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Wildlife Deputy Changed Science For Lobbyists
fistfullast33l writes "In another case of a government official creating a 'unique' interpretation of science, TPM Muckraker reports on Julie MacDonald, deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks in the Department of the Interior in Washington. The Department's Inspector General issued a report today documenting evidence that MacDonald not only overrode opinions of department scientists to benefit lobbyists, and political interests, but also that she shared internal documents with said lobbyists and a friend in an unnamed online roleplaying game. My favorite episode: 'At one point, according to Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall, MacDonald tangled with field personnel over designating habitat for the endangered Southwestern willow flycatcher, a bird whose range is from Arizona to New Mexico and Southern California. When scientists wrote that the bird had a nesting range of 2.1 miles, MacDonald told field personnel to change the number to 1.8 miles. Hall, a wildlife biologist who told the IG he had had a running battle with MacDonald, said she did not want the range to extend to California because her husband had a family ranch there.'"
Suggested reading for everyone: The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney. Chapter 11 (documenting the ID movement) is available online, but the site is not responding (quite possibly something to do with this story breaking).
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
After reading and re-reading all 3 linked articles, I see no specific or generic reference to an MMOG. Am I blind (if so, I blame it on MMOG-induced sleep deprivation)? Is the article summary just making that part up? Or is there another article that wasn't linked? Inquiring minds want to know.
"Ms. MacDonald, if you read the report you will see that the white-tailed prairie dog is clearly in need of protec-"
"NO!! I NEED TEN MORE HIDES TO COMPLETE MY CLOAK!!"
dumb bitch. This is why lobbyists need to take a long walk off the short pier.
A few years ago, there was a story posted about how a biologist had used some big cat hairs to base his research on. Turned out, that the hairs had come from a cat in a zoo.
In South-West Utah, whenever some road work was going to be done, they would find a dead tortoise on the road, and the environmentalists would cry foul. After they did an autopsy on one, they found frozen lettuce in its stomach. The environmentalists had caught them live, fed them for a while, then froze them until "needed".
Ya, really good stuff there.
Don't steal. The government hates competition.
World(TM).
They think chevrontexaco is an MMORPG rather than a MMOOPC (massive mult-national offline oil producting company).
It is true that the upper levels of Chevron Texaco seem to regard US Dollars as about as real and Linden dollars & a world where you can buy scientific findings is something of a virtual world--obviously MacDonald feels that she can change a bird's nesting range by fiat, certainly seems she sees her role as more of a dungeon master than a steward.
When the country falls into chaos, politicians talk about 'patriotism'. Lao-Tzu
Say it ain't so! Please tell me environmental extremists aren't exaggerating their claims in order to push their agenda!
Next thing you know, I'll find out global warming is being overblown by a bunch of humanity-is-horrible loons...
Like all endangered species, their [the yellow whatever] extension can be directly attributed to the rise of mankind. Even the brontosaurus was driven away because of small ground dwelling mammals. Let's just say from this point forward it's our fault. Darwin would never say "Survival of the fittest"
A few scientists who do something unscientific means that all of research you don't like is automatically refuted?
We need to legalize the culling of lobbyist. If they can cull baby seals and alligators the culling of lobbyist is long overdue. Their explosive breeding is threatening the Washington political ecosystem. Tag and release is no longer a viable option. The overpopulation is similar to the Australian rabbit plagues only far more destructive.
Now did I?
And speaking of science, doesn't science require experimental repeatability, with controls?
I wouldn't put too much stock in any "science" from anyone at the Dept. of the Interior. Interior is a haven for folks who all share the same opinions and work towards the same agenda.
Here's an example of their "science":
Gov't researchers caught planting false ESA evidence
Corrupt politicians.
What are we going to do to stop this from happening again? Nothing. Just like always.
No news like obsolete news.
I feel like death on a soda cracker.
No, science does not require repeatability with controls.
Consider Astronomy. That's definitely a science, but it's fairly hard to repeat the Big Bang, star formation or even planetary formation with controls.
Theory and observation, that's what science is about.
You observe a phenomenon, then construct theories about it. If the theories hold true for another round of observartions, you're doing Science! If the theories don't hold, you either change them (still doing Science) or refute the observations (stepping away from Science here).
(As an aside - changing the observations to fit the theory, or selecting only observations that fit the theory is anti-Science in its purest form. This behaviour actually attempts to extend ignorance and distort facts. Any attempt to do this is highly suspicious.)
It's considered really nice in the Scientific world to be able to perform an experiment, to better control observations. In those cases you have to have repeatability with controls. Then other people can perform your observations and see for themselves. That's even nicer. I'd go so far as to use the phrase 'peachy keen' here.
Science is all about observation and theorising, in an endless loop. Experiments are merely a form of observation.
Nobody cares what you believe. We're trying to keep coastal areas habitable. You need to shut the fuck up; you don't know what you're talking about, and you're fueling men who will cause major problems in the future. I'm aware that the evidence for global warming isn't as conclusive as some rabid environmentalists would have you believe, but to assume that means everything is peachy and you should keep as many lights as you can on at night is flat-out retarded. Also, the predictions of global cooling was based on a flawed model, one whose errors have been found, explained, and fixed. If you can find the same sort of errors in the current models, great, otherwise learn to judge the maturity of a science before commenting on it.
ResidntGeek
rofl can't control his temper
Well it certainly seems to prove most anonymous cowards are big fans of straw man arguments.
This topic is a red herring, a debate which is DELIBERATELY furthered by commercial interests so as to avoid the real problem, which is pollution of the air in general.
Look, we all know polluting the air is wrong. The earth is enveloped by the thinnest egg-shell layer of an atmosphere. Whether filling that thin memrane causes warming, cooling, or stasis for thousands of years, it doesn't matter. In the long run, it is objectively, undeniably stupid to fill the balloon with pollutants. So whether some sort of rapid onset of "global warming" is going to happen or not doesn't matter. What really matters is stopping the pollution of the air, which is undeniably a wrongful, stupid act.
How many times have we seen perpetual motion reported as straight news?
For a journalist to be able to think critically about scientific subjects they should be reasonably well grounded in the subject (which is asking a lot for a journalist).
Otherwise all they do is pick a side in the argument, dumb it down till they think they understand it, then report it as undisputed fact.
So while you do have a point about presenting information to non-scientists the journalist should be somewhere in the middle. What we've gotten is regurgitated press releases being passed off as news by idiot reporters who can't ask the any intelligent questions.
I went to a University with a very well respected J-school. They took the same amount of math and science as the education majors (basically they were required to re-take the material they should have learned in middle school).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I always misread creationism as cretenism - insult to cretins
#include "std_employer_disclaimer.hpp" "Smoke me a kipper... I'll be back for breakfast"-Ace Rimmer
Do you have any references for your claims besides an unsourced article published in a right-wing conservative (sorry, "Libertarian") think-tank's unabashedly anti-environmentalist publication? You really think the Heartland Institute constitutes a neutral, unbiased source on anything? You don't suppose maybe they have an axe or two to grind?
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
And you're basing this on...?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
If it weren't for lavishly funded free-market think tanks the truth might have never come out and anti-endangered species activists in the 109th Congress such as Richard Pombo would have been put in the awkward position of having to make up politically convenient but dubious anecdotes on their own. It's a relief they didn't have to do that.
Clearly this all fits into the larger pattern of career EPA employees purging all political operatives from sensitive policy positions and having them replaced with more nonpolitical people.
I remember being taught in highschool that "we are overdue for another ice age". Scared the crap out of me. This was in early/mid-90's. Then a few years later, we started learning about holes in the ozone layer, and my first thought was "wait, if this stops the next ice age, isn't it a good thing?".
When a single volcanic eruption has the potential to put out more CO2 than all human production over the last decade, I think it's fair to say that we're a pretty insignificant factor.
You put politicians in charge of science, and then you are shocked to find out that the science is corrupted by politics?
There needs to be a strict seperation between science and the state, the same way there is (or at least is supposed to be) as strict seperation between the church and the state!
If you insist that the government should fund and control science... the price that you pay is that science will become first and foremost a tool to promote political ideology and policy. That is inevitable. That is unstoppable.
And given the government's total power to regulate the economy, and its use of science as a pretense for those regulations, any buisness that doesn't bribe government scientists and officials that fund those scientists, is commiting economic suicide. Every single decent size buisness is forced to pay off government scientists (or the politicians who oversee government science) to survive.
If you want to protect science, you must keep it out of the hands of the state.
That's great dude. Good thing some people understand the real science behind whatever the latest thing is that you're scared about.
Here you go Coped, Try Google, this is only one reference there are plenty more including papers in "peer reviewed journals" of the time for whatever that is worth.
k /
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15391426/site/newswee
Just because you were a kid and not paying attention at the time doesn't mean it didn't happen and by the way, MULTIPLE times....
However, this IS the first time (to my knowledge) that we have had the hubris to decide it's entirely our work.
Try looking up the little Ice age in Europe then take a look at the history of the Sahara.
The planetary climate is more than just a little bit variable.
Mind you, I STILL think that reducing energy use, pollution & yadda is a good idea.
My point is that the various claims of decades past don't come near the broad consensus and quantities of data we have today. The fact that some scientists have been wrong in the past doesn't mean that most scientists are wrong now.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
From the second page of that article:
The point to remember, says Connolley, is that predictions of global cooling never approached the kind of widespread scientific consensus that supports the greenhouse effect today. And for good reason: the tools scientists have at their disposal now--vastly more data, incomparably faster computers and infinitely more sophisticated mathematical models--render any forecasts from 1975 as inoperative as the predictions being made around the same time about the inevitable triumph of communism.
should this Julie MacDonald be thrown in jail for doing the opposite of her job?
They're using their grammar skills there.
'I remember being taught in highschool that "we are overdue for another ice age'
Yes, since then the scientific ideas on these topics have changed (why do people think that's strange?). However, there is still a LOT of uncertainty on how ice ages happen.
"we started learning about holes in the ozone layer, and my first thought was "wait, if this stops the next ice age, isn't it a good thing?"
The holes in the ozone layer have nothing to do with the climate, and everything with CFK's and harmful ultraviolet light. Ask Australians, they'll know.
"When a single volcanic eruption has the potential to put out more CO2 than all human production over the last decade, I think it's fair to say that we're a pretty insignificant factor."
Let's turn this argument around (for fun and education). Did you know that big volcanos (as in, happens every couple of years) can produce the same amount for carbondioxide as all human production over the last decade? You don't have to strain to realize this doesn't help the global warming problem at all!
Keep in mind that these volcano's have been partaking in the earth CO2 cycle for as long as humans remember, and really are an integral part of it. CO2 is absorbed by the ocean (at a certain rate), volcanos and animals contribute to it (at certain rates), and now also humans contribute heavily to it. Of course, this isn't to say that one really big volcano cannot ruin the earth climate for a couple of years to come.
But, think of this: if one reasonably big volcano can dominate earth climate for years (as we have seen a couple of times now), why then is it so strange that humans contribute to the effects of the CO2 when the human production is slowly getting comparable with what volcanos can do. And we do it every day, every year, and it is increasing fast.
As a side note, of course we humans have hardly seen what volcanos can REALLY DO. And volcanos don't just produce CO2 but also a lot of ashes (blocks sun) and SO2 (ozone dissolving(?) and other problems), so don't just pull volcanos out of your hat when talking about global warming, unless you know a bit more.
Yes, because starting a response with "nobody cares what you believe" really means that (otherwise you'd never said a damn thing). Not to mention some of us are looking for ya know, intelligent debate. The Earth goes through warming & cooling cycles we really have no control over. Just as how global cooling was debunked years ago, so will global warming once we enter another cooling cycle, and we'll be back at the same place where we are now with crazed environmentalists who are really concerned with taking "the man" down a notch more than the environment, and indigent people, just, like, you. Yes we are fucking our environment up, but saying global warming is the result is just as bad of science as the TFA's science. For example: places like Iraq used to be beautiful, and very green areas in previous history. However the people of the area treated it like shit, and well, they have a sprawling desert now. If we treat the world bad enough it'll shake us off like a bad cold, and get back to business as usual.
We all know leaving all the lights on, running the AC while with 120 out with the doors open, massive fat assed American sized SUVs, and dumping toxins into our environment is bad. But please, rally behind the real truth that it's just bad common sense to do such things, and not some buzzword of the day. You can always tell when your being fed a load of tripe, because someone always spouts off a buzzword or 50.
"Consider Astronomy. That's definitely a science, but it's fairly hard to repeat the Big Bang"
Big Bang is cosmology, not astronomy.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Are you blaming the desert climate of Iraq on mankind's actions? Um, there's a timeline problem with that involving the industrial age and the last time that area of the world was green.
Intelligent debate...right...
Blar.
...being corrupt lying and hateful retards means that all religious people are fucking assholes who deserve a bullet to the face.
I like the cut of you jib!
Blar.
Most people who believe in intelligent design do NOT believe that the world is only 6,000 years old. ID is *NOT* the same thing as creationism.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
You either had shit teachers or you're trolling. Because I remember in 1992 being taught about global warming.
...relatively speaking as the "consensus" today. Maybe you aren't old enough to remember, but I am, and it was in the news quite a bit.
I am personally of the opinion that global climate change comes from a variety of factors, with man made greenhouse gas emissions being just one part of the mix. Solar flux appears to be a large part, cosmic rays, natural Earth cycles, etc, are all there to look at.
I think you'd have to be just a touch naieve to not see the political angle here from the Gaia crowd, along with the political angle from the pro coal and oil profits crowd. They both exist and both sides have their own tame scientists, who after all are only human and have the same frailties as anyone else and are as much money driven as anyone. The Gaia crowd also seem to want some sort of strange world government and such odd ideas as a carbon tax-like who decided they owned all the carbon so they should be able to tax everyone about it? Sounds a little fascist-takeover-ey to me...
Science has always had politics and faddism attached to it, it has never been "pure", and it certainly isn't now. And in the future, don't you think we'll look back at the science of today and see a lot of flaws?
With that said, I support as much of a switch as possible away from petroleum based fuels and coal. They are just too dirty, and too much money goes to some pretty dodgy corporations and nations because of it. And I would like to see a lot more wallet than mouth from the Gaia crowd, the rate of adoption of solar PV by individuals is still relatively low for instance. I own some (and as such have a wide circle of acquaintances who also use some, being an enthusiast we talk to each other), but haven't met too many heavy Gaia activists who have bothered to switch to cleaner energy yet, in fact, most people I know who use solar power would actually be classed as more traditional conservative (not neocon, the old regular kind of conservative).
How about you, is your domicile solar powered yet, at least partly? Do you live in a superinsulated home or apartment? Do you drive a pure electric vehicle that uses renewables to get a charge? Do you grow most of your own food, or purchase direct from an organic farmer locally? Have you installed a ground loop heat pump system, or built a methane digester, or make your own biodiesel? Have you invested in triple pane gas filled window systems? Have you eschewed non necessary electronic gadgets, such as videogame consoles and iPods? Do you avoid long distance airline travel, and visit and tourist locally instead? Is your hot water tap solar thermal powered?
And etc. there is a large list that individuals can do to help out.
You see it is easy to demand that this they guy "do something", but quite another once your own wallet is on the line. And that is part of the "debate" now, a very large and loud contingent is demanding this or that, but once it gets down to individual actions they just point fingers at everyone else.
I seem to recall this being one of 1984's concepts. Control the information, rewrite history/science and you control the masses. Clearly, using tax dollars to pay for research and then altering it should be criminalized. (write your senate/congress) Both parties do it. Its just been particularly bad because normally the prez/congress is different parties, so they watchdog each other. Dunno what the answer is. Maybe force congress/prez to be of different parties. That would just acknowledge we live in a 2 party country, not a democracy though. This topic is near and dear to slashotters as we like to push past marketing spin, which is really all thats going on. Its one thing for microsoft or intel, or ?? to keep paying for market research until it nets the answer they want, but its quite another for a tax payed for study to get altered by the PHB's.
The demarcation is only for which statements are scientific and which are not. As I think you were trying to point out, falsifiable statements are scientific statements, so stating that the evidence cannot be questioned is removing the theory from criticism. Technically, this is a correct statement, but it is completely missing the point of the parent. Using demarcation against Gore like that, to try and trap him on a technical question to hide from the larger criticisms he argues is quite disingenuous and slanderous to Critical Rationalism for you to wield scientific demarcation like that while claiming to uphold Popper's assertions. Popper and his student Bartley didn't stop at demarcation.
What we are really discussing is a "should" statement. The question is "What should be done, if anything, about environmental changes?" There can be no rationally justified answer to this question, just as there can be no rationally justified answer to any "should" statement. There are no good reasons, rationally speaking, for taking any action for the simple fact that predicting the future is impossible. When it comes to "should" statements we must rely on the probabilities produced by models of the problem.
So, for climate change, there are a number of parameters that our model needs to understand in order to calculate the probable success of any proposal to not cause or even prevent harm to society. If the climate changes will cause harm, can we alter them? Is human action contributing to the harmful climate changes? What human actions will reduce harm the most?
What I believe the parent was communicating and the point Gore was trying to make, was that the scientific statements that have survived falsification thus far best fit the explanation that the earth is getting warmer due to increased carbon levels that are currently best explained by fossil fuel burning, that this is harmful and that we should do something about it. What Gore and a large part of the scientific community are trying to say, is that further attempts at falsification before action is taken is self-defeating at best and suicidal at worst. Will we ever know for sure? Nope. Can't be sure the sun is going to come up tomorrow until tomorrow either. I'm not real inclined to quit taking any action today that has to do with tomorrow because I can't be sure the sun is going to come up. Especially given the really huge probability that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. Just as the scientific facts which have survived falsification point to the sun coming up tomorrow, they point to human assisted global climate changes.
Either falsify the science that leads to these calculations of probabilities or start arguing for a course of action that deals with the changes. Anything else has no information content that is meaningful to the discussion. Oh, and go read David Miller's "Out of Error". It will bring you up to speed on what's happened with Popper's ideas since the 30's.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
... and both are Science, which is the point.
Try learning actual science for a change instead of mindlessly quoting ignorant bufoons like Rush Limbaugh. Sorry, but given a choice between (1) a great body of scientific work and research, along with the overwhealming scientific consensus, and (2) a guy who can't even get through his first year of college and has spent the last 20-30 years sitting on his butt behind a microphone blathering ideology out his cakehole, I think even someone as clearly ignorant as you are could see why I would choose option 1 (well, that and personally having a good understanding of actual physics).
I feel like death on a soda cracker.
The predictions about "global cooling" eventually leading to the next continental glaciation ("ice age") are real ... on a thousand-year timescale ... and relate to orbital cycles (Milankovitch cycles). Though there is still plenty of debate about the details, the generalities haven't changed -- an ice age is expected someday, assuming the system behaves as it did in the past, and we are "due" for one in the next several thousand years. So, he's right that people talked about that general concern (a new ice age) back in the 1960s and 1970s, as geologists and climatologists started to understand some aspects of the glacial/interglacial cycles the Earth has been experiencing over the last few million years.
The problem is, worrying about eventual global cooling of this type is kind of like worrying about what to do as you glide down a long and gently wavering ski slope (i.e. "global cooling"), while ignoring the trees pointing the other way that are in your path (i.e. "global warming"), and for which are a much more immediate concern. It doesn't mean scientists were or are wrong about the eventual expectation that a new ice age will occur, they just realized there was a shorter-term and more alarming climate trend the other way. Scientists haven't changed their minds or been "wrong" so much as realized there was a more pressing concern than the long-term trend.
One thing that realization suggests is that sequestration of CO2 might be useful -- we might want it back in a few centuries or thousands of years to stave off an ice age (kind of like terraforming our own planet).
I feel like death on a soda cracker.
Actually, there is. It is a perfectly rational and scientifically valid exercise to ask students "if you wanted to create a planet populated with various plants, birds and reptiles, what knowledge, tools, and skills would you need?". Unfortunately, the vast majority of evolutionists decry such a question being asked in school - even though it is probably the BEST question to ask to get young minds thinking about biology, planetary physics, genetic engineering and the like - because to them it is impossible for anything to have ever happened unless it was purely random or done by humans.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
"The report also said MacDonald "misused her position" by disclosing confidential documents to "private sector sources" such as the Pacific Legal Foundation and the California Farm Bureau Federation, both of which have challenged endangered-species listings."
Government regulatory agencies should work with private industry. I agree that scientific research should not be altered, but I don't see why it was wrong for her to disclose a draft report to the private sector. I can understand why law enforcement agencies have confidential information, but a draft report on scientific research should not be confidential.
One man may be insignificant... but 6 billion? Now that's another story...
total bs. Parents "how much is bad for you and me?" statement is an example of the kind of ethicaly relativistic doublespeak that produces these kind of shortsighted messes like the environmental we are slowly realizing we've created for ourselves.
"Air pollution is not a question of "is it wrong"
It is "how much is bad for you and me?""
in this declaration where does "wrong" != "bad for you and me" ???
to accept this statement is to succumb to fractured thinking in terms of the system under discussion. It is a big one that includes "you and me" and what I believe most people would still consider "right and wrong."
nice try though
I don't think this is a correct interpretation of the equal protection clause. The fourteenth amendment states that "no state shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws". It would only be fair to say that she was "playing favorites" if she was protecting some people from the endangered species act, while denying that protection to others. But I fail to see how giving out a draft report offers protection. Moreover, it seems that he helped anyone who appealed to her for help (this is what regulatory agencies should do), not just certain people.
I feel like death on a soda cracker.
That was the most shocking thing - she's a trained civil engineer, with admittedly no experience in natural sciences. I have an MS in Computer Science, and I'd like to think that if I were appointed to that position I'd respect what the scientists in charge show me based on their research. Here we have someone with some knowledge of science and math and yet no respect for the general tenets of those fields whatsoever.
Radical greenie fish and game workers of the D variety "salting" areas with lynx fur, etc, to "prove" lynx where in the area to expand the "can't do anything" aspect to the region, because of the ESA. Another D appointee in the interior department in a situation of giving orders where there was a big forest fire, and they let three forest fighters burn to death because they refused the helicopters access to a stream to get water because of some endangered minnow. They knew exactly where they were, the forest fighters were pleading for help on the radio, they had the water dropping capability, yet it got *refused* and they let those young folks burn alive, all for a radical D driven agenda where anything but humans come first. How about the flawed spotted owl nonsense, put entire communities out of work, yet they are finding those owls today in new growth forests, nesting in barns, etc, all the time, but the D driven agenda was "they only roost in old growth forests". How many bankruptcies and trashed families did that cause, all from politically driven junk science?
I am neither a D nor an R, and as such, I can see MANY instances where one or the other party is run by lunatic tardwads. Pick any controversial political subject, go ahead, I can most likely remember some instance where big money and odd ball fascist/big money/corporate politics got in the way of humanity and common sense and screwed over people royally, in both parties. Heck,here's one you probably missed because maybe you weren't born yet (don't know, but you can't remember so I have to assume that) I remember a big fat war, with a D president and a full D congress, based on total complete lies (there was NO tonkin gulf incident, pure fabrication), that killed over 50,000 US service people and by some accounts, multiple millions of foreigners. Oh ya, they used chemical warfare extensively,in violation of various geneva convention action, and their tame bribed off politically motivated scientists at the time claimed agents orange and blue where totally harmless. I have personal friends fucked over by that bit of big D party junk science.
Glass houses friend. Read some history, and take your blinders off, there is so little difference between those two parties in the long haul it isn't worth mentioning. At most they slightly differ on how they want to screw people over for profit, or which groups of folks to screw over.
When you say scientific community are you including the scientists who dare to question the political arm of the most extreme global warming rhetoric - where there is no unanimity that man's minuscule CO2 output compared to nature could possibly have an effect on global climate. Or that projected temperatures that are no higher than they've been in the past 1500 years will have devastating effects on society - charges that will immediately get them lambasted as hired-guns-by-polluters by a frenzied populous (those darned journalists again...)? How about global-warming-scientist proponents who say that it would take that current Kyoto treaty limits must be 20 times more restrictive before they'll have a (arguably) measurable effect on global temperature - but are willing to throw their support to expensive and economically devastating changes to promote the cause that they know will have no impact. Are they included in the scientific community that you described?
It's not my problem that climate panic does not stand up to simple argument and reasoning.
It is very simple. Put the lady in jail. Put a lot of people in jail. The time has come.
The Pledge of Allegience says, "Liberty and Justice for All."
I don't know about you, I've had it with being lied to, ripped off, caste system Communist education,
and crimes crimes crimes. Do something. Personally, I telephone. I telephone offices, universities,
maybe once a week, but when I do I am very very pointed in what I say. I preface saying "this is a statement
of opinion." then I ream them like nobody's business.
And any of these government agency crooks, just PUT THEM IN JAIL. It is very simple. It is honorable.
It is time tested. It is more reasonable than putting their head in a gulliotine. Your country is rotting.
You best do something about it.
I'd just like to remind people that there are social conservatives for whom the current Republican party does not speak.
There's nothing about social conservatism AT ALL that suggests:
- It's OK for corporations to be more important than individual citizens.
- It's OK to go to war because you want to set an example (or any other
aspect of realpolitik thinking, either.)
- That it's sane to ignore environmental or social issues because addressing them
might possibly have a 4% impact on the national economy.
- That it's ok for the executive branch to hide its actions from the public and
from the congress.
- That it's ok to silence government scientists or change their reports, because you
don't like the political ramifications of their findings.
- That torture and the suspension of habeus corpus are ok.
Please, please don't lump as all together with Bush. I think he speaks for almost no true conservative at this point.
Many conservatives do have genuine points of disagreement with liberals. But they have nearly nothing to do with Bush's conduct. Bush *has* proven to be a unifier of the country. Against him.
While both are sciences, it is important to distinguish between them in order to avoid the sort of deliberate straw man building that the ID lobby does by lumping life origin theories together with the theory of evolution, when they are in fact two separate fields which are only connected by life origin theorists assuming the theory of evolution is correct. Thus, while cosmologists depend on both astronomers and physicists for data on which to both base their theories and falsify them, the data that astronomers and physicists collect doesn't depend in any way on whatever the prevailing cosmological theories of the day might be, and cannot therefore be invalidated by knocking holes in current ideas of cosmology.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.