Politics
-
Do you see the flaw in this argument?
·
“It won’t be hypothetical if and when it occurs.” —UK Home Secretary Jaqui Smith, arguing on the BBC Today show for legislation to be able to hold suspects for up to 42 days.
-
Campaign 2008: Rock My Vote
·
Living abroad, I’ve been following the American Presidential campaign (podcasts of This Week and Meet The Press help). But I’ve got this far without making a choice. I still vote in California, in one of the most liberal (i.e., American parlance for left-wing) parts of the country: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi‘s district, smack…
-
Proud to hail from the Garden State
·
Normally I try to finesse my origins and claim to be a New Yorker, but today I am proud to have grown up in New Jersey: Death Penalty Repealed in New Jersey — New York Times: “Gov. Jon S. Corzine signed into law a measure repealing New Jersey’a death penalty on Monday, making the state…
-
On the Bush Presidency
·
This is the Nixon Administration without the competence. –Senator Joe Biden, This Week with George Stephanopoulos , December 9, 2007.
-
UK Physics on the chopping block
Today we heard that the (bizarrely agglomerated) UK Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills will be significantly cutting the physics budget that comes through the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). STFC was formed earlier this year out of PPARC (Particle Physics and Astrophysics) and the CCLRC (which ran big facilities like the Rutherford Appleton…
-
Me, the MP, Planck and Paris
If I’ve got any longtime readers, they may recall that I spent a week paired with Anne Snelgrove MP in the UK Parliament a couple of years ago, as part of a program connecting scienctists with Members of Parliament (described here and here). This week, Anne kept up her side of the bargain and visited…
-
Reasonable Demands for the Caped Crusader
Most of us male academics acknowledge that it’s hard being a female in the male-dominated world of physics, with our own academic sort of testosterone and structural prejudices. Imagine what it’s like as a superhero: [Via Bedazzled, which also points to a campy Batgirl trailer (not to mention an unrelated weird clip of Astrud Gilberto…
-
Holy Cow
·
I would like to think that the passing of one Scooter — Phil Rizzuto, Yankees Shortstop and broadcaster — was of greater cultural significance than the pardonning of the other one (since they didn’t manage to indict the likely mastermind behind the plot before he could resign. Probably not.
-
The Blair Decade
·
Today’s New York Times gives the best — and shortest — summary of the Blair years, which have ended today with Gordon Brown taking over (and immediately restructuring education and science, about which more once I’ve digested it), and Blair signing on to apply his talents to the Middle East. The editorial correctly digests Blair’s…