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Science, Evolution, and Creationism (2008)
National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
How did life evolve on Earth? The answer to this question can help us understand our past and prepare for our future. Although evolution provides credible and reliable answers, polls show that many people turn away from science, seeking other explanations with which they are more comfortable.
Damn shame I won't be able to post the whole 3 hours...
Upcoming Schedule
About the Program
Nell Irvin Painter is the author of six books, including "Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meanings, 1618 to the Present" and "Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol." She was an American history professor at Princeton for sixteen years before retiring in 2005. From 1997 to 2000, Ms. Painter was head of the university's Program in African American Studies. Call in during In Depth to talk to Nell Irvin Painter or e-mail your questions for her to booktv@c-span.org.
So what is Ms. Clinton's response to this challenge?
I think I'm going to snatch up some more clips for you later.
Is Hussein Obama the weakest Dem for the General election?
The New Republic Iowa Caucus ^ | January 3, 2008 | nwrep
Posted on 01/03/2008 9:07:11 PM PST by nwrep
Did the weakest Dem candidate for the general election won tonight? I think so.
By sending forth Hussein Osama out of Iowa, Democrats have unwittingly weakened their general election prospects.
Hussein's exotic mixture of radical liberalism, Kwanzaa Socialism, antipathy towards the unborn, and weakness against his jihadi brethren will all come back to destroy him against almost any Republican opponent, even the snake-grope from Hope.
I think we as Republicans should be celebrating tonight at the coronation of Hussein, in whose presence millions of Democrat women, from elementary school teachers to journalism majors to law school grads to dykes on bikes will go weak in their knees.
If I do, it will be because of Dayo Olopade. He finds good stuff .
I stole this link from The New Republic. The link is in the next post.
Douglas Burns :: Why Barack Obama Will Win The Iowa Caucuses
One very much underappreciated dynamic in this race is that among the leading Democratic contenders Obama is the Midwesterner. Hillary is New York slick and Edwards is a Southern-fried pol who delivered a speech so populist in tone Sunday that I suspected he might leave Carroll High School, cross the street and march with a torched mob on the more well-to-do Collison Addition of our town.
Yes, we are a largly white state, and sure, it goes without saying that when Barack Obama is on the television screen or behind the political podium we see a black man.
That is, after all, what he is.
But when you listen to Obama, the substance of thinking, the cadence of his reasoning, his unassuming acceptance of people, you hear a Midwesterner.
Huckabee's Attack Ad Runs After All
January 3, 2008
His attack ad appears on three Iowa stations. We find it somewhat misleading. Another ad makes misleading claims about tax cuts.
Summary
The ad Huckabee said he decided not to run has now appeared at least three times in Iowa anyway. It accuses Romney of being "dishonest" but shades the facts in the process.
In another ad Huckabee claims to have signed the most broad-based tax cut in Arkansas history. But as we've noted repeatedly, he signed bigger tax increases than cuts.
Analysis
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee raised eyebrows Dec. 31 when he told reporters at a news conference that he had decided not to run an attack ad calling rival Mitt Romney "dishonest," then ran it in front of reporters and TV cameras anyway. Now it turns out that the ad actually appeared on at least three Iowa TV stations that same day.
JReid at ReidBlog's take on the losers of last night...most of it ,anyway, the ones that really amused me or struck me as particularly true. You can check her winners at her site.
- Bill Clinton - I love the guy, but he didn't make the difference for his wife in the end, and the same generational, sweeping change that he and Al Gore represented in 1992 may be coming back to bite the missus in the unmentionables. That and there's a new Man from Hope.
- Huckabee hating RedStaters, and the "FisCons" and "DefCons" (fiscal and defense conservatives) who love them.
- The Congressional Black Caucus, which has mostly gone into the tank for Hillary, and whose members will now face the uncomfortable prospect of heading to South Carolina to campaign for Mrs. Clinton, even as the Obama juggernaut steams toward the 30-40% Black southern primary.
- The civil rights establishment, which has dissed Barack to the point of hateration (that includes Revs Sharpton and Jackson, Andrew Young, and others who have been dissing Barack from day one.)
- Black self-doubt Why do we need to wait for White voters to endorse Barack before we feel comfortable supporting him?
- Pat Robertson, who is totally discredited as a Christian "leader," having missed the Huckabee bandwagon as it passed him by, instead endorsing the most irreligious, amoral candidate in the pack... (and he's a nut.)
- Rudy - good luck getting any headlines between now and California, sport. And you might want to check the latest polling out of Florida...
- Mrs. Michael Eric Dyson (she has to hear her husband gloat -- a lot -- tonight)
- The Washington press corps / mainstream media - they called Hillary inevitable
- Unions - they failed to make the difference for Edwards tonight, and exit polls show John-boy didn't even get a majority of union members who did caucus.
- Lefty bloggers, lefty journos, and both real, and fake ... lefty radio hosts (... Ed Schultz) - they worship John Edwards because of his real? hard left rhetoric, and while their nemesis, Hillary stumbled tonight, their Johnny is finished, whether he has accepted it yet or not.
- Experience - apparently, it doesn't always count for everything...
- Conventional wisdom. Throw it out. Obama could win this thing.
Musharraf Delivers a Fierce Denial
Pakistan's President Blames Assassinated Rival for Being Incautious
By Griff Witte
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, January 4, 2008; A14
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 3 -- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday vehemently denied that he or his government played any role in the death of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and instead blamed her for not heeding warnings to take extra precautions.
A week after Bhutto's assassination, Musharraf bristled at the suggestion -- often made by Bhutto supporters -- that he or his allies had had a hand in her death, saying the government lacked both the means and the motive.
"I have been brought up in a very educated and civilized family which believes in values, which believes in principles, which believes in character," he said at a news conference for foreign journalists held at the president's house. "My family is not a family which believes in killing people."
President Considers A Boost to Economy
State of Union Speech May Detail Proposal
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 4, 2008; A03
With the price of oil hovering near $100 a barrel and overall economic anxiety on the rise, President Bush said yesterday that he may use his upcoming State of the Union address to propose a stimulus package intended to promote growth and shore up weak parts of the economy....
The concern in the White House follows a number of troubling indicators that some economists say may point to a recession this year. Beyond the volatility in the housing market and the surging price of oil, a new report this week suggested that the manufacturing sector may be contracting. Meanwhile, the Commerce Department reported the largest monthly drop in construction spending on single-family homes in 14 years, while orders for durable goods dropped for two consecutive months. On the other hand, Commerce said yesterday that orders for manufactured goods rose by 1.5 percent in November.
No Murder Charges Filed in Haditha Case
Four Marines to Face Lesser Charges After Two-Year Inquiry Into Iraqi Killings
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 4, 2008; A05
After a two-year investigation into the killings of up to 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, the Marine Corps has decided that none of the Marines involved in the incident will be charged with murder. Instead, two enlisted Marines and two Marine officers will face trial in coming months for the killings and for failing to investigate them.
The most serious charges have been leveled against Marine Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, who is scheduled to be arraigned on charges of voluntary manslaughter in California next week, the last step before the case officially moves to trial.
Ban Sought On Medical Marijuana For Parolees
Associated Press
Friday, January 4, 2008; A08
HELENA, Mont., Jan. 3 -- Montana's Department of Corrections is facing stiff resistance to a proposal to prohibit all people on parole or probation from obtaining medical marijuana.
At a rules hearing Thursday, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana called the proposal "flawed in nearly every aspect."
"It's almost as if the Department of Corrections is trying to obliquely regulate medical marijuana," Elizabeth Griffing said. "This is just an overreaching of your authority and jurisdiction."
Montana voters legalized medical marijuana in 2004, and the agency cannot unilaterally change state law, advocates say.
The proposal would also prohibit those on parole or probation from gambling or using alcohol. Sentencing judges already can ban convicts from such activities as drinking and gambling if they find a connection between the activity and the crime, Griffing said.
Obama and Huckabee Win in Iowa Vote
By JOHN M. BRODER and ADAM NAGOURNEY
Senator Barack Obama won the Iowa Democratic caucuses tonight in a stunning show of strength by a young African-American candidate who was virtually unknown to America three years ago. He defeated Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former first lady, and former Senator John Edwards, the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee in 2004 by a substantial margin.
On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee, the folksy former Arkansas governor and Southern Baptist preacher, defeated the vastly better funded and organized Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, riding a wave of support by evangelical Christians who said they were drawn to Mr. Huckabee because they believed he shared their values.
It is the Kenyan people who have lost the election
Firoze Manji (2008-01-03)
Kenya is entering a protracted crisis. No one really knows who actually won the presidential elections. Given the overwhelming number of parliamentary seats won by the ODM adn the dismissal of some 20 former ministers who lost their seats, it seems likely that the presidential results probably followed suit. But it is no longer really a matter of who won or lost. For one thing is certain: it is the Kenyan people who have lost in these elections.
That the elections results were rigged – of that there is little doubt. The hasty inauguration, the blanket banning on the broadcast media, the dispersal of security forces to deal with expected protests – all these have given the post election period the flavour of a coup d’etat. What was not expected was the speed with which the whole thing would unravel. The declaration of the members of the Electoral Commission that the results were indeed rigged only added to the growing realisation that a coup had indeed taken place.
Call me provincial, but this is some fucked up shit. Still..
Smita Narula, the faculty director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law who has studied the effects of the Indian caste system, said violence over caste differences and intercaste marriages still occurred in India, although discrimination against the lowest caste has been outlawed for decades.
“What is surprising,” Ms. Narula said, “is that it might happen here.”
It ain't too long ago that sort of thing could have happened right here in the good ol' USofA. And the power of the old symbolic actions never dies. And we've resisted healing our racial divide for over a century. So maybe I shouldn't be surprised.
Father Says He Set Fire That Killed Three
By MONICA DAVEY
CHICAGO — A man set a fire last weekend that killed his pregnant daughter, his son-in-law and his 3-year-old grandson, prosecutors say, because he disapproved of his daughter’s marriage.
The man, Subhash Chander, who lives in Oak Forest, a suburb south of here, told investigators that he was upset with his daughter, Monika Rani, and her husband, Rajesh Kumar, for what he saw as “a cultural slight,” said Robert J. Milan, the first assistant state’s attorney of Cook County.
Mr. Chander said that the couple had married without his consent and that Mr. Kumar was from a lower caste in India than Ms. Rani’s family, Mr. Milan said.
Grace Lee Boggs got a permanent sister card, though.
In 1977, with the support of the civil rights establishment, Maynard Jackson, Atlanta’s first Black mayor, used scabs to break the garbage workers strike. In the late 70s civil rights leaders turned Blacks into a special interest group inside the Democratic Party, just as the Democrats were becoming indistinguishable from Republicans in their dependence on corporations for campaign funds
As a result, the word “black” has lost all its movement meaning. So Bill Clinton, the man who sponsored NAFTA, who got rid of Aid to Dependent Children, who bombed Iraq, and who now suggests that Hillary’s first act as president would be to send him and George W’s father around the world, can be called this country’s “first black president”!
Is Obama Black enough ?
By Grace Lee Boggs
Special to The Michigan Citizen
This is a good question because it challenges us to stop glossing over the huge changes that have taken place, both positively and negatively, in Black leadership over the last 50 years.
...their constituency can.
dnA at Too Sense said there is a liberal anti-Obama dogpile recently. He specifically cites TPM
But sometimes even the greats fuck up:
There are a couple stories up today about how the Obama campaign is supposedly advertising on Drudge and speculation about how this might enrage Democratic partisans. Now, I don't know anything specifically about this case. We're planning to put in some calls. But at the moment our reporters are tied up working on another story.
Ah. So they don't know if Obama is advertising on Drudge, but it "might" be happening?
...You can't hold yourself and the MSM to such (appropriately) high standards then pull the old "is this happening?" MSM style games.
To Vote or Not To Vote? That is the AfroSpear Poll Question!
Do you truly believe that justice can be wrung from this system - that oppresses us here and our brothers and sisters over there - ‘if only we vote more wisely, more strategically, more numerically? (This, in spite of the evidence that electronic, paper-less voting machines can accomplish now, what Bull Connor couldn’t, and without the Alpo)
If you do believe in miracles and fairytales, why? Please explain yourself, here, for me, for us, for the diaspora. Please help me understand my wrongheaded cynicism. And if you don’t believe in ‘Politics as the Overground Railroad,’ can you answer Martin’s question:
Where do we go from here?
If you think voting alone will resolve all your issues, you believe in miracles and fairytales. As you do if you believe those issues will be resolved without voting. That's why are they trying so hard to stop you from doing it.
No matter their personal ambitions and resentments, they must be brought together and pushed to come up with a solution that will calm their followers and restore Kenyans’ faith in their democratic system — before the damage becomes irreversible.
The murderous tribal violence that has spread through Kenya in recent days would be horrifying anywhere. It is particularly tragic to see this happening in a country that seemed finally to be on the path to a democratic and economically sound future. There may still be a chance to retrieve some of these hopes. That will likely require stepping back from the suspicious and hastily declared election results that sparked this ugly upheaval.
Officially, those results gave a second term to President Mwai Kibaki, despite independent reports of egregious irregularities. Even the chairman of Kenya’s national election commission now says that he was pressured into an early declaration and cannot say who won.
I meant to explicitly reject the FairTax plan ever since Huckabee came out in support of it. The only way it could be more regressive is if you explicitly charged higher rates to poor folks. It's even more regressive than a flat tax would be.
As usual my positions are not theoretical.
George Will has found something he likes about Rep. Rangel
At 77, the ebullient legislator has opened the tax debate with a proposal that suggests something startling: Regarding two matters, Rangel is a Reaganite. Ronald Reagan opposed using the tax code "as a means of achieving changes in our social structure." Rangel -- in his 19th term, a man of House proprieties -- says, "I don't think the tax code should be a substitute for the appropriations process in making social change." Social policy should be, he thinks, the province of "the standing committees." The question for tax writers "is not just what is fair and equitable but what is good for the economy."
Library of Congress African American Odyssey
The African American Registry
Library of Congress African and Middle Eastern Reading Room
The Zora Neale Hurston Plays
The History of Jim Crow
PBS African-American World
Breaking the Silence - The Transatlantic Slave Trade
Human Trafficking
Temple of Democracy
Afro-Louisiana History and Slave Genealogy
UNC -North American Slave Narratives
UNC - The Church in the Southern Black Community
The Association for the Study of African American Life and History
Office of Civil Rights Reading Room
The Story of Africa
Little Rock Central High School In The News
