On Nov 4, 2008, at 12:23 AM, Mark Iverson wrote:
For the most part I agree that most modern religions have decent
goals and try to teach people how
to behave in a society, and that it’s the actions of a few zealous
members that give it a bad name,
but I was not thinking of that when I wrote what I did... But you
seem to think that its never the
religion. If you want to qualify that with the term, "mainstream"
religions, then I would agree.
However, there have been belief systems that I would consider
dangerous. In addition, there are
instances where the leaders of a religion are culpable in the
actions that are contrary to what the
institution preaches. A perfect example is how the Vatican had at
first refused to acknowledge the
problem of pedophiles in the ranks, and it was only due to
considerable pressure from hi-profile
cases that it finally admitted, barely, to a problem. This does
nothing but destroy the people's
faith in that institution... I've also heard that more people have
died in wars fought over
religious disputes as opposed to territorial ones... And those wars
were likely supported or
condoned by the leadership. It's not so cut and dry Ed.
No it's not cut and dry. The solution is to criticize and reject the
individual members of a religion even when they are the leaders, not
the belief system itself. Nevertheless, I believe that some belief
systems are better than others by being less aggressive and more
willing to search for reality rather than use only faith.
Also, I hope you aren't accusing me of being anti-american, since
that would make you a hypocrit.
I can't imagine how I gave you this idea,.
I
would think you'd be more careful with what you yourself have
experienced due to your involvement
with CF/LENR! That statement is bordering on the same kind of
tactic that the mainstream physicists
used with many of your CF colleagues...
Mark, a reality does exist in both this world and in the spirit. The
challenge is to discover this reality. Naturally, this requires some
ideas to be rejected, but always based on observation and rational
logic, which also actually exists. Because people are not logical and
have an ego that insists their view is absolutely correct, much
nonsense is believed. Science has been successful because it has set
up rules to be used in this search. Unfortunately, these same rules
are not applied to an understanding of the spirit reality, i.e.
religion, or even politics.
"I admit that many Democrats also are equally to blame."
Great, now we're getting somewhere; at least your willing to admit
that both parties are part of the
problem...
"Nevertheless, the policy starts at the top. The Bush policy was to
let Congress and the
free-enterprise system have freedom to do what ever they wanted...
[snip]"
Pretty much the usual liberal/democrat talking points...
You fail to make a distinction between talking points, which are used
to advertise a viewpoint, and a description of reality. Would you say
that scientists are using talking points when they all use the same
kind of simple phases to describe, for example, the theory of
relativity? The statement I made is a correct description of how the
government worked under Bush. He never vetoed a bill until after the
Democrats took over the House. Only then did he try to control
spending, but then only when it went against his agenda.
Well, I'll take the opinion of Dr. Sowell,
an accomplished, self-made black-american economist over a
scientist. To quote him:
You have to admit, you are looking for support for something you
already believe. If you heard the Greenspan testimony before congress
recently you would see that this opinion is not correct. Alan
Greenspan did not warn anyone. instead, he acknowledged that he failed
to understand what was happening, People also testified that they
tried to warn Greenspan but he ignored them. If you want facts, you
should listen to the people who were actually involved when they
testify under oath rather than to a person who has an agenda of his own.
======================== BEGIN QUOTE ========================
From Dr. Thomas Sowell...
(http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell#ColumnistBio)
Fact Number One: It was liberal Democrats, led by Senator
Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney
Frank, who for years-- including the present year-- denied that
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were
taking big risks that could lead to a financial crisis.
It was Senator Dodd, Congressman Frank and other liberal Democrats
who for years refused requests
from the Bush administration to set up an agency to regulate Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac.
It was liberal Democrats, again led by Dodd and Frank, who for years
pushed for Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans,
which are at the heart of
today's financial crisis.
Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of
the Council of Economic Advisers
to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury, five
years ago.
Yet, today, what are we hearing? That it was the Bush
administration's "right-wing ideology" of
"de-regulation" that set the stage for the financial crisis. Do
facts matter?
We also hear that it is the free market that is to blame. But the
facts show that it was the
government that pressured financial institutions in general to lend
to subprime borrowers, with such
things as the Community Reinvestment Act and, later, threats of
legal action by then Attorney
General Janet Reno if the feds did not like the statistics on who
was getting loans and who wasn't.
Is that the free market? Or do facts not matter?
Then there is the question of being against the "greed" of CEOs and
for "the people." Franklin
Raines made $90 million while he was head of Fannie Mae and
mismanaging that institution into
crisis...
[Article continues but I think you get the point.... Or not]
======================== END QUOTE ========================
Next Ed says:
"As I note above, the "facts" you state are not complete, hence do
not count. I would ask why you
would ignore the complete picture?"
Not ignoring it Ed, but now that we agree on the fact that there's
enough blame to go around for
both parties, how do we fix it? What's the solution? Even if BO
does get elected, he's not going
to make that much difference. I would propose that without term
limits, there is no hope for real
change...
Well, if there is no real change, we are doomed. It is that serious.
When the financial situation gets bad enough, people in desperation
will force a change regardless of their ideology. It takes that kind
of event to get people to look at reality and make a change. As
someone said, facing hanging focuses the mind.
"Bush says he is conservative but his actions are not conservative.
The
Congress says they are not socialist but the bail-out is the most
socialist action ever taken in this country."
No arg from me with those statements! Well, almost none. The entire
entitlement system is probably
the biggest socialist action taken in this country... But agree that
the bailout comes in a close
second! I would think that you'd support it since the majority of
people who will benefit will be
those in the lower income brackets...
I support some kind of well considered bail-out just to stop the
collapse. It will only slow the process. The bail-out that was
enacted was not well considered and will not do the job. The bail-out
mostly allows a few chosen banks to become more powerful at the
expense of the rest. The super rich, as expected, are protecting
themselves once again. If the rest of us benefit, it will be as a nice
trickle down consequence.
"Obama proposes to do what has been done with taxes since the income
tax was created, i.e. take from
one group and give to another. The only issue is which group pays
and which group benefits and by
how much..."
You open up a whole can of worms that I know a canful about... But
perhaps some other time. The
history of the income tax is a very interesting read...
"Bush and McCain favor the wealthy (trickle-
down), Obama wants to now favor the middle class (trickle-up). This
policy would seem to have benefit to the country now that the Bush
policy has been shown not to work very well"
The diff between us is that, even though giving lip service to
enough blame oto go around, there is
absolutely no mention of specifics in any of your posts that I can
remember...
Of course, the specifics have not been talked about. First of all, a
person needs to be president to know all that needs to be done and
they need to do a lot more thinking and consulting than they have time
to do while campaigning. In addition, very few people are interest in
or would understand the specifics.
It's all Bush's
fault! I reject that, as does Dr. Sowell; Congress has more
influence on the domestic economy that
the prez ever will, and that's the way it should be.
In fact, the President sets the policy in this government and Congress
enacts this policy. You need to read more history.
RE: you comments on budget for science being frozen.
From the govt's own statistics, the budget for science has had
modest increases thruout Bush's admin
except for the yr-2008 estimate... How much should we be spending in
science? Isn't $50 Billion
enough? And I love science... I challenge you to change your
mindset, and instead of a constant
increase, why not work on reducing the overhead and implementing
other intelligent ways to run large
organizations! Can you say, Spaceship One/Scaled Composites????? A
very good example of the fact
that the private industry can do most anything MUCH MORE cost
effectively than government...
2004 2005 2006
2007 2008
estimate
estimate
Department of Defense 61,510 66,467 69,323 71,755 69,856
Other national defense 3,835 4,179 3,720 3,726
3,079
Total national defense 65,345 70,646 73,043 75,481 72,935
Non-defense
General science, space, and technology:
NASA 8,037 6,880 6,807
8,438
9,445
NSF 3,439 3,638 3,707
3,943
3,894
Atomic energy gen'l sci 2,701 2,809 2,966 3,013
3,192
Subtotal 14,177 13,327 13,480 15,394 16,531
Energy 1,387 1,272 1,156 1,241
1,409
Transportation:
NASA 551 834 722
736 669
DOT and Other 571 472 588 590
512
Subtotal 1,122 1,306 1,310
1,326
1,181
Health:
NIH 24,498 26,039 26,695 26,974 27,580
Other 1,726 1,541 1,570
1,554
1,558
Subtotal 26,224 27,580 28,265 28,528 29,138
Agriculture 1,694 1,758 1,779
1,795
1,734
Nat'l resources/envir 1,612 1,878 1,529 1,633
1,699
All other 1,818 2,079 2,233
2,743
2,384
Totak NON-defense 48,034 49,200 49,752 52,660 54,076
I agree, the government is not efficient. I have worked on programs
that spent billions and were successful, but where canceled for
political reasons. Must of the work was done by private contractors.
Nevertheless, the programs never resulted in any use to the country.
This is the main inefficiency, not that free enterprise can do better
because companies are actually given the work, which is done well.
As for cutting waste, what would you cut that could compensate for the
programs, such as medicare or the interest payments on the debt, that
are growing out of control?
Ed
-Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: Edmund Storms [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 7:24 AM
To: [email protected]
Cc: Edmund Storms
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Colin Powell and Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan
On Nov 3, 2008, at 1:13 AM, Mark Iverson wrote:
Ed,
No biggee. And I didn't mean to insult your patriotism; what did I
say
that was untrue of religions and also made you feel that way?
You seem to blame a religion for the actions of a few of its members.
All religions have members who distort the basic views of their
religion to justify their actions.
It is very dangerous and, I suggest, anti-American to take this
approach.
For the most part, I agree that sincere and informed people should be
able to discuss politics w/o questioning a person's patriotism...
However, there are many insincere people who use the sincere person's
conscience and sense of fairness to manipulate and/or suppress their
point of view. Do I think this is happening on this forum? No, but
it is used quite extensively these days in many venues and garb; it
is
insidious.
Agreed
I keep my mouth shut most of the time, so when I do open it, its
usually based on facts, reason, and a reasonably well thought out
position. And I admit that when I disagree with someone, my sarcasm
tends to leak out... Hey, I'm human just like the rest of you
characters.
RE: the policies of the current Republican administration...
Why is it that you and some of the other Vorts seem to completely
IGNORE the fact that there is a bicameral Congress that also is
responsible for what happens in this country???
These "facts" are ignored because Congress until recently was
control by Republicans who shared the
administration's view point. I admit that many Democrats also are
equally to blame. Nevertheless,
the policy starts at the top. The Bush policy was to let Congress
and the free-enterprise system
have freedom to do what ever they wanted. In addition, his policy
was to send as much manufacturing
overseas as possible and to reward such businesses with tax
advantages. He also reduced taxes on the
rich, who pay fewer taxes than expected anyway because of the many
loopholes. His policy was
simpleminded and extremely damaging to the country. Yes, Congress
went along as anyone would expect
them to do, which has gained them the unpopular rating.
However, in any organization, a competent adult must be in charge,
which was not the case for 8
years.
Not to mention the
FACT that this very same DEMOCRATICALLY controlled House & Senate
have
an approval rating that is MUCH lower than the
administrations???????????
The House has been controlled by the Democrats for only 2 of the last
8 years. This change occurred only because the Bush policies were so
bad. It takes longer than 2
years to correct the damage especially when a veto is being used for
the first time.
The fact that I haven't seen these two FACTS even get mentioned in
all the political rants makes me wonder just how 'objective' you guys
are when it comes to politics, thus, I see the political postings as
just noise, and thus my rather blunt and sarcastic methods to improve
the SNR. If you don't maintain the same level of openess and desire
to consider ALL the facts when talking politics, then this isn't
helping to resolve or solve or enlighten anyone.
As I note above, the "facts" you state are not complete, hence do
not count. I would ask why you
would ignore the complete picture?
As you rightly point out, this doesn't seem to happen when the topic
is science/techy. If you hope
to have the political discussions help, then again, put them in a
separate group dedicated to
informed political discourse in the hopes that others who are
interested in politics will see it and
learn/contribute. The political discussions on this list, some of
which are engaging and thought
provoking, will inevitably stay right here... And anyone interested
in a good political discussion
isn't likely to come to a fringe-science forum!
True, but this is the forum we have and some of us are concerned about
subjects beyond science, some of which impact on science or on the
ability to do science.
"Unless this discussion is done without excessive emotion and by
using the facts..."
Wholeheartedly agree. But as I pointed out above, there are some
very simple and VERY obvious FACTS
that do not get mentioned here; at least not prior to my doing so.
Is this forum composed of only a
socialistic/liberal viewpoint? If so, then political discussions
are nothing more than preaching to
the choir, and serving no 'positive' purpose but to make you all
feel some sense of 'resonance'. :-)
I would like to suggest the labels such as liberal or socialist be
avoided because the meanings have been so corrupted to be useless.
Bush says he is conservative but his actions are not conservative. The
Congress says they are not socialist but the bail-out is the most
socialist action ever taken in this country. McCain calls Obama
liberal as if that is bad. Obama proposes to do what has been done
with taxes since the income tax was created, i.e. take from one group
and give to another. The only issue is which group pays and which
group benefits and by how much. This balance has always been changed
as the need changed. Bush and McCain favor the wealthy (trickle-
down), Obama wants to now favor the middle class (trickle-up). This
policy would seem to have benefit to the country now that the Bush
policy has been shown not to work very well.
RE: your comment about how politics will affect our lives as well as
the ability to do science...
Nearly all basic research is done by government agencies and
academia; rarely does the business
sector do applied, let alone basic research. Congress holds or
strongly influences the purse
strings for DOE, NSF, NASA, NOAA, DOD, DARPA, and any of the other
govt agencies that spend money on
science. If reason and objectivity were at work here, then you
should be discussing how to reform
(the currently democratic) Congress, not the president, and it
should take aim at both parties. As
far as academia is concerned, it is a bastion of liberal thinking,
so if you're worried about how
science is going to get done, I suggest you start addressing those
that really control it, and stop
blaming the president.
Thanks to the failed policy, no money is available for new research
and the budget for science is frozen. In addition, the Bush
administration has been anti-science from the beginning. In addition,
the appointed heads of many agencies have been political hacks who
have not advanced science. This is not the fault of Congress. I
detect a lack of understanding of how the government actually works.
As for liberal thinking academics, I don't know what this means. Do
you?
Can't wait for the electron to be over and we get back to science...
Agreed
No hard feelings, I hope!
No hard feelings as long as we can communicate without personal
attack.
Ed
-Mark
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