Pangloss

Oh yes. I think I've seen that at partisan sites like DemocraticUnderground.com. One of the sad side-effects of what happens when demogoguery poses as debate. Thanks for the clarification.

(chuckle) It's also proof that many people on the left are wrong. You do realize that it's not just conservatives who are complaining about the quality of American education, don't you?

Paying to read Paul Krugman's neo-Keynsian, ABB negativity was like wading through acid to pay your taxes. Though I must admit I was surprised to see that the numbers were so high. A quarter of a million Times-Select subscribers and a million WSJ-Online subscribers, generating $10 million and $65 million annually, respectively. Those are much bigger numbers than I would have guessed.

Really? How come?

Ben Stein too. It's an acceptable position to many wealthy Americans, and it doesn't seem to be born out of guilt complex either -- it's just sound reasoning from sound minds. Nobody likes paying taxes, of course, but the idea seems to be that they can afford it and -- and this is critical for selling it to this group of people -- it's a sound investment. I like the idea and I like that so many smart moderate fiscal conservatives are out in front on this. I'm all for cutting defense spending (intelligently). The real problem I have in Obama's case is that he's not about to cut spending on social programs. Entitlements are far greater an expenditure than defense, and correspondingly more wasteful.

(sigh) Oh well, I tried.

What does QFT mean? Nice post Severian.

Well that's interesting. It's certainly news to me, and it's interesting, but it doesn't sound like any conflict of interest has actually come up here. I agree it would be an obvious conflict if he were to actually exercise that option after seeing that Haliburton got contracts. I can't even imagine that a sitting politician would be so foolhardy. I mean what's he gonna do, stick the proceeds in his freezer?

Nice catch on the poster. I tell you what, that Romney campaign is getting pretty loony, especially now that Thompson is in the race. See my post in the other thread for his hypocritical reaction to Hillary Healthcare 2.0. Although I do find it amusing to watch the press attempt to bequeath mainstream legitimacy upon a religion that enjoys at least 13 million members (if the wikipedia article on LDS is accurate). Anything that's not based in New York City has to be quaint and befuddling, you know.

Well you're right to point out that none of the major Democratic candidates have ever advocated an outright socialized system, I agree. I'm wondering if you've noticed that your wunderkind Obama is taking a pretty moderate position here as well. Poor Jesse, what will he think of the prodigal son! It's notable that the far left isn't attacking the major Democratic candidates over this, at least to the degree that they're harassing them over Iraq.

The president and vice president do not sit on any boards of any public corporations. Nor do they have any private interests -- they even divest themselves of investments in publically-held companies. I believe there are regulations or laws about that sort of thing. I believe these rules affect ALL government officials. What you're really asking is why someone is allowed to be president or vice president when they've formerly held a position on the board of a large corporation. Obvious responses to that position include "isn't that something for the voters to decide" and "what, you can't be a board member of a large corporation and then go on to become a politician? why not?".

Hillary Clinton introduced her new healthcare plan this week, which would cost $110 billion/yr and be funded by the removal of Bush tax cuts. While this does represent a huge increase in spending, it would cover the main part of the gap that currently exists for Americans, helping with situations that aren't covered by CORBA (when departing a company) and offering government healthcare programs to those not currently able to afford coverage. The program is similar to that used in Massachusetts, which was brought in under governor Mitt Romney. But Romney calls the new Clinton plan "socialized medicine" and his people are saying that what's right for Massachusetts is not right for America. Hmm. What I think is most interesting about this is that it's Democrats who are seeking middle ground on this. Stepping back from the socialized medicine that the Michael Moore types want and allowing people to keep their current, employer-based plans. What do you all think? A relevent article: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Decision2008/wireStory?id=3610855

You're in luck! One has.

Now that wasn't very nice, Saryctos! 50 lashings with a wet noodle! But seriously, Blade, we'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

Sure, like I said I don't have a problem with bringing back the OTA. Anything to help government officials understand technology and ignore all the special interests yammering in their ears is a good thing. And the OTA's budget was friggin' trivial. What I'm not so sure about is: See the problem isn't the specificity of the science, it's the fact that you have ideologues running around parsing details and spinning them this way and that. You're not going to "silence" that just by having the government declare the science to be valid. We do that all the time even without the OTA and where has that gotten us? The EPA, the FDA, all these agencies are perfectly happy to declare a specific bit of science valid, but you still have hoo-hah's jumping up and down afterwards (just ask Tom Cruise about depression medication). The reason for bringing back the OTA would be specifically to help Congress in this area (OTA was a congressional entity), and that's a good idea because congress is even more susceptible to special interests (and irate, ill-informed voters) than the executive branch is. But it's not going to "silence" anybody. That wasn't the purpose of the OTA, it isn't the purpose of the executive-branch science-evaluating entities, and it shouldn't be the government's place to silence people anyway. Besides, you just end up looking foolish when the science turns up differently a few years later. Just ask the FDA, they know all about that one. (How long before the EPA comes back with a "woopsie" on global warming? Or gosh, sorry, I guess fetuses DO feel pain. Wups!) The way you silence ill-informed ideologues is by going around them and educating people. Disarm the demogogues by explaining why we're doing what we're doing, what will happen if new information changes the outlook down the road, and how you're going to monitor/test things. (Exactly what the FDA should be doing with drugs and long-term testing.)

I don't think the purpose of the OTA was to silence critics or form actual legislation. I don't think I want to live in a scientific dictatorship any more than I want to live in a military one. It's bad enough figuring out what drugs are good for me this week as it is.

You're right, and thank you. These are totally reasonable questions and I understand your point now. I don't think this point is unreasonable, but I don't think it's accurate to say that no diplomacy has been done at all, or that there's been no effort to involve other countries. These are tough problems and there is a lot of danger and hypocrisy in the Democratic position of "just hire us, we'll do the same stuff but this time it'll be done right". The reasons for our failures in Iraq have very little to do with George Bush and very much to do with the fact that these problems are just plain hard to solve. After all, if they were easy then President Carter (a Democrat) would have fixed them at Camp David thirty years ago. So I totally empathize with what you're saying, and I don't equate your position with the hypocrisy and idiocy we're hearing from the politicians right now. I just think we have to step above this quagmire and look at it objectively and remind these politicians that their short-term solutions do not amuse or satisfy us. What else can we do? Just to give another example of how these candidates think, Barrack Obama is espousing the position that Iraq was about oil and that if it was actually about moral authority then we'd have 30,000 troops in Sudan. He's absolutely right, but guess what? He's not in favor of putting troops in the Sudan! That's because it's more popular right now for a Democrat to espouse a position of non-involvement. But during the Clinton administration exactly the opposite was true! Bosnia, lobbing cruise missiles at terrorist camps, etc. The point being that they're just saying whatever it takes to get elected, and what it takes is saying the opposite of what your opponent says. Doesn't matter what it is, just OPPOSE it. We need to create a political environment in which that kind of opposition-for-the-sake-of-opposition doesn't profit candidates, but rather HARMS them. They want to criticize the fact that the Bush administration doesn't have a plan? Fine. HAVE A PLAN OF YOUR OWN. Not a superficial, non-sensical, just-to-get-elected one either. And I'm not defending Bush on this ground, either. He stood up in 1999 and said that he didn't believe in nation-building, and promptly embarked in the greatest example of nation-building in the history of this country. Yeah there were reasons for that change (I still agree with regard to Afghanistan), but it was a stupid thing to say and he said it just to get elected.

The subject seems to imply that this affects all aspects of governance, but the post focuses specifically on science and technology assessment. If you really meant the latter I'd be happy to insert the words "assessment program" between "government" and "in" in the subject for you. (But if it's the former then I'll happily argue the point with you. They're both interesting points for debate, IMO.)

Blade, why don't you speak your mind thoroughly and then hang around and defend your position? Much more interesting that way. I think you'll find that nobody here is really interested in hit-and-run posts. Besides, one-liners are for ideologues. Or as George Lucas put it, "Only the Sith speak in absolutes." (Isn't it amusingly ironic that a Jedi said that? You know, speaking in absolutes....)

I agree with Sisyphus. Well I might take issue with the degree to which Bush has been treated the same way -- I don't think any president has been demonized to this degree since George "The Fourth" Washginton! But yeah, I agree that they haven't deserved the kind of treatment they've received from the right. It's utterly ridiculous, and every time a far-righter complains about the way Bush is treated I remind them of the way they treated the Clintons. (And every time I'm met with "yeah but....") I think it will actually be interesting to see if the cycle is repeated beginning in 2009. I keep hoping that people will begin to set partisanship aside. It may seem like a foolish hope, but I think the benefits of faster communications and greater transparency are taking some toll on the ability of pundits and partisans to stay ahead of the backlash. Or they may catch up, I don't know. Something will be different about it, either in tone or frequency or perhaps even accuracy. But I have a thin hope that it'll be an improvement somehow. One thing I think the left is beginning to realize is the same thing that the right realized around 1999-2000, which is that they're not going to be able to objectively establish a negative legacy. They're not going to be able to write the history books, you might say. There's just too much attention focused on that sort of thing now. The first time a history text comes out that demonizes Bush you'll see people leap on it and complain. Kinda like the controversies conservatives tried to stir up over the Clinton library (re the pardons just before leaving office). The far left wants everyone to understand that Bush was evil, and they're not going to be any more successful at accomplishing that than the far right was with the Clintons. That's some kind of progress, perhaps.

So was working for the fed. One of the things I'm hoping for is a little bit more direct openness about his change of heart in that area over the years.

"Reframe the issue"? Dude did you read my last post by any chance? I don't mean to be rude it just sounds like some awful doublespeak. Aren't you just saying "we want to do the same thing Bush has been doing only we promise we'll get it right and you should believe us because we're not Republicans"?

Just to follow up on this thread's original subject, people have disagreed with me on the notion that Democratic candidates are going to back off from insisting on pullout. But just look at Obama's statements this week: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/us/politics/13obama.html?_r=1&oref=slogin He's basically saying "we have to pull out now", then going on to explain that he wants to do everything BUT pull all the troops out! What he wants to do is police and train -- something that will take a 50-75,000 troop presence in Iraq. Indefinitely. Until those elusive goals are met. So basically what Obama is really saying is "I want to do exactly the same thing that George Bush has been trying to do, only I can do it with 1/3rd the troops and this time it'll work". What, that'll happen just because he's black and a Democrat? Riiiiight.

Protecting resource supply has been one of the most important factors in world affairs since the Suez crisis. What Greenspan is really saying is that there's a fairly subtle policy distinction that takes place at an intellectual level that the current US administration (and previous British one) didn't feel the average Joe was capable of parsing. He's got a point there (Greenspan does), but the unfortunate side effect of this is the way it will be manipulated by conspiracy theory nutjobs and anti-corporation wackos the world 'round. (sigh) I've been looking forward to this book for some time now, btw, and plan to read it. I've read a couple of bios on the guy and some of his essays from his Objectivist days as well. Interesting fellow.

Now if I can only figure out what I'm going to do with 5,000 copies of this book.