Pangloss

That's an interesting point. There's definitely been a merging of media types in recent years, and just look at the popularity of YouTube, which just sold to Google for $1.5 billion. The same sort of thing happened years ago with cable vs broadcast, and we've never really resolved the situation. Are parents really that good at understanding that one channel can show female breasts to their children and another channel cannot? Seems kinda ludicrous when you think about it.

Tobias' opion is pretty much the exception. Most of the reviews are coming up negative, regardless of politics. It's apparently just not a very good movie. Two thumbs down at Ebert & Roeper, and 31% on the tomatometer (55 rotten reviews out of 80... wow). There were a few positive notices, though. My personal opinion is that one should watch and decide for themselves (that's what I always do). What I think is interesting here is that apparently the artist subverted talent for political impact. Pretty much a double whammy of bad ideas.

Just wanna say that Dak and Aardvark have managed some of the longest posts in this thread that I've ever seen in my time at SFN. ;-]

So you're saying it's better for us to attack and then leave? In the case of Iraq, wouldn't that have just result in the US taking a public relations bath for not taking care of a problem it created? Wouldn't we just be blamed for creating the "Second Shi'a State"? I hear your attempt to be reasonable and I applaud it, but I'm not sure that your suggestions are really all that much better. Which makes your conclusion (in bold above) somewhat unfair, and still about demonization instead of solution-finding.

I don't believe that's correct. Last I checked we were getting something like 13% from Saudi Arabia (out of the 60% or so that we import to make up our total usage). It may be true (I'd have to check but I believe it's the case) that we don't import any oil from Iraq. If memory serves, that oil typically goes to European markets. Not that any of this matters. Oil is a commodity, bought and sold on an equal by all purchasers on a common exchange. The main reason we get it from specific countries is because of transportation convenience and other logistical concerns, and a certain (small) percentage of contractual exchange. (The 40% we "home grow" being an obvious exception, although not entirely so -- some, particularly from Alaska, is sold overseas, particularly in Asian markets. We probably sell oil to China, who in turn sells some of that to North Korea. Go figure.)

Clearly the reptile has a phobia about trying new things!

Yeah no kidding. Some guy lost his poor pooch off the back of his pickup truck the other day and you'd have thought Al Qaeda had just penetraded NORAD, there were so many law enforcement units and reporters on the scene. Accusations of animal abuse were flying faster than Mark Foley instant messages at a congressional page convention.

The phrase "consider the source" comes to mind. Here we see the problem with ideology -- it ruins your credibility. Even if everything being claimed about Iams on any of the above web sites is true, we can't determine it objectively based on the information provided. The sources have agendas, and therefore their information is not credible. I am not opposed in theory to anything IMM brings up in this thread, from the starting of the thread itself, to working with animal rights activists to shut down offenders, to boycotting companies. But I can't support any of the above (except for the starting of this thread) without unbiased information.

Absolutely. It's been a few years since I looked at this, and I imagine others here can give some more accurate info here, but if memory serves the biggest federal bucks go to cancer and AIDS research, mainly through the National Science Foundation. The numbers are huge, but their value goes beyond the dollar amounts. One of the points that often comes up in these discussions is that federal dollars help lead the way to greater corporate and private contribution levels. Often you can't get private spending on something because either it doesn't constitute a good investment, or it doesn't constitute a popular enough cause. In other cases it may be because the end result is so far off that nobody is able to invest in such a long-term strategy -- you need federal spending to lay the groundwork (this is the territory where ESCR lies). But again, someone please correct me if I'm wrong in any of this.

Yeah I caught that bit of spin while I was watching it. But let's face it, if people can't make the distinction between a "ban on embryonic stem cell research" and a "ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research", then they're certainly not going to pick up on a subtle straw man like that. Not only did Rush stick his foot in his mouth in a huge way, but he also gave Fox (and his cause) a platform the likes he which he hasn't seen in years.

I'm not sure I agree that China's record on human rights is improving. I do think they're having to be more responsible for that behavior. The western world has more leverage in that area than they have in the past, due to increased economic interdependence. In a sense, we're waiting for the first time that China has to deal with a widespread increase in unemployment (or some other problem) amongst its new middle class. We often say "a billion Chinese can't be wrong", but it's significantly more interesting to wonder what 300 million well-educated, well-paid, well-fed, globally-communicative Chinese think when they perceive that a crisis is at hand.

It's a government conspiracy to tax sunlight.

Oh yes. Thank you, Mr. Slave!

I think I see your point. The article basically suggests that the guy was sent to jail because the government was too stupid to realize that the information he sent was already available in the public domain. (It talks about some other kinds of cases as well -- it's an interesting piece.) Unfortunately it doesn't give us the other side of the argument (if there is one), and I can think of a number of things that could have been at issue that I would wonder about if I were to analyze the case in detail. It's even conceivable that a crime could have taken place even if the information was available in the public domain. For example, did the recipient benefit from the credibility lended to that information by the offending scientist? Was there something about the finding of that information that aided the recipient in a manner that was illegal? But those concerns aside, I think the real point of the piece is that scientists are under siege in a number of different ways, ostensibly for reasons that would not exist if the justice systems in question were better educated and more knowledgable, and perhaps the laws themselves need updating as well. This seems like a very real concern to me. I don't think anybody wants the pendulum to swing completely the other direction either. Nobody wants science to be completely unchecked by ethical behavior, and it makes sense to have "civilian" oversight of funding and focus. But only if that oversight understands what the science is about, what it's trying to accomplish and what its limitations are. Failure to understand that seems to produce more harm than good. Thanks for the link.

Was that the recent episodes where they declare the 9/11 conspiracy theories to be a government conspiracy? I'm still chuckling over that one....

More confirmation that the bursting of the housing bubble is negatively impacting the economy came out this past week, when the new economic numbers showed a GDP growth rate of only 1.6%, the lowest in four years in what has generally been a good economic period (albeit not as good overall as it was under Clinton). http://news.google.com/?ncl=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi%3Ff%3D/c/a/2006/10/28/BUGC5M1GIK1.DTL&hl=en Without the housing numbers, GDP would have been up something like 2.5%. That's a huge sway for only one indicator.

I guess we could pass a law requiring a means test for ARMs, or just ban them outright, but I'm pretty dubious about stuff like that. Maybe it's necessary, not because it hurts idiots but because it hurts *me*, e.g. everybody who has to cover the focsts of defaults over the long run.

Fine, I agree with that. IMO you're mixing fact with fiction. Incidental? Abu Nidal (PLO) and Abu Abbas (PLF, e.g. Achille Lauro) were high profile cases and everyone in the world knew exactly where they were. (Does that justify the invasion? No way.) Al Qaeda met with Hussein's representatives, but nothing had yet come of it and nothing may ultimately have come of it. After all, Osama reportedly hated Saddam and there's always the Shi'a-vs-Sunni thing (it's not like Hussein was a friend to Shiites!). (Again, no causus belli.) Is the invasion building up Al Qaeda? That doesn't seem to be supportable. What it seems to be doing is building up sectarian violence/terrorism. Civil war, Sunni vs Shi'a, that sort of thing. Which would likely have happened anyway even if we'd just assassinated Hussein. (But then the ABB crowd would just be chanting a different tune: "Bush assassinated a foreign leader and started a civil war that killed thousands!!!!!") Al Qaeda rears its ugly head every now and then, but mostly gets it chopped off. But sure, I'd agree that the war has produced more terrorists, including more dead-bodies-walking for Al Qaeda. Again, I'm not defending Iraq -- I opposed it and still do. But why mix and match truth and fiction, when truth is sufficient to make your point? I think the answer is because it's not as satisfying, and I beleive this kind of intellectual bankruptcy is the root of most international anti-Americanism and anti-Bush sentiment today. What fails to be recognized is how damaging that is, and how it encourages and helps the terrorists.

Just a side note while wearing my moderator hat for the moment: The "Expert" tags are bestowed by forum management and are an official function.

Surely they had to sign some kind of "truth-in-lending" statement. I find it hard to believe that all those people were duped, especially given all the media focus on the story *at the time*. It seems more likely they knew exactly what they were getting into. That having been said, maybe those kinds of loans should be disallowed in the future, given that people are apparently too stupid to use them correctly (whatever correctly is).

Oh by the way, I think it's really interesting that as the Housing market declines, the Dow is rocketing skyward. I can't help but wonder if we're just seeing the boomers push their money around again. When the bubble burst they all became real estate flippers. Now that market is failing so they're all swarming back to the stock market. Around and around and around we go.....

I'm confused, what does the Watergate scandal have to do with the housing decline in the late 1970s? Was there a reason for mentioning that or was it just a chance to bash Republicans? I don't care if it's the later (that's your axe to grind, whatever), I'm just wondering if I missed an actual point of information here. It's an interesting premise, but there are some aspects of this whole ARM-and-refinance thing that I don't understand. Yesterday I saw a report on ABC News in which they gave an example of a single mom with two kids living in a VERY nice, VERY large house in Atlanta (clearly much larger than their needs). The reporter said that because of the new interest rate, the woman was going to have to give up her home. He explained that "she was unable to refinance", therefore she was going to have to rent an apartment for her family and give up the house. Um.... ok, but why can't she refinance? That's the thing I don't get. If the bank is telling her that the house is out of her reach, then doesn't that just reflect reality? Why can't she -- here's a thought -- LIVE WITHIN HER MEANS? It's not like her kids were out on the street -- she's clearly making real money, she just made a mistake and stepped outside of her means. Stuff happens, you deal with it and you fix problems and you move on. Where's the problem? Not that any of that has anything to do with the economy (and let's facing, bashing people who step out of their means is one of MY axes to grind! <grin>).

I don't see the point of arguing about Dr. King. If you say it wasn't your intention to quote him, I believe you. (shrug) His words are so ubiquitous that they've more or less become part of the vernacular anyway. It still pains me to see someone with your POV quoting him, so my original comment stands. I did notice that you avoided responding to the more important error you made, regarding Iraq harboring terrorists. I did respond to comments that you actually made. Criticism is easy, especially when it's criticism of other people. But you certainly have a right to your opinion. Good luck making two wrongs a right, I hope it works for you. I choose a different path. One that doesn't imply an eye for an eye. One that doesn't require holding some individuals accountable for the evil actions of other individuals. One that recognizes reality and tries to deal with it, rather than fostering blame hither and yon, per the dictates of convenience and political correctness.

I agree. The implication raised by SkepticLance, however, is that he's wholy and entirely culpable for the deaths of every Iraqi who has died as a result of the invasion. I disagree with that conclusion. There is a place in-between those two views, and it is a logical and reasonable place. You've a right to your opinion, and I respect that, but I simply don't see the value of flipping about from one extreme to another every four years, which is what has been happening of late.