Pangloss

I'm not ignoring you, Cap'n, I'm disagreeing with you. If that's what you believe he meant, good for you.

According to this article we will soon see a host of gadgets that recharge themselves or other devices' batteries by converting natural movement energy into electrical power. http://www.news.com/2300-1008_3-6229842-1.html?tag=nefd.pop I thought that was kinda interesting in part because I'm currently reading "Pushing Ice" by Alastair Reynolds (pretty good book, btw), which features a lot of tech like that. The original article in Science is here, but it's subscription-only: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/319/5864/807

I disagree, and this kind of hair-splitting strikes me as embarassment-by-proxy. This man is universally hailed and respected, and he's suggested an action that's so awful and detrimental to his own cause that it cannot be believed by his adherents. He simply must have meant something else. Yeah, that's it. But hey, that's just human nature. I don't fault people for having opinions different from mine. I wouldn't, like, throw them in jail or anything. Live and let live, I say. So be it. (shrug)

Hey guys, the point's been made, let's not rub anyone's nose in it. I'm quite proud of this thread, exposing one of my favorite pet peeves around here. This thread is a job well done, and it's nice to know I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Oh I know, that's why I made that joke!

Yah I think I caught a bit of this in a Rush quote on a TV show the other day, showing him asking when the measure of a conservative became "reaching out to liberals". I can understand how that can be frustrating when one believes in a cause, but that really irked me as a moderate, and I think it even irked some of his own base as well. Down deep, people just seem to know that partisanship is wrong.

Idolators!!!!!!

Oh yes, I'd forgotten about the communist threat. (grin)

I think partisans like blockage. But remember, congress has become known for blockage, and congress's approval rating is even lower than Bush's. I don't think the people, by and large, like blockage at all. They may like it on an individual issue basis, but on the whole they think it stinks. That's part of what I mean when I say Rush has overplayed his hand.

Douglas Schoen is a pollster who has written a couple of books recently about angry and motivated voters. He invented the term "RAM" that you hear talked about a lot lately, which stands for "restless, anxious moderates". I think he suffers from some of the same perspective weirdness that a lot of pollsters have, but he does raise some interesting points. His new book, Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two-Party System, went on sale last week, and looks fairly interesting. His previous book, The Power of the Vote: Electing Presidents, Overthrowing Dictators, and Promoting Democracy Around the World, went to paperback last month and was a bestseller, if memory serves. I've not read either book yet. Schoen has an interesting op/ed piece in the Sunday Washington Post, which you can read here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/08/AR2008020803270.html Couple interesting quotes that I think tie in with a lot of our discussions here: Wow! I think he's right on target, and really speaks to a lot of what I've been feeling. I think this is a big part of why Bill O'Reilly is so popular, for example, because he "looks out for the folks", though he could just as easily be called a "populist in name only" (PINO? lol). Perhaps move revealingly, I think it speaks to what's been going on between Obama and Clinton in the Democratic race. Makes sense. He also talks about the how this has played out in the Republican race -- clearly this explains at least part of McCain's rise. I've been saying for a while now that mainstream Republican voters don't WANT a religious conservative to represent them, and while that may seem like a lonely plea here at SFN, I can assure you that it is a very common complaint in the red states. This article seems to back that up. Amen, brother Schoen! (errr....) But perhaps the best part is that he gives RAMs credit for wanting substance: Right on! To me that's what really characterizes this as more than just a typical voter mood swing. People are really asking for answers, not just "CHANGE". When they see a candidate is just saying something different in order to get elected, they sense that and quickly switch their allegiance, and that's why this election has been so astonishingly difficult to predict.

Somebody (I think it was Sisyphus?) asked in an earlier thread why I felt there was some value in Rush and his ilk, and that's the kind of thing I was thinking about right there -- the idea that CTR has, at some level, helped some folks activate their personal interest in politics. That's all the value I think it really has, but I think it's important and significant value. (shrug) And that's exactly what happened with me, except the host in question was Neil Boortz. --- Just to expand on the Rush angle a bit (since it gets back to the subject of this thread), I think it's interesting to look at the approach he is taking to this situation. I was a bit surprised by some of what he was saying on Friday, and I think it bears further discussion. It was "open line Friday", and pretty much all the calls were about the McCain situation. Caller after caller was of the "long time listener, first time caller" variety. It was fascinating to hear all these Rush fans questioning his judgement about McCain -- I can't remember ever hearing that on his show before. These are, after all, the "ditto heads"! But there were no dittos on Friday. Some callers agreed with him about McCain, but questionned the tactic. In other words, they were asking (and believe me, they were asking) if they should support McCain if he is the nominee, simply because he is Republican, and therefore has to be better "for the country" than the Democratic alternative. Rush's response was invariably the same, which was that at this point it no longer matters who the next president is. In other words he's basically thrown in the towel. But he's not telling people not to vote, he's actually telling them to get out and vote for Republican Senators and Congresspeople, so that the next president, whomever they are, will find it more difficult to move to the left. In other words, he was preaching for blockage. I think it will be interesting to see how well that plays out in the minds of voters. Personally I can't really see the average person, even Rush fans, adhering to that approach. It's too complicated, and it's too antithetical to the general American way. But it may actually play out that way, in that politics often involves blockage, and Rush will no doubt take credit for that during the next administration. So I think we're getting a little bit of a glimpse here at how that particular area of opposition will behave over the next 4-8 years. But in the short term I think he's wrong, I think he's misplayed his hand, and I think McCain will have broad support amongst Republicans and moderates. I think the base will vote for him in higher numbers than Rush believes, and I think his dignitas will suffer for this move.

Well, whether or not it's a straw man kinda depends on the purpose for having the phrase "under god" in the pledge, right? Not that I'm disagreeing with YT, because overstating the case doesn't serve anyone, but to a certain extent the example might illustrate the point that the pledge has been essentially corrupted by a specific ideology, which I think is what bothers a lot of people about that particular 1950s-era addition. The pledge with "under god" is only a violation of separation if the pledge is legally binding and required. I've always had mixed feelings about this issue, but I do think it's worth remembering that the purpose of separation is not to remove religion from governance. Nobody expects every government official to eschew their religion and their public expression of it. The harm comes from forcing other people to adhere to it.

What I want to discuss is the fact that a well-known and well-respected scientist wants to silence by force any dissent on this issue. That sort of thing is extremely contrary and deleterious to a free society.

I don't think it's nonsense at all, I think it's a particularly insidious brand of emotional rabble-rousing that has a major impact in the current political climate, and has for a significant period of time. My interest is clinical and academic, primarily from the perspective of a political observer.

Obviously iNow disagrees with you, Captain, so I'm not the only one who sees this also as a cry for new laws. But let me see if I can produce a counter example that you may agree with, as an alternative to the example I gave earlier about Creationists, which was found to be objectionable (gee, what a shocker). Are you and Sayonarra basically saying that if someone were to call for the arrest of scientists who were subverting the federal ban on embryonic stem cell research (using federal funds to conduct this kind of research in direct violation of the ban), that you would support their arrest and incarceration in compliance with the law? Is that your position, in a nutshell? The problem with that reasoning is that we all know full well that no laws have been violated here. That part of his message is so fully and completely understood to be inapplicable that bringing it up is simply an exercise in dancing around the real issue, which is doing something to stop any and all dissent on global warming, no matter what it takes. And this thread has played right into that garbage, hook, line, and sinker. If you want to believe that maybe we can dig something out of some obscure Tome of Forgotten 19th Century Laws, go right ahead. But you're just avoiding the issue.

That's interesting, I wasn't aware of that much disparity. Thanks for passing it along. What I'd read was that it was going to take some time to count some of the election results. Is ABC just throwing in estimates the numbers that are still being counted or something? Shades of 2000, I guess.

Sure, I am always interested in your opinion, even when I disagree with it.

The purpose of this thread was to point out that this SCIENTIST wants to render illegal any dissention on the issue of global warming. And that opinion is holding sway here not because it's a good idea to criminalize dissent (an issue you're simply chosing to ignore), but because the dissent being demonized is on the issue of global warming (so it's seen as ok). You don't like it when conservatives do it. But you're just fine with it when liberals do it. And I have absolutely nailed this case.

What does any of this have to do with your question regarding Mike Huckabee's qualifications as a conservative? I'm not going to argue with you or D H about whether Huckabee is a "valid" conservative. That's like trying to tell somebody what their opinion should be. You asked me what makes Huckabee a conservative. I've answered your question. You want to try and convince people that people have to be WAY right of center, or hold certain specific positions, in order to qualify as conservative, you go right on ahead. I listened to two hours of this on Rush today, and I was laughing the whole time. So I see no point in arguing about it. All you're really accomplishing in the end is handing the election to Obama on a silver platter.

I heard NASA dropped WTC Building 7 using rocks launched at high velocity from the moon.

Exactly.

Immigration (rejection of "amnesty"), support for the death penalty, and rejection of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research should be pretty good clues.

I'm not. Of course his spokesman said he was just kiddin' around. So he was just making a bland, off-topic remark about the importance of law enforcement in a civil society that just happened to fall in the middle of a rally on global warming. (hehe) Okay, guy.

Some rude and pointless rants between two members have been removed. Take it to PMs, guys. That was just silly.

Vowing to begin withdrawl in 60 days regardless of the situation equates to "seems all for the status quo in Iraq"? I guess if that's what you need it to mean.....................