He was the closest thing to a sane, competent voice in an administration almost completely devoid of either quality.
Unfortunately, just as being "the closest thing to" an honorable man in a pack of scoundrels is not the same things as being honorable, this does not come as a very high recommendation to me. It's not as though we're talking about some child who was a product of a negative social environment and did his best to rise above it. We're talking about a fully-formed and independent adult who agreed to be part of something and, once there, agreed to go along with things that he knew (or at least should have known) to be wrong.
I do find it kinda sad, because it seems Powell got caught in a position where he had to choose between his duty to the truth (which I would argue was also his duty to the country) and his duty to the administration. The problem is, I think he chose wrongly, and I think he should be fairly held accountable for that.
We finally start to recognize the negative consequences of some change that's happening in nature. There happens to be a preponderance of evidence that certain actions of human society are responsible for this change.
So do we all say "Hey, I guess we need to change our habits" and try to fix the problem at it's most probable source?
No. Instead, some of us say "Well, if messing around with part of our ecosystem without having a clue what we were doing got us into this mess, then, by golly, maybe messing around with a different part of our ecosystem without having a clue what we are doing will get us out of it!"
This really is a sad indicator of human psychology. Even when we recognize our problem, and even when we recognize that we our the source of that problem, we try to fix things by doing anything other than changing ourselves. Mess with the oceans, mess with the clouds, put sun-shades in space, but certainly don't make humans alter their behavior or make society adapt to a new way of meeting our energy needs!
Slashdot Mirror
He was the closest thing to a sane, competent voice in an administration almost completely devoid of either quality.
Unfortunately, just as being "the closest thing to" an honorable man in a pack of scoundrels is not the same things as being honorable, this does not come as a very high recommendation to me. It's not as though we're talking about some child who was a product of a negative social environment and did his best to rise above it. We're talking about a fully-formed and independent adult who agreed to be part of something and, once there, agreed to go along with things that he knew (or at least should have known) to be wrong.
I do find it kinda sad, because it seems Powell got caught in a position where he had to choose between his duty to the truth (which I would argue was also his duty to the country) and his duty to the administration. The problem is, I think he chose wrongly, and I think he should be fairly held accountable for that.
If these Venezuelan blimps decide print their slogans in English, that is.
What? No Oregon Trail?
We finally start to recognize the negative consequences of some change that's happening in nature. There happens to be a preponderance of evidence that certain actions of human society are responsible for this change. So do we all say "Hey, I guess we need to change our habits" and try to fix the problem at it's most probable source? No. Instead, some of us say "Well, if messing around with part of our ecosystem without having a clue what we were doing got us into this mess, then, by golly, maybe messing around with a different part of our ecosystem without having a clue what we are doing will get us out of it!" This really is a sad indicator of human psychology. Even when we recognize our problem, and even when we recognize that we our the source of that problem, we try to fix things by doing anything other than changing ourselves. Mess with the oceans, mess with the clouds, put sun-shades in space, but certainly don't make humans alter their behavior or make society adapt to a new way of meeting our energy needs!