Pangloss

Ok, you had your chance.

Relax, nobody's shutting anything down. If anything I'm supporting your position, so stop being so paranoid(a). ;-) This thread is absolutely NOT about whether Islam is racist or bad. It's about what we're going to allow people to discuss or not discuss. That's why we've moved it to the Suggestions forum. I have *great* concern about what our policies are and how those policies are perceived by the membership community, I'm *not happy* with the way things have been going lately, and I think my concerns are shared by not only the membership but also the leadership of the board. These issues need to be hashed out, and I'm glad that we're doing so. By all means, PLEASE continue.

Let's keep it respectful, or warnings will be issued.

This thread needs some focus. I'm not sure you guys have even defined exatly what this debate is about, much less what positions you hold relative to one another. Just to give one example, we've gone from discussing a rule of "no racist remarks" to creating a perception that no discussion that involves general criticism of religion will be tolerated, but that's not our policy -- we ALLOW that. Misunderstandings and miscommunications are flying around this thread like popcorn on the Fourth of July, and the heat of debate is completely obscuring the issues. For starters, I think the discussion of board policy should be shelved from this thread and relocated to either the General or the Suggestions/Feedback forums. Hopefully along with some suggestions for improvement instead of just criticism. Then I'd like to see people stake out their positions more clearly, and make sure they are addressed separately from other subjects. I'd also like to see more listening and less spinning.

I don't believe that. Not only is it in stark contrast with what even Bush's most ardent *detractors* say about him, but it's a dangerous and detrimental stereotype that harms the debate and poisons the political environment of the country. Don't get me wrong, I'm with you in having general dissapointment and even contempt for most politicians, but I don't believe that they're all lying, I don't believe that Bush would "sell his own mother if the price was right", and I don't believe that he "has to say Islam is cool". So how about we THINK for ourselves instead of just swapping out one ignorant stereotype for another? Why is "not condoning Islam" wrong just because it's what the establishment says? That's not thinking, that's mere dramatic rejection based on faith.

That is an excellent counter-point. Sadly I've never seen that point made in refutation to these cable news pundits. Their heads would probably explode.

For what it's worth, there is a reported study being touted about that allegedly suggests a correlation along the lines of what Mooey is saying. If I remember correctly, it just shows no drop in teen pregnancy in Europe since the introduction of Plan B (which could mean anything). I have yet to see a source on this study, it's just being quoted by all the conservative pundits on the talk shows. Even if it's true, it's a pretty heavily a pretty heavily spun piece of evidence. But it's possible I just mis-heard this, so if anyone has further details on it please pass them along for discussion.

That would make sense, thanks. That sure makes that an iffy number, though.

There's something that I don't understand about this, so maybe someone can clarify it for me. They say that this pill is something like 65% effective. Um... how do they know? Is that some sort of laboratory test, or does it mean that 35% of the women who took it in a clinical test got pregnant anyway? Because you may not get pregnant even if you DON'T take this pill, so how do they know that that 35% is strictly failure on the pill's part, rather than a simple biological "miss"?

You know "Wag the Dog" came out during the Clinton administration, right? But seriously, you may be right, but if you are that says something bad about those partisans, not about the administration. This is what I told my conservative friends who were frothing at the mouth when Clinton was impeached over a dirty blouse. You cannot let nonsense like this come to dominate the political landscape and control the message and direction of the country, because if you do it WILL come back to bite you on the rear. The great irony of this situation is that if you visit the far-left web sites these days, like MoveOn.org for example, they all talk about "winning back power". What exactly is it that they think is going to happen if they succeed, given the atmosphere that they've helped to create with their idiotic partisanship? They're going to run into exactly the same brick wall that the religious right has run into during the Bush administration (and believe me, the religious right is INCREDIBLY frustrated right now). With these extremists, it's almost as if they expect a great veil to be magically lifted from everyone's eyes the minute (Select)<Michael Moore>|<James Dobson> steps into the Oval Office, and everyone will just begin agreeing with them on everything. It's really quite comical when you think about it.

I'm not sure if the general public fully understands that Plan B is not the same drug as RU486. Folks here in ScienceForums may understand it, but I think there's a definite perception problem out in the general public that Plan B (which is actually a massive dose of hormones, if I remember correctly) is an abortion drug. I know there are some moral arguments related to the area of whether it constitutes an abortion if conception takes place but the embryo is prevented from attaching to the wall, but I think the distinction between this drug and RU486 is clear, the drug is (otherwise) safe, and that makes approving it a reasonable compromise. I think we have to consider that ANY decision on this drug would have represented SOME kind of compromise. Women with low incomes and those living in rural areas face serious issues when dealing with laws that were set by people living far away and under very different circumstances. (And shall we review the awful statistics on adoption, folks?) This is almost another subject, but I've been vacillating recently on abortion as birth control. I used to believe that the best compromise on the issue was to allow abortion, but only in cases of abuse or rape or other major complicating factors. And I'd be willing to bet that if you poll most Americans on the question "should abortion be used as a form of casual birth control", they would answer "no" in overwhelming numbers. But in fact abortion has been used as casual birth control. Not as casual as taking birth control pills, but evangelization from the left has done its best to make sure that "women's health services" makes it as easy as humanly possible to get an abortion. As a result, millions of unwanted babies, babies that could not possibly have been adopted, were not born. Now, is it possible that "the next Einstein" was in that batch? Sure, but that's the problem with statistics -- they don't work so well after the fact. He or she could just as easily be born tomorrow -- you don't know different. And in the meantime, there appear to have been multiple positive impacts on society by avoiding those unwanted births. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe that this is the best resolution to the abortion issue. It would be far more progressive for us to cultivate a society in which people really do "plan parenthood" -- thoughtfully and intelligently. There may always be unwanted babies in this world, but wouldn't it be preferable if the number of those babies was less than or equal to the number of people who are willing and able to adopt them? That would be the best ultimate resolution of the abortion issue, in my view.

I think it's a very narrow view of American politics to say or even suggest that this problem is unique to and originating in the Bush administration. It's also a rather bald attempt at ABB spin. The evidence is rather strong that this is a furthering of a very long-term problem. I have many conservative friends and I watched their reactions during the Clinton administration closely, with growing horror and incomprehension as incidents, reports and developments in the world were spun to mean that Clinton was everything from "a complete idiot" to "a genius in bed with certain corporations". Now they are the ones who look like idiots, every time the former president opens his mouth. The birth and rise of the Web, the development of conservative talk radio and news sources, the backlash against those entites, the rebirth of liberal activism, the backlash against THOSE entities, all these things have lead to a growing level of active involvement in politics by the mainstream population. And as we all know from our own discourse in this and other forums, when people who have never been exposed to intelligent but differing opinions decide to "get involved", they have to fight certain tendencies of defensiveness and close-mindedness. People around the world are going through that personal growth and development in numbers perhaps greater than at any other time in human history. In short, American political polarization isn't some sort of sensible, well-meaning backlash against a flawed and dangerous administration. It's a meandering, emotional exploration of serious topics by a group of wide-eyed children, fresh from the nursery. The sooner we take their pacifiers and formula away, the better.

I thought this was kind of an ironic twist on the whole Lieberman deal from a couple of weeks ago. Those who thought that Lieberman's loss in the Democratic primary was signallying a national trend towards the left due to the unpopularity of the war may want to take a look at this one. Granted Rhode Island is a much smaller state, but Lincoln Chaffee is as moderate as Joe Lieberman, if not more so (Chaffee, unlike Lieberman, was a member of the famous "Gang of 14" moderates who ironed out a bipartisan deal on nominations). Chaffee is a Republican that the Michael Moore and MoveOn.org crowd should like, because he's one of the few who actually voted against the war in Iraq. What's happening now is that Chaffee is under fire for not being conservative enough. A prominent local Republican is running against him, pushing a right-wing agenda, saying that Chaffee hasn't supported the president enough on major issues throughout his presidency, and has been "liberal" on major social issues. In one of the more bizarre and interesting twists in this campaign, the Republican Party has been running negative attack adds against the Republican who's running against Chaffee, saying in party that the man is "too conservative!" No, really. Of course what they're concerned about is that Chaffee will lose in the primary and then lose to a Democrat in the main election, but I thought that was an amusing development. Google News search results on the subject

Best use of Scheherezade in a YouTube video yet.

NO! Please perform the requisite ablutions at the altar of global warming.

I tell other people to save energy so I can buy bigger SUVs. And I offset Severian's damage by warning my students about the perils of faith-based science... Just kidding! But on a more serious note I think people often underestimate the value of assessing their home's energy efficiency profile. I find a very large incentive to "do something about global warming" every month when I open my electricity bill. We've re-assessed our house's energy profile twice since purchasing it, finding areas of improvement in many places, such as the better windows and doors, cleaning interior ductwork, and more. We replaced our air conditioner with a more efficient one about a year ago, and did some insulation work in the attic. Also we reduce the AC when out of the house, but not too far because then it has to do too much work when we return. Our energy bill is sometimes HALF what our neighbors with similar house sizes pay, so the savings paid off the home improvements (which also increased the value of the house) in just a few months.

I see your point, darkangel, but it's pretty obvious that if the international community doesn't stand up to its side of the cease fire, which is exactly what's happening at the moment, then it can hardly expect Israel to sit still.

Why are they hypocrits?

This thread has more re-runs than NBC. Find some common ground, or at least something new to say, or I'm going to shut it down.

Regarding Mr. D., if he'll forgive me for talking about him in the third person for a moment, he's actually gotten a lot better. He's made an effort to adjust his posting style to the community, so let's give him another shot, eh? Many of his posts have been quite interesting.

We have Tivo, but I gave up on FtN and MtP a while ago. I pick up "George" (as my wife and I call him), along with a local political show, and that's about all my stomach can handle on a weekly basis. (grin)

I think you missed his point, which was that the numbers might have been higher had it not been for the attacks. Personally I think that's awfully speculative, but it's a legitimate opinion. (shrug) Perhaps a more relevant counterargument would be to point out that the rocket attacks increased as the conflict went on, and the highest number of attacks took place on the last day of the conflict. If you need sources that indicate that Hezbollah fired its rockets from civilian areas, or that they were encamped with civilians, you can get those in five seconds at Google News. A more relevant counterargument might be to question whether they used "human shields" or deliberately placed civilians directly in harms way, or if rather they simply had no place else to shoot from. It's still arguably a semantical point, but it would certainly be relevant in some circles.

China is a permanent member of the Security Council. That's an interesting discussion in itself, but changing SC membership doesn't solve the problem of acceptance of UN rulings by non-compliant nations. Or more importantly, getting the UN to take action on controversial matters. For what it's worth, although I'm an optimist by nature, I think we have been making great progress in international relations through the UN. For one thing, problems such as Darfor and the recent Israel-Lebanon conflict receive immediate international attention these days, due to improved technology and media focus. That's certainly not as good as if they were responded to, but hey, at least it's a step in the right direction. Human beings aren't very good at taking the long view. We want problems solved immediately, not generations down the road.