U.S. Pushing Conservative Science

mozumder writes "Does abortion lead to breast cancer? Does condom use lead to increased sexual activity? According to the government, the answer is now inconclusive. The New York Times has a story on how the government is altering low-level scientific conclusions to satisfy conservatives. Will this lead to a mistrust of the government? Or is the government now correct?"

Comments

Since when...

[SoVi3t]

Will this lead to a mistrust of the government? Umm, since when was the government actually trusted?

Not surprised

[smagruder]

You see, there *are* consequences to *not* voting, Virginia.

What else is there really to comment on?

Re:Not surprised

[Hawthorne01]

The more I think about it, the more I like the system that Ecuador uses.
Voting is mandatory. You want the government services available to citizens? Vote, otherwise you get what's available to legal aliens. While I'd love it if everyone understood thieir civic duties as well as they do their civil rights, which would make this idea unneccesary, the fact is, people don't vote often enough, as a rule.
And I know there will be those screaming about secrecy of the vote, etc.Note: I didn't say keep track of who you voted for, I said keep track of WHETHER you voted or not. Should be easy enough to do, given the near-universality of SSN's and the like.

Re:Not surprised

[Exiler]

Then you have lazy, ignorant, and just plain stupid people voting just becuase they have to and circling a random name on the ballot.

Re:Not surprised

[mferrare]

Then you have lazy, ignorant, and just plain stupid people voting just becuase they have to and circling a random name on the ballot.

Australia has compulsory voting. We have it at the federal and state levels. It hasn't bred the random name thingy you mention - in fact, quite the opposite. People become dyed-in-the-wool Labor (kinda like Democrats but more leftish) or Liberal (kinda like Rebups but more leftish) voters. Most elections are left up to a small percentage of 'swinging' voters to determine who forms government. This may sound bad but it's actually quite good. Why? Because, as people are becoming more educated and aware of the impact of the government on their lives they are starting to think more about their vote. As a result, the amount of swinging voters is growing which is a good thing - it keeps the government on its toes. Doing so has led to a Labor government implementing rightist policies (selling off our nationalised bank and airlines in the 80's) and has led the Liberal government to implement leftist policies (increasing tax on the rich (in for form of the super guarantee and medicare levy for those over $x,000 with no private insurance)).

Having compulsory voting makes you vote. This in turn makes you pay more attention to what the government does. And judging by the increasing number of swinging voters, people care. Making voting compulsory has removed the barrier of voter apathy (to an extent at least).

Re:Not surprised

[circletimessquare]

absolutely dead on!

PLEASE READ: IF YOU DID NOT VOTE (and you are an american citizen) THEN YOU CANNOT WHINE ABOUT BUSH, PERIOD.

think about it.

then next time, vote, dangit.

Re:Not surprised

[00_NOP]

What difference would that make? After all 500,000 more Americans voted for Gore than Bush.

And if you are black then the law is used to bar you from voting in any case.

Re:Not surprised

[circletimessquare]

i'll tell you what difference it will make when you tell me why your cynicism should sway me. be a little less despondent in your outlook on life. votes do matter. when you stop believing that, there is a lot of other things you might stop believing in that you should never stop believing in. and that's a fact, jack.

Re:Not surprised

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

I would be concerned, however, about people going in and randomly filling out a ballot just to keep their govt. services.

I wouldn't. In fact, I teach 17- and 18-year-olds, and every year I tell them this: They should vote even if they're uninformed -- provided that they truly vote randomly (if uninformed). Here's my rationale: If lots of people vote truly randomly, then it'll basically cancel out. But voter turnout will have risen -- and the politicians won't know which votes were random. From their point of view, they'll have to conclude that voter interest really is rising, which means that voters count -- which will de-emphasize the current "play to my base" logic.

Let's be honest here: Many of the ills of American democracy follow from the pathetically low participation rate. Corruption, ideology triumphant, slash ads ... they all result from the (justified) assumption by politicians that only a small fraction of people actually care.

Re:Not surprised

[circletimessquare]

i voted for gore. i cried in my soup when he didn't get the presidency.

but it is a great credit to this nation that it did not descend into civil war in its transition of power as many other nations might have.

there is much evil that will go on in gulf war II- the vengeance (pg-13). but there is also much good. iraqi people in an islamic democracy like turkey. less wmd in the hands of madmen.

you focus on the bad. look at the good. it does exist. when you choose to wallow in cynicism you vote yourself out of the human race. participate and change things if you are so pissed off. but if all of your cynicism causes you to detach from this world, well then, let that be proof positive about that which is wrong with you, not the world.

Re:Not surprised

[Zoop]

What else is there really to comment on?

Hmmm...how about the fact that gov't research is being swayed by whomever is in office? This should offend you much more than the fact that your Republican didn't get in (you know, the one for defense, low taxes, and album stickering, or George Bush if you didn't like the Republican).

This lends credence to the complaints during the Clinton administration that conclusions were being altered to support his policies. I don't care if you're conservative, liberal, libertarian, or socialist, doing policy first and science later leads to bad policy and worse science.

You should demand more of your politicians and government scientists. I'd hate to think that you'd be just peachy if they faked data to show that the ice caps would melt tomorrow and we need a crash refrigeration program, just because you prefer environmental issues to, say, poverty reduction.

Re:Not surprised

[kypper]

iraqi people in an islamic democracy like turkey. less wmd in the hands of madmen.

I question your logic here... each and every time the CIA has ousted a country's leader (and notice that regardless of dictatorship, it was always some key resource at stake... for Iraq, it's oil), the result has been a military government that's more controlling, and often more abusive, than the initial dictator. Consider Pinochet. The thing is, now they can't claim CONTAINMENT, and must instead claim TERRORISM.

Saddam may go, but nothing will change... Bush will get richer from the nice little oil dividends, and many innocents will die. Wonderful. Keep supporting that 'good' outlook.

Re:Not surprised

[Lars T.]

Most US non-voters don't vote just so they don't have to lie when they say "Well I didn't vote for him."

Re:Not surprised

[circletimessquare]

you are a bitter husk of a person. common sense and reality do not dictate your opinions. cynicism forms your opinions. you fail to see dumfoundingly obvious goods that will come out of regime change in iraq. i agree with you, much bad will happen too. so in all intellectual honesty, you must admit the good that will come of invading iraq, as i have admitted the bad. if you don't, you're just a cynic. you're all criticism, and none of it constructive. you live in denial.

of course iraq will become an islamic democracy. this is not some sort of a rosy outlook. the us and its allies must do this and must make it work and will devote tons of resources to do so. i will leave it to your imagination to come up with a handful of the thousands reasons why the us and its allies want to, should do, and can do this. it is as plain as the sun rising that the us and its allies will instill democracy in iraq. it astounds me beyond belief that you cannot see this. this is not the cold war dude. think japan or germany after wwii. i mean for crying out loud you are festering pit of cynicism. ;-P

Re:Not surprised

[sckeener]

I'd prefer it if they charged ya $50 not to vote.

Re:Not surprised

[Zeinfeld]

there is much evil that will go on in gulf war II- the vengeance (pg-13). but there is also much good. iraqi people in an islamic democracy like turkey. less wmd in the hands of madmen.

And how many Iraqui civilians are you prepared to kill to get to that point, 5,000? 50,000? 250,000?

The civilian casualties in vietnam were 1. million of which 325,000 were killed. Little reported in the US media is the fact that repression in Saudi Arabia is actually worse than Iraq. In addition to the state repression, murder of opponemts, torture etc women are treated only slightly better than under the Taliban.

The US, owner of the worlds largest arsenal of weapons of mass deestruction is claiming that it has to go to war to stop Iraq from making any weapons of mass destruction. In order to fight this war they plan to use land mines and cluster bombs - weapons the rest of the world believes should be banned.

Forgive me if I am unable to see the moral clarity in this siutuation that the administration and its appologists claim. From where I stand I see only a bunch of opportunistic hypocrites whose goals appear to be determined by electoral calculations rather the national good of either the US or Iraq.

Re:Not surprised

[teetam]

This is ridiculous - freedom to vote includes the freedom not to vote!

What if I don't like any of my candidates (which is quite often the case)? Should I still be forced to vote for one of them? When I choose not to vote, I am basically casting a vote against the current system and stating my disgust with it. In the Australian system, there is no way to do this.

And please don't tell me that if I don't like the candidates, I should be one!

Re:Not surprised

[robson]

You see, there *are* consequences to *not* voting, Virginia.

What else is there really to comment on?

At my own karmic risk, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that there are also consequences to voting for third-party candidates. If every vote for Nader had instead gone to Gore, Gore would be in the White House today.

Now... I suppose the Nader supporters' point would be that they wouldn't be much happier with Gore in there than Bush -- that there's really not much difference between the two. To which I would respond: If Gore were in the White House, would be still be preparing to invade a sovereign nation without provocation? To stay on-topic, would the U.S. government be removing established health research from NIH sites?

Re:Not surprised

[HiThere]

There should definitely be a spot on the ballot for "None of the above!". I'm not convinced that mandatory voting is a wise practice, but I don't have experience with it. However, even though I have no experience with it, I'm firmly convinced that there's a need for "None of the above".

In any multiple choice selection, one always needs to be "other".

Re:Not surprised

[Ring Kichard]

I'm going to try to keep this as on topic as possible, but please allow me a little digression, because - as is frequently the case - the discussion is more interesting than the article.

First, I'd warn you away from this sort of "but for" thinking: "But for Nader, Gore would have won" assumes a large number of unproven assertions. For all we know, but for Nader's candidacy, some kook with a rifle would have killed Al Gore. If the future is an epistemological quandary, alternate futures are doubly so.

Second, if we do play the, "but for" game, Nader may have radically increased Democratic turnout. In states with close Senate races, (Washington?), while it's possible that the Al Gore presidential campaign lost votes, the extra liberal turnout likely pushed the Democratic Senate races over the top. This contributed to the 50-50 split of the senate and allowed the senator from Vermont to leave the Republican Party and give control of the Senate to the Democrats.

Third, Monica Morehead, another presidential candidate (one of the socialist parties) received over 1k votes in Florida. If the argument that "Nader voters should just have taken Gore, he's closer to what they wanted than Bush" is true, it also holds for the parties further left. I don't see a overwhelming tide of blame coming down on her head.

Fourth, even if all the Nader voters had voted for Gore, it's not entirely clear that it would have mattered. The recount shenanigans, the dueling Supreme courts, the enormous conflict's of interest on both sides, that election wasn't settled by voters.

Finally, if Gore were president it is almost a certainty that we would be invading Iraq. Joseph Lieberman (currently representing my state) is a strongly religious Jew and has been calling for war with Iraq ever since we left the first time around. This is the same Joseph Lieberman, you may remember, that would have been Al Gore's VP.

---

Obligatory on topic comment: Of course government scientists are going to try to kiss up to their bosses. They want more money for themselves or their projects. The real question is, "Is the peer review system sufficient to counteract this trend." If our government has (effective?) checks and balances, should science as well? How do we achieve this?

Re:Not surprised

[TMB]

Then you should spoil your ballot, which is perfectly legal.

[TMB]

Re:Not surprised

[canadian_right]

Just like the "ton" of resources being used to foster democracy in Afghanistan.

Once the USA ran out of things to bomb they pulled back to Kabul and have pretty much left the rest of the country in the hands of the Northern Alliance warlords. The newly elected central government has little power outside of the capital, and is getting little help from the USA. To give credit were it is due, the USA's contributions to rebuilding Afghanistan are larger than the rest of the world's put together.

Iraq doesn't have anything even close to as well organized as the Northern Alliance to step in if Saddam falls. It will be chaos, as the various factions fight over the corpse of the country. And another "bonus" is that attacking Iraq (actually a secular country) will give more ammunition for recruiting more crazies to attack the USA.

Re:Not surprised

[Darren Winsper]

" Given the nutty laws i've been hearing coming out of Australia, i think we'll pass on this idea."

As opposed to the nutty laws coming out of the US and UK?

Re:Not surprised

[cheezedawg]

Bull crap. There is nothing wrong with people not voting. All that means is that people are happy enough with the way things are that they don't care enough to want to change anything - it is a pretty good sign that people are happy if you ask me. Deciding not to vote is voicing just as much of an opinion as going to the polls to cast a vote.

Re:Not surprised

[$carab]

iraqi people in an islamic democracy like turkey.

Actually, Turkey is a distinctly NON-ISLAMIC democracy. The success of democracy in Turkey can be traced to the rather forceful seperation of Church and State following World War One. For instance, women are not allowed to wear veils. A much better example of a true Islamic democracy is Egypt, but that has been plagued with problems.

Re:Not surprised

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

provided that they truly vote randomly (if uninformed). Here's my rationale: If lots of people vote truly randomly, then it'll basically cancel out.

WRONG! They will vote toward political TV commercials with the best gimmick.

Then it won't be truly random, will it?

I'm having trouble seeing why slashdotters are having difficulty with the concept of "random". I don't tell them "Go into the voting booth and pull the lever you most feel like". It's got to be random -- the flip of a coin or the roll of a die. And yes, we spend some time on what that means and why it's important. (I teach physics and random processes are significant enough that I can justify to myself this digression.)

If the vote is truly random, then nothing can affect it -- not a flattering tie, not a catchy slogan, not a gimmicky TV commerical. All of those things influence the subjective judgment of the voter... but the voter's judgment isn't playing a role in this case. Thus, if this is done by large numbers of people, it will generally wash out.

Disclaimer: Since, in the end, elections are winner-take-all and can be decided on a knife's edge, this method could tip a close race one way or the other. On the other hand, if the race is that close, it's probably being decided by other random factors as well, such as the weather, error rates in the machine, etc.

Re:Not surprised

[Darren Winsper]

What do you mean by recently? While I could agree that the UK seems to be making a good effort w.r.t. silly laws, I don't think we've managed to produce such works of art to rival the PATRIOT Act yet, and we've managed to hold off the EUCD for the time being (But 2003 doesn't look good for that). There was also a huge outcry against extending the RIP Act beyond its already silly boundries (Why the hell should the Food Standards Agency be able to spy on me just because they feel like it?!), which resulted in the government backing off for the time now.

However, the US unfortunately seems all too willing to destroy the village to save it.

Re:Not surprised

[PurpleBob]

If the preferential votes were counted by the Condorcet system (where the votes are tallied in contests between pairs of people), then putting the Nazi Party candidate last would not be a problem. It would just say "I want this guy to lose in every contest". If there are two such candidates, you have to rank one above the other, of course, but they'll still lose to everyone else.

In the Instant Runoff Voting system which Australia uses, though, there are often situations where you would rather have your vote go to nobody than go further down your preferences. That's just one of the many flaws in IRV. In that case, IRV with optional voting is a bit of an improvement.

The problem is that, under that system, people probably get lazy and only mark their top choice even when they do have preferences regarding the other people, and the result is the plurality system (and of course IRV, despite its flaws, is much much better than plurality). That's probably the reason for requiring people to rank every candidate.

Re:Not surprised

[Malcontent]

If you don't want to make it compulsary at least move the voting day.

I suggest the 4th of July. People are off from work, the weather is usually pretty nice, and what better way to celebrate your independence then to vote.

A simple idea which could make all the difference in the world.

Re:Not surprised

[Guppy06]

"Hmmm...how about the fact that gov't research is being swayed by whomever is in office?"

That's because it's... well... government research, using government money. Hell, that's like saying "The direction a car is facing is being swayed by whomever is in the driver's seat."

While I'm upset that my money is being used on relatively frivilous research subjects like the ones listed (while the ISS flounders), the fact that government action is directed by who is in office this particular term shouldn't surprise anybody. It's about as newsworthy as saying "Israelis and Palestinians killed each other today."

Re:Not surprised

[Minupla]

So call it a responsibility to vote. As pointed out by the original poster, in equador you are free not to vote, but by doing so you choose to forego the services that government provides for citizens of that country. You still have the freedom to not vote, but that freedom carries responsibilities and repercussions, just like the freedom of speech (you still cannot yell fire in a crowded place), the freedom of assembly (you cannot assemble in the middle of your local interstate), etc. Freedoms are never absolute, and usually carry implied responsibility. I think there are a number of reasons why Equador's policy may be ill advised, but I think throwing out the argument entirely on the grounds that it removes your freedom not to vote isn't one of them.

If you do not like any of your candidates, use your option to write in someone you do like. That's still a vote. You might also look into one of the smaller 'fringe' parties, as an alternative to the Big Two, if you're in the US. Seeing a vote for the Rhino party is a much more signifigant protest then simply not voting. The former shows positivly that a) you care, and b) you don't care for any of the main stream parties, so maybe they should pay attention. Just not voting lumps you in with the apathetic crowd, which is a much less useful protest, since noone knows you're protesting.

Re:Not surprised

[doug363]

In Queensland state elections, they have "optional preferential" voting, where you don't have to give preferences to candidates if you don't want to. You can give as many or as few preferences as you like. Putting a "1" in the box beside your chosen candidate is a valid vote that is counted, and if they are knocked out, then your vote is discarded.

It makes for some interesting voting patterns, as you mention. In the most recent state election, the incumbent premier, Peter Beattie, was pretty much assured of winning. However, he encouraged people to just put a "1" next to the Labor candidate (his party), and not put down any preferences. This annoyed the smaller parties, who can sometimes get a seat by making a preference deal with the major parties. The deals are: "We'll ask our voters to put you as second preference if you ask your voters to put as as second preference," or a similar idea. Obviously, in electorates where the Labor party wasn't going to be one of the top two parties after preference redistribution, the candidate who would've gotten preferences from Labor voters would get less votes and probably lose. In extreme cases where almost nobody puts down preferences, it reverts to "whoever has the most votes wins" contest, which tends to favour major parties.

Re:Not surprised

[PurpleBob]

Be sure not to confuse how the votes are cast with how they are counted.

They are cast with the "optional preferential" system in the case you describe; they are counted with Instant Runoff Voting.

Re:Not surprised

[FunkSoulBrother]

This is just a random thought, but what if say some state like California or New York decided to divide into two parts, each getting 2 senators and thus more electoral representation per person? Is there a process for this? What kind of a vote would it require in senate? Or is it a state issue?

Re:Not surprised

[DoctorFrog]

I would be concerned, however, about people going in and randomly filling out a ballot just to keep their govt. services.

They needn't fill out a ballot; they could show up, stand in the box for a minute, then leave.
A None Of The Above slot on the ballot would be good too, and runoffs could be forced if the NOTA slot one (diluting if not eliminating the "they're all crooks anyway" excuse).

I like the idea of making this minimum effort a requirement for receiving certain government services. I'd even take it a step further; if the amount of money for roads, etc. were tied to levels of voter participation in a given district, you'd really start seeing some social pressure on people to participate in the process.

Re:Not surprised

[Hard_Code]

"In any multiple choice selection, one always needs to be "other"."

And, not to forget, "Cowboyneal"

Re:Not surprised

[goon america]

Calvin: I'm being educated against my will! My rights are being trampled!

Hobbes: Is it a right to remain ignorant?

Calvin: I don't know, but I refuse to find out!

[Chalk up another point for libertarianism!]

This may shock some

[nizcolas]

but most readers familiar with the way science "works" won't be all that shocked. Scientific results are frequently altered or completely made up for one reason. Money

Most science is funded by a sponsorship of some kind. Very little is done out of the scientist pocket. Because of this, science becomes a sort of business model. As long as the scientist is producing results, his funding continues. See where this is going?

Is this going to lead to a distrust of government.? Doubtful. It may wake up a few but the vast majority either know now, or will never know.

Re:This may shock some

[Idarubicin]

but most readers familiar with the way science "works" won't be all that shocked. Scientific results are frequently altered or completely made up for one reason. Money

Most science is funded by a sponsorship of some kind. Very little is done out of the scientist pocket. Because of this, science becomes a sort of business model. As long as the scientist is producing results, his funding continues. See where this is going?

Erm. You neglect a few key points. First, (most) scientists like to publish interesting--or even controversial--results. It enhances their standing among their peers, and often leads to promotion, job offers, and better funding.

If the results they publish do not suit the whims of their current industrial masters, there is often other funding to be had elsewhere. The flawed 'business model' you describe assumes that there is only one source of funding for only one preferred result. Usually competing interests will fund interesting research. In may nations, government funding is provided by agencies that operate at arms' length from politicians and are most concerned with doing good science.

Finally, if you make something up in science, you eventually get caught. It's the nature of the scientific method. Someone will check your work--often fairly soon after publication, if not before--and you will have some explaining to do. 'Because the United States Government says so' is not an acceptable proof, no matter what results they buy. Conclusions not based in fact will be challenged.

This new science is amazing!

[MillionthMonkey]

Tell me again how a sheep's bladder may be used to prevent earthquakes!

Re:This new science is amazing!

[Jippy_]

Tell me again how a sheep's bladder may be used to prevent earthquakes!

Tis simple, my boy.

1. Place sheep's bladder on ground.
2. If sheep's bladder shakes and bounces around a whole lot, an earthquake is imminent. Leave the area immediately.

Re:This new science is amazing!

[MillionthMonkey]

Nah, what you've done there is detect an earthquake, not prevent one.

Re:This new science is amazing!

[JohnFluxx]

If there's noone there to feel it, did it happen?
(of course you'd have to never go back to that area so you can never tell from evidence of falling buildings etc)

Re:This new science is amazing!

[Dyolf Knip]

Ahh, but you have no way of proving that the damage wasn't done by the few inhabitants that stayed and went wild looting the place.

Re:This new science is amazing!

[JohnFluxx]

You don't know any damage has been done at all if you never go back and check.

personally...

[pavera]

I can see how the abortion/breast cancer issue is blatant suppression of scientific evidence,
however, reading the article the information about condom use seems very accurate to me, and very similar to the information I was taught in middle/high school sex education, condoms work alot of the time, but the only truly sure way to stay safe is abstinence, or monogamy...
not that most of the slashdot crowd should care eh?
I mean really a post about sex on a geek website, not having to do with pr0n... come on guys... really..

Re:personally...

[NigelJohnstone]

"reading the article the information about condom use seems very accurate to me"

The 'condoms are not 100% safe' bit isn't the bit they were complaining about. It was the removal of information that says well 'yeh, actually statistically they are pretty safe':

"The studies found that even with repeated sexual contact, 98-100 percent of those people who used latex condoms correctly and consistently did not become infected."

If you can't trust what the government is telling you then you're in deep deep do do.

Re:personally...

[pavera]

I wasn't commenting on whether or not people are/are not going to have sex.. I'm well aware that people are going to do whatever the hell they feel like, in general... I'm not saying condoms are bad, nor that we shouldn't talk about them/teach kids about them, I'm simply stating the science on the site is accurate, condoms aren't 100% reliable, that is the truth, they are nearly 100% reliable sure, but with things like AIDS and pregnancy, that 1 or 2% of the time that condoms don't work... well thats a big risk to be taking, even if its only 1/100 that you'll get screwed...

Re:Abortion & Cancer lawsuits in Australia

[MillionthMonkey]

the majority of studies suggesting a link between abortion and cancer

You didn't post any links or references, so I'm curious. Did this "majority of studies" find a link between abortion and breast cancer, or a link between not carrying a pregnancy to term and breast cancer?

What about...

[Anonvmous Coward]

I don't blame them. According to the studies I've heard, I should be blind now. I haven't had any real problems other than needing to shave my hands once in a while.

Re:What about...

[MrCreosote]

Boy, you really missed that one, didn't you?

Re:What about...

[Anonvmous Coward]

"I'm guessing only when the moon is full? Do you chase cars and howl at the moon at the same time?"

No, but I am typing with only one hand right now. ;)

Next thing you know...

[Arkan]

... some archives are "reinterpreted" so that Watergate never happened, first A-Bomb scientists never disagree with its use, and Bush never choked on a pretzel.

Welcome to 1984... well, actually 2003, but short term previsions are always optimistics.

--
Arkan

YES, of course!

[SHEENmaster]

Condom use leads to increased sexual activity which causes more "accidents" which is why America has a much larger population (density) than China!!

I hope I'm not trolling, but it seems to me as if the government should have something better to do. This might not "wake up" the average citizen, but I think that I've lost even more faith in my country while still considering it the best in the world.

God bless America, we sure as hell need it.

Re:YES, of course!

[chabotc]

Economics and culture have a lot more to do with population density then the difference in condom usage i think.

In america you know you can support your child, get him/her a good education, etc.. Also the american infrastructure allows for a much higher population density (skyscrapers, pub transport, massivly large amount of cars, communication infrastructure, etc) (china is vast, there are a few huge cities, but most of the land is quite 'backwards' to US standards)

In china there are also 'guidelines' from the goverment and cultural standards on how many children a parent could/should have..

These factors play a much larger role in population density then your proposed theory of 'accidents' if you ask me

That whoosing sound you hear,

[Hawthorne01]

is all the liberal/anarchists knees jerking in response to this stimuli.

Disclaimer: For the last 20 years, I have been a legal resident that cannot vote in the U.S., and on every political placement test I've taken, be they from the right or the left, I have landed smack dab in the middle.(end disclaimer)

That no one ever mentions the idea of "Liberal Science" I find somewhat amusing (and quite frankly, a little biased). Do we all think that products like RU-486 sprung from the ground unaided? The findings of science have ALWAYS been slanted to advance someone's politics, be they environmentalists, cultural conservatives, radical feminists or bomb-throwing moderates such as myself.

Re:That whoosing sound you hear,

[pla]

Do we all think that products like RU-486 sprung from the ground unaided?

No, "we" think the two drugs involved, mifepristone and misoprostol, both originated for other uses. The former, an antiprogestin, just happens to cause a very high incidence of detachment of fertilized critters as a predictable but not originally "deliberate" consequence of its action (methotrexate, a drug used in chemotherapy and for rheumatoid arthritis, has almost the same effectiveness, though by a different mechanism of action... Shall we attribute this coincidence to "liberal science" as well?). The latter, a prostoglandin analogue, simply causes uterine contractions (as a side effect of its "real" action), raising the efficacy of the combination quite a bit.

Incindentally, just about any two pairs of drugs from the same classes would have similar effects.

I don't quite see where you mean to go with the idea of "liberal" science, however. Do you mean we only have drugs like RU-486 because liberals "lied" about something? I can only assume you mean that, as the parent article involves what amounts to us getting bad policies due to conservatives "lying" about controvertial scientific findings.

I will, however, agree with you in one key aspect (lest you think I just want to nitpick)... Political correctness *does* pervade science, in the form of ethical restrictions not just on what someone *can* do, but on what others will acknowledge ever happened. For example, the science done at concentration camps during WWII... Yeah, *REALLY* nasty, and much of it totally unneccessary. But in addition to what we might describe as "torture for the fun of it", they also answered a lot of questions for which no "ethical" means of getting an answer exists.

Re:That whoosing sound you hear,

[gad_zuki!]

Perhaps the laws governing technology, research funding, etc have a place on the simplistic "liberal/conservative" spectrum, but science itself, the pursuit of knowledge is apolitical.

Your suggetion that RU-486's development or even the research that fathered its development is politically driven has a scary luddite feel to it, something like the "arguments" the populace used to buy about the religious amorality of experimenting on cadavers not so long ago. Which itself caused untold suffering by holding back medical science, which is what the Bush administration along with the religious right are planning on doing on other types of research right now. Stem cells anyone?

Is it really so "liberal" to sell RU-486 in a society in which abortions are legal? Sounds like good sense to avoid the physical abortion procedure.

I don't know whats more pathetic, that conservativism now means "in bed with big business and big religion" or that we still haven't learned the lessons of history. Not to mention co-opting the word "liberal" to mean anything that isn't religiously conservative is more than a bit disingenuous.

Re:That whoosing sound you hear,

[Malcontent]

"No, "we" think the two drugs involved, mifepristone and misoprostol, both originated for other uses."

well yes but were they liberal uses. Are the drugs liberal and are they used to cure liberal diseases. More importantly were they developed by liberal doctors and were they funded by liberal governments and liberal administrations.

You see the most important thing about drugs is if they are liberal or not. Simply stating facts only clouds the matter. Please refrain from actually refering to facts in all future slashdot posts or I will be forced to call you "liberal".

Why should we be surprised?

[enkidu]

This is the same administration which when initially asked the question concerning global warming, wanted "more research" to verify that the phenomenon was real. Now that it has been proven to be real, they want "more research" to clarify the extent of the phenomenon. Essentially, after insisting that smoking wasn't harmful to your health, upon being shown that smoking is harmful to one's health, they now want more research to figure out "the degree of damage" caused by smoking.

This administration is one of the most idealogically fixated administrations in recent history. Ideology always trumps reality in the decision making of this administration. Consider their positions on Iraq vs. North Korea. Consider their positions regarding our signed commitments and treaties vs. our Oil interests (Kyoto treaty). Or "Free Trade" vs. the interests of our Steel and Lumber producers. Or contraception vs. AIDS.

From what I can tell, the basic ideology of this administration seems to be: The interests of the United States of America lie with the interests of it's big companies, it's religious right, and it's rich and powerful.

Of course, now I can expect friendly clicks on my telephone and strange delays to the delivery of my email.

EnkiduEOT ( bomb uranium plutonium smallpox anthrax sarin mustard )

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[fmaxwell]

Thank you. I know that you will eventually be modded down by the right-wing zealots, but kudos to you for speaking the truth.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[vandan]

gas prices in the USA upwards of 60 cents per gallon and cost tens of billions more per year in direct costs to the government, not to mention wide reaching economic reprecussions

Fuck the economic consequences. The current generation has no right to fuck the environment, potentially for the rest of the life of the planet, just to maintain your fucked up vision of a properly run economy. Burning fossil fuels adds to greenhouse gases which screws with the environment in ways which we can't undo. So we have to stop burning fossil fuels. Simple as that. And if there are other things contributing to global warming, then we have to do something about them too. And fuck the economic cost. Or there'll be no-one left in 500 years to count your precious pennies.

With regards to North Korea, why doesn't somebody else deal with them?

What exactly has to be dealt with? The weapons, or the reason people want to use them?
What can you realistically DO something about? The weapons, or the reason people want to use them?

If you think that North Korea (or Iraq) as aspirations to take over the world, then I think you are mistaking them with the most power / money-hungry country on Earth - the US. Everyone else (except for Israel) is quite happy left to their own devices, and only has weapons to protect themselves from the inevidable invasion from the US military / economy.

If you want to get upset about who has weapons of mass destruction, then have a look at 'our' side. The US has more nuclear, chemical and biological weapons than every other country on earth combined. And they have proved on numerous occasions that they are willing to use them to assert their economic 'rights' (while pretending that they are fighting the 'good fight' for decomcracy).

When will we see UN, or Iraqi, or North Korean inspectors checking out the US's weapons of mass destruction and shaking their heads and saying 'This is not good enough. These are clear signs or your intent to invade us. We will therefore make a pre-emptive strike!'. Until the US disarms itself (and all countries should), then it has no right to demand other countries disarm themself. If the US insists on hunting down every last terrorist and every last weapon on the 'other side', then it is going to produce more terrorists and more weapons in the act.

But I think this is what the US wants - because it's good for the economy. Wars are very good for the US economy. The US banks are well known for lending money to BOTH sides of wars to buy weapons from the US industrial military complex. Very good for the economy...

And the threat of terrorism provides the perfect environment to justify taking away more of our rights to privacy and choice so we can pave the way for more civilian monitoring devices and more paramilitary troups to 'keep the peace' (squash resistance) and protect us from ourselves (protect big business from consumers with a conscience).

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[fmaxwell]

You just made my "friend" list with that rant. You are 100% correct and I applaud you for stating it so clearly and eloquently.

The best thing that could happen to this country is for gas to go over $2 per gallon. Then Americans would start buying the most fuel-efficient vechicles that met their needs rather than buying the largest, heaviest, most-polluting SUVs on which they can afford the downpayments. I've actually met people who think that the size of the SUV that they put their family members in is a measure of how much they love them.

As to the Bush administration's decision to wage war to stimulate the economy, I've been saying that for over a year now. It's the same thing that Reagan did and it's what Bush, Sr. did. Do massive deficit spending, funnelling money to the big defense contractors, to fund the war. Then leave the next administration to deal with the debt. If that administration does the responsible thing and raises taxes to pay down the debt, then call them "tax and spend" (vs. the Republican cut taxes, borrow, and spend philosophy).

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[nathanm]

If you think that North Korea (or Iraq) as aspirations to take over the world, then I think you are mistaking them with the most power / money-hungry country on Earth - the US. Everyone else (except for Israel) is quite happy left to their own devices, and only has weapons to protect themselves from the inevidable invasion from the US military / economy.

North Korea may not want to take over the world, but they definitely have plans to invade South Korea and Japan. Their quasi-Marxist, central-planning philosophy of "self-sufficiency" has led to massive famine and economic stagnation. The only reason they have any food to eat is South Korean and US aid.

As far as these inevidable [sic] US invasions, you didn't say the word, but essentialy you're accusing us of imperialism, which is complete, utter, delusional nonsense. We could've ruled the world long ago. After WW II, we were the only real power left on Earth. It would've been easy to establish the first truly global empire and rule the entire planet. Instead, we rebuilt Europe and Japan, then went home. You can find a much more cogent argument here.

If you want to get upset about who has weapons of mass destruction, then have a look at 'our' side. The US has more nuclear, chemical and biological weapons than every other country on earth combined. And they have proved on numerous occasions that they are willing to use them to assert their economic 'rights' (while pretending that they are fighting the 'good fight' for decomcracy).

Are you kidding, or just ignorant? Russia has more nukes than us, and the only biological and chemical weapons we have left are used for training and research only, not research into new weapons mind you, but how to defend against them.

Yes, we are still the only country to use nuclear weapons in war. However, it probably saved the lives of 5 million American and Japanese soldiers who would've died in an invasion, and it ended the war.

When will we see UN, or Iraqi, or North Korean inspectors checking out the US's weapons of mass destruction and shaking their heads and saying 'This is not good enough. These are clear signs or your intent to invade us. We will therefore make a pre-emptive strike!'. Until the US disarms itself (and all countries should), then it has no right to demand other countries disarm themself. If the US insists on hunting down every last terrorist and every last weapon on the 'other side', then it is going to produce more terrorists and more weapons in the act.

First, we actually do allow the UN and Russia to inspect our weapons of mass destruction. They ensure compliance with several arms control treaties.

If you think all countries should disarm, you're incredibly naive. Someone else would always rearm and try to assert their power. This is partly what we're seeing now with Al Qaeda, a non-governmental organization waging war across international borders. As long as there are humans left, there will be war and violence. Your utopia will never exist, and besides, I wouldn't want to live there.

You also have a severe misunderstanding of the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists' mindset. The reason they even attempted 9/11 is they thought the US was a "paper tiger." Throughout the 90s they kept escalating their attacks, but Bill Clinton never retaliated quickly or decisively enough. The most he ever did was lob a few cruise missiles at empty training camps and pharmeceutical factories.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[feed_me_cereal]

The United States has never signed the Kyoto Treaty.

You're right. Maybe they should.

Even former Cliton administration officials agree that the treaty is flawed.

Who gives a shit what he says? Not me, or most left-leaning people I know.

With regards to North Korea, why doesn't somebody else deal with them?

Yeah, like the pacifist country they're likely to aim their nukes at? The same one we nuked 60 years ago? In case you don't remember, we're supposed to protect our unarmed allies.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[Damek]

I know you're a troll, but I can't resist pointint out the idiocy of this comment:

It is quite arrogant to believe you can actually fuck up the environment. The earth was around way before we came along and it has done just fine. It think it's so funny and stupid when people make comments like "we'll destroy the earth"...

Nowhere in his post does he say anything about destroying the earth. No rational person believes we are destroying the earth. However, we have many opportunities to fuck up our environment. We are a biological organism, and we cannot live under certain circumstances. If we screw up our current environment enough, our lives will go bye-bye. You are right - the earth was around long before we came, and by implication it may very well be around long after we disappear. The question is: when and how will we disappear, and will the reason(s) be any of our doing?

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[userunknown]

Exactly. One thing I don't understand is how is it that the US and allies can have any sort of weaponry or resource but any other country who does is labeled a "terrorist state" or part of some "axis of evil".

Isn't it all just propaganda to support this administrations "might makes right" approach to foreign policy. I say we have no business interfering in the affairs of another sovereign country unless we know they intend their power and resources for imperial use. As it stands right now the only country who does this is the US.

Even if we do know that a country intends to invade another country it should be up to the UN to decide their fate. We should not act unilaterally and we should not bully the UN but defer to their judgment. The only reason to maintain any WMD are for purposes of defense, ironically the most prevailing reason why you would need to maintain a stockpile of weapons now would be to defend your country against the threat of a US invasion.

In summary, who are we to tell other countries what weapons they may have and what resources they can develop?

All countries should be treated equally and bound by the same rules and laws. Just because we can bully other countries doesn't mean we should or that we are somehow morally superior.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[jgalun]

If you think that North Korea (or Iraq) as aspirations to take over the world, then I think you are mistaking them with the most power / money-hungry country on Earth - the US. Everyone else (except for Israel) is quite happy left to their own devices, and only has weapons to protect themselves from the inevidable invasion from the US military / economy.

Ok, let's see:

The Palestinians started an Intifada against the Israelis despite the fact that the Israelis had just gone to final status negotiations with them, and continued negotiating at Taba even after 3 months of violence.

Hizbullah continues to attack Israel despite a complete pullout - certified by the UN - of Israeli forces from Lebanon.

Iraq invaded Iran.
Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Serbians tried to ethnically cleanse Kosovo.
Serbians tried to ethnically cleanse Bosnia.

Pakistan continues to send militants into Kashmir. Pakistan and India recently almost went to war over Kashmir.

The Soviet Union went to war in Aghanistan.

France sent its military to the Ivory Coast to prevent the civil war there from spreading.

There has been a massive war in Congo to which rival African nations sent their armies.

Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a war.

All these happened in the last 20 years. There are more, I'm just going off the top of my head. So right. The only reason any countries have weapons is because they are afraid of the US. Obviously Japan is afraid of the US, not North Korea - oh wait! Japan wants to join the US missile shield because they are afraid of North Korea!

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[Flower]

I disagree. If gas went up to $2/gal the next president of the United States would be the one promising to get us out of the Kyoto agreements and provide us with cheaper gas.

Price increases wouldn't stop at just the pump. Industry would have to pass the cost along to the consumer which means produce goes up, UPS deliveries go up - basically most things that involve transportation. Maybe you don't, but I do notice five or ten cent increases when I go to the grocery store. And you know some special interest will spin all of that onto the increase in gas prices. I live in SE WI and have seen it done due to the cost increase in formulated gas. If it wasn't for the EPA sticking to their guns, voters would have moved to get rid of the requirement.

Could you spin this so Joe American would accept the situation as patriotic? Honestly, from my limited experience, I don't think so. I've tried that argument at the lunch table at work and it gets dismissed out of hand. There is always some activity that "justifies" the need for the SUV or monster truck.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[Picass0]

If you are refering to any arms treaties with the Soviet Union, no, the US is not breaking those treaties. The Soviet Union no longer exists.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[nomadic]

North Korea may not want to take over the world, but they definitely have plans to invade South Korea and Japan.

Nah, can't see them invading Japan. Can see them trying to nuke them, but not actually take over.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[Alsee]

Every time the topic od N. Korea comes up I can't help thinking of it in terms of this image.

That is a compsite image created by NASA of "The Earth at Night". The light is man-made light. The brightness is the product of population density and development.

N. Korea is that BLACK HOLE between S. Korea and China. Notice the sharp edge were all the lights suddenly vanish? That's N. Korea.

For those who aren't familiar with the geography, look to the top right. The long and really bright "snake" shape is Japan. Just above the bottom tip is a bright circle, South Korea. The sharp edge on top is NOT a coastline, it is the border with North Korea. The single white dot to up-left from that border is the capital of North Korea.

North Korea and South Korea are relatively equivalant in population density, climate, terrain, and resources. The primary difference between them is the government. South Korea is vibrant and prosperous. North Korea is a black hole.

Forget the propagand from either side. That picture is all the evidence that I need to see that the North Korean goverment is stragling its own people.

THAT is the government that has declared they will not allow the rest of the world to exist if that government does not exist.

The N Korean government is repressive and paranoid. They are falling farther and farther behind as the rest of the world progresses. They see the prosperity of their neighbors and and want it. And they think it's unjust that they don't have it. They belive that S Korea and all of its prosperity RIGHTFULLY BELONGS TO THEM. That is a recipie for trouble. I sure hope they don't have nukes.

P.S.
Interesting feature:
The thin solid white line on the top right of Africa is the densly populated Nile River.

-

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[ErikZ]

What exactly has to be dealt with? The weapons, or the reason people want to use them? What can you realistically DO something about? The weapons, or the reason people want to use them?

Who cares? His point was that the US is constantly being bitched at for taking care of things, and when an OBVIOUS trouble spot like N. Korea pops up, none of the other countries are doing shit.

They're developing nukes to threaten their neighbors into giving them aid. If the rest of the world doesn't think that's a problem, then I give up.

When will we see UN, or Iraqi, or North Korean inspectors checking out the US's weapons of mass destruction and shaking their heads and saying 'This is not good enough. These are clear signs or your intent to invade us. We will therefore make a pre-emptive strike!'.

If you can't tell the difference between N. Korea, Iraq and the US, you've got bigger problems. Do you run around saying cops shouldn't have guns because murderers kill people with guns?

Everyone else (except for Israel) is quite happy left to their own devices, and only has weapons to protect themselves from the inevitable invasion from the US military / economy.

Excuse me? If the US wanted to take over the world they would of done it LONG time ago. If the US has shown anything time and time again is that they don't want to take over the world, they want to stay home. Pretty understandable when you realize that most Americans think their country is the best in the world. It's obvious now that you just hate the US and have no rational arguments.

The US has more nuclear, chemical and biological weapons than every other country on earth combined. And they have proved on numerous occasions that they are willing to use them to assert their economic 'rights' (while pretending that they are fighting the 'good fight' for democracy).

Hehe. And just with this sentence alone you show yourself to be troll/flamebait. Yeah, you got WWII pegged. We nuked Japan to assert our economic rights. And all those other countries too. You just don't hear about it in the news because the US controls all the communication mediums on the planet. Did you know that South America is actually a barren wasteland? It's where we conducted all those biological warfare experiments you've been talking about.

Sheesh.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[protohiro1]

Good point. If I was unafraid of my enemy I would totally resort to desperate tactics like terrorism. And if they didn't fight back I would keep doing it, but if they DID fight back I would just think, oh hum, they fought back I quit. Like the terrorists in Palestine. Good thing the Isrealis fought back. Look how retaliating stopped the cycle of violence.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[Guppy06]

"And fuck the economic cost. Or there'll be no-one left in 500 years to count your precious pennies."

Then what will they use to buy their groceries? Yes, economic costs really are tangible.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[goon america]

The US has more nuclear, chemical and biological weapons than every other country on earth combined.

I don't believe that is true. Can you support that with some evidence?

But I think this is what the US wants - because it's good for the economy. Wars are very good for the US economy. The US banks are well known for lending money to BOTH sides of wars to buy weapons from the US industrial military complex. Very good for the economy...

Again, evidence please? Wars are not always good for the economy.

You make some very emotional points. Make whatever wild claims you want when you talk to yourself, but BACK THEM UP WITH SOME FUCKING EVIDENCE when you talk to me. Thanks.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[Scrameustache]

Are you kidding, or just ignorant? Russia has more nukes than us

US: 7,982 deployed nuclear weapons
Russia: About 6000.

the only biological and chemical weapons we have left are used for training and research only, not research into new weapons mind you, but how to defend against them.

Bullshit. "How to defend against them" is a euphemism for "how to unleash them with minimal losses on our part". And you don't really need new wepons, you already have good weapons...people won't get any more dead with new weapons than with what's already available.

Yes, we are still the only country to use nuclear weapons in war. However, it probably saved the lives of 5 million American and Japanese soldiers who would've died in an invasion, and it ended the war.

Against civillians, mind you, and the war was already won. Japan had been trying to negociate a surrender with the help of russian diplomats for about a year when the US decided to nuke 'em (twice!). The point was not to end the war, it was to get an unconditionnal surrender...kick 'em while they're down.
It also came in handy as a way to scare the rest of the world into submission to US foreign policy...the "we have the bomb" argument was a pretty good one for 10 or 15 years, until others could say the same.

Your utopia will never exist, and besides, I wouldn't want to live there.

How's your best friend Satan?

You also have a severe misunderstanding of the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists' mindset.

I don't know about him, but my understanding is like this: You hit them, they hit you back more, you ht THEM back more, they hit YOU back double more...

Round and round it goes...

So, yeah, keep on picking a fight with Irak, and when the extremists hit you back for them, you can say "see, they hit us, we were right to hit them first", again and agin and again.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[krystal_blade]

I wouldn't be surprised to see you're smoking crack...

Why doesn't somebody else deal with North Korea?

Easy answer. Because No one else WILL.

North Korea likes to saber rattle every so often to get attention. This time, they fucked up and rattled the WRONG saber. We built those plants over there as a concession to them (for them not going after the A-Bomb)

Why? Because JAPAN is within short range missile (which NK has) distance of that country.

So, get off your high horse, take a tour around your house, and find EVERYTHING that is made in Taiwan, Japan, etc, and kiss it bye bye. Or expect to pay 1000% more for it.

All because someone wanted to wave the peace flag around. Boo fucking hoo.

I like my stuff. And I like it cheap. AND, I'm in the military (so don't start with the it isn't your life, cuz it is, cuz...)

What Bush is doing isn't about OIL (PS, we get VERY little (less than 10%) from the Middle east.
It's about people keeping fucking promises. Did you get all jacked up when MS decided they were going to loophole/backdoor the antitrust agreements? If so, then don't bitch about this, because it's the same damn thing. Iraq got their asses handed to them. They lost. They agreed to the terms. Now they don't want to keep them. Maybe when someone else was in office, they got a "go ahead" and a wave, but not this one. Frankly, I like it. It's a nice, fresh look at how we treat people. (And that is... Like shit until you prove yourself vaguely human)

Ciao

krystal_blade

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[canadian_right]

I'm pissed at a lot of things that the USA is doing these days (steel tarrifs, softwood lumber tarrifs, farm subsidies, patent laws, copyright laws, general world wide bullying, and this wierd lack of unstanding that the rest of the world does NOT want to become a clone of the USA and its particular set of beliefs), but you have to admit that virtually any other government, past or present (except Canada, we are much too polite to take over the world), would likely have abused the power the USA has NOW to a much greater extent.

I think the USA is being a hypocrite and simply making excuses for self-serving policies, but at the same time they are being quite self restrained given the power they do wield.

No one in Canada is worried that the USA is going to invade us, but we do wish that they wouldn't ask us to support their wars while waging economic war on us.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[ender81b]

Against civillians, mind you, and the war was already won. Japan had been trying to negociate a surrender with the help of russian diplomats for about a year when the US decided to nuke 'em (twice!). The point was not to end the war, it was to get an unconditionnal surrender...kick 'em while they're down.

As a history major this bit of misinformation has to be swiftly kicked out the door. The japanese would NEVER unconditionally surrender without the Nukes. Indeed, after the first nuke they STILL wouldn't demanding that a conditional surrnder with the Japanese Emperor still held in place the only condition the only option. After the second nuke only the direct intervention of the Japanese Emperor himself convinced the war cabinet to surrender.

The logical question then arises why did the US demand a unconditional surrender? Simple, it had been agreed upon at numerous conferences between the allies. Italy, Germany, and Japan all must unconditionally surrender or the war would not stop. Not demanding a unconditional surrender would've been tatamount to breaking a treaty between the allies.

The *reasons* for an unconditional surrender are quite valid. The US , and the allies, wanted to prevent the Germans/Japanese/Italians from ever rising up in power again to make war upon the world. You might remember the Versaille treaty and WWI - or you probably don't. At any rate this conditional treaty totally failed in preventing germany from rearming and, indeed, contributed to the rise of power of hitler. The US and the allies demanded the unconditional surrender to ensure something like this would never happen. And, guess what, it hasn't. Germany and Japan are both fairly strong allies and both are pretty peace-loving and economic powerhouses in the world. Seems the US occupation and surrender did some good.

Finally, instead of blaming the us for "kicking them while they where down" why the fuck don't you blame the japanese leaders for not surrendering when they *knew* they where beat? They KNEW that the allies would only accept an unconditional surrender but they continued to fight and, ultimatly, it is they who decided the fate of all those people who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - or the millions who would've died in an invasion of the home islands.

It had nothing to do with 'kicking them while they where down'. It had EVERYTHING to do with preventing a World War III. And, guess what, it worked. Anyone who thinks that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where simply vengeful acts has not a clue about the historical basis for the reasons for unconditional surrender - as you yourself proved.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[fmaxwell]

I disagree. If gas went up to $2/gal the next president of the United States would be the one promising to get us out of the Kyoto agreements and provide us with cheaper gas.

I hope that you are wrong (as I am sure that you do, too). But even if that happened, there would be enough people who would have converted to fuel-efficient cars in the interim that we would realize a real benefit.

Price increases wouldn't stop at just the pump. Industry would have to pass the cost along to the consumer which means produce goes up, UPS deliveries go up - basically most things that involve transportation. Maybe you don't, but I do notice five or ten cent increases when I go to the grocery store. And you know some special interest will spin all of that onto the increase in gas prices.

I'm sure that is true. Gas prices went up to support reformulated gasoline. Car and truck prices went up substantially to pay for pollution controls. They also went up to pay the cost of meeting CAFE requirements. Those things have not been rolled back. In fact, most of the regulations have gotten stiffer over the years.

There is always some activity that "justifies" the need for the SUV or monster truck.

I have a boat that my VW Golf is unsuitable to tow. That's why I also have a full-sized Dodge RAM pickup truck. But I don't commute in that every day.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[Fefe]

North Korea may not want to take over the world, but they definitely have plans to invade South Korea and Japan.

How do you know that?

We could've ruled the world long ago. After WW II, we were the only real power left on Earth. It would've been easy to establish the first truly global empire and rule the entire planet. Instead, we rebuilt Europe and Japan, then went home.

Actually, the USA did establish what was needed for a world-wide presence of weapons of mass destruction. Why are South Korea and Taiwan not Communist? Because the USA can put troops and aircraft carriers and nuke submarines there if they are not. This in turn can be used to threaten the whole region and give China reason to be worried. But when Russia tried to do the same using Cuba as a base, Kennedy almost blew up the whole world by escalating the situation further and further. I find it most amusing how the USA still managed to let this man be known as a hero in the history books.

And the rebuilding of Germany was done to prevent the Russians from gaining power in Europe. The USA established many military bases in Germany and coincidentally most of these troops are now being moved to Iraqi borders. The USA helped keep Berlin allied because they installed a huge SIGINT listening post and a monster propaganda radio station there to subvert the Soviet Bloc.

Are you kidding, or just ignorant? Russia has more nukes than us,

No. See the numbers from the BBC. Those are from 2001; I couldn't find newer numbers. Feel free to post a link to a source with more recent numbers.

and the only biological and chemical weapons we have left are used for training and research only, not research into new weapons mind you, but how to defend against them.

Funny, that is exactly what Saddam Hussein has saying for years about his biological and chemical weapons.

First, we actually do allow the UN and Russia to inspect our weapons of mass destruction. They ensure compliance with several arms control treaties.

Funny, I thought Bush unilaterally declared that the USA would no longer honour those treaties. Do you have more recent information on this?

Someone else would always rearm and try to assert their power.

I am impressed by the depth of your argument. This should really convince everybody that it's a good idea to spend tax money on weapons of mass destruction instead of feeding the hungry and providing health care to the population.

This is partly what we're seeing now with Al Qaeda, a non-governmental organization waging war across international borders.

You do appear to be amazingly well informed; better even than the US government who could fabrica^Wproduce no proof for this even when expressly asked for it by the UNO. Would you mind telling us your sources?

By the way: war is what countries wage against each other. If it's not a country, it's not war. What Al Quaeda allegedly does is called terrorism, not war. Declaring war on terrorism is about as stupid as declaring war on drugs... uh, never mind.

Your utopia will never exist, and besides, I wouldn't want to live there.

To be hondest, I wouldn't want you to join us there either.

You also have a severe misunderstanding of the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists' mindset.

Wow! You continue to amaze me! You also have a deep understanding of the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists' mindset? I heard the US government is looking for people with your skills and qualifications. Why don't you talk to them? After all the valuable information and deep thoughts you posted here, there are virtually guaranteed to hire you on the spot!

The most he ever did was lob a few cruise missiles at empty training camps and pharmeceutical factories.

Funny you should mention that. Destroying that one pharmaceutical factory killed at least an order of magnitude more people than 9/11 killed. And all of them were civilists, most of them small children. We can only guess at the exact body count and the blood Mr. Clinton has on his hands here, but the order of magnitude is quite breathtaking.

Mr Bush will have to launch a war of epic proportions to come close to the mass destruction his predecessors have caused in the region. But I am confident in him. His decisions seem untroubled by the magnitude of the suffering he is causing to others, that should make it easier for him to launch this war.

By the way: I heard a nice theory about the Iraq war. I heard that Iraq was forced to pay reparations to Kuwait, and they didn't have the money (of course, Bush Sj bombed it all away). So US banks gave the money to Kuwait and now Iraq has to give the proceedings from their oil sales to the US banks to pay off this debt. The theory now states that the banks are afraid that Mr Hussein might declare bankruptcy and that would collapse the US banking system which is already troubled by the recession. I don't know how much of this is true, but it at least sounds plausible.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[Scrameustache]

As a history major this bit of misinformation has to be swiftly kicked out the door. The japanese would NEVER unconditionally surrender without the Nukes.

I never said they would, I clearly said that they were trying to surrender conditionally...ya know, with the russian diplomats.

[...] long explanation of why an unconditional surrender was what the US and allies were after [...]

Anyone who thinks that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where simply vengeful acts has not a clue about the historical basis for the reasons for unconditional surrender - as you yourself proved.


I did NOT say the only reason for the nuking of civilian japanese were "simply vengeful acts", I said that it was done to gain the upper hand by scaring the rest of the world into submitting to the US foreign policies. I stand by that. The vengefullness was just an added bonus.

It was a horrible cold bloded murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians. You can come up with all the rationalisations in the world, it was still hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths!

why the fuck don't you blame the japanese leaders for not surrendering when they *knew* they where beat?

Oh, they had it coming huh? It was their own fault, you told 'em to bend over and take it up the ass, and they didn't listen, so it was quite allright to start dropping "A" bombs on 'em, really.

Yes, the japanese high command (or whatever they were called) should have realised that they were doomed, but I will not blame their willingness to try and save their way of life (embodied in the emperor) for the nukings. They were foolish, they were overconfident, and they got nuked by intelligent, overconfident jerks. It was overkill. they dropped a nuke on an industrial city, on morning rush hour, over the town bridge. That was a move to ensure that the most people would die. They could have made their point by dropping the nuke anywhere else, but they choose a high civilian mortality rate. Cold, calculated, evil.

It had EVERYTHING to do with preventing a World War III. And, guess what, it worked.

I have a rock here that keeps tigers away...I'll sell it to you, cheap!

The face of war changed. There was a cold war (wich took place all over the world), that some would argue counts as a third world war. It didn't follow the insane pattern of the first two world wars, but going ahead like that would have been suicide, and everyone involved knew that.

has not a clue about the historical basis for the reasons for unconditional surrender - as you yourself proved.

Considering that the only thing you seemed to have picked up from my post was "kick them while they were down", I reject your assumption.

And oh, you're a history major? So yeah, I would expect that you know more of the historical details...but guess what, you couldn't even understand my argument...Or worse, you understand my argument (nuking people is not nice), but you think that the ends justify the means.

I'm a pacifist, I think that killing someone to take his stuff is wrong. I think that killing someone's family so he'll do as you order is wrong. I'm all for vengeance, but you gotta know when to stop.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[ender81b]

still hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths!

Indeed it was. Terrible deaths they where too, and they should never be forgotten as a lesson to what years of war and ignorance can result in - on both sides. I will say is this - an invasion of the japanese mainland would have resulted in far, far more casulties. Millions upon millions and the war wouldn't have likely ended for 2-3 more years. Millions more would have died due to starvation during the invasion.

but I will not blame their willingness to try and save their way of life (embodied in the emperor) for the nukings

Trying to preserve a way of life doesn't automaticaly grant you some sort of divine right to let millions of your citizens to be killed in a hopeless cause.

As for bombing in broad daylight there was no other realistic option - you wanted the most light so you could be sure your bombs hit the target. These weren't laser guided bombs with GPS navigation they where using. The move wasn't calculated to kill the most people - it was calculated to give the mission the best chance of success, in the morning so the crew could fly there under the cover of nite then have good light by which to see their target. Also, it was in case the first target was obscured by fog or whatever they still had enough time to hit their secondary target.

As for the end justifying the means.. no. You have to put this in a historical context. After years and years of war President Truman was told they had two bombs of incredible destructive power that MIGHT save the US hundreds of thousands of casulties and shave years off the war. The bombing of civilians, while a horrible act, was probably never even considered at that time by the president and his advisors. The Japanese had not spared civilians during the war so the US never really tried either (note: not a justification just part of the context we are dealing with here). A conditional surrender was never an option for the japanese - for all the reasons I explained and because of popular opinion due to pearl harbor. He ordered it, and the order was carried out.

As for possibly scaring the rest of the world to go along with post WWII US Foreign Policy this was probably quite true and probably influenced his decision in some way, though Truman himself never admitted to it and there is no direct evidence that Truman decided to drop the bomb just to show the Soviets the US had a new weapon - indeed he knew that the soviets knew quite abit about the bomb due to spies and their own research.

The cold war was hardly world war I & II and, at any rate, the goal was achieved - neither Germany or Japan threataned world peace (or stability if you prefer) again. I see quite a bit of difference between bombing hiroshima and nagasaki than invading the Islands and killing millions more.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[enkidu]

North Korea may not want to take over the world, but they definitely have plans to invade South Korea and Japan. Their quasi-Marxist, central-planning philosophy of "self-sufficiency" has led to massive famine and economic stagnation. The only reason they have any food to eat is South Korean and US aid.

And who made you the expert on North Korea? They may still squak about reuniting the peninsula, but N.K. isn't insane, they know the can't invade South Korea. Japan? Don't make me laugh. What makes you think that given their current situation they aren't more concentrated on simple survival? This most recent ploy is an effort to obtain guarantees of their regime's safety.

Are you kidding, or just ignorant? Russia has more nukes than us, and the only biological and chemical weapons we have left are used for training and research only, not research into new weapons mind you, but how to defend against them.

Yes, we are still the only country to use nuclear weapons in war. However, it probably saved the lives of 5 million American and Japanese soldiers who would've died in an invasion, and it ended the war.

As the others have pointed out, we still have more nukes than russia. (We also have far more nukes in workable condition, in addition to a decisive first strike capability in our nuclear armed submarines, still deployed through out the deep oceans of the world). We signed a treaty not to develop chemical and biological weapons. But we did anyway using a loophole claiming that we were trying to figure out to "fight against" bio-chem weapons. Where do you think the Anthrax used in the post 9/11 mail attacks came from? From our own research programs.

You also have a severe misunderstanding of the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists' mindset. The reason they even attempted 9/11 is they thought the US was a "paper tiger." Throughout the 90s they kept escalating their attacks, but Bill Clinton never retaliated quickly or decisively enough. The most he ever did was lob a few cruise missiles at empty training camps and pharmeceutical factories.

Nice bullshit analysis. Al Qaeda (and not Iraq mind you) attacked on 9/11 in an attempt to cause the U.S. to overreact against Afghanistan so OSB could unite the radical elements in the middle east against the U.S., overthrow the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia and gain a strangle hold over the oil vital to the U.S. economy. OSB thought that Al Qaeda could mire the U.S. in a prolonged Vietnam-like war in Afghanistan, as the USSR had been caught in the 80's. Fortunately, the technological advances of the last two decades and the general unpopularity of the Taliban created a different outcome in Afghanistan. Also the 9/11 attack proved to be less "popular" than anticipated.

EnkiduEOT

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[nathanm]

US: 7,982 deployed nuclear weapons
Russia: About 6000.

The keyword here is deployed. Those are the warheads ready to be launched/dropped right now. During the height of the cold war, the USSR had 27,000 warheads deployed and we had 20,000. But remember, plutonium has a half life of over 24,000 years, and uranium is in the millions. The rest of those warheads are still in storage, and it doesn't take long to retrofit them on weapons.

Bullshit. "How to defend against them" is a euphemism for "how to unleash them with minimal losses on our part".

Right, and the black helicopters are all a just a part of a big government conspiracy too. I have no doubt the US would retaliate with nuclear weapons if weapons of mass destruction were used against us, but no politician or military leader has any desire to unleash chemical, or especially biological, weapons. They're just as likely to affect our own troops as well.

Against civillians, mind you, and the war was already won. Japan had been trying to negociate a surrender with the help of russian diplomats for about a year when the US decided to nuke 'em (twice!). The point was not to end the war, it was to get an unconditionnal surrender...kick 'em while they're down.

Civilians were targeted by all sides in WW II. Fortunately that isn't acceptable today. We go to extraordinary lengths to avoid accidental civilian deaths today, made easier, but much more expensive, with precision guided munitions.

As another poster pointed out, the Japanese were not close to surrendering before the atomic bombs. They even flat out refused to surrender after the first one was dropped.

I don't know about him, but my understanding is like this: You hit them, they hit you back more, you ht THEM back more, they hit YOU back double more...

Round and round it goes...

So, yeah, keep on picking a fight with Irak, and when the extremists hit you back for them, you can say "see, they hit us, we were right to hit them first", again and agin and again.

No, it's more like this:

• 1993 - WTC bombed, no retaliation
  
• 1993 - "Black Hawk Down" in Somalia, US forces turn tail and run
  
• 1996 - Khobar towers bombed, no retaliation, abandoned more accessible bases in Saudi Arabia for more remote ones
  
• 1998 - Bin Laden calls US a "paper tiger" in interview
  
• 1998 - Two embassies in Africa bombed, didn't retaliate until it conveniently delayed an impeachment vote
  
• 1999 - Terrorists intercepted planning to bomb New Year's Eve celebrations
  
• 2000 - USS Cole bombed, no retaliation
  
• 2001 - Sept 11
  

Because we didn't use effective or timely retaliation, they came to believe we were a bunch of spineless cowards. They kept escalating their attacks, culminating in 9/11.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[nathanm]

I'm pissed at a lot of things that the USA is doing these days (steel tarrifs, softwood lumber tarrifs, farm subsidies, patent laws, copyright laws, general world wide bullying, and this wierd lack of unstanding that the rest of the world does NOT want to become a clone of the USA and its particular set of beliefs)

I agree completely about the tariffs, subsidies, and IP laws. Could you imagine if conditions were similar when automobiles were first invented? There would be horse-drawn carriages on the roads still today to protect the jobs of blacksmiths and livery stables.

The European Union is racing to pass us up with the most Byzantine IP laws.

I don't think anyone's interested in cloning the US though, we do have our share of problems. But most of the world has this wierd love-hate relationship with us: in one breath it's "down with America," and in the next they can't get enough McDonalds, Mickey Mouse, Coca-Cola, and Baywatch.

No one in Canada is worried that the USA is going to invade us, but we do wish that they wouldn't ask us to support their wars while waging economic war on us.

Despite our differences, we'll always be the best of friends. It doesn't generate much news, but we share the world's longest undefended border and we have the largest trade relationship by far between any two countries.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[nathanm]

How do you know that?

First, the Korean War never officially ended, becuase no peace treaty was signed, only a cease fire. Since the North Koreans have done a pretty good job of messing their own country up, they'll eventually implode or explode. If they explode, the obvious direction will be their neighbors to the south. Second, Koreans, from both the North and the South, don't have much love for the Japanese. They're still a tad bitter about the Japanese occupying Korea from 1910-1945, raping, pillaging, murdering, forcing them to take Japanese names, and prohibiting them from speaking Korean. The rocket North Korea launched a couple years ago went across Japan for a reason.

But when Russia tried to do the same using Cuba as a base, Kennedy almost blew up the whole world by escalating the situation further and further. I find it most amusing how the USA still managed to let this man be known as a hero in the history books.

I agree. Kennedy started the Vietnam war and was a bigger womanizer than even Clinton, but since he was assassinated, he's been lionized in US culture.

And the rebuilding of Germany was done to prevent the Russians from gaining power in Europe.

Sure, that's one reason, every state is going to act in its own interests. Another important reason was the lesson learned from the failure of the Versailles treaty after WW I.

No. See the numbers from the BBC. Those are from 2001; I couldn't find newer numbers. Feel free to post a link to a source with more recent numbers.

That's the point, more recent numbers are irrelevent. Russia and us still have every warhead from the height of the cold war: about 27,000 in Russia and 20,000 here. Plutonium has a 24,000 year half life, and uranium is in the millions. They can be retrofitted to weapons pretty easily.

Funny, that is exactly what Saddam Hussein has saying for years about his biological and chemical weapons.

Except that he has a well known, proven track record of actually using them, on his own people even.

Funny, I thought Bush unilaterally declared that the USA would no longer honour those treaties. Do you have more recent information on this?

We withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. That's how treaties are designed, as agreements between two or more parties, only in effect as long as the parties still agree to the treaty.

I am impressed by the depth of your argument. This should really convince everybody that it's a good idea to spend tax money on weapons of mass destruction instead of feeding the hungry and providing health care to the population.

I never even insinuated we should spend more on WMD. Besides, as a conservative/libertarian, I don't believe it's the government's duty to feed the hungry or provide health care. Granted, I personally believe we should provide a safety net for people for a short time in the case of emergencies.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[nathanm]

And who made you the expert on North Korea? They may still squak about reuniting the peninsula, but N.K. isn't insane, they know the can't invade South Korea. Japan? Don't make me laugh. What makes you think that given their current situation they aren't more concentrated on simple survival? This most recent ploy is an effort to obtain guarantees of their regime's safety.

I won't claim to be an expert on North Korea, but I'm sure I know more than your average /.er: I speak some Korean, was stationed in South Korea for two years in the Air Force, try to keep up with the news from there, and I still have friends there.

I wouldn't be so sure of Kim Jong Il's sanity. Their latest tactics don't seem too likely to lengthen their time in power.

As the others have pointed out, we still have more nukes than russia. (We also have far more nukes in workable condition, in addition to a decisive first strike capability in our nuclear armed submarines, still deployed through out the deep oceans of the world). We signed a treaty not to develop chemical and biological weapons. But we did anyway using a loophole claiming that we were trying to figure out to "fight against" bio-chem weapons. Where do you think the Anthrax used in the post 9/11 mail attacks came from? From our own research programs.

No, Russia still has all 27,000 warheads from the height of the cold war, and we still only have 20,000. Plutonium has a 24,000 year half-life, and uranium is in the millions. Those warheads can be retrofitted to weapons pretty easily.

That loophole was an explicitly intended clause in the treaty, for all parties involved. Unless you're susceptible to conspiracy theories, there's absolutely no reason to believe we've developed new WMDs, and many reasons to believe we're only researching how to combat them.

Sure the anthrax came from our own labs, but most likely as a result of sloppy handling, not malicious intent. Several universities around the country have been supplied with anthrax samples from the government. Hopefully they've woken up to the possible consequences of their lax security and fixed it by now.

Nice bullshit analysis. Al Qaeda (and not Iraq mind you) attacked on 9/11 in an attempt to cause the U.S. to overreact against Afghanistan so OSB could unite the radical elements in the middle east against the U.S., overthrow the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia and gain a strangle hold over the oil vital to the U.S. economy. OSB thought that Al Qaeda could mire the U.S. in a prolonged Vietnam-like war in Afghanistan, as the USSR had been caught in the 80's. Fortunately, the technological advances of the last two decades and the general unpopularity of the Taliban created a different outcome in Afghanistan. Also the 9/11 attack proved to be less "popular" than anticipated.

I don't think Bin Laden had any such grand strategy in mind when the attacks were planned. Ever since they first bombed the WTC in 1993, they kept escalating the attacks. When we didn't retaliate with enough force or resolve, he saw that as weakness. He probably never expected us to actually put our troops in danger, on the ground.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[nathanm]

You don't know the difference between having plans and excuting them do you?

Actually I do, I was just responding to the parent poster, who implied that the US had military ambitions to conquer the world. That's simply absurd, but it's still entirely plausible that North Korea could get desperate and attck the South.

And what gives US of A the right to tell how other countries work? The right of military power perhaps?

Nothing, but we aren't generally dictating other states' conduct. However, when there's a credible threat to our national security, we have every right to deal with it.

Yes, but rebuilt why? And they most certainly didn't leave Europe (or the rest of the world) to their own devices. Think of NATO, I believe USA has lots of weapons around Europe. And I really doubt USA could've conquered the world by military might, or if it would've been possible the resulting country" would've been so unstable that it would've probably ruined the economy far beyond what WW II did.

Of course it was in our interest to rebuild Europe. No state acts on purely altruistic motives. But the US showed great generosity and even greater restraint, unprecedented in recorded history.

Who could've challenged us militarily? We were just beginning to tap our resources when WW II ended. I agree the resulting empire would've been unstable. Nobody has been able to keep an empire together for too long, not the Romans, Mongols, British, Soviets, or anyone else.

Yes, America is the only "Utopia" allowed to exist clearly, and a Bush America at that.

America is no utopia, and I would never claim it is. Any hopes of achieving some kind of utopia are firmly rooted in fantasy alone. Human nature will ensure that.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[nathanm]

But he didn't say. Imperialism is a straw man. Parent is right in that, since Kissinger was Secretary of State, we have empasized capitalism over democracy and human rights in the countries that we are involved with.

But his arguments are the same as the people (falsely) accusing the US of imperialism. I definitely agree we've made a lot of mistakes in our foreign policy (or lack thereof in recent years). We've picked the lesser of two evils in many cases and held our nose while they used our supplied weapons to commit atrocities. But this is one reason I believe we need to try to correct some of those situations, like in Iraq.

The parent post never mentioned becoming a Marxist society, just disarmanent. If this is possible, why wouldn't you want to live there?

You'll also notice I never mentioned Marxism. Utopias don't have to be Marxist, there are plenty of loonies out there who think they can create heaven on Earth.

Disarmed states would cease to be independent states very quickly. There will always be those ready to take advantage of others' weakness.

Clinton never got support from Congress, who said that there was no terrorist threat and accused him of distracting the country from the multimillion dollar Whitewater and Lewinsky/Zippergate investigations. Reading newspaper headlines from 1998 can make you ill in light of 9/11.

No kidding, he should've been tried for treason instead.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[nathanm]

The US shrewdly realized that imperialism need not occur via direct warfare but instead was easier to accomplish via economic means. American imperialism has not occurred via direct military action but instead through the long arm of the American corporate enterprise. I don't particularly need to argue this point; American companies dominate the global economic landscape, and where they don't, the dominant company generally stems from a place where America rebuilt using its own ideology, such as Japan or Germany.

That's patently ridiculous! Nobody's holding a gun to peoples' heads, forcing them to buy American products, eat at McDonalds, or watch Baywatch. People around the world are choosing these things because of some kind of fascination with American pop culture.

You probably didn't read the essay I linked to in my post. It's written much better than I'm capable of, and demonstrates the absurdity of any claims of American imperialism.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[nathanm]

Since you brought up ensuring compliance to arms controls treaties, isn't the US makeing anti-ballistic missile missiles, despite treaties against that?

We withdrew from the ABM treaty, as is the right of any treaty signatory.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[enkidu]

I won't claim to be an expert on North Korea, but I'm sure I know more than your average /.er: I speak some Korean, was stationed in South Korea for two years in the Air Force, try to keep up with the news from there, and I still have friends there.

I wouldn't be so sure of Kim Jong Il's sanity. Their latest tactics don't seem too likely to lengthen their time in power.

I'm no expert either, not having spent my life studying the political history of the region (and neither is George Bush or Condi Rice). However, I read, write and speak Korean fluently, lived in Korea for 11 years from '76 to '87. I regularly read two Korean newspapers via the internet and also the Japanese and Hong Kong newspapers. And I feel that the complete lack of strategy (long or short term) taken by Bush Jr. with regard to North Korea has been an utter and complete failure.

Don't be fooled by Kim Jong Il's supposed craziness. North Korea is one of only two cold war Marxists states still maintaining their independence and the only one of real strategic importance. North Korea has managed to keep Russia, China and the U.S. from controlling them for close to 50 years by playing the fear and greed of each against the other. They didn't do that by being stupid or reckless. Just because their actions are extreme doesn't mean that they are acting without calculation.

Sure the anthrax came from our own labs, but most likely as a result of sloppy handling, not malicious intent. Several universities around the country have been supplied with anthrax samples from the government. Hopefully they've woken up to the possible consequences of their lax security and fixed it by now.

No malicious intent huh? You can't just walk out with a tinful of the stuff, or at least without it leaking all over the place. The anthrax that was mailed wasn't just "samples", it was extremely sophisticated, "aerosol capable" highly refined anthrax spores. This kind of stuff doesn't occur natuarally (and is NOT used for typical research). The stuff that occurs naturally isn't as concentrated, isn't as pure and is much "wetter" for want of a better word. The kind of stuff that was mailed is only needed to make high efficiency warheads, not to test cures. In fact, I seem to recall many experts saying that only the U.S. has the capability to refine anthrax to the degree used in the terrorist attacks. And in the U.S., there's probably only one or two laboratories that know how to do it. From genetic analysis, we probably know where it came from and probably have a (very) short list of suspects. But arresting those responsible would mean revealing where and how they learned to refine anthrax to that degree. So another terrorist is no longer on the top list of suspects. Wonderful how selective our "War on Terrorism" is.

I don't think Bin Laden had any such grand strategy in mind when the attacks were planned. Ever since they first bombed the WTC in 1993, they kept escalating the attacks. When we didn't retaliate with enough force or resolve, he saw that as weakness. He probably never expected us to actually put our troops in danger, on the ground.

Perhaps. Nevertheless, our perceived weakness was only a part of the calculations of Bin Laden, IMO. (Part of that weakness was also caused by Congress baying for Clinton's blood at any hint of our armed force's blood. Somalia was as much a phenomenon of Clinton as the Republican Congress.) Do the Palestinians think the Israelies lack will? Again, just because their goals seem ridiculous to us doesn't mean that they are simply acting with no underlying plan. From what I have read, the object of Bin Laden was to create a fresh new Jihad and reestablish independence from perceived U.S. influence for Saudi Arabia and unite all of Islam (under himself of course). Of course, he may have been hoping for a resultant miracle from Allah. Although I doubt it.

EnkiduEOT

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[nathanm]

I'm no historian, but I remember the coup in Peru, the invasions of [Panama] and Grenada, and the U.S.-sponsored civil war in Nicaragua.

I won't deny we've mettled in plenty of other countries, but imperialism requires control. In no way did we control the outcomes of any of your examples:

• In Peru, the CIA had Allende assassinated, and Pinochet took power. The interesting part is, although he committed many human rights abuses, he paved the way for democracy, and was forgiven by the Peruvian people. It was the Europeans who arrested him and attempted to try him.
  
• In Panama, Noriega was initially supported by the CIA, but when he ran afoul and started trafficking drugs, they tried to reign him in. It took a small invasion to arrest him.
  
• Grenada was an entirely legitimate operation. Communist backed guerillas had taken many American medical students hostage, so we liberated them.
  
• We didn't start the Nicaraguan civil war, we just supported the side opposite the communists.
  

I'm no rabid anti-American. I'm even willing to acknowledge the good that was done by the British Empire. (As a Canadian, I'd be a hypocrite not to). However, denying that the US is an imperial power is, um, "delusional nonsense" of another sort.

To look at history objectively, you must consider the good as well as the bad, I agree. For all their abuses and oppression, most empires throughout history have at least provided law and order, constructed infrastructure in the occupied land, and modernized their territories. But America is not guilty of imperialism in any sense of the word. Please read the essay I linked in my previous post for a much better explanatian than I'm capable of writing.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[nathanm]

I guess that whole Cold War thing with the USSR was unnecessary then, huh?

You're confused, in 1945, Russia was devastated by the loss of millions of soldiers in WW II. The cold war didn't really start until about 1950.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[FunkSoulBrother]

umm.. he got modded straight to +5

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[nathanm]

And I feel that the complete lack of strategy (long or short term) taken by Bush Jr. with regard to North Korea has been an utter and complete failure.

I was initially distraught with Bush's reluctance to engage North Korea in any kind of meaningful dialogue, but their recent actions lead me to believe that Bush was right.

Before I went to Korea, I didn't know how much tension still existed there. Several cross-DMZ firefights, tunnel discoveries, small naval skirmishes, and the commando mini-sub incident really opened my eyes. After hearing Kim Hyun Hee talk, I realized what cold, heartless bastards the North Korean rulers are.

For a while, I almost believed that Kim Dae Chung's "sunshine policy" was working, and they were slowly opening up. But it was all a facade. They tricked Jimmy Carter into the now defunct 1994 agreement.

There is a good essay by George Will that squarely fixes the blame for the current crisis on Clinton and Carter, in their naive view that they were dealing with a rational government.

North Korea is one of only two cold war Marxists states still maintaining their independence and the only one of real strategic importance. North Korea has managed to keep Russia, China and the U.S. from controlling them for close to 50 years by playing the fear and greed of each against the other.

They're independent only in the sense that no foreign power is ruling over them. They're still wholly dependent on us, South Korea, and Japan for food.

The Soviets and Chinese never got too close during the cold war because they couldn't stomach the "cult of personality" surrounding Kim Il Sung, and the obvious dynastic succession of Kim Jong Il that was sure to follow his father's death.

Do the Palestinians think the Israelies lack will? Again, just because their goals seem ridiculous to us doesn't mean that they are simply acting with no underlying plan.

The problem there is the leaders of both sides intend to control entire area, from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. I believe a majority of the population on both sides would be satisfied with a division of the land, if the killing could just be stopped. But, unless a realist can gain power on both sides who's willing to compromise, I don't have much hope for a peaceful resolution in my lifetime.

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[Scrameustache]

no politician or military leader has any desire to unleash chemical, or especially biological, weapons. They're just as likely to affect our own troops as well.

Unless you have the vaccine that immunises your troops against your biological agents. Then you can just send the disease, let the enemy get sick, and then waltz in unaffected. If you're telling me that your military scientists are not trying to do this, then either they, or you, are complete retards. That technology would give whoever controlls it an unbelievable upper hand. Not trying to get it would be very uncharacteristic of the country that got The Bomb first.

1993 - WTC bombed, no retaliation

Well, there were arrests, and an impressive bit of detective work with saliva on enveloppes...but it wasn't a country-to-country conflict, there wasn't anything to do in retaliation, no one to retaliate to (except the guys that actually did it, and I think they are still in jail).

* 1993 - "Black Hawk Down" in Somalia, US forces turn tail and run

Well, you invaded Somalia thinking it would be a piece of cake, the black hawk down was them retaliating. Getting out of there was the sane thing to do. (no point in loosing troops to invade somalia, the place was a mess)

* 1996 - Khobar towers bombed, no retaliation, abandoned more accessible bases in Saudi Arabia for more remote ones

Never heard of it

* 1998 - Bin Laden calls US a "paper tiger" in interview

Wow! Nuke him! Nuke him now! He calls the US a paper tiger! BURN ALL HIS LANDS TO ASHES!
Come on, he called you names? How dare he!?! Sheesh...

* 1998 - Two embassies in Africa bombed, didn't retaliate until it conveniently delayed an impeachment vote

The wonderfull world of politics...

* 1999 - Terrorists intercepted planning to bomb New Year's Eve celebrations

That's what borders are for, good job that.

* 2000 - USS Cole bombed, no retaliation

The ship in Yemen? What, you were gonna retaliate againts Yemen?

* 2001 - Sept 11

Retaliated by bombing the shit out of Afganistan and then taking over. (BTW, american pilots on amphetamines bombed canadian troops on a training exercise...dunno what that was retaliating against, but now the canadiens got retaliated against! That'll learn 'em to...er...beat you at hockey!)

Because we didn't use effective or timely retaliation, they came to believe we were a bunch of spineless cowards. They kept escalating their attacks, culminating in 9/11.

No, because they keep wanting you to get out of islamic countries and you keep not leaving, they keep attacking you.
And, the CIA trained them to do it.
And who are those "they" we are talking about?

Anyway, just ignore me and go back to your normal train of thought: DESTROY! DESTROY! DESTROY!

Paper tiger...sheesh...

Re:Why should we be surprised?

[enkidu]

I was initially distraught with Bush's reluctance to engage North Korea in any kind of meaningful dialogue, but their recent actions lead me to believe that Bush was right.

Before I went to Korea, I didn't know how much tension still existed there. Several cross-DMZ firefights, tunnel discoveries, small naval skirmishes, and the commando mini-sub incident really opened my eyes. After hearing Kim Hyun Hee talk, I realized what cold, heartless bastards the North Korean rulers are.

For a while, I almost believed that Kim Dae Chung's "sunshine policy" was working, and they were slowly opening up. But it was all a facade. They tricked Jimmy Carter into the now defunct 1994 agreement.

There is a good essay [msnbc.com] by George Will that squarely fixes the blame for the current crisis on Clinton and Carter, in their naive view that they were dealing with a rational government.

Find me a single non-Republican (or even anyone in Europe or Asia) who thinks that Bush's policy towards N.K. has either been effective or worthwhile. George Will may be good at analyzing national politics but in the international relations game, he sticks to his ideology, not reality. Also, Clinton negotiated the 1994 agreement, defusing a potentially dangerous situation.

Just because they are "cold, heartless bastards" doesn't mean that if we ignore them, we win. Or that we shouldn't talk to them. Did we not negotiate with the U.S.S.R. at the height of the cold war? They may not have many cards, but they do border China, Russia, South Korea and Japan (effectively).

They're independent only in the sense that no foreign power is ruling over them. They're still wholly dependent on us, South Korea, and Japan for food.

They are independent in the sense that no one controls their actions and policies.

The current situation would have never occurred had we continued a dialogue with N.K. Now, due to neglect, we are faced with three choices: bomb N.K.'s nuclear refinenment center, let N.K. make a nuclear bomb, or negotiate with N.K. The first will effectively destroy South Korea, and destroy any trust China and Japan have in the U.S. to keep the peace in the region. The second will force Japan to go nuclear and totally destabilize the region. And the third is something that Bush said we'd never do. Let's see what Bush does in the next month and then we'll talk. If we end up at the negotiating table, it will prove to me that Bush's policies has been a complete failure.

This will be my last post so if you want to continue, email me at moc tod oohay ta eelsnad if you want to continue the discussion.

There may be a scientific basis

[The Tyro]

I hate to be a party pooper, but there actually may be something to the abortion theory. To be fair, however, it probably has little to do with the act of abortion itself.

The human breast does not reach full maturity until at least one pregnancy is completed. If a person has multiple abortions and never carries a pregnancy to term, their risk for breast cancer COULD be higher, but it may be because of never having children; the fact that the woman aborted all her pregnancies is just the method. She could just as easily be a spinster or nun, and carry the same risk.

It's shortsighted to automatically assume that science is bad, simply because it contradicts some concept one holds dear. Look at the research objectively, and judge it on its merits.

Knowledge is Good.

Re:There may be a scientific basis

[videodriverguy]

Did you read the study done on 1.5 million women? Is that not enough 'evidence' for you? Or perhaps you would prefer the average American study, on 1000 people with massive uncertanties.

How about women who don't breast feed? Wouldn't that make just as much difference. And what about miscarriages, as someone else pointed out.

As someone who also posted this very same article earlier (but was rejected), I have to say that the point here is they are CHANGING the sites to further political agendas. A very bad thing, IMHO.

Sadly, the only thing surprising about it (to me) was that the media kept this so quiet. Wonder what's next (and I really don't want to think about that)?

'UNBIASED Knowledge is Good' - any other kind is Bad.

Re:There may be a scientific basis

[cheezehead]

The human breast does not reach full maturity until at least one pregnancy is completed. If a person has multiple abortions and never carries a pregnancy to term, their risk for breast cancer COULD be higher, but it may be because of never having children; the fact that the woman aborted all her pregnancies is just the method. She could just as easily be a spinster or nun, and carry the same risk.

In other words, don't confuse correlation with causation...

Re:There may be a scientific basis

[The Tyro]

'UNBIASED Knowledge is Good' - any other kind is Bad.

Yes. Though it's probably wise to examine the biased knowledge as well. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then... you'd hate to throw away valuable science, simply because you didn't like the source.

Women who don't breast feed don't gain the protective benefits of breast feeding... though they do gain the benefits of a term pregnancy. They still benefit, just not as much. Miscarriages do not seem to be protective in the same way a term pregnancy is and neither are abortions protective(a manmade miscarriage).

Abortions themselves may not be independently harmful, or they might be... who knows? If you can control for the other factors, I'm sure you'd agree that this would be pretty useful knowledge. I'd think women would want to know if they were increasing their breast cancer risk, or not...

Informed consent requires full disclosure of the risks and benefits.

Re:There may be a scientific basis

[dbrutus]

Nobody, not even the most rabid pro-life activist has ever held that breast cancer is solely caused by abortions, merely that abortion is one factor in raising risk.

From what I understand, these sorts of charges get levelled by both sides, depending on the administration's ideological color. It is just that right now, it's the liberal's turn and they have a bigger megaphone. Does anybody remember advocacy for masturbation under the Clinton administration and the furor that provoked? Each side twists things, that's the trouble with govt. funded science. Let's not delude ourselves that either side is 'pure'.

What a stupid title

[mc6809e]

How can there be any such thing as liberal or conservative science? If the new conclusions are consistent with scientific principles, then they are scientific. The end.

Oh, you don't like them? BFD. Science doesn't care what you think or what you wish to be true. And guess what -- sometimes science just happens to support the positions of the political right. Anyone who is intellectually honest will just have to accept that.

And I'm not just some right-wing Bible thumper. I happen to be an atheist and a strong advocate of science. But even I can see how the political left in this country has politicized science and it fucking pisses me off. Science isn't about trying to verify your political prejudices and the political left doesn't have a monopoly on science.

Re:What a stupid title

[mc6809e]

Then why didn't you notice the revisions are not due to new scientific evidence, which leads to the question: then why were they revised? The obvious answer is: to please right-wing bible thumpers.

I did notice it and it doesn't make a damn bit of difference. The goal is to produce conclusions that are consitent with the science. An alternate obvious answer to your question is that the previous conclusions were themselves there to please radical left-wingers and have been altered to be consistent with the science.

It's just your sort of attitude that has forced me to give up on the political left. Anything that doesn't support your political prejudices is wrong/flawed/unscientific/conservative/motivated by bible-thumpers/motivated by hate/greed/money/power/evil. Well sometimes your political oppenents on the right are correct.

If the left were more liberal-minded they might at least consider the possibility.

Re:What a stupid title

[Borealis]

I think the title reflects the tendencies of the religious right to misrepresent or falsify scientific studies. While I'm by no means implying that there is no such effort by parts of the more liberal elements of society, their efforts at least tend to be a bit less outrageous. Trying to scientifically show that evolution is non-existent and that creationism can be supported using scientific methods would be only one prime example.

While I have seen liberals misrepresent scientific studies (it's easy to lie with statistics yadda yadda yadda), I have never seen outright lies from the liberal front along the lines of, say, "The Silent Scream". I believe this is because of an idealogical difference of approach. The religious right believes science to be a dangerous and biased opponent and has no qualms about outrageously falsifying it, whereas the liberal society is able to convince itself that the numbers it manipulates reflect "the truth".

This is a generalization of course, because there are undoubtedly some liberals who believe science is bunk and some religious conservatives who respect it. In general however, the majority of liberals respect the scientific method enough to at least consider conclusions reached using it.

Re:What a stupid title

[Detritus]

Liberal gun control advocates have a long history of fabricating and distorting statistics to support their positions. I have seen similar behaviour from environmental advocacy groups. The next time anyone quotes a statistic to support their group's position, ask them for a citation to support their numbers.

I have seen "Liberal Science" at work in government research and development. Research projects that support the liberal orthodoxy get funded, research projects that are skeptical are not funded and the agency gets threatened with budget cuts if it generates research critical of someone's sacred cow.

Re:What a stupid title

[jgalun]

You know, the modding on Slashdot is outrageous sometimes. There is nothing trollish about this post. But too many moderators on Slashdot think that trolling means saying something they don't like.

Someone posts a comment that the only reason other countries in the world have weapons is because they're afraid of an American attack, and it gets moderated as +5 insightful. Someone simply says that there are left-wingers who produce biased science too (which is demonstably true), and he gets modded as a troll.

Recently, in a thread on SGI, I saw a post by a user with an ID around 600, which gave a lot of evidence for why SGI is in trouble in a number of marketplaces, because of pressure from cheap Athlon systems. He got modded as a troll. Then a user with a userID above 600,000 posted nothing more than "SGI will lose because Linux is taking it on the low-end" and got rated as insightful. So apparently, if you say SGI is dying because of low-end PCs, that's trolling because Slashdotters emotionally prefer SGIs to PCs. But if you say SGI is dying because of Linux, that's not trolling, because Slashdotters emotionally prefer Linux to all else.

You can mod me down as off-topic, or as a troll, but I don't care. Moderators need to recognize that just because you don't like an opinion doesn't make it a troll.

Re:What a stupid title

[Arandir]

Go read the topic title and article again. The title is "U.S. Pushing Conservative Science", NOT "U.S. Pushing Religious Right Science". A big difference.

This country pisses me off

[zephc]

more and more, every day.

I've been looking into moving to Switzerland... non-EU country, nice LOW probability of being attacked, much friendlier foreign policy. Sure, I'll have to learn German, French or Italian. It sure is better than being shafted by Bush and his cronies.

Re:This country pisses me off

[blincoln]

I've been looking into moving to Switzerland

I was thinking of Britain or Germany. But then I remembered that there are a *lot* of people who feel similarly. It wouldn't be possible for us all to move over there. Besides, my family has been on this continent for almost four centuries.

I figure the best bet is to split the US into at least three countries. The South has always wanted to be their own anyway, so it could be them, the Free West and the In The Image of Dubyah East. Kind of like how Deutschland was, except the wall would be of mutual benefit.

Of course, we all know what happened the last time part of the US tried to secede. Obviously someone would have to convert the better part of DC into green glass for this plan to succeed.

Re:This country pisses me off

[protohiro1]

I think that's a bad call. My parents lived there for a while. The swiss do not like foreigners (in general). My parents lived their for 6 years and never felt welcome. All of their friends were other foreigners. Switzerland is also quite conservative by european standards. I'm thinking New Zealand. Four weeks of vacation and good social programs, mountains, friendly people...sounds great.

Re:This country pisses me off

[Grishnakh]

Scientology isn't a religion, it's a cult. It should be banned here as well.

Re:This country pisses me off

[Grishnakh]

I think we should split the country at the New Mexico/Texas line. That way, all the western states like Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, etc. will be on one side, and all those midwestern states (including Texas) will be on the other. The western states wouldn't have the agricultural capacity of the midwest (though we do have a lot in AZ and CA), but we'd have the economic power of CA.

Re:Politics of Science

[divide overflow]

This whole story is actually a really great look at the liberal bias of American media, arising not as part of some conspiracy, but rather from the simple fact that a number of journalists are in fact liberals and thus see policies of the Democratic Party as "normal" or expected and only Republican policies as obtuse or idiotic.

Your facts are a bit TOO simple, as they ignore a critical reality. By and large journalists have their work edited and reviewed by editors and managers...gatekeepers who were carefully selected by ownership/management to reflect the editorial desires of those who control the business. These gatekeepers, by and large, are NOT liberals. And they control what gets published/aired. It has always been this way and this reality won't change anytime soon.

Speaking of the govt..

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Two recent political leaders allegedly had
this nefarious habit:

-: Both came to power after dubious elections,
by non-electorial and irregular methods.
-: Both nations immediately experienced attacks
on famous public buildings.
-: Both blamed an ethnic minority before
forensics had any evidence.
-: Both led "witch-hunts" against the accused
minority.
-: Both suspended civil liberties "temporarily."
-: Both put the citizenry under surveillance.
-: Both maintained secret and clandestine
governments.
-: Both launched wars against most of the world.

One had a funny mustache.

Can you name the other one?

Masturbation

[Tracy Reed]

Q: Does masturbation cause you to go blind?

A: Not as far as I can see.

Re:Bush sucks.

[Martigan80]

And what they want is to get money for themselves and their big campaign contributors, that is absolutely all they are about

Isn't capitalism great? This is what happens when governmental Ideals mix with economics. It's also interesting that any country that America helps has a EULA about allowing American businesses in to help "stimulate" the economy. Yeah we see how great it's going right now. And don't give me this stuff that it is because of 9/11 that's what these great accountants tell the share holders in hopes that they don't sell. Much of this has been brewing way before that. It also doesn't help that politicians have so many ways to acquire money from different sources. It will always happen and will continue to happen in our country because of people that would read this and call me a troll because I think the economy and government is too corrupted, instead of going out and voting, hell I would even be happy if people actually took the time to learn about the candidates. In fact how many people here even go to a local council meeting, or city meeting? Oh well this isn't a politics story it's about conservatism, or the conservatism of the governments medical ideas. Now we all get Smallpox vaccine, well not all of us the Government doesn't want to be blamed for the few deaths that will happened, they would rather give you the option to take it, then ask you to fill out a waiver of responsibility.

More Infections

[BigTom]

The sad thing is that, as the condom information permeates through the population, the message will end up as "condoms aren't any use" and a load of teens won't bother with them (amazingly they'll still have sex) and infection and pregnancy rates will go up. Tom

Re:More Infections

[Alsee]

humans were certianly created/evolved/morphed with brains to make choice

I'm pleny familiar with the creationism and evolution arguments, but I've never come across the morphed arguement before.

More info please! :D

-

Not just low-level decisions

[rde]

Bush's pernicious zealotry is mainifesting itself in far more that revisionism; last July, he cut funding to the UN Population Fund (normally at http://ww.unfpa.org , but I can't seem to get in ATM).
An enthusiastic bunch of our right-wing friends in the Population Research Institute claimed - without evidence and despite UN law to the contrary - that the UNFPA supported coerced abortions in China. Everyone from Colin Powell down who knew anything on the subject derided the PRI's claimes - check out the PDF from the House of Representatives - but despite all the evidence to the contraray, Bush went ahead and cut funding.

Interestingly, I googled to check the facts before posting (going against /. tradition, I know. Forgive me.), and came across a plethora of news stories on the topic, most of which run along the lines of "Bush cuts funds to UN body that supports coerced abortion", usually with a denial from some Chinese official. Here's the Telegraph version.

The PRI are here; couldn't find a link to the story.

Re:Well it should be OBVIOUS

[Sad Loser]

What people don't realise when the read x is linked to y is how this is done.

• generally it is a retrospective study, which cannot prove X causes Y, only that X is associated with Y. Retrospective studies are not good science, and you only use them when it is too difficult or expensive to do a proper (prospective) study.
• the statistical test used in medicine to decide if X is associated with Y is that if the result had less than 1 in 20 chance of occurring by chance.
• Factor in publication bias (the tendancy to only publish positive results) and this means that at least one in twenty medical stories you read about is rubbish.

This is one of the dangers of data-mining, especially if done by people with people with political agendas.

Why is this here?

[kir]

Shouldn't this story be on kuro5hin? They're the techie site turned liberal play ground, not slashdot... err... wait...

Re:This shouldn't be a slashdot story

[MillionthMonkey]

How is this "news for nerds"???

I've read this same post many times already in other stories and I'll give you the standard response I've always seen given to it, because I've slyly noticed that this response always gets good mod points:

Quit whining, change your preferences, and leave us alone.

if condoms lead to more sex...

[circletimessquare]

then guns must lead to more killing, no?

i'd like to hear the conservative gun crowd scream "it's not the gun, it's the criminal" and then in the same breath tell us it's not the teenager, it's the condom.

so which do we get rid of? condoms? or guns?

that personal accountability thing is pretty sneaky! ;-P

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[circletimessquare]

which works better at preventing STDs and pregnancies? a government policy predicated on denial about basic human sexual motivation, or one that admits the truth about human sexuality?

you can't beat back the human need for sex with an ivory tower attitude. there's over 6 billion of us on the planet right now. that was not done with sound religious planning. that was done with a pretty powerful motivating force, hardwired into our minds at a level FAR lower than any government policy can reach.

seems pretty straightforward to me dude. wrap that pecker if you don't want to infect her. abstinence? HA! please tell me you are joking. i am certain there are people out there who can abstain. i am also pretty damn certain these asexual prudes are in the minority. ;-P

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[Rhinobird]

there's over 6 billion of us on the planet right now. that was not done with sound religious planning.
HA! I think it's more because religons generally promote child bearing that there are 6 billion of us now.

by the way, how does a little self control deny anything about human sexuality?

wrap that pecker if you don't want to infect her Oops, sorry baby, the damn thing broke, or came off, or my sicko roommate sabatoged them (did you see that video on Fox?).

i am certain there are people out there who can abstain Abstaining is not some mystical process. It's simply not fucking. If you can't not fuck, then I would imagine there being something wrong with you. You lack self control, probably go impulse shopping all the time and gamble too much. Give me a break. EVERYBODY can not fuck. Eating is harder not to do. You probably eat 3 times a day. How many times a day to fuck? Ok, how many times a week? A month (you poor married bastard :-P) ) There is a sex drive, but it can be over-ridden and it isn't the all consuming force you make it out to be.

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[KjetilK]

Well, really, the obvious use for condoms is to have more sex. If you don't use condoms, there will be more pregnancies, so you can't have that much sex.

What I fail to see is how is this bad...

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[blankmange]

Conversely, which is better at preventing gunshot wounds? A gun or a condom?

No wait, that wasn't the argument, was it?

Damn, I hate these high-level posts.... I just wait for a new story to be posted about a little less controversial....

Anything new going on with Microsoft?

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[circletimessquare]

huh?

dude, can you argue without the mathematical proof? if something smells right to you and i, we can take it at that and ignore the quid pro quo ad nauseum infinitum cling clang wallawallabingbang. think of it as logic shorthand with a little persuasion thrown in, capice? lol

i think the deeper observation about bringing up guns and condoms in the same thought is the role of technology in behavior and morality. personal accountability as the great decider, period, just don't cut it, y'know?

why is the adherence to personal accountability as the golden perspepective wrong? well, it don't take much thought to see you should worry more about the terrorist with the a-bomb than the terrorist with a slingshot. so guns do matter, just on a smaller scale than the a-bomb terrorist example. it isn't just the person who kills. timothy mcveigh would not be timothy mcveigh without a good understanding of chemistry. technology can amplify the willpower of a person. and a machine gun amplifies it more than a handgun more than a sword more than a butter knife more than a kleenex.

so no, "it's not the gun, it's the person" just don't cut it. carries real good in the soundbites though. fires up the nra propaganda real spicy like. lol ;-P

by the same token, since human willpower, or, er, biology, is amplified by technology, it can also be muted. the human lust for, er, lust can not be mollified with a few paens to personal accountability. so we have the technology called "condom."

sing hallelujah.

hand them out to the teenagers, please? and save us all a lot of baby mama drama, ok? geez. what's the big deal with condoms? how can we fight islamic fundamentalism in the form of al qaeda while ignoring christian fundamentalism in our own country? religious fundamentalism is the enemy, period. especially when it's agenda creeps its way into impartial, or what should be impartial, science. ;-P

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[circletimessquare]

There is a sex drive, but it can be over-ridden and it isn't the all consuming force you make it out to be.

you must be many moons removed from your teenage years, my friend.

it really, really is an overwhelming force. it really is as simple as that. you can not argue against the will to procreate. it is not good, it is not bad. it just is. you have a better chance arguing against a tidal wave crashing at you on a beach. i will save you some time my friend. stop arguing that sex is not an overwhelming force and you will greatly improve your ability to persuade others on this issue. especially the sex-deprived slashdot crowd! LOL ;-P

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[circletimessquare]

you're nitpicking. there is a larger argument here to be had about the role of technology in behavior, and morality, and personal accountability. technology sometimes amplifies, sometimes mutes human behavior in ways that play havoc with the judeochristian (or any other) value system. tech forces morality to be readdressed and rewritten. technology, in a dangerous and constantly unprecedented way, is always messing with what we call right and wrong.

sometimes i wonder if the amish had it right after all! lol ;-P

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[circletimessquare]

*sigh*

you barrel ahead, arguments ablazing, with no forethought as to what write (gun allusions included purposefully for comical effect).

Guns are not a contraceptive, but rather a tool.

both are tools. both are technology. geez dude. ;-P

you're nitpicking. there is a larger argument here to be had about the role of technology in behavior, and morality, and personal accountability. technology sometimes amplifies, sometimes mutes human behavior in ways that play havoc with the judeochristian (or any other) value system. tech forces morality to be readdressed and rewritten. technology, in a dangerous and constantly unprecedented way, is always messing with what we call right and wrong.

sometimes i wonder if the amish had it right after all! lol ;-P

i think the deeper observation about bringing up guns and condoms in the same thought is the role of technology in behavior and morality. personal accountability as the great decider, period, just don't cut it, y'know?

why is the adherence to personal accountability as the golden perspepective wrong? well, it don't take much thought to see you should worry more about the terrorist with the a-bomb than the terrorist with a slingshot. so guns do matter, just on a smaller scale than the a-bomb terrorist example. it isn't just the person who kills. timothy mcveigh would not be timothy mcveigh without a good understanding of chemistry. technology can amplify the willpower of a person. and a machine gun amplifies it more than a handgun more than a sword more than a butter knife more than a kleenex.

so no, "it's not the gun, it's the person" just don't cut it. carries real good in the soundbites though. fires up the nra propaganda real spicy like. lol ;-P

by the same token, since human willpower, or, er, biology, is amplified by technology, it can also be muted. the human lust for, er, lust can not be mollified with a few paens to personal accountability. so we have the technology called "condom."

sing hallelujah.

hand them out to the teenagers, please? and save us all a lot of baby mama drama, ok? geez. what's the big deal with condoms? how can we fight islamic fundamentalism in the form of al qaeda while ignoring christian fundamentalism in our own country? religious fundamentalism is the enemy, period. especially when it's agenda creeps its way into impartial, or what should be impartial, science. ;-P

You can bet your ass that people are making a lot more whoopie now then they were three hundred years ago

are you serious? people are making as much whoopie now as they were then, and they will be making the same amount in the future. nature and nurture constantly creates as many prudes as orgy aficianadoes. you have a poor, dim view of history.

this is a common misperception you have demonstrated, this myopic view of history. you see a frightening loosening of morals over time before you. it is a false perception, relax.

who said this:

"Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common."

give up?

it was written on an assyrian clay tablet dated at 2800 BC. we haven't gotten much worse. we haven't gotten much better, either. ;-P

i went to pompeii once and was surprised at this one house on whose walls inside were preserved dioramas covered with more examples of indecent sexual acts than you can find trolling the worst porn sites on the web today. i won't even describe the features of the fountain in the middle of the room. god knows what went on in there.

try the dravidian dioramas in the ancient temples in southern india. they are orgies. ever hear of the pillowbook from medieval japan of a thousand years ago? i swear you will blush at what is talked about in that book.

for every age of man, there is a constant amount of people who live lives of moral high holy purity and those who live lives of extreme moral terpitude, and everything in between.

of course it gets equally sticky when we include on our personal observations of the moral decay of society over time our personal views on standards of human sexuality (sorry for the use of the verb 'sticky' in this context).

in your stereotypical view, for example, of prudish victorian times, you would find on the streets of london amongst the middle and lower classes more prurience and indecency than you would find at any britany spears concert. and amongst those moral uptight upper class victorians, let us only guess at the hypocrisy that went on behind closed doors. the moral decay of society indeed. i'm certain you would find in the nunneries and priesthoods at the time, the lower class members of high moral standing who fled the horrors of impure london in their time, and pined for the good old days of 300 years before london, when things were good and decent. and those in the 1550s... you get it now, repeat ad nauseum until you get to adam and eve. (and what did that story teach us again?)

there were biblical farmers screwing biblical sheep in 4000 BC and there will be cloned martian farmers screwing clones of dolly the sheep in 4000 AD. not much really changes, really, when it comes to human sexual desire.

don't judge an era by who was in control of the media at the time, or the us supreme court. human nature is a constant across time and space.

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[Refrag]

You have an insane view of social/political alliances.

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[nathanm]

Conservatives think sex is bad, condoms or no.

I hope you're kidding, right? Not all conservatives hold the same view. Even the most far-right wing, Christian Coalition, fundamentalist, conservative zealot doesn't believe sex is bad, just that it should be confined to marriage.

For all your philosophical sophistication, trying to disprove the parent comment through your sheer, logical brilliance, you sure are ignorant.

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[Idarubicin]

Condoms are a contraceptive device...Isn't it self-evident that condoms are designed from the very beginning to increase the rate of non-reproductive sex?

On the other hand, more guns is not going to have a huge effect on the number of morally banckrupt thugs (unless by 'killing', you mean clay targets and geese). Guns are not a contraceptive, but rather a tool.

Guns and condoms are both tools.

Question: Since you've chosen to describe guns as purely recreational devices, which pastime seems healthier psychologically--simulated reproduction for fun or simulated killing for fun?

Aside: The conservative right tends (not always, but often) to find sex education objectionable, and gun ownership appropriate. Meanwhile, simulated killing with simulated weapons in modern computer games is hotly debated--it's only okay if you're killing simulated terrorists. Interesting.

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[Lars T.]

Case in point: Kids aren't abstinent. Better give them condoms at least.

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[scrytch]

That's precisely what they want. It's called cognitive dissonance. People who are under its effects do one of two things: reconcile the differences by finding out the truth or at least the most palatable choice, or in the vast majority of cases, stop listening and accept what they're told.

One simply needs to point to axioms like "sex is immoral if you're not married" or "drugs are bad" with no further explication whatsoever, simply assert every time that they're axioms and beyond question.

People are sheep.

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[sjames]

You have fallen for the 'party line'.

Only very recently has the punishment for having children out of wedlock been small enough that people aren't afraid to have unprotected sex

Nonsense. All that meant is that people might 'have to' get married. Hence, the shotgun wedding. As LL said, "It is well known that an especially anxious bride can accomplish in 7 months that which usually takes 9"

The only real difference throughout history was wheather or not people talked about it openly. In the '50s in the U.S. we had girls who 'had to go away for a while' and occasionally 'little brother/sisters'.

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[canadian_right]

People are not making love more now than 300 years ago. 300 years ago it was quite NORMAL to be married by 16 or 17, and have a family going before you hit 20. Half your children died before the age of 5, and your wife spent a good part of her life pregnant or nursing. Sex was about the only fun thing a poor peasant could do for free. No tv, movies, radios, lights, indoor plumbing, or central heating for most people.

The only thing that has changed is that people are having fewer children in the rich, industrialized, parts of the world.

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[Snocone]

I hope you're kidding, right? Not all conservatives hold the same view. Even the most far-right wing, Christian Coalition, fundamentalist, conservative zealot doesn't believe sex is bad,

Er, that's the point of the Catholics' ban on birth control, for one. Sex is bad unless (and ONLY unless) it's being engaged in specifically for procreation. And I believe parent was making an unstated assumption of his own there and should have written "sex for pleasure".

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[sjames]

When we you political freaks learn? I'm not talking politics! I'm talking about the women who can't feed both herself and her child and leaves it in a toilet, or to be exposed to the elements, or puts it up for adoption. The women who are ashamed for the rest of their lives. The women who are ostracized from society (ever read the Scarlet Letter?).

I am well aware of those things. However, the very existance of such women implies that they were not too afraid to have sex out of wedlock. Were they too afraid, it wouldn't have happened!

For the record, some of the problems you named are still problems today.

Perhaps you need to re-read my post. My 'political' stance is that polititions should be shot and replaced by leaders who solve problems.

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[nathanm]

you forgot that it should be confined to marraige, and only for the purposes of having children, and never for pleasure, marraige or not.

Only according to the Roman Catholic church. Orthodox, Protestant, and other Christians don't necessarily believe the same thing. Even many Catholic lay-people don't agree with their church on many issues, especially this one.

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[nathanm]

Er, that's the point of the Catholics' ban on birth control, for one. Sex is bad unless (and ONLY unless) it's being engaged in specifically for procreation. And I believe parent was making an unstated assumption of his own there and should have written "sex for pleasure".

But the Roman Catholic church doesn't speak for all Christians, much of the time not even for its own followers.

If the parent poster meant that he should've explicitly stated so, his post was otherwise such a rigorous, detailed, logic proof. (Note sarcasm.)

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[thelexx]

There are many ways to kill. A gun is but one of them. There's only one way to cover your dick. There are many uses for a gun. There's really only one use for a condom (STD protection is limited at best IMO). Your comparison is baseless.

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[IndependentVik]

Abstaining is not some mystical process. It's simply not fucking. If you can't not fuck, then I would imagine there being something wrong with you. You lack self control . . .

Wow, all this time I haven't been fucking, and I just thought I was a loser. Now, I see the light: I just have incredible amounts of self-control :)

Re:if condoms lead to more sex...

[Lars T.]

And will get pregnant. Oh well, wouldn't want Americans to die out.

hehe 'guidelines'

[SHEENmaster]

If I could, I'd mod you up for the quotes alone.

Reminds me of a book from 4th grade about a "third child" whose parent hid from the government.

21st century

[Tom]

As someone wiser than me already noticed: This century, it ain't about xianity vs. islam or any that media bullshit. It's about fundamentalism vs. people-with-brains. There really isn't much difference between xian right or conservatives of the bush streak, or islamist terrorists. They're all bludgoning their world-view into other peoples heads with whatever tools are available, and moral is something that applies only to other people.

Re:21st century

[sckeener]

It's about fundamentalism vs. people-with-brains.

Then we've lost. There are too few with whole brains.

and fundamentalists can warp even someone with half a brain.

Re:21st century

[feed_me_cereal]

Uhh, except maybe the book the Christian right follows does not endorse killing everyone who is not Christian? Big difference, pal.

You're right, it says to always turn the other cheek and not to kill anyone. Guess who hasn't been following his bible? Of course, the Koran tells you that allah loves the pen of the scholar more than the blood of the martyr, but just as many terrorists ignore that.

Re:21st century

[Tom]

(1) What do you mean by fundamentalism?
Quick three-point-check:
a) a believe in absolute good and evil
b) the accompanying belief that you know which is which (usually through some scripture)
c) the desire to force "the good" on everyone, whether they want it or not. This usually follows from a) and b), because if it's good, then those not wanting it must be either evil or misguided.

(2) Is it necessarily true, then, that fundamentalists don't have [or, being charitable don't use] the brains that God gave them?
They use the brain that god gave them. Since I'm still missing a proof for god, I'm also in doubt that they have a brain.
I'm pretty sure mine was grown the natural way, not "given". To be honest, I'm fairly sure that theirs was also grown, but it doesn't look like they've used it recently.

Yes, that is a little loaded. Yes, I know that there are very bright people who still believe in one or many gods. Heck, I believe in a bunch of 'em too, when I feel like it. But those aren't the religious weirdos. They're not making their religion the central element of their lives. I could care less if someone smokes dope or plays counterstrike or prays at church all weekend, as long as he's a normal person when I'm around.

Re:21st century

[Tom]

Actually, that books has two chapters, and the first one is the most bloody thing I've ever read. The executive summary runs something like "kill anyone you don't like". Funny thing that "though shalt not kill" is only a few dozen pages away from "though shalt not suffer a witch to live". Oh, maybe that Jehova guy just couldn't make up his mind.

Re:21st century

[dvk]

IANAR (I'm not a Rabbi), but IIRC, most of the "shall kill" laws in the Torah (the "first part") are specifically applicable to jews ONLY. I.e. even assuming that your witch quote is correct - of which i'm not quite certain - you're not supposed to go and kill all witches. ONLY a Jew who turns witchy. same for lots of other prohibitions (punishable by death or not) - other than 7 las given to Noah, all the others in Torah are *required* only of Jews (everyone else is welcome to eat kosher, for example, but you are only sinning if you eat pig if you are Jewish.

One of the main thing which distingushes Islam, Xtianity and Judaism are:

Judaism: proselytizing is explicitly prohibited. Converts to Judaism are welcomed, but a Jews is NOT supposed to try to get someone to convert who did not want to conert in the first place.

Christianity: proselytizing is required, but (if you actually follow your sacred book's rules) has to be peaceful. I.e. you are not supposed to kill heathens (Jesuits were far from being Christians, other than in name, for example), but you are supposed to go and try and convert them by any other emans possible.

Islam: A non-muslim HAS to be converted or killed. At the very least, heavily discriminated against (higher taxes).

Just FYI. -DVK

2 clicks: no registration.

[I am Jack's username]

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Re:I blaim Bush

[1u3hr]

I can't think of a worse thing than an opponent with nothing to lose by anything up to and including death.

Which is EXACTLY what Bush is creating now. Before Saddam was "just" oppressing his own people. He's been happy being dictator of Iraq. Even since 91 when the US attacked and humiliated him he hasn't taken any direct retaliation on the US -- and Bush has been begging the CIA to dig up any evidence that he had to give a pretext for war, I think they would have found it if he had.

But if the tanks and bombs start again with the avowed aim of putting Saddam out of power and killed or imprisoned, he REALLY has no reason not to dispatch a few kilos of anthrax, smallpox, plutonium or whatever other goodies he's put aside for a rainy day.

Refresh my memory...

[davmoo]

Somebody tell me...

This week, are we at war with Eurasia or Eastasia? I can't seem to remember...

Re:Refresh my memory...

[sg3000]

> This week, are we at war with Eurasia or Eastasia? I can't
> seem to remember

We're at war with Eastasia, and we've always been at war with Eastasia. We've never been at war with Eurasia; they're our friends. You should know that. Perhaps you need a visit to the Ministry of Love?

You know, if political trends continue, Slashdot will have to add a (+1 1984 reference)

Re:The politicization of science

[M.C. Hampster]

It's unbelievable the crap that has been modded above and below this post, yet this one is not.

Thanks for posting something intelligent.

Re:Why should this surprise anyone?

[Gregg M]

but you notice that it took Bush a long time and a lot of hot water before he distanced himself from Lotto.

A long time? What was it? Three days maybe? Most people didn't even know what Lott said before Bush called it "offensive and "wrong."

This was the Republicans doing. Lott drops out and Cheney takes up as Majority Leader.

Lead to mistrust?

[robwicks]

If you don't already completely distrust the government to the point that you expect little other than mismanagement at best and death at worst, you're not very smart in the first place. Why would anyone trust a government which could do something as heinous as the Tuskegee experiments? And the sad thing is that is not even as bad as it gets. Sure, this isn't the Soviet Union under Stalin, but saying we're better than mass murderers seems to be damning faint praise.

Re:Lead to mistrust?

[userunknown]

Why would anyone trust a government which could do something as heinous as the Tuskegee experiments [everything2.com]?

This is one of the most annoying things about the propaganda spewed by our media and the Bush administration. I want someone to bring this up every time Bush says something about how Saddam poisoned his own people. He always says it in such a way as to point out the vileness of such an act in an effort to differentiate us from them.

In reality there are more similarities than differences. You don't here that on the evening news, do you?

Re:Abortion & Cancer lawsuits in Australia

[alister]

There have been legal cases successfully brought in Australia by women who have not been informed about the majority of studies suggesting a link between abortion and cancer. I'm sure *someone* will come up with links galore.

And so far it turns out that no one has, including you. I reckon that as a local with a keen interest in both science and the law I might have heard of such suits, and I haven't. This strikes me as strange - unless, of course, you're a lying troll.

Have a nice day.

Re:This is bullshit....

[inetuid]

Land of the free and home of the bullshit...

There is something wrong here.

[Rhinobird]

OK. For some reason, all the posts sem to say the same thing.

• Bush sucks
• Conservatives don't believe in global warming
• Condoms are good, how dare Bush push abstinence on the people.

• First, Bush doesn't suck. Granted I'm a right leaning mid-liner, but that isn't a crime unless I'm in Berkely or San Francisco. ;-)
• Second, if you believe in global warming, find some real evidence. Yeah there may be an elevated level of CO2 in the air now, but CO2 is a piss poor 'greenhouse gas', methane and water vapor work way better. If there is a global warming trend I'd be inclined to think that it's the sun causing it as there is evidence that Mars is warming, also.
• Thirdly. What's the best way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases? Condoms or Abstinence? Maybe there was a leftist bias on those pages to begin with and they really do refect more acurately scientific evidence?

Re:There is something wrong here.

[blincoln]

What's the best way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases? Condoms or Abstinence?

That's a straw man. The real question is "Which are teenagers more likely to use?" and the answer is obvious.

Re:There is something wrong here.

[Rhinobird]

No, it isn't. It's all about culture. If the kids are raised where abstinence is the way to go, then you get teens that use abstinence. If you raise them to use condoms then they use condoms. Where/when I went to high school, no body did anything except get drunk on the weekends. When my family moved and my younger siblings started high school, that high school handed out condoms, but also had a day care center. Which one the teens are more likely to chose. They use the one they are told to use.

Re:There is something wrong here.

[Rhinobird]

name some illnesses and point me toward some studies that show the link.

As anectodal evidence, all my high school friends are fine and well adjusted, many now married with children. A fair number of my siblings friends are not. Some are on the drug du jour of the moment Ritalin or Prozac or some shit like that. One attempted suicide. My sibling and his friends had active sex lives as teens.

Unfortunatly my anectode isn't worth much. But I never said anything about demonizing sex. Unless you are ready to face the consequences of sex then you shouldn't do it.

Re:There is something wrong here.

[Ektanoor]

First. Bush suxxx. Granted I am a leftist liberal, but that is not a crime of I'm out of the US...

Second. Don't push Mars to the table. Mars is a completely different system on its weather patterns, atmosphere parameters and distance to the Sun. It is unscientific and a little bit demagogic to call it up to Earth's table. On what concerns CO2 I my agree partially with you. Global warming is quite a silly stereotype people barely don't undersand. But it is a fact that the weather changed so wildly that it is time to think on how our human activity is affecting the climate.

Thirdly. Neither condoms or abstinence help avoiding unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted deseases. Sexual education does. Without it, people either ignore condoms or consider abstinence as a forbidden fruit that can be easily eaten at first opportunity. And this has nothing to do with leftist or conservative ideals. The problem of birth control and sexual deseases, together with condoms and abstinence has been here for centuries. And till now it is a plague in several parts of the world, no matter you call for condoms or abstinence.

Re:There is something wrong here.

[caek]

First, Bush doesn't suck. Granted I'm a right leaning mid-liner, but that isn't a crime unless I'm in Berkely or San Francisco. ;-)

Your logic is flawless.

Second, if you believe in global warming, find some real evidence. Yeah there may be an elevated level of CO2 in the air now, but CO2 is a piss poor 'greenhouse gas', methane and water vapor work way better. If there is a global warming trend I'd be inclined to think that it's the sun causing it as there is evidence that Mars is warming, also.

I've got a masters in Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry. I know what I'm talking about. You are appallingly wrong. You may have heard of a book called the Sceptical Environmentalist, which was pounced upon by many groups (with vested interests in a preservation of the status quo) as proof that Global Warming is a liberal lie. It isn't and that isn't what the book says. The case for Kyoto isn't cut-and-dry by any stretch of the imagination, but asserting that global warming is not happening right now is up there with creationism.

Thirdly. What's the best way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases? Condoms or Abstinence?

OK then. By that logic, what's the best way to prevent gun crime? What's the best way to prevent road traffic accidents? Abstain from guns and cars? We use cars (and the USA inexplicably retains it's paranoid and damaging right to bear arms) because we like and need them. Most people like sex and none of us would be here without it. Persuade teenagers to abstain from sex? You've got to be kidding.

Re:There is something wrong here.

[finkployd]

The problem is, you have the right saying the condoms are not allowed to be mentioned (despite the fact that if you are going to have intercourse, it is the safest way), because premaritial sex is evil. Then you have the left saying that abstinence is not allowed to be mentioned (despite the fact that it is the only 100% way to be safe) because it is a religious concept and cannot be advocated by the "state".

Is there nobody else who thinks that BOTH should taught. Geeze, just tell kids about all the diseases around, tell them the only way to be 100% safe is to not have sex, but if you are going to have sex then use a condom which makes you %98 (or whatever today's stat is) safe. Give the kids ALL the facts, because they are the ones who have to make the decision.

The right pretending that kids are not going to have sex is just as irresponsible as the left pretending that condoms are 100% safe.

Finkployd

Re:There is something wrong here.

[finkployd]

Neither condoms or abstinence help avoiding unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted deseases.

Actually, abstinence does, by defination. You do know what abstinence means right?

I agree that simply teaching abstinence is not going to help anything, you have to explain that abstinence is the only 100% way to be safe, condoms are a close second should you chose to have sex. Sexual education should not lie to these kids, sex is never totally safe, but it can be made safe with condoms and regular blood tests for you are your partener(s). Keep politics out of it and just teach the facts.

I am equaly pissed at the right for pretending that teaching only abstinence is effective as I am at the left for pretending that condoms are completly safe.

Finkployd

Re:There is something wrong here.

[feed_me_cereal]

you forgot about some of the other things that keep being said on this thread:

What's the best way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases? Condoms or Abstinence?

I'm getting sick of this misrepresentation of the issue. No shit abstinence is better, but this is a choice that OTHER people are making, not the government. A real characterization of the issue before the government is this:

Which would be a more effective method of preventing unwanted pregnancies and the spread of STD's: passing out condoms or advocating abstinence?

This is a much more difficult question, and it is the one we actually face. Just because you say abstinence a better idea dosen't mean ANYONE is listening, and it could be possible that these people who are going to have sex whether you like it or not (which is most people I've knew in highschool and college) could benefit from condoms.

Re:There is something wrong here.

[cpeterso]

If there is a global warming trend I'd be inclined to think that it's the sun causing it as there is evidence that Mars is warming, also.


what? we're now polluting Mars with our CO2 gas??! Evil Big Bidness is going crazy!

Re:There is something wrong here.

[cpeterso]

and in the 1970s, scientists feared we were entering a cataclysmic ice age due to global cooling. Now which is it?

Re:There is something wrong here.

[feed_me_cereal]

This is exactly what I would advocate, but I think that many conservatives see the two options as mutually exclusive. I agree with you.

Re:There is something wrong here.

[Arandir]

Persuade teenagers to abstain from sex? You've got to be kidding.

Absolutely right. To an extent...

Persuading ALL teenagers to abstain from sex? Hah! Persuading a few of them to wait until they're mature enough to be a parent? Possible. For those that can be persuaded, abstinence is the only 100% guaranteed pregnancy preventer. If you're absolutely going to have sex, use a condom. Duh! But if you can wait until the second, third, fifth or even tenth date, then you won't have to worry throwing away all your plans for the future because you became a parent before you were ready.

Re:There is something wrong here.

[Malcontent]

"I am equaly pissed at the right for pretending that teaching only abstinence is effective as I am at the left for pretending that condoms are completly safe."

I have never ever heard anybody say that condoms were completely safe. Nor have I read that anywhere. Would you please provide me a link that states that condoms are completely safe? I would very much like to see which web site says this.

Thanks.

Re:There is something wrong here.

[finkployd]

It is implied. I have seen the left argue against teaching or discussing abstinence (as an alternative even mind you, in my old high school the word is not allowed to be used in health education classes). By only teaching about condoms as "safe sex" we are doing a disservice by implying that condoms make sex safe. They make sex safer, but the only way to actually be completly safe is to not have sex. My point was not that anyone was outright claiming that condoms are 100% safe, it is just that by focusing on comdoms alone, we present an inaccurate picture of what is really happening.

My point along is this: tell the truth. Sex is a risk even with condoms. We must teach that condoms reduce this risk but we must also not forget that there is still a risk, and kids need to know that as well.

Finkployd

Re:There is something wrong here.

[Malcontent]

" It is implied."

In other words you were lying.

"I have seen the left argue against teaching or discussing abstinence (as an alternative even mind you, in my old high school the word is not allowed to be used in health education classes)."

Who is "the left". Again I have never heard anybody argue that abstinance should never be taught only that it is not sufficient. Please back up your claims. If you provide a link please provide further links as to why you think this person represents "the left".

"My point was not that anyone was outright claiming that condoms are 100% safe,"

So why did you say it then? Should I quote your original post? here it is.

"I am equaly pissed at the right for pretending that teaching only abstinence is effective as I am at the left for pretending that condoms are completly safe."

I'll leave it to the readers as to what you actually meant when you said that.

"My point along is this: tell the truth. Sex is a risk even with condoms. We must teach that condoms reduce this risk but we must also not forget that there is still a risk, and kids need to know that as well."

Yes. We should educate our kids on risk management. whether that risk comes from unprotected sex or crossing the street the kids need all the information so that they can make better decisions. Here is the problem. If you really want to tell the kids the truth you are going to have to tell them the following.

1) The most risky thing is unprotected sex. The chances for getting pregrant are huge and the chances of getting diseases are huge.

2) If you use condoms your chances of getting pregrant or disease is 2 to 15%.

3) If you don't have sex then your chances of getting pregrant or disease is zero.

Now kids go and manage your risk. Do a risk benefit analysis. Decide what you stand to gain, what you stand to lose, what kind of risk you are willing to take on. Are you willing to risk a 2 to 15% chance of getting pregrant or diseased to have sex?

You know what the kids will choose don't you?

Re:There is something wrong here.

[finkployd]

In other words you were lying.

In other words, you have a feeble grasp of logic.

If you only teach about condoms as the solution to safe sex, and neglect to mention that abstinence is the only way to truely be safe, then you are implying to kids that condoms are completly safe. Believe it or not, kids tend to believe adults and if an adult tells them that condoms == safe sex with no disclaimers, they come away thinking condoms are 100% safe.

In serveral court cases, the ACLU (I think we can agree they are generally part of the left, can't we?) has attacked the concept of abstinence as a "religious belief" and argued that it has no place in school. Don't get me wrong, I believe they are right when they go after "abstinence only" education, but even then they go after it for the wrong reasons, and work to downplay the importance of abstinence in favor of condoms.

Personally I would not have sex with someone I knew to be infected with HIV (and add any other STDs in there you want) even with a condom. The risks are just too high (and we are not just talking about pregnancy here, as much as I don't like the idea, you can always just abort an unwanted baby, an unwanted STD is for life).

Finkployd

Re:There is something wrong here.

[Malcontent]

"In serveral court cases, the ACLU (I think we can agree they are generally part of the left, can't we?"

No we can't the ACLU has their own agenda. For example they frequently defend nazis and the ku klux clan both of whom are "right wing" people. Certainly no member of the nazi party or the KKK would ever vote for a democrat.

"Don't get me wrong, I believe they are right when they go after "abstinence only" education"

They object when the so called abstinance education is a thinly disguised sermon and an attempt to convert kids into christianity. I too find that offensive and am glad somebody is standing up to the church. Imagine where this world would be if it was still being ruled by the church. Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church and changed history for ever. I for one have no desire to revert back to the dark ages when the bible was the entire store of acceptable knowledge.

Re:There is something wrong here.

[hondo77]

References?

Re:There is something wrong here.

[hondo77]

Where/when I went to high school, no body did anything except get drunk on the weekends.

I think it is possible that you were out of the sex loop at your school.

Re:There is something wrong here.

[hondo77]

What's the best way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases? Condoms or Abstinence? Maybe there was a leftist bias on those pages to begin with and they really do refect more acurately scientific evidence?

What's the best way to eliminate crime? Kill everyone. Problem is it is a very impractical solution--much like teaching only abstinence.

If condoms lead to more sex it's because. . .

[kfg]

they make sex safer from unintended consequences.

All we need to do is apply this to guns, then there'll be more, but safer guns.

The conclusion is obvious. Nerf bullets.

KFG

Call the beast by its name

[Stonehead]

To hell with an euphemism like 'pushing conservative science'. What the NYT describes seems plain censorship and degradation of science to me. So much again for your Land of the Free.

Re:Call the beast by its name

[mesocyclone]

The funny thing about all the thrashing and gnashing going on here is that the same cry wasn't raised when the Clinton administration was pushing science in the other direction.

I have researcher friends eas who were afraid to cite their real views on global warming for fear of losing grants in the Gore-dominated years. There are plenty of other examples. And lets not forget the junk science used by the EPA to justify drastic interventions in our lives... junk science that has been widely debunked by responsible scientists.

Face it... government funded science will have a different *emphasis* with different administrations. The government funding of science is appropriately a political process because they are spending the taxpayers money! The US scientific establishment does a pretty good job of minimizing the ideological impacts on science, but it is still there - regardless of the ideology of the government.

One area that for years couldn't get funding - purely for political reasons - was the study of genetic contributions to behavior and learning abilities. This was because of a fear that the results might lead reinforce racism or lead to genetic predestinationism. While those fears have some validity to them, the suppression of scientific research for years was not appropriate.

The primary research the Bush administration tries to suppress is that which uses foetuses. The reason is a moral one (whether you agree with it or not) and is an attempt to avoid a perceived evil means, not to skew the results.

Don't be stupid

[extrasolar]

Politics, it is readily apparent, seriously stupifies people--as I can see this forum is no exception. So here's a warning: think twice or not at all.

The liberals complain about conservatives; conservatives complain about liberals. And they both lose sight of anything *real*. This article looks like a troll. And you guys are falling for it completely; not because its true but because it reassures your own predetermined views on things.

Don't be stupid like that.

Re:I blaim Bush

[Troed]

The US is a lot more dangerous than Iraq.

/me - highly educated Swedish citizen - working against the US. The Earth does not need a large military power declaring itself above international law.

Re:Bush sucks.

[Rhinobird]

How the fuck did this get modded up? There is nothing here. If you change 'Bush sucks.' to 'Clinton sucks.' you get the same rant but with a rightist spin. Nothing about anything written in the article, hell, this post isn't even funny.

Higher fuel prices? Bring 'em on!

[fmaxwell]

According to revised estimates, implementing the Kyoto Treaty would increase gas prices in the USA upwards of 60 cents per gallon

That would be a good thing. I'm sick of kissing Saudi ass and funding terrorists so that commuters and soccer moms can drive around in 11mpg Lincoln Navigators. Bush and Cheney have made it clear that they have no intention of doing anything to encourage fuel conservation. So the only way it can be done is through consumer demand -- and that won't happen unless fuel prices go up significantly.

I have a VW Golf TDI. It gets 45MPG on average and I've broken 50mpg. It handles far better than the aforementioned SUVs and has plenty of power, with acceleration that bests most of them. The same engine and fuel economy is available in the two and four door hatchbacks (Golfs), four door sedans (Jettas), and four door station wagons (Jetta wagons). Honda and Toyota also make extremely fuel-efficient vehicles. So it's not like the vehicles aren't there. If fuel prices went up and many consumers converted to those vehicles, our reliance on foreign oil would go away and our air would be far cleaner (since SUVs are permitted to pollute far more than passenger cars).

Re:This is insightful

[fmaxwell]

This isn't insightful, it's out and out bigotry.

"Bigotry" is defined as intolerance. Why the hell should I be tolerant of people who are distorting science, including medical science, in order to push their own political agenda?

All you're saying is that if I don't believe as I do, you're wrong.

I am saying that anyone who believes that scientific studies should be "revised" to fit a political agenda is wrong. And I am saying that anyone who would defend those actions is wrong.

I don't need to be tolerant of deceipt.

Lies, damn lies and statistics...

[Kjella]

It's always funny to see people fall for the corrolation = causation. Heck, I've even seen profs with PhDs fall for exactly the same, so it's not like it's just the stupid.

Did you for instance know that the more firemen we send to a fire, the bigger the fire damage is? So we should stop sending out firemen, right?

[spoiler]Well, there's this little underlying variable, the size of the fire itself.[/spoiler]

Likewise, you can easily "prove" without problems that condoms increase sexual activity, if you simply ignore that those that have and use condoms probably are more interested in sex and sexuality in the first place, and would be at it like rabbits anyway.

I'm pretty sure I can make any statistical conclusion I want about just about anything, and still fool 90%+ of the population by simple selective data gathering, omission and presentation. No need to fabricate data, just a little reality distortion field...

Kjella

Will this lead to a mistrust of the government?

[intnsred]

Will this lead to a mistrust of the government?

That's funny. Let's see, we have a president sitting in the White House who lost the election. The election was rigged in a state run by his brother, oversaw by Florida Sec. of State Kathleen Harris (G. Bush's Florida campaign director). This election included denying tens of thousands the right of voting by a deliberate move of removing felons from the voting rolls (fine) and people whose names and SSNs were similar to those of a felon (not fine!). There are clearly documented examples (referenced by federal US election officials) of denying blacks and minorities the right to vote and of several Republican counties throwing ballots away. When the vote was close military ships and bases overseas were alerted to get more people to vote (on the theory those votes would be overwhemingly Republican). Despite the law clearly saying those votes had to have a valid postmark by the election day, Harris' Florida election people said to count those votes that were not validly postmarked.

Voting was confused enough that a recount was ordered, a recount approved by the Flordia state Supreme Court. When it was clear that Gore was going to win the recount, the media clearly had to fix Bush in the public's mind as the winner. So the head of Fox News (G. Bush's first cousin) called the election in Bush's favor.

The vote then moved to the US Supreme Court. The Supreme Court had to work fast because Gore was catching up and would soon pass Bush in the recount. One Supreme Court "justice" [sic] had a son working for the legal firm which presented the Republican's case. Another "justice" [sic] had a wife working for Bush's campaign transition team. Yet those 2 justices did not recuse themselves, and instead were the key votes in the 5-4 decision to stop the recount. A very nice, clean, bloodless coup!

Many times I've heard the US president tell tales of how the IAEA said in 1998 Iraq was working on nuclear weapons, but he IAEA said no such thing. Many times I've heard the president say how the UN weapons inspectors were "kicked out" of Iraq -- yet they left voluntarily after being frustrated by Iraqi resistance to inspections. It's clear these repeated incidents are not "slips of the tongue." It's clear why the president is lying like this -- he simply wants to build support for an attack on Iraq.

Why this ramble? My point is this: What person is fool enough to trust the government now? What makes you think we're that naive?

Given the above examples, given the lies surrounding the Iran-Contra affair and the US importing of drugs to support the Contras during the 1980s, given the history of the Vietnam era -- deliberate large-scale lies to the American people and attempts by the Nixon administration to rig an election -- is there any person who really thinks we live in a democratic republic and that our government is trustworthy?!

This message -- and your e-mail and movements across the WWW/Internet -- is being monitored by the US gov't and it's "new" version of the First Amendment. Don't worry, you have nothing to fear, just trust us -- we'll only use these new draconian laws on the bad guys and you're "free" talk talk about J.Lo or the Super Bowl all you want...

Re:Will this lead to a mistrust of the government?

[cascadingstylesheet]

That's funny. Let's see, we have a president sitting in the White House who lost the election.

No, moron, he won. He won the majority of votes in Florida. It was close enough to trigger a recount under state law. The recount was performed, and he still won.

Everything that happened after that was triggered by his loser opponent, who couldn't accept that he had lost. We entered the world of the postmodern election, where inherently biased humans held punch cards up to the light to "determine" whether a hole was really a hole. That's not a road you want to go down, and the Dems took us down that road for Al Gore, of all people. Holy crap.

Re:Will this lead to a mistrust of the government?

[Arandir]

This isn't truth. It's media misinformation.

Bush won the election with the majority of votes. Electoral votes. No matter what your views are on the electoral college, it's still the law of the land until such a time as it's changed. The reason the popular vote was in the other direction, was because it was because it was a census year.

Frankly, both sides acted like spoiled children.

Re:Will this lead to a mistrust of the government?

[Orne]

And the Federal Supreme Court wouldn't have had to step in if the Democrat-dominated State Supreme Court had not overstepped their constitutional bounds. The party didn't like the democratically-generated results, so they tried to win by legal means, when the rules were plainly laid out and followed.

Re:Bush sucks.

[Zapdos]

But, only on bottles of Dr. Pepper.
I believe that the former has been occurring for decades. There are many contradicting reports, even those that say tobacco is good for you. This administration is 10 fold more open and honest about what is going on then the last one. What are you so pissed about? I would have to guess that you don't actually read anything, that you are being lead by a ring in your nose and you do not know it.

Slashdot articles are also one-sided

[MickLinux]

I'd like to point out that this article is probably true -- almost completely true -- and it's stuff that matters, and it's for us nerds alright, and it's appropriate for slashdot, but it isn't news.

More than that, the same thing happened in the opposite direction under the Clinton administration. It is one of the reasons that Ayn Rand (and no, I'm not a Randian; I think her books are lousy) claimed that government-sponsored science cannot be science.

That said, this problem is everywhere. Take a look at science news this week, for example. Every week, at least two of their articles are directly politically topics, mostly on the liberal end.

Or try Scientific American. Just in time for a big Democrat Party gun-control push, they came out with a whole issue complete devoted to the source of terrorist and revolutionary-army weaponry.

I have no inherent reason to believe the latest results any less or any more than the results that came out of the Clinton Administration, "proving" that condom use reduced the incidence of STDs, or anything else of a political nature, for that matter. The real benefit (if you want to call it that) of all this pseudo-scientific politics is that it allows anyone to believe whatever they want, and draws all of society away from reality into a fantasy land.

I'll go one step farther and personalize the statement: if this is the first time that you noticed anything, or if this is the first time you complained -- then you need to rethink whether what you call "science" really is science.

Re:Slashdot articles are also one-sided

[MickLinux]

Ummm... these studies are often misdesigned to give the desired result.

If, for example, you only take 22 infected male monkeys, strap condoms on them, and mix them with 22 female monkeys (or 100 female monkeys) and then watch the infections pass, you will necessarily conclude that the transmission of STDs is reduced.

If, on the other hand, you go out into society, and study two completely identical societies [caveat: we're already into fantasy] except that one has condoms pushed, and another has abstinence pushed, then there is a chance that you will see far more sexual activity in the former... and more STDs.

Now, I have no idea what a proper study would be. However, you can deliberately misdesign a study to predefine the results you want... and that does happen. Of course, when you do this you are clearly getting no new information out, and the study is political, not scientific. What you are instead doing is getting literature out to support your desired political opinion.

Re:Slashdot articles are also one-sided

[buysse]

Evidence, please. I would like a citation. I don't like the current administration, but you can't expect to be taken seriously making a charge like that without evidence.

Re:In the Soviet Union too

[commodoresloat]

In Soviet Russia, government tells scientists what to say.

oh, wait....

damn.

we really are fucked.

Re:Bush sucks.

[slipgun]

This administration lies about everything -- every goddamned thing -- as a matter of permanent policy. They will say anything that they want the public to believe, while they do whatever they want. And what they want is to get money for themselves and their big campaign contributors, that is absolutely all they are about. What a disaster for the country. The worst administation ever, the American version of a "kleptocracy."

Please, someone mod this crap down. Of course the government tells lies - all governments/businesses/institutions/individuals do.

But have you any idea of how good we have it in the west? Have you the slightest inkling at what shit people have to put up with in North Korea, Iraq or Zimbabwe? The governments there do lie virtually all the time. And if anyone happens to question those lies, they are thrown into prison, beaten, tortured and eventually killed.

That doesn't happen in the US, UK, Australia, Western Europe or any other civilized country I can think of (I know Western Europe isn't a country). Many of us don't know how good we have it. Of course, that doesn't mean we should take it for granted. Nor should we neglect to question the government at every possible opportunity>

Global warming and ideology

[theolein]

Since a lot of people seem to make some sort of bond between this topic and global warming, I agree that there isn't much proof that the planet is warming, in an abstract theoretical sense. However I consider what I experience as proof for me:

When I got to Europe in 1986 from Africa, Winters were blisteringly cold in Berlin in Germany, and I remember one Winter in particular, 86-87, where the temperature went down to -29 Degrees Centigrade. I remember summers here being a balmy 26 to 28 Degrees Centigrade, on a hot summer. I mived to Switzerland in 1989 in time to see a small lake near to Zurich freezing over for most of the Winter for the last time.

Since then, in the countryside near to Zurich, the last time the small ski-stations had enough snow, anytime in winter for people to ski for more than a week was 1992. I remember sitting outside in the sunshine at 14 degrees Centigrade in a T-shirt, playing my bass guitar, on January 14th 1998. Summers have, since the mid to late 90's, regularly broken all time high records and almost every summer since about 1998 has reached 30 to 32 Degrees Centigrade.

On top of this the weather has become increasingly chaotic. Autumn and Spring storms that regularly reach huricane strength, each couple of years breaking the record of the last set of storms a few years ago, meandering cold fronts going off their usual west-east course in Winter and bringing a week of sudden (in the space of one hour) freezes of down to -14 Degrees Centigrade which last a few days and the temperature then suddenly boucing back up to 10 Degrees Centigrade. Almost every year now has major flooding in central Europe.

That was my experience here in Europe. My sister in Australia tells me that the country is getting dryer all the time and the bush fires bigger every year.

That does make me think, and I don't think that any piece of strange, backward legislation by a somwhat dubious Dubya is going to change that.

Re:Global warming and ideology

[blankmange]

The issue is not whether or not global warming is occuring or not (temperatures studies should be reasonably reliable - shouldn't they?) but the cause of them - pollution? automotive emissions? bovine methane? And, consequently, what should we ban to stop it?

Re:Global warming and ideology

[Ektanoor]

You are partially wrong. While there is no doubt that average temperature has been going positive, there are several situations that lead to conclude that maximums and minimums have not been in place also. Right now, in central European Russia we are suffering the worst Winter since 50 years ago. For nearly all December we are getting an average -20 in several places. Right now, in some cities temperatures are beating the -40 limit. Last year we didn't have such a radical frost but it was largely colder than average. Note that for many regions in European Russia the average in December is -15 - -5, with episodical minimum limits of -20.

Summer floods have also presented an interesting pattern. Usually, a large section of East Europe gets hotter than +20 degrees (note all numbers are in centigrades). However, this last Summer has not only be too wet but also too cold. In Russia several regions beated the low records for Spring and early Summer. In our region, temperatures were frequently not higher than +15. And it was raining non-stop for several days. Meanwhile, in Siberia it was largely hotter than usual.There they entered Autumn with temperatures higher than +10 in many places.

Some other examples.

For some years I see snow falling in middle to late May, what is considered quite unusual for older generations.

In other situation, a highly traditional weather pattern seen here, suddenly broke for quite a long time. We are not too far from Moscow, so, it is usual to see Moscow's weather coming down here in two or three days. This year, either we had the same weather pattern as Moscow for several weeks, or we were generally colder than Moscow.

Meanwhile, while colder than usual, Moscow's green belt suffered one of its worst forest fires for many years. Due to the cold weather and these fires, for weeks Moscow was engolfed in a huge smog.

While I would not dispute the fact that the globe is getting hotter, I would advise to be careful on direct experiences. The weather is surely changing, but not in the stereotyped pattern that the partisans of global waring think.

Re:Global warming and ideology

[tswinzig]

Since a lot of people seem to make some sort of bond between this topic and global warming, I agree that there isn't much proof that the planet is warming, in an abstract theoretical sense. However I consider what I experience as proof for me:

You have this backwards. There is proof the climate is getting progressively warmer. However, no one has been able to prove, AFAIK, that this isn't a natural progression. It is known that there have been cycles of warmer and colder climates through the millennia. Its entirely plausible that this is a warm cycle.

However, until its proven one way or the other, why risk it? Let's work towards lower emissions whenever possible.

BBL... gotta take my Hummer H2 down to the gas station for some Lotto tix.

Re:Global warming and ideology

[theolein]

You're right but I remember that the summer of 2001 (a friend of mine lives in Moscow) was the hottest ever on record. That and the extremes of the coldest winters on record (Moscow would be more under a continental climate than western Europe I think) does make one think doesn't it?

Re:Global warming and ideology

[Idarubicin]

For the moment, I am afraid that we have to set aside anecdotal reports of climate change. Where I was, the winter of 1999-2000 was bloody cold. Summer of 2001, meanwhile, was hot, humid, and miserable. I put my trust in weather data that have been gathered around the world over the last century or more that do indeed show a warming trend and an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

That said, it has not been firmly established that anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gases are solely responsible for earth's increasing temperature. Indeed, the preponderance of current evidence suggests that it is at best a combination of human-induced and 'natural' effects.

Nevertheless, we should act now to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Earth's climate is an exceptionally complex system, and we shouldn't be tinkering with it--intentionally or not--without a better understanding of how it works. Traditionally, humans have only sought to impose limits on pollutants once problems have become painfully evident. This has left us with numerous costly and toxic legacies. By voluntarily imposing limits on emissions now, we seek to prevent problems that have not yet come about.

There has been much to-do about the potential costs associated with the Kyoto protocol and other efforts to curb emissions. Not nearly enough has been said about the potential savings associated with disasters that never have to come about.

Re:Global warming and ideology

[iggymanz]

And, consequently, what should we ban to stop it?

Ban Bovine Flatulence!!! Cork your Cow!

You know, I can't believe how many people don't realize the earth has been MUCH COLDER than it is right now, and it also has been MUCH WARMER than it is right now. I can guarantee you that whatever forces make the earth's climate change like that will completely overpower & dominate whatever small contributions man's technology make to global temperature. *Hint* Insolation is the key & driver of earth's climate.

Re:I blaim Bush

[slipgun]

The US is a lot more dangerous than Iraq.

Try looking at the way Iraq treats its own people sometime. Or ask whether Bush is going to launch a biological attack on Stockholm on a whim.

And no, I'm not American.

Re:I blaim Bush

[slipgun]

You say "start a war" like it's a bad thing. I, and many other citizens of the United States, believe that we should have finished the job 10 years ago. As long as Saddam Hussein is in power, Iraq is running scared. Which would you rather have, a scared animal (who believing he has nothing to lose, will stop at nothing) or a dead animal? I can't think of a worse thing than an opponent with nothing to lose by anything up to and including death.

Another decent comment modded down because it disagrees with left-wing opinion on Slashdot.

Re:Higher fuel prices? Bring 'em on!

[fmaxwell]

We aren't even all that dependent on Arab oil

That is simply untrue. In 2001, we imported 1.61 million barrels per day from Saudi Arabia. That was about 18% of our oil. Saudi Arabia is the largest single foreign supplier of oil to the U.S.

quite frankly, we'd prefer our oil reserves to be left when everyone else's are gone

Then please explain to me why Bush wants to give his buddies in the oil industry permission to drill in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

All it would do is require U.S. businesses to buy pollution credits from other countries in order to maintain the status quo.

Or they could pollute less. That was the point. There would be an economic penalty for polluting (the fees to buy pollution credits). When a company found a way to reduce pollution, then they would not have to buy credits, giving them an economic advantage over their competitors.

Not that signing Kyoto would reduce the amount of oil exported, or even potentially used in the aggregate.

Never read a book on economics, have you? When the price goes up, the demand goes down. If oil prices rise, people will seek out more fuel-efficient cars. That will result in a long-term reduction in fuel usage and a reduction, or even elimination, of our reliance on imported oil.

Re:Well it should be OBVIOUS

[TygerFish]

I disagree completely with the moderator's scoring this, 'informative' for the reasons below.

Yes, an abortion is bound to do strange things to hormonal cycles in women, however, the question the post poses, and to which the times article refers, is whether or not the government is altering scientific data on health-related sites to suit a conservative agenda. The answer The Times article gave can be summed up with the words 'it seems so to many people including pro-choice politicians.'

Having got that out of the way, we can examine the poster's statements to extract an implicit argument.

There's almost always a fair amount of internal damage when tools are used, depending on the method of operation.

This is not accurate. According to one site, the discomfort associated with a D and C procedure (dilation and curettage, the most usual procedure in early stage abortions) is similar to the discomfort of menstral cramps. With this in mind, what the poster says makes things sound like major surgery is going on. That is weird, but things only start to get really hallucinatory when the poster writes about 'the vacuum device.'

The vacuum device (sorry.. don't know the name) that collapses the skull has a sharp edged attachment and it's difficult to maneuver. That's a pretty confined space to work in, after all.

Technical and clinical sounding, and gruesome enough to get your adrenaline pumping, but it has no substance: it is wet and sloshy when it comes to the facts.

This description of the procedure presupposes a long wait before the decision to terminate the pregnancy in question is undertaken. A long wait before one makes the decision is a possible pathway to abortion but it is by no means a necessary one despite the writer's implicit assertion. Dilation and curettage is only one of a number of options open to women in the United States and there is no reason to assume that abortion involving skull-collapsing sharp things that no one knows the name of is the only option or in any way the norm.

Current in-home pregnancy tests can allow a woman to know that she is pregnant within 10 days of conception and the poster works hard to describe a procedure that would note be necessary to abort the fetus after tens of weeks have gone by when in truth, during the second month of pregnancy, during the eighth week, the fetus is a legless thing measuring, 0.63 inches long from crown to rump and weighing four hundredths of an ounce.

The right of men and women to plan and control their reproduction--to control if, when and under what circumstances they will become parents, is an important one. If one is to present arguments where one's tacit assumption is that it's alright to rewrite the conclusions of scientific papers or throw out ideologically inconvenient statistics, one should try to get at least *some* of his facts from somewhere other than pro-life websites or the big book of urban legends.

Parent is Troll or Flamebait?

[ONOIML8]

You guys are trying to mix political terms with science in a very odd way just to stir something up here. Anywhere else on here and this would be modded down.

Conservative science means running the experiment twice instead of once.

It is not the same as conservative politics, which I think all this was supposed to be about. Unfortunatly the author, and the /. editiors it seems, had a political axe to grind.

So now we are left with a parent post that is not a good report on politics, not a good report on science, and is just not good reporting at all.

Or am I wrong? Is it more important to grind the political axe than to have honor in journalism?

Re:Parent is Troll or Flamebait?

[finkployd]

It isn't all the editors, it is just Michael. He is an idiot. His stories are generally factually incorrect, and he has absolutly no journalistic integrity. Seriously, look at his previous stories, he always slips in his political views whenever possible.

Finkployd

Re:Higher fuel prices? Bring 'em on!

[00_NOP]

According to revised estimates, implementing the Kyoto Treaty would increase gas prices in the USA upwards of 60 cents per gallon

It would also create millions of jobs - where do you think that money would go?

Into the hands of those making environmentally friendly technologies - something which the US ought to be good at.

Am I the only one who thinks maybe we could do with a few extra jobs right now? Or maybe people think tax cuts for the rich are a better buy?

Mod parent up through the roof

[interactive_civilian]

Posts like this one make me wish that some posts on /. could exceed the +5 limit. This hits the nail on the head.

I left the US about a year and a half ago (and if the current trends continue, I may never return), and now I am teaching English in Japan. My students often ask me what I think about what I think of North Korea developing nuclear weapons (as well as US vs. Iraq, the "War on Free^H^H^H^HTerror" and other things), and I usually tell them that I am not worried about North Korea. I am much more worried about what the number one manufacturer of nuclear weapons in the world is trying to do. They often ask me what Japan can do to improve its economy, and I usually tell them that Japan needs to get all of its eggs out of the US Economic basket and spread them around, so if that basket falls, not all of the eggs will break. They often ask me why I don't like the US and I usually respond by asking them why they aren't afraid of George W. Bush.

I know I am getting way off-topic here, but I'm in a ranty mood and I have karma to burn. I read recently (maybe a few weeks ago) in the Daily Yomiuri (a Japanese newspaper) that President(emperor?) Bush wanted to reserve the right to pre-emptively use nuclear weapons against enemies he feels are a direct threat to the United States. Umm...hello...if that isn't the scariest thing you have heard in a long time then you are not listening. Of course, what do Americans think about nuclear weapons? Well, according to my sister (a school teacher in upstate New York...so take this with as much salt as you like), there was recently a poll in some paper (yeah, I know...how much more vague can I get) which stated that 80% of those polled said they would agree with and support an nuclear retaliatory attack on anyone who attacked (whether the poll specified nuclear or not, I don't know) the US.

Ok, so, now I am off topic, quoting unreliable sources, and not backing up anything I am saying...goodbye karma, I knew you well...but honestly, I am becoming very afraid of the position that the US federal government is trying to take within and outside of its own borders. And living in the only country in the world to ever be attacked with a nuclear weapon has helped me put a different perspective on things.

If President Bush gets re-elected, how long before he "dissolves the imperial senate" so to speak? Will the ACLU and the EFF be enough of a "rebel alliance" to restore peace, or will we find out how Star Wars could have ended? (sorry for the Star Wars references, but Bush reminds me so much of Palpatine)

Ok...sorry for the rant. I usually don't but this has been sitting inside for a long time. Feel free to mod me down through the floor boards, but mod the parent up...I think I'll just start sending my students to that post.

Peace On Earth. Purity Of Essence. and all that.

Re:Mod parent up through the roof

[jgalun]

They often ask me what Japan can do to improve its economy, and I usually tell them that Japan needs to get all of its eggs out of the US Economic basket and spread them around, so if that basket falls, not all of the eggs will break. They often ask me why I don't like the US and I usually respond by asking them why they aren't afraid of George W. Bush.

Maybe you should advise them to fix their banking system and start dealing with their massive national debt (which, as a percentage of GDP, is more than twice as big as America's). Your platitude sounds meaningful - an American warning about America - but it is actually meaningless. Japan's major problem economically is the domestic basis of its economy.

Yes, if America collapses economically then Japan is screwed. So is the rest of the world. But one of the reasons America's economy is so important to the world right now is because Japan and Europe have not fixed their economies. America, South Korea, China, and India are driving world economic growth right now. But because China and India are mainly exporters, and South Korea isn't that big, only America can really help the rest of the world. Traditionally, when America was going into recession, we could expect European and Japanese growth to help counteract the American recession. But now, because Japan and Europe have been stagnant for years, it is left up to America's economy alone.

Re:Mod parent up through the roof

[Grishnakh]

(sorry for the Star Wars references, but Bush reminds me so much of Palpatine)

I'm sorry, but Bush doesn't remind me of Palpatine at all. Palpatine is evil, highly intelligent, and devious. Bush I think is just a puppet for evil forces behind him, and considering his misstatements in public, doesn't seem to be highly intelligent. When did Palpatine ever say something stupid?

Re:Mod parent up through the roof

[Guppy06]

"and I usually tell them that I am not worried about North Korea. I am much more worried about what the number one manufacturer of nuclear weapons in the world is trying to do"

First off, do you have numbers to back up this claim? That don't date from the 1950's? Last I heard, the US has been cutting back on its nuclear arsenal for the past several decades. Something to do with SALT, I imagine.

Secondly, it's not the country that manufactures nuclear weapons that scare me. I couldn't care less about India and Pakistan having nuclear weapons. What scares me is the country that would sell nuclear weapons to whoever is willing to cough up the money in order to try to feed a population that's always on the brink of starvation in a rusting relic of Soviet-style socialism. DPRK is the only nuclear or near-nuclear country I can think of that doesn't have a problem with nuclear proliferation. Even non-signatories (like India and Pakistan) don't like the idea.

"They often ask me what Japan can do to improve its economy, and I usually tell them that Japan needs to get all of its eggs out of the US Economic basket and spread them around, so if that basket falls, not all of the eggs will break."

When last I checked, their eggs are already showing some severe cracks. While the US was still high on fumes off the internet, Japan (and most of SE Asia with it) went through a bit of an economic melt-down. And while the yen isn't quite as bad as it used to be, there have been talks of a "banking crisis" in recent months.

Why do you think those Japanese students are asking about ways to improve the Japanese economy?

"They often ask me why I don't like the US and I usually respond by asking them why they aren't afraid of George W. Bush."

Political partisanship in the classrom. In a world where journalists work hard to keep their writing as centrist as possible, you are able to proudly proclaim your political views to the classroom? All I can say is that I hope those aren't children that you're teaching.

"And living in the only country in the world to ever be attacked with a nuclear weapon has helped me put a different perspective on things."

You're also probably living in the only country in the world that would wait until a second nuclear attack before considering surrendering.

Not that that's entirely true. After two bombs and the USSR declaring war on them (complete with veterans from the Eastern European Front), the army staged a coup to try to prevent Hirohito from surrendering.

But I digress.

Re:Bush sucks.

[Zeinfeld]

This administration lies about everything -- every goddamned thing -- as a matter of permanent policy

The problem isn't just the administration, its the Republican echo chamber that chose the candidate, chose the policies and lied to the people to get him elected.

Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the Washington times have a new version of Gobbel's 'big lie' it is the myth of the 'liberal media'. By repeating this myth often enough they aim to immunize themselves against criticism for their packs of lies.

That is why we have in the Whitehouse a Vietnam draft dogger who deserted his National guard post that daddy pulled strings to get, a man with a criminal conviction and a man who was investigated by the SEC for corruption who got off on a 'technicality' - if you call having daddy being Vice President at the time a technicality.

All of this was known during the campaign but the Republican echo chamber made sure that attention was instead focused on the 'real issues' of Gore's 'lies', like saying he went to Texas fires with the head of FEMA, not the deputy head, according to the Republican echo chamber this was an attempt to embelish his record, a vice president claiming to be on equal terms with an agency director! imagine!

Very little is being said about the fact that the SEC is currently investigating Cheney for corrupt accounting. One would thing that would be a big story, bigger than Lott's racist gaffe even. But no the big story the Republican echo chamber want to talk about is the alleged cost of Kerry's hairdo.

And so having made a mess of the economy and failled to catch Bin Laden the Administration is desperately trying to start a war in the hope that everyone (or at least sufficient numbers) can be fooled by the flag waving.

Question for the republican slashdot monitors - can you honestly claim that W, who deserted from the National guard would have served in the war he wants to start with Iraq?

Over where I come from we have words for people like W, they are Hypocrite, Liar and Coward.

Has been going on for years on a bigger scale:

[NineNine]

Like the subject says, this kind of bullshit has been going on for many years on a much bigger scale. Marijuana, anyone? Even though any clinical study done (none within the US, of course... they're not allowed) has shown zero possibility for death, next to no physical addiction, and few few if any long term side effects, the US government has been saying for almost a century that marijuana is evil, bad for you, and has been locking up thousands of innocent people based on pure, unadulterated 100% scientific bullshit.

We already know the world to be banana-shaped

[interactive_civilian]

and lets not forget the old favorite:

"And what, apart from wood, also floats on water?"

"Apples!"
"Gravy!"
"Very small rocks!"
"Churches! Churches!"

"A DUCK!"

"Precisely. So..."

"...if she...ways the same as a duck...then she's made of wood..."

"And, therefore..."

"a WITCH!!!!"

Re:Abortion & Cancer lawsuits in Australia

[Xoro]

Google abortion "breast cancer" Australia lawsuit.

Mentioned here and here.

I reckon that in a tech-oriented locale such as /., people would have at least learned to check Google before calling someone a "lying troll".

"Business model" of science funding

[No Such Agency]

As long as the scientist is producing results, his funding continues.

Yes, for most funding agencies (except openly biased ones) this is true. As long as a scientist produces results they get funding. Not neccessarily any particular experimental outcome, but results that stand up to peer review and are publishable. NSERC (the main Canadian gov't funding agency) for example, seems to have a "business model" that good science is worth the money. Of course, how much money that is varies with the political/economic tides, but it's generally sufficient, and as a result a lot of good research goes on here. Corporate funding sometimes sweetens the pot but it's not required to do basic research.

Don't become cynical about scientists and research just because of a few bad apples in the funding basket (*cough cough* pharmaceutical companies *cough cough*). Most of us publish the results we get, not just the ones we wanted, and still keep our funding. And those results usually turn out to be more interesting than the ones we wanted anyway...

Re:I blaim Bush

[slipgun]

And that is someone else's business because...? For your information, Iraq is not a closed country. You can leave if you don't take your property with you.

Which is like saying 'you can leave, but if you do we'll take all your possessions'. Great.

I would say that Saddam is not that interested in bioattacking Stockholm either.

No, but I bet he'd love to bioattack New York or London.

Risk management (a little OT)

[No Such Agency]

In the current political climate (in all of North America, not just the US), teaching proper risk management in relation to contraception is near-impossible. And of course, it's the key to using "birth control" properly. Don't like the odds with just a condom? Use a condom and the Pill, or a condom and contraceptive foam together. The odds of both failing are (odds of method 1 failing) X (odds of method 2 failing). For two methods with a 1% failure rate there's a 1/10 000 risk of your contraception not working. That's a lot of sex ;-) Of course, it's a little more complicated if you're worried about diseases, you have to educate yourself and know which methods work against infection as well. I say "educate yourself", because odds are you won't learn it in school :-(

Slight revision

[No Such Agency]

It's just your sort of attitude that has forced me to give up on the political [right]. Anything that doesn't support your political prejudices is wrong/flawed/unscientific/["liberal"]/motivated by [atheists]/motivated by hate/greed/[communism]/power/evil. Well sometimes your political oppenents on the [left] are correct.

See how easy that was? This is why traditional left wing/right wing politics, especially with only two major parties, is so unproductive. And it's certainly why politics and science should NEVER mix. Politics is the opposite of true science - the truth is worthless and the lies keep changing.

Re:Higher fuel prices? Bring 'em on!

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

All it would do is require U.S. businesses to buy pollution credits from other countries in order to maintain the status quo. These costs will be passed on to you, the consumer, so that foreign countries can prop up their economies on your hard work.

The cost is already being passed onto me, and other American citizens: In the health damage associated with petro pollution. In the incoherence of foreign policy. In the instability in the Middle East and South America. In the sons and daughters sent to die to maintain our petroleum addicition -- and in the conscience and psyche of our sons and daughters sent to kill others to maintain our petroluem addiction.

Not all value is economic value. We are already paying for these failures... we might as well translate it to simple economic cost (and safeguard the environment while we're at it).

"Zardoz" said it best...

[No Such Agency]

"The gun is good. The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life, and poisons the earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the gun shoots death, and purifies the earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth and kill!"

Re:Higher fuel prices? Bring 'em on!

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Not that signing Kyoto would reduce the amount of oil exported, or even potentially used in the aggregate. All it would do is require U.S. businesses to buy pollution credits from other countries in order to maintain the status quo.

It's funny how people believe in capitalism ... right up until it's inconvenient. If a business buys a pollution credit, it reduces its profitability. A company doing the same work but not polluting will be able to offer a lower price while realizing the same profit. Consumers will choose the lower-priced work, thereby rewarding the desired behavior. PolluteCo will have to shell out for pollution credits -- and they'll pay to CleanCo (which therefore derives more profit). Again, the desired behavior is rewarded.

In the long term, one of two things happens:

PolluteCo gets wise, invests in cleaner technology, reduces its emissions, and so escapes the need to buy credits. End result: The industry as a whole is cleaner.

PolluteCo never wises up, remains dirty, fails to invest in clean tech, continues to pay for the credits. CleanCo continues to derive economic benefit from its clean technologies, so it maintains its lower prices and draws more of the market to it. PolluteCo ramps down production (due to falling orders) and/or eventually goes out of business. End result: The industry as a whole is cleaner.

Either way, pollution credits lead to the desired result. And amazingly they do so through clear, clean market efficiency. (For those who complain that the setting of credits is an intervention, I riposte that costs and prices are measures of desires, which lie outside the market paradigm. Why did everyone want a beanie baby? Not due to market forces.)

Except you can't really buy diesel cars here

[RayChuang]

There's one problem with your scenario: you can't have wide-scale adoption of diesel power for automobiles because Diesel #2 fuel sold in the USA contains too much sulfur compounds, which will quickly corrode the modern fuel-delivery and exhaust emission control systems found on European diesel-powered cars.

This will change in a few years when the EPA will require diesel fuel with no more than 80 parts per million of sulfur compounds; this will allow the introduction on a large scale of diesel-powered automobiles, pickup trucks and SUV's that will have 25 to 40 percent better fuel mileage but still meet the strict Ultra-Low Emissions Vehicle (ULEV) exhaust emission standard.

I can see by 2006 a major switch on pickup trucks, SUV's and minivans to turbodiesel power; it's actually better for these type of vehicles since the high low-end torque of turbodiesel engines are well-suited for this type of application.

Re:Except you can't really buy diesel cars here

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Sounds like a TD engine would also be really good for rally racing.

Re:Except you can't really buy diesel cars here

[fmaxwell]

There's one problem with your scenario: you can't have wide-scale adoption of diesel power for automobiles because Diesel #2 fuel sold in the USA contains too much sulfur compounds, which will quickly corrode the modern fuel-delivery and exhaust emission control systems found on European diesel-powered cars.

The VW TDIs work with it now, though there are many other European diesels which will not as you rightly point out.

This will change in a few years when the EPA will require diesel fuel with no more than 80 parts per million of sulfur compounds;

My bet is that Bush will push that date back in order to please his buddies in the oil industry who claim that it's so hard to produce low-sulfur diesel (even though they sell it overseas).

Re:Except you can't really buy diesel cars here

[RayChuang]

My bet is that Bush will push that date back in order to please his buddies in the oil industry who claim that it's so hard to produce low-sulfur diesel (even though they sell it overseas).

Except there are no plans to change the date of mandatory switch to low-sulfur diesel across the USA (due some time in 2005). California has required low-sulfur diesel for some time, and so far there has been no significant effects on diesel engines now in service in California.

I think the US automakers would love to sell turbodiesel engines for pickup trucks, SUV's and minivans because these types of vehicles really do benefit from the strong low-end torque that is the characteristic of diesel engines.

Re:Except you can't really buy diesel cars here

[fmaxwell]

Except there are no plans to change the date of mandatory switch to low-sulfur diesel across the USA (due some time in 2005).

Obviously, G.W. Bush keeps you better informed than he does me. I don't know from one day to the next what he's planning.

I think the US automakers would love to sell turbodiesel engines for pickup trucks, SUV's and minivans because these types of vehicles really do benefit from the strong low-end torque that is the characteristic of diesel engines.

It's not just trucks (which run quite well on the current high-sulphur diesel). In Europe, BMW, VW, Audi, and other auto manufacturers put high-performance diesels into performance, luxury, and economy vehicles. I love my VW Golf TDI and hope to continue purchasing diesels in the future.

Re:Bush sucks.

[kir]

. . .W, who deserted from the National guard . . .

Really? This is the first I've heard of this. Seriously. Can you point me to some info on this?

Re:I blaim Gore

[feed_me_cereal]

Gore would continue the status-quo of pushover democrats who only do enough to get the left vote, but not enough to acually appease them. Hopefully he'll now be the last.

Don't blame the greens for voting for the person they actually wanted to be president, blame Gore for playing the fence. Besides, if everyone who voted for Gore voted for Nader, we wouldn't be in this mess either :)

Re:Bush sucks.

[Zeinfeld]

Really? This is the first I've heard of this. Seriously. Can you point me to some info on this?

AWOLBush has the basic facts. Shrub's military record shows that he did not show up for duty between May 1972 and October 1973.

There is no statute of limitations for desertion in time of war. If this was Clinton, Ken Starr would have investigated. However because it is a republican he gets off.

See also Bush's Top 10 Lies, Exaggerations And 'Obsfucations' About His Military Service

Re:Why should this surprise anyone?

[feed_me_cereal]

and what they stand for? um...

sorry, but I won't catch bush's bones, I don't really care that some of his cronies are black women. I want minorities, women, etc.. making it to the PRESIDENCY. I don't buy the "look! these people aren't ALWAYS shafted" argument. If there wasn't a problem, we'd see them in equal proportions everywhere, including the presidency.

Besides, to infer Clinton isn't on the side of minorities is ridiculous. He's been touted as our blackest president ever. Just take a look at what the NAACP thinks of him.

Excellent, +10, etc. etc.

[Damek]

I just wanted to reply in thanks for what you wrote - you said everything I'd wanted to say, and better than I probably would have said it. I agree with you 100% there.

Your post is all the more eerie as I am currently reading The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson, an excellent novel which features as part of its backdrop a world where the US military/industrial machine has grown larger than ever. Oddly enough, reading this book, written in the 80s, I'm constantly struck that I feel I am living in the times it describes. We're there now, and we have a choice of what kind of world we want to build.

Re:Bush sucks.

[jalefkowit]

A quick Google search turned these up:

From the Boston Globe: One Year Gap in Bush's National Guard Duty

From the Dallas Morning News (reprinted in the Washington Post): Records of Bush's Alabama Military Duty Cannot Be Found

A guy then used the Freedom of Information Act to get the actual reports detailing Bush's "issues" with reporting for duty: You Can't Just Walk Away

CNN reported Bush's denial (Bush Dismisses Report He Skipped Air National Guard Service), but it's notable what a weak denial it was: "Asked about his Air National Guard attendance record, Bush told reporters it was 'spotty attendance but I did the duty necessary... I did the time that was required in the Guard.' " Not the kind of ringing denial you'd expect if there wasn't at least an element of truth to the story.

Unsurprisingly, the media didn't press him on the issue back during the campaign, and they're certainly not likely to now. But as far as I can see the questions are still open, and the "Bush was AWOL" side seems to have more facts and evidence at their disposal than does the "no he wasn't" side.

Re:Bush sucks.

[kir]

I cannot believe that some people haven't heard about this. Please, open your eyes and look around you.

You know... I asked a legitimate question. Could I have found the answers myself? Yes. I asked the question not only to learn about this topic, but also to see what kind of responses I'd get. You attack... I say fuck you. Coward.

Re:Its a "Kakistocracy".

[CashCarSTAR]

Like it or not taxes are a necessary evil. Without taxation the infrastructure would not be in place to allow a country to compete in the world market. It would be impossible for the private sector to replicate the same services and still make a profit. Nobody would do it, and if you could pull it off, the shockwaves it would create through an economy would be devestating. Imagine if every highway had a 10 dollar toll or something like that. Very possible with monopoly situations..

Even social infrastrcture is important. Imagine if a good portion of our society was forced to restrt to crime just to live..and forget about a police force or prisons to deal with the problem..just a mess.

Australian voting

[MacAndrew]

Having compulsory voting makes you vote.

Well, OK, that's pretty much what compulsory means.

Presumably voting is an aspect of freedom, and being forced to vote runs against that. Although it's not a practice I readily endorse, I know perfectly intelligent people here in the States who have boycotted elections out of disgust. If they should must be coerced, it would make a lot more sense to force themm to get involved at the grassroots level, or to contribute money to minor candidates, that to force them to ratify the result of a selection process they think is corrupt.

I don't see how increased "swing votes" prove people care more. Detailed surveys might, but vote counts could mean different things. Swingers can be either principled or fickle. Also, it is inevitable that a swing group will develop and grow, because the major parites will adjust their policies to get as many voters as possible, resulting in roughly even split. The swing group simple develops at this split, their loyalties divided and thus up for grabs.

Being forced to vote would make me mad. I'd vote against it. :)

Pretty safe????

[TheLink]

What's _pretty_safe_ about those figures?

98%-100%? That's a wide range isn't it? There is a big difference between 1 in 50 being infected and 0 in infinity.

1 in 50 FUBAR rate is a lot worse than skydiving when I last checked (1 in 3800 participants).
http://www.afn.org/skydive/sta/sta ts.html
People nowadays seem to give more respect to leaping out of an airplane than to sex.

0.5-3% is pretty much in line of typical condom failure rates in various studies. Note for most contraceptive studies failure = pregnancy, not infection. Humans aren't very fertile, so it is likely that the barrier failure rates are higher. While AIDS isn't that infectious, hepatitis B/C and other dangerous STDs are significantly more infectious.

People who keep saying condoms = safe sex are irresponsible.

Hot-blooded youth need to know the true risks. Given a real idea of the risks some may indeed decide to make safer choices.

Saying they'll all be promiscuous anyway is wrong and patronising. Some sex surveys have indicated that in some countries premarital sex isn't that common. If the prevalent culture is risky and the risk/benefit ratio is bad, work to change the culture.

Re:Why should this surprise anyone?

[jdreed1024]

Who modded this Interesting? -1 Flamebait is more like it.

The poster has no concept of history whatsoever. First, some things to clear up. In the 1948 election, Strom Thurmond was not running as a Republican OR a Democract. He was running as a semi-independent. A group of Southern Democrats, who thought Harry Truman (a democrat) was going too far with his civil rights policies, broke from the Democratic party and formed their own party with their key point being the "right of the States". In practice, the only States' Right they cared about was the right to allow segregation. (These were unofficially known as "Dixiecrats".)

Second, the Democratic Party nominated Eisenhower as a candidate and wanted him to face Truman in the Democratic Primary. Eisenhower (as a national WWII hero) knew that he would win, but declined the nomination. He threw in the towel, and is reported to have discussed this with Truman, saying he (Eisenhower) would decline the nomnation provided Truman did not seek a second term in 1952. We all know the rest of the story - Truman rode around the county, decrying the Republican Congress; the media picked Dewey (Republican) as their favorite; and Truman won by a landslide.

Now, on to your original post. You claim:
the last time that the president and both houses of Congress were republican was then - In the Eisenhower administration.
This was only the case for the first half of the first term of Eisenhower's administration. The 83rd Congress was Republican, but just barely. (In the senate it was a margin of 1 (with 1 independent), and in the house, a margin of 5 (with several independents))
Do you really think the whole Trent Lott fiasco was because he "misspoke himself"?
Yes. Lott has a history of misspeaking himself. Regardless of whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, you have to agree that Lott is the kind of person that shouldn't be allowed to speak without a teleprompter. Furthermore, Lott did not say "If we'd had segregation in 1948, things would be better.", nor did he say "Strom, if your platform had been carried in '48, we'd all be happy." He merely said that if Thurmond had been president, we wouldn't have had "these problems" today. He didn't say what problems. It's conceiveable he was talking about Korea, for example. If Thurmond had been elected in '48, it's likely that a) We wouldn't have gone into Korea at all; or b) We would have gone in, but Thurmond wouldn't have fired McArthur like Truman did. He could have been talking about anything at all. Fact is, there's no way in hell Thurmond would have even been elected, given the strong Democratic support for civil rights. Second of all, even if he _had_ been elected, there's no way he would have passed any anti-civil rights stuff with the do-nothing 80th Republican Congress, and by the time the 81st Congress rolled around, it was strongly controlled by Democratic advocaters of Civil Rights, which is what allowed Truman to pass the order of de-segregation for the U.S. Armed Forces so quickly.

Also, Lott was 5 or 6 in 1948. How many of you paid attenton to politics when you were 5 or 6? How many of you in college now remember the detailed platforms of the '84 election? I sure don't.
Fact is, whatever Lott's remark meant, it got blown out of proportion. The reason it took 3 days for ANYONE (on either side) to get upset at his remark, is because they had to go back and look at the '48 election, and figure out what the hell platform Thurmond was running on, because nobody remembers. Regardless, he should have known that anything he says as a politician is going to get misinterpreted, and that's why you keep your mouth shut unless your speechwriter and spin doctor are with you.

No, there isn't.

[Theaetetus]

* First, Bush doesn't suck. Granted I'm a right leaning mid-liner, but that isn't a crime unless I'm in Berkely or San Francisco. ;-)

Well, you haven't really said anything here about Bush, just about yourself... But then, the "Bush sucks" posts don't say anything about why he sucks, so most of those are equally invalid.
No, what's more interesting is the stuff about how Bush went AWOL during a war for over a year - potentially an act of treason, how Cheney's accounting scandals have been swept under the rug, etc. Refute those, and we can start discussing Bush's suck-factor.

* Second, if you believe in global warming, find some real evidence. Yeah there may be an elevated level of CO2 in the air now, but CO2 is a piss poor 'greenhouse gas', methane and water vapor work way better. If there is a global warming trend I'd be inclined to think that it's the sun causing it as there is evidence that Mars is warming, also.

From the EPA's Global Warming site:

A warming trend of about 1F has been recorded since the late 19th century. Warming has occurred in both the northern and southern hemispheres, and over the oceans. Confirmation of 20th-century global warming is further substantiated by melting glaciers, decreased snow cover in the northern hemisphere and even warming below ground.

Now, OTOH, what's that mean? Average temperatures have increased slightly, but that could be a natural cyclical trend - records don't go back long enough.
Rather than saying "find some real evidence" - plenty exists - you should be saying "what does that evidence really mean?"

Incidentally, on the last Talk of the Nation Science Friday (from NPR), they had a segment on Antarctic science that mentioned global warming studies. Interestingly enough, though parts of the continent are warming, others are cooling, and there's about a 60% cooling trend across the continent.

Global warming is happening - but we have no idea what that means yet.

* Thirdly. What's the best way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases? Condoms or Abstinence? Maybe there was a leftist bias on those pages to begin with and they really do refect more acurately scientific evidence?

Depends on your definition of "best". What is the surest way to prevent pregnancy? Abstinence. What is the one that most people would be willing to follow? Condoms.
Look, if what's going on with the Catholic Church is any indication, not even priests can maintain a vow of chastity. To believe that anyone else can is wishful thinking at best and self-delusion at worst.

People will have sex. Teenagers will have sex. While abstinence would be best, they aren't going to do that. We might be able to get them to compromise and wear condoms, and that is much more preferable to the alternative.

Similar is dieting - obesity is a huge [pun intended] problem in this country. The obvious solution - eat less, eat more nutritionally, exercise more, etc. is very tough for a lot of people to do. Humans, in general, tend to lack the willpower for self-denial. So, though people know that they're slowly killing themselves, they continue eating Super-sized big mac meals.

Likewise smoking - anyone who doesn't know at this point that smoking is harmful is an idiot and has been living in a shack for the past sixty years. Nonetheless people still smoke. It takes a whole lot of willpower to change behaviors, particularly when you have to deny yourself immediate gratification - such as the Big Mac, the Marlboro, or the blow job - in exchange for a few possible extra years on your life... at the end, particularly when you don't know if you'll be hit by a bus or drafted and not get to die of natural causes.

In short, this is why condom use is the best way to prevent pregnancy and STDs - it's the one people will actually follow.

-T

Re:I blaim Bush

[1u3hr]

He's been shooting at U.S. planes for ten years, what are you smoking?

Warplanes flying over Iraq.

Saddam cannot 'dispatch' these weapons himself. He needs his lackies to do so, and we've already made it clear that if they do, they will be killed. Maybe they have less to lose than Saddam and his family, and would rather not be executed by the U.S.?

You might have noticed it's not diffcult to find guys who don't really care if they get caught or killed if they get some kicks in against the US (or Israel or Russia or wherever) first. But it wouldn't be terribly difficult to, say, set a timed release for bio agents, catch a bus and be well away by the time it went off.

You don't fix problems by ignoring them.

You don't fix the problem of people hating your guts by beating them up. it may make you feel better temporarily, but you'kk be watching your back forever after.

Re:I blaim Bush

[CashCarSTAR]

No, the west makes Israel a target.

Like it or not, for most of these people, Israel is nothing more than a speaking point. It's not their main concern. Their main concern is the westernization of their cultures..of their youth. It's a legitimate concern I guess..but it's not something to get violent over..in fact, I believe that tolerance trumps religion every day of the week. (A dozen times on Sunday!). Isreal to them is a western country on their holy land. No wonder they are so offended. Their issues are mostly cultural, not political.

The other interesting thing is that Hussein is not liked by these people either. In a lot of ways Hussein is the most western of the Arab leaders. The idea that Hussein aided Bin-Laden is laughable..now the opposition groups...well..lets just say that putting them in power is creating another Afghanastan for 20 years down the road. Not good.

No matter what our bombers are doing, our radio signals, our media, our satallites are always there.."corrupting and poisoning" their world. Mind you in my mind the poison is actually an elixir..but I guess that's why they hate us.

and in Soviet Russia media had a conservative bias

[joss]

I'm curious as to where you get idea that American media has a liberal bias. Oooh, wait, let me guess... it was from certain sections of American media, right ? I guess the more conservative pundits tend to believe that other outlets have a liberal bias. It depends entirely on where you stand, if you believe the media should be more conservative, one complains of liberal bias, if you believe it should be more liberal one complains of conservative bias.

So, perversely enough, the more one hears of a liberal bias, the more conservative the media must be, and vica versa.

I don't think there is an objective answer to this, but, could you maybe mention a country with a more conservative media than America ?

Re:This is bullshit....

[dbrutus]

When the budget was balanced the Congress was controlled by those dastardly Republicans. The legislation needed to balance the budget had to originate (as per the Constitution) in the House of Representatives controlled then by those horrible Republicans. President Clinton, like all Presidents before him, has only limited control over whether there are deficits or not.

Chuckle from a Democrat

[MacAndrew]

I was skimming your paragraph:

That is why we have in the Whitehouse a Vietnam draft dogger who deserted his National guard post that daddy pulled strings to get, a man with a criminal conviction and a man who was investigated by the SEC for corruption who got off on a 'technicality' - if you call having daddy being Vice President at the time a technicality.

and forgive me if for a moment I flashed back to President Clinton. His offenses were not precisely the same, but there are plenty of parallels. Clinton's weakness tended to run to sexual rather than financial dealings. Both men shared some difficulties with the draft, certain unclean dabblings with the courts, and a peculiar lying about past drug use, lies I can only think Americans somehow demand of them. None of this makes me happy. But we know this stuff (well, OK, I thought everyone know about Bush ducking his incredibly valuable duties learning to fly antiquated airplanes in Texas -- but that's relatively minor), it's not going to change much now. Also, forgive me but there is a certain amount of common sense in trying to avoid going to Vietnam. The biggest objection I have is that ducking the draft effectively meant sending some less connected in your place. (Notes: Clinton allegedly did a double-duck -- getting ROTC for draft immunity, then ducking ROTC when his draft number showed he would not have been drafted. Bush's alleged double-duck was that he skated into a flight training program desired by many, with barely passing test scores, then didn't show up for a third of it anyway, yet was not punished).

I'm not attacking or defending anyone, I just don't think the character attacks do much good, esp. over stuff 25 years ago except to put down misrepresentations. Character and record are things to think about in deciding whom to trust, but now that the election is past (on which I accept the result but insist on reform) really there's plenty concrete to criticize without digging up the past or speculating about the future. I don't happen to believe President Bush is a person of great character -- compare him to his father even -- but I'm a lot more worried that he just isn't showing much common sense, and so many of his actions or inactions appear beholden to certain minority (and I don't mean race) interests.

So rather than become liberal Rush Limbaughs -- what a concept! -- let's ask about the Iraq agenda, the economy, prescription drugs, Wall Street corruption, Enron and family, domestic spying, immigration law, peculiar tax breaks, budget deficits, and so on and so on

Re:Chuckle from a Democrat

[Zeinfeld]

Both men shared some difficulties with the draft, certain unclean dabblings with the courts, and a peculiar lying about past drug use

Have you ever seen the Clinton 'I never inhaled tape"?

It is worth seeing in context. Clinton was in the MTV studio with a teen audience doing an open meeting type Q&A. One of the teens asked if Bill had ever been in a situation where he felt pressured to take drugs.

The point is that the media have been lying to us. They smeared Clinton and Gore, they supressed the truth about Bush. But for the ability of the Republican echo chamber to create character assasination stories to damage Democrats there is no way Bush could have run as he did on a 'character' ticket.

So rather than become liberal Rush Limbaughs -- what a concept! -- let's ask about the Iraq agenda, the economy, prescription drugs, Wall Street corruption, Enron and family, domestic spying, immigration law, peculiar tax breaks, budget deficits, and so on and so on

And how do you get the media to talk about those issues when they really want to talk about the cost of Kerry's hairdo? I would much rather hear about issues, but if we can't have issues I much prefer to hear about the racist sympathies of Lott, Barr, De Lay etc than whatever story the republican echo chamber wants to promote.

One of the curious features of the Us is that politicians are almost completely absent from political talk shows. In Europe you see politicians debating the issues - mostly elected politicians with the occasional pressure group. In the US you have a special class of journalists, the pundit who speaks for politicians.

This means that the likes of Novak or Safire can mouth off for the GOP, promoting their agenda without taking any responsibility for it. If the policies backfire the politicians who promoted them are not even on record backing them.

The US is the only country I know of where journalists assert that the people are unable to make judgements for themselves without the intermediation of journalists to analyze the news for them.

Re:Chuckle from a Democrat

[MacAndrew]

The silly thing about Clinton -- who must have tried drugs at some point -- is who should care whether he did. I would care if he continued to use them, if only because you can't have the leader breaking his own country's laws. With Bush, I dont care about the cocaine or DUI, except to the extent he lies or refuses to come clean. What I would like to hear is whether he thinks that, had he been prosecuted and punished per current draconian law, he and the nation would be better off. If not...

Hey, I'm sympathetic, but I think a lot of the focus on personality comes from the public's demand for it. We can all understand personality, most of us have one, without studying a bunch of history. The stories can also be titillating, esp. with Clinton -- not that I was interested, yuck.

Politicians do show up on those boring Sunday shows and things like Nightline, I've seen them often. It's hard not to run into John McCain, and he's done a good job of getting his message out for free via the media. Trent Lott got his message out for free, too, but what did him in was that Republicans wanted to dump him. The gaffe, which merely represented what he's been about all along (and worse, in the past), was pretext. BTW, I'm fascinated by his successor Frist who had not voted until 1989 at age 38. I don't think that disqualifies him, but I'd sure like to know why he changed.

The internet has been great for sidelining the media on basic information like the candidates' position papers. It's also much harder to bury something one said, wrote, or did (e.g., http://www.thesmokinggun.com/). That's great. But I think there will always be only a % of people actively involved in politics, and that's OK with me -- it's rational to be uninvolved if things are going the way you desire. But I don't want to here from the uninvolved how terrible everything is. Nor is any of this new, I bet you could find ancient Greek writers complaining about people ignoring politics. IRC voting was mandatory in Athens.

Also, not to be cynical, but I'm a lot more interested in what politicians do or did than what they say they'll do.

Re:Chuckle from a Democrat

[ctimes2]

Zeinfeld, I swear to the internet gods if you print the Republican echo chamber one more time, I'm going to electronically bitch slap you... It's annoying, unclever, and tired. SHEESH! /rant.

Second, anyone who listens to, quotes, or uses in any way shape or form Rush Limbaugh as a source of political insight is not worth arguing with. Even Rush admits that he doesn't tell the whole story because the whole story wouldn't be interesting.

Don't get me wrong, man, I've been reading your posts, and some of them are interesting, but that whole 'echo chamber' thing is distracting, irritating, and childish. It has about as much impact as "repugs", "shrub", ad. nausium.

And it sounds like you need to get your news elsewhere... Alternet isn't bad, bbc is ok sometimes. Point is, they're out there, you just have to go look for them (and cross check the integrity of the source if it's something you care about).

Condoms don't kill

[dalutong]

Condoms don't kill people, people kill people.

Or on the flip side...

People don't kill people, condoms kill people!

The lesson to be learned

[MobyDisk]

This is why these organizations should be privatized non-profits. The FDA, EPA, NCI, etc. should be able to say whatever they think best. If some group disagrees, then they can start another group that says something else. No social or political group should be backed by the government as the absolute authority on a subject. This would lead to honesty and lower taxes.

(Vote libertarian!)

Re:I blaim the Supreme Court

[swv3752]

And the fore fathers for te screwy election system. If it was decided by a popular vote, Gore would have won.

Re:Condoms/guns both legitimize

[radish]

Since when did sex need "legitimizing"? How on earth can the most basic reproductive act of our species not be "legitimite"?

Let's get this straight:

Sex is good, it's fun, people like it and people will always do it. If they stop, we're in trouble.

Condoms allow people to have sex, whilst reducing the risk of problems (STDs, unwanted pregnancies etc) occuring. Not removing the risk, reducing the risk.

If people are going to have sex (and they are, and indeed they SHOULD), then it makes sense for them to use condoms. Just like if you're going to get in your car and drive, it makes sense to wear the seatbelt. You're not guaranteed to stay alive, but it improves your chances.

Hey now, I'm no bush fan...

[raehl]

But the economy is not his fault. That's all those venture capitalists who sunk billions of investment dollars into 1) Invest lotsa money in .com 2)???? 3) Profit! schemes.

That money being spent on companies that never created a useful product instead of wisely spent on endeavors that would have created useful product (and thus economic growth) is what killed the economy. Who got elected 2 years ago had nothing to do with it.

Re:Hey now, I'm no bush fan...

[goon america]

The economy is not Bush's fault, at least not directly. (It could be argued that it is partially the fault of his friends in the Wall Street Journal hype machine.)

However, what is being done about economy? I don't have any idea, because all I heard about on the news is an n-way war Bush is pushing HARD with questionable priority. Why does he want to spend 100 times more money and 1000 times more men on Iraq than al Qaeda?

Re:Not votint

[sjames]

The problem is having someone to vote for. While most people think of not voting as a form of laziness, there is also conscientiously looking at the cantidates and deciding that none of them deserve a vote. If 'none of the above' were a meaningful option on the ballot, I'd vote a lot more.

Currently, the best one can do is not vote at all, or game the system by voting for the most contentious rivals and hope they are caught in a hopeless snarl of infighting and don't get to do too much damage.

Currently, we have as close to none of the above as we have ever had, but to little effect. I should think that a vote resulting in a margin smaller than statistical error should send a message, but it seems that the recipiants are oblivious.

As for the issue at hand, this sort of revisionism is truly a cornerstone of the 1984 scenerio, but I have little doubt that Gore would have done it as well.

Consider an alternative

[sjames]

I propose an alternative: End all dependance on foreign oil and withdraw ALL economic and political support of the Middle East. Decades of the U.S., Soviet Union, and (to a lesser degree) Europe playing puppeteer with the Middle East, and pumping weapons and money into the region has resulted in the current problems.

The aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union has shown us how effective peace at gunpoint was and how popular the installed 'democracies' really were.

Re:Bush sucks.

[octalc0de]

Really? Who ditched the National Guard?

Outright lies from the left

[Kohath]

• Secondhand smoke kills ###### people a year.
• The rich don't pay taxes.
• Cell phones cause cancer.
• There are # million homeless people in the US.
• Breast implants cause illness.
• Global warming will kill us all in ## years.
• Ozone depletion will kill us all in ## years.
• Overpopulation will kill us all in ## years.
• Women are paid $.7# cents for every dollar a man is paid.
• No one knew cigarettes were dangerous before 19##.
• Cigarette smoking costs the public $## billion for health care.
• Animals have Rights.
• There are ### species going extinct each day/month/year.
• It's ---------'s fault children are fat, not their parents' fault.
• Nuclear power is more dangereous than ------ power.
• -------- is dangerous in small doses.
• Vaccines cause autism.
• Organic food is safer.
• GM "frankenfoods" will kill us all in ## years.
• Air polution is getting worse.

If you want a hundred examples of outright leftist falsehood, you only need to look to junkscience.com. It's updated daily. They're not always right, but they seem to have brought back the concept of healthy skepticism.

This is not a defense of untruth by the right either. I've noticed just the opposite of your contention. Untruths are more a historical phenomenon for the right and more a contemporary phenomenon for the left.

The thing is, political falsehood is usually used to oppress people, not to free them. In general, modern conservatives in the US want more freedom, and modern liberals want more control over people. This represents a shift from the '60s, and it goes hand-in-hand with the shift in political untruth-telling.

Re:Outright lies from the left

[Borealis]

Debating whether the left or right tells more lies would really be pointless. At this point you're talking about religious war (religious as in linux vs. windows, not actual religion) and I'm quite certain that both of us could come up with some juicy morsels proving our points without ever convincing each other of anything.

I maintain my position that the religious right (in contrast to simply "conservative") tends to tell some big whoppers. Typically religion is not the friend of the scientific method, simply because there aren't any religions who's ideology can be supported by it. As a result, members of the religious right who feel obligated to defend/advance their causes tend to use the scientific method poorly (aka not at all).

Otherwise I think it's reasonable for me to retract any implication that conservatives lie more than liberals. To fall back to a more defensible position let's just agree that misrepresentation of facts in the pursuit of an ideological agenda is a bad thing. Agreed?

Re:Outright lies from the left

[Kohath]

Ok, agreed.

FWIW: Religous people of all faiths, in general, tend to be nice people.

Some religious leaders want to make your choices for you. Some scientific leaders want to make your choices for you. It doesn't matter who's right about why or what the underlying motives are. What matters is that your choices are yours, and my choices are mine, and trying to take them away is wrong.

Re:Outright lies from the left

[Hauptkov]

"If you want a hundred examples of outright leftist falsehood, you only need to look to junkscience.com. It's updated daily. They're not always right, but they seem to have brought back the concept of healthy skepticism."

Ah, Steven Milloy. Webmaster of junkscience.com, and tobacco industry shill.

PR Watch had a huge article on Milloy, which you can read here.

Basic story: "the Junkman" got his start through Phillip Morris's dealings with PR firm Burston-Marsteller when they started creating phony scientific groups to oppose inconvenient research into the harmfulness of tobacco, and phony grassroots citizens' groups to make it appear there was a public groundswell of support for tobacco companies. Guess who was on board some of the groups to give "scientific weight" to what they said.

Here are some excerpts of the article:

Steven Milloy describes himself as the publisher of the Junk Science Home Page and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. "Milloy appears frequently on radio and television; has testified on risk assessment and Superfund before the U.S. Congress; and has lectured before numerous organizations," it adds, noting that he has also "written articles that have appeared in the New York Post, USA Today, Washington Times, The Chicago Sun-Times, and the Investors' Business Daily."

These facts are all accurate as far they go, but they say nothing about how Milloy came to be a prominent debunker of "junk science." This omission is undoubtedly by design, because it would certainly be embarrassing to admit that a self-proclaimed scientific reformer got his start as a behind-the-scenes lobbyist for the tobacco industry, which has arguably done more to corrupt science than any other industry in history.

Early in his career, Milloy worked for a company called Multinational Business Services, a Washington lobby shop that Philip Morris described as its "primary contact" on the issue of secondhand cigarette smoke in the early 1990s. Later, he became executive director of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), an organization that was covertly created by Philip Morris for the express purpose of generating scientific controversy regarding the link between secondhand smoke and cancer.

...

After leaving Tozzi's service, Milloy became president of his own organization called the "Regulatory Impact Analysis Project, Inc.," where he wrote a couple of reports arguing that "most environmental risks are so small or indistinguishable that their existence cannot be proven." Shortly thereafter, he launched the "Junk Science Home Page." Calling himself "the Junkman," he offered daily attacks on environmentalists, public health and food safety regulators, anti-nuclear and animal rights activists, and a wide range of other targets that he accused of using unsound science to advance various political agendas.

Milloy was also active in defense of the tobacco industry, particularly in regard to the issue of environmental tobacco smoke. He dismissed the EPA's 1993 report linking secondhand smoke to cancer as "a joke," and when the British Medical Journal published its own study with similar results in 1997, he scoffed that "it remains a joke today." After one researcher published a study linking secondhand smoke to cancer, Milloy wrote that she "must have pictures of journal editors in compromising positions with farm animals. How else can you explain her studies seeing the light of day?"

In August 1997, the New York Times reported that Milloy was one of the paid speakers at a Miami briefing for foreign reporters sponsored by the British-American Tobacco Company, whose Brown & Williamson unit makes popular cigarettes like Kool, Carlton and Lucky Strike. At the briefing, which was off-limits to U.S. journalists, the company flew in dozens of reporters from countries including Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru and paid for their hotel rooms and expensive meals while the reporters sat through presentations that ridiculed "lawsuit-driven societies like the United States" for using "unsound science" to raise questions about "infinitesimal, if not hypothetical, risks" related to inhaling a "whiff" of tobacco smoke.

...

Milloy is also highly visible on the internet. In addition to publishing the Junk Science Home Page and a website for the No More Scares campaign, Milloy also operates a "Consumer Distorts" website devoted to attacking Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, which Milloy accuses of socialism, sensationalism, and "scaring consumers away from products."

And here are some more PR Watch articles on Mr. Milloy.

Re:Outright lies from the left

[GlassHeart]

Animals have Rights.

"Outright lie"?

This is a political belief. It can be right or wrong, but not true or false.

Re:Outright lies from the left

[cyberformer]

The Junkscience site was created by Philip Morris's PR company, specificially to spread lies about how smoking is good for you. You can read about it here.

Re:Bush sucks.

[goon america]

.... and shame on the Democratic party for not being able to do a god damned thing about it. How could they let this happen? What the Hell is the matter with them?

I honestly think I personally could do a better job if I was in charge of the DNC, and that's a sad state of affairs. I think I could come up with something better than the jab-and-retreat, non-aggression and "appeasement" strategies for dealing with conservatives and their rhetoric. I don't know what's going going on in their heads, but whatever it is they clearly don't have the right mindset. And since party leaders aren't chosen democratically I don't feel like there is anything I can do about it.

Another take on it

[cyranoVR]

My grandmother always said that she never voted "because then nobody could blame [her] for anything that our leaders did." Not a bad strategy if you ask me ^_^

Re:Why should this surprise anyone?

[Catbeller]

I see he's been modded as "troll".

Well, actually his main point is easily verifiiable. Bush did withhold criticism from Lott for many days. Initially, he backed Lott's apology.

Even C-SPAN live coverage wasn't enough for major media to cover the story -- it took the internet talkers to keep it alive. Since it didn't die, Bush (read: Karl Rove) decided to use the issue to cut the old Dixiecrat ties that had previously helped Bush get into office. Those ties are liabilities for the next election; so Lott got knifed.

The beauty part is that the Democrats licked Lott's boots publicly before Lott was axed. They lost so much testosterone that they couldn't even bring themselves to oppose the Republican Senate leader even when he was waxing nostalgic for segregation ON LIVE TV! Rove decided Lott was to be publicly humiliated. He gave Bush the script to read, and thereafter, leaked info to the press to smear Lott. The press consistently credited "democrats" for the Lott historical info (which was already freely available to anyone who cared to, well, do reporting), but it was Rove who started the machine.

Rove is a master of this after all... remember the "Clinton stole the White House furniture" BS story he flogged for months? Even Bush had to later retract the story -- but not until months after the smear campaign succeeded in making a lie Truth. Yet another piece of "Clinton Truth" that won't die. Courtesy of the Mayberry Machiavelli, Rove.

(And for all the Limbaughnauts that are going to pile on at this point -- NO, Clinton didn't steal furniture, NO the offices weren't wrecked. No, it didn't happen, NO. No. NO. Did I say "no" enough times? I hear brains refusing to accept input here. Bush himself stated puplicly that the story was in error, that Clinton and his people did NOT do the things that Bush's own people had insisted were done. It was a lie, a scam, bullshit, and a vague shadow of the lie machine that we are listening to every day now. )

After Bush signalled the change, the 'publicans piled on. And the Demos crawled in, pathetically echoing the trained pack, making asses of themselves by denouncing Lott days after they had said nothing. In Daschle's case, he actually had previously made excuses for Lott.

They should have been FIRST in Lott's denunciation. They now do not politically exist.

So, Lott was whipped, then fired. Frist, a Bush family buddy and W clone, was installed by Rove and Bush as a puppet, so Bush now controls the Senate. Frist gets the possiblity of being President some day as a gift. Bush gets a wink from the old Dixiecrats, but gets public brownie points for denouncing Lott. Except for only two brave exceptions, the Democrats look like opinionless jellyfish. Bush gets a sliver more of the black vote, and gets more moderates (sane people) to think him acceptable. Win-win all around for Bush.

Facing facts

[sjames]

Naturally, abstinance is the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy and STDs. I don't think anyone disputes that.

Another fact is that some percentage of people don't abstain. We also know that some (many) of those people have more than one partner in a lifetime (otherwise, there wouldn't be any STDs). So far, not much controversy

It is also fairly clear cut that condoms reduce the odds of pregnancy and STDs vs. unprotected sex. No real controversy there.

The real question is will education about condoms reduce abstinance. According to the study that USED to be published on the CDC website, the answer is no (though one study is not the final word).

Note that from a public health standpoint, the real question is will promotion of safe sex ultimately reduce incidence of STDs and unwanted pregnancies or not.

I fail to understand how we are to solve the problem if we ignore any scientific evidence that is inconvieniant to ideology. It would seem that the Bush administration actually advocates ignorance.

What Are You Smoking?! No Pun...

[aerojad]

Where are you diging this up from? I've had family members who have died from smoking, was their death faked for me by the left?
Air pollution is getting worse, try breathing country air compared to the air in Detroit where I live.
No homeless in the country? Have you ever left the pedistol you're on and visited, oh I don't know, ANY inner city?
Want examples of women being paid less than men? Let me take you to the k-mart where I used to work where I would get a $0.35 raise and a woman would only get a $0.25 raise.
Of course cigarette smoking dosen't cost the public money, because people who are suffering from lung cancer don't go to the hospital, right?
Animals don't have rights? Tell me that again when the ecosystem is in shambles and we don't have anything to eat.
No species going extinct per day? Oh what do you care, they're just insignifigant bugs.
Nuclear power isn't dangerous? Go visit Eastern Europe and tell people that.

For the love of God, think before you sound tremendously stupid, but above all, remember that no one political party is out to "get you", and so no one political party is going to make up world history and scientific breakthroughs over the past century! I suppose man never landed on the moon too, right?

Doctor Dick

[jefu]

Which brings to mind a quote from the Brilliant Physicist (sadly overlooked for the Nobel Price), Dr. Richard Solomon of Pendleton University :

"Guns don't kill people. Physics Kills People"

Offtopic, I realize, but I did try to establish at least minimal relevance with the subject line.

it's not like this could be one sided or anything

[taxman_10m]

U.S. Revises Sex Information, and a Fight Goes On By ADAM CLYMER

Bush: "There's Adam Clymer -- major league asshole from the New York Times."
Cheney: "Yeah, big time."

Fourteen House Democrats, including Henry A. Waxman of California, senior minority member of the House Government Reform Committee, have written to Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of health and human services, charging that the new versions "distort and suppress scientific information for ideological purposes."

Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the new statement on abortion and breast cancer "simply doesn't track the best available science."

Re:I blaim Bush

[feed_me_cereal]

good post: no, but that's my opinion
modded down unfairly: yes

But stop whining. This happens to everyone. Slashdot dosn't lean that far left. Our common tie is usually free software, and not all of us can even agree with that. I've been modded down many times for left-leaning comments that were on-topic and not flamebait, but don't think it just happens to right-wingers, and don't be suprised when it happens to people with "You say 'start a war' like it's a bad thing" in their post, lest I quote Jimmy Carter:

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children

Re:Not votint

[mbogosian]

The problem is having someone to vote for. While most people think of not voting as a form of laziness, there is also conscientiously looking at the cantidates and deciding that none of them deserve a vote. If 'none of the above' were a meaningful option on the ballot, I'd vote a lot more.

Not to be redundant, but this is why I would tend to agree with those posters in favor of compulsory voting with the ability to vote for "none of the above".

Re: Big Pharm

[No Such Agency]

They're not *inherently* bad, but they have a collective history of essentially "buying results" that show their drugs are safe/effective/etc. when in fact they are not, and suppressing negative results (Google for "Nancy Olivieri"). Plus, if they funded all medical research we'd never cure anything, just get more drugs to treat symptoms...

Dilbert

[Skjellifetti]

From an old Dilbert:

Dilbert: People who don't vote have no right to complain.
Dogbert: Why not?
Dilbert: Because ... Because ... Because that's the way I was raised.
Dogbert: You were raised by bumber stickers?

Childish

[Loundry]

Fuck the economic consequences.

Tell that to the several hundred thousand Americans who are currently out of a job due to the poor economic conditions in the US. Tell that to the pilots of United who have just seen their entire retirement go up in smoke with the bankruptcy of that company.

The current generation has no right to fuck the environment, potentially for the rest of the life of the planet, just to maintain your fucked up vision of a properly run economy.

First, you can't even define what "fucking up the evironment" means: it's subjective. Second, the planet does not have a life. It's all matter that changes form over time. Third, what you see as "fucked up" is totally sane to another. Who's right? Using such qualifiers, there is no clear answer.

Burning fossil fuels adds to greenhouse gases which screws with the environment in ways which we can't undo.

I have not seen the evidence that shows this. I do recognize that it's been a goal of the left to get people of out cars and into mass transportation. But not privately-run mass transportation -- government-run mass transportation.

So we have to stop burning fossil fuels. Simple as that.

If it really was so simple then you wouldn't need to label it as such -- its simplicity would be obvious to all.

And if there are other things contributing to global warming, then we have to do something about them too.

If the average temperature of the earth cools and heats on its own accord (i.e., shy of human intervention), then why do we have to do something about them? Just saying, "We have to do something!" doesn't cut it.

And fuck the economic cost. Or there'll be no-one left in 500 years to count your precious pennies.

There is no way that you could know that.

Everyone else (except for Israel) is quite happy left to their own devices, and only has weapons to protect themselves from the inevidable invasion from the US military / economy.

One-third of all US aid goes to Israel. Where do you think the other two-thirds goes? So much for your claim that "everone else is quite happy left to their own devices." And your claim that the "only" reason other countries has weapons is to defend themselves from the US is false.

Re:Childish

[Loundry]

And whose fault is it that those pilots didn't take a few minutes every once in a while to wonder if their employer's finances were healthy and if they were going to be around for a while? Whose fault is it that they put all their savings and investment eggs in one basket?

First, you're arguing that the pilots deserve to lose their retirement for being so shortsighted. Second, many companies pressure their employees to invest heavily in the company stock. Saying, "If you don't like it, quit!" is too simplistic. Many people's lives and priorities are more complicated than yours is.

Your failure to plan for your future is not my responsibility.

I was never intending to argue otherwise. I'm sorry that I came off that way. I believe in personal responsibility as much as you do. I should; I'm in business for myself.

As far as the environment goes, it's not that difficult to be somewhat conscious of the consequences of your actions, even without a lot of available cash.

So you agree with me: the notion of "destroying the environment" is subjective.

Re:Well it should be OBVIOUS

[trotski]

Well.... I'm more concerned about condom use leading to more sexual activity. I myself have worn a condom for the past 6 months and never once have I sucessfully had sex with a person of any sex. It seems obvious to me that my condom use did not increase my sexual activity :( Oh well.

Re:There is real value in Abstinence

[Grishnakh]

If you want to be a freak, have at it. But don't try pushing your religious BS on everyone. Sex is a normal and healthy part of life, and the last thing we need is people like you dragging us back into the Dark Ages.

You are no longer an atheist.

[alizard]

How can there be any such thing as liberal or conservative science?

How can there be "Jewish science"? If this were 1942 and you were in Germany, I'm sure you'd be happy to explain to us what the answer is.

If the new conclusions are consistent with scientific principles, then they are scientific. The end.

Where the fuck did you get the idea that rewrites of scientific papers done by political propagandists are consistent with scientific principles? Because a government you support says so?

Science doesn't care what you think or what you wish to be true. And guess what -- sometimes science just happens to support the positions of the political right. Anyone who is intellectually honest will just have to accept that. So accepting the rewritten conclusions of a scientific report is a sign of intellectual honesty when the underlying research hasn't been redone to provide information to support it?

And I'm not just some right-wing Bible thumper. I happen to be an atheist and a strong advocate of science.

Anyone willing to accept the output of Bush regime bureaucrats who know no more of science than Jerry Falwell as TRUTH is no longer an atheist. You have become something even more pathetic than a right-wing Bible thumper. You are a right-wing worshiper of George Bush. Suck it up and deal with it. If this is what you want to be, set up an altar with our Presidential shrub's face on it.

Re:Why should this surprise anyone?

[feed_me_cereal]

when did I imply any of what you said? First off, I never said all blacks, I mentioned the NAACP because it supports the idea that Clinton was for the rights of minorities, and how the hell did I imply that blacks not supporting the NAACP are unlce toms? Troll somewhere else.

Re:Not votint

[sjames]

I could go for that, though if 'none of the above' was an option and could cause something meaningful to happen, I would happily vote without compulsion.

Compulsory voting leads to a danger for abuse. What would be really interesting (but won't happen) would be no vote = no government services = no taxes. Given most American's opinions of how well their tax dollars are spent, it would lead to a record low turnout :-)

Dangerous advice

[LinuxGeek]

They should vote even if they're uninformed -- provided that they truly vote randomly (if uninformed) ... Many of the ills of American democracy follow from the pathetically low participation rate.

What you are encouraging your students to do is pseudo-participation at best. To truly participate, they would have to care and actually inform themselves on the issues. That is part of our civic duty - to be citizens and know what is going on as best we can and make the best informed decisions possible. What you suggest is about as bad as a parent that wants the TV to substitute for loving interaction with their children. As long as something is interacting, its called participation, right? Not.

The problem with your approach is that the randomness will be mostly effected by the amount of exposure they have had to a certain name or a catchy slogan. Advertising has a powerful influence.

Re:Dangerous advice

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

The problem with your approach is that the randomness will be mostly effected by the amount of exposure they have had to a certain name or a catchy slogan. Advertising has a powerful influence.

No. If you read more carefully you'd see that my advice hinges on their vote being truly random ... a point that I make to them many, many times. It can't be "I like the name Bob, so I'll vote for Bob Smith" or "What a flattering necktie he wore during the debate" or "I just don't feel right about Candidate X". It has to be random: In a two-candidate race, flip a coin.

What's the point? Well, a lot of people use the excuse "I don't really know anything about the candidates, so I can't vote." Of course we want informed voters... but somehow no one makes the leap to "Well, then, I'd better get myself informed." My argument is, raising voter participation rates -- again, assuming that if you can't be informed, you will at least be honestly random -- is itself a public good. What's more, if someone goes through the trouble of going to the polls, eventually he/she might decide to actually get informed.

It's absolutely crucial, for this system to work, that certain names or catchy slogans not be allowed to play a role. We don't want to reward bad campaigns, or to drive them toward focusing on marketing. But you know what? Almost everyone knows how to flip a coin. It's really that simple. It's a way to contribute to the civic good even if you happen not to be informed. And it might lead to greater genuine participation.

Re:Dangerous advice

[LinuxGeek]

It isn't that I don't understand your point, it is that I do not agree with your method and conclusion. You are hoping that someone that is too lazy to keep themselves informed and make qualified decisions will be attentive enough to make sure they pick proper 'random' input. I know about proving the lack of randomness and true random results being near impossible to prove. I remember most of my stastics and physics, I also know much of human character, nature and habit.

Why don't you just propose that people be allowed to register for voting in two different methods: the first is to actually have to cast a ballot and the second is to have a computer vote your ballot at random so you needn't even be bothered to stand in line. See, democracy gets even easier! You as a teacher are advocating randomness as a viable alternative to willful stupidity and laziness.

I still see your method as only worthy of inflating the voting turnout percentage as long as the uninformed voters can truly vote randomly and a tragic skewing of election results with the slightest flaw in the randomness of your data. When trying to produce random numbers, the sample size required usually determines which methods are and aren't suitable. Could you guarantee the production of billions of random numbers so all of the results can come from the same supposedly random source? Before you try to answer that for me, I already know the answer.

I don't disagree with your intent though, and I struggle to come up with a better alternative besides being an informed voter. That is the whole purpose of campaigns and elections.

And this is news?

[tz]

All through the '70s and '80s there was a push to fund the panicmonger scientists on the left - The new ice age (switched to global warming, but they will probably be back to Ice Age in a decade or so), Acid Rain (lakes that were highly acid in 1800 but were limed returned to becoming acid, but it was our fault).

The Hyperliberal New York Times is now upset that instead of giving THE LIBERAL PSEUDOSCIENTIFIC LINE they National Cancer Institute is actually looking at data.

Abortion is either a factor or a nonfactor in breast cancer. There have been studies validating both sides, but Bill Clinton will have the NCI say there is no effect, and GWB will have it say there is a clear causal connection.

Condoms are another problem. If they were a drug the FDA would ban them for not being effective or being too hard to use. "Those who used latex condoms correctly and consistently". But how many is that out of everyone who uses condoms? And what of things like HPV that isn't covered by the condom. That, and abstinence. was being censored by the previous administration.

Maybe there will be a page saying "We recommend the use of low-tar cigarettes and filters" and not making any mention of quitting or abstinence of cigarettes if a Tobacco state politician becomes president.

The government should stay out of this too. Where in the constitution does it give them the power to do this?

Re:And this is news?

[jpmorgan]

Abortion is either a factor or a nonfactor in breast cancer. There have been studies validating both sides, but Bill Clinton will have the NCI say there is no effect, and GWB will have it say there is a clear causal connection.

Since when did paralytic fear of coming to conclusions based on the evidence become part of the scientific process? Apparently when GWB got elected...

The biggest, the best and the most generally trusted studies of the issue have shown that there is no causal connection. Science is full of disagreement, but good science is looking at the evidence and coming to a conclusion based solely on the facts, not the political agendas. In this circumstance, despite the existance of some evidence to the contrary, the facts primarily support the no causal connection side of the argument.

To overlook the fact that a significant majority of the evidence is in favour of the no causal connection side, and suggest that because there is some disagreement the evidence is inconclusive isn't science. It's a weak attempt to pass off a highly political agenda as scientific fact, and censor information that the administration doesn't want revealed.

Lubbock county, TX

[cpeterso]

MTV had a recent news show about high school sex education. They focused on Lubbock county in Texas, where their schools had strict abstinence-only sex ed. And their county's STD and pregnancy rate was TRIPLE the national average (where most students receive "regular" sex ed). This seems to imply that after receiving abstinence-only sex ed, Lubbock teenagers are either THREE TIMES more sexually active or that their average (or below average) sex rate is highly ineffective at preventing STDs and pregnancy.

The following (biased) article mentions some of the facts, but then concludes that Lubbock needs MORE abstincence-only sex ed: High teen pregnancy rates spark interest in True Love Waits events

Re:Lubbock county, TX

[Arandir]

What other counties were studied? Were those counties similar to Lubbock in economics, education, demographics, etc? If the study didn't have them, then it was NOT A SCIENTIFIC STUDY!

Lubbock Texas has a character and set of attitudes distinct from all other counties in the country. Drawing nation wide conclusions from just Lubbock county is stupid.

In the county I grew up in, about 60% of the population were strict catholics. They were also immigrant and migratory workers. (sound a bit like Lubbock?) Teenage pregnancy is sky high and welfare assistance to single mothers is draining the county coffers dry. Is this the fault of catholic emphasis on abstinence? Or was it the fault of economic hopelessness? I strongly suspect the latter.

Re:Bush should duel with sadam at sundown.

[feed_me_cereal]

I'd prefer they suicide bomb eachother

Re:What Are You Smoking?! No Pun...

[dasunt]

I think some of the quibbles the poster was having was the left exaggerating some figures for personal gain. Global warming states, extinction rates, smoking deaths, etc, all fall under that catagory.

As for nuclear power, it *is* safer then coal if done right. Although I don't have the statistics in front of me, I bet that I could find more deaths in the US due to coal power generation then nuclear power generation. Hell, I'd rather smoke a pack a day then be a coal miner, and I'm not that fond of the idea of living next to a coal power plant either. (During the coal electricity generation process, the coal is turned into a fine black powder, which becomes easily airborn.) I don't care about the miniscule effects of radiation from a nuclear plant either - I'd recieve more radiation moving to Denver.

Now I agree with you that animals have rights, but that's *not* a science decision. It never has been, and it never will be. Its a philosophical decision. Just because we will be hurting alot when a large percentage of animals go extinct does not mean that they have rights - Does the air have rights as well then? After all, if we pollute that, we screw ourselves as well.

Lets bring up cigarette smoking again, since its a good example. Cigarettes aren't healthy. However, there is good evidence that the effects of second hand smoke isn't as severe as most of us believe. Plus, we have some of the most unintelligent cigarette commercials in the US, which are only surpassed by the anti-drug commercials in the US (Nick and Norm has taught me that if you buy gasoline and diamonds [as well as a lot of other goods] you are EVIL).

Cigarette smoking does end up costing the public money. So does obesity. So does not wearing your seatbelt. Hell, not brushing your teeth for 5 minutes a day costs the public money.

Don't misunderstand me, I lean towards the liberal side of politics. However, I can't justify faulty logic no matter which side of the fence you are on. It benefits nobody.

Re:Why should this surprise anyone?

[feed_me_cereal]

SO what did clinton EXACTLY do for minorities?


You must not have read my first post, and certainly not the links I included.

just put a bunch of token blacks on the cabinet?

Again, you must not have read my first post. My argument had nothing to do with token black/whatever people. It had to do with the fact that we don't see equal proportions of minorities in the presedency. This means that either minorities are not fit for such a position (which is bullshit), or there's something wrong with america. That was my argument, I didn't say one thing about how to solve it, and certainly not by putting token minorities in office. Read posts before you reply, and don't put words in my mouth.

Oh. Please.

[El Camino SS]

Yes. It is all the Catholic Church's fault.

YES, they are evil because promoting backward thinking in Africa.

Well, TOO FREAKIN' LATE. Many Africans have beat them to it by thousands of years.

I have been to roundtable meetings about the AIDS epidemic in Africa. There are lots of disturbing statistics. Almost 100% of militaries are HIV positive. Why? They have a hookers for the platoons they drive with the men. Brilliant. There are also whole villages that have been wiped out by HIV. What? Whole villages? IS EVERYONE SCREWING EVERYONE ALL THE TIME THERE? Great. I would assume that many now know that sex can kill, but they do nothing about it.

I understand what you are thinking. I agree. The Catholic Church is waaaay behind the times and should not endorse that condoms are bad. But they also say that sex in general is bad, and surprise, celibacy (although not so easy as one thinks it is) is a sure fire way to prevent the spread of HIV and pregnancy. I don't care how stupid or from what culture they come from, people know sex causes babies, and should be able to understand what a disease is... y'know, illness? That thing which makes us sick?

This is a fact: African men with HIV many times rape virginal women as a cure to get rid of the "evil" in them when they have HIV, hoping to "give" it to the virgin. ISN'T THAT A COMFORTING THOUGHT. That IMHO just might be a *teeny tiny* PROBLEM over there.

Also, I recently read in the news that in Johannesburg several people were beaten to death by an angry mob thought those people were freakin' Vampires. *I kid you not.*

So with all of that, Catholicism doesn't sound so bad anymore.

So really, there is no way around this. They are screwed either way. No Catholic Church? Then the shaman tells them to rape a virgin, or maybe there is a vampire to blame. It is all so pathetic it is making my head hurt.

Re:What Are You Smoking?! No Pun...

[Kohath]

Cigarette smokers end up saving the public money. They die younger, saving years of health-care and social security payments. They also pay huge amounts in cigarette taxes. Cigarette smoking is a net postive contributor to public coffers.

This isn't an endorsement of smoking or anything else except the facts.

If we could just all be reasonable and try to find out the real facts, then discussions like this could be more about solutions and less about how "George Bush sucks" and "John Ashcroft is the devil". Maybe someday...

Re:Higher fuel prices? Bring 'em on!

[fmaxwell]

Because they're his buddies, duh. If his buddies were against drilling then he'd be against drilling.

I knew that. It was a rhetorical question intended to point out how Bush's policies are harmful to our country's long-term goals.

Re:of course

[fmaxwell]

any scientific theory that supports left wing ideology MUST be the truth! How convenient.

A scientific study and a scientific theory are not the same thing. What we are talking about here is scientific studies.

Information regarding reputable studies is being deleted or published conclusions regarding those studies are being changed in order to forward a political agenda.

There is something wrong with you, Beav.

[FatHogByTheAss]

If the kids are raised where abstinence is the way to go, then you get teens that use abstinence.

Bullshit. What you get are kids that have sex and try to cover it up. You get kids that have unsafe sex because they are scared to death that someone at the drugstore might tell dad he was buying rubbers. You get girls that hide their pregnancies, give birth in bathrooms, and leave their babies in trash cans.

Where/when I went to high school, no body did anything except get drunk on the weekends.

Just because you couldn't get any, you shouldn't assume everyone else couldn't, too.

Re:Bush sucks.

[Zeinfeld]

Oh and BTW: Cheny was cleared. he is no longer under investigation.

More Republican lies, the SEC just upgraded the Halliburton probe

Why tell lies about things that are so easily checked? Cheney is still under investigation, he was CEO while the accounting irregularities occurred.

Re:and in Soviet Russia media had a conservative b

[frank_adrian314159]

...could you maybe mention a country with a more conservative media than America?

Oh, I don't know... North Korea, Iran, Iraq? That's about the only ones I can think of, though...

Re:Bush sucks.

[grytpype]

Since some dittohead fuckwits modded the parent post in this thread down to zero, I'll repost it here for everyone's benefit:

This administration lies about everything -- every goddamned thing -- as a matter of permanent policy. They will say anything that they want the public to believe, while they do whatever they want. And what they want is to get money for themselves and their big campaign contributors, that is absolutely all they are about. What a disaster for the country. The worst administation ever, the American version of a "kleptocracy."

BTW a "kleptocracy" is a "government by thieves," the best possible description of the Bush administration. A couple of recent examples of their mendacity (mendacity means "whorishness"):

How industry lobbyists totally control the White House

How the Bush "administration" is planning to let the lead industry start poisoning children again, like in the good old days.

Go ahead and mod me down again, I'll just repost my comment. I have karma to burn.

Re:What Are You Smoking?! No Pun...

[An Onerous Coward]

For the love of God, think before you try and refute a collection of (not actually) statistics by dragging out a bunch of anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is worth less than the IP packets you used to post it.

Philip Morris is the devil, I guess

[Kohath]

I said they weren't right all the time.

Are you contending that if Philip Morris agrees with something, then it's automatically untrue? Perhaps if Philip Morris funded a study confirming gravity's effects, you'd conclude you could walk on the ceiling?

You seem to have established junkscience.com as politically incorrect. You've said little about whether they're factually incorrect.

BTW:

Why not check your references next time.

A your link is from a web site by a long-time anti cell phone activist who insists that cell phones cause illness.

At least I think so -- this is my first time playing "check your references" :)

Re:Philip Morris is the devil, I guess

[Malcontent]

"A your link is from a web site by a long-time anti cell phone activist who insists that cell phones cause illness."

Is this person a spokesperson for the democratic party? Do you have his voting record and can you demostrate for us that he is a "liberal" and that what he says is the official position of the "liberals".

Thank you for clearing this matter up for me.

Re:Well it should be OBVIOUS

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Actually, I find your opinion disgusting and amoral. Men and women both have the right to plan their reproduction, but once they reproduce, they can't renege on the deal. Not to mention, I find it unlikely that you would support my right to abortion, in the event my girlfriend were to become pregnant. Sorta sexist, isn't it? Especially if the procedure is as trivial as you imply.

Even so, I can't find it in my heart to disagree on the main point. I find it all too likely that indirect pressure is put on studies and acadamia to make up lies to support conservative agendas. I wouldn't be suprised if I found out that extreme "persuasions" were occuring. Dubya just gives me that kind of impression.

Really sucks when you realize that neither side is "your" side. Is hilarious when someone rants why the democrats/republicans are so much more morally superior to the republicans/democrats, though....

Psy Ops

[jafac]

My favorite one is the TV commercial where they have the two kids smoking a bong in their dad's study, and one of them pulls out a gun and it goes off accidentally. Then the message flashes on the screen: "Marijuana can distort your sense of reality."

Well, what about bullshit propaganda? Doesn't THAT distort one's sense of reality?
and what was the real danger there? The two teenage kids smoking pot? Or the complete idiot parent who left a loaded gun where the kids can get at it, and who did not teach his kids responsible gun ownership?

Re:This is insightful

[GlassHeart]

I am saying that anyone who believes that scientific studies should be "revised" to fit a political agenda is wrong. And I am saying that anyone who would defend those actions is wrong.

I don't need to be tolerant of deceipt.

You are assuming that the scientific approach is "right". In the past, scientific discoveries are often bent or suppressed for religious or political reasons. We now consider that "wrong".

However, you should also accept that some time in the future, your current views may be just as "wrong" as the Inquisition. Science as we know it today may turn into a gross approximation of a greater truth, the way Newtonian mechanics approximates Einsteinian "truth". I make this analogy deliberately - Einstein may turn out to be slightly or substantially wrong.

Science is a tool by which we discover truth, and it may not be the only or even best tool to discover truth. (For example, Science will likely never prove or disprove God.) To be "intolerant" is to risk not seeing, and is in fact contradictory to the skepticism required of scientists.

This is not to say I don't think that science is the best tool we have today.

the new junk-science McCarthyism at work

[Kohath]

It's the new junk-science McCarthyism at work. If you don't like someone's position on a scientific topic, just link that person to a tobacco company. Presto! They're discredited by association. No need to put any further thought into it.

Mod the parent up!

[enkidu]

You also forgot a cabinet full of similar people except for poor Colin Powell trying to put out all the fires lit by Bush Jr. and Company.

Re: Big Pharm

[jafac]

"if they funded all medical research we'd never cure anything, just get more drugs to treat symptoms..."

. . .um, hello?

see above, Re: McCarthyism

[Kohath]

This isn't even close to a scientific argument or anything like that. You just linked the founder of the web site to tobacco companies. Guilt by association, I guess.

What's the point though? Is it "don't listen to the devil words; he's a witch"? Is it "don't read and decide for yourself"?

This is supposed to be a science topic. Shouldn't reason prevail?

Re:see above, Re: McCarthyism

[alcmena]

Technically, it's called "attack against the person" and it is a scientifically valid arguement if used correctly. For example, would you ask Jerry Farwell if gay couples can make good parents? The same arguement applies here. If the founder of a "debunking" website is linked to tobacco companies then he does lose some credibility when he says things like "secondhand smoke is harmless."

You're right. Sorry about that one.

[Kohath]

I should have left that out. I think it can be easily demonstrated to be false based on a few incontrovertable assumptions about the nature of Rights, but it's not an outright lie.

Sorry. Better editing next time. (I didn't post it at +5. Who knew if anyone would even see it?)

Separation of Science and State?

[Arandir]

You know, if the government wasn't funding this research, no one would care.

Science has traditionally been funded by "patrons". In the modern world, the patron is often the government. Perhaps we need to go back to an earlier day when the state didn't have a near universal monopoly in the funding of science. Then the problem of taxing the liberals to pay for conservative research (or vice versa, lest we forget the 90's) will disappear.

Re:Another citizen of Trollsville speaks.

[ncc74656]

I think the problem with the article is that it starts on the assumption that liberals are fair and true, and conservatives twist the truth to their own ends. But it's the New York Times. Of course they would think that. Keep that in mind.

The above, my friends, is a troll from Hell.

Being fair is what liberalism is all about.

Pot. Kettle. Black. Slander and Bias have more examples to disprove your assertion than you can shake a stick at.

Re:The rich are not very conservative

[divide overflow]

The myth that the rich are all conservative is an old lie.

And the message you are replying to said nothing of the sort, so your comment is irrelevant. Re-read it...it said the gatekeepers, by and large, are not liberals. You jumped to a conclusion and read something into the message that wasn't there. Nice straw man you created....

Warren Buffet (The second richest man in the U.S and prime funder of the Washington Post) and Ted Turner (CNN) are well know liberals.

Here you go on to use *exactly two examples* to justify your irrelevant point.

Rich people are for the most part not conservative.

...and, continuing on with your irrelevancy, you provide this absolutely meaningless statement.

George Bush lost almost half the vote of those making more than $100,000 a year in the last election.

Again, completely irrelevant to the discussion of the media...a red herring.

Re:hide! hide!

[grytpype]

Why don't you try to learn something instead of being an ignorant, smug arsehole.

Re:Well it should be OBVIOUS

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I don't play word games. For the goverment to make "decisions", it would imply that sometimes they decide for, rather than against abortion. The goverment, despite all its flaws, has never forced someone to have an abortion, that I am aware of. This is in stark contrast to those nations whose goverments do "make such a decision".

The entire point, is that there is that there is no decision to make. Decisions, if made at all, should be made when you're getting ready to have sex with someone, not 3 weeks later when you realize how utterly fucking retarded you were.

If abortion isn't completely amoral, and a decision no one should ever be allowed to make, then how do you feel about infanticide? There are already those starting to argue such things philosophically and academically, and frankly I am unnerved that I even have to live in the same society as those who could debate shit like that.

All that said, let me say that I find the "pro lifers" equally repugnant. With their wink-wink-nudge-nudge "We'd NEVER condone clinic bombings!" bullshit, there is almost no one to turn to. It's a sick fucking world.

Re:President George W. Bush is a hero.

[Zeinfeld]

Your words have been noted.
Anyone who knows what is good for them will make sure they don't repeat such unpatriotic statements.

You republicans get more utterly despicable every day. Bush is many things but a competent plumber certainly ain't one of them. You folks can't even fix an election without leaving a trail a mile wide so don't pretend you can run a police state.

Re:Bush sucks.

[grytpype]

Here's another example:

Bush White House stops EPA from issuing warning about asbestos insulation in homes!

Re:This is insightful

[fmaxwell]

You are assuming that the scientific approach is "right". In the past, scientific discoveries are often bent or suppressed for religious or political reasons. We now consider that "wrong".

You are confusing the scientific method and scientific conclusions. I do not believe that the scientific method will be changed in the foreseeable future. As measurement tools improve, we will doubtless see new discoveries and future studies may reveal flaws our now-current scientific beliefs.

But when a major, peer-reviewed scientific study shows that there is no link between abortions and later breast cancer, suppressing that information is outrageous.

To be "intolerant" is to risk not seeing, and is in fact contradictory to the skepticism required of scientists.

I completely disagree. All reputable scientists are intolerant of the suppression of scientific studies, or the alteration of the results, by those wishing to put forward some political agenda. I am skeptical of the Bush administration, not of the scientists whose work they are suppressing.

Re:Why should this surprise anyone?

[Malcontent]

Nevertheless the fact that the democrats were pro civil rights and the republicans were anti civil rights resulted in a historic shifting of the vote in the south. Soon afther the 48 election the south started voting republican because they believed (rightly so) that the republicans would prevent or slow down the advancement of the nigger.

Sorry to say to this day the republican party continues to be a haven for white supremecists.

The Myth of Neutrality

[Dictator For Life]

science itself, the pursuit of knowledge is apolitical.

If you intend to suggest that the pursuit of knowledge is (or even can be) neutral and unbiased, then -- no offense -- you have no idea what you're talking about. There is no such thing when human beings are involved. The naturalistic approach to science (for example) assumes that all phenomena can and must be explained without reference to anyone or anything outside the observable universe. This is a prejudice. We may debate the value of it, but it is a bias, pure and simple.

On the other hand - and for the sake of equal time - the religious person assumes at the very least the possibility of divine involvement in "the system" at some time or other - past, present, or future. Again, we may debate the value of it, but it is a bias, pure and simple.

Science does not take place in a vacuum, and there is no such thing as an uninterpreted "fact".

Re:The Myth of Neutrality

[gad_zuki!]

> The naturalistic approach to science (for example) assumes that all phenomena can and must be explained without reference to anyone or anything outside the observable universe. This is a prejudice

No its not prejudice, its an assumption. To do science you need to accept certain core assumptions to make any meaningful information. Assumptions like causality, materialism, uncertainty, etc.

Re:The Myth of Neutrality

[Dictator For Life]

No its not prejudice, its an assumption.

It is an assumption that prejudices the scientist's view of the data: he does not consider the possibility of non-naturalistic phenomena having any impact upon the data. That is an intellectual prejudice.

Again - I'm *not* debating here the validity of the prejudice: that's a discussion for another day. The point here is that it's ignorant to pretend that science is actually performed "objectively". That's nonsense. There are no "objective" scientists, because there are no "objective" people.

Re:The Myth of Neutrality

[gad_zuki!]

I think you're stretching and misusing the definition of prejudice. Oh well, there's always solipsism for the non-"prejudiced."

Re:The Myth of Neutrality

[junkgrep]

---The naturalistic approach to science (for example) assumes that all phenomena can and must be explained without reference to anyone or anything outside the observable universe. This is a prejudice.---

No, a practical necessity. Science tries to explain phenomena, period. You cannot "explain" something by simply referencing the supernatural.

If something really does have a supernatural cause, it will quite correctly and accurately simply show up in science as something that cannot be explained (because that's what the supernatural IS: outside our ability to observe and hence understand). You are free to speculate on supernatual causes all you want: the point is that science cannot aid you in any way in nailing down those speculations.
And it doesn't work the other way around: just because you can't explain something doesn't mean it's supernatural.

Re:Bush sucks.

[overunderunderdone]

Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the Washington times have a new version of Gobbel's 'big lie' it is the myth of the 'liberal media'. By repeating this myth often enough they aim to immunize themselves against criticism for their packs of lies.

Well, just saying it is a "lie" doesn't cut it. There must be some way to evaluate the "liberal media" claim objectively. Perhaps one could look at the voting patterns and party identification of members of the media (reporters, producers, industry executives) just to find out if there is a tilt one way or the other. That doesn't necessarily prove that their personal biases influence their reporting but it could suggest whether or not they *have* those biases. From there one might evaluate major media treatment of politicians and policies from either side of the ideological divide. On could evaluate the use of adjectives to describe partisans or their positions. One could evaluate whether individuals from one side or the other are more often identified by ideology or party (and thus implied to be biased) or not (and thus implied to be impartial). One could measure the amount of time each side of a controversy is given to make their case, etc.

As it turns out such polls & studies *have* been done and while some of the analysis of those studies have been themselves biased the studies themselves seem reasonable and the results are unambiguous. As a demographic group media professionals overwhelmingly self-identify themselves as liberal whereas a signficant majority of the population self-identifies as conservative. Polls of reporters, producers, editors etc. reveal voting patterns that are almost as solidly Democratic as the Black vote. This much is incontrovertible and not even controversial. What remains is whether these acknowledged private biases result in reporting that is actually biased. It is hard to believe that such uniformity of opinion in the newsroom wouldn't result in those uniformly held opinions finding their way into the reporting. However, it would be harder to prove such bias and to be fair some of the individual reporters most closely associated with the Democratic party are widely held to be among the most fair (former Democratic congressional staffers Tim Russert & Chris Matthews come to mind). that being said using such metrics as the use of pejorative adjectives, time given to differing arguments in a controversy etc. *suggest* that the private liberal biases of reporters DO find their way into the reporting.

That unselfconscious bias is pronounced enough that some media outlets have arisen that are self-concscously, more transparently and more distinctly conservative - Fox News being the prime example. The Washington Times is another example though they are balanced by liberal papers that are just as tranparent in their ideological tilt like the Boston Globe (or conservatives would argue the old Gray Lady herself - the New York Times) - On the whole though the great bulk of the mainstream media has a subtle liberal bias while a few newer media outlets have a more pronounced conservative bias.

Re:Why should this surprise anyone?

[feed_me_cereal]

I'm obsessed with NOT choosing a candidate based on skin color. I'm not trying to sound anything, I'm pointing out an indisputeable fact. If you READ my thread (or maybe you did read it and you're just a fucking retard), you'll notice I'm saying that a lack of proportional representation in the presidency means there's a problem. For the second time (again, read my posts or grow a brain) I'm not saying we need to remedy this (I'm NOT for affirmitive action, so don't call me a "racist progressive poser", I actually have a simmilar position to wha tyou're saying on that issue). I'm just saying theres a problem. And there is.

I'm POINTING OUT (notice, pointing out, not asking for change, not anything other than pointing out) that all we get is white presidents in a country that is less than 80% (probably more, but I don't know the number) white, and there has NEVER been a non-white non-male president, and few that wern't WASP's, and that means that voters are racist. Refute that.

I'm racist?

Preferring a candidate based on skin color -- regardless of the fact that you think your choice of preferred skin color makes you sound cool and "progressive" -- is simply racist.

and the exact OPPOSITE of what I've been saying!!!!!!!!! READ MY POST!!!!!! I'm saying this is bad... can you read? christ! There's a difference between saying "all presidents have been white and that constitutes a problem" (notice, what was just said is my position) and "all presidents have been white so we need to purposely elect a black president who we might not vote for otherwise" (notice, this is NOT what i've said at any point, and what you assume I'm saying because you can't read or something...)

I hope I made it simple enough for you this time. I apologize for the redudancy but I figure you probably need it after missing my point in three posts.

Re:Bush sucks.

[Zeinfeld]

Perhaps one could look at the voting patterns and party identification of members of the media (reporters, producers, industry executives)

Or maybe you could look at the political views of the owners of the media. Murdoch makes no secret of the fact he sells the editorial line in his newspapers and TV to whatever political faction matches his personal interests. That typically means anti-union and most important anti regulations that restrict media monopolies.

The only sense in which there is a 'liberal bias' in the media is on social issues where racist opinions like those that got Lott the boot recently are pretty much rejected by almost everyone in the mainstream media, as is anti-gay bigottry, sexism, anti-semitism, anti-catholic etc. When Lott, Barr, DeLay and co are complaining about the 'liberal media' they are in most cases complaining that their 'conservative social agenda' is rejected as biggotry by pretty much everyone with a college education under the age of 45.

Re:Bush sucks.

[Guppy06]

"Now we all get Smallpox vaccine, well not all of us the Government doesn't want to be blamed for the few deaths that will happened, they would rather give you the option to take it, then ask you to fill out a waiver of responsibility."

First off, you seem to think that giving out the small pox vaccinations immediately is patently the "right thing." This begs the question "What happens when (not if) thousands die in a nationwide small pox vaccination program and it turns out there never was going to be a small pox attack at all?"

Secondly, you seem to think that the small pox vaccine is just a little prick in the arm. It's not. The small pox vaccine has changed little (if at all) over the centuries. In fact, it is quite literally the first vaccine ever.

What is it? Is it some chemical anti-viral cocktail? Is it a dormant version of the virus in question? No, it's cow pox ("vaccine" comes from the Latin "vacus," which means "cow").

When you get this vaccine, you are given cow pox. The area on which you are vaccinated becomes a large, puss-filled blister, something that can spread around the body (like chicken pox), something that is quite contageous (like chicken pox). The area is kept bandaged to keep you or anybody else from touching it. Not that that stops all the other symptoms that will knock most otherwise healthy people on their asses for a week or so. This ain't no flu shot.

The small pox vaccine involves being voluntarily infected with a real disease. Cow pox is used because it's not as deadly as small pox. But there is a big gap between "not deadly" and "not as deadly as small pox."

Re:This is news?

[cp99]

I haven't read enough about Kellerman and the spotted owl to accurately comment on them, however, your dismissal of global warming as scaremongering only suggests that it is you, not government scientists that lack credibility.

Global warming (and humanities role in causing it) is a well respected theory within the scientific community. As an example, this site, contains a joint statement from a large number of scientific societies about global warming. It should be easy to find more, from organisations such as the National Academy of Sciences and the AGU.

Re:Why should this surprise anyone?

[Malcontent]

" I refer you to ex-KKK member Sen. Byrd."

you see mommy it's perfectly OK for the republicans to be racist because the democrats have at least one member who is also racist.

"Depends on your definition of the word "is"."

And also it's OK for the republicans to be racist because Bill Clinton was a bad man who had sex with a woman who was not his wife (and believe me this is just as bad as being racist).

"Also, the "tolerant" Democrat party isn't tolerant to real (read: fewer voters) minorities.
Montana Republican Quits Senate Race After Gay Smear by Democrats [newsmax.com]"

Well yet another stupid clueless ignorant republican. Even though you are a republican and therefore are unable to grasp facts I will present them to you anyway in the hopes that other people can learn from them. I realize that the following facts are incapable of penetrating your brain.

Mike Taylor was running against Max Baucus and losing badly in the polls. Despite heavy negative advertising by Taylor and the Republican party Max was comfortably ahead and looked to be a sure bet.

The Republican party cut off funds for the Taylor campaign figuring it was foolish to dump money into a sure loser.

The democratic party ran an ad accusing Mike Taylor of fraud and being a thief because he swindled the US govt when he ran a beauty school. They backed up their accusations with documents.

In the aformentioned ad they showed clips from a Mike Taylor TV appearance from the 70s. In that clip Mr. Taylor had a HUGE afro, disco clothes including flares, shirt unbuttoned to his navel and necklaces and was applying makeup or massaging a mans face (it was a makeover show or some sort).

Mr Taylor then said that the ad made him look gay and dropped out of the race. It's important to note here that he never protested the fact he was being called a fraud and a thief. He just was upset that a show he made, showing him, in the clothes that he chose, and the hairstyle that he chose, and the occupation that he chose made him look gay. In other words he accused himself of being gay while completely ignoring the accusations of theft.

Then he went to several high schools to tell kids how bad negative advertising was and got his ass kicked by 16 year olds who kept asking him tough questions that he could not answer.

Then he re-entered the race while but never did answer whether he was a thief or not.

Then as expected he got his ass kicked by Max Baucus.

I know that was a lot of information for your tiny little brain so please ignore the facts and tune in Bill O'Reilly he won't bother you with facts like me and just tell you what to think.

Childish?

[Grendel Drago]

One-third of all US aid goes to Israel.

Holy shit, that's the most amazing thing I've ever heard!

It's so amazing, in fact, that I'd really, really like to see some sort of evidence to back that up. It's an impressive claim; it deserves impressive proof.

--grendel drago

Re:Wait a miinute...

[nathanm]

Wasn't it the U.S. that organized the sanctions against North Korea that cause the suffering in the country and now causes them to attempt to become a nuclear threat in order to get some respect from the western world?

No, there aren't sanctions against North Korea. The suffering there is the result of decades of agricultural mismanagement coupled with several years of alternating droughts and flooding. They espoused a philosophy of self-reliance that was always just a facade. Without Soviet and Chinese support during the cold war, North Korea would've collapsed long ago.

Now we're the largest supplier of food to them, followed by South Korea and Japan. However, they're so obsessed with controlling their population they re-bag the rice we donate so it still appears they are self-sufficient.

And by the way, I am American. And by the way, apart from his weakness for women, Clinton was (along with Carter) the most sensible U.S. president in recent history.

Unfortunately, sensibility has little to do with effectiveness as president. That dynamic duo is responsible for the current crisis with North Korea.

Taxes are better than votes

[DoctorFrog]

Given most American's opinions of how well their tax dollars are spent, it would lead to a record low turnout :-)

I'd like to see more immediate control over my taxes. You know that box that lets you decide whether $3 goes to federal matching funds? Let's extend that concept. After I've worked out how much tax I owe, let me designate exactly where it goes, i.e. what percentage of it goes to defense, what percentage to welfare programs, and so on.

Yes, I know there'd be problems with that; maybe it couldn't be left entirely up to me. If a significant part of my taxes could be directly allocated by me, though, that would be empowering me in a way almost as significant as the ballot itself.

Re:Taxes are better than votes

[sjames]

That would be interesting. Unfortunatly, I imagine sophistry would be at an all time high in the U.S. budgeting. Let's see, social welfare = defense, national health care = spa visits for congress, space program = star wars, fundamental scientific research = R&D tax credits for Monsanto, etc.

It might be better than nothing though. If there were a long form with more specific allocation choices, it would be all the better.

Please Stop Posting Payware News

[SkewlD00d]

Here is a free link to the news article.

Please post news.google or news.yahoo links instead. Thanks.

Re:Well it should be OBVIOUS

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

#1 The poor med student deserves to be able to fuck, even when it could mess up her life for years to come. Let's even forget that abortion violates her Hippocratic Oath...

#2 Hellz yeh, this is what I'm talking about. Now, if she could only get rid of the other 2, there could be all sorts of spending/entertainment money! Note: I just re-read this. Most attourneys wouldn't have trouble arguing pre-emptive child support here, you know. Realistically, she could end up being landlord.

#3 Something I can't make fun of. I have an idea though, let's work on eliminating the real problem, which is rape.

#4 Ask any physically handicapped person... wouldn't you rather be dead? Wait, they say "No" ? Well, let's find one too dumb to be able to answer honestly...

#5 This has to be rare, but also just stupid enough to be true. But we could always just show her how $500 and an outpatient procedure can get rid of fetuses because.... sex doesn't create babies, it creates lumps of protoplasm! Yeh, that's what they are... why educate when we can operate.

It's never a decision. The decision comes when you are thinking about whether or not to spread your legs (see #3 for the exception). It's simpler then too, because deciding that you don't want to have a baby doesn't involve $$$ for an abortion or guilt (Is there any guilt? Unlike the moronic pro-lifers, I find it difficult to believe that anyone ever feels guilty). I mean, responsibility, or encouraging it in others is a bad thing, right?

Re:Bush sucks.

[overunderunderdone]

Or maybe you could look at the political views of the owners of the media. Murdoch makes no secret of the fact he sells the editorial line in his newspapers and TV to whatever political faction matches his personal interests.

Umm... Murdock, uh... Fox News which I specifically mentioned as one of the few explictly conservative media outlets. And one can certainly come up with eqaully liberal counter examples like Katherine Graham at the Washington Post. For the most part though the corporate owners of media outlets don't have anywhere near the control over the tilt of the reporting as the editors do. One could argue that the most they generally do is hire the editors who then set the tone. The bias of the editors (by and large) is known and I already dealt with it in my initial post - it is generally liberal. The one exception would be very new media outlets - like Fox news, or the Washington times where the owner set up the outlet sometimes with an explicit ideological purpose - but again for the most part these are the very same explictly conservative examples I've already cited.

The only sense in which there is a 'liberal bias' in the media is on social issues where racist opinions like those that got Lott the boot recently are pretty much rejected by almost everyone in the mainstream media, as is anti-gay bigottry, sexism, anti-semitism, anti-catholic etc.

I will agree that "liberal bias" is more pronounced on social issues but would not confine it to racism where there is a national consensus (heck, the National Review was more strident in calling for Lott's ouster than many liberal journals *- see note below) It also extends to more controversial issues where there is no concensus - like the precise policies to combat racism & it's effects (racism like Lott's is universally condemned - whether affirmative action is a valid or appropriate policy is a much more controversial and debatable matter), or abortion where opinion is evenly divided.

* It should be noted though that National Review has been working successfuly to purge the conservative movement of racists for decades starting with their successful campaign to marginalise groups like the John Birch Society. Think back to the letter Correta Scott King wrote to William F. Buckley thanking him for his contribution to purging society of racism. While it is tempting to go the route the NAACP seems content with recently that ANY opposition to their policy REGARDLESS OF IT'S REASONING is prima facia proof of racism. The world is more complex than that and there are good arguments, explictly anti-racialist/anti-racist arguments to be made against government policies that explictly note your race in order to grant favors to one race or another. It is ironic that Lott was asked (and seemed willing) to repudiate his belief that one race should be elevated over another in government policy by simply switching which race received the benefit. One could argue he was being asked to exchanging a bitter, hateful racism for a condescenging "white man's burden" version of the same.

Re:Higher fuel prices? Bring 'em on!

[wunderhorn1]

Then please explain to me why Bush wants to give his buddies in the oil industry permission to drill in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Actually, I just read the answer to that in a back issue of National Geographic while sitting in a hospital waiting room. The reason is that it would take 20-30 years from the start of drilling for the fields along the artic costal plain to reach their full output capacity. So Bush+Co. really are looking to the long-term, which is pretty unusual for a politician. Just not in the way you'd like (unfortunately).

Here's another source as a bonus: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analy sis_publications/arctic_national_wildlife_refuge/h tml/summary.html

Re:Well it should be OBVIOUS

[ctimes2]

so youre saying in this case killing a human is ok
That is a moral argument based on a subjective set of ethics. Before you defend yourself, consider this - according to many (even Christian) belief systems, a person doesn't have a soul until they "draw the breath of life". It's not hard to realize that for many, the breath of life is oxygen outside the mothers womb (not as you may believe, the training of the lungs in the last trimester). In short - it's not a person, it's an organism. In that belief system, morality is not an issue. If you think that's a justification, please recall that its ok to kill in self defense is also a justification of a set of moral values. It's actually NOT OK to kill in self defense if you believe in such a thing as taking a life being immoral.

This argument will never be solved for one reason above all else - you CANNOT decide the actions another person WILL take, they must decide for themselves. You will never be able to stop abortion (nor will you be able to convince the rest of the world that your concept of morality is right) - it's the oldest procedure after the oldest proffession. Ancient cultures would stack rocks and logs on an unmarried womans stomach until 'it went away' if she became pregnant before marrage. It almost always ended in death. Being the advanced culture we are we've moved on to the more humane coat hanger.

In short Tom, before you become engrossed in the 'facts' of your morality, consider the morality of killing two people when you can prevent the death of one. Temper your judgement with compassion, and learn how to forgive.

just one

[ctimes2]

If your religious dogma is liberal, how can your religion be taught by 'repeat after me'? (Dogma and Liberal have nearly opposite meanings...) ;)

Re:Why should this surprise anyone?

[jdreed1024]

Actually would've been impossible for him to run since that would've been a 3rd term in '52 - and one year before that the 22nd ammendment was ratified so that truman could run again.

This is correct, however Eisenhower and Truman had this conversation in 1947, when the ammendment had just been proposed. By the end of 1947, less than half of the required number of states had ratified it. They had no way of knowing it would pass. (Though given FDR's 4 terms it seemed likely that it would...)

dimwits revisited

[ctimes2]

Nonsense indeed, there are no 'levels' of integrity. You either have it or you don't. Defending or attacking the _magnitude_ of someone's lack of integrity as justification doesn't (in my opinion) make them more or less trust worthy or respectable than another... it makes them devoid of integrity and unworthy of the respect you think they deserve.

I'm not defending anyone, I'm attacking your ambigious sense of honor.

Before responding, understand that I'm not pro-bush or republican or anti-democrat, I just can't stand those who think thier "side" is better than the other. When will you understand that there aren't sides, there are only those who get caught in the middle? Step back for a minute from the fray and look at the collateral damage your 'sides' are causing. Then tell me again who it is your defending.

PS - Clinton was also indicted - did we forget whitewater? By my count that makes us 5 for 5 of the Presidents you named.

Whitewater.

[Grendel Drago]

Did the whole Whitewater nonsense result in a single felony conviction of any sort, on anyone?

--grendel drago

Re:Whitewater.

[ctimes2]

Back peddling not allowed. The AC said indicted, I said indicted.

And if you're still consumed with "who's worse, Clinton or Bush's", you've missed the point. They both lack integrity, period, and neither of them should have been allowed in public office (at the neighborhood level, much less the national level).

I mean, c'mon, are those two _the best_ our country has to offer? We couldn't find ONE honest ass hole to take charge? I don't buy it...

Re:You're right. Sorry about that one.

[GlassHeart]

I think it can be easily demonstrated to be false based on a few incontrovertable assumptions about the nature of Rights, but it's not an outright lie.

That anybody has a right to anything is a matter of belief.

Historically, people have right to own land if they get there first, win a war, or perhaps purchase it. However, in a communist society, there simply is no such individual right to own land.

Civil rights for black people in the US is a very recent thing, just like women's rights, including reproductive rights concerning abortion or even contraception. In most countries, euthanasia is not a right, but it may be in the future. Drinking alcohol was not a right during certain periods, but even now marijuana is legal in certain places.

Coming back to the point, if you eat a dog, the police in one country might arrest you, while police in another might ask you if it was tasty. You can't eat beef in some places. In general, endangered species enjoy the right to be free from hunting. Many managed species (fish, for example) can only be hunted in limited ways. Different animals have different rights to life that we grant them.

So I'm not sure what you mean by "incontrovertible assumptions about the nature of Rights".

Re:What Are You Smoking?! No Pun...

[alcmena]

Can you provide proof of that, or are you just making it up? Many smokers have long lived health problems, and many of those are on Medicare/Medicaid.

Re:Playing the Fence out of proportion

[Zeinfeld]

Every politician does this... But because of Nadar's big mouth you and the media mostly accuse gore of this.

It is a question of degree.

Consider for a moment the subjects that Gore was accused of lying about - going to Texas with the FEMA head, the love canal thing, the love story thing. Imagine for the sake of argument that they were actually true rather than the Republican fabrications they really are.

Compare those to the lies Bush told on matters of policy - a uniter not a divider who was so divisive he split his own party and lost the senate majority, the tax cuts won't create a budget deficit - they are the single biggest factor in the deficit, no nuclear dumping in Nevada - not until after the inauguration that is.

Bush lied repeatedly about policy issues and was allowed to get away with it. It was not even a matter of failing to keep a promise - it was obvious when the promises were made that they were made in bad faith.

The republican echo chamber created the 'gore liar' meme for a reason. They knew from the start that they would have to lie their asses off to win. If they got the 'gore liar' story going nobody would accuse Bush of the same.

Re:I blaim the Supreme Court

[bcboy]

or, you know, if it was decided by the voting system we have Gore would have won. But it wasn't. Between the "Jews for Buchanan" vote, the black voters that Jeb tossed off the voting rolls without cause, and black voters that were harassed on election day there were about 60k Gore votes uncounted. And in any case the election wasn't decided by votes, it was decided by judicial fiat.

Fingers

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

If I remember it right, Sendero Luminoso in neighbour Peru killed peasants who had the finger marked with the indelible ink used to avoid repeat voting. And voting was compulsory.

And, in Sierra Leone, the rebels chopped the hands of voters.

oh boy... here we go.

[ctimes2]

1) It's a collection of cells that are in the process of becoming a human being. A collection of cells that are not self aware (at least not until sometime in the 3rd trimester, certainly not in the first), cannot survive outside the womb, and only scientfically qualify as an embryo, not a fully developed human being.

2) Yes, I'm saying a set of moral values cannot have exceptions (if you want people to take them seriously anyway). Ghandi was a fine example - he would not resort to violence even if it meant dying for his beliefs. You can MAKE exceptions, but by making them, you are breaking the very morals you claim to hold.

3) In an ideal world, all the pro-lifers would be working on making abortion unnecessary by improving the adoption system, removing rapists from the streets, and promoting better sex education and easier availability of effective contraceptives I'm sorry... as opposed to... ? The "pro-choicers'" want that too -- let's not leave out pedofiles and incest cases. But you still aren't taking into account medical reasons for abortion. Find me one person who WANTS abortion to be a part of this world, and I'll show you someone who probably has kids buried in the back yard.

Your other arguments belittle and do not properly address the issue of respecting the beliefs and rights of others (not stopping us from making rape, murder, theft illegal, discard any laws enforcing anyone's right to life, etc.). That's not the point that is being made and you know it. I could use the same tactic on you by saying that by your standards, a woman who has an abortion for a blighted ovum should be put jail for murder. (A blighted ovum is where the embryonic sac develops but there's no baby inside. It'll kill the mother if she doesn't get an abortion, it's an abortion by all rights, but there's no baby involved.)

I'll simplify my point (and to some degree the pro-choice position) for you:
There are thousands of reasons a woman would want or need an abortion. You are not in a position to judge the morality of that decision, nor are you in a position to pass judgement. There are far too many emotional, physical, moral, religious and pure economic reasons for you (or anyone other than the woman and in SOME cases the man responsible) to get involved. You don't have to live with it, and I can tell you first hand that it is not something a woman does lightly. You may think it's wrong, you may believe with all your heart that it is murder in the highest, but it's still not for you to decide. If you believe in God, believe he'll take care of it. If you don't but believe it's morally wrong, then you have a moral dilema that only you can solve for yourself - you cannot solve it for the rest of the world.

Yes, you could make it illegal. Throw another stick of plutonium on the legal system, because it's not like we've already criminalized the living shit out of everything else anyway. This is NOT an issue that the law, the church, morality, your personal convictions or GOD himself can sort out (short of killing everyone on the planet). We'd all be better served by solving the reasons women get abortions, making it illegal will only make things worse. ... Which I think is kind of what you ended with, but it's hard to tell with some of the hardline tactics you started with...

Re:oh boy... here we go.

[ShavenYak]

It's a collection of cells that are in the process of becoming a human being. A collection of cells that are not self aware (at least not until sometime in the 3rd trimester, certainly not in the first), cannot survive outside the womb, and only scientfically qualify as an embryo, not a fully developed human being.

Actually, self-awareness isn't completely developed even at birth. It's a couple of months before an infant fully realizes that a reflection in a mirror isn't another baby. Also, at birth an infant still isn't fully developed. Heck, he/she isn't fully developed until puberty. The process of birth is just one of many developmental events in life, and it seems arbitrary to decide that it is the sole event that determines the right to live.

Yes, I'm saying a set of moral values cannot have exceptions (if you want people to take them seriously anyway).

I'm pretty sure that many people believe that taking life is wrong in general, but under certain circumstances (self defense, war) is justifiable. Are you saying all their belief systems are invalid?

Your other arguments belittle and do not properly address the issue of respecting the beliefs and rights of others....

Umm, you just stated that certain sets of moral values can't be taken seriously, and then lecture me on respecting rights and beliefs?

I could use the same tactic on you by saying that by your standards, a woman who has an abortion for a blighted ovum should be put jail for murder.

Well, first of all you don't even know WHAT my 'standards' are, and second, how could anything in my post be construed to indicate that I would condemn someone for an abortion which didn't even involve a living baby? If you re-read my post, you'll find that I never even stated that I believe abortion is wrong or that it should be illegal. All I stated was that I believe an unborn baby is a human being.

As a matter of fact, about three years ago my wife miscarried a baby after about 15 weeks, and had to have a D&C to remove the deceased baby. Needless to say, I don't think she should have gone to jail for that.

There are thousands of reasons a woman would want or need an abortion. You are not in a position to judge the morality of that decision, nor are you in a position to pass judgement.

I don't recall passing judgement on anyone.

You don't have to live with it, and I can tell you first hand that it is not something a woman does lightly. You may think it's wrong, you may believe with all your heart that it is murder in the highest, but it's still not for you to decide. If you believe in God, believe he'll take care of it.

I know what a hard decision it must be, and I have nothing but sympathy toward any woman who finds herself in that position. Still, I think I do have the right to have an opinion on the issue and to express it. And, of course, everyone else has the right to ignore me or to voice their differing opinion.

We'd all be better served by solving the reasons women get abortions, making it illegal will only make things worse. ... Which I think is kind of what you ended with, but it's hard to tell with some of the hardline tactics you started with...

Wow, I don't think I've ever been agreed with so vehemently. :)

Re:This is insightful

[fmaxwell]

Because if you aren't tolerant of other people's opinion, then by your own definition you're a bigot.

Then I'm a bigot. I have no problem with that.

I don't see any global warming around here in the midwest.

Perhaps if they taught science, rather than creationism, in the midwest, you wouldn't make absurd statements like that.

Re:Higher fuel prices? Bring 'em on!

[fmaxwell]

The reason is that it would take 20-30 years from the start of drilling for the fields along the artic costal plain to reach their full output capacity. So Bush+Co. really are looking to the long-term, which is pretty unusual for a politician.

And, at that peak, it would produce about 2% of the oil that we use. Bush is not looking long-term. He's just paying off the oil companies that donated so much to his campaign.

Re:Higher fuel prices? Bring 'em on!

[fmaxwell]

You seem to conveniently ignore the cost of converting to a cleaner technology. It might be cheaper in the long run for PolluteCo to continue to buy pollution credits.

So you prefer the current system where there is no real economic incentive for them to reduce pollution? Sorry, but I'd rather see if the pollution credit system resulted in cleaner technologies rather than simply wait for the Earth to become uninhabitable.

Re:This is insightful

[GlassHeart]

You are confusing the scientific method and scientific conclusions. I do not believe that the scientific method will be changed in the foreseeable future.

How did you think we arrived at the scientific method to start with? The process of obtaining the truth is iterative, and the point is that at one point in time people felt perfectly "right" - as right as you feel today - to throw away scientific findings because they contradict "higher" principles.

As I point out in my earlier post, science as we know it today has obvious failings. The most obvious one is its complete inapplicability to the concept and knowledge of God. There are other examples. For example, we are terrible at tracing cause. Medical science has identified hundreds of carcinogens, but it is very difficult to conclude that something causes cancer.

We might be learning about our universe in a very different way five hundred years from now. I don't think it is possible to say what that method even looks like, the same way a priest in the Middle Ages could not imagine science today. The scientific method is not only not the pinnacle of learning, it might actually be near the end of its usefulness.

suppressing that information is outrageous.

I agree. It is possibly even criminal.

A Rose by any other Name

[Orne]

Funny, I interpret this as the current administration is willing to review and investigate other scientific findings that are currently censored and degraded by the national media -- media such as the NYT that are aligned with the political party opposed to the current administration. This willingness fully embodies the concept of "The Land of the Free", because we are free to hold any ideas we wish, even if those ideas go against the "teachings" of the national media.

Governments aren't the only organizations we should distrust.

What we need is

[j_w_d]

.... a "none of the above" choice.

Of science and religion.

[fmaxwell]

As I point out in my earlier post, science as we know it today has obvious failings. The most obvious one is its complete inapplicability to the concept and knowledge of God.

I do not consider that a "failing." I believe that religion is one reason that so many people are incapable of the critical thought necessary for science. Religion teaches people to believe in fantastic things for which there is no real evidence. Religion is the antithesis of science.

You mention a "knowledge" of God. I understand that there are strongly held beliefs in God, but what knowledge is there? Beliefs, no matter how strongly held, do not constitute knowledge. Consider the Heaven's Gate cult. The members of that cult were were so absolutely convinced of their beliefs that they killed themselves, believing they were shedding their earthly "containers" to catch a ride on an unseen spaceship trailing the Hale-Bopp Comet.

The scientific method is not only not the pinnacle of learning, it might actually be near the end of its usefulness.

The scientific method has not changed since it was invented by William Harvey in the 16th century. It has stood the test of time. And it is so simple that I really do not believe that it has some yet-to-be-discovered flaw. The scientific theory is just these simple steps:

* Observe: Collect evidence and make measurements relating to the phenomenon you intend to study.
* Hypothesize: Invent a hypothesis explaining the phenomenon that you have observed.
* Predict: Use the hypothesis to predict the results of new observations or measurements.
* Verify: Perform experiments to test those predictions. "Testing", or attempting to experimentally falsify, is thought by many to be a better choice of term here.
* Evaluate: If the experiments contradict your hypothesis, reject it and form another. If they confirm it, make more predictions and test it further.

These steps are repeated continually, building a larger and larger set of well-tested hypotheses to explain more and more phenomena.

I do not believe that the method is flawed in some way and is, in fact, rock-solid. There are nuances having to do with the way one designs an experiment, statistical significance, control groups, etc., but the basics of the Scientific theory have stood the test of time.

Re:Of science and religion.

[fmaxwell]

Whether a God exists or not is a valid human question. It is also a question that Science cannot answer.

Agreed. And it is not one that science should attempt to answer. It's like science trying to find the prettiest color or the nicest person. It's far too subjective a personal for science to provide an answer.

More importantly, religion withstood the "test of time" far longer. So?

But they are not equivalent. Science has not brought man spiritual comfort and moral guidance. And religion has not resulted in advances in medicine, astrophysics, or quantum computing (to give a few examples). It's an apples and oranges thing.

Secondly, the experimentation step has a serious and obvious flaw: there are things we cannot experiment on (think exploding stars), and there are events we cannot observe because of their duration and all the factors we cannot eliminate (think cancer studies).

An inability to create an experiment or control all factors does not mean that the scientific method is flawed. It's an unfortunate fact, but not a flaw. That's like claiming religion is flawed because people's prayers are not all answered.

Firstly, it's exactly what a catholic might have thought about his religion a few hundred years ago, so your certainty is somewhat scary.

Again, you are comparing apples and oranges. Religion is a set of faith-based beliefs. They cannot be tested, measured, or quantified. It's a complete mystery to me how it works. At one time, it was a sin to eat red meat on Friday. Then all of a sudden it was not. Why? Who knows?

Science, on the other hand, is quantifiable. Look at how far science has progressed since the adoption of the scientific method. Look at how much man has learned in so short a time. The very fact that is is only 1/10 of all of written human history testifies to its validity. Man has accomplished more in that time than in all previous time. Just consider how this discussion is being held for a very good example of the progress we've made.

Do you really believe that there cannot possibly ever be a better way to study the world around us?

I'm certain that our ability to study the world around us will grow by leaps and bounds, but I do not believe that the scientific method will undergo any radical changes. I could be wrong and only time will tell.

Re:really?

[runderwo]

what if you went back to 1700? and you forced everyone in ANY country at that time to vote if slavery should be legal?

So what? It's not like slavery became illegal in the U.S. because the population wised up and voted for it; it was a unilateral action by Lincoln as a wartime measure.

hmmm... perhaps you should think a little more about that statement.

I don't get what the big deal is. A city requiring its citizens to participate in elections would be no more totalitarian than various other ordinances placed at the local and state levels.

Case In Point

[Dictator For Life]

No, a practical necessity. Science tries to explain phenomena, period. You cannot "explain" something by simply referencing the supernatural.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. The naturalistic assumption rejects without consideration even the possibility of non-naturalistic explanations of events. By making this assumption, the scientist betrays that he is not interested in explaining things, but that he is interested only in explanations that suit his biases. In my judgment this raises two questions:

1. What potential explanations is the naturalist ignoring?
2. What other assumptions is he making that are similarly untested?

And it doesn't work the other way around: just because you can't explain something doesn't mean it's supernatural.

Of course. But the naturalist goes too far. He says, "I can't explain it, but it is definitely not supernatural." This is preposterous. A man who admits he can't explain something is not in the best of positions for making bold claims about those things. The fact that a thing cannot presently be explained certainly does not mean that it has an immediate supernatural cause, but it may have one. Rejection of this possibility is intellectually dishonest when it comes from someone who would have us believe that he is only seeking to "explain phenomena", and it reveals that the "seeker" is not really interested in the answers, but only in answers of a certain kind.

This fact, in my view, more than justifies the observation that scientists are no more "objective" than politicians. They have their axes to grind, too, and we need to stop believing the myth of neutrality.

Re:Case In Point

[junkgrep]

---The naturalistic assumption rejects without consideration even the possibility of non-naturalistic explanations of events.---

Uh, did I say that? Science, which is what we are talking about (your shifty switch nonwithstanding) can't confirm or disconfirm supernatural claims. Even if we have a perfectly ordinary event, like my shower getting clogged by hair, anyone can maintain that a supernatural being was the real cause. What can we say about claims like this? Not much.

---But the naturalist goes too far. He says, "I can't explain it, but it is definitely not supernatural."---

Who are you talking about/to? And why do you keep switching from "scientist" to "naturalist"? Plenty of scientists believe in god: but that doesn't mean that they use god as an explanation to any problem they have, and even they did, they couldn't TEST that claim. Their job is to explain: supernatural explanations can explain everything and anything, and hence nothing. There's no point to saying that supernatural isn't involved, but there's no point to saying that is was either. You just keep searching for explanations that can be understood. If there aren't any, then there's nothing more that can be done. People can speculate about the supernatural all they want, irregardless of them being scientists.

---The fact that a thing cannot presently be explained certainly does not mean that it has an immediate supernatural cause, but it may have one.---

Again, ANYTHING, even things that seem to have clear explanations, can be claimed to have a supernatural cause. Supernatural hand-waving can answer anything.

---Rejection of this possibility is intellectually dishonest when it comes from someone who would have us believe that he is only seeking to "explain phenomena", and it reveals that the "seeker" is not really interested in the answers, but only in answers of a certain kind.---

Supernatural explanations don't explain in a way that science can use. There is a search for a certain kind: a kind that is intelligible and useful. If no such explanation can be found, that's fine. And again, you can speculate about the supernatural all you want, whether on an unanswered question or an answered one.

Re:What Are You Smoking?! No Pun...

[Kohath]

William G. Manning, et al., "The Taxes of Sin: Do Smokers and Drinkers Pay Their Way?" Journal of the American Medical Association, March 17, 1989, p. 1604

Re:This is news?

[cp99]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but "global warming" isn't real.

Sorry, but it will take more than a few links to some propaganda sites to burst my bubble.

Every site you have linked too is serious flawed. Rather than try and determine the truth, they are attempt to misled by selective use of evidence.

As for your example of the Gallup Poll, you have forgotten to mention that it was taken in 1991 (note, I'm not suggesting that you are trying to misled here, I assume that you read the Cato piece by Lindzen). Anyone, who is even remotely up to date on the science literature, would know that the knowledge base, and experimental evidence has massively increased since then. Also, you have failed to mention, that the poll found that while the poll found that only 19% of members of the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union though that the current (as of 1991) was human induced, a much larger (66%) proportion thought that human induced warming was occurring.

The misleading use of these results have caused the Gallup organization to state "These writers have taken survey results out of context that appear to show scientists do not believe that human-induced global warming is occurring." (Source)

Your statement "including statements from so-called "scientific societies" that turn out to contain nothing more than cosmetologists, psychologists, gynecologists, et. al." is also flat out wrong. To use one of the societies listed as an example, the Australian Academy of Science consists of a large number of Australia's top scientists. While you may dismiss their views as "misinformation, propaganda and flat-out Junk Science", this reflects more on your objectivity than them.

Rather than attacking Gore's book, perhaps you would be better off reading the science. The website www.ipcc.ch contains links to the IPCC reports on climate change, which are the best summaries of the primary scientific lit.

The sites that you link to are worthless as scientific pieces, and would be better off in a political science course on propaganda. The Cato piece by Lindzen is quite old (I'm not sure of the date, as Cato have conveniently not dated it) so any conclusions it makes of the scientific consensus are worthless (as times have changed). However, Lindzen, uses the Gallup poll conveniently missing out the results which would contradict his thesis. Also, he mentions the approx. 150 authors of the IPCC report, once again missing out the large number of reviewers, which would substantially boost this number.

Your second site is worse, as it is up to date. Normally, I wouldn't bring up the authors qualifications, however, as you have dismissed the joint statement by many scientific societies as by made up of "nothing more than cosmetologists, psychologists, gynecologists, et. al" I'm sure that you will be disappointed to hear that the author of this site is a retired sailor who hasn't published a single scientific paper in his life. His site is a load of old propaganda and selective quoting. To use one example, he states (re. Rising sea levels on small Pacific Islands) "there is the record from Tuvalu, the Pacific Island country which has been the most strident about sea levels. Their claims are patently false", is wrong. Had Daly been keeping up with current events he would be aware that sea levels around Tuvalu are rising (abit with a high level of uncertainty), and the rate of rise is well within the rates predicted by the IPCC. Daly is either unaware of this, or choses to pretend that analysis which have found this do not exist.

Your third link, to the well known lobbyist Milloy, doesn't really provide anything useful, perhaps you should link to a specific claim made by Milloy, rather than his whole site. I'm not going to critise the whole thing, but I'd be happy to examine any specific claim. The same applies to your last site.

As a more broad critism of your links, rather than relying on websites made up by anti-greenhouse activists, perhaps you would be best citing peer reviewed scientific data.

As long as it is not ONLY abstinence

[TheConfusedOne]

I think the big problem with teaching abstinence in schools is that most of these schools take it as an excuse to not teach anything else.

They merely say "don't have sex" and consider the case solved. This has to be taught within the context of healthy relationships, sensible precautions, actual dangers (not overhyped, context-less ones), and real options.

It's just simply not enough to merely say "don't do it."

Medical definitions

[SeanAhern]

You didn't post any links or references, so I'm curious. Did this "majority of studies" find a link between abortion and breast cancer, or a link between not carrying a pregnancy to term and breast cancer?

I don't have the references here, so I can't give them. However, I can say that the studies are about the link between "not carrying a pregnancy to term" and breast cancer.

With that said, the medical definition of a miscarriage (which is the other side of not carrying a pregnancy to term) is "spontaneous abortion". So we're talking "abortion" either way, whether it was willful or not.

Re:What Are You Smoking?! No Pun...

[Kaz Riprock]

First, try looking for a reference newer than 1989. Secondly, try a reference that includes far more information in its modeling of the costs involved than the Wasserman report.

While Social Security costs may be decreased because of early death, early death due to smoking also accounts for a ton of lost income tax revenue and economic productivity. Also include familial costs for those dealing with smoking-related family members conditions and lost revenue from those debilitated (but not dead) by smoking and you start to see that when all factors are included, smokers pose a significant financial and emotional strain on the country.

The Wasserman report in JAMA was good for its time, but it was far too simplistic to account for everything we can now account for in defining the cost of smokers on the nation. Do what I did and go to ISI's Web of Science and peruse the 100 different article which cite the Wasserman report to see more recent information concerning this topic.