Pangloss

Couple good articles worth reading. This first one is from today's Christian Science Monitor: http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/10/03/palin-limbaugh-beck-%E2%80%A6-now-it%E2%80%99s-republicans-seeing-the-downside/ The second one, which I found through a link in the CSM article, is from David Brooks at the New York Times, who points out that these demagogues don't actually represent most conservatives: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/opinion/02brooks.html?_r=2&ref=opinion Sane words in crazy times. What do you all think?

Apparently Rio wins. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2009-10-02-rio-2016-olympics_N.htm

I agree. Of course, and there are many intelligent, objective people working on such matters every day. Incidentally, I highly recommend Ronald Kessler's "In the President's Secret Service", published just last month. An excellent read. You could be right, but it raises the question of why the far left wasn't denounced by the moderate/mainstream left during the Bush administration. And THAT raises the question of whether this is really a fairly normal exercise in democracy. But I agree with you -- moderate/mainstream political organizations should denounce the extreme members/examples of their own ideologies, rather than leveraging them. That should indeed be the way human politics works. Sure, but I don't believe that comparison entirely holds true in this case. There seems to be a determined effort here to establish some sort of baseline accepted opinion that Republicans/conservatives are less rooted in reality and fact and more rooted in rabble-rousing behaviors. I submit that this is an opinion, and not a particularly important one, and in my opinion it is counter-productive and obscuring. I don't believe it is important to determine which side, if any, tends to be more right than the other. What's important are the issues themselves, and the facts regarding them. You all are, of course, welcome to feel differently, as I'm sure many of you do.

Accusing the opposition of deligitimizing an argument is just another form of deligitimization. I don't see a lot of value in scaring people that Obama might be assassinated. It certainly shouldn't change his policies, so what's the point?

Sorry I haven't followed up on this, but work is absolutely killing me this week. Good thing I don't have to pray for my health care! I did find the link to the ABC News story: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/faith-based-health-care-evangelical-christians/story?id=8696127

Oh my. ABC News just ran a story on this and I'll post the link here later after the print version it appears on their web site. But Google News did produce one article from some local outlet that I've quoted and linked below. Apparently tens of thousands of Christian evangelicals are participating in "alternate health care" plans that entail spending a fixed amount every month tailored to be viewed as cheaper than a real health care plan -- in order words you cancel your existing insurance-based plan and go with this one instead. The plan consists of sending your payment each month to those members of the plan who are currently in need of medical care, at the direction of the ministry running the plan. So if you're a family of four and your payment is $289, you mail it each month to the address given to you by the minister running the plan. http://www.baptiststandard.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10092&Itemid=53 The reason this has come up is that ministries are concerned that they won't be allowed to continue their practice if health care reform has passed. But experts caution that this is exactly the sort of thing that should be STOPPED by health care reform. Um. Wow.

... and Washington bids a hearty welcome to the junior senator from Minnesota. But seriously, I applaud this, because it has a two-way effect, not only forcing lawmakers to deal with the consequences of their often inattentive and reactionary post-9/11 behavior, but also encouraging the American public to pay closer attention and think more proactively about the issues.

Good background on the developments regarding this week's revelation of Iran's second nuclear processing plant may be found here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/26/AR2009092602022.html?hpid=moreheadlines One of the more interesting things I heard this week was some insight from ABC's Jake Tapper, who reported that there seems to be a developing consensus regarding the handling of Iran, at least with regard to nuclear weapons. The general idea seems to be that pursuing and pressuring seems to be paying off. In short, when Iran cheats, it gets caught. And more importantly, when it gets caught it weakens their diplomatic support from China and Russia, threatens their oil revenue, and, internally, weakens their elected leaders and riles up the unemployed masses. I was unable to find a link for that video report, but I thought it interesting enough to pass along. I think it makes a lot of sense, and given the abject failure of threats of physical attacks (and actual physical attacks), this would seem to be a wise course for the international community to continue to pursue. What do you all think?

Can somebody grab the wheel while I reply to this thread?

I made the requested changes but I think some additional posts were added before that got done. Do any other posts need moving? The split thread is here: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=44314

Addressing two comments at once here: He also said after the DC Gun Ban was overturned that he opposes absolute bans on gun ownership. Our president, by the way, is a former constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, and holds a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude after service as president of Harvard Law Review. (I just mention this because I think it's relevant to any discussion that includes a question of whether a politician understands the value of a particular amendment to the constitution.) Here are a couple of interesting quotes from our president in his own words: And I can't resist repeating my favorite quote from the entire book, which comes right on the heels of the above: Elsewhere in his book he states a belief that guns should be controlled to keep them out of inner cities, but in the same paragraph talks about how the real problem is not the guns but the people using them and the problems and stresses they're dealing with. Which sounds very much like the NRA's unofficial motto, "guns don't kill people, people kill people." This is the problem with using voting records to reach conclusions like SH3RLOCK's "he's more extreme than the NRA". A deeper look is required.

Isn't the reason that the law does not provide an "out" for the consent issue that there's no good scientific mechanism for doing so? (E.G. statutory rape.) If that's the case then that would seem to be a relevant, secular reason to disallow marriage below a certain age, regardless of the adult. (NAMBLA can't look to SFN for support quite yet.)

Woot! I'm not sure I read that first paragraph right (it's early!), but that sounded like a "golden rule" argument! We haven't had one of those in a while. There are actually some relatively logical counter-arguments to the ethical principle of reciprocity. The most obvious one is that not everyone obeys the rule, which gives non-obeyers a distinct advantage. They might suffer the consequences, but then again they might not. Another argument is that since not everyone has the same values, they can't all be assumed to obey the rule in the same manner, even if they accept its in principle. But I may be straying outside of our scope, so I'll just leave it at that.

Mooeypoo is made of awesome. (Needed to be said, and yes that is an official mod comment.)

I agree with this: But I'm afraid you lost me here: Especially with this: But I am down with much of what padren is saying, which I recognize is coming from the same sentiment. Edited for brevity, but those were some great examples. I'm not entirely clear if padren is suggesting changes or if he's saying that we're actually successful even if we only CHALLENGE the opinion-holder (Sisyphus is really good at this, though I have to say budullewraagh was the all-time SFN champion at being cool with simply having raised a question). But either way it's an interesting discussion and it should continue. Speaking only for myself, I am open to change and suggestions for different approaches here. I welcome the input, and have long felt this discussion to be overdue.

Great posts all over the place. I draw a distinction between accusing a political party of lying and accusing an individual of being a liar (the latter being more objectionable because it's so much more personal), but politics IS a hot kitchen. But what I really wanted to reply to (albeit briefly since I'm at work) is this:

I think the way that capitalist meme is supposed to go is that just because a system is fair (just, equal, etc) doesn't mean that everyone will be successful to the same degree. For one thing, equality under law doesn't equate to equality in life. People die, they get into horrible accidents; they fail entrance examinations -- things happen. But it's also not an attempt to create equality in the result. It's about fairness in opportunity, not making everyone the same. Put another way, one might say that the point of pure capitalism is equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. The point of pure socialism is equal outcomes, regardless of opportunity. The irony is that whenever these pure forms are attempted in the real world, the capitalists don't get equal opportunity and the socialists don't see equal outcomes.

This is a good point that I cannot remember anyone making before, especially with regard to clarification.

Well said!

Nope, not to me. A lot of that "spiritualism" stuff isn't overtly religious in nature, either, but I still object to it as a skeptic. That's a good point about nearing death changing your views because you're no longer concerned about the future.

ROFL! You guys have created quite a stir here at SFN World Headquarters. Mooey is running around in circles screaming "We're smarter than that! We're smarter than that!", swansont is shoving pushpins in cute little Pangloss and iNow dolls (I think mine's head is about to fall off), and somebody keeps crank-calling blike at 3am and saying "He's yelling fire in a crowded theater!" and hanging up.

No, folks. No. Several posts have been soft-deleted, some of which MAY be restored and/or moved after review. Meanwhile you're all instructed to re-read what Mooeypoo tried to explain to you over the last couple of pages. This thread is closed.

Have you guys had this happen on your campuses? It's a thing they've started doing on our campus following in the "spiritual footsteps" of Randy Pausch and his famous "last lecture" before he died of cancer. What's really unfortunate, at least in my opinion, is that a lot of the lectures are posed as religious (or at least "spiritual") in nature. The lecture series on our campus is sponsored by the campus' "spiritual life" club. In fairness, they're still mainly focused on personal achievement and goal-setting, which I think is a good thing to talk to college students about in general. But it raises some real questions in my mind about the seemingly alleged superior validity of pre-death opinions and the promotion of spiritualism over reason. Have you all seen this happen on your campuses, and what's your take on it?

Thanks for trying. The Wikipedia has a write-up about the controversy surrounding this restriction here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSM_blood_donor_controversy Europe apparently has the same restriction (according to the article), as does Canada. According to the article there's a gap between reception of HIV and display (testability) of it that can range as high as six months. So one would think that it would be logical to ask whether the donor has had sex with another man within the past six months. Of course that doesn't rule out needle-sharers. The real question in my mind is what does this say about testing? Is not all blood checked? Is it checked but the tests aren't quite up to snuff? I don't know, and these seem like good questions to me.

"Dictator" means someone with absolute power. Even in the Wikipedia. Certainly it has come to be used as an adjective to exaggerate a case, but if you use it in that sense then you label yourself as exaggerating the case.