Perverting science for politics
http://volokh.com/2004_02_29_volokh_archive.html#107816189223019167
The Bush administration establishes a bioethics policy panel to tell it what to do about the serious issues of the day, and then simply removes the people on it who favor stem cell research.
What did you expect?
Well, not you personally UT, I meant "you" in general.
Call me cynical, but it doesn't surprise me a bit. It's completely in character--almost to be expected--for this administration. Figure out what you want to do, then highlight any source that supports that course of action while sending your plumbers to trash any source that doesn't agree.
American Republicans deserve a better candidate to represent their party. Too bad neither party would ever allow a nomination challenge to be mounted against a sitting president.
This is
not unique.
The Republicans' problem is that most of the issues they have that get their voting base fired up are "moral" issues which are essentially religious in nature. Their base is still small enough that they have to make arguments which don't rely on religion alone, but there are no other arguments. So they have to make up some "scientific" studies to support their ideology.
Most of the other issues they have are the ones that energize their donating base - large corporate interests. These issues are usually irrelevant or harmful to anybody but the corporate interests, so they have to make up a "scientific" study to deflect complaints.
Democrats pander to their bases as well, but they usually don't have to corrupt research studies to do so.
Anyonee that lives under a 'democratic' system that requires candidates to raise in excess of 100 million dollars to win should not be shocked when those elected happily bend the country to be used however those that lent that money want. Happy Monkey is right on the money.
I mean christ, being elected in the US costs more than almost the entire of the rest of G8 for crying out loud. Then you have people turning round wondering why you live in a corperate fascist state with no respect for the truth.
Yes, I am in a bad mood today, why do you ask?
Several departments of USF were under the threat of having their funding pulled, recently. Why? They didn't push a "mainly abstience-only policy".
Bush's No-Condom Education
Morals are great and all, but I don't think you can change many people's minds on this subject. Putting their health at risk isn't the correct way to go about it, either.
Given this political move, some states are aggressively, legislatively going after PHds and biotech jobs by courting private funding for research. U of Minnesota's Stem Cell Institute and Dr. Vervaillie just got a big private grant- Medtronic I think, to continue research. So then another issue is that private $, corporate entities are funding and "owning" research conducted in public universities...What scientific information, discovery should be public?
Is Bush's move making both the religious right and biotech corporations happy?
Everything is not what it would appear to be. A little digging reveals the original list of 17 people (a mix of scientists, medical experts, lawyers, journalists, etc.)
The original 17
And here is the list
as it stands today.
A quick comparison of the lists reveals the following two people dropped off the list:
Gilbert Meilaender, Ph.D and his bio: Gilbert Meilaender, Ph.D. Richard & Phyllis Duesenberg Professor of Christian Ethics at Valparaiso University. Professor Meilaender is an editor for the Journal of Religious Ethics and the Religious Studies Review . He takes a special interest in bioethics and is a Fellow of the Hastings Center. His books include Body, Soul, and Bioethics (1995) and Bioethics: A Primer for Christians (1997).
and
Stephen Carter, J.D. William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Yale Law School. Professor Carter teaches constitutional law and law and religion. His recent books include God's Name in Vain (2000), Civility (1998), and Integrity (1996).
A quick Google on each reveals the following:
Dr. Meilaender favors of stem cell research?? This article clearly demonstrates that he does NOT support stem cell research and resents being characterized as unsympathetic to the suffering of those whose suffering, it is alleged, would be relieved by the fruits of such research.
As for Mr. Carter, well, I found this on Slate, (a propoganda arm of the right-wing media outlet MSNBC :-)
on June 20, Carter missed a particularly crucial meeting of the bioethics panel in order to plug his book on NBC's Today show.
Here is the
article in its entirety which while not shedding any light on Mr. Carter's position on stem cell research, does shed light on his absence from the panel.
Lastly, here is an
article that would seem to indicate that the panel wasn't exactly a partisan group interested in coronating a pre-ordained outcome.
Dr. Foster, reporting back from the first of the council's sessions, nevertheless was "impressed by the intellectual power of the members. I expected that from resumes and reputations, but when you saw it in action you couldn't help but say this is really a smart group of people."
The first two meetings, in January and February in Washington, "were extremely professional and utterly dignified," he reported. "Every position was thoroughly heard, and there was no posturing or grandstanding. It was impressively mature, and there was never an angry rebuttal or argument." He added that "The four scientists interacted well with the non-scientists and vice versa, and I think it fair to say we all learned from each other." Dr. Kass earned Dr. Foster's praise for his demonstrated evenhandedness: "He leaned over backwards to ensure that all members participated and that all sides were heard. I felt a sense of pride in the country that it could be represented in this fashion by such a diverse group."
Given all this, I am forced to call bullshit on the blog"truth." It appears that the absence of the two members from the current make up of the panel was not, in any way that I can verify, related to their positions on stem cell research.
Originally posted by Beestie
A quick comparison of the lists reveals the following two people dropped off the list:
[b]Gilbert Meilaender, Ph.D [/B]
Meilaender is on both lists. Why do you think he's been dropped?
I don't know why this is pissing me off as much as it is. I guess its the whole blog = truth thing that I've seen enough of. I mean, even without knowing any panelist's position on STR the blog truth still comes up empty.
Firstly, if the panelists were truly dismissed because of their position on stem cell research, then they wouldn't have been appointed in the first place.
Secondly, from the bios of the two missing people, it is clear that they are devout Christians who, as a rule, do not support stem cell research.
Thirdly, if they really are opposed to stem cell research and really were dismissed as a consequence of that, then that implies that the remaining 15 are opposed to it or else they, too, would have been dismissed. So from that one must further conclude that the panel was 15-2 opposed to STR before the two panelists were replaced and further conclude that 15-2 was not good enough so Bush cleaned house to get 17-0.
Sorry, not today.
[/soapbox]
Meilaender is on both lists. Why do you think he's been dropped?
Cuz I'm blind as a bat. Good catch. I had both pages open and was doing a visual matchup to find the differences. I went back and checked again and you are right. I could only find that Carter was missing on the current list . Then I realized (thanks to you) that the original list has 18 names but the current list only has 17 (only Carter dropped).
So, I can't tell who else dropped. The 2nd list is dated Jan 2004 so I'll have to dig some more.
Thanks for catching the error.
Originally posted by Happy Monkey
Democrats pander to their bases as well, but they usually don't have to corrupt research studies to do so.
Sure they do.
Each side has their own "think tanks" and "interest groups" ... and picks and chooses how to present their research to make their points.
If you need an actual example check out the
Violence Policy Center.
Originally posted by wolf
Sure they do.
Each side has their own "think tanks" and "interest groups" ... and picks and chooses how to present their research to make their points.
You're right, of course. I should have said that they do it less frequently. And, in any case, Bush does it more than anyone in US history.
No, you just don't notice it as much when the "data" is proving your own position on the issues.
Without doing an exhaustive meta-analysis I suspect that both sides are perverting science equally.
Except John Lott, of course.
Bush is the first president to start censoring out the results as they come in from federal science institutions. Bush removed the page for any study that he disagreed with from US government websites. This is a whole diferent ballgame from taking the special-interest study results as they come in.
Bush removed the page for any study that he disagreed with from US government websites.
I'm gonna need direct evidence of that (please, no blogs). Ideally, a link to both the the government website copy and the science website copy of whatever finding was altered. But an article in a respected media outlet would suffice (please no Ananova). I have heard this before and I would like some corroboration.
This page has lots and lots of links on it. References galore.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Scientific groups angry at loss of Elizabeth Blackburn from group considering stem cells | By Maria Anderson
US President George W. Bush dismissed two members of his President's Council on Bioethics last Friday afternoon in a move that has been dubbed a “very ill-advised decision” by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) president Bettie Sue Masters.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040303/04
Edit: just added a few words
Thanks, TS, that is the link I was looking for yesterday but apparently wasn't Googlefied yet.
Looks like I focused on the wrong members of the council and it appears the original concern that the Council is stacked appears to be a valid one.
That is extremely disheartening.
Originally posted by Beestie
Thanks, TS, that is the link I was looking for yesterday but apparently wasn't Googlefied yet.
Looks like I focused on the wrong members of the council and it appears the original concern that the Council is stacked appears to be a valid one.
That is extremely disheartening.
Thanks. I get so many, and such a varied list, of newsletters that it's only a matter of time before a topic gets picked up in one, or many, of them.
And I agree, disheartening, but not surprising.
I'm just sitting around waiting for the revolution at this point.
Originally posted by Beestie
But an article in a respected media outlet would suffice (please no Ananova). I have heard this before and I would like some corroboration.
ANWR wildlife maps:
LA Times Text LA Times link (pay for archive) Wired News
Sex education:
NYT Text NYT link (pay for archive)
And here is a
collection. This is not an unbiased source - Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) - but it is a good list for reasearch purposes.
Originally posted by Beestie
I'm gonna need direct evidence of that (please, no blogs). Ideally, a link to both the the government website copy and the science website copy of whatever finding was altered. But an article in a respected media outlet would suffice (please no Ananova). I have heard this before and I would like some corroboration.
Politics and Science in the Bush Adminsitration is a good place to start. Since it's produced by Congressional Democrats, it's obviously not free from suspicion of bias. However, it is copiously footnoted and usually provides the "before" and "after" information when it discusses web site changes.
I actually went through and read quite a few of the linked articles (thanks) and, in particular, comments by former admin officials going all the way back to the Nixon administration including officials in the first Bush administration.
[head shaking]
What I didn't find was anyone outside of the White House who disputed the allegation. That's just flat out irresponsible.
[/head shaking]
Like so many of Bush's failings, he doesn't dispute it. He considers it a strength. And who knows, politically he may be right. I hope not.
And here's
a big one. EPA air quality.
Originally posted by Beestie
What I didn't find was anyone outside of the White House who disputed the allegation.
More damning facts say same. 60 prominent scientists published an open letter on 18 February. Many had been involved in science policy for both Republican and Democratic administrations. The letter was blunt:
when scientific knowledge has been found to be in conflict with its political goals, the administration has often manipulated the process through which science enters into its decisions.
Then the Union of Concerned Scientists chimed in separately to provide many more damning examples of such manipulation from Stem Cell research to the nonsensical Anti-ballistic missile system. Even the nuclear bunker buster bomb.
William Howard was turned down as a member of the Army Science Board because he might have contributed to the presidential campaign of John McCain. Actually another William Howard made the contribution; the administration was confused but would quash science because someone might have contributed to a Republican who is "not on the team". More examples of clearly underqualfieid candidates only because of their political beliefs are listed.
Manipulation of science for political agenda is so widespread that one must even ask if Hubble is being sacrificed to promote a silly man to Mars mission. A queston asked only because so much science is being perverted by administration political agenda.
The State Department's Arms Control and Non-proliferation Advsory Group was disbanded because it represented a threat to the President's political agenda. Not true, says Dr Marburger (presidential science advisor who was dispatched to disagree with the UCS). Technically Dr Marburger is correct. Just that the administration has forgotten to fund the Advisory Group for 32 months. We are to believe this little oversight has been ongoing for more than a year? People should have no problem seeing an administration spin and coverup here as well.
From The Economist of 10 April 2004:
There is a wide-spread feeling among scientists that Mr Bush is ignoring scietific results and opinions he does not like in other areas, too. In August 2003, the House of Representative Committtee on Government Reform made claims similar to those of the UCS report.
It does not stop there. Supporters of 'good' science are under attack by these right wing religious extremists. One is Arlene Specter, republican PA Senator who is challenged by a darling of the administration - Pat Toomey.
One reason suggested for less funding on quantum physics is that those scientific results are in direct contradiction to Genesis. How dare we challenge teachings of the Bible. Slowly, more advanced physic research is moving to Europe and Japan where funding request need not be written to avoid religious overtones. Can we point fingers at specific lawmakers? No. But many science projects based on concepts contrary to Genesis have suddenly lost funding only recently. One example cited here is the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) which would have asked questions about the Big Bang - a concept that violates Genesis.
Money on quantum physics contrary to Genesis is said by some to be diminishing. By themselves, these claims would be nothing more than speculation. But these claims are consistent with what the UCS and those 60 prominent scientists have said.
The administraton does distort science to promote their religious beliefs and political agendas. But then this administration would even lie about an Iraq war, about funding for Medicaid perscription plan - even that they had no idea of an Al Qaeda attack involving hijacked planes and buildings.
Clearly this administration would subvert science for their own self serving ambitions as just too many publications and science organizations say - even a recent article by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers - IEEE.
I expect politicians to lie to us, that's what they do.. It's in the nature of the game, however this is just plain wrong. there was a post above asking for the information on the distortions that the current admin is doing, well.. here's a link to Henry Waxmans' report on what' what and suchlike (you'll need acrobat.. which somehow I am assuming that everyone on this board is comp-literate enough to own a copy of :)) )
http://www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience/report.htm
and here's a direct link to all glorious 32 pages of it
http://www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience/pdfs/pdf_politics_and_science_rep.pdf
happy reading.. it made me really really angry when I read it
from NY Times of 23 April 2004 Science Group Says U.S. Budget Plan Would Harm Research
The nation's largest general science group said Thursday that the Bush administration's proposed budget for the next five years could cut research financing at 21 of the 24 federal agencies that engage in it.
...
Mr. Koizumi said he projected that the lower spending would continue from 2005 to 2009 and "leave key programs with budgets well below recent historical levels."
...
For instance, he said, federal budgets would decline 15.9 percent for earth science over the next five years, 16.2 percent for aeronautics, 11.8 percent for biological and physics research, 21 percent for energy-supply research, and 11.3 percent for agriculture research. Research budgets would drop 15 percent at the Environmental Projection Agency, 10.5 percent at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and 4.7 percent at the National Science Foundation, a federal agency that supports a diversity of fundamental investigations.
Nothing new or unexpected here. George Jr knows we are wasting time with silly science when we should be sending men to Mars. After all he knows. He has an MBA degree.
You'll probably say it isn't possible, but could it be that the bugets were bloated to begin with. A ten year old can whine that Dad cut his allowance 25%, when in fact it was cut from $1,000 to $750 per week. When they talk of % funding cuts it leaves us without enough information.:confused:
Originally posted by tw
Nothing new or unexpected here. George Jr knows we are wasting time with silly science when we should be sending men to Mars. After all he knows. He has an MBA degree.
You know, I'm really beginning to think we should have some continuing education or retesting requirement on those things. If 80-year-old drivers in Florida can be retested to see if they still can drive, can't we find some way to retest GWB to find out if he remembered
anything from Economics 101.
Nice one Happy Monkey. Thats a fascinating read.
Securing Our Nation's Energy Future
Increase Domestic Energy Supplies through Advanced Alternative Technologies
Authorize the President’s Hydrogen Fuel initiative to help reduce our dependence on foreign sources of oil by creating a new generation of hydrogen-powered vehicles
Clearly the president has knowledge beyond that found in science. Where is all this hydrogen to come from? Will we just drill into the earth for it? IOW this president thinks you a fool. All he need do is put up some neat sound bytes and we will believe him?
In the meantime, enemies of god's choosen - Scientific American and Industrial Physicist -explain many problems with hydrogen fuels. God's laws exist such as Laws of Energy Conservation, and Thermodynamics. For example 4 cycle automobile automobile engines will never use more than 40% of the energy consumed in doing productive work. Basic thermodynamics principles cannot be violated no matter how George Jr interpretes the bible.
Manufacturing and distributing hydrogen to cars as fuel will mean somewhere between 78% and 92% of the energy will be lost - does no productive work. Inefficiencies because of so many energy conversions, gas compression, massive structures to contain hydrogen at those exteme pressures, leakage, etc. That is the problem with science. God does not decree a solution. Hydrogen is promoted by George Jr as a fuel just as he sees a 'man to Mars' as advanced science.
Bottom line - Hydrogen is not an acceptable fuel. It will never create energy independence. The solution to energy problems is conservation and efficiency. 30 years after they developed the technology, GM still did not use 70 Horsepower per liter engines in all vehicle (even though Honda and Toyota do). Why does George Jr not address that problem? Therein lies a major problem making the US energy dependent.
George Jr instead gives GM $millions - a gift - no strings attached - just to do the hybrid research that Honda and Toyota had been doing for years. Where does that solve the problem? (It means more legalized bribed from GM will appear in George Jr's campaign chest).
We have a problem. We need people educated in reality to make decisions and empower innovators. George Jr lies. He says Hydrogen fueled vehicles will be a solution. How curious. Anyone with real world knowledge is not saying that. Why does George Jr know better? Maybe god told him? Openly questioning either the intelligence or honesty of this president - because first I examine the facts rather than wait for god to tell me.
Clearly the administration knows better than scientists. Review the votes by scientists. But the president was, after all, choosen by god:
from the Washington Post of 7 May 2004 Plan B Won't Be Sold Over Counter
The Food and Drug Administration yesterday rejected over-the-counter sales of the emergency contraceptive Plan B, saying the distributor had not proved that young teenagers can take the drug safely without a doctor's guidance.
The decision was an unusual repudiation of the lopsided recommendation of the agency's own expert advisory panel, which voted 23 to 4 late last year that the drug should be sold over the counter and then, that same day, 27 to 0 that the drug could be safely sold as an over-the-counter medication.
The denial was a major goal of social conservatives, including members of Congress who lobbied President Bush on the issue. Reproductive-rights advocates lobbied equally hard for its approval, and yesterday they criticized the decision as misguided and a historic blot on the reputation of the FDA as a science-based agency.
...
The "not approvable" letter was signed by acting director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Steven K. Galson, not by members of the FDA review team, as is usual. Former officials of the FDA said that generally means that the review team had made a different recommendation.
The religious concept is that a 'morning after' pill causes an abortion. It is a fetus the millisecond a male ejaculates. After all, only god has the right to determine whether a baby is created. Therefore 27 unanimous scientists must be wrong. Screw the civil rights of women. God's choosen administration knows which religious beliefs must be imposed upon the people.
Originally posted by Happy Monkey
Salmon population counting.
I don't see a problem here, Monkey. If we had a bunch of zoos cranking out thousands of tigers per year, then tigers shouldn't be on the endangered list.
But the Greenies say it's not about fish, it's about logging and development. It's really about habitat. Well then say so, god damn it. I'm just as tired of the greenies, as I am of the gumint, being deceptive about the real goals. If you want my support, talk straight.:mad:
It's like saying wolves couldn't be endangered as long as there are dogs.
No, dogs, while genetically similar are not wolves.
If would be the same if the wolf refuges were involved in breeding programs and releasing wolves to the wild. Oh, wait, they are. That's why there are wolves in Yellowstone again.
The salmon are still salmon.
From the link
"Rather than address the problems of habitat degraded by logging, dams and urban sprawl, this policy will purposefully mask the precarious condition of wild salmon behind fish raised by humans in concrete pools," said Jan Hasselman, counsel for the National Wildlife Federation.
I have a problem with this person putting fish up as the problem when they really have a problem with logging, dams and sprawl. Maybe we should just evacuate the upper half of the west coast so the fish are not disturbed. Granted fish are a tougher sell than cute mammals but lets keep it real. If the problem is running out of salmon, the problem is solved. If the issue is something else, say so.;)
Nancy Reagan Calls for Stem Cell Research
Well, when the first lady of one of the most beloved (by his own party) presidents of the United States challenges the Bush Adminstration, who will win.
cited by Happy Monkey Federal government classifies french fries as fresh veggies
The USDA quietly changed the regulations last year at the behest of the french fry industry, which has spent the past five decades pushing for a revision to the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA).
After five decades, they finally got a president that could be bought. Any of you George Jr lovers want to defend the mental midget president on this one? How does Rush Limbaugh deal with this? Or does he simply do what George Jr also does best - ignore facts he does not like.
Originally posted by tw
After five decades, they finally got a president that could be bought. Any of you George Jr lovers want to defend the mental midget president on this one? How does Rush Limbaugh deal with this? Or does he simply do what George Jr also does best - ignore facts he does not like.
I got the impression that it wasn't a health endorsement but one for legal and contractual purposes. Since french fries need to be frozen, they are asserting that the freezing does not mean they are not fresh. This is the same as how a 'fresh' turkey can be rock hard, just not frozen to a certain point.
Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA). The law was passed by Congress in 1930 to protect fruit and vegetable farmers in the event that their customers went out of business without paying for their produce.
I suppose "We The People" pay if they do, and the frozen food people want a piece of the action.:(
Originally posted by richlevy
Since french fries need to be frozen, they are asserting that the freezing does not mean they are not fresh.
French fries do not need to be frozen. Things only need to be frozen if you are not going to use them fresh (ice cream notwithstanding).
Here's their argument:
The Frozen Potato Products Institute appealed to the USDA in 2000 to change its definition of fresh produce under PACA to include batter-coated, frozen french fries, arguing that rolling potato slices in a starch coating, frying them and freezing them is the equivalent of waxing a cucumber or sweetening a strawberry.
As an outsider (Aussie), I am confused as to how and why John Kerry seems to be so ineffective against Bush. Many of you have cited cases of the Bush administration corrupting information, and looking after corporate interests rather than the nation's, and if one believes even just some of the arguments against Bush, it seems difficult to imagine that Kerry would not win in a landslide in November.
Kerry's argument in favour of stem cell research
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0612a.html seems very wishy-washy to me. Surely he could be making a stronger point. From what I have heard in the media, Kerry has not been hurting Bush's credibility at all.
I have been getting the impression that Bush is likely to hold on in November because many potential anti Bush voters won't bother to vote, and that he has strong support in the mid-west. Is this true?
bluesdave, I'm an aussie expat, just wondering, do you think Latham is going to win? I haven't had time to check the news for a fair while now.
Originally posted by jaguar
bluesdave, I'm an aussie expat, just wondering, do you think Latham is going to win? I haven't had time to check the news for a fair while now.
The word is that he doesn't have a chance (much like John Kerry over there). While most people now believe that Iraq was a mistake, and believe that John Howard lied to us, they still see Howard as a strong leader, and while the Aussie economy continues to hum along, it will be nearly impossible to dislodge him.
The only hope that Mark Latham has is if there is some sort of huge controversy that entangles Howard. The die hard Labor supporters all believe that Latham can win, but I can't see it happening without some external influence assisting him. Latham has also made a few faux pas over recent months which haven't helped his image.
=(
I liked latham, any politician that feels it's ok to call the prime minister an arse licker is worth his weight in gold in my book. I don't think I have to but I'll post in my vote, it'll make me feel better.
Howard Dean on
the subject.
[COLOR=indigo]LOL this cracks me up....[/COLOR]
When a right-wing theory is contradicted by an inconvenient scientific fact, the science is not refuted; it is simply discarded or ignored.
Will it be long before a prominent panel of fundamentalist theologians, conservative columnists, and a few token scientists take up the question of whether the theory of evolution should be banned from the nation's classrooms? Stay tuned. In George Bush's America, ignorance is strength.
[color=indigo]Ya'll know my stance on evolution, and that most of the "proofs" provided in science textbooks have been disproven scientifically, and that the age of the earth gets older my millions of years at a rate of 2.1 million years a year...
...and all these evidences are ignored, including by Mr. Dean.
oh, the irony....
Open minded people go to....
http://www.answersingenesis.org
[/color]
And yet, the age of the earth doesn't change a bit for the creationists, no matter what scientific evidence is available.
Are you seriously trying to say that the fact that science recognizes and corrects its errors is a weakness?
Originally posted by OnyxCougar [color=indigo]Ya'll know my stance on evolution, and that most of the "proofs" provided in science textbooks have been disproven scientifically, and that the age of the earth gets older my millions of years at a rate of 2.1 million years a year...
[/color]
Hmmm.
If science itself is flawed then science can't be used to disprove it, no? That's having it both ways.
Sometimes I consider the irony of Bush's efforts to smash theocracies abroad while seemingly trying to build one at home. The big problem with the White House implementing Christian doctrine is that they have police power to back it up. Isn't that contrary to the notion of religious freedom? What if Bush were a Muslim? A Jew? A Scientologist? A zealous athiest? Nothing against any of those religions/belief systems but I don't want their rituals imposed upon me. When is it ok versus not ok? The founding fathers already put that question to bed.
I have two small children. I tell them that God created the world, them and Mommy and Daddy. When they get older, I will attempt to explain the method God employed to do so. I find no inconsistency between faith and science and struggle with the assertion that there is one. Science does not venture into the realm of faith. If faith had the discipline to do likewise (e.g., know its boundaries) , we'd all be a lot better off.
"The Bible—the ‘history book of the universe’—provides a reliable, eye-witness account of the beginning of all things, and can be trusted to tell the truth in all areas it touches on. Therefore, we are able to use it to help us make sense of this present world. When properly understood, the ‘evidence’ confirms the biblical account."
They can't be serious...
They can't be serious...
That my friend, is wishful thinking.:(
Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
That my friend, is wishful thinking.:(
It's not surprising as much as disapointing.
Their point, I believe, is that they take themselves seriously.
Probably all too seriously.
A friend and I started a little discussion about that site and one of the points that came out was what about the parts that were lifted from other religions? Doesn't that make them just as valid, and true, as christianity?
One major problem with the Bush administration is their habit of appointing lobbyists to positions of authority. That's bad enough, but the lobbyists they appoint are the lobbyists for the industry/group that the position is supposed to regulate.
Here's the latest example.
A lobbyist for "Safari Club International" in charge of the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Hogan's job before coming to work at FWS was as chief lobbyist for Safari Club International. The club has set hunting awards for its members like the Africa Big Five, in which a member shoots a leopard, elephant, lion, rhino and buffalo. Then there's the American Twenty Nine or Big Cats of the World.
For a member to get all 29 awards, he would have to kill at least 322 different animals.
You're right. Don't appoint someone who has a background in wildlife management, particularly hunting (the primary wildlife management tool nationwide). He wouldn't know nearly as much about the topic as, say, someone with a background in English Lit.
Or is it the fact that he kills animals? In that case, a PETA member would be appropriate. Their leader is on record as saying that in a perfect world, they would be able to breed out the carnivorous tendencies of animals such as wolves and mountain lions so that all creatures could live in harmony.
Maybe it should be someone with no opinion whatsoever in regard to hunting. They could approach wildlife management with a fresh eye. ("What's that, some kind of cow?" "No, sir, that's a pronghorn" "Do they bite?" "Not usually, sir.")
I need to go eat some meat. bbl.
mrnoodle. you actually made me chuckle with that one.
That's a good article. Thanks for the link.
Pure FUD. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Glad you refreshed this sad but true thread. How much longer is this fucking administration?
If ever you had a single doubt about what this administrations sole purpose for existence was, this should clear it up.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Pure FUD. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
The guy was giving the F to government scientists, and creating UD for the administration to use.
Appreciate who Philip A. Cooney is. He is a lawyer. He has no science education. His degree is in economics. He is therefore qualified to rewrite science papers for the George Jr administration. No wonder First Energy (that is also run by a lawyer and created the East Coast blackout) could have a Three Mile Island problem in Davis Bessie, arrange a $450,000 fund raiser for Bush Cheney, and not shutdown as two nuclear reactors were force to (for human safety reasons). Oh. And when they finally did shutdown for refueling, there was this hole through 6 inches of carbon steel. Had the Three Mile Island problem occurred, there was no containment vessel to prevent 60 pounds per square inch of exploding radioactive gas from visiting Toledo.
Ahh but these are numbers and science. The George Jr administration knows better. They have a lawyer. Money would have fixed Toledo. With God and lawyers, clearly the administration cannot be wrong. No wonder George Jr need not even read his PDBs.
So which science will be canceled this month so that a man can scratch the moon looking for water? Clearly global warming cannot be averted. (It says so in the bible?) This from the same man who repeatedly drilled for oil and never found any - but got rich anyway. Where is the morality in the new science - and intelligent design?
Well, I can't find a cite online for this story, but going from my memory of a radio story I heard a little while ago, Philip A. Cooney has "resigned". The stated reason is that he had been wanting to spend the summer with his family. The administration denies that the resignation has anything to do with this week's story that we've been discussing.
I find this sequence of events too neat and tidy to believe. It seems that the revelation of his actions, editing scientific documents, without the training to produce the report, but "producing" the conclusions, the public face, was embarassing to the administration. See you later, buddy.
Well, I can't find a cite online for this story, but going from memory of a radio story a little while, Philip A. Cooney has "resigned". The stated reason is that he had been wanting to spend the summer with his family. The administration denies that the resignation has anything to do with this week's story that we've been discussing.
I find this sequence of events too neat and tidy to believe. It seems that the revelation of his actions, editing scientific documents, without the training to produce the report, but "producing" the conclusions, the public face, was embarassing to the administration. See you later, buddy.
For some reason this guy reminds me of
Mitch Glazer , the midnight bill raider who went to work for the RIAA after rigging some legislation.
It will be interesting to see who Mr. Cooney is hired by after his summer vacation.
Sucks when the richest research community on Earth has its credibility tainted by a monkey in office and a bunch of religious wingnuts getting all uppity.
The only possible limits to research should be nondenominational ethical concerns.
And you creationists...I'm sorry, I'm a tolerant guy, but I giggle when you post ;-)
--snip--It will be interesting to see who Mr. Cooney is hired by after his summer vacation.
It seems clear to me that he never stopped working for The American Petroleum Institute. Not a joke.
--snip--It will be interesting to see who Mr. Cooney is hired by after his summer vacation.
And the answer is...:drumroll:
ExxonMobil. It is worthy to note that he's been hired after a very short summer vacation with his family. All the same denials about his departure from the administration being unconnected to his tampering with scientific reports were repeated, but, quiet like. And then I also heard in the same story that the administration said that his edits didn't change anything. :smack:
This feels less like a hiring than it does a reassignment of duty station.
http://salon.com/news/feature/2005/06/16/thimerosal/index.html
Great article from Salon about mercury in childhood vaccines that has been clearly, statistically linked to autism. Government officials seem more interested in protecting pharaceutical companies than kids. culture of life and all.
The drug companies are also getting help from powerful lawmakers in Washington. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has received $873,000 in contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, has been working to immunize vaccine makers from liability in 4,200 lawsuits that have been filed by the parents of injured children. On five separate occasions, Frist has tried to seal all of the government's vaccine-related documents -- including the Simpsonwood transcripts -- and shield Eli Lilly, the developer of thimerosal, from subpoenas. In 2002, the day after Frist quietly slipped a rider known as the "Eli Lilly Protection Act" into a homeland security bill, the company contributed $10,000 to his campaign and bought 5,000 copies of his book on bioterrorism. Congress repealed the measure in 2003 -- but earlier this year, Frist slipped another provision into an anti-terrorism bill that would deny compensation to children suffering from vaccine-related brain disorders. "The lawsuits are of such magnitude that they could put vaccine producers out of business and limit our capacity to deal with a biological attack by terrorists," says Andy Olsen, a legislative assistant to Frist.
Oh, and importing drugs from Canada is a risk...
At least take the shit off the market. Geeze. parents beware.
So far, 4 states have banned thimerosal. Lots of other states with legislation pending.
More appropriately posted
here.There have been other thimerosal-related studies which haven't shown a link, so this one isn't cut and dried. Personally, I think the link is there. I agree with the shield for the vaccine producers, though; if anyone should be on the hook here, it's the governments which require the vaccines.
The link between thimerosal and vaccines may not be 100% (Nothing in science is), but the link between Frist and the coverup and the "Eli Lilly Protection Act" certainly is. A proper political response to a risk like this is to remove the product from market pending further testing, not to hide the damning studies and ensure nobody is held responsible.
From Kennedy's article:
What is most striking is the lengths to which many of the leading detectives have gone to ignore -- and cover up -- the evidence against thimerosal. From the very beginning, the scientific case against the mercury additive has been overwhelming. The preservative, which is used to stem fungi and bacterial growth in vaccines, contains ethylmercury, a potent neurotoxin. Truckloads of studies have shown that mercury tends to accumulate in the brains of primates and other animals after they are injected with vaccines -- and that the developing brains of infants are particularly susceptible. In 1977, a Russian study found that adults exposed to much lower concentrations of ethylmercury than those given to American children still suffered brain damage years later. Russia banned thimerosal from children's vaccines 20 years ago, and Denmark, Austria, Japan, Great Britain and all the Scandinavian countries have since followed suit.
"You couldn't even construct a study that shows thimerosal is safe," says Haley, who heads the chemistry department at the University of Kentucky. "It's just too darn toxic. If you inject thimerosal into an animal, its brain will sicken. If you apply it to living tissue, the cells die. If you put it in a petri dish, the culture dies. Knowing these things, it would be shocking if one could inject it into an infant without causing damage."
and this is disturbing, too.
The CDC paid the Institute of Medicine to conduct a new study to whitewash the risks of thimerosal, ordering researchers to "rule out" the chemical's link to autism. It withheld Verstraeten's findings, even though they had been slated for immediate publication, and told other scientists that his original data had been "lost" and could not be replicated. And to thwart the Freedom of Information Act, it handed its giant database of vaccine records over to a private company, declaring it off-limits to researchers. By the time Verstraeten finally published his study in 2003, he had gone to work for GlaxoSmithKline and reworked his data to bury the link between thimerosal and autism.
Vaccine manufacturers had already begun to phase thimerosal out of injections given to American infants -- but they continued to sell off their mercury-based supplies of vaccines until last year. The CDC and FDA gave them a hand, buying up the tainted vaccines for export to developing countries and allowing drug companies to continue using the preservative in some American vaccines -- including several pediatric flu shots as well as tetanus boosters routinely given to 11-year-olds.
If you don't see it close up you have no idea how disruptive having a child with autism can be. I could tell some scarey tales but we are very careful not to ever give out any personal information about our kids. One of my colleagues wrote a paper on the connection or lack of one last semester. She couldn't find a link but then again the CDC doesn't let researchers use their data. :mad: An interesting side note Don Imus has been on a bit of an autism rant for a while now. It seems the Wall Street Journal had an oddly timed and lie filled hit piece on his ranch which he attributes to giving air time to folks who are trying to prove the link. Also Kennedy was supposed to do the talk show circuit yesterday for this article which will also be in Rolling Stone. He was cancelled from the Today Show and some other booking...
It'll be interesting to see what Santorum does on this. He has been very supportive of autism research but he also knows how conservative nutball$ get elected in this country.
edit: oh yah, I've long wondered if the Chicoms would ever use their access to Americas kids(toys crayons cookware) to poison their future. It turns out thats may have been the unintended (I pray) result of the USAs third world vaccination program. How long have they known and how do CDC folks go from protecting to poisoning?
If you don't see it close up you have no idea how disruptive having a child with autism can be.
From 2000 to 2004, I worked at a sheltered workshop for adults with developmental disabilities. I have tremendous respect for these parents. I cannot imagine being in their shoes. I couldn't even imagine working with them eight hours a day! (I worked in administration). You see people organizing help and gathering support for parents of quintuplets, sextuplets, etc. That's wonderful and also needed, but parents of children with disabilities could
always use some help, I'm sure. It's impossible for them to just be able to go out for dinner, or a movie or just to visit friends at times. And the parents of multiple birth babies eventually don't need any help. These parents can use a helping hand
forever!
[SIZE=1](And I always think...parents of multiple birth babies
chose to do this! What if the help didn't come!?)[/SIZE]
You are so right BH. Get to know these kids and help their parents out, the rewards can't be described.They really are a wonder. If you guys ever get the chance spend some time with them. I was warned about getting caught up in the autism world by a professor once. Being with these kids is really habit forming. My guys are so loving and bright at one moment and frustrating and violent the next that I really can't let go. I need to understand what's happening in their minds.
Here's a collection of fodder for this thread.
Global warming does not exist. Therefore the mental midget's administration is quietly killing off science projects that would discover what is happening on earth. Meanwhile we continue to fund what George Jr wants such as building an ISS that does no science, funding 'man to Mar' and 'man scratching for water on the moon' programs, liberating a nation that did not want to be liberated, and building military bases to liberate the next nation. Among science being terminated according to ABC News of 6 Mar 2006:
NASA's Earth Observing System was conceived in the 1980s as a 15-year program that would collect comprehensive data about the planet's oceans, atmosphere and land surface. ...
Landsat, a series of satellites that have provided detailed images of the ground surface for more than 30 years, is in danger of experiencing a gap in service. ...
... a satellite designed to measure rainfall over the entire Earth, the Global Precipitation Measurement mission, has been pushed back to 2012. But the satellite it is designed to replace, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, can't possibly last that long. That means there will be a period of several years when scientists have no access to the accurate global precipitation measurements that help them improve hurricane forecasts and predict the severity of droughts and flooding. [how politically convenient]
... scientists working on the Hydros mission received a letter canceling their program. They were developing a satellite that would measure soil moisture and differentiate between frozen and unfrozen ground, an increasingly important distinction since melting of the Arctic permafrost has accelerated over the past several decades. The satellite also would have improved drought and flood forecasting.
... Deep Space Climate Observatory, a project he has led for more than seven years, would be canceled. ... The observatory would have provided valuable information about how clouds, snow cover, airborne dust and other phenomena affect the balance between the amount of sunlight Earth absorbs and the amount of heat energy it emits. And because it would have hovered between Earth and the sun at a distance of roughly a million miles, it would have been able to observe the entire sunlit surface of the planet constantly. Such observations could greatly enhance scientists' understanding how much the planet has warmed in recent years and help them predict how much warmer it will get in
the future.
A new generation of weather satellites being developed jointly by NASA, the Department of Defense and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has gone so far over budget that federal law requires a review of whether it is worth continuing. [A current version is Tiros N. It was fixed and launched causing speculation how long it will survive especially with no backups available.] The current generation of polar-orbiting weather satellites is critical to weather forecasting because it offers a complete picture of the planet every six-hours. ... it gives meteorologists the ability to track weather systems as they evolve in both time and space. Weather forecasts could be compromised if the launch of the final satellite from the previous generation of polar orbiters, scheduled for late 2007, fails. The chances of a satellite failing on launch are typically about 10 percent.
And nobody thought levees would be breached. Sending a few C-130s demonstrated America's resolve to a few Tsunami victims. Fighter planes were never authorized to protect American buildings from hijacked airliners while a president flew around hiding somewhere in the mid west. But this president tells us his job is "Haaa..rrrrr..dddd". And yes that is a direct quote from the mental midget who could not even authorize the USS Bataan to rescue people in nearby New Orleans.
How does one spell impeachment? Oh. That means Cheney would be president. He already is. Even the Three Stoogers could not write a comedy this perverse. Nobody expected a Spanish Inquisition. Or is the screwing of America also called "Mission Accomplished".
Dude...the easiest, quickest and cheapest way of proving that there are no serious problems on Earth is to simply avoid trying to find them. No data? No problem.
If satellite and space guys want to get something done, they need to get the funding pipelines flowing and develop something to *sell* to someone. Research costs money unless it results in a consumer product, and right now, no one in Washington can see past the bulging wallet of the nearest lobbyist standing in the receiving line.
As a corollary to Patrick's post, If you have already decided there is NO problem, why spend money on a non existent wild goose chase? In addition, if you already know that you are not going to spend a penny on the hypothetical wild goose, even if it was discovered, why bother? The Bushco Gang has managed to stash enough ill gotten gain so that they and their grandchildren will be insulated from any goose dropings in the event such things exist. The rest of you - you're on your own!
PS You make pick up your cooked goose on aisle 7. Please form a single line and proceed in an orderly fashion. There's plenty of cooked geese for everyone.
Stupid me. I forgot. Research, education, innovation, and knowledge are expenses. The only purpose of mankind is profits. How could I have forgotten what they taught me in business school?
The business model has changed. It now is only applicable to people who already have money. Besides, anyone can get filthy, stinking rich in this country. Ask Rush Limbaugh...I just heard him say it on the radio this morning. And you know, since he's such an incredible doofus, yet has managed to avoid prison for breaking laws that he would gladly see other people put away for breaking, and still has a pile of cash...I am almost inclined to believe that that old saw is still true. Know what to kiss and when and for how long, and you, too, can become wealthy by pandering to those with money.
Even a newborn knows enough to suck the teat that has the milk. ;)
Tw, post #85 demonstrates that you are only half bright, in contrast to your much more intelligent work on post #106 in another thread. Whether this is unfortunate or not I will leave to the audience; I suppose such halfbrightness comes of being too much the whore for the Left. You could be better than you are, but you don't want to be. No more comprehensible than it is good, and I sneer at it.
Tw, post #85 demonstrates that you are only half bright, in contrast to your much more intelligent work on post #106 in another thread. Whether this is unfortunate or not I will leave to the audience; I suppose such halfbrightness comes of being too much the whore for the Left. You could be better than you are, but you don't want to be. No more comprehensible than it is good, and I sneer at it.
Well, except for the "Stoogers" in there, it seemed coherent to me.
I'll see your sneer and raise you a smirk (with furrowed brow).
He can write a coherent sentence -- but he has no notion of copyediting and spells only somewhat better than Meriwether Lewis. He desperately wants to be thought of as sage, but the form of his works prevents him being taken seriously -- even as sage brush.
Cum grano -- enough of them to salt pork.
CBS 60 Minutes literally put documents on screen complete with White House changes. Science is now taken to the White House for approval. Laywers rewrite science per the party line. No, I did not say Kremlin. Different party. 60 Minutes displayed smoking gun evidence.
I delayed citing this - another classic example of a White House that is so anti-American as to impose politics on science - in hope that others would see and cite this report. Why so much silence? When does science need approval from politicians? When reality does not agree with that political party's agenda.
From 60 Minutes of 19 Mar 2006:
Rewriting The Science
... the administration is censoring what he can say to the public, Hansen says: "Or they're censoring whether or not I can say it. I mean, I say what I believe if I'm allowed to say it." ....
Is it fair to say at this point that humans control the climate? Is that possible?
"There's no doubt about that, says Hansen. "The natural changes, the speed of the natural changes is now dwarfed by the changes that humans are making to the atmosphere and to the surface."
Those human changes, he says, are driven by burning fossil fuels that pump out greenhouse gases like CO2, carbon dioxide.
No sense in quoting the TV report further. Little in the report is new - other than the editted documents themselves. Smoking gun prove that the White House perverts science for a political agenda.
Demonstrated repeatedly are how lawyer types - those who represent political agendas rather than facts - literally pervert science. They change whole meanings of sentences. They literally throw out whole pages that only lawyers would not like. This is the new American science where even Spontaneous Reproduction can be proven if it provides a political purpose.
Meanwhile, CBS News could not interview Hansen without a NASA (political) employee sitting in the room. Just like the Communist Party when a party official also had to be present for every interview. No wonder all those satellite programs on earth studies got canceled - see
this report from ABC News . They might discover the party science is wrong. That would only be a waste of money better spent on iraq.
I watched that story and it was damning indeed. Putting a lawyer in charge of scientific decisions.... :headshake
But I secretly enjoyed knowing the Cellar had determined the basic problem a year before 60 Minutes.
Where do you think they get their ideas?
If the facts weren't so biased against him, Bush wouldn't have to do this. Smegging facts.
But I secretly enjoyed knowing the Cellar had determined the basic problem a year before 60 Minutes.
We offered many perspectives ... including one that is proving correct.
Where do you think they get their ideas?
It's called Project for a New American Century. It's called the bible. And it's called party loyalty - America be damned. The last sentence defined a term called "anti-American".
Dude, she means 60 minutes.
Shhhhh, he's on a role.;)
From the NY Times of 26 Apr 2006:
NASA Chief Says Future Flights Will Force Cutbacks in Science
The ability to send humans into space after retiring the space shuttle is such a high priority for NASA that some space science must be sacrificed to help pay for it, the agency's administrator, Michael D. Griffin, said Tuesday.
The gap between retiring the shuttle in 2010 and flying a new manned vehicle by four years after that must be narrowed to prevent long-term damage to the space program and national security, Dr. Griffin said before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science and Space.
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas and chairwoman of the subcommittee, and Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, the ranking Democrat, repeated their concerns that the United States could sacrifice its leadership in space if it were to lose its ability to transport humans while other nations continued to do so.
The United States had long since lost leadership in unmanned launching, in part, because politics rather than science created the Space Shuttle. Most all productive science is in unmanned space operations. World leader in launching is the French - Arlene series. Russians also provide in increasing share of reliable launching. The US has recovered some business with a Boeing launch system from a ship in the Pacific. But American space budget is politically driven by 'man in space' mostly for political pride rather than for science and the advancement of mankind.
As noted in other threads, ISS does no science. That $8billion project - that has now cost more than $80billion - does no science AND requires constant maintenance by humans using a fleet of manned transport systems.
NASA has a severe problem. No manned launch vehicles for four years to keep ISS in orbit. Again, Russia will provide the only reliable, necessary, and useful solution: Soyuz spacecraft. An Apollo like craft that does manned transport more reliably, at less cost, with many useful features the Space Shuttle cannot provide such as an emergency escape system for the ISS.
NASA budget is mostly spent on a manned space program that do near zero science. Virtually all science occurs in a minor part of NASA's budget - that now may be cut further for 'less productive, higher cost, and politically hyped' operations. These same operations somehow distorted into national security.
The Bush administration has requested $16.8 billion for NASA's 2007 budget, including $5.3 billion for space science. But the science budget would stay about even for the next four years, reducing financing for science by $3 billion so the money could go to human spaceflight.
Posted previously are numerous basic earth science research and weather forecasting programs that will be canceled:
Perverting science for politics
Is this because George Jr's administration fears realities of global warming? Or only because his legacy justifies a man on Mars? Either way, advancement of mankind is not his agenda. Even Mars Rovers had difficulty getting additional financing when the Rovers performed long beyond what was expected. Mars Rovers do science - without presidential glory. Man on Mars is for the greater glory of a president - who desperately craves a legacy like Kennedy. Does he fear we will instead remember that George Jr condemned Hubble Space Telescope - the most successful science project in NASA's history. We should.
I wonder if modern governments are even capable of launching and sustaining a project like sending a man to Mars. Political climates change too quickly, and in the end no politician is going to choose scientific advancement over the future of his party.
Any thoughts as to whether we'll see the most significant progress made by global corporations?
Someone needs to take the Warren Zevon off of Bush's playlist, it's giving him ideas...
Lawyers, guns and money... will get me out of this.
Though, slightly off topic... Am I the only one who thinks tw spends all his free time on far-left news sites and websites trying to find more news to post here in the cellar to make fun of the mental midget george jr with?
Though, slightly off topic... Am I the only one who thinks tw spends all his free time on far-left news sites and websites trying to find more news to post here in the cellar to make fun of the mental midget george jr with?
I doubt it. The stuff he gathers comes from mainstream sources.
well, okay, maybe not far-left, but I still think he spends his days waiting for more anti-right news to post here.
It's not his fault that facts are anti-right. ;)
You are missing my point, I'm saying he spends all day looking for the stuff, an... Oh, never mind. Yeesh.
No, I get your point. The man posts encyclopedias.
tw is not anti-right, he's anti-MBA.
The invention of the MBA is how people who know nothing about what a company makes can be hired as management in that company. Because they know "how to manage", ya know.
You are missing my point, I'm saying he spends all day looking for the stuff,
I read a wide variety of information sources for a short period every day. But as noted (did you read this previous post?), since Katrina, stuff is now coming in waves. Patriots everywhere are leaking facts since it is obvious this president does not work for America.
Identified are, for example, three parties: Democrats, Republicans, and Communist. Party loyalists all have one thing in common. They all work first and foremost for the party; America and mankind be damned - secondary. Such party loyal politicians even lie by hiding behind flag pins and waving flags. Where is 'left or right' in that?
Current administration is a classic example of worst management. Ironic he is also an MBA. As Cheney says, “Reagan proved deficits don't matter.” Why do you think they spend money like drunken sailors? To advance America? Of course not. Like drunken sailors, they only have a personal agenda - everyone else be damned. America is leaching money everywhere. Did you read: a $2.4 billion no-bid contract without performance guarantees? Who do you think got that contract? There is no left or right. There are now reams of examples of anti-American management in government.
Only a fool would not see information coming in waves. Some science publications now have an article addressing the president's perversion of science in every issue. How could a decent American no see that obvious fact - and stay silent? Where did that criticism of Rumsfeld in Project for New American Century come from? Read long ago - and now relevant. Where were you when Billy Kristol, et al made those statements? When the subject arose, this example was just sitting their – glaring – waiting to be cited. Meanwhile, did you even know who one author is? Do you so hate America as to not read what Bill Kristol has been saying for a long time? One need not search everyday for what should be common knowledge. Do you know that Bill Kristol is a founding member of PNAC - as was Rumsfeld? The significance of what was written so long ago is damning – and now significant. You don’t like reality? Sorry. Reality that glaring was just begging to be cited here.
Have I posted enough facts to demonstrate this president incompetent – that his administration perverts science for a political agenda? It was called tenacity. Somehow, you have instead taken an emotional response to reams of leaks because of an incompetent president. Why do we not have enough facts? 30+% of Americans are actually in denial. Nothing about left or right. It is about Americans so driven by a party’s political agenda – Democrat, Republican, or Communist – as to not work for America. There are good Americans and then there are political loyalists - extremists - more interested in a political agenda.
tw, I agree with all but the most extreme of your views, I was just saying it seems like you have no life, from all the (as Happy Monkey put it) encyclopedias you post. Nothing personal, dude, it's actually very interesting, you're like my own personal newsfeed almost, I was just commenting.
The invention of the MBA is how people who know nothing about what a company makes can be hired as management in that company. Because they know "how to manage", ya know.
As an engineer-in-training I hold no love for MBA students, trust me. I can't believe people don't understand why we're falling behind China and India(not to mention Japan) in the technology race when our country pays people with a basic MBA more that our phD researchers. OF COURSE we're not going to be able to attract as many bright young students into the sciences, all the money and prestige is in business.
Reefer madness in the Economist.
Another reason the FDA statement is odd is that it seems to lack common sense. Cannabis has been used as a medicinal plant for millennia. In fact, the American government actually supplied cannabis as a medicine for some time, before the scheme was shut down in the early 1990s. Today, cannabis is used all over the world, despite its illegality, to relieve pain and anxiety, to aid sleep, and to prevent seizures and muscle spasms. For example, two of its long-advocated benefits are that it suppresses vomiting and enhances appetite—qualities that AIDS patients and those on anti-cancer chemotherapy find useful. So useful, in fact, that the FDA has licensed a drug called Marinol, a synthetic version of one of the active ingredients of marijuana—delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Unfortunately, many users of Marinol complain that it gets them high (which isn't what they actually want) and is not nearly as effective, nor cheap, as the real weed itself.
Unfortunately, many users of Marinol complain that it gets them high (which isn't what they actually want) and is not nearly as effective, nor cheap, as the real weed itself.
If a Marinol high isn't what they want, then real weed isn't for them either. :confused:
If a Marinol high isn't what they want, then real weed isn't for them either. :confused:
That is not accurate at all, a very high percentage of people cannot take Marinol... it makes them very nauseous, oddly enough. I am one of them. I have read that the percentage is as high as 40%.
However, they can take marijuana just fine and have great effects.
Put a little bud on a cracker with some cheese, microwave it for a bit, it helps to activate the THC somehow, and eat it... the effects last much longer and you don't get the negative effects of the smoke.
You just have to keep the cracker down... otherwise you need to try to get an atomizer or large water-pipe to have less impurities and tar if you just can't keep the cracker down.
Another thing most don't know is that if you are in chronic pain you do not normally get "high". Your body is producing cannoids naturally and just uses the extra in the fight against muscle spasms and nerve damage. There are a lot of cannoids in mother's milk to help with the rapid growth of infants, such growth is painful.
BTW, I made plans for just such a large water pipe that takes three trays of ice cubes and a gallon of water. It cuts the amount of product you need to help with your pain in half if you are smoking. I made in in college for a friend who had asthma who was killing himself with smoking the stuff. As an added bonus it saved him a great deal of money in saved marijuana because he needed much less with the pipe. PM me and I will e-mail you the specs.
Unfortunately, many users of Marinol complain that it gets them high (which isn't what they actually want) and is not nearly as effective, nor cheap, as the real weed itself.
So if a drug company can synthesize it and make a profit off of it, it can be legal. But if anyone could grow it in their garden and use it, then it should be illegal. I still don't understand why libertarians never made more noise about the drug war.
Heck, why stop at marijuana? Why not ban willow bark (aspirin)?
I think you're missing the point. If the government legalizes medicinal Canibis then they effectively legalize it for recreational use as well. There's no good way to regulate it to those who really need it for pain. A medication however, can be controlled.
I think you're missing the point. If the government legalizes medicinal Canibis then they effectively legalize it for recreational use as well. There's no good way to regulate it to those who really need it for pain. A medication however, can be controlled.
And the real point is, who cares? Prohibition in the United States was a failure for alcohol and it is a failure for marijuana. Just concentrate on prosecuting DUI and DWI and leave people alone in their homes.
That is not accurate at all, a very high percentage of people cannot take Marinol... it makes them very nauseous, oddly enough. I am one of them. I have read that the percentage is as high as 40%.
However, they can take marijuana just fine and have great effects.
Put a little bud on a cracker with some cheese, microwave it for a bit, it helps to activate the THC somehow, and eat it... the effects last much longer and you don't get the negative effects of the smoke.
You just have to keep the cracker down... otherwise you need to try to get an atomizer or large water-pipe to have less impurities and tar if you just can't keep the cracker down.
Another thing most don't know is that if you are in chronic pain you do not normally get "high". Your body is producing cannoids naturally and just uses the extra in the fight against muscle spasms and nerve damage. There are a lot of cannoids in mother's milk to help with the rapid growth of infants, such growth is painful.
BTW, I made plans for just such a large water pipe that takes three trays of ice cubes and a gallon of water. It cuts the amount of product you need to help with your pain in half if you are smoking. I made in in college for a friend who had asthma who was killing himself with smoking the stuff. As an added bonus it saved him a great deal of money in saved marijuana because he needed much less with the pipe. PM me and I will e-mail you the specs.
BTW, if you are going to do the Leary Biscut... slang for the cracker, do use the cheese. The protein and fat help with the delivery, keeping it down, and helping the effects last longer. It is a lot of fiber and you need those fats and proteins to ease the transition and for the cannoids to "adhere" to while working their way through your digestive system and the rest of your body.
I think you're missing the point. If the government legalizes medicinal Canibis then they effectively legalize it for recreational use as well. There's no good way to regulate it to those who really need it for pain. A medication however, can be controlled.
Those who care about people in pain care.
But if that is not something one cares about, then I guess you have a point.
Adding to a long list of science intentionally destroyed or left to die, the Hubble Space Telescope, numerous satellite and other science (to promote a totally useless man to Moon and Mars program), more than 50% reduction in government software research, an obvious loss of major science laboratories such as Bell Labs and Xerox Palo Alto Research, stem cell research, and of course what promises to be as important to the future as a transistor was to my generation - quantum physics. The Economist only adds to what has happened in America. From The Economist of 27 Apr 2006 entitled
The collider calamity:
Near Waxahachie in Texas, there is a hole in the ground. Not just any old hole. This one is almost 23km long and curves in what would be, if it were extended, a circular loop. It is the site of what was intended to be the world's biggest and best particle accelerator, a machine capable of unlocking some of the fundamental secrets of nature itself. Ever since the project to build it was cancelled in 1993, after nearly $2 billion had been spent on construction, America's lead in particle physics has been shrinking. This week, a report by the country's National Research Council (NRC) outlined what America can do to regain its pre-eminence.
The outlook is grim. After decades of making discoveries about the fundamental building blocks of nature, America's particle-physics colliders are to close. The Tevatron at Fermilab, near Chicago, is the world's highest-energy particle-smasher. ...
America's other accelerators are in trouble, too. Work at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre is moving away from particle physics and into generating high-energy X-rays. Funding for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the Brookhaven National Laboratory is so tight that the machine managed to keep running only after a philanthropist intervened.
The New York Times continues on 30 Apr 2006:
Science Panel Report Says Physics in U.S. Faces Crisis
But just as things are becoming exciting in particle physics, support for such work in the United States has stagnated, and many large projects are closing down. Last winter, scientists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island kept a major experiment going only after James Simons, an investment manager and mathematician, raised $13 million for the laboratory. ...
The most powerful accelerator now operating, the Tevatron at the Fermi National Laboratory outside Chicago, is scheduled to shut down in 2010, leaving Fermilab with an uncertain future.
Welfare for fundamental science research? Appreciate why. Three years ago we discussed the difference between basic research and application research; and why the two must be separate operations. How can science prosper in a nation where so few understand even basic science concepts (and are therefore so easily deceived using spin such as intelligent design). Even Leigh University - nickname the Engineers - changed their name to "Mountain Hawks" and now graduates more business majors than engineers. Why is this remembered? The last person seen wearing a Lehigh sweat shirt; I asked him what his major was: business.
A previous discussion demonstrated a problem:
Wanted: A Gravedigger for NASA?
Many did not understand a difference between basic research (that once was done in Bell Labs) and application research (that was forced upon the Labs by AT&T MBAs).
Again from The Economist:
Many American particle physicists have switched their attentions to the LHC. And while physicists dream of shiny new machines, none is scheduled to be built in America.
No science planned in this subject? A science so fundamentally essential that quantum physics is even why disk drives store so much data.
From where did America gets its science leadership? Hitler literally stripped Europe of science and technology - driving so many famous scientists to America when one could become an immigrant within days: Fermi and Sklar (nuclear fission), von Brahm (rocketry), Einstein, Schrödinger (without his cat), Edward Teller (father of American hydrogen bomb), Pauli (uncertainty principle) ... just some of the more popular ones. Germany is estimated to have driven out about 25% of their physicists alone. Gottingen university was once one of the most famous centers of mathematics. A Nazi minister asked a famous mathematician David Hilbert about the state of mathematics "now that it is free of Jews." Hilbert replied, "Mathematics in Gottingen? There is really none any more." Why did America become world leaders in math?
From 1901 to 1932, Germany had 14 Nobel laureates in chemistry; America had 2. From 1932 to 1982, America had 24 Nobel laureates; Germany only 10. Do you think Americans are just naturally better innovators? Science and technology must be nutured by a society and leaders that understands what science is - and why immigrants are so important. Current president is an MBA - with all the knowledge that is to often found in MBA types.
Today, even stem cell research must move overseas because religion (what some adametly worship when educated in myths rather than reality) is imposed on science. Even a completely brain dead woman becomes a religous vendetta. We are even refighting battles over creationism - with some fancy title so as to confuse our uneducated: intelligent design. This because so many Americans have so little grasp of technology - also called reality.
Superconductivity was discovered in lead in about 1910. It took till 1950s to eventually get a theory as to how superconductivity works. But since we don't understand the underlying subatomic principles behind it, then superconductivity has been about 'lets try this one to see what it does'. Science by using a roulette wheel in a desperate hope that we may finally understand why it works and then get a useful superconductor. Only recently has anyone finally explained why so called high temperature superconductors work - and why they are completely different from low temperature superconductors. Where was this work done? Where basic research in quantum physics is moving. Europe - where science is fleeing America for so many reasons - including fear, security, and funding.
American universities have already warned of a 20% reduction in overseas science students - a major source of American science. Fatherland Security requirements are cited as a major reason. Posted previously was a Chinese delegation for a new possible WiFi (developed in China) that were suddenly and at the last minute denied visas to the Orland IEEE conference for this technology. These Chinese were security risks, according to George Jr's administration?
Cited are many reasons why science is slowly diminishing. It does not help that our government is now so science adverse and so wants to fix the world with military solutions (as religous extremists have attempted all through history). Why are the French now world leaders in space launches?
But most damning have been my meetings with so many engineers and programmers. I now routinely ask, "Would you want you child to be an engineer?" A question asked because EDN also asked that question. Literally everyone said no. As two programmers from India today told me, they are amazed at how many students taking software engineering don't even know how to program; don't even know at least one programming language. But then one (so called) software engineer recently graduated from U of Indiana only knows how to write scripts. Ask her about sorting algorithms? She need not know that 'stuff'.
So why would we want a super collider?. That $8billion was better spent on ISS - that does zero science - and has now cost more than $80billion. The ISS is probably the most visible spacecraft circling the earth at dawn or dusk - therefore it promotes America? More than 10 super colliders and increasing; and ISS still does nothing useful. But to George Jr, that is science. Yes, even the DoD software research budget has been decreased by well over 50% in the past three years. He withholds money for things that don't promote the invasion of Iran? Or did god tell him to do it? It explains why so much science is diminishing.
I enjoyed you post, TW. The only thing I would caution you against is your use of superlatives.
So why would we want a super collider?. That $8billion was better spent on ISS - that does zero science - and has now cost more than $80billion.
Zero science? You may not agree with the goals or choice of experiments, but you should not ignore what is being done. Since you are an engineer, I expect you to be very careful with the use of 'zero' and '%100', realizing that such concepts do not always translate well into reality.
It is true that many of the experiments they mention have to do with long term healh issues related to zero gravity, as well as issues related to equipment exposure to solar radiation, things that would mostly be useful for long term space missions.
I agree that I do not see collider research being done in space, but I do see some physics experiments.
On Earth, the BCAT-3 colloids aren't very surprising -- they just sink to the bottom of the container. But in the absence of gravity, they behave like slow atoms, allowing scientists to model all sorts of atomic behavior.
According to the BCAT-3 scientists, studying colloids in space could lead to revolutionary advances in technology, such as computers that operate on light, new pharmaceuticals, clean power sources and unique propellants for rocket engines.
BCAT-3 focuses on two frontiers of science: critical points and crystallization.
You could argue that money spent on physics on earth can provide more answers for less resources, in other words be a better value, but to say that zero science is being done on the space station weakens your argument by demonstrating bias.
And he forgot to say "mental midget".
Just kidding TW, good post. :D
I enjoyed you post, TW. The only thing I would caution you against is your use of superlatives.
When something is 0.007 inches, then how many inches are measured by a ruler? Zero. Once something is that near zero, then it is zero. Engineers deal in significant digits. Signifcantly - ISS does zero science.
There is science ongoing on the ISS. So much science as to be zero. ISS required three people just to maintain it. Only a fourth crewman provideds sufficient labor to do any science. No superlatives. If doing well less than 1% of science intended, then that is zero science.
Much of the human duration science that can be done well protected by earth's environment is done. ISS was considered for mothballing until the Shuttle could start flying again because it has no purpose. Russian opposed that decision quite strongly due to lessons learned from Mir. The only reason two spacemen remain in ISS - to keep it operational. No practical science exists in ISS until it can support a fourth crewman. It is a money pit.
Why was Columiba carrying Space lab? Space Lab was the only place where manned science could be performed. Why not on ISS? Insufficient resources to do any science in ISS. $80 billion is a lot of science better performed by satellites, robots, - and a rescued Hubble Space Telescope.
ISS does zero science. No superlative. Ongoing science is mostly show stuff - such as throwing out a space suit with a radio inside. As noted before, I would get NASA's Tech Briefs. Almost all NASA budget is for manned space. And yet most all science in those Tech Briefs came from unmanned science - that now dimishing to less than $3billion in a budget of $80billion annually. Where is all this ISS science? It does not exist.
Do we believe the propaganda? Or do we first demand numbers? ISS does virtually zero science.
Meanwhile notice what those NY Times and Economist reports say - no new sub atomic particle research machines planned and existing ones are closing in America - even for lack of money.
Also IEEE Spectrum reported on a large meeting to learn how to send men to Mars. Only way known considering our knowledge of materials, was to surround those astronauts with something like five feet of water. Not economically feasible. Cosmic rays - not a problem to ISS astronauts - would all but kill an astronaut to Mars. The final conclusion: every known means of protecting Mars astronauts does not work. We still have too much research to do here before we can send men to Mars. And what is happening to that research? It is dying in America - in places such as ISS.
The conversation on the last couple of pages of this thread belonged in here as well....
http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=10544&page=2I'm never impressed when tw is being a crank -- I'm surprised anyone else countenances it.
I'm moved to ask, tw: what language was your first? You tend to use English like someone from Eastern Europe.
I'm never impressed when tw is being a crank -- I'm surprised anyone else countenances it.
I'm moved to ask, tw: what language was your first? You tend to use English like someone from Eastern Europe.
Nor is anyone impressed when your being your usual tool self either.
What difference does it make where he is from or what his primary language is? Do you sum someone up by their race and or language preference? Or was that crack meant to be comedic in some way? If that was the intention you missed your mark.
Aside from slumming around in the political and current events forums with snide remarks do you actually contribute anything?
Now please make some profound statement regarding my low post count and get back to your scheduled hateful little life.
TW sums up exactly why I plan on moving out of the US once I graduate. I am currently a sophmore bioengineer, and I can't imagine working anywhere in this country. I should add one comment however, religeous crusades probably have much less effect on why I'm leaving as opposed to other aspects mentioned. I think that Americans as a whole have abandoned science. At my university (U of Pittsburgh) we are a significant minority, and the general attitude among the non-scientists is that science is some wierd thing that antisocial people do in dark rooms. It's this attitude that has convinced me to leave. Instead of working for the US government or a US university I will further the goals of whatever international corporation will give me the funding and equipment. My attitude is hardly rare as well. The general consensus is that anyone who can work abroad, should. When Americans are outraged that a corporation has all the rights to the next leap in cancer treatment or the like, they can look inwards for the answer.
snip~ At my university (U of Pittsburgh) we are a significant minority, and the general attitude among the non-scientists is that science is some wierd thing that antisocial people do in dark rooms. ~snip
It's retro, 9th. that's exactly the way it was before sputnik/JFK started the "space race" and the big push for math and engineering majors. Slide rules became status symbols and engineers got groupies, because it was suddenly glamorous.
Then a great pall scudded (I've been waiting since high school to use that word) over the nation and blocked out the light of humanity and reason. It is a scourge on our souls, called MBA. :(
10,000 American scientists including 52 Noble Laurets are complaining that George Jr is perverting science for political purposes. Discussed here previously with contention were those aluminum tubes that were obviously not for nuclear weapons even before Iraq was invaded.
As Happy Monkey noted,
Union of Concerned Scientists provided this summary of science intentionaly pervert for political purposes. At this point, only an anti-American extremist (also called a Republican who votes the party line) could deny this lists:
A: Army Science Board
Ab: Abstinence Only Sex Education Science
Ac: Arms Control Advisory Panel
Ae: Abstinence Only Sex Education Cirriculum
Ai: Airborne Bacteria
Aq: National Ambient Air Quality Standards
At: Atrazine
B: Bull trout
Bc: Breast Cancer
C: Climate Change
Cg: Cattle Grazing
Da: NIH Drug Abuse Panel
E: Endangered Species Act
Ec: Emergency Contraception
F: Forest Management
Fe: Fuel Efficiency
Fi: NIH Fogarty International
Fp: Florida Panther
Fs: UCS Federal Scientists Surveys
G: Endangered Species Genetics
H: HIV/AIDS Education
Hc: Hurricanes
Hg: Mercury
Ia: International AIDS Conference
It: Aluminum Tubes in Iraq
J: James Hansen
K: Ketek
L: Libraries
Lp: Childhood Lead Poisoning Panel
Mi: Prescription Drugs Mifepristone and Misoprostol
Mm: Marbled Murrelet
Mr: Mountaintop Removal Mining
Nn: National Nuclear Security Administration Panel
Ns: Nerve Stimulator
O: Oil Extraction
Pc: President's Council on Bioethics
Pd: Prarie Dogs
Pe: Pesticides
Pl: Post Disturbance Logging
Pm: Particulate Matter Pollution
Pp: Plywood Plant
Pr: OMB Peer Review
Q: Air Quality Proposals
R: Red Frog
Rc: Roundtail Chub
Re: Reproductive Health Advisory Committee
Rp: Racial Profiling
S: Sage Grouse
Sa: Endangered Salmon
Se: Selenium
So: Sonar and Whales
Sp: Spotted Owl
St: Sexually Transmitted Disease Panel at CDC
T: Toxic Chemicals Release
Tr: Trumpter Swans
Tr: Tabernamontana Rotensis
V: Vetting of experts on WHO Panel
Vo: School Vouchers
Ws: Workplace Safety Panel
X: Vioxx
Z: Ground Zero
Of course these are the same people who insist we are winning in Iraq while denying any chance of victory in Afghanistan - all for a political agenda and presidential legacy.
What is ID but politics.
No science gets into textbooks by political voting... why would the ID people not want theirs to go through the same scientific rigors and path as any other hypothesis to get to textbooks as any other theory?
Many have little idea how widespread are scams and misinformation. You can buy devices to discharge the sky so that lightning will not strike (Early Streamer Emission (ESE) lightning rods). Some will even add radioactive materials that somehow make them better. Or Geritol for reduced aging. Pond's Institute for younger lasting skin. Power strip protectors so hyped in Circuit City. Atkin's diet. Head On. Listerine. In each case, they don't even try to make claims based in science and logic. Somehow observation or feelings alone is proof enough.
Add to that list Intelligent Design. They don't even try to meet the well proven benchmark that make science successful and productive. Somehow we are just suppost to know - and that is sufficient.
Above is a list of items to benchmark yourself. Do you demand based upon principles taught in school science? Or do you just know? Did I mention I know this Prince in Nigeria who needs your help.
Head On.
"Apply directly to the forehead!!"
Right, you can't just drop science and logic once you leave the classroom, it has to apply to every decision that gets made. Every decision, most people get stuck on that.
Nor is anyone impressed when your being your usual tool self either.
You're trying too hard -- to be annoying, and apparently that is the sum total of your ambition. Enjoy being laughed at by nicer people than you, and go fuck yourself and put a smile on your face. Fuck yourself twice, while you're at it, and put two smiles there -- a bit of holiday cheer.
What difference does it make where he is from or what his primary language is? Do you sum someone up by their race and or language preference? Or was that crack meant to be comedic in some way? If that was the intention you missed your mark.
I'm curious. Having some familiarity with Slavic languages, I'm seeing what looks like an eastern European pattern to tw's sentences. It would also account for his distinctly Soviet view of history -- and of U.S. foreign policy, for that matter. Tw's non-intelligent, generally inadequate spelling gets particularly ill considered any time he faces a foreign language quotation or name -- "von Brahm" for von Braun, quotha! Does tw expect us to be as ignorant as he? He's doomed to disappointment. This is a man with zero copyediting skill. Your desperate attempt to find prejudice here will also be disappointed.
Aside from slumming around in the political and current events forums with snide remarks do you actually contribute anything?
And your own stellar contributions under any handle amount to what, again? Evidently, you don't visit Food and Drink much either, you non-searching, ignorant, easily-slapped putz.
Now please make some profound statement regarding my low post count and get back to your scheduled hateful little life.
And you demonstrate your saintly degree of enlightenment in this way, do you?
Here's some REAL perverting of science in the name of fundamentalist BS:
Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
"In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is ‘no comment.'"*chokes on food*
That is a joke right? Please please please be a joke.
For me Al Bore´s "An Inconvenient Truth" is the Mother of Perverting Science for Politics.
How does it feel to have a stalker, tw?
Bush sucks. Remember this the next time you think about voting republican.
Any geology book, textbook or popular read, will tell you the Canyon itself is five million years old or a little less, and will tell you the age of the Vishnu Schist of the lower Canyon.
There might be such a thing as a young -- comparatively young -- schist. Somebody'd have to tell me about it, though...
Suncrafter, toe-tag Democrats may come by it honestly -- a very elderly New Deal Democrat is a friend of mine -- but they are the opposite of smart. The current crop of national-level Democrats aren't worth a vote nor a dime. They think like Socialists, and they are in too much of a hurry to find a substitute, any substitute, for victory in the War On Terror, which they believe in far less than the terrorists who actually killed some of us.
Expect the Dems to behave in one of two ways, and these only: stupid, or treasonous. Since I am neither, I suggest you join me in voting against the Dem candidates, and funding the campaigns of their opponents. The Republic is more important than any party.
Expect the Dems to behave in one of two ways, and these only: stupid, or treasonous. Since I am neither, I suggest you join me in voting against the Dem candidates, and funding the campaigns of their opponents. The Republic is more important than any party.
No bias there...
We can argue about what party is worse all day long and all you will get is both parties doing the exact same thing but with a slightly different twist. Both parties are power whores that will abuse their power the instant they get it, helping only a select few instead of the majority.
The Republic is more important than any party.
I actually completely agree with that statement. It's just the train of alleged thought that follows that has me completely mystified.
I also believe that the Republic rests upon the Constitution, and that the rush to achieve perfect safety by weakening that framework is a greater threat to the Republic than any terrorist weapon. I do not agree with men who disparage individuals who disagree with the adminsitration, people who claim that those who refuse to meekly submit to authoritarian demands to abolish or bypass Constitutional guarantees to freedom are the enemies of freedom.
Unlike UG, I will not ask for anyone to join me in opposing
all Republicans, just those who abdicate their roles in acting to require that the adminstration seek real advice and consent from Congress.
For a man who declares his love of a Republic, UG acts more like a serf in a fiefdom, looking to his lord to protect and command him.
For a country that prides itself on it's 'citizen soldiers', how did we end up with someone like him?
My, Rich, speaking of alleged thought...
But I've compared your thinking to Mario Cuomo's before -- how does a guy clearly that bright stay so often wrong? And just where is "serfdom" in rejecting the thrust of a given party's policy habits anyway?
It's the Democratic Party's record that has me disenchanted with them. Intellectually, their socialism is all shoddy goods, unworthy of an intelligent electorate, and relying for its success on an electorate that isn't so intelligent.
The Dem Party has not been selling
anything I wanted to buy since 1992 and before. My coming to Libertarianism from reading Murry Rothbard in 1983 has made me particularly resistant to the Dem Party's socialistic trend.
Then there's this party's inability at foreign policy: none of the present lot could win a war, though some few of them could probably start a war. But having started a war, then they flag, and as Ann Coulter remarks, declare that the war, whichever and any, is "unwinnable." Recall how utterly clueless the Clinton Administration was in its use of the military -- sporadic, half thought out activity, pursued halfheartedly, withdrawn muddledly. The last Democratic President to win a war was Truman. All since have uniformly dropped the ball. That's a
long time to stay this incapable. Was Coulter right -- does the Democratic Party have a tropism towards treason? Or is this mere incompetence -- or would that be better evidenced by at least half of their decisions redounding in the national favor? John Kerry voted against the Contras, and thus for the good of the Communists -- and that one vote was no anomaly in the man's professional life.
If you want the nation to win, nowadays the choice is a Republican, until such time as we have enough Libertarians who think like I do. This is because a major power's political schools of thought have to be able to exert force when necessary, and have the intellectual and spiritual robustness to see it through. If any should lack this, they lack any prospect of attaining any position of power or influence.
I doubt that any Republicans abdicated any role whatsoever -- for they understood and I hope still understand that there's a mess out there to clean up. The Dems have adopted a posture of abdicating any responsibility to act in the Republic's interest vis-a-vis the anti-democrats that are our foes.
For a country that prides itself on it's 'citizen soldiers', how did we end up with someone like him?
I raised my right hand in 1977 and swore to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. I stayed in a uniform and a short haircut until 1986. It is in considerable measure because of this experience that I speak as I do.
Now how about you, Rich? Did you commit so far -- or did you have "other priorities?"
I raised my right hand in 1977 and swore to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. I stayed in a uniform and a short haircut until 1986. It is in considerable measure because of this experience that I speak as I do.
I took the oath in 1978 but I never wore a uniform (ok, maybe once but it was a training exercise). I never enlisted and it is because or in spite of this that I speak as I do. There are many people besides soldiers who take the oath - Public officials, naturalized citizens, some law enforcement.
Even people who never get the chance can still support the Constitution by simply exercising their rights. The Democratic wave in Congress, and the Republican wave that preceded it were examples of the people doing just that.
Being in the military does not give one special insight into the purpose and care of the Constitution. It also does not disqualify one from doing so. The founding fathers, in fact, created the 2nd amendment partially as a response to the creation of a federal standing army. Maybe they thought that it might be a good idea if local militias stood ready in case a group of guys like UG started organizing within the Army.
Recall how utterly clueless the Clinton Administration was in its use of the military -- sporadic, half thought out activity, pursued halfheartedly, withdrawn muddledly.
You do remember that it was Reagan who pulled out of Lebanon after the barracks bombing, right?
As for Clinton, he did pull troops out of Somalia, but he also managed to help successfully prosecute a war in Bosnia with real international support that didn't cost us 300 billion dollars and 3000 lives.
Even Quantum physics (the source of Gb disk drives and new computer memories) is being quashed by the mental midget and his Republican dominated congress. No reason for things to change. From the NY Times of 8 Jan 2007:
Congressional Budget Delay Stymies Scientific Research
Last year, Congress passed just 2 of 11 spending bills — for the military and domestic security — and froze all other federal spending at 2006 levels. Factoring in inflation, the budgets translate into reductions of about 3 percent to 4 percent for most fields of science and engineering.
Representative Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat and a physicist, said that scientists, in most cases, were likely to see little or no relief. “It’s that bad,” Mr. Holt said. “For this year, it’s going to be belt tightening all around.”
Congressional Democrats said last month that they would not try to finish multiple spending bills left hanging by the departed Republican majority and would instead keep most government agencies operating under their current budgets until next fall. Except for the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, the government is being financed under a stopgap resolution. It expires Feb. 15, and Democrats said they planned to extend a similar resolution through Sept. 30.
Some Republicans favored not finishing the bills because of automatic savings achieved by forgoing expected spending increases. Democrats and Republicans alike say that operating under current budgets, in some cases with less money, can strap federal agencies and lead to major disruptions in service.
Only a dummy in the spirit of Urbane Guerrilla would approve as if only military and Fatherland Security were important. A classic cost control mentality forgets when we spend $2 Trillion on Iraq - a number that will increase because the mental midget is sending more (and too few) troops to Iraq.
Among the projects at risk is the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, on Long Island. The $600 million machine — 2.4 miles in circumference — slams together subatomic particles to recreate conditions at the beginning of time, some 14 billion years ago, so scientists can study the Big Bang theory. It was already operating partly on charitable contributions, ... and now could shut down entirely, ...
Only a president with Urbane intelligence would call that a good thing.
When I was growing up, transistors were the promise of the future. Today, quantum physics is that same future promise.
“Things are pretty miserable for a year in which people talked a lot about regaining our competitive edge,” Dr. Aronson said. “I think all that’s stalled.”
Another potential victim is the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois, where a four-mile-long collider investigates the building blocks of matter. ...
Congress and the Bush administration could restore much of the science financing in the 2008 budget. Scientists say it would help enormously, but add that senior staff members by that point may have already abandoned major projects for other jobs that were more stable.
Other projects ...
A $1.4 billion particle accelerator at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee ...
A $30 million contribution to a global team designing an experimental reactor to fuse atoms ...
A $440 million X-ray machine some two miles long at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center ...
In 2003, Gen Jay Garner accurately reported that we were losing in Iraq. When did you finally see what he knew that long ago? Wars are short term events. Science takes longer. But already American economic development is at risk. Do you see what is happening now, or do you wait for symptoms to become painful. Garner said what was obvious in 2003. And finally in 2007, people are finally 'feeling' reality. The destruction of science - especially to promote George Jr's legacy: finance a man to Mars - is significant and destructive. When does it appear in your pocket? Long after he is gone and famous?
Advances in science and technology will help tremendously us in the next couple decades. It is extremely short sited not to invest in these and I'm pretty sure only Bush and his cronies have successfully done that.
Expect the Dems to behave in one of two ways, and these only: stupid, or treasonous.
And here they come, as I expected. :thepain2: :eyebrow: :headshake :censored: :crazy: :cuss:
If you hadnt done it from your first post, I'd say you've just lost every bit of respect I have for you.
I still say youre somebody's puppet... at the very least, youve got somebody's hand up your ass.
Wow. You really did link to Ann
Coulter. I think you can do better.
Thats a great read UG - perhaps something can be taken from a little history revisited. Then again these things are like statistics and will be twisted by both sides to make the other look bad. How disfunctional a system we have. Let me make myself look good by making you look bad.
Coulter has a point- If we were still in Vietnam, we wouldn't have lost yet.
True, we would still be losing.
Remember the boat people weren't trying to get into Vietnam, but out of it. Communism is insupportable among the people of decency.
And there are no refugees fleeing the United States. About the only U.S.-fleeing individual crank fleeing away that I can even bring to mind was R. Crumb. (He's been voluble about his reasons -- but they're all unimportant. Were they important, he'd have had some company, I suppose.)
Wow. You really did link to Ann Coulter. I think you can do better.
You might have gone so far as to suggest someone. I'm currently reading Whittaker Chambers -- who was vivid, though now pretty dated. Instructive, though. Then there's William F. Buckley, who is damned near untouchable, and the late Erik von Kuhnelt-Leddihn. Sean Hannity is not yet a powerful social philosopher, but he is improving -- his second book is an improvement over his first, deeper thought and better written.
Plenty of people fled America in the sixties and seventies. Oh wait, they dont count, they were just liberal hippy idiots, right?
Idiots, yes; dupes, yes. I disregard them. I think anybody with a brain would.
Now you get to figure out why I'd think they're not to be respected. It's within your powers; I've seen the stuff you're putting on the Philosophy forum and I like it.
Of course I know why you dont think theyre to be respected; youre a paleolithic, neomccarthyist, pinko-hating nutjob. (and yes, I could go on)
Now you get to figure out why I'd think you're not to be respected.
(hint: it's right there^)
You might have gone so far as to suggest someone.
RothbardSean Hannity is not yet a powerful social philosopher, but he is improving -- his second book is an improvement over his first, deeper thought and better written.
Jamie Foxx took a Hollywood film role as a singer. Now suddenly for some reason he thinks he's a serious musician.
Hannity started putting his name on books. You follow the analogy.
Remember the boat people weren't trying to get into Vietnam, but out of it. Communism is insupportable among the people of decency.
And those boat people continued coming for 30 years? Yes, according to UG propaganda. No if UG uses a neocon political agenda to rationalize.
Remember some of his earliest posts. UG completely understood why Vietnam occurred and was lost - but did not even know facts from the Pentagon Papers. Maybe Ann Coulter tells him how to think? Goebbels with blond hair. Brown shirts somehow just knew more. 'Big dic' rationalizing is alive and well.
Plenty of people fled America in the sixties and seventies. Oh wait, they dont count, they were just liberal hippy idiots, right?
People will always fear totalitarianism that UG promotes. No wonder he also loved Nixon as he loves George Jr. Notice how UG fears the Iraq Study Group. Facts and reality. Too much for UG to read. He feels; therefore he knows. It is called decisions based upon a political agenda.
UG said he was reading Thomas P.M. Barnett's Blueprint For Action: A Future Worth Creating in this
post on 9 Nov 2006. Why is he so silent? He had to read something more complex than Animal Farm. Barnett also demonstrates why Urbane Guerrilla's politics are a prescription for failure. How UG’s totalitarianism only results in failure. UG does not discuss even that book. Instead he somehow knows.
Screw off, tw. I'm still working on it, as it repays careful study. Screw off twice and thrice, madman. I know from your posts that you are the totalitarianism promoter around here -- one cannot in practice be a Communist and a democrat.
Rothbard
I read
For A New Liberty, thanks. I found it seminal, though I don't share Rothbard's touching faith in anarchy.
Of course I know why you dont think theyre to be respected; youre a paleolithic, neomccarthyist, pinko-hating nutjob. (and yes, I could go on)
Now you get to figure out why I'd think you're not to be respected.
(hint: it's right there^)
Sorry, it's because you're under twenty and believe you know it all. Call it an occupational hazard. I'm fifty, and I know patience -- I have a pretty good idea that your opinions will evolve as you become fully adult. The reason, dear fellow, to hate pinkoes is found in the butcher's bill of Communism -- I've said before that the anticommunist is the pro-human, and that is just the most basic reason why.
The rest, and anything you could go on about in this vein, is adjectival froth, and impressive to the high schooler, but that's it. The reason I'm untroubled is I've had more of a life than you. Stay out from under heavy falling objects and you'll get there too.
And those boat people continued coming for 30 years? Yes, according to UG propaganda. No if UG uses a neocon political agenda to rationalize.
There is no prospect of further boat people and refugees
now that Vietnam has seen Communism doesn't work.
This emphasis on some 30-year period is opaque -- perhaps tw is trying to win through gibberish.
Won't work, kid. The mad never really get that they are mad. Trouble is, everyone else does.
There is no prospect of further boat people and refugees now that Vietnam has seen Communism doesn't work.
Yet you ignore the fact that Vietnamese communism was defeated in the marketplace not on the battlefield. This opposition to reality is reflected in your views about defeating radical Islam.
I'm not ignoring it at all, much as you'd like to believe the contrary. I am very pleased that Communism fell in Vietnam of its own contradictions.
I also recognize the validity of Heinlein's contention that "violence -- naked force -- has settled more issues in history" than any other means. Like it or not. Unfreedom needs to be destroyed, discredited, and defunded, Griff. Seems to me this is a primary mission for the committed libertarian, big L or small. Otherwise the unfree try and kill the free -- which I think we agree is no good.
is it wrong to pray for bushs' assasination?
That post won't trigger Carnivore.
is it wrong to pray for Bushs' assassination?
yes, although I don't think you'll be praying alone.
is it wrong to pray for ...?
Posting statements like that can get you a visit from the US Secret Service especially now that government so little trusts us as to spy on everyone. Spying even by the Defense Dept.
I happen to know how touchy those 'powers that be' have always been about such public statements. Strongly recommend you delete your post and learn how touchy this nation's security systems have become. Meanwhile, the attitude itself is also a bad thing for you AND for all Americans who do not sympathize.
yes, although I don't think you'll be praying alone.
...On account of assholes coming in bouquets.
Now a slightly smarter collection of dumbasses -- study hard and you might get that far, axenutz -- realize that if they shoot W they make Dick Cheney President.:p :p :p
Some people...! Fuck up a one-car funeral, steal a hot stove and drop it on their foot, mix up Spike Lee and Spike Jones with Spike Milligan, and never get French benefits.
thanks for the insight, Urbane Goofoff, you might be the smartest of dumbass',,,,,besides it was just a random thought....send over the secret service,,,i'll make coffee and stem cell cheesecake,,,tee hee
Posting statements like that can get you a visit from the US Secret Service especially now that government so little trusts us as to spy on everyone. Spying even by the Defense Dept.
I happen to know how touchy those 'powers that be' have always been about such public statements. Strongly recommend you delete your post and learn how touchy this nation's security systems have become. Meanwhile, the attitude itself is also a bad thing for you AND for all Americans who do not sympathize.
They won't do anything unless you already have a background. I am part of some other forums that someone started a thread about a people's army that will assassinate the police and government officals, he was serious too. He is still there.
Yeah, well those other forums aren't the Cellar!! !! j/k :p
adam was desperate for a companion, so he said, "God, please send me a companion, someone i can share my life with", and God said, "It will cost you an arm and a leg", to which Adam replied, "What can I get for a rib?", so Eve shows up, and God called down, "Adam, where is Eve?"
"She's down at the beach, bathing in the ocean."
"OH, that's just great", said God, "Now the fish will smell like that for centuries!"
thanks for the insight, Urbane Goofoff, you might be the smartest of dumbass',,,,,besides it was just a random thought....send over the secret service,,,i'll make coffee and stem cell cheesecake,,,tee hee
Uh, UG didn't comment on the secret service - tw did.
I am part of some other forums that someone started a thread about a people's army that will assassinate the police and government officals, he was serious too. He is still there.
Example not relevant. His targets are different. The response, because the targets are different, would be radically different. Double standard? "Powers that be" does not care. Hate for one unique part of government gets a very severe response - once they find it. One example does not make a trend. That example implies violence against a much less significant target. What axeman84 has posted is significantly different to the 'powers that be'.
How? Bush is a government offical, the guy was talking about assassinating Bush too.
i was refering to a post by UG, not tw....thank you
:eyebrow:
...On account of assholes coming in bouquets.
Now a slightly smarter collection of dumbasses -- study hard and you might get that far, axenutz -- realize that if they shoot W they make Dick Cheney President.:p :p :p
Some people...! Fuck up a one-car funeral, steal a hot stove and drop it on their foot, mix up Spike Lee and Spike Jones with Spike Milligan, and never get French benefits.
Perhaps I could have said all that with just an :eyebrow:, but I wanted to be more specific.
At any rate, the motivation to try assassination diminishes week by week, and it was always the province of the dullard Left anyway. Bill Clinton gave as much if not more reason to get people muttering about assassination -- and there was no muttering, despite his many sins against the Constitution, in especial the Bill of Rights, which his Administration repeatedly found inconvenient. Comes of having your political instincts formed in what amounted to a one-party state, the state being Arkansas.
But the Right, being made up of almost nothing but people more mature than those of the Left, did not noise assassination about. The Left had better take a lesson, the blowhards.
...despite his many sins against the Constitution, in especial the Bill of Rights, which his Administration repeatedly found inconvenient.
UG, you are even dumber than I thought.
I've explained how bush has torn up every amendment he can touch EXCEPT the second. Explain to me how clinton went anywhere near any amendment but the second.
Trouble is, son, that your explanations don't wash.
Ever heard of the Omnibus Crime Bill of 1994? Abused the Fourth as well as the Second. You could look it up.
Trespassing upon the Second was merely his chiefest symptom -- and it's the lethal one, indicative of a complete anticonstitutionalism. The most reliable source, I think, for a listing of Clinton's sins would be the "anti-Clinton bookshelf" of various books published by Regnery Publishing, Incorporated. I could be no more complete, thorough, or eloquent, than they were. Quite a few of these books sold well enough to venture into best-sellerdom. For a couple of examples, try Boy Clinton or Year of the Rat.
Hee hee. Regnery Publishing, the single largest customer of Regnery Publishing, a reliable source. Amusing.
I just posted a thread about BushCo. forcing the National Park Service to carry a book stating that the
Grand Canyon was created by Noah's Flood.
Then I tried not to stick a pin in my eye.
Climate Change Scientists, Officials Testify on Allegations of Administration Interference
Current and former government scientists and officials have testified to a congressional committee about what they call Bush administration efforts to downplay scientific evidence of global warming. VOA's Dan Robinson reports from Capitol Hill.
The allegations are not new, but this was the first time key individuals have appeared in person to detail what a new report calls an atmosphere of systematic political interference with climate change science.
Two private groups, the Government Accountability Project and Union of Concerned Scientists, say 1,600 climate scientists surveyed reported at least 435 occurrences of such interference over the past five years.
Nearly half of those responding said they perceived, or personally experienced, pressure to eliminate the words climate change from reports and communications, along with new or unusual administrative requirements impairing climate-related work.
"Political interference is harming federal science and threatening the health and safety of Americans," said Francesca Grifo, senior scientist and director of scientific integrity program for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Grifo adds that nearly 700 scientists or 39 percent of respondents, feared retaliation for openly expressing their concerns.
But the prez says it's not global warming, it's global climate change.. no reason to be afeared...Hey look, a terrorist!
From here and many other places.
From the NY Times of 9 Feb 2007:
Price of Next Big Thing in Physics: $6.7 Billion
The proposed machine, physicists say, is needed to complement to the Large Hadron Collider now under construction at the European Center for Nuclear Research, CERN, outside Geneva. That machine will be the world’s most powerful when it goes into operation this fall, eventually colliding beams of protons with 7 trillion electron volts of energy apiece. Physicists hope that using it they will detect a long-sought particle known as the Higgs boson, which is thought to endow all the other constituents of nature with mass. They hope, too, to discover new laws and forms of matter.
But protons are bags of smaller particles called quarks and gluons, and their collisions tend to be messy and wasteful. Because electrons and positrons have no innards, their collisions are cleaner, so they can be used to create and study with precision whatever new particles are found at CERN.
Notice where science does not promote the advancement of mankind. Not in the US and for good reason.
At a news conference in Beijing an international consortium of physicists released the first detailed design of what they believe will be the Next Big Thing in physics: a machine 20 miles long that will slam together electrons and their evil-twin opposites, positrons, to produce fireballs of energy recreating conditions when the universe was only a trillionth of a second old. ...
The International Linear Collider collaboration, led by a steering group chaired by Shin-ichi Kurokawa, of Japan’s High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, or KEK, consists of 1,000 scientists and engineers from 100 countries.
Big price? Well the International Space Station was only supposed to cost $8 billion and has already cost on the order of $80 billion. ISS still does no science but is promoted by an MBA president. $6.7 billion for actually doing science research? By comparison, that price is a discount. Meanwhile George Jr will send a man to Mars only to promote his legacy at hundreds of $billions - screw science. To do so, George Jr is stripping the 10% of NASA's budget that acutally does science.
Whereas the transistor was the future for baby boomers, quantum physics is the future of this latest generation. But thanks to a mental midget and a dictatorship party of extremists, science is being driven from the United States.
How can you tell where science is fleeing to? Even in a science once dominated by Americans, advance physics must be done elsewhere. The fusion reactor (ITER) will probably be in Europe. CERN (France and Switzerland) will soon have a working Large Hadron Collider. And now an International Linear Collider is publicly proposed where? With so much fear and dictators advocating Fatherland security, then international science conferences remain outside America. Even when defining the next generation WiFi (now known as 802.11n), at the last minute American 'we fear' security banned most of the Chinese experts as a threat to national security. The message is clear to science. Clearly those Chinese were going to steal secrets of DisneyWorld.
Quantum physics moves to where peope instead want to advance mankind. This is where new jobs will be created. But science is too complex for brown shirts - so dumb as to not even ask simple questions such as, "When do we go after bin Laden". Quantum physics? Instead god will give it to us? And so science and the new jobs must go elsewhere. Another tribute to the MBA president and those brown shirts who blindly support him. This is what happens when some actually thing Fox is News or Rush 'tells it like it is'.
Sending a human to Mars is probably the most pointless thing we can do right now.
Activist Lawsuit: God Guilty of Malicious Climate Change
By Jon Quixote
2/5/2007, 2:20 pm
Fight against climate change has taken a new dimension Monday as a new legal defense group, Spiritual Lawyers Against Natural Disasters (SLAND), initiated international class-action litigation against God for the environmental destruction and Global Warming that has resulted from acts that He has caused to occur. "For many years enviro-activists, spearheaded by Al Gore and financed by trial lawyers, have been pointing to human greed, oil industries, and Western capitalism-based societies as the main causes of Global Warming," said SLAND lead attorney and Executive Director, Peacedove Handwring at a press conference. "While all these factors are a fine cause for international insurance litigation, the primary culprit of climate change that is more powerful and more difficult to deal with, has so far escaped attention of our lawyers. That culprit is God."
Mt. St. Helens: May 18, 1980 was the day that produced more "greenhouse gasses" than any single event in human history.
In that 24-hour period, more toxic pollutants were spewed into the Earth's biosphere than any single day, week, month or year before or since.
And it had absolutely nothing to do with humans
"Over thousands of years, God has been producing so-called 'natural disasters' that have caused many times more pollution and carbon-dioxide emissions than anything man could even conceive," P. Handwring explained. "Yet He has been effectively absolved from any responsibility from our current plight. With the advent of The SLANDers, the free pass afforded to God is going to come to a decisive end."
Pressed for specifics, Ms. Handwring provided some compelling examples to support her claims:
"May 18, 1980 was the day that produced more global-warming emissions than any single event in human history. In that 24-hour period, more toxic pollutants were spewed into the Earth's biosphere than any single day, week, month or year before or since. And it had absolutely nothing to do with humans: it was the eruption of the volcano known as Mt. St. Helens in Washington.
"We in the progressive environmental movement had little to say about this, because most policy experts and scientists dismissed this as a 'natural disaster.' But who is ultimately responsible for supposedly 'natural disasters' such as this? Only one person: God.
"Furthermore, as we allege in our federal complaint, God has been singularly responsible for the repeated ice ages that have plagued the Earth since He supposedly created it, each of which was followed by periods of global warming. We consider it eminently unfair that during these unnatural temperature cycles, so many species could not adapt and went extinct. After all - who is He to play... God!?"
Responding to critics who claim that the SLANDers are pursuing a legal dead-end by suing God, Ms. Handwring said: "It is beyond dispute that we in the progressive community have mastered the art of using the law, schools and public news media to advance anti-industrial, anti-freedom, anti-capitalist, and anti-human perceptions and values. But while we have focused on factories and automobiles and the like, we've allowed God - the most grievous violator of our right to a clean environment - to not face the responsibility or consequences for the fact that He has been the primary cause of Global Warming.
"Consider other supposedly 'natural disasters' that also contribute more to global warming than humans ever could. Lightning strikes a forest and it goes up in flames, belching clouds of toxic materials into the atmosphere. Until now, we chalked it up to a 'random occurrence.' But who is really responsible? That's right - God.
"We at SLAND are now going to marshal and focus our legal skills, and all the resources at our avail, to expose this travesty, and to finally hold God accountable, both in a court of law, and in the so-called 'court of public opinion.' Then, and only then, will we be able to deal with the real cause of so many needless deaths of humans, animals and plants," Handwring said.
The first stage of SLANDers' campaign will be massive public demonstrations by the most notorious enviro-activists who have protested throughout the world over the past 40 years. Ms. Handwring's convincing PowerPoint presentation gave the assembled journalists a preview of what may be coming to a park, shopping mall, or public school near you:
As of this time, God was unavailable for comment. One of God's spokesmen, St. Ernest, however, issued the following statement: "While God certainly respects Ms. Handwring and her fellow attorneys at SLAND, at the moment He is too busy trying to deal with the insanity of religious wars occurring throughout the world to respond to her accusations as fully as He'd like. We are, however, in receipt of the SLANDers' discovery motions, and will be responding to them at our earliest opportunity. And although we aren't sure which court would have jurisdiction in such a cosmic matter, God is eagerly looking forward to defending both Himself and human freedom against SLANDers' allegations.
Sorry for jumping in here late. Ronny Reagan sent me an e-mail on this. I've been completely focused on sending Bush a sign through Barney.
ANYWAY.......
This whole climate thing is my doing, yes. It's part of the deal. It's a cycle.
Sure, I know that the pro climate change people need a new tool for extracting money out of the western world and forcing them to "change their evil ways", but see this for what it is. A scam.
Ah shit, I gotta go. My firearm proximity alarm just went off for Cheney.
Just remember, I love you all and that you aren't nearly as smart as you all believe.
Hugs,
God
snip~ How can you tell where science is fleeing to? Even in a science once dominated by Americans, advance physics must be done elsewhere. The fusion reactor (ITER) will probably be in Europe. CERN (France and Switzerland) will soon have a working Large Hadron Collider. And now an International Linear Collider is publicly proposed where? ~snip
So what? The findings that come out of these research projects will be published quickly. That's how these researchers get their woody, by being published and recognized by their peers. They don't expect the general public to understand, no less appreciate, what they discover.
Like many things the transistor was invented here. Hooray for us. But who made the most money and provided the most jobs from it? Sushi anyone? ;)
Like many things the transistor was invented here. Hooray for us. But who made the most money and provided the most jobs from it? Sushi anyone?
Because the transistor was invented here, also came most electronics jobs in ... America. For example, who made and mass produced the first semiconductor switch - ESS1? AT&T. Where was it first installed? Succasunna NJ. What made it possible? The transistor was developed in NJ. These switches were/are so massive - created so many jobs - that very few companies existed in the world to manufacturer them. AT&T, Siemens, Northern Telecom, Alcatel (?), and ... I forget the fifth ... Stromberg?
Also created was a massive electronics industry on Long Island that later moved to Silicon Valley, Texas, etc. Why did AT&T begin losing market share? Well, in part because they were only interested in telephony. Also in part because their chief innovator, Jack Morton, stifled development of the Integrated Circuit. So who got all the IC jobs? Where were all digital ICs and standard architectures for those ICs developed? CMOS ICs that is now standard in all computers were pioneered and manufacturered just down Route 22 in RCA, Somerville NJ. Just down the road from where the transistor was invented.
In the US, basic research resulted in whole new and massive industries. Jobs and wealth created because the transistor was invented here. So successful as a result that even a European inventor of the transistor (who was six months late) had to come to America to continue his innovations (which I believe then resulted in the early LEDs – again more American jobs).
When basic research goes elsewhere, well, who is the world leader in robots? Who is the world leader in automotive power systems? In each case, they do the basic research - therefore jobs and wealth follow.
So where do the jobs for quantum physics get created? Not in nations that spurn innovation?
Meanwhile America even graduates fewer innovators making America an importer of engineers - just like oil. That is the attitude of this administration that has also cut back significantly on basic research for life sciences. Either you go be an MBA, or go overseas to innovate.
But don't worry. Be happy. We were number one! That cheer is not heard in football stadiums.
Also created was a massive electronics industry on Long Island that later moved to Silicon Valley, Texas, etc.
And then it all went to Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, China, etc. Seems they did quite well on our inventions, why couldn't we do well on theirs? :confused:
Hee hee. Regnery Publishing, the single largest customer of Regnery Publishing, a reliable source. Amusing.
It's a sharp instrument for letting the flatus out of the Left's balloons, and its editions frequently are found on the best-seller list, even though it's a tiny little outfit.
HM, you'd have more brain than any other monkey no matter how cheerful were you to start reading their material, instead of that pooh-poohing monkey talk you indulge in when you have no real nor cogent rebuttal. Chatterchatterchatter, swing from tree branch, throw poo. Your ideology, sir, makes you very stupid, very absurd, whereas mine enlightens me from week to week if not day to day.
And then it all went to Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, China, etc. Seems they did quite well on our inventions, why couldn't we do well on theirs? :confused:
Hey, don't diss the Taiwanese electronics industry - without it, how would I get my motherboard sent to the factory, fixed/replaced, and returned in a week?
And then it all went to Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, China, etc. Seems they did quite well on our inventions, why couldn't we do well on theirs?
Yes as globalization does. They now make all the diodes, varistors, transistors, capacitors, and other commodities that have low profit and minimal technology. Meanwhile, when transistors were high tech, those jobs were created adjacent to where basic research discovered that technology.
Same applies to quantum physics. Where innovation occurs is where best jobs will appear. Of course, America can wait for those products to become commodities. Then we too will eventually have those jobs. That is what xoxoxoBruce is saying.
Who has best jobs making microprocessors? Same location where hafnium, strained silicon, and 45 nm transistors were implemented due to basic research. Best jobs created adjacent to the innovation. So where are all those profitable Taiwan microprocessors?
Bruce do you really believe they can do the research and we will then have the jobs? That is exactly what my MBA friends were telling me in the 1970s (even quoting from a magazine for MBAs called CEO). They waited for others to create new products - and then would clone those innovations. Therefore, their companies no longer exist. MBAs believe innovation costs too much. You are advocating the same mentality that destroyed their jobs.
The future lies in quantum physics. Where must such basic research go? It is leaving the US because somehow MBAs will instead create all the new jobs. That is the bottom line of what xoxoxoBruce has posted.
We exported the auto industry why? Because American innovation sat stifled for 20 years. We exported the tire industry because American tire manufaturers stifled the radial tire for 30 years. These are the lessons of history. Jobs (and new markets, wealth, strength, etc) go to where innovation occurs.
It seems the Oriental/South Asia industry was successful because they didn't stifle, but jumped on to new technology (regardless of patents and intellectual property rights?) quickly. Are you saying this is no longer possible or we can't compete in that type of market?
As an outsider to the whole electronics thing, what I saw was "we" spent a whole lot of time and money coming up with all this electronic gear only to have it vacate the US and make a bunch of money for others. But that's just a one consumer's perception. I'm sure there's much more to it... the inside poop, if you will.
I don't know, that's why I asked. :confused:
On a side note, I notice a lot of people using Junkscience.com as a reference. I appreciate contrary views, so I am glad sites like this exist. I did notice one interesting thing. The site had a few links debating whether global warming should be taught in schools, I couldn't find any discussion of Creationism.
I haven't looked through all of the archives, but I would like to believe that they took a stand on the issue.
Isn't that the organization set up to defend corporations that make dangerous or unhealthy products? I don't think creationism is likely to come up.
From ABC News of 10 Jul 2007:
Former Bush surgeon general says he was muzzled
The first U.S. surgeon general appointed by President George W. Bush accused the administration on Tuesday of political interference and muzzling him on key issues like embryonic stem cell research.
"Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried," Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as the nation's top doctor from 2002 until 2006, told a House of Representatives committee.
The first U.S. surgeon general appointed by President George W. Bush accused the administration on Tuesday of political interference and muzzling him on key issues like embryonic stem cell research.
"Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried," Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as the nation's top doctor from 2002 until 2006, told a House of Representatives committee.
Who here was denying that the White House lawyers routinely rewrote science reports? How many hundreds have to make this testimony before those few extremists acknowledge the closest thing we have to evil.
How much more anti-American was the George Jr administration? They will even pardon Libby for intentionally obstructing criminal investigations. After all. Nothing wrong with that when 800 people - the overwhelming majority innocent - are even tortured in Guantanamo.
What is the new symbol of America? Statue of Liberty or Abu Ghraid? Perverting Science for the Benefit of Politics? Situation normal to wacko extremists. After all, their political agenda is more important than the advancement of mankind. Screw the Surgeon General. Even keeping perscription drug prices high - stifling free market competition - is good for more campaign contributions. Science is not a big contributer to legalized bribery. (How many scientists have a brief case with $1million they can accidentally leave in the White House?)
Better is for science to be vetted by White House lawyers - just like any dicatorship where political officiers must approve everything. Coincidence or damning similarity?
Tw, have you ever wanted democracy to actually win?
You aren't brave enough to answer this question.
Tw, have you ever wanted democracy to actually win?
You aren't brave enough to answer this question.
Urbane Guerrilla, have you ever wanted science and human knowledge to win?
This country was built on the freedom to innovate. Science and technology are part of that. Previous presidents have supported the advancement of human knowledge. Bush actively suppresses the advancement of human knowledge. Read all the examples in the 200+ posts in this thread. Bush hates science. After all, he's said that God talks to him. Why would you need science when God talks to you?
Your hatred of tw is consuming you to the point where you make no sense. Read the damn thread. What does it have to do with hating democracy? This is a thread about how Bush suppresses science. There are many examples. You can't argue against it. It's fact at this point.
Glatt, have you never noticed that hating democracy and speaking against its success and propagation throughout the world is a constant theme in tw's posts? I have. Here's just one more of his attempts to attack humanity's cause. It is execrable and it must not be endured, but avenged.
Frankly, the most that the Administration could do is to delay things a bit -- or else insist that if stem cell research is done, it will not be done on a Federal dime. This does not strike me as a huge thing, really.
Nor would I be in any hurry at all to say Bush hates technology -- because of the ones who are running up and down saying he does; these are people whose views I don't much trust -- on anything.
So if I read that correctly, you're saying that the Administration does stifle science and innovation, but they're not any good at it so it's okay?
No, Fobble, I'm saying their power to do so is at its most sharply limited, and that therefore one shouldn't overdo the concern.
But effectiveness aside, is it right or wrong for the administration (any administration) to stifle science and innovation? Personally, I'm able to make value judgments without overdoing anything.
Some, it appears, are not.
No, stifling innovation is not good.
Smashing fascist regimes and replacing them with democracies is too good to pass up. Now you know why I voted for Bush twice and do not have regrets.
Nor would I be in any hurry at all to say Bush hates technology -- because of the ones who are running up and down saying he does; these are people whose views I don't much trust -- on anything.
We get it. You hate tw.
But in this thread, he and others have provided many examples of Bush stifling science.
You probably missed it because it was in a tw post, but the former surgeon general said under oath "Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried."
Glatt, the same complaint about the previous Administrations was made at this same testimony -- C. Everett Koop and David Satcher, one each Republican and Democratic Administration figures, both complained of pressure from the White House and the effect it had on them. Jocelyn Elders could have made the same complaint, I should think.
I didn't happen to be speaking of tw in post #209, but of the grumbling herd of crazed anti-Republicans.
It's time to point out that the effect of a hostility to spending Federal cash on embryonic stem-cell research is going to be limited. It's limited in time -- until January 2008 most likely; it's limited in scope -- blastocysts are not the only source of stem cells as you well know, and other stem cell sources are not under interdict for Federal funding, and last I heard the other sources were showing even more potential.
Sooo, I don't give much weight to the anti-Republicans' exercises in propaganda and other intellectual dishonesty. You could look this kind of stuff up. How does it feel to have been played so?
Glatt, the same complaint about the previous Administrations was made...
Yes, and that was mentioned in this thread three years ago too. What's different about Bush is how widespread it is. It's not just stem cell research, it's everything. EPA air quality, logging policy, sex ed, ANWR wildlife maps, & global warming are just a few examples. I'm not going to repost everything from this thread that has already been cited as an example, but go back and read the thread from the beginning. There are a lot of nails in this coffin.
Just kidding!
More of the same!
Just three days after the decision to deny endangered species protection to the fluvial grayling, Julie MacDonald, assistant secretary for fish and wildlife in the Department of the Interior, was forced to resign after an investigation concluded that she rode roughshod over numerous decisions by agency scientists concerning protection of the nation's endangered species.
The report also found that MacDonald violated federal rules by sending internal documents to industry lobbyists with ChevronTexaco, the Pacific Legal Foundation, California Farm Bureau and others.
Known as the Bush administration's “attack dog,” MacDonald, who has no biological training, arbitrarily removed more than 80 percent of the streams that were to be protected to help bull trout recover in the Northwest's Klamath River basin and pressured the Fish and Wildlife Service to alter findings on the Kootenai River sturgeon in Idaho and Montana to preserve dam operations that impede fish migration.
Recent news reports now indicate that she likely had a hand in the decision to deny protections to the fluvial grayling.
And...
The Department of the Interior is expected to overturn politically-biased environmental decisions made by former high-profile employee Julie MacDonald, who during her three years mandate has constantly privileged industry lobbyists in detriment of alarming scientific reports.
Julie MacDonald, a senior political appointee working as a deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks, was found guilty during an internal investigation of improperly using classified information and of favoring industry insiders over scientists.
A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said last week that up to 10 decisions taken by MacDonald could be overturned or modified in a way that would allow the inclusion of several endangered species under the protection offered by Endangered Species Act. Among them are the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse found in the Rocky Mountains, the Southwestern willow flycatcher, the white-tailed prairie dog, 12 species of Hawaiian picture-wing flies, the arroyo toad, the California red-legged frog and the Canada lynx.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service H. Dale Hall found MacDonald guilty of breaking federal rules and recommended punishment for MacDonald’s dictatorial behavior concerning biologists. Moreover, MacDonald was also heavily involved in delisting the endangered Sacramento splittail, a fish found only in California's Central Valley, while owning an 80-acre farm inside the fish’s habitat.
According to Washington Post, Julie MacDonald has consistently “rejected staff scientists’ recommendations to protect imperiled animals and plants under the Endangered Species Act.” A civil engineer with no training in biology, she has “overruled and disparaged” the findings of her staff, instead “relying on the recommendations of political and industry groups.” MacDonald resigned on May 1.
“We wouldn’t [reverse MacDonald’s actions] if we didn’t suspect the decision would be different,” Mr. Hall said in a telephone conference with journalists. “It’s a blemish on the scientific integrity of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of the Interior.”
Hehehe... Bush's Attack Dog. Nice. This administration gets full marks for effectiveness, thoroughness, creativity, etc. in accomplishing their mission. Unfortunately, their mission seems to be promoting business interests at every turn. By itself this is not a bad thing. But there is no balance, no long term consciousness beyond the present political term, unless you consider the future lobbying opportunities being earned.
And worst of all is the utter disregard for our laws. To flout our rules, to ignore the rest of the constituency, to sidestep the process to achieve the desired result..ugh. Effective. But wrong.
[Quote BigV]And worst of all is the utter disregard for our laws. To flout our rules, to ignore the rest of the constituency, to sidestep the process to achieve the desired result..ugh. Effective. But wrong.[/Quote]
Politics as usual - very distressing. At least it is/was/will be rectified
ym65--it is not politics as usual. It is politics on crack, on steroids, cartoon politics. I find actions like this tantamount to redefining words, rewriting the rules of arithmetic. It is dangerous. How can we know about the truth about the world if inconvenient facts are simply discarded? You can believe what you want, me too. I don't really care how thoroughly private citizen A or lobby organization B does their fact checking.
But our government is charged with serving all of us. When they cavalierly, no, cravenly change the conclusions to suit their pre-established goals, it does great harm in three ways:
First, it is simply a lie. A Big Lie. A lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously".*
Second, it reduces the government's (already low) credibility. That wellspring of goodwill is replenished so slowly, that such a profligate waste should be a crime, injuring the public trust today and the citizens of tomorrow.
Second, it corrodes everyone's confidence in Science's ability to discover and express objective truth, and to do so in a verifiable way, that leaves room for the possibility of integrating new knowledge.
This is an attack on the very foundation of knowledge. they would rather be able to define any conclusion they present as truth. A Wolf in Science's clothing if you will. After Science has been eviscerated. They'll trade on the memory of science's reputation for articulating objective truth. But it will be all hollow inside, filled only with lies.
* Unattributed to avoid violating Godwin's Law.
This is an attack on the very foundation of knowledge.
I couldn't agree more.Finally, we should always fight, tooth and nail, against those who wish us to surrender to ignorance. As ignorant and insignificant as we are (and we most certainly are, to a degree our minds are incapable of comprehending) we have carved out a small niche of organized data, the qualities of which need constant protection from deliberate obfuscation. Knowledge is our most valuable resource, and attacks upon it are the most heinous crime.
BigV - I did not mean to make light of it, but this is certainly not the first administration to do this, nor will it be the last. I hate that it is happening as much as you apparently do, but it seems to be a too familiar situation that has been repeated for far too long. Those in power serve themselves their reelections, getting more power/money... Serving their constituents or the American people has been nothing more than a byproduct. Simply put, Change is required.
Just kidding! More of the same!
And...
Hehehe... Bush's Attack Dog. Nice. This administration gets full marks for effectiveness, thoroughness, creativity, etc. in accomplishing their mission. Unfortunately, their mission seems to be promoting business interests at every turn. By itself this is not a bad thing. But there is no balance, no long term consciousness beyond the present political term, unless you consider the future lobbying opportunities being earned.
And worst of all is the utter disregard for our laws. To flout our rules, to ignore the rest of the constituency, to sidestep the process to achieve the desired result..ugh. Effective. But wrong.
That is F'd up. That woman should go to prison.
Hey, has the Mercenary finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel?
You mean the oncoming train???
ym65--it is not politics as usual.
It is for this administration.
When people try to justify Bush by pointing to actions of previous administrations, it usually turns out to be some combination of less common, less serious, and/or severely regretted after the fact.
A disturbing trend that seems to be boosted by this tendency is the apologia for historical tragedies like McCarthyism and Japanese internment.
I re-read this thread (fascinating!) and didn't see an entry for this latest bit of business > conservation + law. Apparently, Dick Cheney is guilty too.
Did Cheney interfere with Endangered Species Act?
As reported in detail recently by The Washington Post, Vice President Cheney intervened in decisions involving a 10-year water plan for the Klamath River basin, siding with farmers and ranchers over environmental considerations. Courts later termed that plan "arbitrary and capricious and in violation of the Endangered Species Act."
As a result of the low water flows that summer, which make the water warmer and the fish more prone to disease, some 70,000 salmon died. Since then, fish runs have remained low, causing economic hardship for Indian tribes as well as commercial and sport-fishing businesses along the West Coast.
The House Natural Resources Committee has scheduled a hearing next week to investigate "political influence … on agency science and decisionmaking." Cheney has been invited to testify, but he is not expected to attend the hearing.
Honestly, I find this last sentence so droll, that I can't read it without cracking up.
This story highlights the same Julie MacDonald malfeasance we've recently discussed. Further reading led me to this article:
Leaving No Tracks
...
Law and science seemed to be on the side of the fish. Then the vice president stepped in.
First Cheney looked for a way around the law, aides said. Next he set in motion a process to challenge the science protecting the fish, according to a former Oregon congressman who lobbied for the farmers.
Because of Cheney's intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was no threat to the fish. What followed was the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River.
Characteristically, Cheney left no tracks.
The Klamath case is one of many in which the vice president took on a decisive role to undercut long-standing environmental regulations for the benefit of business.
By combining unwavering ideological positions -- such as the priority of economic interests over protected fish -- with a deep practical knowledge of the federal bureaucracy, Cheney has made an indelible mark on the administration's approach to everything from air and water quality to the preservation of national parks and forests.
There are no surprises here. Cheney's "damn the torpedos, full speed ahead" business over everything else mentality, his exquisitely tuned political sense, not to mention his 800 pound gorilla political mojo. My problem is that I don't feel like Cheney's playing for my team, team USA. He's freakin' Meadowlark Lemon for the Business Brawlers. Un-freakin-believable talent and skillz, wearing the other team's colors.
Look, I'm no anarchist. Yay capitalism. But I value our country's welfare above the welfare of a given business, or even a given business sector. I don't see that from him. In the spirit of this thread, in this example, the move he puts on the poor saps from Team USA is the ol razzle dazzle, fake to the center--blocked by the Endangered Species Act, spin to the outside directly into the defense of the scientific community's inpenetrable block, (pay attention, here's the tricky trick part) HEY! Look! It's some other scientists! and while everybody looks in the other (mis)direction, he passes to the 19th ranked official at the Interior Department for the easy tip in. Score: farmers and ranchers: 2, fish: -77,000, respect for the law: shut out!, science: taken away on a stretcher and out for the rest of the season. The other side of the stadium goes wild! At halftime, they all stampede down to the gift shop to show their appreciation and allegiance.
I don't think it's too much to ask that our elected government officials respect the laws of our nation. Do you?
The White House performs
some minor edits on a CDC climate report.
The White House performs some minor edits on a CDC climate report.
Eight of fourteen pages that were peer reviewed by scientists were suddenly and miraculously found to be unscientific by White House lawyers. Apparently god is talking to this White House.
Normally it would just be a mistake. But when criminal activity - that would make Nixon proud - is so routine, then why not have FEMA fake a press conference.
Anything from the George Jr adminstration is a lie until otherwise proven from honest (independent) sources. White House lawyers are still better scientists? Yes, when the president talks to god. No, that is not even a joke. Only this president is told what to do by god - and admits it.
Fish don't vote.... or donate.
Is anyone surprised at this shit anymore?
Bush ignores a unanimous recommendation by the scientific advisory panel at the EPA, which is also supported by the American Lung Association, and the National Association of Clean Air Agencies to reduce ozone levels in the air to 60 parts per billion. Instead he embraces the requests of industry lobbyists and sets the level at 75 parts per billion.
What's the difference between 60 and 75? Well the article doesn't say, but the difference between 70 and 75 is 2,100 extra dead each year.
That's right, Bush is killing well over 2,100 Americans a year so he can side with the lobbyists.
EPA Sets New Ozone Standard, Overrides Advisers
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 12, 2008; 2:26 PM
The Environmental Protection Agency has decided to lower the allowable amount of smog-forming ozone in the air to 75 parts per billion, a level significantly higher than what the agency's scientific advisers urged for this key component of unhealthy air pollution, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The new smog rules -- one of the most important environmental decisions President Bush will make during his final year in office -- will be a major factor in determining the quality of the air Americans will breathe for at least a decade. The standards dictate the amount of nitrogen oxides and other chemical compounds that are allowed to come out of vehicles, manufacturing facilities and power plants across the nation.
A slew of industries, including electric utilities and cement manufacturers, had recently urged White House officials in private meetings to keep the ozone limit at 80 parts per billion in order to minimize the cost of installing pollution controls.
Nearly a year ago, the EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee reiterated in writing that its members were "unanimous in recommending" that the agency set the standard no higher than 70 parts per billion and that the agency should consider reducing ozone levels to as low as 60 parts per billion. Public health advocates, including the American Lung Association, have lobbied for a 60-parts-per-billion ozone limit.
The EPA has estimated that reducing ozone levels to 70 parts per billion could annually prevent as many as 3,800 premature deaths, 2,300 nonfatal heart attacks, 48,000 cases of respiratory problems, 7,600 respiratory-related hospital visits and 890,000 missed work and school days. Setting the level at 75 parts per billion instead, the agency EPA estimated, could annually produce between 900 and 1,100 fewer premature deaths, 1,400 fewer nonfatal heart attacks and 5,600 fewer hospital and emergency room visits.
In a news conference last week, the American Lung Association's Janice Nolen said that when people ask her and other public health experts when they will be satisfied with the nation's air quality, she responds, "I'll be happy when the air we breathe does not make people sick."
William Becker, who as executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies represents officials from 48 state and 165 local governments, questioned why the Bush administration opted for a weaker ozone rules.
"It is disheartening that once again EPA has missed a critical opportunity to protect public health and welfare by ignoring the unanimous recommendations of its independent science advisers," Becker said. "While an improvement over the current standard, EPA's rule fails to adequately protect the health of millions of people throughout the country."
A slew of industries, including electric utilities and cement manufacturers, had recently urged White House officials in private meetings to keep the ozone limit at 80 parts per billion in order to minimize the cost of installing pollution controls.
Nearly a year ago, the EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee reiterated in writing that its members were "unanimous in recommending" that the agency set the standard no higher than 70 parts per billion and that the agency should consider reducing ozone levels to as low as 60 parts per billion.
Honestly, I'm not even sure this is siding with the lobbyists. I think he (or more likely whoever he appointed at the EPA, I bet this never even got to Bush's desk) glanced at the papers, saw one wanted 70 and one wanted 80--and said, "Great, 75, now let's go home." Apathy in a soon-to-end administration can be even more powerful than earning/repaying favors.
Apathy in a soon-to-end administration can be even more powerful than earning/repaying favors.
Apathy? Hardly. Cheney's agenda is to 'fix' us. Same 'apathy' that seven years ago declared arsenic in drinking water as acceptable - when the universal scientific consensus was otherwise. Nothing has changed. Cheney is still imposing that same political agenda. His agenda is to save America even by making the presidency a dictatorship. The agenda - not the presidency - has long been Cheney's objective. Same agenda also wanted any excuse for war with Iran; even in this past year.
one wanted 70 and one wanted 80--and said, "Great, 75, now let's go home."
That's reasonable if we are talking about two different lobbying groups, but these were government scientists whose advise he is supposed to value, and they didn't say 70, they said that he should consider 60, and go no higher than 70.
So you have 60 on one end, and 80 on the other, and he went with 75, which was well above the upper limit his science advisers gave him. His own agency says it will result in thousands more deaths each year than the other choice. I guess he doesn't value that figure either.
JUST ASKING - What is the cost differential between say 65 or 70 and 75? Are any of these reasonable limits? Are they reachable, enforceable? Would the mean a loss of jobs or industry.... whatever? Would we have to completely retool and refurbish factories & whatnot?
I imagine that's the tune the lobbyists were singing. The article doesn't discuss that, so I don't know the costs.
Do some research and let us know. Make sure to include the health care costs of the dying people.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/12/AR2008031202362.html
The EPA estimated that it will cost polluting industries $7.6 billion to $8.8 billion a year to meet the 75-ppb standard, but that rule will yield $2 billion to $19 billion in health benefits.
$2B to $19B. That's some nice estimatin' there EPA
Even northern New Hampshire has a number of 70. I bet 60 is a dream. It looks like it has never been reached, anywhere; the dotted line is the previous "limit" of 84. Looks like there is a lot of play around that word "limit". It doesn't appear to mean what we think it does anyway.
I remember the shitty air we had in Philly summers in the late 80s. It is definitely better now.
Via:
http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/ozone.html California set its limit at 70 three years ago
Heritage Foundation (yeah I know) takes the opposite side. Interesting point, for some time, conditions that are actually too clean have been implicated in asthma:
[SIZE=2]The EPA identifies a number of health risks associated with breathing ozone, most of which involve harmful respiratory effects. Still, the correlation and severity of these risks, especially for asthma, are unclear. From 1980 to 2005, when levels of ozone and other pollutants fell in the United States, the number of asthmatics increased by 75 percent. In fact, some of the lowest asthma rates in the world are found in highly polluted developing countries in the former Soviet Union, while countries in Western Europe have considerably higher asthma rates and relatively lower levels of air pollution.
[/SIZE]
They also note that ground-level ozone has the same protective effect against UV radiation as upper-level, so reducing ground-level ozone will increase skin cancer rates. Interesting.
Damn, UT. Thanks for looking all that up. I saw the article you linked to this morning, but didn't have a chance to read it.
So according to the EPA, either this rule change will easily pay for itself with lower health care costs, or it won't at all.
The real question is, what are each of you doing to reduce ozone levels?
I kill cows every chance I get.
It's more fun to just kill them. Then I can bathe in the blood. The jail time is much less for that than it was for bathing in the blood of virgins like my old cellmate used to...
did i go too far again? I never seem to recognize the line between sick humor and way too far.:blush:
But I like cows. Aside from the farting. They don't ask for money, they don't stab you in the back, they don't laugh about you. They just moo from time to time. In fact, I bet if your colleagues were bovine you wouldn't be experiencing what you are right now. Huh! Think of THAT!
--paid for by the Bovine Advocates of America (which spells BAA but we couldn't find words for the acronym MOO.) We like sheep too.
I have given up rubbing the ends of frayed electrical cords together.
S123 - all those things may be true, but you just can't trust a cow. Look at their eyes and the way they're always shifting around. They're plotting. You can't tell me that the multiple stomach thing isn't going to work against humans at some point. How would you like to be the one to find out they've lulled us into believing they're not carnivores? That would totally suck being ground slowly in those teeth, swallowed, regurgitated, swallowed again, and then slowly digested 4 times over. No thanks.
Shifting around? I barely see a cow moooove.
I'm going to go befriend some cows after work. Then, when the cow revolution comes, they'll just use me as a scout and let me live.
I barely see a cow moooove.
That's because they are so sly about it. They move like in The Matrix, so you don't even know what is happening. So remember, you're either one of us, or you're one of them.
The EPA is not interested in sustainable developement. They're interested in conservation, which is great, except when it starts killing people, or affecting the ordinary man's ability to put food on the table for his family.
Yes carbon emissions need to be addressed, but the EPA is not the body to have the final say. It should be an independant scientific body with no [discernable] political or environmental affilitations.
The EPA is not interested in sustainable development. They're interested in conservation, which is great, except when it starts killing people, or affecting the ordinary man's ability to put food on the table for his family.
Which would be true if the examples agreed with that assumption. This post will quote the realities.
We would pay $120 every quarter (or 5,000 miles) for a tune up. But EPA standards finally forced MBAs to use a 1960 technology in late 1970s cars - electronic ignition. Now cars cost less, don't break down (point failure), and pollute less. Now families have another $40 every month to put dinner on the table. EPA standards finally forced bean counters to let car guys liberate innovation. Therefore costs were reduced and families had more money for dinner.
We would still be breathing toxic gases, cars would still backfire, and other failures such as vapor lock would still exist if EPA regulations did not liberate a 1930 technology - fuel injection. EPA standards finally forced bean counters to let car guys liberate innovation. More cost reductions and less failures for consumers.
EPA standards ended widespread use of CFC in electronics production. EPA finally made possible better ways to manufacturer printed circuit boards. Instead of massive CFC cleaning (ozone layer destruction), electronics are now cleaned in a dishwasher with only water. Standards made possible better assembly processes that cost less, advanced mankind, cut costs, and made the factory floor human safer.
Of course, under wacko extremists, electronics still use lead in America. Those post 2000 electronic board design technologies (RoHS) are now found where innovation is encouraged by standards (Europe). Twenty years from now, Americans will drink more toxins. And then American eventually will pay royalties to the European innovators. Innovations created by superior environmental standards.
When Germany began appreciating the destruction from pollution, then German automakers developed better engine controls in the early 1980s. During that time, Americans foolishly thought EPA regulations only harmed the consumer. Every car in America (domestic and foreign) therefore contributes to German wealth. Bosch innovated due to tougher industry standards. Oxygen sensors in all cars mean wealthier Germans. An example of what happens when environmental standards are stifled by the naive while innovations create wealthier families.
Who will have higher living standards and more jobs? Those who develop products that address global warming. Again, do more work using less consumption. GE (who advocated low carbon solutions) and DuPont (who opposed low carbon solutions) now both admit that low carbon solutions have massively reduced their costs - increased profits. How does that mean less food for the family? Just the opposite. Innovations to improve the environment also create higher family incomes, a healthier public, new jobs, new markets, and higher living standards. Those who know only from pundits or a Limbaugh political agenda would not know this.
Well, cars once dumped massive amounts of hydrocarbons into the air. Do you remember sitting in bumper to bumper traffic in the 1950s? I do. I remember the resulting headaches. American automakers in the late 1960s went before Congress crying that 1975 EPA standards could not be achieved. Again bean counters trying to stifle innovation. On that same day, Chrysler was testing cars in CA that already met 1974 standards. Automakers in 1968 were lying. Only the naive believed EPA standard harmed people; did not learn about Chrysler's CAP (Clean Air Package). Chrysler's innovations also resulted in profits from all other automakers - ie the EGR valve still found today in all cars.
But again, why do I have a different conclusion? I learned facts rather than the propaganda.
So what does a catalytic converter do? Amazing how many cannot answer this obvious question - but know EPA standards only starve the family. CC burns gasoline that an engine did not. How did the Japanese start conquering the American market? To make less pollution, the Japanese burned that gas inside the engine. Higher gas mileage, less pistons, lower costs, more horsepower, longer lasting products - all directly traceable to cars that burned more of every gallon inside the engine. Meanwhile, those who claimed EPA regulations increase costs (ie Ford and GM) installed air pumps and larger catalytic converters to burn more gasoline in the exhaust pipe.
Oh, - that catalytic converter was a 1930 innovation. EPA standards finally made possible something that GM was using in their own factories in the 1930s.
One would think GM eliminates that $100 air pump, et al by doing what the Japanese were doing. After all, the Japanese were only using American technologies developed decades previously. Ironically, once the last GM engineer left (DeLorean), then GM installed a crappier carburetor which required installing a $100 air pump. Then GM could blame EPA standards for higher costs. Same game is still played today so that some 'feel' EPA standards take dinner off American tables.
Where did the 1980 Honda CVCC come from? Originally developed by Ford in early 1960s - called a stratified charge engine in Ford. Don't take my word for it. Learn from history. I even provided keywords and dates. Meanwhile, Japanese product that exceeded EPA standards also cost less - put more dinners on Japanese tables thanks to stifled American innovations.
So we must keep arsenic in the drinking water. George Jr said so even though full water industry consensus said otherwise. EPA standards for water quality are evil - would only kill people? Hardly. But again, another example of how EPA standards save - do not harm - American families.
Where do environmental standards created by science take dinner off the table? Only when one is too quick to believe extremist propaganda that also fears the Chinese, immigrants, quantum physics, evil terrorist lurker everywhere in America, evil American who must have phones routinely tapped, whistleblowers, the electric grid that is failing, evil tree huggers, Canadians who would export their wood to America, Brazilians who would innovate to create productive ethanol, foreign steel manufacturers, Haitians who spread aids, a pathetic Castro, any country that has too many Muslims (even if that country is part of NATO), ...
Anybody can post a sentence that says EPA standards take dinner off the table. But those who learn facts, well, notice how many reasons why say otherwise. Were you counting? Or did your eyes glaze over because this post contradicts myths promoted by a political agenda.
No tw, my eyes did not glaze over until I started reading your post. Unlike you I recognize that there are good and bad points to everything.
The EPA is not interested in helping people create a sustainable earth unless it happens to benefit their cause, hence the ignition switch changes etc.
What I'm talking about are the people in the organization who have an extreme view of how the environment should be 'managed' which is not conducive to human development.
Yes the EPA serves a valuable purpose, but no, they should not have the final say with regard to the environment and how it is managed. Hence my suggestion of an independant scientific body. They are there to protect the environment which is great, however their methods of protecting the environment can lead to devastating consquences, as seen with their involvement in legislating the boundaries for the uses of various areas of the great barrier reef.
The proposals put forward by the EPA and then implimented in this case have led to bankruptcy, domestic violence and suicide to name a few of the negative impacts.
Incidentaly, who do you think benefited from the harsh legislation surrounding this issue?
Greenies world wide along with the Qld and Federal government of Australia. Do you have any idea how much money they make from tourism and how little they make from the fishing industry?
tw - Are you saying that the EPA is responsible for American obesity problems?
This is from
LiveScience
[SIZE=2]White House Played Role in Smog Rule[/SIZE]
[FONT=Arial]WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency agreed to weaken a key section of its new smog requirements announced this week after being told at the last minute that President Bush preferred a less stringent approach, according to government documents.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The documents depict a series of tense exchanges between the EPA and the White House Office of Management and Budget during the days before the new smog air quality standard was announced Wednesday.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]
[/FONT] [FONT=Arial]Changes directed by the White House were inserted into the smog regulation only hours before it was issued with the late flurry of activity forcing the EPA to delay the announcement for five hours.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The disagreement revolved around the amount of protection from ozone, or smog, should be afforded wildlife, farmlands, parks and other open spaces.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]This so-called "public welfare'' or "secondary'' smog standard is separate from a decision to tighten the smog requirements for human health, which the EPA decided to do by reducing the allowable concentrations of ozone in the air from 80 parts per billion to 75 parts per billion.
[/FONT] [FONT=Arial][there's more at the link]
[/FONT]
tw - Are you saying that the EPA is responsible for American obesity problems?
Price of gasoline has been too low causing people to abandon bicycles. Excessively cheap gas creates too many visits to junk food stores that also sell gasoline (WaWa, Gas 'n Go, etc) and too much driving while consuming Krispy Kremes. MacDonalds also participated by upgrading drive-in windows with SuperSizing.
To save Americans from early 'heart attack' deaths, Arabs have jack booted gasoline prices. God told them to.
George Jr probably asked god to arrange this. George talks to god. We now have friends working for us in high places using high prices. [SIZE="1"]Don't worry; be happy. Everything is now under control. This time without using torture.[/SIZE]
By god, I think he's being funny!
He's always funny. The only difference this time, is it's intentional.
lol - he seems to have lightened up A LOT lately! Maybe you're right - he got a girlfriend.
I'm developing a major crush on the t-dub. ;)
T-dub + Shawnee = perverted science.
By god, I think he's being funny!
God is not involved.
The real question is, what are each of you doing to reduce ozone levels?
Personally I make really big fires in my outdoor fireplace in my back yard.
Alternative energy from 1922....
T-dub + Shawnee = perverted science.
You can call us t-shawn. That's what the tabloids will be calling us anyway. :p
Alternative energy from 1922....
This is still being done today in many sewage treatment plants.
Many? Really? The few cases I've heard of, in the last few years, seem to herald it as the latest, unique, cutting edge.
Many? Really? The few cases I've heard of, in the last few years, seem to herald it as the latest, unique, cutting edge.
Bruce, you have a good point. I should not have made that statement without numbers to back up "many." I'm searching for data.
Edit:
I just called NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority), who are just in the process of completing a survey of waste water treatment in that state. In NY, about 140 treatment plants use anaerobic digestion to treat waste and about 10% of those are generating electricity from the gas produced. I'm awaiting a call back so I can find out how much electricity is being produced and what the others are doing with the AD gas. I'm also trying to find a national source, so I don't have to call every state's energy department.
Remember Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome? The whole city ran on pig-shit.
You can call us t-shawn. That's what the tabloids will be calling us anyway. :p
Good, cuz I think "A-Shawn-t" is taken.
snip~ I'm searching for data. ~snip
Thanks for the edit info, very interesting. I know they are doing this on some large farms in Vermont, with seed money from the state.
Thanks for the edit info, very interesting. I know they are doing this on some large farms in Vermont, with seed money from the state.
I just talked to someone from NYSERDA and she's going to send me results of a study that they've just completed, but have not yet published. That will cover NY only, so she recommended that I look on the EPA website for national data. Here's a small part of what I found on
that site:
How Is CHP Being Used at U.S. WWTFs? As of September 2007, wastewater treatment CHP systems were in place at 79 sites in 24 states, representing 223 MW of electric capacity. Of the existing CHP systems in the wastewater treatment sector, the majority use reciprocating engines. The mix of technologies used for CHP also includes microturbines, fuel cells, and turbine installations.
If the NYSERDA report contains anything interesting, I'll post it.
Cool, that's encouraging. Thanks. :thumb:
[SIZE="5"]
Since '01, Guarding Species Is Harder[/SIZE]
Endangered Listings Drop Under Bush
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 23, 2008; Page A01
With little-noticed procedural and policy moves over several years, Bush administration officials have made it substantially more difficult to designate domestic animals and plants for protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Controversies have occasionally flared over Interior Department officials who regularly overruled rank-and-file agency scientists' recommendations to list new species, but internal documents also suggest that pervasive bureaucratic obstacles were erected to limit the number of species protected under one of the nation's best-known environmental laws.
The documents show that personnel were barred from using information in agency files that might support new listings, and that senior officials repeatedly dismissed the views of scientific advisers as President Bush's appointees either rejected putting imperiled plants and animals on the list or sought to remove this federal protection.
I particularly like the Machiavellian elegance of this next tactic:
Officials also changed the way species are evaluated under the 35-year-old law -- by considering only where they live now, as opposed to where they used to exist -- and put decisions on other species in limbo by blocking citizen petitions that create legal deadlines.
Brilliant!!
OF COURSE we should only evaluate a species' candidacy for listing on the Endangered Species Act based on where they live now! For pity's sake, we can't go back and change the past, now can we? And if a species' population (BANG!) is decreasing (BANG!) and then is beyond (BANG!) the (BANG!) point (BANG!) of no (BANG!) return, then, gee Wally, I'm so sorry. (See attached graphic. Note, missing from the graphic is the timeframe for GWB's ESA listing legacy--Seven years. His total for seven years is 59. Compared to nearly 59 PER YEAR by his soft hearted soft headed father. Nevermind the fact that this administration has requested none, only been... bullied into listing those 59 at the end of a lawsuit).
So, so, so unfair. Take it all now, leave nothing of value behind. Send the bill and the carcasses and the wreckage to the grandchildren. :rar:
BigV you can't actually be surprised by any of this.
Point of this thread is to document in one place instances where the current administration has perverted science for politics. Nobody is surprised by it anymore, but should we yawn and scratch ourselves, or make note of it?
Point of this thread is to document in one place instances where the current administration has perverted science for politics. Nobody is surprised by it anymore, but should we yawn and scratch ourselves, or make note of it?
I think if it makes you feel better scratch the itch. There are plenty of people taking notes. So wrongs may be righted, some may not. Much of the environmental actions by this administration are deplorable.
March 29, 2008
Asking a Judge to Save the World, and Maybe a Whole Lot More
By DENNIS OVERBYE
More fighting in Iraq. Somalia in chaos. People in this country can’t afford their mortgages and in some places now they can’t even afford rice.
None of this nor the rest of the grimness on the front page today will matter a bit, though, if two men pursuing a lawsuit in federal court in Hawaii turn out to be right. They think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole that will spell the end of the Earth — and maybe the universe.
Scientists say that is very unlikely — though they have done some checking just to make sure.
The world’s physicists have spent 14 years and $8 billion building the Large Hadron Collider, in which the colliding protons will recreate energies and conditions last seen a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Researchers will sift the debris from these primordial recreations for clues to the nature of mass and new forces and symmetries of nature.
But Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a “strangelet” that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called “strange matter.” Their suit also says CERN has failed to provide an environmental impact statement as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/science/29collider.html?_r=1&hp&oref=sloginTheir suit also says CERN has failed to provide an environmental impact statement as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.
When does a machine underground in both France and Switzerland need to conform to American environmental laws? It is not a rhetorical question.
When does a machine underground in both France and Switzerland need to conform to American environmental laws? It is not a rhetorical question.
I'm guessing because we can kick their asses anytime we want to?;)
You could probably get every single Republican lawmaker to agree to an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq if you promised to send them to invade France.
Only if the GOP lawmakers actually do the fighting...though they still might kick the French's ass. Hell, we could probably send Jim and some 3rd graders over there, and the Stars and Stripes would fly over Paris within 3 days. ;)
Only if the GOP lawmakers actually do the fighting...though they still might kick the French's ass. Hell, we could probably send Jim and some 3rd graders over there, and the Stars and Stripes would fly over Paris within 3 days. ;)
Yes but the French are winning in the important "our first lady is hotter than your first lady" category.
Why couldn't we have picked Kucinich?
Why is this man smiling?:p
The queen of Jordon use to hold that spot.
Cheney v. Whales
Another internal document shows that the officials working for the Vice President also raised spurious objections to the science. According to this document, the Vice President's staff "contends that we have no evidence (i.e., hard data) that lowering the speeds of 'large ships' will actually make a difference. NOAA rejected these objections, writing that both a statistical analysis of ship strike records and the peer-reviewed literature justified the final rule. In its response to the objections from the Vice President's staff, NOAA reported that there is "no basis to overturn our previous conclusion that imposing a speed limit on large vessels would be beneficial to whales.
Well give credit where credit is due... the man is consistent. :eyebrow:
[SIZE="3"]Cheney reportedly wanted cuts in climate testimony[/SIZE]
By H. JOSEF HEBERT – 40 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Dick Cheney's office pushed for major deletions in congressional testimony on the public health consequences of climate change, fearing the presentation by a leading health official might make it harder to avoid regulating greenhouse gases, a former EPA officials maintains.
When six pages were cut from testimony on climate change and public health by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last October, the White House insisted the changes were made because of reservations raised by White House advisers about the accuracy of the science.
But Jason K. Burnett, until last month the senior adviser on climate change to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson, says that Cheney's office was deeply involved in getting nearly half of the CDC's original draft testimony removed.
"The Council on Environmental Quality and the office of the vice president were seeking deletions to the CDC testimony (concerning) ... any discussions of the human health consequences of climate change," Burnett has told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Why is Cheney allergic to science?
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hX3jIWodMsIwJRO21Y6IXAimn9AgD91PN4N00I've just opened this thread for the first time today, on page 19. I'm not going to bother with the rest, as it appears to be a subsidiary of the NY Times. I won't bother with that again either. "All the news that's shit to print"
Hell, there are tons of things I'm not going to do today--cut my hair, go to the movies, feed a dog--I just thought it would be polite to refrain from wasting your time telling you about them.
shhh. he's our counterbalance to TW.
[COLOR="White"]UG doesn't count since he has an orbit all his own.[/COLOR]
Why is Cheney allergic to science?
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hX3jIWodMsIwJRO21Y6IXAimn9AgD91PN4N00
Because he's a clogged-up douche nozzle?
Because he has a complete inability to see beyond his own, or his master's (whoever that may be) desires?
Because people thought they were getting a conservative for VP but got a sociopath instead?
Just a thought.
From
here
Bush pollution gaffe surprises G-8 leaders
RUSUTSU, Japan — President Bush has been known for unguarded comments at previous meetings of world leaders, but British newspapers reported Thursday that he surprised a number of them with a joke about environmental policy as he left the G-8 summit in Japan.
Bush, who has been criticized for being reluctant to join international efforts to combat global warming, reportedly ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."
The Web sites of the British newspapers The Independent and the Telegraph both reported that he then punched the air while grinning.
:earth::sadpace:
Well, at least he was honest.
From here
:earth::sadpace:
Well, at least he was honest.
He was just relishing in our position until China and India take over. Again, he had bad intell on his joke, since China has been a bigger polluter for greater than a year. Anyone see the pics of China's polluted air as they attempt to clean up for the Games?:
China takes over as largest CO2 emitter.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jun/19/china.usnewsChina has been a bigger polluter for greater than a year. Anyone see the pics of China's polluted air as they attempt to clean up for the Games?:
China takes over as largest CO2 emitter.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jun/19/china.usnews
While this is true, it's misleading. China has a much larger population, so you would expect it to be polluting more.
On a per capita basis, the average American produces around 4 times as much CO2 as the average Chinese citizen. This is even mentioned in the article you linked.
We keep electing incrementally more retarded politicians, and it's only going to get worse.
Slowly...
Term by term...
We need to just get it over with.
We can do:
Or we can do:
The fact remains that China and India far surpass the US in the amount they pollute in all areas including CO2 emissions. The world wants to point fingers at the US and get us to change the way we do business at great cost to our economy and give nations like China and India a pass while they pollute non-stop with minimal regulation because of an economic disparity. I call bull shit on that. We can reign in when they reign in. Make it a level playing field. It is not. Which is why we will never sign one-sided agreements like The Kyoto Protocol.
Make it a level playing field. It is not.
If we were to make it a level playing field, that would mean you would have to reduce your personal CO2 footprint by 3/4 to meet China's current per capita level.
Or do you reject the per capita measure, and think that all countries, regardless of their size, should have the same CO2 output? Luxembourg and the USA should have the same total level of emissions?
If we were to make it a level playing field, that would mean you would have to reduce your personal CO2 footprint by 3/4 to meet China's current per capita level.
Or do you reject the per capita measure, and think that all countries, regardless of their size, should have the same CO2 output? Luxembourg and the USA should have the same total level of emissions?
It will never be level on an average per person basis, nor should it. That is trying get apples and oranges to be the same fruit, they are not and never will be. China and India will never be like the US, and hopefully the US will never be like China or India. "per capita" measurements are nothing more than statistical measures which simplify the comparisons. They do not work. Fun to look at and use as points in an argument but they are not practical from the standpoint of parity between developing nations who pollute to no end and a developed nation like the US or many Western European nations which are highly technically industrialized. I completely reject anything which uses simple statistical measures such as "per capita".
We are the highest per capita because we are the most productive per capita. What you really want to measure is carbon use across productivity.
The worst solution would be to do less with less, what we really need is to do more with less.
The worst solution would be to do less with less, what we really need is to do more with less.
I think the worst solution would be to do less with more.
I think the worst solution would be to do less with more.
No, the worse solution is to apply the same standards to developing countries like China and India to the US. That is pure stupidity.....
We can reign in when they reign in. Make it a level playing field. It is not.
No, the worse solution is to apply the same standards to developing countries like China and India to the US. That is pure stupidity.....
?
A bit confusing, I admit. Let me explain.
China and India- They want different and much lower standards for their green house gases; they want the US and developing countries to have higher standards.
"We can reign in when they reign in. Make it a level playing field. It is not."
They need to have the same high standards as us, or we should not have to make any changes at all.
"No, the worse solution is to apply the same standards to developing countries like China and India to the US. That is pure stupidity....."
They need to have the same high standards as us, or we should not have to make any changes at all.
A somewhat amusing story:
Tom Harkin created the National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine to "investigate and validate alternative approaches". Apparently they've only been doing the first part.
The senator went on to lament that, since its inception in 1998, the focus of NCCAM has been "disproving things rather than seeking out and approving things."
Skeptics have complained all along that Harkin and his allies founded this office to promote alternative therapies at public expense, not to test them scientifically. Harkin's statement at the hearing explicitly confirms that hypothesis.
It confirms the hypothesis as to the intent, but in execution it appears to be doing real scientific testing! And Harkin is disappointed in NCCAM, rather than the alternative medicine industry.
Interesting article HM. I found this to be rather teling as well.
Harkin doesn't seem to realize that by publicly pressuring an ostensibly independent research center to produce positive results, he's undermining the credibility of the center he worked so hard to create. If even if NCCAM does come up with positive results, Harkin's giving the scientific community an excuse to discount that research as tainted.
That's a shame, because if we're going to spend public money testing alternative medicines, researchers should be allowed to follow the evidence. Besides, ruling out therapies that don't work can be just as valuable as vindicating therapies that do.
Bold mine - well Hello!!!!
Whether it is valuable depends on whether your underlying goal is to promote health, or promote alternative medicine.
Sort of preverted science, mildly related thread drift. Interesting never the less.
US nuclear relic found in bottle
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7918618.stmA bit confusing, I admit. Let me explain.
China and India- They want different and much lower standards for their green house gases; they want the US and developing countries to have higher standards.
"We can reign in when they reign in. Make it a level playing field. It is not."
They need to have the same high standards as us, or we should not have to make any changes at all.
"No, the worse solution is to apply the same standards to developing countries like China and India to the US. That is pure stupidity....."
They need to have the same high standards as us, or we should not have to make any changes at all.
Screw changing it at all.
I don't support the double standard.
I don't support the double standard.
I don't support the future. I hate the future. Rotten bastards will eventually invent a time machine, but do they ever come back and visit their great-great-great-great-great grandaddy TGRR? No. Ungrateful bastards.
Burn the joint down, and leave the disrespectful little turds a used-up cinder.
Bumpity bump.
Panel: Gov't thwarted worst-case scenario on spill
The White House blocked efforts by federal scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil spill could have been.
That finding comes from a panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the worst offshore oil spill in history.
In documents released Wednesday, the national oil spill commission reveals that in late April or early May the White House budget office denied a request from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to make public the worst-case discharge from the blown-out well.
BP estimated the worse scenario to be a leak of 2.5 million gallons per day. The government, meanwhile, was telling the public the well was releasing 210,000 gallons per day - a figure that later grew closer to BP's figure.
from
AP via Yahoo
Apparently the R's aren't the only ones...
What is the point of ballyhooing the worst case scenario?
That's usually used to...
1- promote action by someone to respond to the threat. The threat was already being responded to.
2- some sort of political gain, by distorting reality, while assigning blame. I don't think that's NOAA's game.
2- draw attention to oneself, as in listen to me, I know best. Possible, due to inter-agency rivalry?
It sounds to me like NOAA was playing TV weatherman, it's coming and it could be really bad. Even though worse case almost never happens.
If you have a problem you should do the best you can to solve it, which is what they did, rather than run around pointlessly, like Chicken Little, which does absolutely no good.
It also sounds like the Obamay Administration and their cronies are no different than Bush, they purposefully withheld critical info about the spill to effect public opinion when in fact they knew the info they were telling the public or withholding was BS. Now they have been busted by their own commission.
In effect, they lied. Again.
Its not ballyhooing, its telling the truth. It seems they intentionally didn't. Why block the effort to tell the truth?
In four papers issued by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, commission investigators fault the administration for giving too much credence to initial estimates that just 1,000 barrels of oil a day were flowing from the ruptured BP PLC well, and for later allowing political concerns to drive decisions such as how to deploy people and material—such as oil-containing boom—to contain the spreading oil.
Bold mine
Bullshit, it's not the truth. Worst case scenario is a guess how bad it could get if a lot of variables went a certain way. If your shoe catches fire, the worst case scenario is you'll end up as a pile of ashes, but that is very unlikely unless a lot of unlikely shit happens. NOAA didn't know what would happen, nobody knew, not even BP.
It was BP's responsibility to clean it up, not the governments. The government stepped in when BP failed to do that fast enough.
And given the technical difficulties of the job, I'll publicly doubt it made a difference in speed of fixing.
Well this was interesting to read:
In Greece earlier this month, Al Gore made a startling admission: "First-generation ethanol, I think, was a mistake." Unfortunately, Americans have Gore to thank for ethanol subsidies. In 1994, then-Vice President Gore ended a 50-50 tie in the Senate by voting in favor of an ethanol tax credit that added almost $5 billion to the federal deficit last year. And that number doesn't factor the many ways in which corn-based ethanol mandates drive up the price of food and livestock feed.
Sure, he meant well, but as Reuters reported, Gore also said, "One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/11/30/you_can_stop_paying_for_al_gores_mistake_108085.htmlInteresting that he would admit that out loud. I guess he's never going to run for office again, so it doesn't matter.
I've always thought those small early primary states have way more influence than they should.
At least he admitted his mistake. Thats more than most of them.
It's not just Gore that made some bad decisions about 1st generation ethanol.
There were cautions expressed to the growers about the
financial risks involved in buying into local corn->alcohol facilities...
and although the demand for EtOH would be going up,
the economies of scale were such that small plants would not be financially viable.
Some of the growers did not pay enough attention.
It was a bad idea from the gitgo.
The bottom line is Gore, and all his glad-handing global warming bs, did it for one reason. To get elected. Not because he had the interests of the enviroment or farmers or anyone else in mind. Selfish prick.
[STRIKE]Selfish prick[/STRIKE] Politician.
Point noted. I use the terms interchangeably. :D
The bottom line is Gore, and all his glad-handing global warming bs, did it for one reason. To get elected.
And again, numbers and reality contradict the conclusion. Gore was out of office in 2000. Domestic ethanol was required by a Republican Congress and Republican White House starting 2003. But let’s blame Gore because political agendas are more important than reality.
Meanwhile, facts are so one sided that everyone in the Cellar should be critical of ethanol.
When mankind first used oil, one unit of energy resulted in 100 units of petroleum energy. Now that we have burned up all the easy and ‘sweet’ stuff, we only get 30 energy units per one unit to produce it.
One unit of energy is required to produce one whole unit of ethanol energy. No problem. We are making more (unproductive) jobs. According to political spin, that is good. That’s one unit of coal or oil to provide one unit of ethanol.
Last number I saw, ethanol producers are given $1.01 per gallon by government. Corporate welfare. Also part of that early 2000 Republican law. After all, Regan proves that deficits don't matter.
And again, numbers and reality contradict the conclusion. Gore was out of office in 2000. Domestic ethanol was required by a Republican Congress and Republican White House starting 2003. But let’s blame Gore because political agendas are more important than reality.
Meanwhile, facts are so one sided that everyone in the Cellar should be critical of ethanol.
When mankind first used oil, one unit of energy resulted in 100 units of petroleum energy. Now that we have burned up all the easy and ‘sweet’ stuff, we only get 30 energy units per one unit to produce it.
One unit of energy is required to produce one whole unit of ethanol energy. No problem. We are making more (unproductive) jobs. According to political spin, that is good. That’s one unit of coal or oil to provide one unit of ethanol.
Last number I saw, ethanol producers are given $1.01 per gallon by government. Corporate welfare. Also part of that early 2000 Republican law. After all, Regan proves that deficits don't matter.
:thumb:
Actually, the energy balance ratio for ethanol depends on what it's being made from. In 2002, the energy balance for corn ethanol was 1:1.34 (
http://www.usda.gov/oce/reports/energy/aer-814.pdf). Since that time, improvements have been made in both farming techniques and ethanol production technologies.
Ethanol from sugar cane is reported to have a much higher energy balance (about 1:8); the energy balance for cellulosic ethanol is currently similar to corn, but a lot of research is on-going to improve that.
A few friends of mine and I are looking into growing switch grass as a renewable source to sell to power plants.
FWIW: re the latest tax-cut agreement with the Repubicans
Politico
An extension of the ethanol credit of some sort is currently expected to be part of a final deal.
Lobbyists at the Renewable Fuels Association – a pro-ethanol group – Wednesday said
Obama administration and congressional sources have indicated an extension is part
of the deal at the moment but that the final details – including the length of the extension
and value of the tax credit – are still being discussed.
Along with the possible decrease in the ethanol credit, the White House also specifically cut out
of their deal with Republicans $1.4 billion in federal grants that would go to boost wind,
solar, geothermal and biomass projects.
Gore is going to be pissed....
