SCOUTED: The Worst President in History?
Folks, http://www.rollingstone.com/news/profile/story/9961300/ This piece appeared in the Rolling Stone last Friday. It considers, without immediately jumping to its conclusion, whether GWB may be what the title suggests. (For our international readers, that's Worst US President, of course -- I'm sure that Brazil, Australia and wherever else we hail from have had their own Boneheads of State.) He's up against the likes of the corrupt but apparently likable Warren G. Harding and the corrupt and eminently unlikable Richard M. Nixon. It's a longish piece, but has some interesting moments. After reviewing a 2004 survey of 415 historians, of whom 81% rated Bush's administration a failure (and of the remaining 19%, a tenth only considered him to be the best president since Bill Clinton), he goes on to say: The lopsided decision of historians should give everyone pause. Contrary to popular stereotypes, historians are generally a cautious bunch. We assess the past from widely divergent points of view and are deeply concerned about being viewed as fair and accurate by our colleagues. When we make historical judgments, we are acting not as voters or even pundits, but as scholars who must evaluate all the evidence, good, bad or indifferent. Separate surveys, conducted by those perceived as conservatives as well as liberals, show remarkable unanimity about who the best and worst presidents have been. Historians do tend, as a group, to be far more liberal than the citizenry as a whole -- a fact the president's admirers have seized on to dismiss the poll results as transparently biased. One pro-Bush historian said the survey revealed more about the current crop of history professors than about Bush or about Bush's eventual standing. But if historians were simply motivated by a strong collective liberal bias, they might be expected to call Bush the worst president since his father, or Ronald Reagan, or Nixon. Instead, more than half of those polled -- and nearly three-fourths of those who gave Bush a negative rating -- reached back before Nixon to find a president they considered as miserable as Bush. Dave Heckuva Job, Georgie Land ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Fight the Future: Texas Hospitals and HMO's Conspire to Murder People
Welcome to King George IV's Texas, where Hospitals, Insurance companies, and HMO's are legally allowed to murder people: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/25/181614/934 The hospital ethics committee met the day before yesterday and concluded that Andrea's treatment (respirator and dialysis) should be discontinued. We have ten days to move her from that hospital or they will pull the plug and let Andrea die. Andrea, when she is not medicated into unconsciousness (and even when she is, and the medication has worn off to some degree) is aware and cognizant. She has suffered no brain damage to the parts of her brain responsible for thought and reason, or speech. She has only suffered loss of some motor control. We received notice of the ethics committee decision the day before yesterday and we are organizing a protest to take place tomorrow, at 2-2:30pm outside St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital. the Texas Futile Care Law, describes certain provisions that are now Chapter 166 of the Texas Health Safety Code. Controversy over these provisions mainly centers on Section 166.046, Subsection (e), which allows a health care facility to discontinue life-sustaining treatment against the wishes of the patient or guardian ten days after giving written notice. Andrea's attorney explained it to us this way: An insurance company negotiates with the hospital how much they will pay for certain services. Say, for instance, someone in the ICU costs $10,000 for treatment per day. The insurance company says to the hospital, Okay, we will pay you $7500 for you to provide that service to our insured patient. There's a catch, though. The insurance company will pay the negotiated amount to the hospital, but if a patient goes on and on, needing that service, the insurance company begins making noise. This insured patient is costing them too much; they are losing profit. They begin to put pressure on the hospital to get that patient off of their books. The hospital either does this by getting aggressive with the patient's treatment, getting them well, and discharging them, OR by pulling the plug on that patient. In other words, that patient has now become, in terms of profit, both for the hospital and the insurance company worth more dead. If that patient continues to receive that intensive care, it costs the hospital in terms of where they stand the next time they negotiate prices with the insurance company. The next time negotiations come up, the insurance company will say, Hey, we would give you the going rate on an intensive care patient this year, but you gouged us for 90 days on Andrea Clark last year, so we are lowering our starting point for payment to $7000, to make up for it. -- Who wants to bet all those fascist religious nuts who fought against the wishes of the completely brain-dead Shiavo to be terminated, allow this *non brain-dead* woman (who has expressed her wishes that she wants to live), to be murdered? Such is life in Konfederate republiKan ameriKa. The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. -- James Madison ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Fight the Future: Texas Hospitals and HMO's Conspire to Murder People
From: The Fool Welcome to King George IV's Texas, where Hospitals, Insurance companies, and HMO's are legally allowed to murder people: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/25/181614/934 http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/images/ANSWERMAN/215/GUN.gif ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Fight the Future: Texas Hospitals and HMO's Conspire to Murder People
At 02:50 AM Wednesday 4/26/2006, The Fool wrote: From: The Fool Welcome to King George IV's Texas, where Hospitals, Insurance companies, and HMO's are legally allowed to murder people: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/25/181614/934 http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/images/ANSWERMAN/215/GUN.gif After Gary Gilmore's suicide attempt, someone drew a cartoon showing a guy lying in a hospital bed and a nurse bending over him saying Wake up, Mr. Gilmore. It's time for your shot . . . with a firing squad assembled at the foot of the bed. --Ronn! :) Since I was a small boy, two states have been added to our country and two words have been added to the pledge of Allegiance... UNDER GOD. Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said that is a prayer and that would be eliminated from schools too? -- Red Skelton (Someone asked me to change my .sig quote back, so I did.) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
The Day the Music Died
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/04/25/health.beans.reut/index.html --Ronn! :) Bathroom humor is an American-Standard. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Optimism for the USA
Nick Arnett wrote: Maybe the idea that everything was created in six days (...) Would you invest your money in oil companies whose science and geology team was made of Creationists? :-P Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: three paradigm shifts?
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert J. Chassell Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2006 8:59 AM To: brin-l@mccmedia.com Subject: three paradigm shifts? Were there three major paradigm shifts? I go further back than Dan. Over the course of human history, were there three paradigm shifts implying four paradigms? The shifts would be 1. from foraging and hunting to agriculture and herding, 2. from agriculture and herding to mechanics and electric power, 3. from mechanics and electric power to biological and computational activities. I've took a bit of time to think about this, and see some problems with these broad outlines. When I look at three paradigms of physics, there is extensive documentation of each paradigm and the shifts between paradigms. In the West, the three paradigms are fairly well documented. I've taken two semester courses on original Classical works: one on Plato and Aristotle and one on Thomas Aquinas. My senior thesis in college was on interpreting Quantum Mechanics using Aristotle's philosophy. So, I think I have at least a fair understanding of this worldview by reading (translated) original works. My point here is not to boast about the extent of my studyingbut to point out what is available to be studies. We have a fairly extensive library of classical writings. We do not have any real library of writings by hunter-gatherer tribes. Our present knowledge is rather limited. In addition, it isn't clear to me that the difference between nomads that follow a herd and nomads that lead herds is more significant than that between nomads and city dwellers. So, the first step is uncertain. In addition, the last two proposed shifts aren't as clearly demarcated as the physics shifting. For example, water mills had been used as a source of mechanical power for over 2000 years, while electric power has been used for less than 150 years. The Greeks and Romans had rather complex gearing (e.g. the Roman mile marker required fairly sophisticated gearing.) Our economy has certainly changed with the prevalence of computers, and there are differences in how we view things than how people 50 years ago viewed things. But, simpler computers have existed for a long time, and the Turing machine goes back 70 years, compared to the 140 years for Maxwell's equations. Further, we still find strong neo-Classical influences in popular culture. For example, two of the biggest movie series (Lord of the Rings and Narnia) are based on books by rather opinionated neoclassicists. Thus, I would argue that our culture has not experienced paradigm shifts in the manner that paradigm shifts are seen in physics. In physics, Kepler's laws provided a simple explanation for planetary motion, perfect circles require an infinite number of epicycles. A mechanistic aether cannot fit EM. Classical real objects are inconsistent with the experimental results of QM. Having said that, I don't wish to argue that there haven't been shifts in viewpoint over the last 2500 years. Clearly there have been shifts. I'm just arguing that the shifts are analog, compared to the digital paradigm shifts in physics. I'll try to get to the rest of your post later, but that's a start at least. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Weekly Chat Reminder
As Steve said, The Brin-L weekly chat has been a list tradition for over six years. Way back on 27 May, 1998, Marco Maisenhelder first set up a chatroom for the list, and on the next day, he established a weekly chat time. We've been through several servers, chat technologies, and even casts of regulars over the years, but the chat goes on... and we want more recruits! Whether you're an active poster or a lurker, whether you've been a member of the list from the beginning or just joined today, we would really like for you to join us. We have less politics, more Uplift talk, and more light-hearted discussion. We're non-fattening and 100% environmentally friendly... -(_() Though sometimes marshmallows do get thrown. The Weekly Brin-L chat is scheduled for Wednesday 3 PM Eastern/2 PM Central time in the US, or 7 PM Greenwich time. There's usually somebody there to talk to for at least eight hours after the start time. If you want to attend, it's really easy now. All you have to do is send your web browser to: http://wtgab.demon.co.uk/~brinl/mud/ ..And you can connect directly from William's new web interface! My instruction page tells you how to log on, and how to talk when you get in: http://www.brin-l.org/brinmud.html It also gives a list of commands to use when you're in there. In addition, it tells you how to connect through a MUD client, which is more complicated to set up initially, but easier and more reliable than the web interface once you do get it set up. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ This message was sent automatically using cron. But even if WTG is away on holiday, at least it shows the server is still up. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Optimism for the USA
On 4/25/06, Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [I don't say it in the draft, but I have heard that for the past 600 or so years, various Muslim theologians have said that their God is omnipotent and unrestrained. Does anyone know whether this is true?] Robert J. Chassell Hard to say. I'm not really sure what you are trying to get across? The supreme deity as omnipotent? That's been around for a lot longer than 600 years, and Islamic theology is no slouch in picking up neat innovations like omniscience or omnipotence. Unrestrained does sound a little more iffy; it reminds me of the Greek Neoplatonists who inspired later Muslim philosophers and theologians. For example, the Brethren of Sincerity (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brethren_of_Sincerity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_of_the_Brethren_of_Sincerity - full disclosure: I wrote those articles) took a position that the Creator was unbounded in ability and attributes, and that to even describe him in remotely earthly (or comprehensible for that metter) terms was to commit a falsity. ~maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Optimism for the USA
On 4/26/06, Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Would you invest your money in oil companies whose science and geology team was made of Creationists? :-P I don't think I'd knowingly invest in anything run by Creationists if those ideas had anything to do with what they were doing. I don't buy literal creationism. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Optimism for the USA
In a message dated 4/25/2006 8:11:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'm content to let it remain a mystery. Like many other things, I don't think that whether or not it is literal truth would make any difference in the way I live my life. I often wonder what it is that literalists do differently because they take a version of the creation story literally (I say a version because the Bible has more than one). What difference does it make, really? What does make a difference is that idea, which I embrace, that creation is an ongoing act of God, here, now, in this moment and those to come. ok - but of course it cannot be the literal truth. Do you see god as an active agent or something like Spinoza's god, that is the world is a manifestation of god - all things are - but god is nature and does act as an individual outside of nature ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
FDA: Plan B would lead to 'Teen Sex Cults'
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_digbysblog_archive.html#1146 8253976488 In the memo released by the FDA, Dr. Curtis Rosebraugh, an agency medical officer, wrote: As an example, she [Woodcock] stated that we could not anticipate, or prevent extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an 'urban legend' status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B. -- Every time people give up on participating, and become members of the sheeple, we are all herded a bit closer to being shorn. --Stirling Newberry ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hello (hello, hello)
At 09:26 PM Tuesday 3/21/2006, Steve Sloan wrote: Robert Seeberger wrote: Oh, that's the way, uh-huh uh-huh A dance floor game I saw a couple of years ago at Con-Stellation, courtesy of Pat McAdams: Take two index cards. Write That's the way on the front of one card. Write I like it on the other. Write Uh-huh, uh-huh on the front of the second card. Write a lot of ooh ooh oohs on the back of the second card. By flipping and/or raising the right card, the vast majority of the song's lyrics can be captioned live during the song. Maybe you had to be there, Maru,,. And sufficiently inebriated, or at least sleep-deprived? --Ronn! :) Since I was a small boy, two states have been added to our country and two words have been added to the pledge of Allegiance... UNDER GOD. Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said that is a prayer and that would be eliminated from schools too? -- Red Skelton (Someone asked me to change my .sig quote back, so I did.) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
