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Bush vs. Kerry on Science
chrisspurgeon writes "The science journal Nature put 15 questions to Senator Kerry and President Bush. Read the candidates' responses on topics such as stem cell research, greenhouse emissions, and manned spaceflight to Mars."
...that Bush didn't write those answers himself. For one thing there are words of more than three syllables used throughout. For another it appears that the person who wrote them was actually familiar with Whitehouse briefing papers and current scientific issues. And the final clue is the use of the word 'nuclear' instead of GW's preferred 'nucular'.
I'm sure the same goes for Kerry, although he is actually able to spell and say most of the words used in his responses.
I really don't see the point of this kind of 'interview.' Basically, each candidate is asked a series of questions, each of which has a 'good' or 'bad' answer. The results will shock you.
Read Pynchon.
Any scientist who reads political papers for help making decisions regarding their science, cannot be sane.
2nd Corollary : Any post criticising the spelling of another poster will contain at least one spelling error. (OK, mine is technically a typo).
The defense rests, your Honorificness.
Money for nothing, pix for free
... Dracula vs. Wolfman on childcare.
Anybody who trusts John Travolta for help making decisions regarding their conversion to Scientology, cannot be pro-sanity.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
I'll bet that if President Bush instead claimed that he got his inspiration from "LOTR" you'd be drumming a different beat... ;-)
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Bush comes across as the major offender here, but Kerry isn't too far behind.
BTW, judging by the frequency of "John Edwards and I" being repeated, I'm left wondering -- is Kerry gay?
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
Could you please warn us that there is a high resolution image of a presidential candidate on the first page of the pdf?
:)
I didn't really want to know about all of his skin problems
I just hope people don't read their bible for science anymore. WWGD : What Would Galileo Do?
Kent Brockman: Senator Dole, why should people vote for you instead of President Clinton?
............
..........
Kang: It makes no difference which one of us you vote for. Either way, your planet is doomed. DOOMED!
Kent: Well, a refreshingly frank response there from senator Bob Dole.
Homer: America, take a good look at your beloved candidates. They're nothing but hideous space reptiles.
[audience gasps in terror]
Kodos: It's true, we are aliens. But what are you going to do about it? It's a two-party system; you have to vote for one of us.
[murmurs]
Man1: He's right, this is a two-party system.
Man2: Well, I believe I'll vote for a third-party candidate.
Kang: Go ahead, throw your vote away!
Marge: I don't understand why we have to build a ray gun to aim at a planet I never even heard of.
Homer: Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
Read Pynchon.
Of course they tell you that they believe in an invisible man in the sky on faith alone. There are a lot more people who can accept that without question than people who can fathom the truth.
Do you really think the church is going to come out and say "we know that intelligent design is how we got here because we actually met the space aliens who put us here"? It's much easier to claim some individual omnipotent being is responsible for everything. Do you realize what it would do to society if people knew we were a science experiment by a bunch of deviant aliens? How else do you explain the anal probes?
They didn't imprison Galileo for his ideas. They imprisoned him because the church is a cash cow and Galileo met the aliens and was trying to set up a competing company. The church is the original big-faceless-corporation.
This conspiracy has been brought to you by the fine people at Halliburton and the letter W.
Voldemort? I didn't realize he was running
I believe the exact charge is that he's a haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat who, by the way, served in Vietnam.
God bless James Taranto.
For those who didn't RTFA, here's the answers:
... I can't believe I actually tallied these up.
Bush, questions 1-2, 4, 6-15: Yes, but no.
Kerry, questions 1, 6-15: Yes, but no.
Bush, questions 3, 5: No, but yes.
Kerry, questions 2-5: No, but yes.
A.
'The teacher associations are the single biggest democratic support = bias'
OH THANK YOU objective science republican, for telling us all the truth,based on your hard nosed research of the dirty facts. the 'single biggest democrat support' = 'teachers'. that '=' sign really makes it seem really really logical and scientific. wow thank you SOOOOO much. you genius objective truth man.
then of course there is 'accountability'. yes. like the multiple-trillion dollar national debt. i guess that is 'accountable' for republicans. oh wait its the democrats fault right? no, its not you dumb jerk-off. the republicans control congress too this time around so quit your stupid ass republican whining. and most of all,,,,
stop being a lying idiot
Voldemort? I didn't realize he was running
He's not. Cthulhu/Yog-Sothoth '04 is the "Greater Evil" ticket this year, having beaten Voldemort out in the primaries in May.
"Why Choose the Lesser Evil: Cthulhu/Yog-Sothoth '04"
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
I would love to see what the "excuses presidunce" has to say about that!
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I wonder how hard it would be to do a /. interview with each candidate, similar to the interview with R. Glaser. I kindof doubt that it would happen, but you never know!
I can see it now:
Commander Taco interviews President George W. Bush
CT:Greetings Mr. Bush, my name is Comander Taco, AKA Rob Malda and I run a technology enthusiast site called Slashdot. The technology community has a lot of issues including...
Gets interrupted
GW:You are a commnader like I am a commander on the war on terror, we both have to do our parts to defeat evil, you commanding geeks, I commanding people warring on terror.
CT: Anyway....as I was saying....the technology enthusiast community has a lot of diverse viewpoints and we want to know where you stand on.....
Interrupted again
GW: Thats an interesting name, taco. I can speak Spanish! George W. Bush es el presidente de americainos!
CT: I give up! I'm going to interview John Kerry!
CT:Greetings Mr. Kerry, my name is Comander Taco, AKA Rob Malda and I run a technology enthusiast site called Slashdot. The technology community has a lot of issues including...
Gets interrupted
JK:I was a swift boat commander in Vietnam, where we didn't have tacos, we had rice, because it was Vietnam. And my opponent decided to stay in Alabama and eat tacos, not rice, because, he, unlike I, decided not to go to Vietnam!
CT: Anyway....as I was saying....the technology enthusiast community has a lot of diverse viewpoints and we want to know where you stand on.....
Interrupted again
JK: My opponent would rather Americans be forced to eat rice instead of tacos, because he doesn't care that 1.1 million less jobs exist now than 4 years ago, and tacos are a lot less healthy than rice, and since millions of Americans can no longer afford health care, they have to eat rice instead of tacos, just like I did in Vietnam.
CT: Yeah, forget it, I wonder if Ralph Nader is home.
Monstar L
This has got to be bogus.
I can actually read and understand Dubbyahs answers.
And I would vote to be able to kill!
Neil is wrong. If 90% of a source is crap but happens to be correct about 10% of its content, then clearly that source is a bad place to look for information about that remaining 10%. There is clearly a better place to look for information on that content.
:-)
Kinda like slashdot?
....to determine who wins is a no-holds barred, fight to the death. No problems with chad's, a brother's state, the man with the most number of votes losing, etc, etc..
Simply take both the candidates, lock them into a cage and have a gladitorial conflict to the death (or one quits).
I'm waiting for the Jessie/arnie showdown
with tongue firmly in cheek
Jaj
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
When quoting that episode we must not forget 2 important quotes:
"We must go forward, not backward. Upward, not forward, and always twirling, twirling towards freedom!"
Not to mention:
Kang: "Abortions for all!"
Crowd: *boos*
Kang: "Very well, Abortions for none!"
Crowd: *boos*
Kang: "Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!"
Crowd *cheers*
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
We in Europe need all the help we can get competing in science, so Bush is our man.
But only until they find oil in the Netherlands.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Yeah, no kidding. It's so much better to support someone who dodged the experience altogether by using his daddy's power. Or with several deferments, maybe. Especially in a conflict they supported at the time.
Bush/Cheney for 2004! Because true patriots choose hypocritical, cowardly chicken-hawks to decide foreign policy.
Happy people make bad consumers.
The aforementioned term springs from the same mindset from which the term "World Series" is applied to a US-only baseball league.
Nobody else in the world bothers with beisbol. Too boring. (Yeah cubans also care. And some wacko Japanese)
It's just like the Miss Universe Contest. You can be sure there are not other girl in the Universe as pretty as ours.
Yeah, someone at work asked me, "So, are you going for Bush, or Bush Lite?"
I mentioned something similar in the thread here. Apparently somebody doesn't like me talking about this because most of my responses in this thread are marked as overrated and flamebait in part.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
"My administration is now well along in implementing a comprehensive climate change to advance the science, expand the use of transformational energy and carbon sequestration technologies, and mitigate the growth of greenhouse-gas emissions in the United States and in partnership with other nations."
Wow! That's a mouthful. I didn't know Dubya could talk like that.
He sounds almost like... like...
Al Gore.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Without removing your shoes, please count to twenty.
We need a leader who does not know he is the leader. A solipsist in a shack somewhere with a cat, that's the ticket.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Pulled from
http://bash.org/?111338
Purely in the interests of science, I have replaced the word "wand" with "wang" in the first Harry Potter Book
Let's see the results...
"Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Harry.
"Oh, well -- I was at Hogwarts meself but I -- er -- got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wang in half an' everything
A magic wang... this was what Harry had been really looking forward to.
"Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter." It wasn't a question. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wang. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wang for charm work."
"Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wang. Eleven inches. "
Harry took the wang. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised the wang above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls
"Oh, move over," Hermione snarled. She grabbed Harry's wang, tapped the lock, and whispered, 'Alohomora!"
The troll couldn't feel Harry hanging there, but even a troll will notice if you stick a long bit of wood up its nose, and Harry's wang had still been in his hand when he'd jumped - it had gone straight up one of the troll's nostrils.
He bent down and pulled his wang out of the troll's nose. It was covered in what looked like lumpy gray glue.
He ran onto the field as you fell, waved his wang, and you sort of slowed down before you hit the ground. Then he whirled his wang at the dementors. Shot silver stuff at them.
Ok
I have found, definitive proof
that J.K Rowling is a dirty DIRTY woman, making a fool of us all
"Yes," Harry said, gripping his wang very tightly, and moving into the middle of the deserted classroom. He tried to keep his mind on flying, but something else kept intruding.... Any second now, he might hear his mother again... but he shouldn't think that, or he would hear her again, and he didn't want to... or did he?
O_______O
Something silver-white, something enormous, erupted from the end of his wang
Then, with a sigh, he raised his wang and prodded the silvery substance with its tip.
'Get - off - me!' Harry gasped. For a few seconds they struggled, Harry pulling at his uncles sausage-like fingers with his left hand, his right maintaining a firm grip on his raised wang.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I read Kerry's quote. "My administration would never utilize biased advice..." About fell out of my chair laughing at that one.
I'm an American (actually I have dual-citizenship, but that's neither here nor there)
Not to nit-pik but isn't that both here and there?
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Yep, Bush went AWOL.
Here's the proof!
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
I'm not certain whether I agree or disagree with you, but the irony of your sig with regards to your reasoning is too interesting to let go.
Reasoning:
Someone searching for the simplest possible consistent laws will have to say that murder is the killing of a human, that embryos are human, and thus abortion is murder.
Sig:
"For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong." - H.L. Mencken
I'd suggest you don't use Slashdot as your only news source, or you will suffer permanent brain damage.
For Question 6, regarding support for the proposed ITER fusion resaerch facility, Bush responded that, "ITER is a critically important experiment to test the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a source of electricity and hydrogen."
"...and hydrogen.
I'm hard-pressed to come up with a better example of the vast chasm between science and the Bush administration.
Dear George, hydrogen is what a fusion reaction "BURNS", not what it PRODUCES.
What's particularly disturbing is that Bush's answers were very clearly vetted by someone with decent communication skills and some understanding of science. How did such a glaring error slip past the vetting process?
Karma
"My admministration is now well along in implementing a comprehensive climate-change strategy to advance the science, expand the use of transformational energy and carbon sequestration technologies, and mitigate the growth of greenhouse-gas emissions in the United States and in partnership with other nations."
I know the candidates have professionals to write the responses to these types of inquires, but did anyone else get the feeling that some of the 'Bush Responses' consisted of words I cannot imagine our Prez could pronounce, let alone understand?
There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
and since there is no known way to prove or disprove the existence of a God
Certainly there is, for a specific definition of God.
Gods in general, when defined only as "beings tremendously more powerful than any human can hope to be", cannot be disproved. But if one makes a more precise claim, such as "God is good and powerful and loves me and is watching over me", then it can be tested.
In the case of that definition, you just need to tear out the claimant's intestines with a pitchfork. If God jumps out and stops you, then he exists. If not, then either God isn't good, or he's not powerful, or he wasn't watching, or he just doesn't exist at all. Any of those 4 interpretations means that God, as defined, doesn't exist.
It also demonstrates that either Superman doesn't exist, or he wasn't within x-ray vision range at the time. Otherwise, he'd have stopped you. And it further demonstrates that a SWAT team wasn't watching you with infra-red googles from outside your window, or they too would've stopped you.
Observing that any evil exists in the world is sufficient to disprove the simplistic Christian definition of God. If heaven were a possibility, we'd already be there.