Slashdot Mirror

First then get coverage because they send 2 agents after a person who did not pay 4 cents. However everyone will be glad to know these are the people that will be enforcing Obamacare.

John Derbyshire wrote an insightful article detailing a number of reasons why. I think he's hit it on the head.

That would be the article where he says this?

It starts you down the path to true wisdom—the "fixed incredulity" that Mrs. Thrale remarked on in the character of Dr. Johnson. (It took Johnson's friends six months to persuade him that reports of the great Lisbon earthquake were true. He was, said one of them, "the last man on earth to whom one should bring a wonder.")

Why does he think such hard-core skepticism as represented in Dr Johnson's six-month lag in accepting the reality of a simple earthquake is "the path to true wisdom"?

Doesn't give me much confidence in his views on science.

if it gets "rebooted" very 4/8 years by new president/administration

Yes, it seems to be a shell game. Making an "exciting new announcement" every couple of years creates the illusion of things happening without ever producing any tangible results. I've pretty well lost faith in the proposition that we're going to be going anywhere in my lifetime again. John Derbyshire wrote an insightful article detailing a number of reasons why. I think he's hit it on the head.

Why Does Interpol Need Immunity from American Law?

Obama exempts INTERPOL from search and seizure on US lands

The problem with anecdotal evidence, is that people arguing the exact opposite point can pull out a dozen examples too. In this article John Derbyshire pulls out a dozen examples of why Obama is trying to kill science in the United States. It's not convincing to anyone who knows about National Lab Day, Educate to Innovate STEM initiative, Computer Science Week, data.gov, and the Policy Forum on Public Access to Federally Funded Research... but this is all anecdotal too, a better resource would be an overview of all the projects being funded by the stimulus package or trends in government funding of scientific research.

However, I do completely agree that Tyson is being unfair to the American government. In fact, this is the same guy who previously argued Republicans were doing a great job of funding American science. The real issue here, and the one we are dealing with most in computer science, is American Culture's antipathy and outright contempt for science and academia. Kids aren't going into Computer Science, Physics, Chemistry, etc, because they are afraid of being associated with "geeks." The kids all want to be gangsters, models, and sports stars... not realizing how unrealistic those dreams are and that only a miniscule percentage of people succeed in those arenas.

We need a culture change, we need to be proud geeks and make others envy us. It'll help us out in the long run.

Adam Kirsch reviews Anne C. Heller's new Ayn Rand biography in this weekend's Book Review. His piece offers this nugget about John Galt's long radio address in the novel Atlas Shrugged: A Random House editor told Rand that "if she gave up 7 cents per copy in royalties, she could have the extra paper needed to print Galt's oration."

Kirsch calls the agreement a "sign of the great contradiction that haunts her writing," observing that "giving up her royalties to preserve her vision is something that no genuine capitalist . . . would have done."

But Rand's decision to exchange money -- a portion of her royalties -- for extra paper is capitalism at work. Rand bought something that had financial value to her: the ability to disseminate her idea in the form she desired.

Without such an elegant capitalist mechanism through which to make this trade, the alternative solution would have been messy and unsatisfying. Rand would have had to give up part of Galt's speech or try to find a new publisher.

Here we have a controversial figure, Ayn Rand, who lived a life full of contradiction and hypocrisy and the best that the author of the book review in the post above could come up with was an incredibly strained story about her forgoing a bit of royalty payments for something of monetary value. Controversial? Come on. It should embarrass the NYT to have hired such an idiot.

Also, given that the above "grass roots" advertising probably came from Random House (publisher of the Ayn Rand book), maybe we should stop buying their books for a little while.

Finally, to complete this little Slashdot drama/troll, let's review (courtesy of Google) Anne Heller's 2008 campaign contributions for 2008: $500 to MoveOn.org, almost $5,000 to two Obama campaign funds (there are three other Anne Heller's contributing to those funds), and $200 to the Democrat Party. I wonder why she felt the need to contribute so much (about five times as much as the maximum in any previous year) while writing a book about Ayn Rand who would have abhorred any of the destinations for the contributions that Heller made. I guess that settles the question of whether there was any BIAS in Heller's biography.

not only the number of elements on a page but the type of data that constitute those elements as well as the virtual location of them. With ads being more bloated as time goes on and various Java/Flash components being added to webpages over time webpages in general tend to load slower.

All that is completely irrelevant once you block the bloat elements (flash, ads, etc). And, it seems even in this new service they are still a problem:
Take this story. Looking at it (after disabling Ad-block) shows two ads, and an incomplete article.

Once you press the link, you get into this page which shows the complete article infested with blinking and moving ad-banners.

I have been using Adblock Plus since maybe 5 years (used Adblock before), and nowadays I cannot stand browsing the internet in its "native" form.

A service like this could be good if it re-paginated the web pages in a way easier to read for the eye (something like Microsoft Word reader mode, or Acrobar Reader fullscreen-two-pages, with a big enough monitor).

And from HERE:

The White House raised the 2009 budget deficit projection to a staggering $1.8 trillion today. For context, it took President Bush more than seven years to accumulate $1.8 trillion in debt.

I don't know where the $1.8 trillion accumulation over seven years comes from, as this Treasury Department utility shows an increase of $1.8 trillion in debt by the end of 2004.

And Politifact shows here that the total debt run up under Bush was around $5 trillion.

People whine about Obama spending a trillion dollars to bail out the American economy, when we've spent three times that much bailing out Iraq socially, and it hasn't worked; it just makes no sense to me.

BZZZZT! Wrong!

From HERE:

To date, $915.1 billion dollars have been allocated to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And from HERE:

The White House raised the 2009 budget deficit projection to a staggering $1.8 trillion today. For context, it took President Bush more than seven years to accumulate $1.8 trillion in debt.

So, let's see. $915 billion (Iraq war) is less than $1.8 trillion (Obama deficit). So you were off by 6X.

How can we take you seriously when you can't get your facts straight. Hell, you weren't even close.

BusHitler Backlash

And note that all mainstream Democrats distanced themselves from this ad and from any connection to it.

While the Bush / Hitler comparisons are over the top (I'd personally think of Bush / Cheney more in the Mussolini-lite mode, though not quite as competent as Il Duce), there was the war of aggression, wiretapping, torture, illegal detentions, blocking "dissidents" from attending their public rallies, and the exploitation of people's fear for political gain. Even a Republican should have felt uneasy at what was going on.

Compare this to... basically wanting to expand Medicare / Medicaid to all Americans. Which is bringing out the Republican / Conservative pundits in droves to make the Hitler comparisons and express their paranoid fears of death panels. And from their political leaders, there's not an ounce of serious pushback on this rhetoric. Some are actually encouraging people to think this way.

The Republicans are either silent or actively encouraging the crazies. The Democrats, both in and out of power, have done everything they can to run away from the crazies on their side. There's no equivalence here.

Is Obama any better? Don't know yet, it takes more than a few months after jumping into the cesspool to find out if the new president is actually better, worse, or caught by the undertow.

I'll help you out here and toss an apropos metaphor your way: "Out of the frying pan, into the fire" Let's see why:

• Obama has been paying Perkins Coie something in the order of 2.3 million dollars since he announced his candidacy for president. This law firm is one of a few that have been defending Obama in the courts against people who are demanding more than a COLB as evidence of his place of birth. It is a fact that collections are still being accepted to pay for this.
• How much do we really know about Obama? Not a lot, it seems.
  • We know that Senator McCain's long form and short form birth certificates were released when his citizenship was challenged during the presidential race. To date, we have a COLB from Obama, a document that is not accepted by Federal agencies to obtain so much as a passport.
  • We have Senator McCain's 1974 thesis from his days at the National War College. Obama refuses to allow anyone access to his Columbia thesis.
  • Despite having been president of Harvard Law Review, Matthew Franck noted in National Review Online, "A search of the HeinOnline database of law journals turns up exactly nothing credited to Obama in any law review anywhere at any time."

The list goes on, but this should give you an idea of what we're up against.

If you'd stop rolling your eyes into the back of your head and foaming at the mouth, maybe you can figure out the difference between counterproductive fear/hate mongering and constructive criticism and debate.

Not all criticism of Obama is "foaming at the mouth". Personally, I'd be satisfied with acceptable evidence of his proof of citizenship, so I could move on. I don't have to like the sitting president (I didn't like Bill Clinton either, but I accept the fact that he was the legally-elected persident), but it's a lot easier to accept or deal with the antics of the president when one knows that he actually belongs in the office.

And yes, this is the last post I will make to this article and thread. Rant all you want and spit into the wind to your hearts content, I will not respond.

You're free to ignore this if you want. Last time I checked, that was your right. I hope that you'll at least think about the things I've mentioned.

Since the bulk of parent post is lifted in its entirety from National Review Online's "Goldberg File" editorial of May 24, 1999, I will work from that source rather than the parent post.

First thing worth noting: TFA starts with this lead-in paragraph:

ENLIGHTENMENT SPIN: THE GALILEO MYTH
The Washington Times reports a very nice story this morning. Catholic scientists, or scientists who are Catholic, whatever makes you more comfortable, are trying to combat the notion that the Church is anti-science. "The Galileo incident has made the Church a whipping boy," Thomas P. Sheahen of the Catholic Association of Scientists and Engineers told the paper.

Goldberg is playing off of this article: Catholic scientists look to bridge theory, theology: Hope to bring morality into largely atheistic disciplines, written by Larry Witham. I haven't read the article since it requires me to register fro a FREE trial on web site I have no other interest in. The lead in to the article talks about how the Catholic Church has admitted that it screwed Galileo over, and how some Catholics feel that their beliefs are being unfairly persecuted as anti-scientific, when all they really want to do is inject some non-rational qualities into scientific investigations, like "morality".

I've got serious problems with anyone attempting to inject "morality" into scientific inquiry: science has developed its own set of professional ethics, which is quite adequate for science's distinctly limited goal of explaining how things work, without involving itself with why they are the way they are, or whether a thing is good or bad or blessed or evil. Those are important questions, they just are not scientific questions. Trying to bring morality into science is rather like describing the smell of different colors. But that's a general thing, not specific to the question at hand, which is whether the Catholic Church actively persecuted Galileo for his new method of seeking the truth, or whether the Church simply lacked the moral fiber to stand up to members of the academic community who demanded that the Church shut Galileo's mouth.

A real problem with attempting to work with Goldberg's article is his insistence on describing Galileo's contemporaries as "other scientists". That word did not exist in Galileo's time, nor were there any cognates that were remotely close to what we today call a scientist. With the exception of Galileo and a few others who were forging a new form of acquiring knowledge through empirical methods, most knowledge was acquired and transmitted by scholasticism. The appropriate term for Galileo's contemporaries would be "scholastics". They work with authorities, such as Aristotle, and with dogma, to extend accepted belief systems to cover new situations and corner cases. Scholastics are very important in certain fields of knowledge, for example, in the history and use of Tarot, or extending biblical concordances. But they are not scientists.

In Galileo's time, scholasticism dominated higher education, Church training, and the preparation of that day's equivalent of civil service. All of these institutions recognized Galileo's approach to knowledge as a threat, including the Church.

The article, poorly written as it was, does in fact support my understanding of the events of Galileo's life: the Church, as an institution, persecuted him for his empirical approach, despite the fact that he had friends in very high positions within the Church. The Church was right in fearing Galileo's ideas, since his approach questioned the authority that the Church had wielded for centuries, and that brought about the fall of the Church as the dominant political and financial power in Europe, with its replacement by nation states that understood how to implement new technologies and were increasingly oriented to improving the mundane situations of its citizenries.

I'm sorry but you actually lack proportion and especially perspective. Simple facts: US has engaged in more wars, invaded more countries, dropped more nuclear bombs on cities, has more military bases in foreign countries, and in recent years undermined the international order and stability far more than any other country in the world: http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/155/26024.html

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things to like about USA and I agree with most points for example in this article: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmFlMzViMWZmYjY5ZmUzNDg2N2JiMGMxZDllYjA2MmM= . But a peaceful nation who refuses to exercise any semblance of imperialism!? You must be joking.

The cost of global warming, in my estimate, is past the quintillion dollar mark because it will adversely affect the entire economy of the planet for hundreds - to thousands (perhaps) of years to come. The cost of just acting without knowing what is real and what is just wish thinking on the part of people who want to enforce thier will on all under the guise of altruism can be staggering without any real benefit. The real motives usually resolve down to personal bank account totals. Not knowing quite enough science got us into this mess, and it should be sound science that gets us out.

That being said, Obama's plan for global warming research dollars is 400 million in 2009 http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjcyODIyZGM2MGU1ZDdkNDgxZDc3OTNjYjM4ZDY1ODI= whereas the womens shoe market in 1996 is 37 billion dollars: http://www.packagedfacts.com/sitemap/product.asp?productid=130270

From more than just the above, as far as I have been able to tell, we have spent less money than the womens shoe market in one year on the all time effort of solving a human life ending enviornment problem - does that make sense to anyone???

I think anyone who objectively steps back, realizing that the data so far suggests we need to act now, will realize we need to have that understanding now. I can only conclude that the bulk of the world either dosen't believe its true, dosent care (afterall you will be most likely be dead before it ruins the planet), or are just insane.

The cost of global warming, in my estimate, is past the quintillion dollar mark because it will adversely affect the entire economy of the planet for hundreds - to thousands (perhaps) of years to come. The cost of just acting without knowing what is real and what is just wish thinking on the part of ignorant people who want to enforce thier will on all under the guise of altruism can be staggering without any real benefit. Not knowing quite enough science got us into this mess, and it should be sound science that gets us out. The whole albedo posts above just illustrates how important it is to *really* understand the problem so an efficient means of reducing the problem can be found.

That being said, Obama's plan for global warming research dollars is 400 million in 2009 http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjcyODIyZGM2MGU1ZDdkNDgxZDc3OTNjYjM4ZDY1ODI= whereas the womens shoe market in 1996 is 37 billion dollars: http://www.packagedfacts.com/sitemap/product.asp?productid=130270 As far as I have been able to tell, we have spent less money than the womens shoe market in one year on the all time effort of solving a human life ending enviornment problem - does that make sense to anyone???

I think anyone who objectively steps back, realizing that the data so far suggests we need to act now, will realize we need to have that understanding now. I can only conclude that the bulk of the world either dosen't believe its true, dosent care (afterall you will be most likely be dead before it ruins the planet), or are just insane.

SPECIAL-INTEREST SOPS

1. The big doozy: Eighty-five percent of the carbon permits will not be sold at auction â" they will be given away to utility companies, petroleum interests, refineries, and a coterie of politically connected businesses. If youâ(TM)re wondering why Big Business supports cap-and-trade, thatâ(TM)s why. Free money for business, but higher energy prices for you.

2. The sale of carbon permits will enrich the Wall Street investment bankers whose money put Obama in the White House. Top of the list: Goldman Sachs, which is invested in carbon-offset development and carbon permissions. CNN reports:

Less than two weeks after the investment bank announced it would be laying off 10 percent of its staff, ***Goldman Sachs confirmed that it has taken a minority stake in Utah-based carbon offset project developer Blue Source LLC. . . . âoeInterest in the pre-compliance carbon market in the U.S. is growing rapidly,â said Leslie Biddle, Head of Commodity Sales at Goldman, âoeand we are excited to be able to offer our clients immediate access to a diverse selection of emission reductions to manage their carbon risk.â

3. With its rich menu of corporate subsidies and special set-asides for politically connected industries, Waxman-Markey has inspired a new corporate interest group, USCAP, the United States Climate Action Partnership â" the group largely responsible for the fact that carbon permits are being given away like candy at Christmas rather than auctioned. And who is lined up to receive a piece of the massive wealth transfer that Waxman-Markey will mandate? Canada Free Press lists:

Alcoa, American International Group (AIG) which withdrew after accepting government bailout money, Boston Scientific Corporation, BP America Inc., Caterpillar Inc., Chrysler LLC (which continues to lobby with taxpayer dollars), ConocoPhillips, Deere & Company, The Dow Chemical Company, Duke Energy, DuPont, Environmental Defense, Exelon Corporation, Ford Motor Company, FPL Group, Inc., General Electric, General Motors Corp. (now owned by the Obama administration), Johnson & Johnson, Marsh, Inc., National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, NRG Energy, Inc., Pepsico, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, PG&E Corporation, PNM Resources, Rio Tinto, Shell, Siemens Corporation, World Resources Institute, Xerox Corporation.

One major group of recipients of the free money being given to industry in the form of carbon permits are the electric utilities, represented in Washington by the Edison Electric Institute. Along with the coal and steel businesses, the utilities are positioned to receive a huge portion of the carbon permits â" some of which will be disguised as measures for consumers â" and have become one of the nationâ(TM)s highest-spending lobbies, working to ensure that their interests are served by cap-and-trade.

4. To the extent that the allowances actually generate government revenue, that money is going to be used for fraud-inviting projects of dubious environmental or economic value. Example: Some allowance money will be used to âoebuild capacity to reduce deforestation in developing countries experiencing deforestation, including preparing developing countries to participate in international markets for international offset credits for reduced emissions from deforestation.â What are the chances of that being abused?

5. In addition to the permits, the bill also allows for the creation of âoeoffsetsâ â" the medieval-style indulgences of the carbon-footprint world. In fact, nearly all of Waxman-Markeyâ(TM)s carbon-reduction targets can be met with offsets alone through 2050, meaning decades before any actual reduction of greenhouse gases is required.

Two of the most addictive and dangerous drugs, liquor and cigarettes, are legal, and regulated by the government.

All the other "bad drugs" are unregulated, untaxed, and criminalized.

Why?

Surely it's not to support a massive prison industry, create a culture of fear, prop up the liquor and tobacco industries, or continue to suck tax dollars into a war (one of many) that's been declared lost decades ago.

Iran on the other hand literally believes that god himself demands they maim and/or kill anything standing in the path of their aims of nuclear genocide and creating a wahhabist world and nothing you do or say is ever going to change that unshakeable belief that the most important thing is to kill or convert as many nonbelievers as possible.
Wahhabism is a sunni off-shoot, it has largely depended on western might to protect and nurture it (think Saudi Arabia and U.S. backing and protection).
Iran is predominantly shia and Wahhabists look upon shias' with disdain.
There are reasons not to like what is happening in Iran but wahhabism is not one.

Obviously, everyone is glad Rodheis home safely. Neverthess, many around the blogosphere have pointed out that the Times has a two-faced approach to this kind of secrecy.

Take, for example, the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, which the Times did a big expose of back in '06. There were absolutely no questions that this program was

• Constitutional
• legal
• briefed to the appropriate members of congress, and
• working!

Yet that didn't stop the Times from announcing to every terrorist from Marrakech to Jakarta all about it, how to avoid getting caught by it, etc.

Again, there is no dispute that this program was working; in other words, nailing terrorists -> saving civilian lives. Too bad the lives it was saving weren't those of Times employees!

PS Good overview here, by the guy who led the Justice Department's prosecution against the 1993 World Trade Center bombers.

- AJ

There was an interesting article on Planet Gore discussing the replacement of chlorofluorocarbons with hydrofluorocarbons and the unintended consequences thereof. Basically the HFCs have less effect on the ozone but are a more potent greenhouse gas. Never a dull moment!

Planet Gore has a lot of good stuff about various green quandries, including a fair number of posts by Chris Horner (author of Red Hot Lies).

There was an interesting article on Planet Gore discussing the replacement of chlorofluorocarbons with hydrofluorocarbons and the unintended consequences thereof. Basically the HFCs have less effect on the ozone but are a more potent greenhouse gas. Never a dull moment!

Planet Gore has a lot of good stuff about various green quandries, including a fair number of posts by Chris Horner (author of Red Hot Lies).

They don't have to charge less.

Hell, if all the government insurance did was let us pay the same rate as insured people, it would cut the cost of drugs and procedures by over 50%.

http://www.allbusiness.com/health-care-social-assistance/3910880-1.html
"Much of the bad press has focused on the uninsured being charged high prices for services while managed care plans, Medicaid, and Medicare receive deep discounts. "

"Some have speculated that the vast majority of items on the chargemaster have no identifiable basis, certainly not actual costs, and that changes to the chargemaster have evolved over time to hurt the uninsured. "

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTA2YmZmODhiOTE3ZDg2NjE0NjgzMDU1ZDUxN2U1MzY=
"In case you're wondering what I mean by "extremely expensive," here's one example: The rack rate, so to speak, for my week at Cedars-Sinai last month was about $47,000; the Blue Cross negotiated rate was around $20,000. So that's yet another reason to have health insurance: to avoid paying rates inflated to protect against all the people out there who can't or won't pay -- including those who consider mandatory insurance socialism."

Of course, then there are the problems with private health insurance...
"Blue Cross was recently fined $200,000 for improperly voiding members' policies years after they'd been written, apparently just because they got sick and began making claims."

On top of insurance discounts, the existing national health care system Medicare is half the price for uninsured.
http://www.usc.edu/schools/sppd/research/healthresearch/images/pdf_reportspapers/Professor_Melnick_Congressional_Testimony.pdf
Appendectomy (exhibit 1). Uninsured: $8,143, Insured: $6,100-- get sick when you are insured. Medicare: $4,165!-- get sick when you are old.

---

Here is how insurance should work.
Acute conditions should be treated up to a certain dollar level and above that requires insurance or private cash.
Chronic conditions should be covered at a very low rate ($500-$1000 a year max).
You should be able to save a certain amount of your income tax free and use that for medical expenses. It should never expire like the current HSA's.

We can't afford $million treatments for everyone- but we can afford to fix broken legs, heart attacks, and a wide variety of surgeries.

Cap and spend is just another scheme to fleece the taxpayer.

Not if it's coupled with a plan like the net zero gas tax. In this plan fuel taxes would be raised but income taxes would be cut Going with cap and trade the income from selling emission credits can be be used to offset cuts in income tax. If you pay $20 more for energy you get $20 cut from your income tax.

And notice how the net zero gas tax is proposed not by so called liberals or socialists but by a writer for the conservative magazine "Weekly Standard".

Falcon

The free market does a piss-poor job of dealing with external costs (those not paid by the consumer), and the government is the appropriate mechanism for connecting the costs back to the people who create them.

True enough but it's government who's given businesses the power they enjoy. For instance the city of New London, Connecticut used their power of eminent domain to take away people's homes so a business could redevelop the land.

A better approach would simply be to impose a GHG tax -- taxes on the various gasses, for the various industries that produce them.

If you haven't heard of it perhaps you'd be interested in a proposed net zero gas tax. The idea is to raise fuel tax but cut income tax. Then the better your mileage or the less you drive the more in your pocket. If you get a Prius and only drive 100 miles a week, you'll pay less tax. And those who drive their SUVs 200 miles a week will pay more. I was surprised to read this proposal by Charles Krauthammer in the conservative "Weekly Standard"

Falcon

> They're now pawns of the government, just like the banks.

No way man! Their CEOs will fight back to keep the company viable! Oh wait... to quote Pete Hoekstra:

The Obama administration fired (GM CEO) Wagoner. Is (new CEO) Henderson going to resist? I don't think so.

Some numbers and more analysis are on Planet Gore.

Interstate rail simply ceased to be competitive for all but the largest cargo shipments. Without some of the smaller shipping, they took in less money... which led to less maintenance of the rail lines... which meant cutting routes... which led to less income... etc.

I call BS. Freight rail has always been fairly competitive, while passenger rail amost always requires substantial subsidies, and they really can't share the same rails, especially if you want high-speed passenger service.

In fact, America's freight railroad infrastructure and the percentage of total freight it carries is considerably higher than that in most other countries, even Europe and Japan. Here's a relevant excerpt from just one recent posting discussing this: :

If you (unlike this author) believe that greenhouses gases are a problem, you DON'T WANT a shared passenger/freight system. One of the reasons why Europe is doing such a wretched job of complying with Kyoto is that it does only 10% of its freight by rail, as opposed to 51% in the U.S. Europe moves more people by rail, and more freight (i.e., heavier stuff) on trucks. Our intermodal system of truck-to-rail container transfer helps account for the fact that freight emissions of greenhouse gases are 155 grams per ton mile in the U.S. compared to 193 grams per ton mile in Europe.

In relation to this, it is amazing to me how many sites are able to set the tone for the conversation without having a forum/comment section on their own site.

Pitchfork Media has some of the most controversial music reviews. I still don't think you can leave a comment directly on their pages. Compare that to NME, where the first review I opened had a comment section.

From the political isle: Instapundit Glenn Reynolds and Matt Drudge's Druge Report. These two pages set the tone for many (not all) conversations in the conservative blogosphere, yet no direct comment section. Same for the conservative magazine National Review. I'm wearing my political beliefs on my sleeve here. I invite someone to post a liberal site sans comments, I can't think of one on the top of my head.

The effect of removing a comment section forces the reader to search out if someone has a counterpoint to your opinion, which while it may not be terribly difficult via google, is something people simply are not accustomed to doing. This has two effects. It protects your reputation, since it is possible that someone reading your page would never know an opposing opinion. As an extension of that, since your reputation is far cleaner than a page with potential detracting comments, your message is securely delivered - whether it is that pitchfork thinks band x is good and they are also sponsoring a music festival featuring band x that you should purchase tickets for (no direct conflict of interest there!), or that you think policy y position is a good one and that you have friends that would benefit if policy y is advanced (Larry Kudlow at NRO here).

It may not necessarily be a mark of cowardice to not have direct comments on your site, but the inclusion of it is definitely a mark of bravery.

Obama's plan for global warming research dollars is 400 million in 2009 http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjcyODIyZGM2MGU1ZDdkNDgxZDc3OTNjYjM4ZDY1ODI=

Size of the market for women's shoes in 1996 is 37 billion dollars: http://www.packagedfacts.com/sitemap/product.asp?productid=130270

So it looks as if we spend more money on the world womens' shoe market in one year than all of global warming research ever done. Guess we have our priorities in order when you consider the cost of global warming is probably not quadrillions but quintillions of dollars (think massive impact to world economy for 1000 years and possible end of market). I like my planets like I like my women!

Really either nobody really believes this threat is real, or the world is massively insane for not trying to understand the problem... You decide.

Yes, actually. It's part of transnationalism. Obama is a transnationalist. Here's a brief review of one of his appointees. The basic idea is to destroy the structures of the nation-state and replace them with a global government, Star Trek style. Of course, just like Star Trek, the council of the wise will run the world, and archaic concepts like democracy and self-rule will be relegated to the dustbin of history.

You can even read the book or the blog

"Rest assured, the idiots in the current majority party will also be called out."

Really? Then why hasn't the president been called out for walking into a window? Or giving the wrong format DVD's to the British PM? If Bush had done these things he'd have been torn apart on Slashdot.

There are several motives for the media and politicians to lie to you about global warming, aside from money and control.

• The media sells more papers, magazines, and television ratings soar when their audience is scared of some imminent catastrophe that your respective service is reporting on. Although, they can't decide whether we're going to burn to death, freeze to death, or drown. http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759
• Environmental organizations and some scientists will lie to you because their funding depends on it. If theres no crisis to work through, then they start losing funding. This is well documented. http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/von_Storch/staged_angst/a_climate_of_staged_angst.html
• Foreign countries are lying to us (by means of the IPCC) because they wish to throw a monkey wrench into the inner workings of western economies, which are the strongest in the world. If our economy slows down, the economic standing of other countries improves because we will no longer dominate the markets.
• Development and industrialization of third world countries will be stamped out, along with hundreds of millions of lives, all under the guise of "saving the planet from climate change". It's absolutely sickening. So, who's really on the "immoral" side? Us or the alarmists?
• Wanna talk about new taxes and restricted freedoms? Try carbon taxes on everything and strict regulations for everyone....all coming soon by convincing you that CO2 & greenhouse gases are somehow evil and you must pay to emit them. Too bad they can't tax the oceans since they are the cause of 96.5% of all greenhouse emissions, naturally, eh! Also too bad they can't go back in time and tax the dinosaurs since CO2 levels were MUCH higher back then and it must have been their fault.

The motives for deception are there. Do your part to fight alarmism!

CO2 is NOT a pollutant!

Educate yourself!

Antarctica is getting colder and thicker: http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2006/12/05/sea-level-rise-not-from-antarctic-melting/), and we know that any fluctuating warming/cooling is due to natural occurrences, and not human activity.

MUST READ LINKS:
http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777
"http://globalwarminghoax.wordpress.com/2008/03/
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20061121_gore.pdf
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
http://www.junkscience.com/challenge.htm
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YmFiZDAyMWFhMGIxNTgwNGIyMjVkZjQ4OGFiZjFlNjc
http://www.cei.org/pdf/5331.pdf
http://www.research.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_sunclimate.html
http://www.research.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/images/sunclimate_3b.gif
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/03/030321075236.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/56456.stm

If somebody doesn't believe their opinion is better, they have self-esteem issues. (And in a social Darwinistic sense, if somebody believes their opinion isn't better, they're right.) Beware the argumentum ad temperantiam.

Elitism itself is rational, and leads to meritocracy, not by itself exclusively to tyranny nor racism, and certainly not genocide.

I think that Republicans want the Fairness Doctrine back.

Except Republicans like Senator DeMint oppose the fairness doctrine. Having said that, I also found this saying Franken also opposes it. I also found this which says "Some Democrats have added fuel to the fire by suggesting a fondness for its return, while others say the issue is a straw horse and a distraction." It doesn't name name though.

Falcon

I am confused but that foxnews clip doesn't seem to say anything about Franken's views on Fairness doctrine.

I thought I read where Franken did support the Fairness doctrine. However I found this which says he opposes it. Sorry.

Falcon

> Kinda makes you wonder if government intervention is really necessary.

I think the government already has, and with predictable effects; for example, see this post about 'negative pricing' in the Texas wind farms.

Everything you do pisses everyone off, equally!

Really, I'm just withholding comment until some form of long-term context is established.

This particular nutcase conspiracy theory has been torn down by the very conservative National Review.

Get your facts straight. The legal justification was not written by the Clinton Justice department.

Oh, so you don't know about the Jamie Gorelick's infamous statement on FISA in 1994: "The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes." "Inherent authority" means, of course, that Congress cannot take that authority away with a statute, such as FISA.

With Obama's plan, we'll now be getting 8 stimulus checks each year instead of one.

Ooooh! Tax cuts measured in whopping tens of dollars. Don't spend it all in one place now.

Shit, now that the election is over, big oil can relax and fuck that "refund" right out of you 30x over at $3/gallon.

Work hard now and earn the big money. Millions of lazy fucks are depending on your redistribution.

Under Bush we all got "Stimulus checks" redistribution of wealth, we...

And now you're worried about socialism?

Welcome to last year.

With Obama's plan, we'll now be getting 8 stimulus checks each year instead of one.

Now, you can be sure that if a republican would have been pushing to expand on Bush's ideas, he would have been crucified for it, but if it is Obama, it's considered "change".

In 2003, the top 5% of wage earners paid 54.4% of the taxes.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzI3ODEyM2U4YWQxZDU4ZWQ5Yjk4YWNmZjIzM2U3NmY=

Google is your friend.

"...but suggesting that liberal multi-billionaires support raising taxes for their own FINANCIAL benefit seems a little far fetched."

O rlly?

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OWM0MjZmZTQzMmM5ODFhNTY5MjQxOTQxMzNlOWQ3MzQ=

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/04/11/gore-admits-financial-reasons-advancing-global-warming-hysteria

K, so Gore isn't a billionaire, but the fact that proponents of Leviathan are quick to use government to pad their own wallets should surprise no one who has studied the true robber barons of the 19th century, the political entrepreneurs, or has been paying attention for the duration of their life-span from the 20th to 21st centuries.

Of course others differ in their opinion of Krugman....

Krugman's Posthumous Nobel

And doesn't it make perfect sense that this assclown puts such stock in Asimov's Foundation books? A fictional story that makes zero sense unless one postulates a totally hypothetical science that allows sociologists to acually make valid predictions about human behaviour. That was what the books were about, an exploration of the consequences that would follow from such a discovery, i.e. it was typical of most hard SciFi then and now in that it postulates some new thing and explores the consequences.

Too bad a large portion of the left believes that it possesses the ability to do the sort of micro control today that would in reality only be possible after Hari Seldon created the tools.

Your comments implying the driving slower may be more dangerous is laughable - like the tales told of people who got into accidents while trying to buckle their seatbelt.

As the average speed of the US driver has climbed, the death toll has risen as well - both in absolute numbers and in average deaths per mile travelled. There is no evidence that driving slower is more dangerous, notwithstanding your own personal feelings in the matter. And if somebody driving slow in front of you is enough to make you drive in a risky manner, you really shouldn't be driving, should you?

This is a commonly quoted myth. Please provide a single, CREDIBLE link to any study that indicates this. You won't find it... because every credible study that set out to prove this myth has returned the exact opposite results.

Here are the real facts, and just so you don't think I'm pulling this out of my ass, here are the links.

Fact: Slower drivers are involved in accidents more often than speeders.
Fact: Speed differences are a more common cause of accidents vs high speeds.
Fact: Speeders are generally more alert and cognisant of their surroundings than slower drivers.
Fact: Raising speed limits shows a DECREASED injury and fatality rate.

There is plenty of evidence that slower drivers are FAR, FAR more dangerous than faster drivers. There are a number of reasons for this, but one of the biggest one is the fact that slower drivers are a minority on the road, and thus they constitute a MAJOR road hazard. As such, they are responsible for far more carnage than the fast drivers, since they are a majority. If you aren't driving with the majority of traffic, you are wrong. This isn't an opinion, it's simply a fact. If you are a slower driver and you're impeding traffic, even if the traffic is speeding, you are wrong. More and more state laws agree with this, as they ticket slower drivers, even if they are doing the speed limit (Hi Seattle and Colorado, and some others!).

And before you say saftey features in cars have improved (airbags, anti lock brakes, etc...), I've included injuries that would result from a crash. If car safety goes up, fatalities should drop but at the same time, injuries should go up... but the stats say otherwise.

Fatality rate for 100 million miles traveled:
1995 - 1.73
2006 - 1.41

Injury rate for 100 million miles traveled:
1995 - 143
2006 - 85

This is DESPITE 37 MILLION more drivers and 26 MILLION more cars.

>This proves little. I have an ex that fails the Turing test.

So what? We have a vice-presidential nominee who fails the Turing test.

That's harsh! Just because the man made 14 significant factual errors during the debate doesn't mean he's not human!

(Oh dear, my poor karma suffers so when I diverge from the Ordained Beliefs, whatever shall I do?)

Both Biden and Palin had the sense to ignore the moderator's stupider questions, such as what they'd do differently if their President died.

Thanks for that link. It showed "Wasilla Debunking Kit", which points out that in six state hearings Wasilla was not mentioned once. The Democrat (former state Rep. Eric Croft) who claims that Wasilla was the focus is not correctly recalling what the record shows.

That goes against what you just posted.

Here's my source. It says, in part:

The 2008 Republican Platform calls for a ban on all embryonic stem-cell research, public or private.

Now, to the extent that John McCain is against that position, well, he's running for president. Politicians running for office say lots of things, and sometimes they do those things. But as it stands now, the official Republican platform includes a total ban on any and all embryonic stem-cell research.