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POPSUnintelligent Design At this point, 30 years after the Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman and his late collaborator Amos Tversky started documenting a rash of fallacies in human reasoning, the idea that the human mind would be "perfect in His image" is as outdated (and narcissistic) as the idea that the solar system would revolve around the planet earth. The only theory that can really make sense of these needless imperfections is Darwin's theory of natural selection, which holds that humans (and all other life forms) evolve through a blind process known as descent-with-modification, in which new life forms represent random modifications of earlier life forms -- with no central overseer to guide the process. Such a random process can, over time, lead populations of creatures to become more adapted to their environment, but it is also vulnerable to getting stuck, in the sort of good-enough-but-not-perfect solutions that mathematicians call local maxima.
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POPSWhich states have the most Medicaid-funded births? I wonder why it is that the states that most decry government spending are the ones that take the most federal money per capita to deliver their babies? Note Huckabee's Arkansas and Palin's Alaska and McCain's Arizona and Barbour's Mississippi and Jindal's Louisiana and Demint's S. Carolina.
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POPSJindal Made Up Katrina Boat Story Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told the story during he response to Obama's address to congress. The problem is, it's probably not true. "According to numerous reports, Harry Lee did not leave the affected area of New Orleans during the crisis," wrote TPM's Zachary Roth . "But there is no reported evidence of Jindal having set foot in the area during the period when people were still stranded on roofs -- which, based on a review of news stories from the time, was only until September 3 at the very latest. Indeed, the evidence strongly suggests he did not." "We've reviewed Nexis and other sources, and can find no news reports putting Jindal on the ground in the affected area during the few days after Katrina struck when people might still have needed boats to rescue them from rooftops," he added. It's just another Republican tall tale, like WMD in Iraq.
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POPSRachel Maddow Responds to Bobby Jindal Hilarious! 1. I'm just like Obama. 2. Tax cuts cure everything. 3. Tax cuts and prayers are far more effective than monitoring possible natural disasters. 4. Sarah Palin and I are running for President in 2012 along with Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. Republicans rock!
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POPSThe Cafferty File: GOP in position to talk fiscal responsibility? Keep in mind, Jindal — who some see as a possible contender for his party’s presidential nominee in 2012 — is one of the Republican governors talking about rejecting stimulus funding for his state. Jindal says he plans to turn down $100 million because it would require his state to change its unemployment laws. I guess when you’re a wealthy state like Louisiana you don’t need no stinking stimulus money. Here’s my question to you: Are the Republicans in any position to lecture President Obama on fiscal responsibility?
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POPSHow McCain Can Win the Base Mr. Jindal, who was elected to Rep. David Vitter's seat when Mr. Vitter ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, was re-elected for a second term with 88% of the vote. That's not enough experience? It's as much experience in Congress as Barack Obama has to show for his three years. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Jindal, in his last term, had an American Conservative Union rating of 100, with 96 for both terms. In addition he has consistently taken the No New Taxes pledge proposed by Americans for Tax Reform. In 1991 he was a young Hill staffer working for Rep. Jim McCrery. One day Mr. McCrery asked him to look over some Medicare plans being proposed in committee. A couple of days later, he brought back to the boss a totally revised system that was so impressive that Mr. McCrery remembered him and in 1995 introduced him to Gov.-elect Murphy J. Foster Jr. Mr. Jindal, at the age of 24, was appointed secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.
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POPSJindal Inaccurate About Stimulus Jindal, speaking to us last night as if we were in the 3rd grade, attempted to show how much the President would be spending...but, it's a lie. We should speak to him like he's in the 3rd grade and explain exactly how badly Louisiana needs that money.
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POPSPalin in '12 OK, I'm up for it, you betcha! I'm wondering though how 64% of Republicans want her to run for president. Perhaps it's due to election shock?
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POPSMcCain-Jindal? Another McCain staffer called my attention to this finding in the latest Fox News poll: McCain led Obama in the straight match-up, 46 to 43. Voters were then asked to choose between two tickets, McCain-Romney vs. Obama-Clinton. Obama-Clinton won 47 to 41. That reversal of a three-point McCain lead to a six-point deficit for the McCain ticket suggests what might happen (a) when the Democrats unite, and (b) if McCain were to choose a conventional running mate, who, as it were, reinforced the Republican brand for the ticket. As the McCain aide put it, this is what will happen if we run a traditional campaign; our numbers will gradually regress toward the (losing) generic Republican number.
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POPS Governors v. Congress of Head Start, child care subsidies and special education, the state will have to enroll thousands of new families into the programs. "There's no way politically we're going to be able to push people out of the program in two years when the federal money runs out," Mr. Sanford says. The Medicaid money for states is also a fiscal time bomb. The stimulus bill temporarily increases the share of state Medicaid bills reimbursed by the federal government by two or three percentage points. High-income states now pay about half the Medicaid costs, and in low-income states the feds pay about 70%. Much of the stimulus money will cover health-care costs for unemployed workers and single workers without kids. But in 2011 almost all the $80 billion of extra federal Medicaid money vanishes. Does Congress really expect states to dump one million people or more from Medicaid at that stage?
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POPSThis Time There is Every Reason to Believe Michael Brown Once more time Lieberman is letting the Bush administration off the hook. He screamed loudly when he was on the committee demanding the information from the white house. Now that he was re-elected with strong Republican help, and he is chairman of the committee, he decides to call off the investigation of how the administration failed during the Katrina tragedy, and let the Bushies literally get away with murder. This man is an embarrassment in his complete dedication to his self-serving best interests no matter who he has to screw to remain in power. But this Katrina investigation is truly low, even for Lieberman.
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POPSCPAC Straw Poll Vindicates Ron Paul, Huckabee Distanced
Ron Paul in virtual tie for 2nd, with Palin, well above Huckabee. Conservatives, unlike the republican establishment, like Ron Paul's principles on economics, preserving Constitutional law and liberty, and apparently even foreign policy (surprise, surprise) over others . This shows that conservatives then are divided, and not ready to throw all their weight behind one lead candidate (i.e. Romney, a CFR member and RINO who has no real conservative or Constitutional record). It must be acknowledged that Ron Paul's principles are vindicated as attractive among conservatives, and been missing from the Republican party. While Romney won the poll this still means Republicans are out of touch with conservatives listening now to Paul outside the heat of political campaigns. The fact that he fairs so much better here than during the primaries (although he trampled Giuliani then) says that conservatives are awakening and listening to his message, finally.
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POPSDevolution... The ability of mankind to cling to ancient myths when they can't fully grasp science is astounding...
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POPSOfficials May Evacuate New Orleans as Gustav Nears If a Category 3 or stronger hurricane comes within 60 hours of the city, New Orleans plans to institute a mandatory evacuation order. Unlike Katrina, there will be no massive shelter at the Superdome, a plan designed to encourage residents to leave. Instead, the state has arranged for buses and trains to take people to safety. Since the storm (Katrina), the Army Corps of Engineers has spent billions of dollars to improve the levee system, but because of two quiet hurricane seasons, the flood walls have never been tested. Floodgates have been installed on drainage canals to stop any storm surge from entering the city, and levees have been raised and in many places strengthened with concrete. Scientists cautioned that the storm's track and intensity were difficult to predict several days in advance. The Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals planned to move animals to shelters elsewhere in the state and in Texas.
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