McCain Answers Science Policy Questionnaire

thebestsophist writes "A couple weeks ago, I reported that Barack Obama had answered a questionnaire by Scientists and Engineers for America. McCain has now answered that questionnaire as well. You can also compare their answers. Perhaps with help from the Slashdot community, we can get all the Congressional candidates as well?"

Comments

Innovation

[Ethanol-fueled]

In the "innovation" category, one of the first things McCain mentions is

"I am committed to streamlining burdensome regulations and effectively protecting American intellectual property in the United States and around the globe."

I'll leave it up to the rest of you to flame McCain for that! I believe that it is also worth mentioning that Obama didn't bring up "regulation" or "protecting intellectual property" at all, especially not in the first paragraph as McCain did.

Re:Innovation

[morgan_greywolf]

Not surprised. McCain's made no secret of his desire to have Steve Ballmer in his cabinet. Ballmer himself probably put those words right in McCain's mouth

Re:Innovation

[gfxguy]

It was also democrats who proposed and extended copyright terms and signed the DMCA into law.

There's no party that is inculpable here.

Re:Innovation

[torstenvl]

Erm. The DMCA came to being under a Republican Senate and Republican House, and introduced by Republican Rep. Howard Coble. The only major part the Dems played was Clinton signing it into law, and his State Dep't helping to negotiate the treaties it's related to.

Re:Innovation

[FishWithAHammer]

Yes, and that's what he said. The "and" connects two separate clauses here.

It was also [D]emocrats who proposed and extended copyright terms

and

signed the DMCA into law.

His point remains correct.

Re:Innovation

[pieterh]

This rationale was proposed, and discredited, over 150 years ago. Trade secrets are notoriously hard to keep, as the poster JesseMcDonald points out.

More ironically: any secret that could be kept, would never be patented in the first place. There would be no point. So patents do not promote disclosure of trade secret. They reward the documentation of ideas that could never be kept secret at all.

There are many rationales for patents, and they are without exception bogus, except the rationale of an incentive to deliver nicely written patent documents which promote the collection of knowledge. Given that Wikipedia does this today, and that the granting of monopoly over the recorded ideas is insane in any high technology sector... high tech patents have lose their only plausible economic basis, and now exist purely on the basis of belief, inertia, and the power of special interests exercised via slave courts.

Yay! McCain's position on patents basically shows him as a protectionist 1800-era politician who won't bat an eyelid while raising barriers to trade, tariffs, and taxes.

Re:Innovation

[Snocone]

That should tell you right away how much commitment there is to protecting intellectual property.

Yes, it should -- 100% complete commitment.

In all three of the cases you mention, an appropriate ASCAP performance license was obtained by the campaign.

There is no other legal requirement to perform a song, and there is no form of veto by the recording artist. The bluster in your links is just blowhard preening, there is no legal foundation for it whatsoever.

Re:Innovation

[Snocone]

All the more reason to get out and vote for Obama. Let's see how far the GOP is willing to go to retain power.
Voter caging and outright fraud might win them a state or two, but I really don't think they'll be able to turn back a landslide.

What "landslide" is this you speak of? The one that's currently in negative territory, making it an antilandslide?

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

I'm not really seeing where fraud is needed when the opinion polls have the results 270-268 in McCain's favour...

Re:Innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

As a bit of explanation, he probably called you a racist because Barr is a notorious bigot. Likewise, many Libertarian Party members are white supremacists using their party line as an excuse for their politics (note how many of them are in favor of repealing the Civil Rights acts, as well as Ron Paul's opposition to the 14th Amendment). Maybe the problem isn't that you weren't voting for Obama, but that you're voting against that guy's human rights?

Re:Innovation

[vux984]

Oil drilling and extraction and production. Pharma research (take out profit motive for THAT and watch more garbage happen). Defense R&D (to a point). Growing food. Making stuff.

Oil drilling, extraction, and production, growng food, and making stuff aren't R&D.

Pharma research takes anything promising from publicly funded basic research and runs the last mile to a commericial product. (I'm not saying that last mile is 'cheap', but its not more expensive than the basic research they are building on.)

And defense R&D by corporations is almost directly funded by the public.

My point was that the public is on top. The public "can afford" research that even corporations can't. Its true that corporations can afford research that small businesses and individual can't.

Google cache link

[Cyberax]

Since site appears to be slashdotted, here's a Google Cache link:

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:MqO2cs2K3EUJ:sharp.sefora.org/people/presidential-candidates/john-mccain-presidential-candidate/+http://sharp.sefora.org/people/presidential-candidates/john-mccain-presidential-candidate/&hl=ru&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ua&client=firefox-a

Re:I hate these; they are SOOO rigged

[djh101010]

All of these kind of things are answered to encourage whatever somebody wants to believe. (BIG SNIP) (reagan ran up monster deficit in CA, and then got out of trouble because JFK started NASA).

JFK started NASA? Really? I find that somewhat surprising given the dates involved.

Re:The best answer to the science questionnaire

[ccandreva]

They didn't use pencil because broken leads would be a big problem in zero G.

Science Debate 2008

[MN Science]

A point of clarification: McCain and Obama submitted answers to ScienceDebate2008's 14 questions directly to Science Debate staff. We have a great relationship with SEforA, have benefited from it greatly and want to thank them for putting out the word on this. If the SEforA site is still down you can also view the answers to the questions at ScienceDebate2008.com as well as learn about who has been involved in the effort to bring McCain and Obama to the science table and answering these important questions. ~Erik Science Debate 2008 MN State Director

I blame both major parties equally

[tepples]

The DMCA was SIGNED into law by Bill Clinton.

Both houses of the U.S. Congress passed the DMCA and the Bono Act by voice vote. Article I of the U.S. Constitution, which gives the procedure for a bill to become a law, requires 81 percent support to make a voice vote[1] but only 67 percent to override a presidential veto.[2] So had President Clinton vetoed either bill, the Congress would have easily overridden the veto. So I blame both major parties equally.

[1] From section 5: "the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal."

[2] From section 7: "if [the President does not approve] he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law."