Incredibly wise appointments for science

[The Bear's Key]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/21/AR2008112103359.html

 

Historic

 

 

 

 

Edited November 23, 2008 by The Bear's Key
multiple post merged

[iNow]

Hi TBK,

 

We're already discussing the exact article over here:

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=36234

 

Come join us. Let us know what you think about it.

 

 

Cheers.

[Pangloss]

Thanks for the heads-up, iNow. If anyone wants to respond on the subject here I'll move the posts over to that thread manually -- anyone can read that thread, you just can't respond to it until you reach 30 posts in your total count.

[pioneer]

Most scientists are specialists, which means they know a lot about one of a dozens or more areas of science. The physicists might stress extra money toward a new particle accelerator, while the medical researcher will favor more money on cancer, AIDS, or stem cell research, etc. Someone who is not a science specialists, only knows a little about all the areas, and may be more open to everyone's sales pitch. It may be hard to sway a physics boss to give more to coal research and put aside the need of his fellow physics friends.

 

If you go to a university, the president is looking for as big a budget as possible. Each department is pitching the value of their own research over that of the other departments since all is important. But with fixed money, you need an impartial judge to be fair. You can't have someone who is biased in one direction or the other. If you could find a generalist scientist, who knows about all areas of science equally, and who is also a good money manager, he could be fair. But the educational system doesn't train generalists. We made need to look for self education and some knowledge in the entire spectrum. He would also need to have skills dealing with congress so he can get as much money for science as possible. He has to be able to appeal to the biases of congressmen and be able to pitch whatever angle it takes to get them on his side for the good of science. If congressman x like coal you can't pitch particle accelerator but need to talk energy with him so he will loosen up the purse strings. Then later you funnel to the accelerator if this is really important. Then you need to be able to smooth ruffled feathers.

Edited November 24, 2008 by pioneer

[iNow]

What does any of that have to do with these 11th hour appointments by Bush?

[The Bear's Key]

Hi TBK,

 

We're already discussing the exact article over here:

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=36234

 

Come join us. Let us know what you think about it.

 

 

Cheers.

(I can't post there, so maybe you can move this for me)

 

You know, I truly thought that Bush didn't have enough time left in office to make my disgust of his style of governance any more intense. I thought wrong.

Let's not kid ourselves. These scoundrels had a long to-do list from the very beginning, they planned to squeeze every last inch of a whole lot of their expliuts into our system.

 

You didn't notice how your head might spin from tracking one heinous act of theirs, and by the time you could grasp how outrageous it was they'd already be onto a next heinous act?

 

The bewilderment of wondering exactly how they could get away with it, was probably their intent. To keep opponents doubting that anyone could ever be so mindfully brazen about actions that should undoubtedly land one in federal and international trouble.

 

See the magic of doing something most people would take with a large grain of salt if they heard mention of it? Especially if you had your AM radios and certain TV media propogandists claiming your righteousness and patriotism loudly every day, which is more resonating after one's nation had gotten attacked.

 

Yes, they'll be queezing every little and big sheenanigans they can, not only until the very last seconds before inauguration, but probably well into months afterwards as the rats left behind in the system filter out and even then some will remain behind.

[The Bear's Key]

Let me rephrase, it wouldn't let me post there in that link you gave.

[Realitycheck]

Just post 30 posts in this thread, then it will let you post in the other forum.

[iNow]

Let me rephrase, it wouldn't let me post there in that link you gave.

Hi The Bear's Key,

 

I completely understand. I'd forgotten about the need to have at least 30 posts in order to post over in the Politics forum. So, when I shared that link, it was actually a mistake on my part. The limit of 30 posts is a really good idea, as it helps to prevent people from joining this community, posting in a "drive by" fashion in politics, and starting fights with people, only never to return. By having the post minimum, it allows us to get to know a member a bit better, and then their contributions will be much more warmly received and inline with the "gestalt" of the site.

 

I'm not a member of the volunteer staff here, so I cannot move your posts, but you are welcome to keep discussing here (unless someone with the special color in their username says otherwise).

 

 

 

Let's not kid ourselves. These scoundrels had a long to-do list from the very beginning, they planned to squeeze every last inch of a whole lot of their expliuts into our system.

I'd say this is common in politics, but I hesitate to blast them with the label "scoundrels," as they have done some good. When you're in a position of such power and influence, you're going to do things that some like and others don't, that's the nature of the position. I tend to agree with you that they seem to be trying to maximize the benefits to themselves and their cronies right up until the very end, I am just not willing to cast aside everything they've done as negative.

 

 

You didn't notice how your head might spin from tracking one heinous act of theirs, and by the time you could grasp how outrageous it was they'd already be onto a next heinous act?

It is interesting. It seems that before we have fully wrapped our head's around the last major insult that the next one has already begun. I'm thinking of things like domestic wire taps, the termination of employees for political reasons in the Department of Justice, the suspension of habeus corpus, etc...

 

 

The bewilderment of wondering exactly how they could get away with it, was probably their intent. To keep opponents doubting that anyone could ever be so mindfully brazen about actions that should undoubtedly land one in federal and international trouble.

It's like they're saying, "What are you going to do about it?" Well, this election shows that the people won't put up with it and will vote for the other guy en masse.

 

 

Anyway, politics is a hot issue, and we've already managed to venture far beyond the subject of the thread in just these few short posts, the subject being the appointments of these people to positions for which they don't seem qualified. Spend some time looking around the rest of the site, reading and posting about physics, math, chemistry, and biology and you will see how the membership tends to focus issues. Then, you'll be ready to be a full on member posting in the Politics forum with the rest of us jerks ideologues retards veteran members of SFN.

[The Bear's Key]

Well they are scoundrels. Except ironically, not Bush as much as people might think. Why do you suppose that he was given a hand-picked audience to give speeches to, and demonstrators were made to protest blocks away from view?

 

Insulation. The bubble he lived in was ideal for his "subordinates" to keep their activities hidden from the top guy. They fetch his newspapers, probably conservative ones, they keep the TV news on the Fox, and kept a tight group of loyal supporters averting his eyes. In case some real-world tidbit made it past them to him, they had already warned him of how liberals were "against" finding terror suspects. In their twisted version, they probably claimed that liberals opposed unwarrented surveilance because it wasn't fair to jihadists. OK maybe not so simplistic, but you get the drift.

 

I think the best thing reporters could've done, which they haven't but still can, was to ask him a simple question, "do you know what your administration has been up to?"..... and follow up with a long list of interesting summaries and revealing facts.

 

I believe the shite would hit the fan.