GeorgiaDon

The Bush administration is done. Get over it already! Don (edited to add link to 2005 posting) _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

right wing conservative christian opinions are without common sense..... Intentional. Common sense will not lead you to salvation in Christ Jesus. However, not on topic. So, despite supposedly being "created" with the unique ability to reason (according to the bible you follow), you turn your back on reason and logic and instead advocate blind acceptance of whatever "truth" the conservative blog-o-sphere (or minister, or whatever authority figure feels correct today) vomits up. Too bad we don't have the technology for you to donate some of your cerebral hemispheres to soldiers who have suffered brain injuries, as it seems you don't care to use what you have. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I wonder how long we will have to wait for the "traditionalists" here to condemn Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, and their idol Regan. I for one am not holding my breath. Of the presidents in the last 60 years, if we exclude the above who apparently also had no respect for tradition, we are left with Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Bush 1, and Bush 2. Apparently no Medals of Honor were awarded during the Carter years when weren't actually at war with anybody, and the two that were awarded in the Clinton administrations were posthumous so I'm not sure if the salute/did not salute question is applicable. So apparently at least 50% of American presidents in the last 60 years don't respect tradition. Or, maybe, this is another one of those "traditions" that aren't really traditions. Just because Bush did something doesn't make it a tradition. Edited to add: apparently no Medals of Honor were awarded during the Bush 1 years either. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Thanks for posting an interesting article. So what is the take-home message? Some will say that the government should stay out of medical care altogether. If you can't afford dialysis out of pocket, you die, too bad so sad. (Dialysis is not something you can get routinely by showing up at a hospital emergency room, so the "solution" some propose of waiting until people are critically ill, then having them show up at emergency, get treated, then leave without paying is not applicable to such a large patient population.) The article points out that the dialysis treatment field in the US is dominated by two hugely profitable companies that have used their financial/political clout to keep regulatory oversight to a minimum. Profits are maximized by using poorly trained technicians; rarely is a doctor or even a certified nurse available on site. Facilities are supposed to be inspected and recertified regularly, but in fact many years go by between inspections (in some cases no inspections in seven years!). I think a big part of the message is the danger of unregulated capitalism in the health care "marketplace". Combine lack of competition with lack of incentive to maintain quality control (no regulatory oversight, so no meaningful enforcement of already minimal safety standards), and add in pressure to maximize profits, and this is what you should expect to get. I think it's instructive that every other developed country manages to provide this care, at lower cost and with better outcomes. Despite the knee-jerk American reflex to automatically assume all things American are the best possible way of doing things, it would be instructive to look at how other countries manage to out-perform us in every measure except profit to private cororations. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I agree that the way this case was prosecuted seems absurd, and I hope that this conviction is vacated and charges dropped (assuming the facts are as the article states). I am curious about your assertion that the law presumes guilt, though. It seems to me that Mr. Aitkin admitted that the gun in the car was his. Having stipulated to that fact, what else remains except to determine if he met the legal conditions for transporting the gun? How else could the case possibly have gone? Now if he had denied the gun was his, I'd expect (or hope) he'd be "presumed innocent" and the State would have had to prove he knew about the gun and was intentionally transporting it. I'm having a hard time seeing how this "presumes guilt". Otherwise, you could say that any time you are questioned about any activity that requires a permit or license, such as driving, hunting, fishing, or piloting a plane, you are "presumed guilty" until you can prove your innocence by showing your license. If, for example, game wardens had to presume everyone out hunting had a license, and could only ask to see a license if they already had evidence that a particular hunter did not, enforcement of hunting regulations would be impossible in any meaningful sense. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I suspect $15,000 would just cover the cost of the funeral these days. If they were really suing for punitive reasons I'd expect the amount would be a lot higher. $15,000 is a lot of money to be out of pocket for someone else's criminal act; if the at-fault party has been tried and convicted, why shouldn't he be made to pay? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

OK, since you (and Turtle) apparently consider highlight/copy/paste to be providing a meaningful representation of YOUR thoughts on the subject, could you 1) indicate which of the following points you posted as defining a liberal apply to the "lawyer" in question (the one that doesn't actually exist), and more interestingly 2) let us know which points you find so repugnant about "liberals". From your "answer": Are you sure you are against political reform? I'm surprised you are so happy with the government as it currently exists. How can you find this objectionable? Seriously, who could be against freedom of action with respect to personal belief? Do you honestly want to force everyone to be just like you? Can't have any of that evil "representative democracy", can we now. I can see where you guys would have a problem with this one. Is this why you hate liberals so much? Again, would you really want everyone to be forced to conform to "traditional or conventional ideas"? Nothing but classical music on the radio, can't allow any of that new-fangled rock 'n roll. If it was good enough for your great-great-great grandfather, it's good enough for you right? Is there a problem here? Same as above. Maybe this is why you hate liberals? But of course this is exactly what you advocate when it concerns a rule you happen to not like (such as gun control laws). circular definition. Not relevant to US posters. Again, since you posted these points as your concept of a "liberal", which points do you personally find so repugnant? Personally, I prefer to live in a representative democracy with maximum freedom to follow my personal beliefs, and give generously to support causes I believe in. How, exactly, does that make me evil? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Skyrider, How do you answer Lawrocket's point that the contrail should be getting brighter if the source is gaining altitude and climbing to where the sun still appears well above the horizon? If anything, the contrail is darker close to the source, consistent with the source flying level in a direction opposite to the movement of the terminator (the boundary between day and night). Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Yes, they did. However in a constitutional democracy (or republic for the nit-pickers) the constitution takes precedence over the "voters beliefs". Otherwise, minorities would always be threatened by the whims of the majority. Who knows, in Georgia we might still be living with Jim Crow if it wasn't for the US Supreme Court, if the state flag controversy was anything to go by. Hope you're doing OK Andy. I'm going to try to get up your way one of these days. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

No I am saying it shold not be in force That is why I stated that there is an argument to stop the state from marrying same sex couples At least until it passes another law aimed at fixing what the SC said was broken Firstly, the law (any law) is proscriptive in that it delineates what might NOT be done. Things that are not forbidden are by definition allowed. The law, for example forbids murder; there is no need to write into the law a requirement that you have to allow people to live, even if you happen to not like them. In this case there is no constitutional basis for forbidding same-sex marriage, and so by definition it is permitted. If the court rules that a law is unconstitutional and strikes it down, but (according to you) that unconstitutional law stays in effect until the legislature fixes it, then what incentive would the legislature have to ever re-write the law? They could more easily achieve their original unconstitutional aim by never taking up the law again, and just leave things in the unresolved state. Also, what about a situation where there is no way to rephrase a law to make it constitutional, if the whole purpose of the legislation is in itself unconstitutional? Your view effectively gives governments free reign to commit unconstitutional acts and deprive people of their legal rights. I'm surprised you would want to allow governments the power to ignore the constitution. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Guilty of perpetrating political speech! Apparently an offense warranting being physically assaulted in Skippy's version of America! "Land of the free" indeed. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Speaking as a college professor who most here in SC would consider to be "liberal" (meaning I don't automatically hate all muslims), I don't have any big concerns against allowing concealed carry on campus. However that's not the opinion of the higher administration, who I expect will do whatever they can to resist it here in Georgia. Interesting how this varies from state to state. In Georgia there is absolutely nothing required in the way of "training". Any legal resident over 21, with a clean criminal and mental history, can get a concealed carry permit. There is no requirement to show proficiency with the weapon, nor any instruction or test of knowledge of applicable laws. Still, we don't have an epidemic of crime committed by permit holders, and there's no good reason to expect that to change if those students who do have a permit could carry on campus. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

You shouldn't pay so much attention to Ann Coulter; that kind of partisan hatred will rot your mind. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Oh by the way who's being "elitist" here? Why would you presume "ivy league" is so much better than "farmer joe ag school"? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

According to Cornell, it is fully a part of Cornell University. Who should I believe, a partisan hack trying to score a cheap political point or Cornell University? I personally don't much care about Olbermann. I do care about posters distorting facts out of any semblance of the truth, or posting outright lies, to score cheap (actually, worthless) points. I too suspect another agenda here. Christine O'Donnell is caught flat-out lying about her education, so the Tea Party apologists try to create a distraction by accusing some "liberal" of lying too. When it turns out that liberal actually did earn the degree, the next course of action is to claim the degree isn't a "real" degree, just a scrap of paper from a worthless "Farmer Joe" University. Never mind that by doing so, you are insulting everybody who has ever earned a degree from any land grant university. Conservatives seem not to have much respect for higher education anyway. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

What are you talking about? I don't have to defend it's existence. The Cornell web site provides ample evidence that it exists. And you haven't spent any effort trying to remedy what you "didn't know", did you? Fortunately your ignorance is no constraint on the range of topics covered in modern colleges of agriculture. Your insulting term "Farmer Joe school" only reflects your own prejudices, which you are obviously too lazy to bother trying to correct by spending some time investigating the range of degree programs offered by such colleges. Typical conservative BS: ignorant, prejudiced, and arrogantly proud of it. Thanks for reinforcing my point about the average quality of conservative posts. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Really?? You might want to tell Cornell that they don't even know what is and what is not part of their University. If we go to the Cornell University home page, we see right across the top a menu with: Admissions Academics Research Outreach Land Grant Student Life Alumni It's right there at the top, Skippy, you can't miss it. If we click on "Land Grant", we get a page with this right at the top: "Knowledge with a public purpose. Cornell fulfills its Land Grant mission by providing education, outreach, and applied research touching every aspect of life in New York. Read more" Right there in black and white, Skippy. "Cornell fulfills its land grant mission..." So apparently Cornell University thinks it has a land grant mission. But Skippy, great mind that he is, knows better. You might want to click on the "History" tab on the left side of that page, you would find out that Cornell was founded as the State land grant institution. Not some "old macdonald farm" tack-on, but an integral part of Cornell from its beginning. And yet here you are, Skippy the great conservative thinker, posting something that is completely untrue. So, either you didn't know that what you posted is shit, in which case you go about making assertions as fact when you don't have a clue what you are talking about (a behavior characteristic of idiots), or you post things you know are untrue, so as to get in a cheap shot at "liberals", a behavior best characterized as lying. Which one is it in this case, Skippy? I'm just sick and tired of so-called "conservatives" painting all "liberals" as liars, when often it is the "conservatives" who use outrageous distortions of fact or outright lies to make their point. A few "conservative" (or "libertarian") posters use actual intelligently constructed arguments to make their points, and those posts are interesting to read even if I sometimes disagree with the underlying philosophy. But all the posting of BS crap harvested from the conservative blogosphere without any critical thinking or the most cursory fact-checking is just stinking up this site. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

So just how regressive are you, actually? Civil rights too much to swallow? Suffrage for women? That whole Magna Carta thing pushing it too far? Don You are calling me regressive? Is this for real? I see you are very adept in using the same techniques of your beloved climate change/global warming radicals that currently control this debate. At best there is plenty evidence that the ones on top of the IPCC, are just so progressive that they will not use any stonewalling of dissent, and they are very clear on the position of open debate, by simple calling people idiots or "regresive", well, somehow you just fit the exact description. From progressive on climate change debate to civil rights hater, women suffage oppositor. Thank you for proving my theory that progressive are just simply obtuse. So your saying you're progressive? Sorry for the misunderstanding, I thought you hated anything progressive. My bad. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

First, thanks for such a long and detailed response. I will take the time to read the links you provided. Until I do I can't respond to most of your points, and I suspect that more often than not I'll be in agreement with you anyway. I don't want to be misunderstood as condoning bad behavior on the part of climate scientists. Clearly, hiding data or methodologies is unacceptable, in my own case it would be a violation of the conditions NIH imposes as a condition of receiving funding. The only exception is that you don't have to provide competitors with your raw data before you have had a reasonable opportunity to analyze and publish the results. My point was mainly that I doubt that there is something about climatology that intrinsically attracts only paranoid super-secretive pricks to the field. If they are that way (and not to say that such behavior is appropriate) it might be at least in part because they are tired of being called liars and frauds. You only have to read the various threads on climate change here in SC to see how successful the "denier" side has been in convincing at least some of the public that the whole field is made up to fraudulently obtain grant funding. I work on disease transmission by mosquitoes. If I was to be attacked continuously by people who claim that I created and released West Nile, or that the whole West Nile epidemic never happened and was just made up to get NIH to give out money, it would be hard for me to devote a lot of my time to trying to placate those people. That's just human nature, and scientists are as human as anyone else. Perhaps that would not be the most productive response, and indeed it would be damaging in the long run, but still it's a natural response. It's verifiable fact that the growing season is changing, the distribution of plants and animals is changing, all in a direction indicating warming. People are not making this shit up just to get funding. Regarding insect-transmitted diseases such as malaria, it would be stupid, verging on scientific malpractice, to refuse to even try to get a handle on what is going on. The distribution of diseases will change along with the distribution of the vectors, and if we don't anticipate those changes we'll be stuck reacting after epidemics hit areas where they didn't occur before. Already the distribution of the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti has extended farther North in Europe than it has ever been seen before, bringing with it outbreaks of Chikungunya virus and potentially Dengue. Depending on the pace of warming, plants may not be able to disperse fast enough to keep even with the changing geography of where conditions are suitable for them, in which case they and the insects and other animals that depend on them are at risk of extinction. These are legitimate topics for research, not inventing shit to squeeze money from granting agencies. This is a legitimate point. However most scientists that I know kind of suck at this, in part because if that is your personality you'd probably end up in a field other than science, and in part because these days mastering any body of knowledge well enough to then go on and do publishable research is more than a full-time endeavor. Scientists, just like everybody else, compete for "status" and prestige, but in science status comes from the body of research that you have done. Many years ago a prominent Canadian geneticist, David Suzuki, started a second career doing science documentaries. He hosts the NOVA series, for example. Of course his productivity as a scientist fell when he did this, as there is only so much time in the day. Curiously, his efforts earned him a fair amount of disdain rather than respect amongst the genetics community, as he was no longer seen as a serious scientist. I've very recently heard similar comments about Richard Dawkins. So, even though science can benefit greatly from respected scientists who then change focus to public education, they pay a social cost within the community of their peers, which tends to discourage people from following a similar path. A self-destructive trait in the scientific community, to be sure. Again thanks for links and your insight. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Obama and his czars. Are you proposing to abolish the executive branch altogether, and have no-one as leader of the country? I assume you really mean give Obama the boot and replace him with someone more to your liking, in which case that person would still be entitled to the presidential salary, and I'm sure would appoint a cabinet and advisers to provide him with expertise and advise. So in fact your brilliant proposal would at best save virtually nothing, and might cost more depending on the advisers and the salary they negotiate. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Link is not functional: "This content is currently unavailable" Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

So just how regressive are you, actually? Civil rights too much to swallow? Suffrage for women? That whole Magna Carta thing pushing it too far? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Scientists expect their work to be critically evaluated. What is different here is a well financed and orchestrated campaign to deny every aspect of climate change science. Dr. Curry herself acknowledges that as much as 99% of the denier's claims have been rebutted many times. How many times does one have to keep answering the same arguments over and over? It would be as if every court verdict could be rejected out of hand by the defense, just keep redoing the trial over and over and over until the defense gets the verdict they want. Of course by adopting an overly defensive stance, the science runs the risk of ignoring the 1% of valid criticism that could make the science stronger. I'm not a climatologist so I can't speak from personal experience about their situation. I am a biologist, and so I am attacked (not personally, but as a member of the community of biologists) daily by proponents of creationism, usually under the guise of "intelligent design". These people keep repeating over and over the same lies and distorted half-truths that have been rebutted time and again. They do no experiments to bolster their argument, they ignore almost all of scientific literature, and they put great effort into "communicating with the public" and lobbying politicians (sort of like most of the climate change denier community). I could come in to work every day and spend the whole day typing up rebuttals to the crap posted on creationist websites, but the next day the same crap would still be up there and I would have got no work done on my own research. How much time do you think I should sink into such an enterprise? As far as "their livelihoods depend on it" goes, I somehow doubt that climatology is so well understood that there would be nothing for climatologists to do research on were it not for climate change. Perhaps so. Doubtless there are people outside the climatology field who nevertheless have expertise that could (and should) be brought to bear on the problem. So, when are you lawyers going to allow truck drivers and electricians to start trying cases or drawing up contracts? And damn those neurologists, insisting on people having actual medical training before poking around in peoples heads. Aren't lawyers and neurologists being cliquish too? Isn't that sometimes a good thing? Didn't you spend all those years in law school to acquire some actual expertise, so you'd actually know what you're talking about when you represent clients? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Interesting article. For those who are disinclined to read the whole thing, this quote (IMHO) sums up the point of the article: "So it is important to emphasize that nothing she encountered led her to question the science; she still has no doubt that the planet is warming, that human-generated greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, are in large part to blame, or that the plausible worst-case scenario could be catastrophic. She does not believe that the Climategate e-mails are evidence of fraud or that the IPCC is some kind of grand international conspiracy. What she does believe is that the mainstream climate science community has moved beyond the ivory tower into a type of fortress mentality, in which insiders can do no wrong and outsiders are forbidden entry." Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

You've misread, no-one said Hannity bitched about being fired, in fact just the opposite: "Hannity decided he ... would strike out on his own and not look back and bitch about what happened." I read that as: ...not look back and [not] bitch... As far as his employer not approving what he said, from the OP: "In 1989, a brash young guy was fired from his part-time talk radio gig at a college station in Santa Barbara, Calif., because of an exchange with a caller." It seems logical to me that he was fired by his employer, who else could it possibly have been? And when was the last time you saw a radio host get fired because the employer approved of what they said? "That was a great show Sean, we really like how you dealt with that caller, oh and by the way you're fired?" Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)