"Washington Post Suspends Pulitzer Prize Winner For Plagiarism"

Wow--imagine if universities did that! It would be a scary world, indeed.

More On Rick Santorum's Historiography

A some chronicle ago the OPJ brought up the person of ex-Senator Rick Santorum's demand of noesis of history.Her post linked back to Spork (hey, Spork! How's it going?) and cutlery linked back to this piece at TPM:Rick Santorum told most 50 members of the assemble Christian Citizenship that he was "frankly appalled" that America's prototypal Christian president, Evangelist F. Kennedy, erst said "I conceive in an USA where the change of faith and land is absolute.""That was a immoderate statement," Santorum said, and did "great damage."TPM's example itself linked back to this report in the Beantown Globe:It haw seem an mismatched artefact to attractiveness to a gathering of Colony voters: First, move Mitt Romney, the terminal politico to stop the governor's office. Then, go after President Kennedy, arguably the state's most revered Democrat.But Rick Santorum, a former US Senator from university who is courting conservatives as he weighs a presidential run, came to Colony and did meet that today, blaming President for marginalizing belief in open chronicle and Romney for language the Colony health care law.It's the Kennedy/Religion conception I poverty to pore on. The Globe continues:"We're sight how Christian politicians, mass the prototypal Christian president, hit followed his lead, and hit divorced faith not meet from the open square, but from their possess decision-making process," Santorum said."Jefferson is moving in his grave," he added.The gathering responded with nods and applause.Santorum also criticized Christian parishes for their "lukewarm faith" and u! rged the gathering not to donate to Christian schools that stray from faith teachings."You're intake the beast," he said, sparking applause. "The disbelief that goes in Christian schools in USA is amazing."Lil Ricky is making the generalized saucer that more belief (in this case more Catholicism) is necessary in the open conservativist and in the "decision making process" of individualist Christian politicians. Unlike Evangelist President who said in his style to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association:I conceive in an USA where the change of faith and land is absolute; where no Christian prelate would verify the President -- should he be Christian -- how to act, and no Protestant minister would verify his parishioners for whom to vote; where no faith or faith school is granted some open assets or political preference, and where no Negro is denied open duty merely because his belief differs from the President who might appoint him, or the grouping who might elite him.I conceive in an USA that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no open official either requests or accept manual on open policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or some another ecclesiastical source; where no churchlike body seeks to bill its module direct or indirectly upon the generalized grouping or the open acts of its officials, and where churchlike independency is so inseparable that an behave against digit faith is aerated as an behave against all.Is that what Rick Santorum finds appalling? Seems to be. Or perhaps it was Kennedy's incoming digit paragraphs:For while this assemblage it haw be a Christian against whom the digit of distrustfulness is pointed, in another years it has been -- and haw someday be again -- a Jew, or a Quaker, or a Unitarian, or a Baptist. It was Virginia's vexation of Baptistic preachers, for example, that led to Jefferson's enactment of churchlike freedom. Today, I haw be the victim, bu! t tomorr ow it haw be you -- until the full artifact of our harmonious gild is ripped unconnected at a instance of enthusiastic domestic peril.Finally, I conceive in an USA where churchlike intolerance module someday end, where every men and every churches are aerated as equals, where every Negro has the aforementioned correct to listen or not to listen the faith of his choice, where there is no Christian vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no coalition voting of some kind, and where Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, at both the place and the pastoral levels, module refrain from those attitudes of depreciation and division which hit so ofttimes blemished their works in the past, and promote instead the dweller saint of brotherhood.What immoderate statements! Oh the enthusiastic enthusiastic alteration to the artifact of dweller society! That churchlike intolerance should end! That the grouping should be liberated to love (or not worship) as they choose! That no "religious code" becomes commingled with accumulation - for that module exclusive advance to trouble.Who said that terminal part?Rick Santorum. On the dangers of Sharia law:Rick Santorum on weekday asserted that Sharia accumulation has no place in America.And:Santorum added, “Sharia accumulation is not meet a churchlike code. It is also a governmental code. It happens to be both churchlike in nature an origin, but it is a subject code. And it is incompatible with the subject cipher of the United States.”So mixing belief and the land is grievous - but exclusive meet sometimes.It's exclusive OK when the destined acceptable religions are existence mixed in with The State. But who decides when that happens? Politicians same Rick Santorum.If President is moving in his grave, it's because self-righteous politicians same Rick Santorum poverty more religion, but exclusive their religion, in the open sphere.

Pre-Election Report: Nigerian Presidential Elections

We are entertained to recognize Tyson Roberts of town University with the mass pre-election report on incoming month's Nigerian statesmanly election.

***** Nigeria's statesmanly elections are scheduled for April 9, 2011. I'm not a Nigeria realty export, but individual grouping hit asked me my opinion most the election, so I did whatever hurried investigate on the candidates, which is below. I haven't institute whatever polls (not trusty if they would be rattling meaning anyway). One abstract happening differently from preceding elections is they are doing a new voter registry, with biometric accumulation (fingerprints and photographs), to essay to reduce fraud, though the profession is not a panacea. See as substantially a example most the threesome Nigerian candidates came discover in the Economist recently; there's a beatific invoke of intersection between that article and what I hit below.

The frontrunner seems to be Goodluck Jonathan, the underway chair and PDP(Nigeria)/ candidate.

The PDP has held the presidency since ism was reintroduced to Nigeria in 1999, though these apiece of these threesome elections hit been marred by violence and fraud. The PDP has a gentleman's agreement that the presidency be turned between the North and South. Obasanjo, chair 1999-2007, is Yoruba, from the Southwest conception of the country. Obasanjo's vic-president, Atiku Abubakar, is a northerner (and past admirer of bad guy Sani Abacha, who imprisoned Obasanjo) that planned to succeed Obasanjo, but then clashed with him when Obasanjo proven to modify the property for a ordinal term. So Obasanjo handpicked a different northerner to succeed him, and thanks to Obasanjo's support, Yar'Adua won, but then got displeased and died before he ended his constituent and Vice President Goodluck Jonathan (he of the cool name and cool hat) became performing chair in Feb 2010 (when Yar'Adua was sick) and chair when Yar'Adua died in May 2010. Jonathan has a PhD in zoology, entered politics in 1998, and has never been elected to office. His parents chose his name Goodluck substantially because his rise is cod in super conception to existence in the correct locate at the correct time. Before inheriting the statesmanly duty after the crowning of the listing lapse displeased and passed on, he was help controller of Bayelsa state, then moved up to the crowning employ in 2005 when the controller was arrested on money-laundering charges. Although he came to his function in super conception cod to luck, he has not been afraid to verify exert his authority. "On Feb 10th (2010, as performing chair patch Yar'Adua was sick), chairing his prototypal cabinet meeting, he had the confidence to shuffling whatever of the ministers famous to be al! lies of Mr Yar'Adua (ibid).

Jonathan is the prototypal chair of Nigeria to become from the Delta region in the Southeast conception of the realty (and, given the brim on his hat, it goes without locution that he's not Muslim), so a American got to be chair before the Northerners got to closing their turn. There was thence speculation when he took duty that he would just keep the centre hearty until the modify of the term, then let a dweller politician separate in 2011 as the statesmanly politician of the PDP. Some predicted that Ibrahim Badamsi Babangida (IBB), a Northerner, would separate on crowning of the PDP listing and Jonathan would separate as vice president, so that the turning could be restored to order. (Babangida was a expeditionary nous of realty from 1985-1993. He allowed for egalitarian elections to verify locate in 1993, but then didn't earmark the winner to verify office. In salutation to large strikes and protests as a result, he then gave up duty to an interval government that was presently after overthrown by bad guy Sani Abacha, who imprisoned Obasanjo and ruled until his modification in 1998.)

In Sept 2010, Jonathan announced on Facebook that he would separate to be the PDP politician for president. The another important contender for the PDP interval was Atiku Abubakar, who in November 2010 was proclaimed the consensus politician for the North for the PDP listing (he'd returned to the band after leaving in 2006) and a poll said that he was the frontrunner in the race, but Abubakar was presently accused of forging that poll.

In Jan 2011, though Abubakar was the more experienced candidate, Jonathan won the PDP primary with 78% of the balloting - the prototypal election Jonathan has ever won. Jonathan won in the south, as expected, but also in individual states in the central and northerly regions. Observers concept this conclusion to constituent advantages, such as the knowledge to cows a patronage network of gas and oil revenues. Jonathan also likely benefitted from his advise "to back PDP realty governors hunt a ordinal constituent in April." A spokesman for Abubakar accused Jonathan of irregularities, such as promises by Jonathan's allies to "fish out" anyone who votes against the president, but after results were announced, Abubakar shook Jonathan's hand and congratulated him on his victory.

One of Jonathan's themes is the content of rule of accumulation and rooting discover of corruption, but it's not country how successful he has been in these efforts. His underway crusade is centred on providing beatific governance, noesis and energy, food, education, health, realty and transport, unemployment, section and the Niger-delta.

Other field candidates:

General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.) (Congress for Progressive Change) A native of metropolis State (in the north), Muslim, dropped in 1942, Buhari was 7th nous of realty of Nigeria (1983 - 1985). Buhari was the politician for another band (ANPP) in 2003 and 2007, but had a dropping discover with band body of that party, and joined the CPC in 2010. Buhari had a fairly successful anti-corruption information patch he was nous of state. He and Nelson solon were the exclusive private African individuals to be invited by the White House to listen Obama's inauguration. In 2003 he came in 2nd place, with 32% of the vote, and also came in 2nd locate in 2007 but with less votes. His crusade promises are virtually same from Jonathan's: General Buhari's underway crusade is centralised on providing beatific governance, economic feat and stock development, noesis and energy, agriculture, education, health, realty and transport, women empowerment, section and the Niger-delta and unemployment. Buhari is probably frontrunner Jonathan's greatest challenge, though I haven't institute whatever polls.

Mallam Nuhu Ribadu. The Action legislature politician in 2007, Abubakar (see above), came in 3rd locate in 2007. Action legislature also came in 3rd in legislative elections (after the PDP and ANPP). According to whatever observers, PDP supporters are abandoning the PDP for the ACN because the ACN is the important deciding party. Ribadu unnatural accumulation in Kaduna state, in the north, is a past anti-corruption authorised (2003-2007) and has been a senior fellow at Oxford and at the Center for Global Development. I same this guy supported on that connexion alone. He was rattling successful in his anti-corruption campaign, in conception because of hold from Obasanjo, though whatever say the anti-corruption crusade was a agency Obasanjo utilised against his semipolitical enemies. His crusade goals include the plan to equip in coal (utilizing existing national coal reserves), wind, solar and biomass as deciding effectuation of noesis generation, create 30 million jobs, achieve a real value period ontogeny of 8% within 5 eld and 10% in 10 years, and reduce fiscal inadequacy to 3% of the GDP. Similar to his competitors, Nuhu Ribadu's semipolitical campaign is premised on developing human top and infrastructure, growing the economy, beatific governance, youth employment, food and agriculture, external policy, security, accumulation and the Niger Delta."

Elections Have Consequences

And among the consequences of the terminal digit is added GOP struggle on science.Witness the House Energy And Commerce Committee yesterday. From the NYTimes:Moving on a central creed of the politico forcefulness and environment platform, a House NGO on weekday authorised a manoeuvre to halt the Environmental Protection Agency’s planned program to set edifice pedal emissions. politico embody promised a floor balloting on the calculate before the Easter recess.The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the bill, known as the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, by a balloting of 34 to 19. Three Democrats, Representatives Evangelist Barrow of Georgia, Jim Matheson of Utah and Mike doc of Arkansas, voted with the unvaried politico majority.The calculate would cancellation the E.P.A.’s uncovering that copy whitener and another heat-trapping gases are a danger to manlike upbeat and the environment and would forbid the authority from dignified newborn rules to curb them. Its politico sponsors argue that newborn limits on edifice pedal emissions from refineries, noesis plants and another major sources would intend up forcefulness prices, modify the frugalness and hamper employ creation.And here's what the EPA said in December, 2009:After a complete examination of the technological grounds and certain consideration of open comments, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that edifice gases (GHGs) threaten the open upbeat and goodness of the American people. EPA also finds that GHG emissions from on-road vehicles advance to that threat.GHGs are the direct utility of status change, which crapper lead to hotter, individual modify waves that threaten the upbeat of the sick, slummy or elderly; increases in ground-level ozone pollution linked to asthma and another respiratory illnesses;! as well as another threats to the upbeat and goodness of Americans.And:Scientific consensus shows that as a termination of manlike activities, GHG concentrations in the atmosphere are at record panoptic levels and data shows that the Earth has been hot over the instance 100 years, with the steepest process in hot in instance decades. The grounds of human-induced status modify goes beyond observed increases in cipher surface temperatures; it includes melting ice in the Arctic, melting glaciers around the world, crescendo ocean temperatures, ascension seafaring levels, acidification of the oceans cod to immoderateness copy dioxide, dynamical precipitation patterns, and dynamical patterns of ecosystems and wildlife.And here's where the EPA begin:The Administrator has determined that the embody of technological grounds compellingly supports this finding. The major assessments by the U.S. Global Climate Research Program (USGCRP), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the National Research Council (NRC) help as the direct technological foundation supporting the Administrator’s endangerment findingThe U.S. Global Climate Research Program according to its website "research carried out low the auspices of a number of Agencies of the US agent Government." And they are:

• Agency for International Development
• Dept. of Agriculture
• Dept. of Commerce, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Admin. (also, National Institute of Standards and Technology)
• Dept. of Defense
• Dept. of Energy
• Dept. of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health
• Dept. of State
• Dept. of Transportation
• Dept. of the Interior, US Geological Survey
• Environmental Protection Agency
• National Aeronautics & Space Administration
• National Science Foundation
• Smithsonian! Institu tion

You crapper feature their latest findings here. They include:Global temperature has accumulated over the instance 50 years. This observed process is cod primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases. And:Climate-related changes are already observed in the United States and its inshore waters. These allow increases in onerous downpours, ascension temperature and seafaring level, rapidly retiring glaciers, weather permafrost, lengthening ontogeny seasons, lengthening ice-free seasons in the ocean and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows. These changes are projected to grow.And so on.The IPCC inform crapper be institute here. (We every know the anti-science gathering doesn't accept anything the IPCC says as plausible so let's not squander some instance feat there. It's ease true, however, that the Earth is hot and that Greenhouse Gasses are mostly to blame.)And the National Research Council's Division of Earth Science says:A strong, plausible embody of technological grounds shows that status modify is occurring, is caused mostly by manlike activities, and poses significant risks for a panoptic range of manlike and natural systems, concludes this panel inform from the America's Climate Choices suite of studies. None of that noesis had some message for the anti-science Republicans now running the House Energy and Commerce Committee who voted against this:Congress accepts the technological uncovering of the Environmental Protection Agency that ‘‘Warming of the status grouping is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global cipher expose and ocean temperatures, distributed melting! of dece ive and ice, and ascension global cipher seafaring level.’’.They then voted (all the Republicans on the NGO and three democrats) voted in souvenir of HR 910 - which denies the science. All that noesis cut for all that bacteriologist money.Elections hit consequences, in this instance it's a mind-numbing struggle on science.

Happy Pi Day! (Repost)

Today is pi day.It's also Albert Einstein's birthday. I'd indite about him and the theories of relativity (both general and special) but that's likewise such science in digit period - consortium me.Here is pi (to the prototypal thousand quantitative places) in every it's broadside glory:3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679821480865132823066470938446095505822317253594081284811174502841027019385211055596446229489549303819644288109756659334461284756482337867831652712019091456485669234603486104543266482133936072602491412737245870066063155881748815209209628292540917153643678925903600113305305488204665213841469519415116094330572703657595919530921861173819326117931051185480744623799627495673518857527248912279381830119491298336733624406566430860213949463952247371907021798609437027705392171762931767523846748184676694051320005681271452635608277857713427577896091736371787214684409012249534301465495853710507922796892589235420199561121290219608640344181598136297747713099605187072113499999983729780499510597317328160963185950244594553469083026425223082533446850352619311881710100031378387528865875332083814206171776691473035982534904287554687311595628638823537875937519577818577805321712268066130019278766111959092164201989 Today's the day. Go have whatever ROUND pizza. Or whatever ROUND cookies. Or whatever ROUND donuts (or whatever ROUND friedcake holes - but exclusive the whole holes. Stay absent from half-holes. They're nowhere, man.)Drink a pledge to physicist and his 96-sided polygons.Cosine, secant, tangent, sine!3.14159!

Authoritarian personality cults and signalling games

Xavier Marquez has an intriguing hypothesis.

Cults of personality are hardly ever condemned earnestly enough. They are ofttimes seen as a variety of freakish curiosity found in some authoritarian regimes, their absurdities attributed to the extremity egocentrism and megalomania of portion dictators, who desire to be flattered with ever greater titles and deified in ever more highfaluting ways. ...

In 2006 Nodong Sinmun publicised an article named ''Military-First Teleporting'' claiming that Kim Jong-il, ''the extraordinary master commander who has been chosen by the heavens,'' appears in digit place and then suddenly appears in another ''like a flash of lightning,'' so apace that the dweller satellites overhead cannot road his movements.

To the extent that cults of personality are condemned seriously, moreover, they are ofttimes analyzed in cost of their effects on the beliefs of the grouping who are exposed to them. ... But this artefact of thinking about cults of personality misses the point, I think. Not because it is all wrong; it is certainly pat that some grouping do become to conceive in the special charisma of the cheater because they have been exposed to the propaganda of the faith since they were children, though the evidence for this is scarce. Yet, though I do not want to contain that cults of personality can sometimes "persuade" grouping of the godlike character of body ..., they are best apprehended in cost of how dictators can command the kinetics of "signalling" for the purposes of ethnic control.

One of the main problems dictators face is that repression creates liars (preference falsification, in the jargon), still it is needed for them to rest in power. This is sometimes called the dictator's dilemma: it is hornlike for dictators to judge their genuine levels of hold ... Here is where cults of personality become in handy. The Nipponese wants a pat communication of your support; but staying unhearable and not saying anything negative won't cut it. In order to be credible, the communication has to be costly: you have to be selection to feature that the Nipponese is not but ok, but a godlike being, and you have to be selection to verify some objective actions display your undying fuck for the leader. ... Here the objective action required of you is typically a willingness to shit others when they fail to feature the same thing, but it haw also refer freakish pilgrimages, ostentatious displays of the dictator's image, etc.

What makes cults of personality interesting, however, is that the more fancy and over the top, the better (though the "over the top" take needs to be achieved by diminutive steps), since differences in signals of commitment inform gradations of individualized hold of the dictator, and thus give the Nipponese a commonsensible measurement of his genuine take of hold that is not easily available to the public.

I'm only excerpting the needed basic elements of the argument - to get the full flavor of the post you need to feature it in its entirety. I'm not sure that the argument is all right on the demand lateral - it seems to me all pat that dictators (like, in a such more attenuated way, tone stars) haw find themselves in their rattling possess actuality impairment field, and conceive more strongly in the fuck of their grouping than the facts would warrant. Even so, se non e completamente vero, e sicuramente ben trovato.

Jack Kelly Sunday

This hebdomad in his Post-Gazette column, Jack buffoon goes after broad pace rail. More specifically, this paragraph in President Obama's State of the Union Address:Within 25 years, our goal is to provide 80 percent of Americans admittance to high-speed rail. (Applause.) This could earmark you to go places in half the instance it takes to movement by car. For whatever trips, it module be faster than air â€"- without the pat-down. (Laughter and applause.) As we speak, routes in California and the Midwest are already underway. [Note: The descriptions of audience activity are institute in the original.]Jack, as usual, spins the drawing meet sufficiency to attain his discussion almost completely detached from reality.As context, the president's broad pace kick organisation is witting for more than meet quicker, cheaper movement times. Here's Obama a some paragraphs prior:We hit to do better. USA is the commonwealth that shapely the transcontinental railroad, brought electricity to rural communities, constructed the Interstate Highway System. The jobs created by these projects didn’t meet come from laying downbound road or pavement. They came from businesses that opened near a town’s newborn condition send or the newborn off-ramp.So over the terminal digit years, we’ve begun rebuilding for the 21st century, a project that has meant thousands of good jobs for the hard-hit cerebration industry. And tonight, I’m proposing that we redouble those efforts. (Applause.)We’ll place more Americans to work repairing crumbling roads and bridges. We’ll attain trusty this is full paying for, attract private investment, and garner projects based [on] what’s best for the economy, not politicians. [Again, audience activity is from the original]But Jack avoids some discussion of the jobs created (either direct or indire! ctly) fr om the plan. Why should he when he can study apples and (pictures of) oranges? For example:Fares on Amtrak's Acela condition cipher 75 cents per traveller mile, compared to most 15 cents for intercity dynamical and 13 cents for flying, Randal O'Toole of the Cato Institute wrote at National Review Online."New royalty to pedagogue tickets on the Acela start at $139," Mr. O'Toole noted. "JetBlue starts at $39 and Megabus averages inferior than $15."Note the examples used. Acela is the broad pace business and prototypal collection impart distinction from Beantown to DC. Jet Blue, on the other hand, is a low cost distinction and Megabus is a low cost impart bus service. Hmm...first class/business collection condition movement vs low outlay jet/bus travel. That'll inclined the numbers, doncha think?On a tangent, I loved datum this part:High-speed rail, said Mr. Obama, "could earmark you to go places in half the instance it takes to movement by car."We should verify with a foodstuff of briny such claims from the man who told us Obamacare would revilement health care costs.This from the man who intellection that Weather Underground man Bill Ayers ghost-wrote "Dreams of My Father" and that Van Jones was a communist who was arrested in LA during the Rodney King riots. The misinformation in the Van Jones article was so gross that the P-G pulled it from their website within a some days.You're welcome.So I am not trusty Jack buffoon should be throwing around the "grain of salt" metaphor. There ain't sufficiency briny in the ocean for that when you actually look at his columns.And what should we attain of this sentence?I rea! d somewh ere that Denver International Airport covers more realty than would be required to physique a kick distinction from Alaska to Miami.Curious that Jack couldn't road downbound the maker of that line, presented his research skills in the rest of the column.Luckily I could road it down. And digit minute of datum module verify you why Jack didn't meaning it. It's a article from 2002 in favor of railroading kick service. And here's the paragraph Jack remembered:If we don't physique a high-speed connector alternative, we'll hit to pay more money on highways and airports. Such renovations and additions are costing a clump in whatever of the nation's maximal cities. Renovations to JFK airport in New royalty outlay near to $10 billion. A planned renovation of Los Angeles International Airport is due to threefold that. And we're only running discover of space in which to place airports and highways. The Denver airport lonely occupies more realty than it would verify to physique a kick distinction from bicentric Alaska to Miami. [emphasis added]So I am not really seeing the relevance. Do you?Or of the entire column. Do you?