pcs

Would an operative for the DNC, Code Pink, NARAL, and those other left-leaning, Bush-bashing organizations feeding you talking points be allowed to be interviewed if her position was that Bush wasn't guilty?

How is it any different to regurgitate the views of administration critics seeking to do the same thing? You didn't get a single fact right here. There is no public evidence that either John Ashcroft or Deputy AG James Comey had reservations about the programs ultimate legality; neither has stepped forward to indicate as much. All we know is that Mr. Comey did not sign off on certain recommendations and subsequently a few tracks of the operation were suspended for a time. Everything else you claim is, as you put it, "spin." It is, and as we can see the administration's critics are not above it. Yet for some reason you feel justified in reselling their point of view wholesale. American citizens have also been exposed to the Tooth Fairy in possible violation of their 19th Amendment rights. Isn't it cute how the word possible can make even the most absurd statement reasonable? Perhaps you think your extensive background in law is enough to carry this assertion, but just for kicks how about you actually try arguing that Presidential wartime powers are circumscribed by FISA? You can start by addressing the position taken by this Justice Department and its predecessors since FISA was signed into law. Iyman Faris' conviction is, by all reports, unrelated to the domestic surveillance issue. Secondly, the Brooklyn bridge plan was scrubbed for precisely the reason you think its absurd enough to warrant mention here. Third, someone--especially a New Yorker like myself--might read your remarks here and come to the disturbing conclusion that you'd have no problem letting the Iyman Faris cell run free through New York City. Based on little more than urban legend, you've apparantly decided that the Faris cell was too stupid to be a threat. Westen's work complements a great body of research correlating bias with unreasoning thought processes (i.e., attribution error). Perhaps this should tell us something about speaking authoritatively on subjects you know nothing about. After all, you apparantly aren't so tolerant of crank rambling in the Physics forums. Jim actually has a body of polling data to point to (see lit review). That he highlights a particular case does not fall into composition, the question is what intellectual hoops will you leap through to dismiss the scientific fact that the American news media overall leans left. Conveniently, all the Democrats. So now you're in the unique position of attacking the other side's view as spin while explaining the load your shoveling--straight out of the Senate Democrat's manure patch--is the bright line of truth. When did the Administration say that spying was illegal or that the FISA process was fast enough? Seems to me that if you're going to impugn a uniformed officer like General Hayden, the least you could do is show where he or his agency or even the White House has retracted one of these two claims. Fisa churns out less than 2000 warrants a year, many of which aim to extend or modify the parameters of an existing surveillance op. Who are you to say that this is sufficient? Perhaps then, you're confusing law with politics. What is inconsistent about Presidential claims to his wartime powers and the President seeking Congressional support? Well Jim apparantly has the facts and the law on his side, and he's calling the media biased. What do you have?

No its not. Your counter-argument is an equivocation over "media," and even if you resolved it you're now arguing that composition extends to inferences of behavior from what would also include statistically significant samples.

And why's that basc?

Nothing is beneath the dignity of a King Cobra fan. On the other hand, the article refers to a psych study, and wouldn't you agree we'd get more value out of it if discussed in a forum where we're more likely to attract expert input?

No real discussion, either. Westen is modeling base rate bias in different populations under different conditions, and that is a profound piece of work in the cognitive sciences. If this study says what I think it says, you're just as likely to reject base rate information as the next guy. So let's not descend into foolish politico-bashing less when the manuscript is released we're all hoisted up by our own petards. In fact, I recommend that this thread be moved to the psych forums; it deserves more than to serve as a lightning rod for ignorant lay ranting.

Calm down, bascule. We're all friends here. Live a little.

Okay, I'll stipulate to the first dates and one night stands. So perhaps the problem isn't the women failing to understand or appreciate you, but either fully understanding and appreciating what you are by the end of the date or the next morning. That's to say, how do you know you're not the problem? Perhaps that chick from last night, eh?

Any of'em real? Is that a threat? That should leave plenty of fugly ones with great personalities for you. So why complain?

Same here. Here's the thing. Because these models are so highly conditional, I'm hesitant to attach any meaning to an overarching term. I can't say that groups tend to act this way because of all the initial and boundary conditions on the problem. Subtle differences in network structure result in, for example, large extended family societies with high rates of religiosity like those in Iraq and Palestine responding to similar conditions in chaotically different ways from large extended families in Africa or South America. The model I hinted at was specifically tied to the study of resistance and rebellion; and while Petersen finds community topology significant in determining the reaction of Lithuanians to occupation vis a vis Estonians or Ukrainians, I can't tell if it holds in the Near East absent doing the field work. In fact, there's serious questions as to whether Petersen's model is too general--like Einstein's equations absent energy conditions--to make any meaningful predictions. But at the risk of belaboring the point, I'm just uncomfortable with terms that aspire to even catch meaning across even as minimally varied a subset as Petersen's is geographically and culturally. I'm an engineer with a minor in political science, so it's not my native field. Second, I have no data to make a more general claim, but at MIT at least I observed no lack of professional respect between the social scientists and their natural counterparts. In fact, I find it difficult to believe that hard scientists are critical of the bonafides of their softer cousins in light of their active participation in a thriving world of interdisciplinary research.

Is this your first time sharing this point of view with others? I was expecting a more rigorous defense.