Pangloss

Yes, it may be a larger issue, but it's not the one I wanted to talk about in this thread. You can start a thread to discuss Dick Cheney and his link to counterterrorism if you want. This one is about congressional notification of secret intelligence. Thanks. In answer to your question, the accusation might have been something like "he wants to ensure that the number of congressional members kept in the loop remains small so that he can control them politically and reduce their influence on a vote that he doesn't like". The same accusation could be leveled against the Obama administration, but it won't be because he's an angelic liberal Democrat (played by Tom Hanks) instead of a sinister conservative Republican (played by Anthony Hopkins). Isn't politics fun?

I agree, Bascule, but it's still a lot of spending. I'm afraid so. Even so the president's political opponents are already hard at work insisting that had we not done TARP the situation would be a lot better. They can't possibly know that, but they say it anyway, and those comments will have value amongst the recent unemployed. But it's undeniably truth that had we done nothing unemployment would have gotten worse (everyone agrees on this). And the unfortunate truth of politics is that lack of action that is followed by worsening economic news always reduces confidence in the current government, 100% of the time. Doing nothing is not an option. Not when Democrats are in charge. Not when Republicans are in charge. So Eric Cantor is not being honest. I agree, but I have to say that I'm concerned about the buzz about another stimulus package currently making its way through political circles in Washington. The need for patience seems to exist on both sides fo the aisle at the moment. It's understandable -- mid-term elections are only a year off, and most of Congress is working harder at earning money for those races than they are studying bills currently before them. But I think once they think it through they'll probably come to their senses.

Interesting article in the New York Times on Friday: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/us/politics/11protest.html?ref=politics These folks need to be careful. The issue is not Obama, it's acceptance of the science by the public. IMO only an extremist could believe that Obama lacks sincerity or motivation on the issue of global warming. He's going to continue to do the best that he possibly can, gradually ramping up over time. I think the mainstream environmental groups have it right in supporting these bills and keeping the general pressure on to move forward, not demanding the most aggressive bills possible and shoving it in the face of Christian conservatives, which is the sort of thing that just gets turned around four years later. We don't need two steps forward and one step back. We need one careful, realistic step, followed by another, followed by another. What do you all think?

This is the sort of thing that, had it happened during the Bush administration, would have been pounced on as an example of our civil rights being trod upon. Note the last paragraph of this article: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/11/cheney.surveillance/ I think Obama is right, and Congress needs to take its single-digit approval rating and buzz off. What do you all think?

This is good, right? Seems that way to me. One of the financial companies that got a huge bailout is about to report a big profit in the same quarter that it paid back $10 billion in TARP loans from the taxpayer. Apparently they're on track for their most profitable year ever, and their share price is up 73% from where it crashed to. To me this seems to be not only a sign of recovery, but also a sign that our compromise system of governance, neither socialism nor pure capitalism, can continue to drive our society forward. I imagine opposition comments will come in along the lines of "well of course they turned a profit -- they got bailed out". But at the time didn't they tell us that these companies would fail anyway, and that our bailouts would be for naught? Didn't they tell us that it was better to let them fail? Does anybody want Goldman Sachs to fail NOW? http://www.reuters.com/...iv/idUSTRE56969Y20090710

As unemployment figures have grown, critics of the administrations stimulus policy have acquired more headway. This comes right at the moment when we're considering vast spending on health care; a fact that is clearly not lost on political Washington. An interesting article talking about Obama's plans for encouraging people to be patient on this issue: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/11/AR2009071102465.html?hpid=moreheadlines I think he's correct, and most of the criticism is political in nature and not based around better ideas and solutions. I think it's also inaccurate and misleading for conservatives to point at the 8% figure, which was put forth as an optimistic goal, and declare that the administration has failed. We knew all along that this was a possibility, and we know that unemployment is a lagging economic indicator. That's one of the things that really irks me about politics, when people who's job it is to be optimistic, and when we know full well what the other possibilities are, but then we bash the optimists anyway just for being optimistic, which is exactly what they were supposed to do. How does this make any sense at all? What do you all think?

Had I said "The fact that these scientists believe the Bush administration stifled science does not in itself prove that it did so", I would have received the exact same sort of minor insult that I received in this case. And as Saryctos indicates above, it was on-subject. Your "steering" is inappropriate. Please move on from this. Thanks.

Actually it appears to me that the subject of this thread is what 71% of scientists believe. It is perfectly reasonable to discuss the subject of this thread, and offer a different opinion from yours regarding both its value and what it means.

10 out of 10 Catholic priests believe in an afterlife. They're the experts, so I guess I'd better straighten out and fly right.

In the newly approved version he seeks to kill the Gorn using bamboo, diamonds, and salted Peeps.

I know exactly how you feel.

Remember the one advertising the doctor's office on East 79th?

"President Obama traveled to Russia because from there you can see Sarah Palin packing in her office in Alaska." - Conan O'Brien

Hey Mooey, I believe that spammer works about 4.5 blocks east of the Metropolitan Museum. Taking everyone over there for a "scientific inquiry" could be an amusing way to follow up on the meet-and-greet.

Classic.

Article in the New York Times today, drawing an interesting comparison with Richard Nixon. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/us/05palin.html?ref=global-home Pretty hard to see Palin as the next Nixon -- Nixon was a brilliant strategist. But I can see the comparison in terms of direction.

In a surprise move, Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has announced her resignation, giving her state's citizens three weeks' notice. Palin was elected in 2006, and will have held office for a bit over two and a half years. Her term would have ended in 2010. http://www.freep.com/article/20090704/NEWS07/907040425/Palin+quits++fueling+talk+of+run+in+2012 Some of the articles flying around suggest that this is a move aimed at the presidency, but it seems really odd to me because that's still quite a long ways off. I agree with Newt Gingrich, which is why I linked the article above, who said "This hardly seems like a well thought-out strategy." Still, the drawn-out schedule of presidential runs is such that she would have had to run for re-election as Alakasan governor after having already announced a decision to run for US president, which effectively means that she would not have run for governor again. So there is some fuel for that fire. I could be wrong but I think she's throwing in the towel on politics. Call it a hunch. What do you all think?

I think it's pretty useless *for me*, but I've noticed a number of new forms of technology arise in recent years that don't seem particularly useful to me but are apparently useful to other folks. And I don't mean sporting equipment for sports I don't play, I mean stuff that's intended for general use. Examples seem to run the gamut from Amazon Kindle to Segway scooters. Oddly enough, some technologies seem to find their way into my ownership later on, either because of adoption by friends/family, or just because a need or interest arises at a later time. Examples of this (for me) have included smart phones, Facebook and music games (ala Guitar Hero). So while I see little value in Twitter at the moment (other than the political implications iNow brought up regarding Iran, which I also thought was interesting), I'm much more hesitant to dismiss it than I might have been a couple of years ago. No matter how things change, the rate of change keeps increasing.

bombus is taking a brief holiday for harassing staff and breaking various rules.

Not to get too far off subject, but I have no problem with that second video. An 11 year old actively attacking a female student? Only one security guard present? Hell yeah, those kids can put the smack down when they really want to. For what it's worth. The old lady, though... that's just cold. Step away, take a deep breath, and call for some backup. Yeesh.

Pfft. The 60 paladins I know wouldn't be caught DEAD playing Guitar Hero.

I don't disagree with that. I think reporters do this pretty well, drawing analogies and comparisons without (at least overtly) ostracizing the focus of the attention. That's an intelligent and potentially productive course of action, in my opinion. Talk about it. Let people know what happened. Show the context. You bet. (That was a nice post in a number of ways.) Mokele was ahead of the curve on this bringing it up back on page 1, and I'm glad to see it come back up again. I think it's a very correct argument, and of course subject to details that we're not yet privy to (i.e. who knew what and when), but I agree that there's something there that needs to be investigated and it should be determined if the people of that state were lied to. I actually empathize with governors and other high level government officials for their lack of privacy, but there are ways you can go about that sort of thing while ensuring that the appropriate people know what they need to know, and that nobody has been lied to. When you take that oath you assume a responsibility that sometimes impacts on your personal life. If you can't handle that then you shouldn't take the job. I think it would be interesting to see how this might have played out if it had turned out that this was just some kind of escapist vacation. There'd be no moral condemnation, but there would still be serious legal and ethical questions raised, and the politics would be interesting.

Ack. Mokele's been getting into the Polyjuice Potion again.

No.

I don't think you're stupid. I stated in my last post that this discussion demonstrates that intelligent people can be persuaded by the notion that ostracizing others can be a productive way to change minds. Who did you think I was talking about? I haven't accused you of being a "partisan hate monger" either. I see a huge difference between "partisan hate mongers" and people who value progress on specific issues more highly than one's right to have an opinion go unassailed. Derision, after all, is only the endpiece of Rush Limbaugh's bag of disconcerting tricks. None of his other means -- the distortions, the statistical skewing, the outright lying -- are even in your round house, as far as I can tell. So this is just more straw men. What's with all the fuss and feathers anyway? I thought we were just talking here. I'm sorry if my bringing up your rap sheet offended you. You seemed to want to talk about persuasion tactics and how they work or not work, and I thought that illustrated the point of why that post wouldn't work on me. Was that a mistake -- were you actually trying and belittle my opinion? If so then I think you really misunderstood where I was coming from with my replies. Now to repeat my answer to your question, at your request: The alternative I'm suggesting is to hold them accountable for their actions without associating those actions with disparate political issues. Say "you're wrong to commit adultery", and not something like "these gay marriage opponents on grounds of marriage sanctity can't even keep their own zippers zipped up" (etc). The former is holding them accountable for their actions. The latter is hitting them while they're down because they don't share your ideological opinion.