Pangloss

K, that's enough of that. Y'all know better than to stoop to that kind of nonsense. Choose again.

I wish it were that simple. But the fact of the matter is that no matter how good our educational system is you're not going have the time to train, for example, nuclear physicists to understand, for example, meteorological models. At some point you have to work at above the level of data, and that becomes a matter of imprecise judgement based on your understanding of the qualifications and background of the person making the assessment that you're reading. I'm not saying modern journalism isn't cracked, but I do say that it doesn't work in a vaccum. The idiots are daily exploited by people who do know better, but see an obvious avenue for personal gain by contradicting something that actually doesn't have a counterpoint. I don't dispute that this has been a key trend for a while now, but I think that's a unilateral view, and much like your unilateral view of what constitutes science, it doesn't stand the test of historical truth. Not all Dems used critical thinking. Not all Reps were guilty of avoiding it. It just isn't that simple, guy. That's an excellent point, and well put. But look at how long it's taken us to get to this point. I really think your beef is more about timing than recognition of truths. Maybe I'm reading between the lines too much, and I don't mean this in a derogatory manner, but you seem more upset with the amount of time it takes society to come to conclusions and reach a consensus than anything else. I certainly empathize with that frustration on many issues, but that's why I tend to take the long-term view on most socio-political matters. I don't worry to much about whether the Republicans or the Democrats are correct on a day-to-day basis. I wait for the judgement of history. That's not to say that sitting back and ignoring issues is a good idea -- of course it's not. But it's also not a good idea to go leaping here and there with one idea or another without immediate, direct knowledge of what's actually happening. I ran across a perfect example of this (if wildly off-topic) the other night while watching the wonderful documentary "Fog of War", an Oscar-nominated film about Robert S. McNamara, who was the Secretary of Defense that basically put us in Vietnam. He was absolutely vilified and hated by the anti-war crowd and blamed by the moderates as well. But the evidence today (and certainly his point of view) suggests that he was basically just doing what Johnson told him to do, and actually tried to prevent Vietnam. I'm not a climatologist, a physicist, a biologist, an astronomer (well that one's never very controversial I guess), or anything else except a maybe somewhat knowledgable about computers (working on a PhD in the subject). All I can do is rely on the knowledge of others, and do my best to look beneath the surface as well as I can from this distance. What else can I really do? And this is where we will have to agree to disagree, because I don't see easy answers, quick tests, simple rules to follow here. No matter who's involved, or what they're telling me. I wish I did. But I just don't. That was a really thoughtful and interesting post, btw.

I don't believe any of that, except perhaps that first point -- I think that one is possible. The rest I don't buy for a nanosecond. You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but mine differs. I don't think he would have left Kuwait until he was forced to do so, and sanctions never had any impact on him at any point in the 12 years after he was forced out, so there's no reason to think sanctions would have ever removed him from Kuwait. You can point to many statements that his people made saying they were going to leave, but of course they said that. They were very good at propaganda (and some people in the west were very good at buying it, even people who like to say they ask questions and don't listen to propaganda, hint hint).

Maybe it's a bit silly, but I absolutely loathe spoilers. I hear that some news sites are ruining the last Harry Potter novel by publishing early reviews with spoilers. And I suspect other news organizations will pick up the story and run with it, carrying the spoilers along for the ride. That really makes me mad. So for the next week, or however many days it takes me to plow through HP7, I'm boycotting all news services. Bah!

Why does this happen? It really annoys when you tell me what I'm discussing (this isn't the first time it's happened). Go back and reread the subthread. You're intelligent, so it can't be that reading comprehension is the issue here. I made a legitimate response to lucapsa's post, and you hen-pecked me for no reason at all. No, I didn't forget to put the quote tags around that. That is my reply. If you have anything further to say on this, show a little common courtesy and take it up with me in private.

You know, when I saw that I thought it was odd, so I went and typed it in at Wikipedia and it rerouted me to filibuster. I think that may actually be a legitimate spelling. At the very least I'm pretty sure I've seen it spelled that way before. Anyway, weren't they all filibustering?

Absolutely. It gets really frustrating when they do it out of ignorance. IMO a journalist should be able to at least tell the difference between a quack and a serious scientist in most (sure, maybe not all) cases. I agree with this statement, but I think it's important to understand that they did not do so in a vacuum. The allure of conservative talk radio, for example, is that it fires up what at leasts initially appears to be critical thinking and objective reasoning. That allure grew out of decades of Democratic control of Congress and a gradual progressive trend in this country that had become more focused on political correctness than true liberal thinking and in my opinion well needed a sharp stick in the eye. But the situation today is very different, and any gain we might have seen from that awakening is more than offset today by partisanship. We have to motivate people to move past the superficial appearance of critical thinking, and dig deeper. Incidentally, it was the earliest form of conservative talk radio (in the mid 1980s) that ignited my own interest in critical thinking and political observation. Neil Boortz, to be specific. I was flunking out of Georgia Tech, aimless and unmotivated, and working part time in a Fotomat booth. Were it not for Nasty Neil I would not be here today, either virtually or in my career. So I guess you gotta give 'em credit for one thing, at least. We might have to agree to disagree on this, but I respect where you're coming from with it. While I absolutely agree with your point about scientific fact, much of what happens in science today isn't fact at all, it's statistical approximation and presumption (especially in the areas of medicine and the environment). At any rate, you're actually agreeing with me when you say "we should probably be teaching them not to allow themselves to compromise the science for their personal beliefs and/or financial gain". That's ethics, not science.

No, it isn't. Sworn testimony is a public statement, which is what you were discussing.

I agree. If the legislative branch wants to retain that power then it should deny war authorization bills from the executive branch. That should have happened with Iraq. The fact that it didn't, and their behavior since that time, says a great deal about the quality of people we put in legislature. It's worth mentioning at this point that of the three senators who are front-runners for president, none of them can claim moral high ground here, even Obama who wasn't in the senate at the time that the authorization was voted on. Obama wouldn't have voted for it, but I'm not convinced that his reasons are compatible with mine. Or put another way, I'm not sure he would have voted for war on Afghanistan either, which was absolutely warranted.

Fair Warning: Future personal attacks and ad homs in this thread will be deleted and infractions issued.

A candlelight vigil?!?! Bwahahaha! What a perfectly PC outlet for a perfectly PC event. Oustanding. They sang "We Shall Overcome", I assume, right? Thanks, that made my whole morning.

True enough, though not particularly relevent, IMO. But then neither was the impeachment itself. At the rate we're going impeachment is going to become pro forma.

None of which I am aware. Bill Clinton wasn't impeached because of a statement to reporters.

It won't accomplish anything, but it's been interesting viewing on CSPAN2 today (if you're a politics geek like me). The ironic sight of Harry "No you can't have an up-or-down vote" Reid demanding an up-or-down vote has been amusing as well. Best part was watching John McCain take both sides to task for being hypocrits. He may be staring sunset in the face, but he's still got the old fire.

Thanks! They seem to have fixed the APOD site now but I appreciate the excellent link.

Gosh we're evil. I had no idea I was so bad. I will just hang my head in shame from now until I die, which will hopefully be soon because the world will clearly be so much better off without me in it.

I'm at a loss as to whether you read the same post I wrote. You seem to take umbrage with it, but as far as I can tell it doesn't contradict what I said.

My home page for many years (over ten?): http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html Dunno if anybody else here follows APOD, but I've noticed that the site's been down for over a day now. Does anybody know anything about this? There's just a notice there saying that they're having technical difficulties. I was wondering if it maybe got hacked or defunded or something.

Two good points, both point and counterpoint. Not to derail, but I think this is yet another example of how partisanship has made it more difficult to obtain objectivity and make critical decisions. We can still do it, but it's harder now. One thing that I think scientists, engineers and especially journalists need to understand is that doing the same thing in the opposite direction does not constitute objectivity and correct decision-making. Just as Republicans/conservatives have tried in recent years to tip the scales their way, Democrats/liberals have thrown up examples of the same for decades, and some of them would be quite willing to have another go at it today. For every fruitcake who insists that the word "God" be in every sentence a school child utters, there's another fruitcake that insists that the word "God" has to be removed from every facet of school or the child will be irreperably damaged. Scientists, engineers and journalists need to be ABOVE this. It isn't enough anymore to ignore politics, as so many in our fields have been content to do for decades. You have to weigh political opinion and action, with every bit of the same studiousness that you use to weigh physical evidence and mathematical formula. And even worse -- you also have to work out the correct moral/ethical implications without the moral compass of ideology. Not an easy thing to do. But that's exactly what we're supposed to be doing, and that's exactly what we should be teaching science, engineering and journalism students today.

Only when it takes place under sworn oath. Funny side note: I got the DVD of Clinton's testimony right here in my DVD collection. If I remember correctly, it was a "free" buy from Netflix back at the time. I think the owner of that DVD rental company (the largest in the US) gave it to anybody who asked, only charging for shipping and handling (or maybe not even that; it's been a while).

Has anyone heard whether the United Nations has changed its requirement that a national (three-faction) agreement regarding distribution of oil revenue be in place in Iraq before exporting will again be allowed? This was the case the last I checked (maybe a year ago) but I haven't heard anything about it in quite a while.

Too bad that followed "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

Yah, well put. I still suspect that sooner or later Hussein would have let them in. (This is where I disagree with Bombus' post above -- he stopped being "our guy" in 1991.) But we should have waited for that to happen, and I would have supported action once it did. You know, reading the way you put that is giving me a new perspective on what you guys mean when you complain about the phrase "war on terror". It's not that you don't agree that we're fighting bad guys, and it's not about Bush-bashing. It's about something getting enlarged that simply didn't need to be enlarged. Thank you for that insight.

Wow, some really bang-up posts in this thread, especially from agentchange and geoguy. You guys are on fire. I don't entirely agree with all of your points, but I do agree with much of it and you really said it well. I thought this was a real thought-provoker from geoguy: Sad but true. One thing that occurs to me is that it's unlikely that "get out now" poll numbers will go any higher. Some people just never change their minds and stubbornly hold the line regardless of the poll question or their actual feelings, and we see this in election polls all the time. So the number's probably just going to sit there from now until the end. I say this not because I think it's a good thing, but because I think it's a bad thing -- it can easily be misinterpreted. I can see the White House Staff now: "Uh yeah, it's leveled off, but that's not a victory, Mr. President. It's just a polling plateau."