Insightful and funny. It just goes to show how out of it MS PR is. It's one thing to understand the Chinese government has a problem with the idea of democracy, but to assume that they therefore have a problem with the word democracy is a stretch.
Microsoft: delivering the office productivity tools the modern Chinese bureaucrat needs to torture dissidents and promote worldwide cultural revolution.
Again this example is not comparable. I agree the phrase "enemy of the planet" is pretty unprofessional in this context, but it's quite possible that your friend's funding was denied on merit rather than ideology. But in either case it doesn't compare to actually editing the conclusions of scientists to change the results to match ideology. For me this isn't a case of liberal vs. conservative -- while I disagree politically with the Reagan, Nixon, Bush 1 admins, I never would have expected such obviously Orwellian actions from any of them. This administration is a cartoon....
Oh come on. You're the third person to whine about it being from the Times in this thread. A generic whine about "the media" is not a response to a specific media story, this one based on evidence scrawled on the report that can easily be looked up. This story was also covered in much of the major media around the world, including NPR here. The Bush Administration is interviewed on the realaudio link I liked and they don't even deny the story. So do you people automatically disbelieve everything you read in the Times, and only believe what you read on slashdot? I can't believe I'm wasting my time responding to this....
Have any sources or links that others can see, or is this all hearsay from your friend? I agree that this would be just as bad if another administration did it, but I suspect your example is a poor one. Either way though you cannot deny that the Bush Administration's hostility to science that does not confirm its narrow worldview has been unprecedented.
Describing uncertainties as "significant and fundamental" makes a, umm, significant and fundamental difference in the way they are interpreted. And that was only one of dozens of changes. And the point was the change was made for PR reasons by a flak who is not a scientist and did not do the studies.
Finally, if your best point is to whine that the NYT is a Bush opponent, get a grip. I suppose if I had cited slashdot it would be more credible to you?
I didn't. I said it was done by the Bush Administration. They happen to be in power right now, and their doctoring of scientific conclusions is alarming. If another Administration did this sort of thing I would also be alarmed; the fact is, no other one, to my knowledge, has done so.
This particular kind of fudging, intentionally misstating scientific conclusions in order to be "ideologically correct," is, in my opinion, unprecedented.
Actually it isn't just one incident. The Bush Administration has been trying to tell scientists what to think since 2000. This may just be the most egregious example of distorting scientific conclusions. There was a House investigation into the issue, and was covered on slashdot before. Worse, the administration attitude toward science is affecting public discourse more generally. This is truly unprecedented and it really is a problem with the Bush Administration. "FUD" has nothing to do with it.
Fair enough, the left distorts science too, but this is different. The NYT article is about a Bush Administration official (a nonscientist, by the way) specifically doctoring the conclusions of studies in order to keep them in line with the Administration's dogma with regard to global warming. What you're talking about is leftists brushing off scientific conclusions because they find them distasteful. You're right, that behavior is lame, but it runs no risk of being interpreted as the conclusions of legitimate scientists on the government payroll. So I really don't think the two situations are even comparable.
You're the one who's full of shit. The WHITE HOUSE CHANGED THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE STUDY because it contradicted their beliefs. Read the link; hell I even provided a realaudio link in case reading is too hard. I can't think of another presidential administration that has pulled anything like that. When the government is telling scientists what they should be concluding, we might as well be IN SOVIET RUSSIA.
This sort of behavior is encouraged by the Bush Administration if results are fudged to favor its position on the environment. Anybody catch this story in the NY Times about the White House doctoring reports on climate change? Here's an interview with Warren Olney about the incident. It seems to me that if we can't trust scientists to tell us the truth regardless of the political implications or of pressure from outside sources, we're really fucked.
Slashdot Mirror
did a hell of a lot more acid too....
Me too; I kept winding up on this page.
With Apple in league with intel, there is a chance that once again I'll be able to run BeOS on a Mac.
Just look at his user ID. If he had a newer chip installed he'd have gotten the joke.
He's a tattoo artist.
When I bought drugs?
but it's much snappier.
Insightful and funny. It just goes to show how out of it MS PR is. It's one thing to understand the Chinese government has a problem with the idea of democracy, but to assume that they therefore have a problem with the word democracy is a stretch.
Microsoft: delivering the office productivity tools the modern Chinese bureaucrat needs to torture dissidents and promote worldwide cultural revolution.
David X Cohen and Matt Groening were like "oooohh? They have the internet on computers now?"
He actually asked NASA for the figures for their annual paper budget, and they sent him a 17.3 million page printout....
Again this example is not comparable. I agree the phrase "enemy of the planet" is pretty unprofessional in this context, but it's quite possible that your friend's funding was denied on merit rather than ideology. But in either case it doesn't compare to actually editing the conclusions of scientists to change the results to match ideology. For me this isn't a case of liberal vs. conservative -- while I disagree politically with the Reagan, Nixon, Bush 1 admins, I never would have expected such obviously Orwellian actions from any of them. This administration is a cartoon....
What's crazy is you appear to be serious. Anyway read this.
Oh come on. You're the third person to whine about it being from the Times in this thread. A generic whine about "the media" is not a response to a specific media story, this one based on evidence scrawled on the report that can easily be looked up. This story was also covered in much of the major media around the world, including NPR here. The Bush Administration is interviewed on the realaudio link I liked and they don't even deny the story. So do you people automatically disbelieve everything you read in the Times, and only believe what you read on slashdot? I can't believe I'm wasting my time responding to this....
sudo corrupt? For when they don't already have the privileges to be corrupt?
Have any sources or links that others can see, or is this all hearsay from your friend? I agree that this would be just as bad if another administration did it, but I suspect your example is a poor one. Either way though you cannot deny that the Bush Administration's hostility to science that does not confirm its narrow worldview has been unprecedented.
Finally, if your best point is to whine that the NYT is a Bush opponent, get a grip. I suppose if I had cited slashdot it would be more credible to you?
I didn't. I said it was done by the Bush Administration. They happen to be in power right now, and their doctoring of scientific conclusions is alarming. If another Administration did this sort of thing I would also be alarmed; the fact is, no other one, to my knowledge, has done so.
This particular kind of fudging, intentionally misstating scientific conclusions in order to be "ideologically correct," is, in my opinion, unprecedented.
Actually it isn't just one incident. The Bush Administration has been trying to tell scientists what to think since 2000. This may just be the most egregious example of distorting scientific conclusions. There was a House investigation into the issue, and was covered on slashdot before. Worse, the administration attitude toward science is affecting public discourse more generally. This is truly unprecedented and it really is a problem with the Bush Administration. "FUD" has nothing to do with it.
Fair enough, the left distorts science too, but this is different. The NYT article is about a Bush Administration official (a nonscientist, by the way) specifically doctoring the conclusions of studies in order to keep them in line with the Administration's dogma with regard to global warming. What you're talking about is leftists brushing off scientific conclusions because they find them distasteful. You're right, that behavior is lame, but it runs no risk of being interpreted as the conclusions of legitimate scientists on the government payroll. So I really don't think the two situations are even comparable.
You're the one who's full of shit. The WHITE HOUSE CHANGED THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE STUDY because it contradicted their beliefs. Read the link; hell I even provided a realaudio link in case reading is too hard. I can't think of another presidential administration that has pulled anything like that. When the government is telling scientists what they should be concluding, we might as well be IN SOVIET RUSSIA.
This sort of behavior is encouraged by the Bush Administration if results are fudged to favor its position on the environment. Anybody catch this story in the NY Times about the White House doctoring reports on climate change? Here's an interview with Warren Olney about the incident. It seems to me that if we can't trust scientists to tell us the truth regardless of the political implications or of pressure from outside sources, we're really fucked.
That's no moon.
OS X - Free as in snappy
MS viruses and trojans - Free as in Willy