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President Obama To Appear On Mythbusters
Muondecay writes "President Obama will be featured in the December 8th MythBusters episode, 'Archimedes Solar Ray,' during which he will challenge Adam and Jamie to revisit an ancient and somewhat controversial myth: Did Greek scientist and polymath Archimedes set fire to an invading Roman fleet using only mirrors and the reflected rays of the sun during the Siege of Syracuse? This is part of a White House effort to highlight the importance of science education."
Did Greek scientist and polymath Archimedes set fire to an invading Roman fleet using only mirrors and the reflected rays of the sun during the Siege of Syracuse?
- probably, but you can count on this: if UN existed at that time, they would have banned any of this 'Sun Blotting or Reflecting'.
You can't handle the truth.
They're doing Archimedes solar ray AGAIN? Aren't we up to three already (the original myth and two revisits)? Obviously I think it is fun that Obama will be on the show but frankly aside from that I really don't want to see that same tired Myth for a third time...
The only people I ever hear calling him "messiah" are right-wingers. They sound pretty ridiculous and juvenile when they do it. Just FYI.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
For some reason this reminds me of the Onion headline: "Black Man Given Worst Job In Country".
The enemies of Democracy are
I don't really have a problem with the president appearing on random TV shows a few times during their term, but I would really like Obama to spend less time being cool and more time fixing shit.
My favorite part was how people were (rightly) criticizing him for being such a media whore, when the conservative savior of 2008 Sarah Palin has a freakin' TV show .
Living With a Nerd
Of course it's not true, but that's no reason no to try to start a big fire.
I think this is more of a "media event" to promote sciences and education more than trying to prove anything. When the goverment wants to prove something, they dont turn to Adam and Jamie, they hire scietists with billion dollar budgets and secret labs. This is more just the president trying to get more kids involved in science/history etc.... i doubt he even thinks their orignal conclusion was wrong, just wanted a intresting "Myth" for the duo to revisit that might turn a few heads. Take this for what it is.... a attempt to revive education in the american youth.
Noone writes jokes in base 13!
Even though the false-birther myth has been reiterated time and time again by conspiracy theorists and infortainment 'pundits', and that it's been proven false time and time again by reliable news media. It'd be nice if we could just cut/paste the URL to the mythbuster segment to anyone who might still be laboring under the false pretense..
Although, come to think of it, I suspect that the people who still believe this myth probably don't use the internet much.
Someone really should have warned the Romans before that battle: 'never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!'
William George
The obvious answer is that Obama knows what the military knows: they have a secret technology for accomplishing this, and will reveal it as part of the episode. This probably means the technology in question was recently stolen by Chinese spies, so the value of keeping it secret has expired.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
And she is unable to mention one magazine she reads. How they could be proud of such a moron I will never understand.
I've sarcastically referred to him as a Messiah myself, as an exaggeration of how some others obviously perceived him, but I'm anything but a right-winger. I was making fun of this habit of investing too much expectation in people who, honestly, are in it as much for themselves and their own Inner Circle as they are for any of the rest of us, regardless which Party's flag they happen to be waving. Our criteria for choosing leaders is just FUBAR and has been for millennia.
Why should she have to mention just one? She has made it very clear that she reads all of them.
Because while they failed to do it, others have made it work to some degree. The mythbusters often retest myths and this is about getting kids into science. This has nothing to do with solar energy safety, or anything else like that. You are seeing conspiracy where there is none.
Arquimedes was indeed Sicilian, but that's considered Greek since Syracuse, capital of Sicily was a Greek nation state, part of the Hellenistic civilization.
And the obvious follow-up:
Thank you, Life of Brian"
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Here we have a fine example of a modified "but clinton". Notice this trolls plumage, that with his call clearly indicates he is a small brained republocrat. Sadly this creatures actually are allowed to vote.
She isn't a sitting government official, so why the fark can't she have a TV show?
If she was still the Governor of Alaska and doing a TV show, then people would have a problem with it.
Now the President, yea he is doing to many side media projects.
They have busted it twice now, and both times it was with two guys and small mirrors. Archimedes would have used large polished shields and have each held by a man.
An experiment in 1973 used 0.75 square metre polished brass mirrors and 70 Greek sailors and had considerably more success at 50m.
Whether it actually happened or not is up for speculation, but it seems that it was at least plausible.
Wasn't totally convinced by the steam cannon either:)
-1 (flamebait) rating for articles.
The only people I ever hear calling him "messiah" are right-wingers. They sound pretty ridiculous and juvenile when they do it. Just FYI.
Then you probably missed Oprah, while weeping, proclaiming him to be "The One" (her words, repeated many times). You have missed Obama himself describing his election as being the point at which the earth would heal and the oceans would recede (his words!). There's a reason that one of Jon Stewart's best satire videos involved a mythic/messianic send-up of Obama with the opening from The Lion King, and going even more over-the-top from there. Perhaps you missed the Greek Temple that was built for his coronation at the DNC convention?
The reason you hear his political opponents making fun of the messianic hoopla is because it exists, right down to mainstream media types talking about how they get shivers down their legs when he makes an appearance. Of course it was all a lot noisier before he was elected. Even some of his most breathless fanboys/girls are realizing that they were being completely irrational.
The people making fun of that BS aren't the ones who look ridiculous - it's the people who still cry and faint when he gives campaign speeches. Just FYI (your words).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I think you missed the intended sarcasm of the OP.
Just to bust yet another right-wing myth: shots of BOTH Reagan and Bush in shirtsleeves in the Oval Office.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/05/bush-jacketless-in-oval-o_n_164513.html
Next?
I'd love to get to meet Kari Byron, too, but he went to all the trouble to get elected *President* just to arrange an introduction? Guy's got style and determination, no doubt.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Since they tried and failed to prove this myth previously they decided to call in an expert in smoke and mirrors !
Testing 1,2,3,4, Testing
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/weird/Las-Vegas-Vdara-Hotel-Death-Ray-104041383.html http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/can-a-building-be-a-sun-death-ray/
Say this battle happened. How do we know for certain? Because X number of people wrote about it or wrote about people having told them about it or having being told about people who heard it from others. If X is large enough, we accept it as fact. If not, well then it becomes myth or religion.
Now, imagine a battle. Ships are going to attack an harbor. Ships ain't easily destroyed by the weapons of the age and worse, if you can hit them, they can hit you. They might be unable to hide, but neither can you, you are on the walls of the defences and the enemy knows this.
So, how can you protect your archers from their archers? Blinding light? Pose them beside mirrors and the enemy can't see them. Simple trick if you think about it. With this blinding light, you can fire countless arrows, even heavy slow ones like fire-arrows and aim at ease.
How would such a tactic, written down by someone who didn't understand and heard it from someone else be recorded?
The mighty ships sailed at the harbour and a blinding light erupted from the walls and one by one the mighty ships were set on fire and sunk.
Death ray is born. Nothing more then smoke and mirrors.
THAT is what disappoints me about the Myth Busters. They far to often examine only part of a myth or add their own elements, the worsed of it being "well we two couldn't do it, so no-one could". Well, I doubt the myth busters could put a man on the moon. So the moon landings are a myth?
Take the pycrete "myth". Why the paper substitution? THAT is not what the myth is about. And I still don't know how such a ship could have set sail. After all I presumed WW2 admirals were smart enough to ask "won't it melt". So why wouldn't it have melted?
Or the Jaws myth. "We are going to examine wether a very large movie monster can ram a ship, but we are going to use a smaller shark because sharks ain't that large in real life..." No shit sherlock. And sharks also don't ram ships in real life.
What next, I am going to test if my cat likes tuna by feeding it dog shit. If it doesn't like that that proofs it doesn't like tuna?
As for the movie myths. Can a pen explode, kill a room of baddies but leave the hero intact... NO. If you think James Bond has myths, you REALLY need to get out more.
The program was okay but has rapidly gone in the general direction of Discovery. Here is a hint. Gay fat guys building bling-bling bikes is NOT science. Mind you, they can go lower. Cakes? Tatoo shops? Why not just relabel it Oprahs Channel and be done with it.
So cool, they are once again going to proof a couple of overweight Americans can't build something that is highly unlike to have ever existed and if it did, not have been able to destroy and entire fleet before the soldiers landed (or swam ashore) and destroyed it. That is supposed to encourage Americans back to science? Fat chance.
We know what Americans think about science. We can see it in the nose-dive the science content on Myth-busters has taken. Unless it goes boom, not intrested. Note the increasing lack of myths that do not go boom.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
About half the episodes of Mythbusters have either some sort of epic science fail in the experiment or are so obviously busted that they might as well not bother testing them (but they do anyway).
We still watch them though.
Obligatory XKCD: http://www.xkcd.com/397/
No sig today...
No, he was Greek, at the time Sicily was a Greek colony.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Graecia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syracuse,_Italy#Greek_period
No.
it's a shining example. i think this country could stand to have a few more government officials quit to start tv shows.
Because those young people grow up and become voters, and have an obvious effect on Scientific research.
It'd be great if we could at least get students to the I-know-enough-to-know-I-know-nothing point.
Not a typewriter
So let me get this straight. It's ok for her to do the TV show thing...because she abandoned her responsibility to the people that voted for her???
I generally agree with much of what you post, Wyatt...but damn. Damn.
Living With a Nerd
Somehow, I'd rather see politicians appear on the "Penn and Teller: Bullshit!" series than on Mythbusters. Penn and Teller often deal with issues that politicians could address, if they were so inclined. Several politicians and bureaucrats have been on the show, mostly promoting ludicrous stupidity, but occasionally being almost sensible.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
The way I see it, I think more presidents should dress informally while in the Oval Office.
I know I work much better if I'm comfortable. Wearing a penguin isn't my idea of comfort.
Living With a Nerd
Even Russian magazines, which she can read from her back porch.
Obligatory xkcd
There are a lot of other shows to complain about for their science instead of the one that gets it mostly (although far from perfectly) right.
Here are 3, including one which specifically cites a 27% estimate for the overall population. Thanks for playing.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0709/58_of_GOP_not_suredont_beleive_Obama_born_in_US.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/05/poll_31_percent_of_republicans.html
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/poll-27-of-americans-are-birthers----including-41-of-republicans.php
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
If they could debunk that successfully it would be fantastic. People have been trying for a couple of years now, and still over 25% of this country is convinced he wasn't legally elected.
That's better than Bush Jr's stats, where over 50% was convinced he wasn't legally elected.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
http://www.xkcd.com/397/
Saying B is not worse "then" A is not a denial that A is true.
Maybe they will bust the myth that he is any different from George W Bush or any of the other freedom hating Republican and Democrat politicians.
No. Teaching school kids to sing Obama songs ("mmm mmm mmm, Barack Hussen Obama ... we're all equal in his sight ... mmm mmmm mmm"), and trotting out gems about how his election will mark the healing of the earth and the receding of the oceans ... that is loopy messianic crazy stuff. Not at all the same as being proud of one's country (and quite the opposite of actively, rhetorically trashing on a regular basis, or having your proxies do so). If being reflexively patriotic is a bad thing, isn't being reflexively un-patriotic just the same?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Let's compare: President Obama, Columbia political science grad, Harvard law post-grad, lecturer on Constitutional law at University of Chicago, offered a tenured position as professor but turned it down to run for office.
Or: Sarah Palin. Beauty pageant winner, BA in communications and....that's it.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
This article is, for some unclear reason, tagged "politics". Just because a politician shows up somewhere does not make an event political; the Easter Egg Hunt every year at the whitehouse is not automatically a "democratic" or "republican" event just because the POTUS is one or the other.
Unless, of course, the people who are tagging this science event "politics" are stating that the democrats are pro-science and the republicans are anti-science, which is at least partially true.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Their science isn't always perfect, no. But their overall methodology is pretty decent.
Step 1) Define the question.
Step 2) Make a guess as to what will happen.
Step 3) Design a test to confirm or deny your guess.
Step 4) Try the test and see what happens.
Step 5) If the producers have given you enough money, and your first test didn't work, repeat until you get an actual result.
Sure, it's not perfect, but they do push the idea of forming a hypothesis and testing it, rather than just assuming that common wisdom is true. Which is, when you get right down to it, the essence of science.
(That said, they have been slipping the last few seasons... they've fallen a little to much into "We have lots of money, we can just add dynamite!" territory, and a little too little into "Hey, let's show the math to explain this weird thing we just found.")
"This is part of a White House effort to highlight the importance of science education"
I'm not sure how the two are related. Every time I've seen the show they've gone out of their way to hide any science content from the viewer.
When it's been unavoidable, they've shown placards reading "Warning: Science content"
From my perspective, Mythbusters seems pretty anti-science.
Required reading for internet skeptics
They have busted it twice now, and both times it was with two guys and small mirrors.
Yep: They busted it because they didn't do it right.
They should try it this way:
- "Pave" the battlements or hills with "soldiers" armed with double-sided flat mirrors with a small hole in them, as large as is convenient for each to hold for significant periods, i.e. the size of a Greek shield. (The back sides only need to be shiny around the hole.)
- Have them hold up their shields at partial arms-length in front of them, look through the hole at the target, and adjust the tilt until the bright spot on their own reflection where the sun shines through the hole is also aligned with the hole.
That lets you build an arbitrarily large solar concentrator with very good focus.
(I think it was Arthur C. Clarke who used this trick in a short story. The army of a small South American country, seated as a block in the stands at a soccer game, uses mirror-fronted program books to ignite the head referee after the first bad call against their team.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You can look up all the episodes here. The first time they looked at this myth was in 2004. The second time was in 2006.
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
Why is math education important in public schools?
The vast majority of students will not be mathematicians or accountants, and will not have any opportunity to reinforce the information they learn, and hence will forget it all by the time they are 20.
--OR--
Why is english education important in public schools?
The vast majority of students will not be writers, and will not have any opportunity to reinforce the information they learn, and hence will forget it all by the time they are 20.
--OR--
Why is history education important in public schools?
The vast majority of students will not be historians, and will not have any opportunity to reinforce the information they learn, and hence will forget it all by the time they are 20.
--OR--
Why is physical education important in public schools?
The vast majority of students will not be althletes, and will not have any opportunity to reinforce the information they learn, and hence will forget it all by the time they are 20.
You can apply this argument to pretty much every school subject - so your question is really "why do we send children to school"?
They do sound pretty juvenile, I wonder who is being parodied? Oh, that's right, they're making fun of the left-wingers!
“I cried all night. I’m going to be crying for the next four years,” he said. “What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history. ... The event itself is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance.”
-- Jesse Jackson, Jr.
"Does it not feel as if some special hand is guiding Obama on his journey, I mean, as he has said, the utter improbability of it all?"
-- Daily Kos
"He communicates God-like energy..."
-- Steve Davis (Charleston, SC)
"Not just an ordinary human being but indeed an Advanced Soul"
-- Commentator Chicago Sun Times
"He is not operating on the same plane as ordinary politicians. . . . the agent of transformation in an age of revolution, as a figure uniquely qualified to open the door to the 21st century."
-- Gary Hart
"Barack Obama is our collective representation of our purest hopes, our highest visions and our deepest knowings . . . He's our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence."
-- Eve Konstantine
"This is bigger than Kennedy. . . . This is the New Testament." "I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often. No, seriously. It's a dramatic event."
-- Chris Matthews
"Obama has the capacity to summon heroic forces from the spiritual depths of ordinary citizens and to unleash therefrom a symphonic chorus of unique creative acts whose common purpose is to tame the soul and alleviate the great challenges facing mankind."
-- Gerald Campbell
"We're here to evolve to a higher plane . . . he is an evolved leader . . . [he] has an ear for eloquence and a Tongue dipped in the Unvarnished Truth."
-- Oprah Winfrey
“I would characterize the Senate race as being a race where Obama was, let’s say, blessed and highly favored. That’s not routine. There’s something else going on. I think that Obama, his election to the Senate, was divinely ordered. . . . I know that that was God’s plan."
-- Bill Rush
Previously on the Obama campaign site - has since been removed:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3008/2619205229_cc2d84e9c6.jpg?v=0
Rabbi David Saperstein, reading from Psalms in English and Hebrew, noticed from the altar that the good men and women of the congregation that day, including the Bidens and other dignitaries, had not yet stood. Finally Bishop Vashti McKenzie of the African Methodist Church asked that everyone rise. At that moment Saperstein saw something from his angle of vision: "If I had seen it in a movie I would have groaned and said, 'Give me a break. That's so trite.'" A beam of morning light shown [sic] through the stained-glass windows and illuminated the president-elect's face. Several of the clergy and choir on the altar who also saw it marveled afterward about the presence of the Divine.
The Promise: President Obama, Year One, by Jonathan Alter.
"In a way Obama is standing above the country, above the world. He's sort of GOD. He's going to bring all different sides together."
- Newsweek editor Evan Thomas
"No one saw him coming, and Christians believe God comes at us from strange angles and places we don't expect, like Jesus being born in a manger."
Some see God's will in Obama win, by Dahleen Glanton. Chicago Tribune November 29, 2008.
"Lame" - Galaxar
Insightfully and concisely put. The amazing thing is that this system still works better than anything else humanity has tried. Scary, really.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
She knows how to read? Thats something for myth busters to investigate.
So let me get this straight. It's ok for her to do the TV show thing...because she abandoned her responsibility to the people that voted for her???
In Alaska, anyone can accuse the Governer of an ethics violation, which the governer must spend $thousands of his personal money to defend against. The governer is forbidden by law from estabishing a legeal defense fund to protect against abuse of this tactic. Sarah Palin was forced out of office by lawsuit abuse, plain and simple.
I've never understood the Palin hatedom. She seems fairly representative of the mainstream of the American right - do people really hate their neighbors so much?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
uh no, it actually happened. (newspapers, not magazines)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRkWebP2Q0Y
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Sails have several major things going against them as an attack vector. First, they tend to be pretty light in color, so a good bit of the light reflects rather than being absorbed. Second, they tend to flap and/or move more erratically, making it simultaneously harder to focus on a specific place. Third, a sail fire is non-fatal to the ship itself, and is a lot easier to put out than a pitch fire. If you want to set a trireme on fire, aim low and aim at pitch. It's dark, it doesn't move a lot, and once you ignite it it burns like a sunovabitch.
More importantly, their initial tests were not testing the actual flammability of the material, but what temperatures could be achieved using bronze shields that had been shaped as half-decent mirrors. Their maximum temperature at 60 feet using 400 square feet of bronze was about 200 degrees (not only not enough to ignite dry material, but not enough to boil water). Even dry paper, as Ray Bradbury taught us all, ignites at around 451 degrees. The Mythbusters were shooting for 600 degrees to guarantee ignition, and even once they added a bunch of additional mirrors they only got 280.
They did revisit it, by the way. An MIT team was challenged to repeat the experiment at 100 feet, and they were actually able to ignite the boat at 75 feet. Using modern glass mirrors (not bronze) to ignite a dry boat (not damp) located on a rooftop in full sun and at optimal angle (so if you had an Eastern shore, you'd better hope the enemy was attacking in the mid-morning hours).
It wasn't just busted because they couldn't set a boat on fire at a reasonable distance, but because they could only set it on fire with non-period materials under optimal circumstances using potentially thousands of troops, where a simple flaming arrow could be fired by a single person, start a much more aggressive fire, and work over at least three times the distance (100 yards isn't a terribly long arrow shot).
Frankly, I'm with a few other people, it's a great idea getting the Mythbusters involved in getting kids into science (because, as flawed as it is, the show really does push experimentation and questioning your assumptions, which is the foundation of science). It's just that doing so by doing a THIRD take on a myth that is so obviously debunked is.. well.. a little foolish.
The Mythbusters don't always get it right the first time, but they have demonstrated that they are VERY open to disproving their own prior results, and have done so on more than one occasion. They aren't experts in anything they do, but they are good scientists, in that they make an honest effort to control for variables and don't appear to instantly dismiss theories and feedback they don't agree with. They subject it to experimentation.
Plus, of course, there's almost always a satisfying explosion. :)
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
No, she *did* say it, and SNL mocked it.
More specifically, she said it in an interview with Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/25/palin-talks-russia-with-k_n_129318.html
It was in response to a question asking why Palin was convinced that her proximity to Russia gave her foreign policy experience.
Obama did no actual work for any of that...he doesn't apepar to have learned anything beyond gaming the system
And you would know this because? Are you a lawyer? Did you graduate from Columbia or Harvard? Were you editor of the Harvard law review?
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
I understand that elitism can divide people and make someone seem "removed", but that doesn't mean us "elite college types" can't have a beer and be a neighbor.* Nor does it mean that social skills make for the best leaders. I mean, a big part of the job is talking to the masses, meeting other figureheads, and all the jazz, but that's the fluff. The important part of the presidency is making big plans about fixing the problems that plague the land and setting the course so such problems don't arise. "I know how it feels to be poor and wretched" doesn't make anyone less poor or less wretched. And then there's probably a reason they were poor and wretched to start with. I'm just saying that electing someone from the "bottom half" and putting them in charge isn't the best idea.
*hmmm, upon reflection though, I can't really say much about this topic. I hardly know any of my neighbors and meeting people is mostly a sham of acting "normal". But I think most people try to put on a good face when meeting others. I only really relax around my friends, because they've accepted my weirdness and I put up with their shit.
Not always perfect? Half the time is isn't even there, and of the balance 'science' is just a fig leaf to give them an excuse to blow stuff up or burn it down. Or, in other words, if Mythbusters is a science show - Julia Child is a woodworking show.
On the odd occasions they actually do use some kind of half-ass pseudo scientific methodology, sure it's "pretty decent" - once you lower you standards far enough. The rest of the time, it's utter crap designed to give them an excuse to blow stuff up or burn it down.
Now, blowing stuff up or burning it down gratuitously is cool and all, but it isn't science. It's not even close.
Don't watch Oprah, don't care.
As for what Obama himself said.
You don't quite quote him correctly, but so what, I guess. You do misstate where the quote came from. It came from the end of the speech he gave when accepting the democratic nomination. Again, so what, I guess.
However, you seem to imply that that he was calling himself some kind of savior, and that I don't believe, and I think that it's certainly worth pointing out that he said a bunch of other things as well:
America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.
The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when [...]
Right or wrong I think he made it clear that these things weren't things that he, alone, could do. These are issues that take many people working for them. And that makes him believe himself to be a leader, *not* a messiah.
I don't know if it's possible to burn nearly 10 years of positive karma in one post, but this appears to be the thread to attempt it on, so here goes...
I have never before seen such a complete orgasmic crap-fest of bashing a single person in one place as I have with Palin in this comment thread.
I get that people believe she is stupid (arguable). I get that people loathe her because she's conservative (fine). I get that people believe that not being fully-credentialed with a degree means that you have no intelligence (patently untrue).
What I don't get is how this circle-jerk of "dude, I hate her TOO!" is not as evidently moronic to the people participating in it as it should be.
Don't like stupid people? Cool...fine. Think Palin's stupid? Okie-dokie. Feel the need to be the 12,000th slashdotter to note her perceived ignorance in the same frigging thread? You fail it.
Let me be clear, I don't expect people to rally around me, here, but I caught myself saying "seriously?" so many times while looking for actual discussion of the president appearing on Mythbusters that I had to share my irritation.
As a side-note, "Flamebait" is the appropriate down-mod for a statement that you feel will draw a largely negative response because of its content. "Troll" is for when someone says something unkind or untrue in order to drum up a disagreement.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Amusingly most of the SNL skit stuff that was said were just exaggerations of things she had actually said, no different than when politicians turn generally reasonable statements about a topic into extremes to make an opponent sound bad, like "X sometimes agrees with Obama" into "X is just a rubber stamp for Obama, let me list every time he's agreed with Obama and pretend there are no counterexamples!"
Honestly she turned me off of her in one interview where she couldn't answer the question of what the actual duties of the office she was running for were -- seriously, shouldn't that be the most basic thing you know and can answer on the spot? Especially for the office of vice president, which has an amazingly short list of actual duties?
Never hear of the Corrupt Bastard's Club? That's what they called themselves, they had hats made and everything. Politics-as-usual would have had all these bastards go free after the new GOP governer took over, much like Ted Stevens walked to to "gross prosecutorial misconduct". Surprisingly, it didn't go down that way.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Yet, somehow, granted his stay in Congress was short, he had the audacity to believe that a President rules. He came in; this is also the fault of his people; with the idea they could run the show. Somehow they perceived that Bush "ruled" and thereby they could too. How his Administration; I am looking at Rahm; and such could have such an upside down view of the current state of politics is beyond me. He blew it right off the bat by handing off all the big bills to Congress to craft and they crafted bills only committees could craft, hulking messes full of graft and crap. When he gave up his leadership role that early he lost any chance of getting it back. Pelosi and Reid run the show, he is just there to put a face on it and also deflect blame, be the lightning rod, be the one they can claim opponents to their legislative crap are really his opponents and only because of his race.
Carter tried and failed by confronting his party and as such became a single term President because he could do nothing. Reagan succeeded by personality as did Clinton. Bush #1 meandered and was relegated to a single term. Bush #2 stepped up after 9/11, frankly I figured he would be a single term, but he provided leadership when it was needed before falling off nearly completely in 08. Obama best hope he can find a good Republican foil in the House to let him step up, Clinton had Gingrinch but honestly I don't even think a Gingrinch can save Obama. He first needs to rule himself before he can lead the US. He comes off as too quick to castigate, he looks for the bad guy across the isle all the while ignoring the fact his own party minimizes him more, hell he had majorities that were proof against the minority party and he still could not get his party in line.
No, inspire comes after you have shown you can lead, he cannot. He got handed accolades before he tried and apparently that set him back further than even his most ardent foes could have hoped.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
You say that as if they called themselves that in a serious way before they were publicly accused of being corrupt, and the Wikipedia article you cite credits the investigations and prosecutions to a bunch of federal bodies, with no link to the governor of Alaska.
And then it eventually turned out that, strictly speaking, he wasn't elected by Florida - more thorough recounts done later on for research purposes made it pretty clear that Florida had actually gone to Gore, but nobody publicized this result too much because it wouldn't have gotten anyone anywhere at that point.
Though of course he was legally elected, given that the Supreme Court ordered the recounts halted since they wouldn't have been done in time.
First off, you see these two parts:
I think it's kind of stupid, but I'm not going to criticize him by saying he shouldn't be on a TV show or anything like that... But, I think that most people think there are different standards for the President versus a private citizen.
And:
Reagan and I think Bush (for instance) always wore formal clothes (suit jacket) in the oval office, afaik. I'm not saying I care one iota about that, but people have very different ideas of what's expected of the president.
I don't think you raped and murdered a girl in 1990, in fact I don't think you did, and I wouldn't care one itoa if you did. But OTHER people might care and think you shouldn't be hanging around their children.
You see, it's the act of mentioning something by mentioning how you're not mentioning it. It's classic weaselese, and that'll get you a troll point right there.
Secondly:
but the president is supposed to be above partisanship,
AHAHAHAHAaaaah. Yeah, you must have been crying your ass off since, oh, George Washington left office.
And while Regan and Bush (both of them maybe?) somehow get a free-ride for appealing to, ah, wait, not YOU of course, but to YOUR FRIENDS views of the presidency for "always wearing formal clothes (suit jacket) in the oval office", your OTHER friends (see, I've got liberal friends, I'm not partisan as I'm accusing other of being) have had an issue with it.
Let me be clear about this: He could dance naked in whatever room he wants and broadcast it live as long as he doesn't preemptively invade any more nations. And if he can avert a econopocalypse and manage to turn it around, I'll even let him have a smoke break now and then.
But hey, maybe you were just trying to be polite. But inserting your complaints within layers of bullshit doesn't really make it any more polite. It adds a veneer of political correctness, but that in turn just pisses some people off even more. And if you truly, honestly, just don't care about it... then why did you post anything at all?
Really? At least under Obama things are moving in the right direction. The economy is picking up, albeit slowly, we're retreating from wars that shouldn't have been started in the first place, civil rights are for the most part being restored and there's been actual focus on real world problems.
Sure he's not perfect, but at least he's trying to get it right. He'd be doing a lot better at this point if the Republicans were actually trying to contribute rather than find ridiculous excuses to shoot down every possible piece of legislation.
The difference in auto insurance is that normally only liability insurance is required. If you choose to not purchase healthcare you are putting the risk on yourself. I'm not completely against the new healthcare legislation, but requiring everyone to purchase insurance seems pretty clearly to be a handout to the health insurance companies to give them more customers and more money which results in even more influence in Washington.
Well, maybe he's bringing along one of our prototype military lasers! There are solid-state 100Kw lasers in test that I'm sure will sink a wooden ship just fine...!
"Kids, remember to study math and science. Because math and science will let you build LASER CANNONS to BLOW #$% UP!"
In reality, the man is weak, politically inept, arrogant, and unable to see the world outside of his own academic contextualization.
That exactly describes my perception of George W. Bush -- except I would hesitate to use the word "academic". I guess it's all a matter of perspective.
I, for one, did not randomly pick someone off the street. I watched campaign coverage and the debates. I attended rallies. I listened to the plans presented by the candidates and I made an educated selection which I do not regret.
Go ahead and see if your show, Double-Blind Peer-Reviewed Published Studies, does well enough to stay on the air :-)
But to MB's credit, they do retest myths when readers provide new incites into experiments. Also think about the economics: does it make better sense to test 300 different myths once or test 100 myths 3 times each?
On a side note, I'd like to see them re-test the Airplane on a Moving Tarmac myth. It looked 50/50 to me, even on the scale model. That's an odd one. Strange physics. I suspect they only did one trial due to insurance worries. A flipping plane can't be ruled out.
Table-ized A.I.
The economy is picking up, albeit slowly
I think this is hard to argue. That is, you can make a very strong argument either way. We'll know in a couple of years, but for now, who knows.
we're retreating from wars that shouldn't have been started in the first place,
By "wars" I assume you mean singular Iraq? Because we're certainly still engaged in Afghanistan, and those are the only two places that we went into under President Bush (right?). A family friend has hit by an IED in the last week or two...alive but his face was virtually blown off apparently. I think something like 17 dead in the last two days? That's not much of a retreat.
civil rights are for the most part being restored
?
there's been actual focus on real world problems
Because terrorism isn't a real world problem? I may not like many of Bush's actions post-9/11, but as someone who worked in Intel in the mid-2000s, a lot of very necessary changes were made. Look at it this way--numerous European (and other) countries have been hit since 9/11. Nothing so spectacular as 9/11 of course but hit nonetheless. We haven't. IMHO, that ain't peanuts.
Secondly, the obvious answer from polls is, most people don't like Obama's solutions.
Sure he's not perfect, but at least he's trying to get it right. He'd be doing a lot better at this point if the Republicans were actually trying to contribute rather than find ridiculous excuses to shoot down every possible piece of legislation.
Right. No need to be such a party loyalist. You're either with us or against us? Republicans are against Democrat bills and they're the bad guys. Ok.
helps rubbish like Creationism, anti-Vaxxers and Homeopathy gain some popularity.
Hey, don't put anti-Vaxxers in with those nutjobs... its terrible usability and the lack of software portability very good reasons to dislike VAX!
(FD: I really don't know if that's true, I was just going for a joke based on my few-hours experience with it)
I've never understood the Palin hatedom. She seems fairly representative of the mainstream of the American right - do people really hate their neighbors so much?
Two points:
Spoken like someone who gets their news from CNN and Comedy Central. The real issues haven't changed under Obama. Gitmo? check, wiretaps? check, coming out against a lawsuit against a Bush AG? check, poor fiscal policies? checkerino.
It's exceptionally easy to take the party line on this. For example, that Obama inherited Bushes' economy and that the wars started under Bush were the primary economic problems. Unfortunately that's not the whole, or even half the story. Speaking of economics, you should read Times list of the 25 people responsible. It's a very objective view of what happened, and guess what? The Democrats were at fault just as much as the Republicans, of course if you listen to Jon Stewart it was all Bushes fault, and if you listen to Limbaugh it was all Clinton's fault. I can't paste into the comments go just google "Time 25 people financial crisis".
I also love you sentiment that the republicans should go along and not block things, even when it is becoming apparent that currently the majority of people want to stop a lot of the things that are currently happening. Just go to any major polling site and read the pols... I suppose that if a Democratic congress were blocking a Republican President you'd suggest that they were simply acting on principal?
I stand by my original statement: they all suck, and that includes Obama
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
This is a site for geeks. What is the geek's arch nemesis (if we're to stereotype)? Jocks and people perceived to be idiots. We don't talk about it too much, but there's usually at least a latent dislike towards people who perceive themselves as intelligent but are pretty obviously not well educated and seem to not be the sharpest tool in the toolbox.
Not only does Palin have those qualities in spades, she's even quite outspoken about her disdain towards the elite, educated types (us). If there were ever to be a person who would be mocked more on slashdot hypothetically I can't imagine what quality they would need in order to exceed Palin's natural ability to attract our ire.
The real issues haven't changed under Obama
I would agree with that, except they were all scaled down. Pretty much all of those issues existed before Bush, and have all been returned to pre-Bush levels. (IE GP is still correct on all of them)
currently the majority of people want to stop a lot of the things that are currently happening.
yes but the reason is generally because they have only heard put of the truth. I think it you break down most of the unpopular changes to what they really, are a majority of people support the changes.
Basically the republican admin did a much better PR job of convincing us that bills like "the patriot bill" were good, the democrats haven't sold their changes into the media. That is mostly Obama's fault. Also I do expect the Republican's to propose at least one meaningful piece of legislation; because it is always possible to find a fault, everything useful has some down side or a possible negative side affect. Until republicans propose something with fewer down sides, they have done nothing but create noise. By saying over and over "just start over", 6 months into the process, without ever doing anything wasn't going to help. I think very few people who have honestly looked at things like the Health-care bill believe it is going to drive costs up faster than they were going to go up without the bill... Sure it will drive costs up, you can't honestly deny that claim, but it will still cost less than the republicans plan of doing nothing but talking about it.
"but this feels like a really weak excuse to have the President on TV"
Your attitude precisely expresses why America is faltering and why other societies are moving into the lead in so many areas of science and technology. Rather than recognizing the importance of any and all efforts to promote science and technology as interesting to kids and our citizenry in its own right, you would rather see the president fail and his appearance in support of such an effort become a political football.
What is truly sad is that the average American kid's education in math and science has fallen so far, that it now takes the President going on an entertainment-based "science" program to even get their interest. Its gotten to the point that one no longer knows which is falling faster in America, its standing in math and science education, its standard of living, or life expectancy, all of which are highly correlated.
I don't know if you have children, but frankly I feel sorry for them if you do. I also feel sorry for the countless other American kids who will grow up in a world where the finest universities will no longer be in the US, where the level of innumeracy and even simple knowledge of basic scientific concepts, such as what constitutes a theory, are beyond the vast majority to comprehend and who foolishly think that their lives won't be affected by the consequences and thus don't bother to promote it, want to pay taxes to support it, nor have the sense to encourage it at every opportunity.
My own sense is that if the President does go on the show and this leads to just one kid growing up to make an important scientific discovery, it will be a far greater accomplishment than anything republicans have done in the past 20 years combined. However, that is just my own opinion and I'll let other scientists stand up and defend all the great work republicans are doing on behalf of science.
You oughta see the converse: right-wingers saying how Bush was ordained by God to be in the White House; how he beat all the odds in the first and second elections and pulled it all off because of prayer
I'm not being biased at all. If you look up in the thread, I'm responding to a comment (now marked as troll) that said Obama and Sarah Palin were equally smart. Which, whatever you think of either of their policies or platforms, is absolutely ridiculous.
I mean, even putting the degrees aside as evidence. Obama can go before an entire roomful of the best politicians in America who are arrayed against them, live, with no prepared questions, and defeat them in debate. Palin can't even handle unscripted softball questions from Katie freakin' Couric. That legendary "What newspapers do you read?" question was a **gift**, and Palin still freaked and blew it.
Conservatives don't want to think Sarah Palin is dumb. But she is. Sorry.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
"Sharks don't ram ships in real life".
The ampullae of Lorenzini are used by sharks for orientation. These electroreceptors can be influenced by ships hulls, which often have much metal. Reports of sharks and whales bumping into ships are not as uncommon as you may think.
No scientific experiment tests "ALL" aspects of a theory. Each test, regardless of how well designed, makes some assumptions that are presumed to be true.
Its because many, for very good reason, see the possibility of her becoming President of the United States as potentially catastrophic for our nation, given her lack of education, insufficient knowledge, or adequate intelligence to be anywhere within a zillion miles of the presidency, not to mention her incredibly divisive politics where she goes around the country to proclaim how happy to be "in the pro-American part of the country" as she did in a recent speech in North Carolina.
If you can't see that, presumably you are stupid enough to be one of her supporters.
On that chart, only the recounts that didn't actually take place seem to have gone for Gore. All of the real recounts, in which Gore's people were somehow allowed to cherry pick the counties recounted, had Bush winning.
Why if only they'd done the constitutionally mandated full recount instead of the gore-friendly cherry-picked recount, maybe gore would've won....
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Fair enough. Some of the person-on-the-street interviews in 2004 I can no longer find, but there was more during his re-election.
"Why is this man in the White House? The majority of America did not vote for him. He's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this." General Jerry Boykin
"He is one of those men God and fate somehow lead to the fore in times of challenge," Governor George Pataki
"I think President Bush is God's man at this hour, and I say this with a great sense of humility." White House official Tim Goeglein
Palin is now going the same direction: Bush, Palin Both Think They're Chosen By God