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It’s been a long time since I posted anything even remotely political, but Steven Colbert’s speech at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner was so well done that I have to keep on spreading the truthiness.

Salon said it best:

“It’s not just that Colbert’s jokes were hitting their mark. We already know that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that the generals hate Rumsfeld or that Fox News lists to the right. Those cracks are old and boring. What Colbert did was expose the whole official, patriotic, right-wing, press-bashing discourse as a sham, as more “truthiness” than truth.”

You have to imagine the scene—thousands of the most powerful people in the world, including President George W. Bush, all forced to watch this guy speaking from his gut with such an ironic and powerful tone, yet at the same time almost unfunny, almost painful to watch… all but two of his jokes were met with dead silence, and you get the sense that he meant them to be that way. It was a truly courageous speech with no attention whatsoever to what is correct, politically or otherwise, no care of being well-recieved or humorous, no hiding anything; needless to say, the room did not know how to handle the awkwardness of the truth.

Watch it if you want. It hurts, but it’s so funny—not always his jokes, but the whole situation.

And once you do, give thanks if you are so inclined.

First, homosexuality might be linked to genetic traits, as Swedish researchers have experimented with pheremones and the biological response of straight men and women and gay men and women (straight people attract opposites, gay people attract likes).

Second, If this were true, and a “gay gene” was found, a genetic marker test could be developed to find it, and these tests could be done very early on in a person’s life. Like, in the womb.

When that happens, watch as republicans suddenly become okay with abortion.

Something to turn your head the country upside-down.

It seems that there are rhetorical fallacies in every corner of public life in the United States—politics, television, corporations, families—everywhere, everyone is misinterpreting everything. That there was a fallacy of generalization. People do it all the time. Half the people in the US have below-average regard for the way they use generalizations when speaking. Isn’t that incredible? It also happens to be a 100% true statement, and on a subject I have no clue about. A statistical fallacy. It’s all in the way you word it. You can make anything sound any way you want it. How often do you think the media or the government (on all sides of the political spectrum) does this? I see it all the time.

I’ve been very disturbed with a new fallacy I’ve seen used all over the place recently. I call it the Fallacy of Potential. Simply put, it is the misinterpretation of a potential for something to exist as the loss of that thing. I’m sure it’s been well documented before, but I just want to point out a few blatant examples of its continuing rise in public media, politics and beliefs, and the effect it’s having on the country.

Robert Birgeneau, the chancellor (who is a nice guy, by the way, as is his wife) of the University of California, Berkeley, has reversed the previous decision and granted Ignacio Chapela full tenure. Supposedly, Chapela was denied tenure because of his criticisms of the university’s ties to biotech company Novartis. Just a month ago, he sued the university for several things, and I reported on the press conference.

This is great news. Chapela’s rejection seemed to be completely invalid, and this new decision is certainly just. Congratulations to Chapela, all of his students, and the Chancellor for making the right decision.

A special bit of first-hand journalism today—Ignacio Chapela was an assistant professor at UC Berkeley, who was denied tenure last November for reasons he and many others believe to be corporate or political in nature. Chapela did key research indicating that modified genes in Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) were being transferred to pristine plants in nature, specifically untouched corn crops in Mexico. He also did research into the effects of GMO foods on animal development, which, once published in 2001, swept him into a vortex of corporate interests attempting to defame the research. It culminated last year when Chapela was denied professorship, and he is now suing the Regents of the University of California, saying that there were corporate conflicts of interest in the tenure decision process. Read more about the situation (second article on the page).

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Chapela held a press conference today at 2PM, and I went with camera and digital recorder in hand. You can download audio Chapela’s wonderful introduction (mp3, 1.4 MB), or the full conference (mp3, 8 MB) (sorry about the wind). Here are some of key quotes catching the general theme:

“The university used to be the place where people could ask any questions and hear the answers no matter how uncomfortable they were—we used to call that science. And it seems as though the university has lost that capacity to do science.”

“This is not a lawsuit against the university. It is a lawsuit for the university and against the people who have bastardized and taken away the incredible privelage of this campus.”

My own opinion on the subject is near complete support of Chapela and his lawsuit. My only concern is that he brings up the racial factor, which is completely understandable. Still, I believe it detracts from the scientific and academic focus. It absolutely needs to be addressed, but perhaps not at the same time as the scientific point.

In every conversation I have had with scientific minds on this subject (GMOs), I have always felt shunned for bringing up the slightest doubt. When faced with even solid science like Chapela’s, many scientists still will not consider both sides of the argument. This one-sided view on GMOs has very likely been influenced by large corporations funding research at universities like Berkeley, and the effect has been devastating to the scientific process in the field. I can only hope this lawsuit causes some stir in the system, and hopefully lessens the impact of politics and corporate interest on scientific research in genetic engineering.

The Daily Show this evening was, like every other major media outlet for the last week, focused on the political and religious drama surrounding Terri Schiavo—only Jon Stewart did it with wit and style.

The highlight was this: Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.): “The measure of a nation’s commitment to the sanctity of life is reflected in its laws and to the extent those laws honor and defend its most vulnerable citizens.”

Jon Stewart: “What? We’re getting universal health care?? ... or, not.”

In every Daily Show I’ve seen, Jon Stewart never fails to bring out the hypocrisy, irony, and fallacy that is our current government in a most intelligent and humanistic manner. He says everything that should be said and everything that really probably shouldn’t be said. I would just like to recognize his genius. Thank you, Jon.

Related articles (yet to be written):

• How the US government spent trillions on the war in Iraq and left behind our schools, healthcare, and our own people.


• How the government pushes Christian morality in tiny, insignificant, yet very public cases instead of truly helping the most people with the most need (examples: Terri Schiavo, abortion, Gay rights, steroids in MLB).


• How the essence of being a “Republican” has changed from believing in moderating federal power into believing in the Christian ethos and the federal power to impose Christian values on all people of the United States, and indeed, the world.


• How every liberal idea or politic in the past has eventually become mainstream, accepted, and undisputable (examples: abolition of slavery, womens’ rights, civil rights, free speech, clean air, environmental protection, recycling… soon to come: Gay marriage and womens’ choice. Learn to love it.)

It all just pisses me off, and that’s a small sublist.

Yesterday was Groundhog Day and the State of the Union Address. As Air America Radio pointed out, “It is an ironic juxtaposition: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication—and the other involves a groundhog.”

Someone at netscape has a sense of humor… this is not fake, this is the article, while it’s still around.