to parry for political power. You can go tough and steely in an orange hunter’s jacket, or touchy-feely with a Kleenex packet. You can ally yourself with an alpha male like Chuck Norris, befriend an alpha female like Oprah Winfrey or split the difference and campaign with your mother. You can seek the measured endorsement of the town elders or the restless energy of the young, showily handle strange infants or furtively slam your opponents.

Tags: animals, politics