The Primary Process Post-Citzens United

I had an interesting thought just now. We're not even at Super Tuesday and yet we've seen 20 debates narrowing down eight candidates to four. There are still FOUR candidates, even now. I'm just speculating here, but I don't remember there being such an insanely long primary battle before this one. Aside from the other factors like the lies and misleading ads Super PACs are saying, they're also keeping candidates in the running for way longer. I mean, any dude with ten million dollars can just up and decide to back their man, they're not losing if they have anything to spend about it.

I wonder when people will start putting two and two together and actually start demanding campaign finance reform through legislation. Sooner would be better than later obviously, but my countrymen always seem to find new and insanely irritating ways to surprise me, so who knows. One thing I am pretty sure of though is people are going to tire of this. It may not be obvious on its face, but there will be a reaction of some kind, be it insanely low turn out at the polls or huge chucks of the vote to go to third party candidates or even direct campaigning nationally to current legislators, anything's possible. But then again, somethings are more likely than others. Time will tell.

If Charles Darwin Were Alive, I'd Give Him A Big'ol High Five

Well well well, look who's got egg on their face 150 years later. Well, I shouldn't poke fun, but I have to admit this is a very satisfying article. Essentially the article says that the Catholic Church now acknowledges Darwin's theory of evolution is compatible with the Bible. Score one for Biologists and people who are educated properly everywhere! An excerpt from the article:

The Catholic Church teaches "theistic evolution," a stand that accepts evolution as a scientific theory and sees no reason why God could not have used a natural evolutionary process in the forming of the human species.

It objects to using evolution as the basis for an atheist philosophy that denies God's existence or any divine role in creation. It also objects to using Genesis as a scientific text.

As Ravasi put it, creationism belongs to the "strictly theological sphere" and could not be used "ideologically in science."

Well, now I suppose Creationists have even more opposition to their views. Yah know, other than most of the rest of the global Christian population that thinks Creationism and Intelligent Design being taught in schools is pretty ridiculous.

Vatican: Guess what, Darwin? Evolution is OK

Iraq cancels six no-bid oil contracts

This just makes me so happy;

"Iraq's oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, told reporters at an OPEC summit meeting in Vienna on Tuesday that talks with Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, Total, BP and several smaller companies for one-year deals, which were announced in June and subsequently delayed, had dragged on for so long that the companies could not now fulfill the work within that time frame. The companies confirmed on Wednesday that the deals had been canceled."

Hazaa for the Iraqis! Stand up for your country and don't be corrupt American puppets, otherwise we may have another Saddam in like 40 years. Seriously, I hope the new administration revises their foreign policy and just stops meddling in affairs which have nothing to do with us.

Iraq cancels six no-bid oil contracts

Male Homosexuality: Side Effect of Female Evolution?

So I personally love evolution, it was one of the first scientific concepts that fascinated me as a kid and it still intrigues me just as much to this day. There was one thing about the theory and human behavior that I never thought added up though, and that was homosexuality. Basically, if Evolution by means of natural selection was the way it all went down, then why wasn't homosexuality just rubbed out of behavior in general earlier on since homosexuals couldn't have kids? I never could answer that question, and it has bugged me and more than likely countless others for the longest time. That is, until I read this article reviewing a recent paper which was published on the matter.

The long and short of it is, male sexuality, at least according to the statistical analysis done in the paper, is linked to female relatives on the mother's side having a larger than average number of children. This is hypothesized to act as a buffer against extinction, since in the event of a dip in the population these women will just let their loins burst with children, possibly because their attraction towards men is stronger than the attraction felt by other women. An apparent byproduct of this is that males who are the offspring of these females will carry the same genetic trait, and thus be more inclined to fancy the boys rather than the gals. Taken from the article:

"...if the authors are correct, we're not really talking about genes for homosexuality. We're talking about genes for "androphilia," i.e., attraction to men. The importance of the genes lies in what they do not to men but to women, by increasing reproductive output so powerfully that these women compensate for the reduced output among their male relatives. You can't isolate gay men as a puzzle or problem anymore. You have to see them as part of a bigger, stronger, enduring phenomenon."

I love the fact that the whole experiment is based on analysis of breeding data that was already there for anyone to look at and the primary investigator just took a fresh approach to it. It actually kind of reminds me of Mendel's peas, you know that little experiment which is widely accepted as the forerunner to all of genetics? It makes me feel good that the model that he began is still being used to this day, albeit with slightly more advanced statistical techniques, but still, ya gotta love Mendel. Anywho, read the article, it's nice and it clears up (at least in my mind) the debate whether Homosexuality is genetic or cultural.


Sexual Antagonism - A genetic theory of homosexuality.

Iraq was premeditated!? Cheney and Rove were pulling the strings!? *GASP*

2004 CBS 60 Minutes Interview:

Scott McClellan, I owe you a beer

This guy's a class act in my book. This man was a part of the Bush administration and was told to tell the American people everything that the administration wanted them to know, and when he either found out or simply suspected that the administration wasn't on the level he did something about it. He wrote a book about his experiences in the administration, pointing out all of his suspicions and the questionable circumstances he witnessed as the White House press secretary and then talked about it in front of a Congressional committee, something that no senior level official in the Bush Administration has been willing to do and for which McClellan is taking all kinds of flack and criticism. So good for you, Mr. McClellan, for standing up for what you believe and speaking up in front of all of your former coworkers and friends, you're a real patriot.

I just hope that the talk of impeachment I saw from Congressman Wexler in the video linked below from the post by The Raw Story goes somewhere and isn't simply something that becomes empty rhetoric that never sees the House floor. Get your head out of your ass Pelosi and friends and realize that impeaching Bush would be one of the best moves the Democrats could make, as well as punishing a clearly corrupt and incompetant executive leadership that needs to be punished in order for this to never happen again.


Dem Rep. calls for impeachment at McClellan testimony: video

Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back

Image taken from original New York Times Article

Whooo, don't you love when the crazy conspiracy theorists are right for a change? I'm sure I'm the only blogger covering this (har har) but the New York Times is running a story about how the four major players in the oil industry which were in Iraq before Saddam Hussein nationalized oil (Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, and BP) along with a handful of other American oil companies are getting no-bid contracts (though only 1 or 2 years long) to start oil production in Iraq:

'Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.'

Later on is my favorite part of the article though:

'The first oil contracts for the majors in Iraq are exceptional for the oil industry.

They include a provision that could allow the companies to reap large profits at today’s prices: the ministry and companies are negotiating payment in oil rather than cash.

“These are not actually service contracts,” Ms. Benali said. “They were designed to circumvent the legislative stalemate” and bring Western companies with experience managing large projects into Iraq before the passage of the oil law.

A clause in the draft contracts would allow the companies to match bids from competing companies to retain the work once it is opened to bidding, according to the Iraq country manager for a major oil company who did not consent to be cited publicly discussing the terms.'

This is just great, another way for the US government to hurt our reputation internationally both in terms of business practices, ethics, and energy consumption, and the icing on the cake is that people have been saying this for years, everyone kinda shrugging them off as crazies without proof, and then BAM, here it all is in its terrible terrible glory. Icing on the freaking cake. Enjoy future me, enjoy:

Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back

Developmental Aid Workers Are Killing Africa

Hey so over at Spiegel Online someone thinks that developmental aid workers are really why Africa has starving people, and his argument for why that is makes a lot of sense. Here's a snippet:

The aid workers are drawn to the arid lands, where the poor live and the help is urgently needed. Under normal circumstances, such areas don't contain many starving people because they are thinly populated. In the Sahara, for example, hunger emergencies are comparatively insignificant. But in northern Kenya, and particularly in the region's bordering desert land, such as the Sahel, they happen all the time.

And that's why the aid workers dig wells there to provide the inhabitants with clean drinking water. Soon enough, there's a downright crush around the well. Then, more and more cattle drivers and more and more nomadic shepherds bring their wards to the well. And these herds -- and especially the goats -- eat everything up. And, there, where you used to have someone coming by only rarely, a dusty little village shoots up, and then a little city. And, now, more and more aid workers are necessary to feed all the people who settle around the well and the feeding stations. Pretty soon, nothing can happen without aid. The area becomes hopelessly over-populated, and there is no way out of the dilemma in sight.

He goes on to mention that corrupt politicians, rather than building infrastructure for transportation of food and services rely on foreign aid to feed their people and blow the money either on themselves or on big flashy capitols and things that the state overall really doesn't need. Why do yourself what you can get for free eh? Read the whole article, it's relatively short and the guy seems to have looked at the situation pretty thoroughly.

Developmental Aid Workers Are Killing Africa