Come one, come all! The biggest, most extraordinary show of political punditry ever seen has pitched it’s tent again. So gather underneath the bigtop and thrill to the erudite analysis of wonks extraordinaire, be shocked by right wing inanity, and amazed at stunning feats of logic. The 95th edition of Carnival of the Liberals has something for everyone, so let’s not delay.

Act: The First
First up, Vagabond Scholar dazzles us with daring feats of set theory as he attempts to make sense of it all in Diagrams on Conservatism.

Act: The Second
Next, PolicyCourt takes a bold new approach to critiquing the recent “Cap and Trade” bill… He uses facts and logic. His conclusion is, “Tax, Don’t Cap and Trade“.

Act: The Third
Now prepare to be amazed at Mike the Mad Biologist’s powers of mentalism (the kind of mentalism where you do actual thinking) as he divines the appeal of Palin’s identity politics in Misunderstanding Palin and ‘Palinism’: It’s the Politics of the Blood.

Act: The Fourth
If the occultic arts fascinate you, then prepare to be thrilled as Divided We Stand, United We Fall appears to channel the recently deceased Robert McNamara and learns what importance this historical giant of the ’60s and ’70s holds for us today in Remembering Robert McNamara: Lessons from a Liberal Technocrat. Note: DWSUWF isn’t really a liberal blog, but it isn’t conservative either. The blog’s author describes himself as a “liberal-tarian” and writes some damn fine posts so I’m happy to include his lookback at McNamara here.

Act: The Fifth
After that bit of Nixonian nostalgia, we turn from a epic historical figure to an epic blog post. Literally! The Pugnacious Irishman presents us with not a two-part, not three-part, not even four or five parts but an astounding six-part post examining torture and whether water boarding is or is not. But wait! There’s more…

You see, The Pugnacious Irishman is not a liberal. He’s not even a quasi-liberal like DWSUWF. He’s a dyed-in-the-wool true-blood conservative, and he’s in a liberal blog carnival! Controversial? Yes, but that’s not the half of it. You see, while The Pugnacious Irishman disagrees with us on many things, such as pro-choice rights, he more or less agrees with us about torture and admits to being deeply conflicted about the use of water boarding. In the end, his series challenges all of us, regardless of political beliefs to do the kind of hard thinking that issues like this demand and not just react emotionally.

Act: The Sixth
Now you didn’t think I was going to allow a conservative to have top billing in the center ring without a little counterbalance, did you? And so we turn to a perennially favorite act here in the Carnival of the Liberals as (((Billy))) The Atheist skewers himself some rank right-wing hypocrisy in Republican Family Values: Bullshit!.

Act: The Seventh
Ah, the Nazis. Is there anything they’re not good for? Any argument that can’t be improved by trotting out some goose-stepping National Socialists? The answer apparently, at least to global warming deniers, is a resounding “No!” Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub presents what has to be the dumbest thing Steve Milloy has ever said in a long, long career of stupendously stupid statements with Godwin’s Law overload: Warming denialist calls water conservation “Nazi”.

Act: The Eighth
Normally here at Carnival of the Liberals we’re all about bringing you only the freshest acts on the cutting edge of left wing political punditry. However, every once in a while it’s good to get back to our roots, to remember those values that we all hold. And while it’s not the most timely, and Roundrock Journal is reaching pretty deep into the archives for this post, the sentiments expressed therein never get old. And so, Independence Day.

Act: The Ninth
For a long time there has been an unwritten rule in the semi-organized Skepticism movement to keep it apolitical in order to grow the movement. That seems to be changing though as big-name skeptics like Michael Shermer and Penn & Teller appear to be directly injecting their own brand of Libertarianism into the movement, which often amounts to Cato-Institute-fueled anarcho-capitalism lite.

At I’m Important And Smart, Robert has a post declaring that Liberal Skeptics need to step up. I’m with Robert on this. It’s vital that organized Skepticism, the very movement that seeks to promote critical thinking and rationality, doesn’t become synonymous with fringe economic or political ideologies. It undermines the movement, and legitimizes laissez-faire economics which has already been proven dangerous. And should anybody outside the Skepticism movement fail to see the relevant threat to liberalism, remember that the religious right came to power by infiltrating and allying itself with more mainstream organizations.

Act: The Tenth
Drumroll please… And now, ladies and gentlemen, this is the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the grand finale of our show. And what a finale it is!

If you’ve been following the science blogosphere at all lately, then you already know of the kerfluffle, nay brouhaha, or perhaps outright flap that Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum’s book Unscientific America has caused among this normally oh-so-shy and reserved group of gentile bloggers. But if you haven’t, I’ll briefly summarize the main messages of M&K’s book as saying that at least one of the reasons Americans are so anti-science is because scientists don’t communicate well. They go further in accusing outspoken atheist scientists such as PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins of actively harming science literacy in the U.S.

Personally, when you put it like that I can’t help but call it bupkus. However, in her review of Unscientific America, Janet Stemwedel writing at Adventures In Ethics And Science goes beyond the sound and fury of the blogosphere, as well as what might be described M&K’s own failed attempts at communicating, to find both the good and not-so-good in M&K’s book. In subsequent examinations (here, here and here), Janet does a thorough and brilliant job of analyzing Unscientific America from every perspective.

Yes, this is not directly related to liberal politics, but science is a very human endeavour and the knowledge we gain in its pursuit affects the decisions we make for ourselves and our society at every level. You know how I feel,  folks. You can’t have good government if you ignore sound science and a scientifically illiterate electorate is incapable of making good decisions. So while M&K’s proposals might be unrealistic, or clumsily and sometimes offensively stated, these are issues we’re going to have to grapple with as we move into the second decade of the twenty-first century.

Curtain Call
Finally, let me link to, in no particular order, all the posts submitted for this edition which I didn’t choose to feature. For the most part it’s not because these bloggers didn’t have something interesting to say. Far from it, and I highly encourage you to read all of these posts. However, choosing which posts to feature is a highly personal thing and more reflects what’s been on my own mind the past couple of weeks than any inherent quality or lack thereof of any of the submissions.

• Oh no they didn’t! at Texas Freedom Network
• It’s not murder if they’re gay, Washington DC recognizes same-sex marriages, and “Boy racers”: Submission 1 at No Right Turn
• Just a little don’t sugarcoating, please at Blue Gal
• The Realities of Healthcare: the GOP Still Doesn?t Know the Price of Milk at Submitted To A Candid World
• Gender Differences in Sexual ‘Window Shopping’ at The Evolving Mind
• Dueling Scandals at Mad Kane’s Political Madness
• Universal Health Care: It Just Makes Sense and Ice Cream and the Freedom of Dessert at Waiting For The Singularity
• Why Conservatives are typically not Conservationists too? and End All Foreign Aid at Phil For Humanity
• 25 Shocking Facts About Chinese Censorship at Online College
• Why argue with success? at The View From 32
• Obama Lie No. 444 – pressure me from the left at SocraticGadfly

And that’s it for this edition of Carnival of the Liberals. Thanks everyone who sent in posts for this edition, as well as everybody who gave their thoughts on the future of CotL. The Carnival returns on Saturday, August 29th at an as yet to be determined location. If you’d like your blog to be that location, and I have no idea why you wouldn’t, volunteer today. It’s quick and painless, I promise.

Updated: The Lay Scientist has courteously offered up his home on August 29th.