Of course I have no proof of this, but option 4: Shortly after taking the oath, men in black suits from various powerful governmental and non-governmental agencies and business come meet with him:) What they reveal either makes him change his mind, or ties his hands.
But if you compare Obama historically, he hasn't been much better or much worse than most presidents. Two years in, and his promises kept are 26%, and promises broken at 8%.
Every time something happens we don't like, it is blamed on Obama. To be fair, same with Bush when he was in power. But there is one major difference from the last few presidencies and this one: The number of filibusters, blocks of cloture (or threats thereof). See this graph. Republicans intentionally screwed his agenda for the entire 2 years, and then had a ton of legislation pass right at the end of the session (before xmas).
Since we will likely never know his true thinking, I choose to personally believe that he, and most candidates in general, make "promises" not so much as a real promise, but as a declaration saying "If I get my way, this is what will happen". It would make a pretty annoying political speech if every promise/declaration had to be prefaced by "Well, assuming we control congress, and assuming I currently know all the details about X, and and and...":)
I am asking for more information. What would the "blue side" be at fault for, given their general legislative goals, and given their general political rhetoric? If on one side we have "red side rhetoric incites violence", what is on the other side? Socialistic agenda caused the violence?
Obviously I do not think that any conservative wants the education system, economy, or other areas in our society to be worse. I know that the average conservative citizen has the country's best interest in mind.
Lets look at one case, which I think explains some of my confusion, and my statement "at some point we need to wake up that there is indeed objective reality".
The stimulus under Obama: http://www.jasonwhitener.com/2009/03/14/do-the-republicans-really-want-to-stimulate-the-economy
Republicans aggressively acted to lower many of the things proven to be the most stimulating to the economy. Food stamps is the biggest example.
From that, what should we conclude? Republicans didn't want to stimulate the economy? Of course not. They truly want the best for the country, but in this case, like many others, ideology blinded them to the objective fact.
And you add up case after case, where it is 100% true that A, B, and C create effect X, but the red side won't allow A or B because they just don't like it for ideological reasons, how do you respond?
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that they do. I should have worded it to make clear that I was talking about the circle of conservatives that I am around.
Data published by Dr. James Hansen and others show that CO2 emissions are not the main cause of observed atmospheric warming.
But makes no reference to any statements by Hansen himself, saying that is the proper way to interpret whatever data is being referred to. Do you happen to have a link to Hansen saying that?
Hansen said in "Storms of My Grandchildren" (which I am reading now, but found a google link) that methane accounted for half of co2's warming effect. Google Book
I wish there was a +5 MIS-informative automatically assigned whenever someone linked to or described anything found on climateaudit.org.
Have they found some errors in enormous data sets from time to time? Yeah. Does it fundamentally change the picture that most climate scientists present? Nope.
I half agree with you. I've attempted to talk to conservative relatives about global warming, and gotten no where.
But when I talk to conservatives about reliance on foreign oil, the answer is always 'drill locally baby drill'. If global warming is real, then staying on oil, be it locally produced or foreign, isn't going to help us.
When I talk to them about pollution, I usually get responses along the lines of: "Yeah, it would be nicer if cars were cleaner. But that will just happen over time, the free market will make it happen in its own time, no need to regulate or force it."
If the 'you have no right to govern yourself' (liberals I assume...?) crowd is at fault for something, what is the event that they are at fault for?
Better education? More health care? Food stamps?
The possible effects of the two messages (crosshairs vs big government) are very, very different, with one side rarely leading to violence.
Talk show news has been in a bad habit of always trying to find two sides to every issue. Regardless of the validity of both sides. At some point we need to wake up to the fact that there is indeed objective reality, and one side (and the entirety of Europe) matches reality much more closely.
I do agree that we need to all learn to be more tolerant and patient with each other, but when one side cannot be persuaded by facts, it can get tiring.
I'd love to see the violent game excuse come into play. The shear contradiction from the Fox News pundits would be amusing. On one hand they will be claiming that their (Palin/Beck,etc..) violent innuendos didn't influence him, while on the other hand, claiming that violent images from a game did.....
The bigger issue though is: so what? So he (might be) a conservative? It doesn't change anything about his actions, nor does it reflect badly on all the other millions of conservatives who haven't murdered innocent people. You could make the case that a small minority of conservative talking heads are being irresponsible with their words, inciting violence, sure, but it's not a stain on all conservatives like some are quick to call it.
If it is found out that he was a tea party type person (not likely from what I've read), I would say it certainly does reflect badly on all conservatives who support the tea party rise. The popularity of tea party candidates who espouse "2nd amendment remedies", "If votes don't work, guns will", graphs with gun targets on candidate states, etc, etc.. All that creates a new environment. Something in culture shifts slightly. The constant drum of those violent messages permeates email lists, it fuels more hatred. It sets up a system where your opponent is so foreign, so "other", that joking about killing them becomes accepted political speech.
Lets look at this another way. How many conservatives voted for Palin/McCain? That is the group of conservatives that it does indeed reflect badly on. Palin was just as nutty back then as she is now. McCain even asked her to tone it down at one point in the campaign. She had crowds so worked up in various speeches that people were shouting "Kill Him!" and things like that...
But I don't think we'll find any connections to any political party with this killer. But we all know that the level of violent rhetoric out there has been increasing without check by the mainstream. It is only a matter of time unless the silent majority starts seriously condemning this new climate.
It may be distasteful to you that certain politicians / news anchors are using this incident to condemn violent rhetoric and innuendo, but when is the right time?
The main stream media needs a kick in rear when it comes to calling out TV/journalists who are obviously biased, not reporting truthfully, misleading, and/or even dangerously close to inciting violence.
If this leads to an hour long NBC special on why Glenn Beck is a dangerous idiot, I can live with some of the distaste of using a probably non-related shooting event to get the ball rolling.
You have to admit that the level of misleading / violent rhetoric has been steadily rising in the last decade. Yet the bulk of the 'middle', the mainstream politicians and mainstream news industry has been silent on the matter for that entire decade.
Enough is enough. Free speech is nice and all, but it should be pretty obvious that some lines were crossed. The whole 'birther movement' for example. If a similar level of libel and slander were directed at an individual not in politics, he/she could sue. I wish we were closer to the UK system. Wasn't it just recently that a British politician lost his job, when it was found that ads he ran were misleading/false?
If we don't want to adjust libel and slander laws to cover politics, then the mainstream really needs something to motivate them to stand up and shout down the plethora of idiots who seem to have taken over the conservative right.
According to this: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22533 The 2010 defense budget was 680 billion plus 37 billion added on later in the year. That includes the wars.
According to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Interest_-_Stacked_bar_chart_2006_-_2007.png The 2009 (couldn't find 2010) interest expense on the debt was 381 billion.
Assuming the original social security number is right: 680+37+677.95+381=1775 billion. Still not equal to the total budget, but.... uncomfortably close.
The middle class have more "things" to keep them happy, sure. But it generally requires two people working full time to have that home, car or 2, and all the comforts that we believe we need (cable tv, etc..). In 1950, it was 1 full time worker for that home, car, etc..
But I would guess that the post you replied to is mostly looking at income inequality. Graph of income
1970 until now, the middle class really hasn't had a pay increase, when adjusted by inflation. The middle has stayed middle, (or slightly gone below historic middle depending on how you view the data). The rich, on the other hand, have gotten progressively more rich in comparison.
Wealth really is concentrating at the top. Just because you have enough gadgets to keep you happy doesn't necessarily mean you are receiving a fair slice of societies pie.
It is pretty interesting looking at income inequality and economic depressions. Look how similar income distribution was right before the great depression and right before our current depression historic graph
Old thread, so I doubt anyone will read this, but...
Perhaps the focus on education is somewhat misplaced. You are correct that no one person can be an expert in everything that they will face in life. What seems to be lacking in our eduction system isn't the teaching of facts (although of course that could be improved), but the ability to evaluate sources.
Grades 1-12, for most people, contain no courses on critical thinking. And by the time you are off to college, you have largely made up your mind about the world in general ideological terms. It is very rare to be taught by a truly neutral teacher. The vast majority of our teachers, parents, etc.. are generally set in their ways (left/right,religious/atheist, etc...). How could a child possibly develop the ability to critically evaluate sources of information in that environment.
Many people would contend that the way to instill critical thinking skills is to merely expose a child to a wide range of viewpoints as quickly as possible. Then that blossoming mind will automatically somehow see that there are very few truly black and white situations. Now, that is somewhat true for areas that are truly grey (certain humanity, philosophy, and history courses for example), but it falls flat on its face when confronted by areas such as science.
And even then, having a young mind gradually realize that the world contains many grey areas, doesn't necessarily mean that good critical thinking skills develop out of that understanding. Indeed, understanding the grey areas of humanity is the place where critical thinking is most critical!
I think your notion of some sort of proportional representation based on knowledge wouldn't work. It won't work until people are taught to be critical thinkers, and taught to evaluate sources. Take most cable news shows for example. Even when they "defer to the expert", half the time the expert is a quack.
(another issue is religious belief in general. training your mind to accept a certain body of knowledge on faith, rather than reason, is extremely dangerous if you can't evaluate what belongs in the realm of faith versus the real of fact. This problem is greatly compounded by the general lack of critical thinking skills in our population)
It is a little less convenient than being able to walk into a store near your house, but there are some online options. Ed Schultz promotes these quite often:
"Also to claim amazon or google or whoever has some kind of monopoly is ridiculous. There are tons of other bookstores where I can shop..."
If Walmart decides that a certain music CD is too dirty, they say "clean it up/beep it, or we won't sell it". That single corporation can make or break any number of products, as well as reshape the contents of those products. There have been numerous articles describing this influence.
While you are correct that you can buy a book/movie from numerous sources, if the top 1 or 2 mega stores decide that a product is bad, good luck finding the product (or an uncensored version).
Now, while this may be less true when dealing with smaller indie labels, smaller book publishers, etc.. it certainly is true for any major label/movie studio. No producer/publisher/record label is going to back expensive products if they can't get them on the shelves of the mega stores. Of course, you can find a few exceptions (certain rap artists that do well despite walmart refusing to carry them), but in general, the mega stores do drastically effect what is or is not produced/published.
Not technically a monopoly, but the the influence is so vast that it should be called one.
Walmart alone was worrisome and sparked quite a few articles about content producers complaining about walmart's influence in deciding what sells and what doesn't sell. To see Amazon joining in these practices is scary. If Walmart, Amazon, and a couple other mega sellers stop carrying "edge content", are publishers/producers going to bother footing the bills for an artist to create it?
Darn. I hit cancel by mistake, so I lost my longer post.
Anyway, to summarize:
I think it would be trivial to exclude quality of service decisions from net neutrality ideology. Many laws are vague. That is what juries, judges, and trials are for: making (hopefully!) common sense decisions about the law based on the intent of that law.
Filtering spam, or cutting off a botnet, would be obviously different (to a jury) than you making, say, Netflix really slow, while at the same time opening a competing "online streaming video store".
I've always thought of computer science as being way to broad a concept to have as a degree. In my mind, it is much the same as saying "I have a degree in Social Science". Schools really should break it up into more specialized degrees.
"Some 30 pesticides are known to disrupt SNF; the most widely used pesticide in the United States, glyphosate (Roundup) is known to be toxic to nitrogen fixing bacteria."
Regardless, I'd be more curious about what level of reduction they are talking about.
If chemical free farming = 10 units of whatever harvested. Does nitrogen+pesticides = 20 units of whatever, however Does nitrogen+overuse of pesticides = 17 units of whatever?
Slashdot Mirror
"liar, weak, or naive"
Of course I have no proof of this, but option 4: Shortly after taking the oath, men in black suits from various powerful governmental and non-governmental agencies and business come meet with him:) What they reveal either makes him change his mind, or ties his hands.
But if you compare Obama historically, he hasn't been much better or much worse than most presidents. Two years in, and his promises kept are 26%, and promises broken at 8%.
Every time something happens we don't like, it is blamed on Obama. To be fair, same with Bush when he was in power. But there is one major difference from the last few presidencies and this one: The number of filibusters, blocks of cloture (or threats thereof). See this graph. Republicans intentionally screwed his agenda for the entire 2 years, and then had a ton of legislation pass right at the end of the session (before xmas).
Since we will likely never know his true thinking, I choose to personally believe that he, and most candidates in general, make "promises" not so much as a real promise, but as a declaration saying "If I get my way, this is what will happen". It would make a pretty annoying political speech if every promise/declaration had to be prefaced by "Well, assuming we control congress, and assuming I currently know all the details about X, and and and...":)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy
This link might be more informative for him:
History of how the averaging method was derived
I am asking for more information. What would the "blue side" be at fault for, given their general legislative goals, and given their general political rhetoric? If on one side we have "red side rhetoric incites violence", what is on the other side? Socialistic agenda caused the violence?
Obviously I do not think that any conservative wants the education system, economy, or other areas in our society to be worse. I know that the average conservative citizen has the country's best interest in mind.
Lets look at one case, which I think explains some of my confusion, and my statement "at some point we need to wake up that there is indeed objective reality".
The stimulus under Obama:
http://www.jasonwhitener.com/2009/03/14/do-the-republicans-really-want-to-stimulate-the-economy
Republicans aggressively acted to lower many of the things proven to be the most stimulating to the economy. Food stamps is the biggest example.
From that, what should we conclude? Republicans didn't want to stimulate the economy? Of course not. They truly want the best for the country, but in this case, like many others, ideology blinded them to the objective fact.
And you add up case after case, where it is 100% true that A, B, and C create effect X, but the red side won't allow A or B because they just don't like it for ideological reasons, how do you respond?
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that they do. I should have worded it to make clear that I was talking about the circle of conservatives that I am around.
The article states that:
Data published by Dr. James Hansen and others show that CO2 emissions are not the main cause of observed atmospheric warming.
But makes no reference to any statements by Hansen himself, saying that is the proper way to interpret whatever data is being referred to. Do you happen to have a link to Hansen saying that?
Hansen said in "Storms of My Grandchildren" (which I am reading now, but found a google link) that methane accounted for half of co2's warming effect. Google Book
I wish there was a +5 MIS-informative automatically assigned whenever someone linked to or described anything found on climateaudit.org.
Have they found some errors in enormous data sets from time to time? Yeah. Does it fundamentally change the picture that most climate scientists present? Nope.
I half agree with you. I've attempted to talk to conservative relatives about global warming, and gotten no where.
But when I talk to conservatives about reliance on foreign oil, the answer is always 'drill locally baby drill'. If global warming is real, then staying on oil, be it locally produced or foreign, isn't going to help us.
When I talk to them about pollution, I usually get responses along the lines of: "Yeah, it would be nicer if cars were cleaner. But that will just happen over time, the free market will make it happen in its own time, no need to regulate or force it."
I do not have much hope that I can change their minds, giving the obvious bias of their favorite news source
Doh, missed that, thanks.
At fault for what though?
If the 'you have no right to govern yourself' (liberals I assume...?) crowd is at fault for something, what is the event that they are at fault for?
Better education?
More health care?
Food stamps?
The possible effects of the two messages (crosshairs vs big government) are very, very different, with one side rarely leading to violence.
Talk show news has been in a bad habit of always trying to find two sides to every issue. Regardless of the validity of both sides. At some point we need to wake up to the fact that there is indeed objective reality, and one side (and the entirety of Europe) matches reality much more closely.
I do agree that we need to all learn to be more tolerant and patient with each other, but when one side cannot be persuaded by facts, it can get tiring.
There was a Ted Talk about this very issue:
Take the other to lunch
I'd love to see the violent game excuse come into play. The shear contradiction from the Fox News pundits would be amusing. On one hand they will be claiming that their (Palin/Beck,etc..) violent innuendos didn't influence him, while on the other hand, claiming that violent images from a game did.....
The bigger issue though is: so what? So he (might be) a conservative? It doesn't change anything about his actions, nor does it reflect badly on all the other millions of conservatives who haven't murdered innocent people. You could make the case that a small minority of conservative talking heads are being irresponsible with their words, inciting violence, sure, but it's not a stain on all conservatives like some are quick to call it.
If it is found out that he was a tea party type person (not likely from what I've read), I would say it certainly does reflect badly on all conservatives who support the tea party rise. The popularity of tea party candidates who espouse "2nd amendment remedies", "If votes don't work, guns will", graphs with gun targets on candidate states, etc, etc.. All that creates a new environment. Something in culture shifts slightly. The constant drum of those violent messages permeates email lists, it fuels more hatred. It sets up a system where your opponent is so foreign, so "other", that joking about killing them becomes accepted political speech.
Lets look at this another way. How many conservatives voted for Palin/McCain? That is the group of conservatives that it does indeed reflect badly on. Palin was just as nutty back then as she is now. McCain even asked her to tone it down at one point in the campaign. She had crowds so worked up in various speeches that people were shouting "Kill Him!" and things like that...
But I don't think we'll find any connections to any political party with this killer. But we all know that the level of violent rhetoric out there has been increasing without check by the mainstream. It is only a matter of time unless the silent majority starts seriously condemning this new climate.
It may be distasteful to you that certain politicians / news anchors are using this incident to condemn violent rhetoric and innuendo, but when is the right time?
The main stream media needs a kick in rear when it comes to calling out TV/journalists who are obviously biased, not reporting truthfully, misleading, and/or even dangerously close to inciting violence.
If this leads to an hour long NBC special on why Glenn Beck is a dangerous idiot, I can live with some of the distaste of using a probably non-related shooting event to get the ball rolling.
You have to admit that the level of misleading / violent rhetoric has been steadily rising in the last decade. Yet the bulk of the 'middle', the mainstream politicians and mainstream news industry has been silent on the matter for that entire decade.
Enough is enough. Free speech is nice and all, but it should be pretty obvious that some lines were crossed. The whole 'birther movement' for example. If a similar level of libel and slander were directed at an individual not in politics, he/she could sue. I wish we were closer to the UK system. Wasn't it just recently that a British politician lost his job, when it was found that ads he ran were misleading/false?
If we don't want to adjust libel and slander laws to cover politics, then the mainstream really needs something to motivate them to stand up and shout down the plethora of idiots who seem to have taken over the conservative right.
Hmm, interesting.
According to this: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22533
The 2010 defense budget was 680 billion plus 37 billion added on later in the year. That includes the wars.
According to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Interest_-_Stacked_bar_chart_2006_-_2007.png
The 2009 (couldn't find 2010) interest expense on the debt was 381 billion.
Assuming the original social security number is right:
680+37+677.95+381=1775 billion. Still not equal to the total budget, but.... uncomfortably close.
Sorry, the historic graph link failed. I probably typo'd the end
Inequality helped cause depression
The middle class have more "things" to keep them happy, sure. But it generally requires two people working full time to have that home, car or 2, and all the comforts that we believe we need (cable tv, etc..). In 1950, it was 1 full time worker for that home, car, etc..
But I would guess that the post you replied to is mostly looking at income inequality.
Graph of income
1970 until now, the middle class really hasn't had a pay increase, when adjusted by inflation. The middle has stayed middle, (or slightly gone below historic middle depending on how you view the data). The rich, on the other hand, have gotten progressively more rich in comparison.
Wealth really is concentrating at the top. Just because you have enough gadgets to keep you happy doesn't necessarily mean you are receiving a fair slice of societies pie.
It is pretty interesting looking at income inequality and economic depressions. Look how similar income distribution was right before the great depression and right before our current depression historic graph
Old thread, so I doubt anyone will read this, but...
Perhaps the focus on education is somewhat misplaced. You are correct that no one person can be an expert in everything that they will face in life. What seems to be lacking in our eduction system isn't the teaching of facts (although of course that could be improved), but the ability to evaluate sources.
Grades 1-12, for most people, contain no courses on critical thinking. And by the time you are off to college, you have largely made up your mind about the world in general ideological terms. It is very rare to be taught by a truly neutral teacher. The vast majority of our teachers, parents, etc.. are generally set in their ways (left/right,religious/atheist, etc...). How could a child possibly develop the ability to critically evaluate sources of information in that environment.
Many people would contend that the way to instill critical thinking skills is to merely expose a child to a wide range of viewpoints as quickly as possible. Then that blossoming mind will automatically somehow see that there are very few truly black and white situations. Now, that is somewhat true for areas that are truly grey (certain humanity, philosophy, and history courses for example), but it falls flat on its face when confronted by areas such as science.
And even then, having a young mind gradually realize that the world contains many grey areas, doesn't necessarily mean that good critical thinking skills develop out of that understanding. Indeed, understanding the grey areas of humanity is the place where critical thinking is most critical!
I think your notion of some sort of proportional representation based on knowledge wouldn't work. It won't work until people are taught to be critical thinkers, and taught to evaluate sources. Take most cable news shows for example. Even when they "defer to the expert", half the time the expert is a quack.
(another issue is religious belief in general. training your mind to accept a certain body of knowledge on faith, rather than reason, is extremely dangerous if you can't evaluate what belongs in the realm of faith versus the real of fact. This problem is greatly compounded by the general lack of critical thinking skills in our population)
It is a little less convenient than being able to walk into a store near your house, but there are some online options. Ed Schultz promotes these quite often:
http://madeinusaforever.com/
http://www.allamericanclothing.com/
http://www.usacoffeecompany.com/
"Also to claim amazon or google or whoever has some kind of monopoly is ridiculous. There are tons of other bookstores where I can shop..."
If Walmart decides that a certain music CD is too dirty, they say "clean it up/beep it, or we won't sell it". That single corporation can make or break any number of products, as well as reshape the contents of those products. There have been numerous articles describing this influence.
While you are correct that you can buy a book/movie from numerous sources, if the top 1 or 2 mega stores decide that a product is bad, good luck finding the product (or an uncensored version).
Now, while this may be less true when dealing with smaller indie labels, smaller book publishers, etc.. it certainly is true for any major label/movie studio. No producer/publisher/record label is going to back expensive products if they can't get them on the shelves of the mega stores. Of course, you can find a few exceptions (certain rap artists that do well despite walmart refusing to carry them), but in general, the mega stores do drastically effect what is or is not produced/published.
Not technically a monopoly, but the the influence is so vast that it should be called one.
Walmart alone was worrisome and sparked quite a few articles about content producers complaining about walmart's influence in deciding what sells and what doesn't sell. To see Amazon joining in these practices is scary. If Walmart, Amazon, and a couple other mega sellers stop carrying "edge content", are publishers/producers going to bother footing the bills for an artist to create it?
I'm not exactly sure what people think Obama could have done differently given that the Republicans intentionally broke the Senate.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/the-rise-of-cloture-how-gop-filibuster-threats-have-changed-the-senate.php
You think the Republicans would all of a sudden allow real progressive legislation to actually come up for a vote if Biden was President over Obama?
Darn. I hit cancel by mistake, so I lost my longer post.
Anyway, to summarize:
I think it would be trivial to exclude quality of service decisions from net neutrality ideology. Many laws are vague. That is what juries, judges, and trials are for: making (hopefully!) common sense decisions about the law based on the intent of that law.
Filtering spam, or cutting off a botnet, would be obviously different (to a jury) than you making, say, Netflix really slow, while at the same time opening a competing "online streaming video store".
I've always thought of computer science as being way to broad a concept to have as a degree. In my mind, it is much the same as saying "I have a degree in Social Science". Schools really should break it up into more specialized degrees.
Well the article said,
"Some 30 pesticides are known to disrupt SNF; the most widely used pesticide in the United States, glyphosate (Roundup) is known to be toxic to nitrogen fixing bacteria."
Regardless, I'd be more curious about what level of reduction they are talking about.
If chemical free farming = 10 units of whatever harvested.
Does nitrogen+pesticides = 20 units of whatever, however
Does nitrogen+overuse of pesticides = 17 units of whatever?
Let's see, in reality clothianidin was granted full approval this year -- April 2010!
The article states: "In 2003, the EPA approved clothianidin for use in the United States."
Where are you reading this 2010 date at? Searching for clothianidin approval just leads to pages of similar articles talking about 2003.
Rosling's Ted Talk