Obama ‘Impervious to Empirical Evidence’
A comment by Charles Krauthammer thoroughly sums up Obama's faith-based administration.
In a recent interview with Hugh Hewitt, Charles Krauthammer had this to say about climate control:
It’s a religion, Hugh. It’s not facts, it’s not science. It’s a religion. And they’ll do human sacrifice if they have to. The numbers are made up. They know, for example, I mean all of the cap-and-trade stuff, which would really destroy our economy, they know would be swallowed up in a week or two of India and Chinese emissions. China is starting a coal fired plant every week on average, and that is just throwing all that CO2 into the atmosphere, of which our reductions would be negligible. It would simply end up as a great transfer of wealth out of the West into the third world on a scale never seen. But it’s a religion. So they are impervious to empirical evidence.
Indeed, the theme for the Obama administration seems to be just that –”Impervious to empirical evidence!”.
Throughout the campaign and continuing into his presidency Obama has decried George W. Bush as an “ideologue,” a man blinded by preexisting conceptions and inured to evidence which contradicted his worldview. But it is the Obama team which in just seven months has perfected the art of denying or evading facts. It doesn’t matter if the subject is small or large. It can be a domestic or foreign policy issue. The modus operandi is the same: don’t give them the facts; they’ve made up their minds.
We just witnessed Gates-gate — the triumph of an ideologically driven narrative (America is as racist a country as it’s ever been) over facts. The president even told us he didn’t know the facts — and then proceeded to embroil us (and him) in a tale of racial profiling contrived out of thin air.
That’s the story of health care reform as well. For months we were told that Obama’s health care reform would save money. Facts? None. Experience (on everything from Medicare to farm subsidies to the Post Office) and common sense tell us that if the government sets up a program and then chases the private sector out of business, it will cost more (e.g. for medical care, food or mail service) than it did before — and much more over time than was promised. It took the CBO to finally rain on the “bend the cost curve” fantasy of the Obama team.
On domestic policy nothing has topped the stimulus plan for faith-based government — the boundless belief in the power of government to create jobs and of government spending to create wealth. Neither the New Deal experience or the research of their own economic advisor dissuaded them from spending a trillion dollars (interest included) to “save or create” 3.5 (or was it 4?) million jobs.
But “impervious to empirical evidence” is especially, and dangerously, in ascension in foreign policy. Unlike Bush (the allegedly-impervious-to-facts president who undertook a daunting mid-war review and revised our Iraq strategy based on the evidence before him), this president is in no need of evidence — either historical or contemporary — to shape his foreign policy.
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Jennifer Rubin is PJM's Washington, DC, editor. She also blogs at Commentary’s Contentions.
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118 Comments
1. Cal Patriot:Religion indeed! But I propose it is religion on steroids, growth hormone and performance enhancing drugs (PED’s) of every kind. Of course the most abundant and effective PED’s have been the liberal socialist media that have launched a nobody Jr. Senator to the highest office in the land. The simple equation looks like this… Liberal Socialism (their religion) + non-stop super slick mass marketing = The destruction of our Constitution and America as we knew her.
Jennifer Rubin said “Unlike Obama, the public can see the world as it is and recall history as it actually occurred.”
Unfortunately, 48-52% of the public worship at the alter of liberal socialism and are blinded to the reality that we call history.
Aug 5, 2009 - 11:57 pm 2. David Thomson:Barack Obama has blind faith in his elitist wonderfulness. It matter not that he and his cronies lack specific knowledge, or don’t have all their facts straight. That’s not really very important. We should instead focus on their credentials from the “best” universities and their benevolent intentions. They are, after all, secular saints. We common folk are fortunate to have them running things. The Progressives of our current era can do a better job winging it—than the rest of us can do intentionally. We are that inferior. Don’t we understand that the elites are doing America a big favor? Unfortunately, I am not being facetious. Not in the least. In the back of their minds, the elites are really that arrogant.
Aug 6, 2009 - 12:11 am 3. eon:Also, the Obama administration has established a pattern of deception regarding its procedures. That is, when a policy becomes public knowledge, and results in public disapproval (as with the “privacy warning” on the CARS/DOT website link) the administration promptly publicly “disavows” it, but does not change it, i.e. the policy remains in place but no mention is made of it. (In the CARS/DOT case, the privacy warning disappeared, but the procedure it was a warning about continues.)
In essence, the President is saying to the public, “I know what I am going to do. You don’t like it. So we just won’t talk about it when I’m doing it.”
Not since Richard Nixon have we seen an administration so thoroughly based on a foundation of lying to the American people. And Nixon, too, told himself that he was doing so “for the greater good”.
When any politician uses that phrase or mindset as a justification for their actions, it is time for an intelligent voter to find someone else to vote for- quickly.
clear ether
eon
Aug 6, 2009 - 3:09 am 4. Anonymous:Obama is well insulated from the emperical evidence of his own declining popularity. He has gone “off script”, his prime time ratings have declined sharply, his networks are talking about feeling used and lose money each time he’s on. Sounds like a show that needs to be canceled.
Aug 6, 2009 - 4:01 am 5. LeighB:Obama is well insulated from the emperical evidence of his own declining popularity. He has gone “off script”, his prime time ratings have declined sharply, his networks are talking about feeling used and lose money each time he’s on. Sounds like a show that needs to be canceled.
Aug 6, 2009 - 4:02 am 6. Steve DeMarcus:Of course he does not care about the facts. He is going to do what he wants to regardless of the consequences. In one of the first interviews he was asked about cutting taxes to help start the country back on the road to recovery and after being told that cutting taxes would actually increase revenue and help with job creation he acknowledged that it did work but he was more concerned with “fairness”. In his mind it is more fair to spread the misery throughout the economy than revenue and job creation.
Aug 6, 2009 - 4:23 am 7. b:At what point do we decide that Obama’s performance leaves the region of juvenile fantasy based incompetance and enters in to the sphere of high crimes and misdemeanors?
I’m thinking that stupidity cannot explain everything about this man and his abominable administration. I’m thinking that he does lie, frequently, that he really does intend to remake America into a new soviet, and that he has violated his oath of office.
With the criminal enterprise also known as the Democratic party firmly in control of COngress, it is unlikely that impeachment in the near term is a possibilty. Maybe we should start thinking about it, though.
Aug 6, 2009 - 4:37 am 8. B Dubya:At what point do we decide that Obama’s performance leaves the region of juvenile fantasy based incompetance and enters in to the sphere of high crimes and misdemeanors?
I’m thinking that stupidity cannot explain everything about this man and his abominable administration. I’m thinking that he does lie, frequently, that he really does intend to remake America into a new soviet, and that he has violated his oath of office.
With the criminal enterprise also known as the Democratic party firmly in control of Congress, it is unlikely that impeachment in the near term is a possibilty. Maybe we should start thinking about it, though. And we should start thinking about permanently marginalizing the lunatic proto-communist fringe of the party of slavery and corruption (that would also be the Democrats, if you don’t remember history).
Aug 6, 2009 - 4:41 am 9. Gracie:Obama simply DOES NOT CARE what others think of him. He is an ideologue driven by his desire for power. He is not lying, he simply doesn’t care about the opinions of others. He does not recognize the authority of the democratic institution we are founded on. He will not stop moving on his agenda until he is forcibly stopped. By legislation or by the judiciary. Unless either or both are perverted.
Aug 6, 2009 - 4:58 am 10. k. pablo:Yeah, it’s funny how the same people who don’t want “Intelligent Design” taught in schools are pimping their own faith-based pseudoscience of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Aug 6, 2009 - 4:58 am 11. ~Paules:What’s arrogant is that a small cadre of elitists think they can impose their will on a nation of 300 million. We are not like the huddled masses of Chinese or Russian peasants. Americans will resist authority in defense of individual prerogative. The anger on display at recent town hall meetings is understandable to anyone familiar with the American character. A true aristocracy, as Jefferson said, is based on the qualities of superior mind and character. High self-esteem combined with low achievement is the very antithesis of aristocracy. But what else can one expect from a culture of narcissism?
Aug 6, 2009 - 5:20 am 12. Pelaut:Empiricism died decades ago with the 60s swing to social studies and soft sciences. We now face indelible precepts.
Example: A friend retired recently as a professor of journalism at a major northeastern university, and after a long career as a reporter on major northeast newspapers. We had a discussion on American racism after my wife and I, a mixed race couple, spent months traveling throughout the American south. My wife and I both found the South virutally free of racism. My friend agitatedly defended his certain knowledge that southerners harbored rabid racism by telling us how, on his only ever trip to the south, an academic congress in Atlanta, he got stopped by a fat Georgia cop for speeding on his way from the airport. The fat Georgia cop (the only way my friend referred to the officer) talked exactly like a fat Georgia cop he saw in this, that and the other movies. He could name the movies and the actors. It made him purely angry that I couldn’t see what he had seen that proved the South racist. Remember, he “marched” (think Woodstock) in the 60s, reported in the 70s-80s and taught in the 90s.
Precepts formed by media, promulgated by academia and now materialized by corrupt politicians in the 00s — and you think you have a chance of doing anything about it in less than 30 years?
It’s now 1933. But time runs faster today. Go Galt.
Aug 6, 2009 - 5:27 am 13. Anonymous:O-bum-A is forcing the change nobody wants on everyone. (well some of them want it ….his marxist friends and the drones who blindly follow)
O-bum-A has surrounded himself with a crowd of elitist, marxist, america hating bigots. (really these are the nicest terms I can use to describe him and his friends)
It is like a huge joke being played on the world stage …Charles put it nicely ..evidence has nothing to to with anything this group of jokers are doing.
…well the trolls are happy. until they get thrown under the bus. (but they don’t have the sense to even know when they are).
http://www.pbase.com/opinion/maniacal&page=1
Aug 6, 2009 - 5:34 am 14. GCPSteve:#3 eon
Very well said.
Any voter who does not see that this administration is deceptive (while having the audacity to make claims of “greater transparency”), is clearly displaying a dangerous kind of blind faith.
Aug 6, 2009 - 5:50 am 15. The Shadow:This column makes me laugh. Empirical Evidence – Rubin never met a fact whe was not willing to distort. You get this assertion “Gates-gate — the triumph of an ideologically driven narrative (America is as racist a country as it’s ever been)” The alternative is that she is so deluded as to believe it. I don’t know which is more apalling.
Aug 6, 2009 - 5:55 am 16. robotech master:“Indeed, the theme for the Obama administration seems to be just that –”Impervious to empirical evidence!”.”
They’re not the only ones who turn a blind eye to facts… like the fact that obama has failed to produce a birth cert and has been actively covering up that info… but hey some facts are better then others…
The media ignores facts it doesn’t like period be its global warming or obama’s unprove ability to hold the office of president…. those are just facts.
Aug 6, 2009 - 6:14 am 17. Theo Goodwin:Once again, Ms. Rubin nails it. Why cannot the Democrats accept her points? Well, to take just one example, Nancy Pelosi really believes that our capitalist economy is controlled by a cabal of tycoons who pursue their own wealth and power at the cost of everyone else. If you are committed to a cartoon version of Marx and Lenin then you have no need for the facts or empirical research.
Aug 6, 2009 - 6:35 am 18. Anonymous:what will the angry man do when his policies are rejected by more and more people. (I really hope they are rejected, not because I don’t like Obama but because they are bad …very bad)
has anyone wondered how vindictive this first couple will be ?? we will all be wishing for the minor crimes of the Clintons !!
Aug 6, 2009 - 6:42 am 19. Paul from Hamburg:#3 Good point, but you left something out.
The presidents message is “I know what I am going to do. You don’t like it because you are not smart enough to understand. So we just won’t talk about it when I’m doing it.”
The phrase I added is what they really believe. Liberalism is the means, not the end. Obama and his disciples believe in themselves. They are gnostics who believe that their special intelligence gives them the right to rule the world. All of us who disagree with him are simply proving that we are not as smart.
Aug 6, 2009 - 6:58 am 20. Roger:I am convinced that Obama and those that worship him are convinced that they know the truth. Unfortunately, their world view does not concur with reality. They deny an objective moral law and absolute truth while at the same time suggest they possess the correct moral law and truth. The contradiction is there for all to see. This is what happens when men set themselves up as god while denying (verbally or in practice) the One True God.
The quote that follows is an example of a conservative atheist. Charles Krauthammer says “But it’s a religion. So they are impervious to empirical evidence.” Wow! for that to be a valid argument there must be an unspoken universal premise. That universal premise would be: all religions are impervious to empirical evidence.
It is true that all religions are based on faith, but I reject the premise that all religions are oblivious to empirical evidence. The best refutation is to point out that Christians are the inventors of modern science. Without them, we would not have modern science.
It is better to say that man-made religions — such as humanism — are impervious to empirical data. The proof is in the humanist regimes of China, Soviet Union, Cambodia, N. Korea, etc…
Aug 6, 2009 - 7:01 am 21. Graham L.:Anyone else think it’s absolutely hysterical that whenever conservative Republicans try to discredit a theory like Climate Change, they always compare it to religion; i.e., it has no basis in reality, it will result in “sacrifices” and that those who believe it are blind to empirical evidence and fact?
Aug 6, 2009 - 7:04 am 22. Kazooskibum:The Democrat Party is a criminal enterprise.
Aug 6, 2009 - 7:09 am 23. AThinkingPerson:Obama came with a preexisting belief system?!
Ayers, ACORN, Rev. Wright, Rezko, Jarrett, Chicago politics….
Hmmm…wonder what sort of belief system they instilled in our President?
Aug 6, 2009 - 7:23 am 24. Delia:21. Graham L.,
Personally, I think ‘cult’ is a better term.
Aug 6, 2009 - 7:32 am 25. homero:21. Graham L.:
Anyone else think it’s absolutely hysterical that whenever conservative Republicans try to discredit a theory like Climate Change, they always compare it to religion; i.e., it has no basis in reality, it will result in “sacrifices” and that those who believe it are blind to empirical evidence and fact?
not at all Graham L. Crackers. treating it like religion is appropriate because it is believing without proof (or facts)just like religion.
climate change …isn’t that the new word since global warming is losing crediblity as we go into the second year of declining average temperatures.
I have yet to have some one prove there is a god (religion) and to prove that there is global warming as a result of man made activity. (I do not refer to the heat island of a city as “global warming” as it does not qualify as that. ….if you just don’t want to dirty the world with fossil fuels say so …don’t make it into a big bugaboo that it is not.
…remember Al (the clown) Gore stands to make a lot of money with carbon credit trading (which will not reuce carbon emissions just have people make money on it).
as it is all the records ….ice core samples, stalagtite samples, tree ring samples …solar activity point to the FACT (not BELIEF) that if there is warming it is natural (there has been no solar flares in close to 2 years now and probably why the cooling trend)
so if you wish to use emotion as your proof feel free ..enjoy. bt don’t say there are FACTS …unless you can show me those FACTS it is just a belief …like religion.
WHY DO I BOTHER …isn’t that Saul Alinsky’s rule #1o that I just fell for ?
Aug 6, 2009 - 7:32 am 26. Bob Miller:The question is:
Aug 6, 2009 - 7:37 am 27. Brian:Do we get a dose of political oppression before Obama gets his dose of reality?
Perception is everything, and despite the stuffing of large sums of money into the billfolds of party supporters around the nation under the guise of a stimulus, the economy will eventually get better and it will allow Democrats to claim the stimulus is the reason it turned around. In a recent press conf the president was already saying exactly this “the stimulus is working!”.
It is easy to defend as well. If the economy hasn’t turned around yet, just give the stimulus more time to soak in. Better yet, why not throw MORE money in a stimulus? Religious fanaticism as bad as any I’ve ever encountered.
Aug 6, 2009 - 7:40 am 28. Jim M:You people still don’t get it. Obama is an actor. The question is who is writing the script? Hello!!
Aug 6, 2009 - 7:45 am 29. Calvin Ball:He has blind faith. But probably not in ideas, as much as his Chicago buds. He gets his “facts” from NRDC. I mean, like they’re experts, right?
This is actually the confluence of two things: the Chicago way (scratching your friend’s backs), and relying on your friends to be the arbiters of fact.
A law professor is supposed to know better, but I think we all know how far he would have gotten in that business if not for politics.
Aug 6, 2009 - 7:49 am 30. ~Paules:26. Bob Miller: “Do we get a dose of political oppression before Obama gets his dose of reality?”
Oppress: to crush or burden by abuse of power or authority. (Merriam-Webster)
The president’s attempt to impose his programs on an unwilling public is by definition oppressive. Mr. Obama is abusing the powers of his office as enumerated in the Constitution to impose unjust and unnecessary burdens on the body politic. The reality is the backlash now manifesting itself in tea parties and town hall protests. We have all the conditions necessary for a civil war. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
Aug 6, 2009 - 8:05 am 31. Moho:Impervious to empirical evidence? You’re really going to write that on this site? My god.
Anyway, regarding Krauthammer. Here’s an example of Krauthammer’s wisdom. Trying to escape the fantastical confines of the “ticking time bomb” metaphor, Krauthammer insisted that it is a real dynamic and that torture is necessary to address it:
Krauthammer:
On October 9, 1994, Israeli Cpl. Nachshon Waxman was kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists. The Israelis captured the driver of the car. He was interrogated with methods so brutal that they violated Israel’s existing 1987 interrogation guidelines, which themselves were revoked in 1999 by the Israeli Supreme Court as unconscionably harsh. The Israeli prime minister who ordered this enhanced interrogation (as we now say) explained without apology: “If we’d been so careful to follow the [1987] Landau Commission [guidelines], we would never have found out whereWaxman was being held.”
Krauthammer claims that it was absolutely necessary to torture under the ticking time bomb, and that it was an absolutely successful strategy. But empirical evidence opines contrary.
First of all, Waxman was killed by Hamas during the rescue attempt. Why was he killed, if torture was such a great idea? Because the Israelis who tortured the Palestinian terrorist didn’t know that Hamas was under strict orders to kill Waxman the moment they heard anything like a rescue attempt going on:
GAZA CITY – The kidnappers of the young Israeli soldier knew that his comrades would be searching for him, and that the end would come quickly if the Israelis found their safe house.
“The order was, ‘If there’s any movement around the house, your first step is to kill the soldier. … Don’t think about your life. Your first step is to kill the soldier,’” saidImad Falouji, who was one of the Hamas leaders negotiating in secret with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. “From then on, one man stood by the soldier 24 hours.”
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:AqJRm9iWVNYJ:www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-wosold024804627jul02,0,2334093.story+%22When+Israel+located+Waxman,+its+commandos+stormed+the+safe+house+in+the+West+Bank+and+began+blasting+the+reinforced+doors+that+stood+between+him+and+them.%22&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Krauthammer was trumpeting the success of torture in a real world scenario that got the object of the rescue killed. And it got him killed because it didn’t produce enough information for Israelis to do complete the rescue properly. This is the level of intellect advising your movement. Good luck.
Aug 6, 2009 - 8:06 am 32. David W. Lincoln:Well, seeing that the corruption of institutes of higher learning continues apace by those who follow in lockstep the philosophy of Antonio Gramsci, is it surprising to see the poison
spread to other areas of life? I am as surprised at this, as I am that the sky is blue.
Either verities are a reflection of the status quo, which is what the disciples of Gramsci swear by; or there is timeless universal “custom”, which is what C.S. Lewis, Mortimer Adler,
Aug 6, 2009 - 8:08 am 33. billslayer:and others lived their lifes by.
No, People, the question is this; will our own house be in order when the Obamabots stop chattering? WIll we have a party willing to CUT SPENDING? How many senators and congressmen do we have that are still acting unethically? How many would be willing to sign on to any spending bill provided they and their get paid?
Aug 6, 2009 - 8:13 am 34. Frank:It is not sufficient for us to smugly enjoy watching Obama crash and burn. We MUST take control of our own party and force it to become the engine of our vision. Going on and on about tax cuts is NONSENSE as long as we allow for deficit spending!
WE must make our elected officials from our party directly responsible for their actions. We need a PLEDGE from them that they will immediately resign if they ever engage in those activities. THAT is what this forum should be about!
No Graham,#21,
Aug 6, 2009 - 8:16 am 35. venividivici:I don’t find comparisons to religion hysterical, I find it instructive, because of the difference you apparently want to avoid. I’ll type slowly so you get this…religous believe without empirical proof, lefties believe despite it. Now, which is more goofy.
I think Obama and Co. suffer as much or more from the “availability bias”, i.e. they see data that fits their worldview and ignore other data that exists simultaneously. The also suffer from an analytical superficiality that allows them to use data such as the “47 million uninsured” without drilling down into that data. They also descry the “evil insurance companies” while not noting that insurance companies average about 5 cents on the dollar in net profit, some of which is actually based on investment income, not premium income. Which is actually lower than many, many industries in the US.
For the record, I’m a libertarian agnostic, so trolls, don’t come at me with some crud about how my “side” is faith-based. Whether or not I believe in God has nothing to do with my political or economic analysis. My job is completely data-driven and so are my politics.
Aug 6, 2009 - 8:20 am 36. Theo Goodwin:#28
Yes, Obama is the front man and nothing more. This is a time when all of us should recall the immortal words of Jody Powell who said “No nation is well governed by front men.” If you do not know who Jody Powell is then you should shed a tear or two of shame. Then Google him.
Clearly, Pelosi is doing a lot of the string pulling for the Obama doll. The irrational tilt toward appeasement of terrorism and the dishonorable process of “distancing” ourselves from Israel have her bloody prints all over them.
Aug 6, 2009 - 8:23 am 37. Bear:Homero. nice post. selective use of data to arrive at correlations that may or may not exist is popular these days.
Aug 6, 2009 - 8:34 am 38. Lily:homero, do you know what the difference is between anthropomorphic global warming and religion?
Religion doesn’t think it’s science.
Aug 6, 2009 - 8:54 am 39. Anneke:#10 k. pablo
These people, who do not believe in God, must prove themselves to be god by “saving” the planet.
Aug 6, 2009 - 8:57 am 40. Blarty Blarckleblart:These people, who do not believe in God, must prove themselves to be god by “saving” the planet.
Well, if God would just get off his ass…
Aug 6, 2009 - 9:13 am 41. whyamInotsurprised?:Barry does not want or need empirical evidence. He has been programmed from an early age to think what he thinks. Garbage In – Garbage Out. He is single minded, has surrounded himself with like minded dingle balls who swing the same way, and could care less what anyone else thinks. He is programmed by another playbook and it isn’t the American Constitution or American traditions.
#31 Moco – oh you are such an expert on the use of torture and on hostage rescue operations. I’m sure one had something to do with the other. You don’t think it valiant for an army to try to free one it’s own. All you can do is criticize. I hope you don’t wind up with your ass in a similar situation crying “somebody save me, please!” Why don’t you take your opinions over to the lefty sites where your opinions might be appreciated.
Aug 6, 2009 - 9:25 am 42. Anonymous:I love the Obama crowd. According to them, our technology will never shoot down a missile but we can predict and change the global climate? Talk about belief without proof.
Aug 6, 2009 - 9:29 am 43. tommyd:# 25 Homero, really good post!
#31 moho, pathetic post. You can’t factually refute the message so you attack the messenger..
what else is new….
just following in your false messiah’s footsteps I see.
After all now that political dissension has once again become a dangerous practice, unlike when G. Bush was in office and it was deemed “Patriotic” by the left, suddenly the leftist administration issues talking points instructing all comrades to now decree all engaging in this dissension to be labeled as dangerous to “Our President” to quote Barbra Boxer.
Or maybe it is as Pelosi said that we are all walking around carrying swastika flags…
Yes I can see that all those dangerous looking senior citizen attendees of the Town Hall meetings were paid rabble rousers just like the White House claims with their talking points spin.
Your leaders have lost their ability to think in terms of reality.
The messiah even posted a place you useful idiots can send the names of those you deem a threat to your beliefs.
Must really su*k to be you.
Aug 6, 2009 - 9:29 am 44. Moho:Yeah, now you guys have facts. This has to be the least fact-related website on the internet, beside Drudgereport.
Aug 6, 2009 - 9:39 am 45. Calvin Ball:Lily, that’s anthropogenic Unless you think the weather is made in man’s image.
Come to think of it, there is a such thing as anthropomorphic global warming. The second world in the original Super Mario Bros. had a mean, nasty looking sun that made everything hot, and sometimes would chase you. Maybe that’s what happened. The warmers played too much Mario, and had nightmares about the mean, nasty sun.
Aug 6, 2009 - 9:59 am 46. I Blame the Parents:Since only scientists really understand the science and since within science there is an as-near-as-dammit peer-reviewed consensus that human-accelerated climate change is occurring, then climate change deniers need to address the meta-issue of why such an amazingly efficient scientific conspiracy is taking place and how climate scientists are managing to pull it off. Only once they’ve come up with a reasonable answer to that – preferably without sounding really angry, crazed and/or bitter – should they start proposing alternative theories that have yet to appear in peer-reviewed climate-scientific research.
Aug 6, 2009 - 10:00 am 47. dscott:I think Karl Popper had something similar to say in determining what was science and what was pseudo science. It’s called falsification.
I found that those of my friends who were admirers of Marx, Freud, and Adler, were impressed by a number of points common to these theories, and especially by their apparent explanatory power. These theories appear to be able to explain practically everything that happened within the fields to which they referred. The study of any of them seemed to have the effect of an intellectual conversion or revelation, open your eyes to a new truth hidden from those not yet initiated. Once your eyes were thus opened you saw confirmed instances everywhere: the world was full of verifications of the theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it. Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth; who refuse to see it, either because it was against their class interest, or because of their repressions which were still “un-analyzed” and crying aloud for treatment…
…These considerations led me in the winter of 1919-20 to conclusions which I may now reformulate as follows.
1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory — if we look for confirmations.
2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory — an event which would have refuted the theory.
3. Every “good” scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of “corroborating evidence.”)
7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers — for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by reinterpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a “conventionalist twist” or a “conventionalist stratagem.”)
One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html
Aug 6, 2009 - 10:14 am 48. homero:46. I Blame the Parents:
the earth is supposed to be in a natural warming cycle. nothing to do with the puny humans. (the earth was significantly warmer during the explorations of the Vikings, when they settled Greenland and you may notice they (the global warming fascist)don’t se data from that period.). If you have an open mind and are capable of critical thinking there is a lot of information out there. Don’t just swallow what Gore and clowns put out there for you. Read stuff from both sides.
the choice to be informed is yours. I don’t care what you actually think, but I will point out that there is no evidence of man made global warming.
please show me the peer reviewed scientific reports showing “global warming” is a man made.
…and please not one from the partisans (Gore fabrication studies …I have seen them and they are not peer reviewed or true) maybe it is in the file with the birth certificate.
Aug 6, 2009 - 10:20 am 49. Moho:Anybody who references Stephen Jay Gould is ok by me. That guy was the thesis of open-minded and intellectual curiosity.
Aug 6, 2009 - 10:30 am 50. germanist:Thank you, dscott, for this clarification! I love Popper and I’m so sad that no politician today tries to learn from him. (Unlike someone in the past …) whom, well, you might not like, but he was way better than anybody we have nowadays.
Aug 6, 2009 - 10:36 am 51. Calvin Ball:WTF??? Is ‘dammit’ a new planet? I’ve heard of the medication ‘damitol’, but…
Aug 6, 2009 - 10:42 am 52. Lily:#45. Calvin Ball
Nice catch. My Bad.
Aug 6, 2009 - 10:46 am 53. Michael:46. I Blame the Parents, consensus has nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics. If billions of dollars are available for global warming research then by God there is going to be global warming to be researched.
By the way, computer models are not good theory much less proof. Especially since they have all failed miserably at predicting historical weather trends. Too many fudged variables to make their desired outcome.
Religion is a poor metaphor for what this administration is doing. Religion is about the spiritual. This administration is about revising historical examples of their favored policies and denying or falsifying current effects of those policies.
Aug 6, 2009 - 10:48 am 54. Wacky Hermit:#17 Theo Goodwin: “Nancy Pelosi really believes that our capitalist economy is controlled by a cabal of tycoons who pursue their own wealth and power at the cost of everyone else.”
For once, Pelosi is absolutely 100% correct. She just doesn’t realize that she’s part of the “cabal.”
Aug 6, 2009 - 11:00 am 55. john m e:a transition in pulic perception has begun to accelerate in thought and deed…
“The One” is seen not so much the messiah nor the beneficent dilletante,
more the charlatan and dangerous political zealot.
It’s getting interesting, eh? A potentially fatal move by the far left is in play.
Aug 6, 2009 - 11:07 am 56. Moho:I Blame the Parents, consensus has nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics. If billions of dollars are available for global warming research then by God there is going to be global warming to be researched.
Yeah, the same thing happened with computer science and look at what a bunch of bs that turned out to be.
Aug 6, 2009 - 11:19 am 57. Laurie Thompson:The great one, President Obama, is simply attempting to re-educate America in the hopes that this nation realizes the old solutions won’t work in the dynamic new Barackian era.
More than an era of good feeling, it is an era of good deeds.
What will good those good deeds produce?
To begin with, a new health care system that looks not to private insurance companies that are out to maximize profit, but a government run health care system whose mission is to maximize the health and well being of every American, not just the lucky ones with jobs and employers.
So that the Henry Gates of the world don’t have to be humiliated in front of their own homes, President Obama plans to institute all black police coverage in black areas of all cities. The more secure citizens living in the worst areas of our cities feel, the more secure all Americans will be.
Since black business was somewhat overlooked by Stimulus I, Democratic legislators have pledged to make a concerted effort to make sure future government economic payouts will dedicate themselves to making available large quantities of cash designed to better the stability of black businesses, the engine of a vibrant growing black community.
To cut wasteful spending, President Obama has issued a detailed message to the justice department to only prosecute cases with merit; that justify the effort and time required to make a case stick.
This is in obvious reference to the fishing expedition white lawyers went on to prosecute the gentlemen in fatigues at the polling place in Philadelphia. There was no proved voter intimidation. In fact, Black Panther leadership pledged that they were there to insure that blacks weren’t scared away from the polls, a common tact in the south and other places where the outcome is in doubt.
President Obama is also taking the necessary steps to assure a distrusting white America that measured, careful bilateral nuclear disarmament will lead to a safer world.
Words and deeds.
That’s how President Obama is
cementing our relationships abroad.
He asks you to trust the leadership in Iran who pledges their belief in and commitment to peace.
Trust is also the glue that in the end will bring differing cultures together in the middle east.
President Obama has stated time and again that Israel’s knee jerk response to any affront no matter how slight must no longer be the use of threats and force. Rather, appreciating the fact that we’re all in this together is the only way to assure, in the middle east, a lasting and much needed peace.
The fruits of President Obama’s promised change are destined to be shared all over the world. With your support, everyone, rich and poor, powerful and not, will partake, sit as equals at the great table of cooperation and good will.
Joining together to drink in the benefits of President Obama’s brave new world.
Aug 6, 2009 - 11:25 am 58. Calvin Ball:Here’s some peer-reviewed ’science’:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/5949676/Artificial-sperm-research-included-plagiarised-paragraphs.html
Climate ’science’ is much more of a whorehouse than sperm ’science’.
Aug 6, 2009 - 11:32 am 59. AtheistConservative:Here’s what kills me about this whole thing:
You remember, during the nadir of his popularity, Bush repeatedly saying that ‘history’ would ‘judge him’? How everybody laughed! Surely the years of Bushitler would be purged from our textbooks in shame. If history did ‘judge’ him it would only be to layer on a few more coats of hate-varnish. My god he was so horrible!
But hilariously it only took six months of his ideological opposites running things for the country to wake up and realize, hey, maybe Bush and Cheney weren’t really as bad as the hysterical astroturfing left-wingers and MSM made them believe.
I’m still no great fan of Bush, largely because he wasn’t Conservative enough. But as is usually the case with left-wingers, most of their critiques of him are the result of projection and fantasy.
- Bush is a fascist! Really? Do you know what fascism means? Given that its definition requires single-person or single-ideology control (Democrats run everything); forcible suppression of criticism (mailing out threatening letters to Republicans, asking ‘good citizens’ to ratfink on anyone who critiques your ideas, telling people to ‘get in their face’); regimenting and controlling commerce (taking over the banks and auto industry, trying to destroy private health care); and being racist … seems like Obama has a lock on the role. Add into the equation the fact that Obama kept everyone of the (necessary) ‘fascist’ policies for fighting terror that Congress and the Bush administration approved … and you have to just marvel at the self-delusion of left-wingers
- Bush/Republicans spent like a drunken sailor! Hardly. Bush and both parties spent a lot of money, but for a specific reason: to fund two ‘hot’ wars, both of which were enthusiastically voted for by our Congress. With the exception of TARP (for which I hold Bush _entirely_ responsible, he was trying to appease before leaving but appeasement is a bad idea, the left was never going to love him), Bush wasn’t spending tons of money on ridiculous concepts or government expansion. Again the award goes to Obama … in JUST SIX MONTHS.
- Bush politicized the Justice Department! Um, right. He fired a few attorneys. Clinton fired every single US attorney. Obama won’t investigate ACORN and fired the guy who was doing the job. Obama let the Black Panther intimidation squad go free. Obama has put in >30 ‘czars’. And on, and on, and on.
- Bush made bad picks for the Supreme Court! Sure, with Harriet Miers. But his other picks were actually very good – including Miguel Estrada, whom some Democrats opposed BECAUSE HE WAS HISPANIC. Obama picks Sonia frickin’ Sotomayor!
- Bush let religion get in the way of sound policy! The only possible interpretation of this revolves around stem cell research, which Bush was the first to federally fund, with the exception of destroying new embryos – a practice MANY scientists have an issue with, and which put no real limit on stem cell research which BOOMED under the Bush administration. Obama isn’t really religious, but he sure lets IDEOLOGY influence his policy, which is the same thing: single-payer, cap-and-trade, huge ‘Keynesian’ spending, federally funding abortion, etc, etc.
It’s almost farcical how a mischaracterization of Bush was used to empower a guy who is worse in EVERY SINGLE MEASURABLE ASPECT.
Aug 6, 2009 - 11:54 am 60. deguello:Like all libs, the Obamanistas are pathological fantasists; out of a raging, virulently neurotic need to reshape reality,they emulate their Stalinist forbears with collectivist policies that have never worked,and will exacerbate all of our problems.They remind me of flat earthers,holocaust deniers, and creationists. They need to be stopped lest they turn this country into an imitation of Castro’s Cuba.
Aug 6, 2009 - 12:08 pm 61. David Morrison:This seems to miss the point. Can anyone point to empirical evidence (besides the protestations of obvious liars) suggesting that the Obama administration even wants to improve the weather, the economy, health care, or national security? Doesn’t the empirical evidence suggest the exact opposite?
Aug 6, 2009 - 12:12 pm 62. Kim:Some 60’s radicals explicitly held that facts are of no use as a guide to action. One motto of the Yippies was “Act first. Analyze later. Impulse – not theory – makes the great leaps forward.”
Today, it would seem that the Left has even dropped the “Analyze later.” part.
In control theory terms, they’re running open-loop, without feedback, in a mode that is detached from reality.
Aug 6, 2009 - 12:39 pm 63. Ted:4,000 years ago, God told us about trying to reason with libs:
Proverbs 27:22
and
Proverbs 26:4
2,000 years ago his son reiterated the same basic message:
Aug 6, 2009 - 12:44 pm 64. BC:Matthew 7:6
You know, this “global warming is a religion” stuff is only a step or two below the birther stuff on the wackiness scale. The only people calling belief in people being the primary culprits in this current round of climate change are conservatives and Republicans who think they’re smarter than climate scientists involved in several decades of painstaking research and analysis. Krauthammer’s notion of “empirical evidence” is no more than an example of this wacky, clueless reasoning — let’s not do something useful about a growing problem because someone else may do something un-useful that will counteract it. This is along the lines of “Why get out of bed and head off to get married when it might end in a horrible divorce?”
Aug 6, 2009 - 12:56 pm 65. Graham L.:59. AtheistConservative: “Here’s what kills me about this whole thing:
You remember, during the nadir of his popularity, Bush repeatedly saying that ‘history’ would ‘judge him’? How everybody laughed! Surely the years of Bushitler would be purged from our textbooks in shame. If history did ‘judge’ him it would only be to layer on a few more coats of hate-varnish. My god he was so horrible!
Yes, he was a terrible president, and we’re all glad he’s gone. Where are you going with this?
“But hilariously it only took six months of his ideological opposites running things for the country to wake up and realize, hey, maybe Bush and Cheney weren’t really as bad as the hysterical astroturfing left-wingers and MSM made them believe.”
No, it did not only take “six months of his ideological opposites running things for the country to wake up.”
Firstly, the small fringe group of people like you, who hate the President, hated him from even before day one; they hated him as soon as they saw his face and heard his name and party affiliation. So it’s really no surprise that 6 months later, the same people who hated him before even listening to him still hate him today.
Secondly, this small fringe group of predominantly white, southern Americans who hate the President are not “the country”; they are just a very small demographic that reflexively hate anything with a D after its name.
Thirdly, I don’t know what planet you’re from, but here on Earth you won’t find a single sane person who will tell you that “hey, maybe Bush and Cheney weren’t really as bad”. Even Republicans are relieved to have that travesty over and done with.
“I’m still no great fan of Bush…”
Could have fooled me.
“…largely because he wasn’t Conservative enough.”
And yet that didn’t stop the CPAC from giving him a standing ovation at their annual conference in 2008: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/02/08/648516.aspx
Funny, right?
“But as is usually the case with left-wingers, most of their critiques of him are the result of projection and fantasy.”
“- Bush is a fascist! Really? Do you know what fascism means?”Given that its definition requires single-person or single-ideology control (Democrats run everything); forcible suppression of criticism (mailing out threatening letters to Republicans, asking ‘good citizens’ to ratfink on anyone who critiques your ideas, telling people to ‘get in their face’); regimenting and controlling commerce (taking over the banks and auto industry, trying to destroy private health care); and being racist … seems like Obama has a lock on the role. Add into the equation the fact that Obama kept everyone of the (necessary) ‘fascist’ policies for fighting terror that Congress and the Bush administration approved … and you have to just marvel at the self-delusion of left-wingers.”
This is almost too funny. You ask liberals “Do you know what fascism means?”, and then go on to define it as “single ideology control (Democrats run everything)”.
Uhh….you do know that the current Democratic majority in Congress is because there were national election in 2006 and 2008 in which the GOP lost? Perhaps you’re confusing Fascism with Democracy? I mean, that’s a pretty easy mistake to make … oh wait, no it’s not. Pick up a junior high civics book, please.
“- Bush/Republicans spent like a drunken sailor! Hardly. Bush and both parties spent a lot of money, but for a specific reason: to fund two ‘hot’ wars, both of which were enthusiastically voted for by our Congress. With the exception of TARP (for which I hold Bush _entirely_ responsible, he was trying to appease before leaving but appeasement is a bad idea, the left was never going to love him), Bush wasn’t spending tons of money on ridiculous concepts or government expansion. Again the award goes to Obama … in JUST SIX MONTHS.
Wait, you say that he “hardly” spend a lot of money, but then you say that he did spend a “lot of money, but for a specific reason”. Which is it? Did he spend a lot of money, or didn’t he?
Well let me answer that for you: he did. He squandered a budget surplus. And raised the federal deficit to unprecedented levels, all the while claiming that “deficits don’t matter”. He rushed us into a war of choice in Iraq, and though we have seen document after document to corroborate the fact that there never were any WMDs, nor did Saddam have any connection with al Qaeda, we are still being crippled by the costs of that meaningless war – a total of $671,351,970,755 to date. He directed billions of dollars to be spent on his pet projects like No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D. Despite all this runaway spending, he cut taxes against judgment of every single economist in the country.
So it’s not just the fact that Bush drunkenly spent a lot of money, it’s that he never even considered how to pay for any of it – he just punted it all to the next president.
“- Bush let religion get in the way of sound policy! The only possible interpretation of this revolves around stem cell research, which Bush was the first to federally fund, with the exception of destroying new embryos – a practice MANY scientists have an issue with, and which put no real limit on stem cell research which BOOMED under the Bush administration. “
Oh man. You really need to try doing some research before you post this stuff.
Teen pregnancy and disease rates rose sharply during Bush years, agency finds
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/20/bush-teen-pregnancy-cdc-report
“Teenage pregnancies and syphilis have risen sharply among a generation of American school girls who were urged to avoid sex before marriage under George Bush’s evangelically-driven education policy, according to a new report by the US’s major public health body.
In a report that will surprise few of Bush’s critics on the issue, the Centres for Disease Control says years of falling rates of teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease infections under previous administrations were reversed or stalled in the Bush years. According to the CDC, birth rates among teenagers aged 15 or older had been in decline since 1991 but are up sharply in more than half of American states since 2005. The study also revealed that the number of teenage females with syphilis has risen by nearly half after a significant decrease while a two-decade fall in the gonorrhea infection rate is being reversed. The number of Aids cases in adolescent boys has nearly doubled.
The CDC says that southern states, where there is often the greatest emphasis on abstinence and religion, tend to have the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs.
In addition, about 16,000 pregnancies were reported among 10- to 14-year-old girls in 2004 and a similar number of young people in the age group reported having a sexually transmitted disease.”
So what were you saying about Bush not letting religion get in the way of policy? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Aug 6, 2009 - 1:01 pm 66. Anonymous:Moho, a good example of real science and science driven by politics.
Aug 6, 2009 - 1:01 pm 67. Calvin Ball:Bingo. That’s what makes Teh Won so different from Clinton. Clinton was very much a closed loop. The constant polling kept him out of most trouble, and allowed him to escape when he was in trouble.
Teh Won doesn’t understand OODA. And surprisingly, neither do Axlerod and Rahmel. Rahmel has taken the blitzkrieg thing as gospel, running at 100 mph with their tighty-whiteys at their ankles, not looking at where they’re going. They’re all going to fall hard and fast.
Aug 6, 2009 - 1:20 pm 68. Peter the Bubblehead:46. I Blame the Parents:
Since only scientists really understand the science and since within science there is an as-near-as-dammit peer-reviewed consensus that human-accelerated climate change is occurring, then climate change deniers need to address the meta-issue of why such an amazingly efficient scientific conspiracy is taking place and how climate scientists are managing to pull it off.
Peter writes: Well, since at least 31,000 US scientists have come out as saying AGW is a myth, I would hardly call it a consensus.
http://www.petitionproject.org/
http://www.matchdoctor.com/blog_79975/ARGUMENTS_AGAINST_GLOBAL_WARMING_NOT_ALL_SCIENTISTS_AGREE.html
Aug 6, 2009 - 1:40 pm 69. Kim:The best refutation of that is to point out that without Christians, there never would have been a Dark Ages in the first place.
The fact is, experimental science was used by Archimedes over 1800 years before Francis Bacon popularized the inductive method of scientific inquiry.
More importantly, the scientific mode of thinking was an Ancient Greek invention. They were the first to draw the distinction between the natural and the supernatural.
Aug 6, 2009 - 1:43 pm 70. Moho:Yes, if so called “computer science” had done everything that was promised, then we would be able to communicate with one another through a world wide network of databases. Ha! Like that’s ever going to happen.
Aug 6, 2009 - 1:46 pm 71. Peter the Bubblehead:57. Laurie Thompson wrote:
To begin with, a new health care system that looks not to private insurance companies that are out to maximize profit, but a government run health care system whose mission is to maximize the health and well being of every American, not just the lucky ones with jobs and employers…
Peter adds: …Until the government bureaucrats decide it will be cheaper to prescribe pills to people suffering great pain rather than allow them to have a more expensive operation (that their doctor recommends) because to approve the expensive operation will put the government into even deeper debt, until such time that the patient can’t bare the pain any longer, at which point the government counselor offers ‘end of life’ counseling instead of medical care that his doctor (who he is no longer allowed to see, because he would no longer accept the 1/10th payment the government offered) recommended.
Aug 6, 2009 - 1:50 pm 72. Graham:Oh, I just love the more delusional trolls-
” a total of $671,351,970,755 to date.”
Which is less than Obama and Pelosi squandered in one single bill, the useless Porkulus: $789,000,000,000.
“So it’s not just the fact that Bush drunkenly spent a lot of money, it’s that he never even considered how to pay for any of it – he just punted it all to the next president.”
Muwahahahahaha! And Obama is doing- what again? Except four times as much of it!
I suppose in your universe the Evil Bush incurred ‘bad debt,’ but Obama is Good and therefore incurs ‘good debt.’
ALL government debt is bad (Keynes was of course wrong); but any debt which might be attributable to (largely self-financing) tax cuts is slightly less bad than debt incurred by excessive spending, because tax cuts leave money in the economy as organically allocated, whereas government spending inevitably reallocateas it to less efficient (and often completely useles) sectors.
Or perhaps you’re under the impression that the Porkulus money was spent wisely and not politically?
(BTW, I love that “every single economist” nonsense. Perhaps this consensus existed in the same alternate reality as the AGW concensus?)
Aug 6, 2009 - 1:55 pm 73. Anonymous:66. Moho: “Yes, if so called “computer science” had done everything that was promised, then we would be able to communicate with one another through a world wide network of databases. Ha! Like that’s ever going to happen.”
Yeah – the federal government was really stupid to try an invest all that public money on some kind of series of computer tubes. Look what a waste of money that turned out to be! Government needs to stay out of the private sector!
Aug 6, 2009 - 1:58 pm 74. Bohemond:“this small fringe group of predominantly white, southern Americans who hate the President are not “the country”; they are just a very small demographic ”
Oh, the deep, deep denial! The left-wing fringe is very, very temporarily in control, and in their arrogance actually believe Americans actually like them for once. Fool! You seem to have forgotten that you ‘progressives’ (or whatever euphemism the kook fringe is using now) grabbed power through a bait-and-switch, Obama posing as a ‘moderate’- but the marks are now figuring out that they were conned. And they are NOT happy about it. And moreover, they’re quickly remembering why they always hated lefties to begin with.
So keep whistling past the graveyard! Keep pretending that self-identified ‘liberals’ account for more than a mere 21% of the electorate. Keep it up, we sure won’t stop it. And while you’re at it, keep insulting the citizenry, just keep up the namecalling. Go on. I’m sure the more you call the American people ‘teabaggers,’ ‘racists,’ ‘mobs’ and so on, the more they will respond to you. In fact, I’m sure of it.
Aug 6, 2009 - 2:04 pm 75. Graham L.:@ 72.: The point I was making is that Bush was the most terrible president in modern history by any metric you want to use, and that the current president would have to do some pretty horrendous stuff to be put in the same category. However, since the vast majority of economists and voters understood that a stimulus package was a necessary evil to clean up the Bush administration mess, it is very unlikely that the stimulus will dog Obama’s legacy the way that Torture, Iraq, Blackwater, Katrina, PlameGate, Warrantless Wiretapping, No Child Left Behind, and Abstinence-only sex ed have dogged Bush’s legacy.
Aug 6, 2009 - 2:12 pm 76. Moogie:46. I Blame the Parents:
Since only scientists really understand the science and since within science there is an as-near-as-dammit peer-reviewed consensus that human-accelerated climate change is occurring, then climate change deniers need to address the meta-issue of why such an amazingly efficient scientific conspiracy is taking place and how climate scientists are managing to pull it off.
“I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.” – Michael Crichton
Aug 6, 2009 - 3:01 pm 77. Moogie:“this small fringe group of predominantly white, southern Americans who hate the President are not “the country”; they are just a very small demographic ”
1. I am not predominantly white – I am predominantly American.
Aug 6, 2009 - 3:06 pm 78. Shef Rogers:2. I’m not a southerner. I’m a nor’westerner in the great blue state of WA.
3. I don’t hate the president. I dislike him intensely.
4. I am neither a small fringe nor a small demographic, although admittedly, I am a person of small stature.
5. I am, indeed, “the country.” Get used to it because we aren’t going away.
It just keeps getting funnier. Let’s see, Charles Krauthammer, who has never, ever revised his consistently wrong rosy predictions about the welcome we’d get when we occupied Baghdad, is criticizing someone ELSE for being “impervious to empirical evidence”? I believe that Krauthammer’s profession has a name for the behavior being exhibited here.
Aug 6, 2009 - 3:27 pm 79. venividivici:69. Kim:
The best refutation of that is to point out that without Christians, there never would have been a Dark Ages in the first place.
The fact is, experimental science was used by Archimedes over 1800 years before Francis Bacon popularized the inductive method of scientific inquiry.
More importantly, the scientific mode of thinking was an Ancient Greek invention. They were the first to draw the distinction between the natural and the supernatural.
It’s much more complicated than “without Christians there wouldn’t have been a Dark Ages”.
Read some of the pagan historians from the end of the pagan world and you will see that even they felt that worldview had exhausted itself. Without Christians to take over the Roman Empire, it is quite possible that Europe would have fragmented so much following the collapse of the pagan worldview (don’t forget that many, many pagans converted to Christianity willingly because it seemed more plausible than the old myths), that it would have made easy pickings for the Muslim hordes a few hundred years later. In which case, the development of science would have been extremely unlikely, if not impossible.
I know it is the pseudo-Nietzschean view that Christianity ruined the pagan world (although I think Nietzsche is much more subtle than that), but the fact is that the pagan world had ruined itself.
Aug 6, 2009 - 3:27 pm 80. Anonymous:15. The Shadow:
This column makes me laugh. Empirical Evidence – Rubin never met a fact whe was not willing to distort. You get this assertion “Gates-gate — the triumph of an ideologically driven narrative (America is as racist a country as it’s ever been)” The alternative is that she is so deluded as to believe it. I don’t know which is more apalling.
****************************************************************************
One more than suspects based on your comments you would not find BY Keith Obberman ,Chris Mathews Machiavelli , Marx , Lenin , Stalin . Mao . Bill Ayers ,Rev Right and rules for Radicals by Saul Alensky “” NOT APPALLING but HIGHLY Appealing !
Aug 6, 2009 - 3:46 pm 81. ReConUSMC:15. The Shadow:
This column makes me laugh. Empirical Evidence – Rubin never met a fact whe was not willing to distort. You get this assertion “Gates-gate — the triumph of an ideologically driven narrative (America is as racist a country as it’s ever been)” The alternative is that she is so deluded as to believe it. I don’t know which is more apalling.
****************************************************************************
One more than suspects based on your comments you would not find BY Keith Obberman ,Chris Mathews Machiavelli , Marx , Lenin , Stalin . Mao . Bill Ayers ,Rev Right and rules for Radicals by Saul Alensky “” NOT APPALLING but HIGHLY Appealing !
Aug 6, 2009 - 3:46 pm 82. ReConUSMC:78. Shef Rogers:
Aug 6, 2009 - 3:51 pm 83. Shef Rogers:It just keeps getting funnier. Let’s see, Charles Krauthammer, who has never, ever revised his consistently wrong
*********************************************
One fully suspects your IQ , Common Sense , Knowledge and EDUCATION is 1 % of Charles Krauthammer and I am being Kind .
I’ve never praised an opposing comment before, but I have to say that Venividivici’s post #79 is eloquently phrased and historically correct. And may I also say that it’s a pleasure to see someone who’s actually read and understood Nietzsche. Kim’s view is not by any means that of Nietzsche. It’s more attributable to the late-Enlightenment bigotry of polemicists like Gibbon.
Aug 6, 2009 - 3:55 pm 84. Delia:57. “So that the Henry Gates of the world don’t have to be humiliated in front of their own homes, President Obama plans to institute all black police coverage in black areas of all cities.”
‘Poor Henry’ lives in a predominately ‘white’ neighborhood. lol!
P.S. Isn’t Gates a Mulatto married to a white woman???
Aug 6, 2009 - 3:56 pm 85. Delia:Edit: ‘predominately’ should have been ‘predominantly’.
Aug 6, 2009 - 3:57 pm 86. ReConUSMC:79. venividivici:
Aug 6, 2009 - 4:04 pm 87. AtheistConservative:***************************************
Without Machiavelli Atheists’ and fellow Atheist Radical Socialism and Marxism the Modern World in the last 100 years would not had 180 Million Murdered , Imprisoned and starved to death .
So what is your Silly leftist Atheist point ?
Even Today many are being Murdered in Asia , India , Africa , China , N Korea and South America(Shining Path ) with Marxist Thugs .
“You know, this “global warming is a religion” stuff is only a step or two below the birther stuff on the wackiness scale.”
Considering the left-wing are the ones promulgating both, that’s not surprising.
“The only people calling belief in people being the primary culprits in this current round of climate change are conservatives and Republicans who think they’re smarter than climate scientists involved in several decades of painstaking research and analysis.”
Well, that and HUNDREDS of ‘climate scientists’ (the determination of which is a floating target – if you’re an economist who believes in AGW, you’re a ‘climate scientist’; if you’re an economist who doesn’t, you’re “not even a climate scientist!”).
I hate to break it to you, but AGW is a myth. There is no ‘proven, unquestionable’ science on the issue, which is why there is such great debate on the issue.
But more importantly, even if AGW is happening, we need rational policy – not people passing boondoggle legislation that cripples the US, which isn’t even the worst polluter, while other countries continue to push forward.
Aug 6, 2009 - 5:04 pm 88. AtheistConservative:Graham L dribbled:
Ah, I love a good fisking.
“Yes he was a terrible president”
Not in the slightest. He had errors in policy and made mistakes, like many presidents, but contrary to the liberal mythology he wasn’t a ‘terrible’ president.
“they hated him as soon as they saw his face”
Riiiight. We’re all racists. Have you not noticed that your idiotic position on this issue has only increased opposition to your beloved leader? There’s a reason his personal approval level is now below 50%, and his policy approval level has been below 40% for months.
But please – keep calling us ‘fringe’ and ‘racists’. We’ll be glad to take the country back.
Oh, and let me return the fisking:
“Even Republicans are relieved to have that travesty over and done with.”
But you JUST SAID that he got a standing O at CPAC? So which IS IT? WHICH IS IT?!?
Jackass.
“This is almost too funny. You ask liberals ‘Do you know what fascism means?’, and then go on to define it as ’single ideology control (Democrats run everything)’.”
Yes, because the rest of that paragraph doesn’t exist. Do you generally find that when you’re proven wrong, just ignoring the argument works?
“Which is it? Did he spend a lot of money, or didn’t he?”
My apologies; I figured you could follow a very simple, rational chain of thought through two sentences. But I should know better. To answer your question: he spent a lot of money … only on wars that our Congress voted for. Which, by the way, is how we decide to go to war.
“He squandered a budget surplus.”
Nope. We were in a recession when he took office.
“raised the federal deficit”
Sure did. To fight two wars Congress decided to undertake.
“He rushed us into a war of choice in Iraq”
You really need to read the Constitution.
“there never were any WMDs”
Yes there were. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=15918
“nor did Saddam have any connection with al Qaeda”
Yes he did. Even liberal-bias Wikipedia concedes this point, only offering that there was no ‘working relationship’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein_and_al-Qaeda_link_allegations
“He directed billions of dollars to be spent on his pet projects like No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D.”
… amounting to less than $100 billion total. And that’s hilarious coming from a guy who supports giving the health care system to the government for more than one trillion dollars.
“Teen pregnancy and disease rates rose sharply during Bush years, agency find”
Riiiight. Always great to meet a Kool-Ade drinker. That article’s headline has nothing to do with its contents, which state clearly that the reversal started in 2005 (that’s 5 years into Bush’s presidency) and that it has absolutely nothing to do with any specific policy enacted by Bush.
That’s really all you have? Seriously? Just the same paranoid BDS nonsense? Bush gave your daughter syphillis! Bush unilaterally took the country to war! Hope that tinfoil hat works out for you. Me and the rest of the country will be protesting the real fascist currently residing at 1600 Pennsylvania, the one who has really spent our country into unsustainable debt, really destroyed our standing in the world, really put us in danger, and really should be booted the Hell out of office.
Aug 6, 2009 - 5:15 pm 89. Moho:“I am, indeed, “the country.” Get used to it because we aren’t going away.”
Actually, all polling indicates that you are. We are witnessing the death pangs of a disgusting group of people, to paraphrase Condoleeza Rice. In another decade or so, the last of you will be gone, and those other people that can think clearly and critically will inherit this country. And thank god for that.
Aug 6, 2009 - 5:46 pm 90. venividivici:86
I didn’t say anything about Radical Socialists or Communists, both of whom I think have, as you say, done nothing but wreak havoc on the world, even to this day. I was just trying to clear up what I thought was an error in historical reasoning by the poster I replied to. I’ve read “The Black Book of Communism” and have had many acquaintances from the ex-Soviet Union and I know what the opponents of freedom are willing and able to do.
Aug 6, 2009 - 5:52 pm 91. Calvin Ball:What am I missing? Krauthammer went to Harvard (Medical School). I thought trolls took a blood oath to worship the toenails of anyone who went to Harvard.
Or is he the wrong race/ethnicity?
Aug 6, 2009 - 6:06 pm 92. Mason:Sadly, the Obama outfit is a pack religious extremists of an odd non-theistic sort.
Aug 6, 2009 - 6:51 pm 93. darwin-t:Uhhhhbama is going to run the country on sunshine and breezes, just you wait! You’ll look pretty stupid then, WON’T YOU?????
Aug 6, 2009 - 6:55 pm 94. Mike, CO:Jennifer,
Thank you for your article — day by day you are adding to our knowledge of Obama.
There may be another observation that relates to Obama’s empiricism, or lack of it. His speeches and public interactions appear to be increasingly aloof. He rarely takes the time to be personable, and he is almost robotic in his tone and delivery.
If he were capable of measuring himself — in an ‘empirical’ way — he would be more aware of this. There is a certain ignorance required to ping-pong between teleprompters every 4 seconds while trying to deliver a speech with great gravitas. Little things like this are troubling, because they give us insight into how abstractly Obama views himself and the world. It does not occur to him that sincerity is lost when he uses the teleprompter, so how could he believe that his plans would not be successful? To him, success and failure are abstract notions, and that is very dangerous.
Aug 6, 2009 - 7:19 pm 95. AtheistConservative:“First of all, Waxman was killed by Hamas during the rescue attempt. Why was he killed, if torture was such a great idea?”
Why did my ice cream melt, when I took my birth control pills and turned my car wheels TOWARDS the curb on an uphill slope?
I realize you’re kind of dumb, being a lefty, so let me point out that this is SARCASM, intended to illustrate that you are trying to link two completely unrelated events. The soldier would have been killed during a rescue attempt if the interrogators had gotten the information through tea and biscuits. The torture had no impact on the soldier’s death. It did, however, provide the team with his location, which they could not otherwise obtain.
The ‘ticking time bomb’ scenario is very real. And enhanced interrogation does work.
If your ‘logic’ is indicative of the level of rational thought on the left – and it is – then we have nothing to worry about.
“Actually, all polling indicates that you are. We are witnessing the death pangs of a disgusting group of people”
Now, now. We know you’re logically challenged, smug, self-centered, elitist, racist, and tiresome. And we know from ‘all polling’ that in the span of six months you managed to spend all the political capital that came from incorrectly demonizing Bush and the Republican party over 8 years. I’m sure you feel bad. But ‘disgusting’? Don’t get so down on yourself.
Aug 6, 2009 - 7:26 pm 96. Pat J:Off topic. I have to say good for you Pajamas Media. I appreciate your willingness to encourage intelligent discourse and putting it in writing.
Aug 6, 2009 - 7:50 pm 97. Dave II:Does “impervious to empirical evidence” include not knowing when outrage at townhall meetings is TRUE OUTRAGE and not “mobs” shipped in to “agitate”???
No, I suppose not.
Why should we expect anything less from our
Aug 6, 2009 - 7:53 pm 98. Moogie:“Emperorical” President?
#89 Moho: “In another decade or so, the last of you will be gone, and those other people that can think clearly and critically will inherit this country. And thank god for that.”
Exactly!! That’s what I’m talking about! In another decade or so, the last of the liberals will be gone, and those other conservatives who (not “that” you idiot) can think clearly and critically will inherit this country. And thank GOD for that.
Whew. I am so glad you finally understand this. Welcome, Moho, to the world of logical, conservative thought! It does feel good, doesn’t it, to throw off the chains of irrational and self-righteous thought, doesn’t it? Congratulations!
Aug 6, 2009 - 8:16 pm 99. BC:To AtheistConservative: No — you can probably use a maimed hand to count the number of scientists worldwide genuinely involved in climate research (random petroleum engineers, weather guys and the like don’t count) who are genuinely skeptical of mankind not being primarily responsible for the current warming trend. As far as I’m concerned, Birthers, Moon Landing Hoaxers, 9/11 Inside Jobbers, and Global Warming Deniers all live on the same block.
Aug 6, 2009 - 8:44 pm 100. Moogie:I’m not so sure I like this new comment procedure thingie.
I left a comment awhile ago, and I am not seeing it here. Is it in the ozone layer, waiting for approval?
While I was waiting I poured myself another glass of wine and hopped over to Frank Fleming’s latest. Funny stuff!
Dear PJ Moderators:
Maybe your tech. gurus or Czars or whatever you guys call them, could come up with some kind of thingie that would let the commenters know if their comments have been doused with gasoline and set on fire, never to be seen again, or if they’re just sitting in moderation/comment limbo, waiting for the Hand of God to come down and bless them with actual public display.
Just an idea.
Thank you,
Aug 6, 2009 - 8:46 pm 101. Moogie:Moogie
I’m not so sure I like the new moderation thingie. Is my comment being scrutinized by a cabal of techo-geeks right now? Or did it float away in the cyber-sphere of obsolescence?
You moderation guys gotta remember some of us are three hours behind the east coast! You can’t go to bed until those of us on the left side of the country (that being the west coast – not necessarily the lefties) have had our say.
Aug 6, 2009 - 9:11 pm 102. moogie:My humble apologies to you, dear Comment Moderators. I see now that my comments have not been destroyed in the proverbial Comment Shredder of Life. I patiently await your learned decision.
Aug 6, 2009 - 9:13 pm 103. AtheCon2:AtheistConservative.. thank you for standing up for rational thought… a wonderful use of objectivism.. Keep it coming.. some day the world might wake up…there is always hope.
Aug 6, 2009 - 9:32 pm 104. John Marshall:#99
Your attitude seems to be that if the scientists are agreed upon a matter then that ends the discussion. If that principle were true then there would never have been an Einstein, just to pick one example at large. Before Einstein and for some time after his first publications, all scientists agreed on Newtonian principles.
But the really important matter is that the global warming theorists have always fallen short on predictions. None of them predicted the cooling trend of the last ten years, for example. Not one of them has presented a model of climate change that an ordinary Phd scientist can read and use for prediction. In science, failure of prediction is the curse of death. They are dead.
Aug 6, 2009 - 9:45 pm 105. Pragmatist:Moogie I see you got confused as I did. When you post you see your post with the ‘Awaiting Moderation’ notice then SOMETIMES you come back again it is GONE then you return later and its back again. Maybe someone on PJM should investigate why this happens.
Aug 6, 2009 - 10:07 pm 106. seansarto:Ever since Clinton there’s been a very effective cultivation of misandry in the ferment…maybe it was always there…
Aug 6, 2009 - 10:12 pm 107. Pragmatist:Anyone with at least 1/4 of a brain who lived thru the brief “global freezing” scare of the early ’70s which quietly flubbed as all its predictions were far more than just wrong, knows that the current global warming scare — originally justified by models created BY THE SAME GLOBAL FREEZING CHARLATANS — is just as much hooey as the first attempt of these 4th rate scientists to achieve name recognition and income from engagements to speak to crowds of ignoramuses and retards. All the data shows — repeat ALL the available historic data, bar none — that although CO2 and atmospheric temperature are correlated, it is WITHOUT EXCEPTION the case that atmospheric temperature changes first, THEN much later the co2 level rises. It rises because of evaporation of co2 dissolved in the sea, more of which enters the atmosphere when surface sea temperatures are warmed. This is true for the data Gore shows in his famous “documendacity,” which he intentionally squeezes into a long time scale over a small chart so that the detail is obscured, since it shows the precise opposite cause & effect that he knows is the correct one in reality. The atmosphere has been far warmer in the past than now, and it has had at times at least 20 times the co2 concentration as at present. And… those times were wonderful times when plant and animal “biodiversity” flourished, as any botanist would tell you is the natural consequence of a little warming. That’s why life is easier in the warmer latitudes and terribly harsh in the northerly ones. We should PRAY (if religious) for global warming because it would go a long way toward ending world hunger, expanding the rain forests, increasing biodiversity and making this planet more of a heaven on earth than it already has the capacity to be. But the advocates of the global warming hoax are just SO incredibly uninformed (or such liars) that they are either unaware of (or hiding) their hypocrisy in advocating a war on non-existent man-caused warming that would, even if correct, accomplish all the other goals they claim to worship. It would be a colossal joke if these neanderthal numbskulls weren’t so populous and endowed with the voting power to destroy the lives of their betters along with their own suicides.
Solar activity, as mentioned in other posts, is also highly correlated with atmospheric temperature, something that ought to appear very common-sensical to anyone with 1/10th of a brain, and something which has been demonstrated to be EXTREMELY reliably correlated for much of earth’s history. So we have 3 correlated variables of concern(there are of course many others too, but they are not of concern here because we are addressing only the claims of a mass of mindless idiots parroting the propaganda of a few shrewd charlatan, so we can limit ourselves to examining only their stupid, worthless, and totally groundless claims). These are solar activity, atmospheric warming and co2 concentration in the atmosphere. And indeed the order I’ve mentioned them is the order of their causality. Solar activity increases, THEN the atmosphere warms as a result, and FINALLY, the co2 content of the atmosphere rises. Anyone who understands the basic laws of equilibrium states from physical chemistry knows that man’s contributions of co2 into the atmosphere CANNOT have an effect on its concentration, any more than you can increase the salt content of a glass of water after it’s become fully saturated at the prevailing conditions of temperature and pressure. You just precipitate out all the salt you add and the water remains at its equilibrium salt concentration no matter how much more salt you add.
Two final points of the 500 I might make if space permitted:
1. Al Gore’s net worth was public knowledge during the political campaign of 2000 — it was approximately $2 million. He is no longer a public servant so his financial affairs are his own private business. However, from investments in public concerns, it is known that he has to have at a minimum a figure upwards of $100 million now. At least a 50-fold increase in 9 years. What has he been doing full time for the past 9 years? Pushing the scam of global warming that’s making him rich. If cap & trade is passed in the US, Gore stands to become a multi-billionaire. He is the indirectly paid propagandist for the eco groups and the corporations who will benefit from that particular means of thieving on the grand scale from the average citizen. Which, I might add, will undoubtedly cause the deaths of at least thousands of elderly from freezing for lack of heat in winter, and of the poor whose diets will be pushed over the line into malnutrition that lowers their immune systems and causes them to succumb to diseases they otherwise would have recovered from (as food prices soar and as disposable incomes of the poor are especially hard hit).
2. For all the untold $billions of taxpayer monies wasted on global warming research, and all the zillions of published papers on the topic, ask the next advocate of this pure junk science that you meet to refer you to a bona fide, peer-reviewed scientific paper in any reputable journal anywhere on earth which has provided evidence of a link between any of man’s activities and atmospheric temperature changes or climate change. That’s not asking for proof, just one tiny but definite piece of evidence. And that’s regarding ANY of man’s myriad activities being damned by the pea-brained warming advocates. And…the evidence can be linked to either climate change of any type or atmospheric temperature change in either direction. He will not be able to offer you even one such paper, because despite the many, many billions wasted on this hoax, NOT ONE paper in any peer-reviewed scientific journal in any nation on earth, NOT ONE, exists or ever has existed which shows even EVIDENCE of a link between ANY of man’s supposedly nefarious activities and climate change. NOT ONE. NOT ANYWHERE. If you don’t believe me, try and find one. You warmers out there reading this, ask the gurus whose received wisdom you place your mindless faith in to provide you with the name and title and publication of such a paper ANYWHERE ON EARTH, and then post it here. And the rest of you, watch this space, because hell will freeze over before you see it. There is no such paper in existence for one reason only: there exists no line (that means NONE) whatsoever between man’s activities and global warming.
The Algorites are the 21st century’s version of the old gloom and doom religious zealots who walked around with signs urging everyone to repent because the world was coming to an end tomorrow. IE, they are lunatics one and all, with mental deficiencies or, in the case of their leaders, character deficiencies (or more accurately, lack of character). This is not a controversial statement. It may be debated by the lunatics themselves, but they won’t do a very good job of it, since they are after all very unintelligent sub-normal humans by definition, being lunatic fringe fanatic religious believers in the global warming religion. Their parents were probably zealots for global freezing in the 1970s, and they have inherited the genes. It is an absolute, inescapable requirement that to believe in a human contribution to global warming in the absence of any shred of evidence for any aspect of it whatsoever other than the arbitrary claim of charlatans that “We have a HYPOTHESIS, and it is confirmed by the computerized models WE put the garbage into, models which you must believe are TRUTH AND WISDOM even though they disagree with each other and continue to produce forecasts that prove wrong, one after the other” — yes you have to be, if you actually choose to believe this, you MUST ABSOLUTELY AND LOGICALLY be either (a) unfortunately quite ignorant of the topic OR (b) an unusually stupid person OR (c) suffering from a severe mental/emotional/psychological problem. These 3 together make up the all-encompassing, exhaustive list of possibilities. There is no 4th option.
I have read many of the posts supporting global warming and if there were time I could demolish every argument in each one. With ease. And with irrefutable fact and/or logic. I have already abused the generosity of this site by writing more than most, however, and it would take 10 times what I’ve written to dispense with all the lame-brained rationalizations the Algorites keep coming up with as each previous one is refuted. I have heard them all and there is not one with an iota of validity. They are arguments designed to sound reasonable to the unintelligent, and conclusive to those ignorant of the topic.
Not one is correct, or even partially correct.
Man-caused global warming a hoax and a fraud and complete garbage. There is no scientific dispute about this, only a political one which has enlisted a few scientists and many pseudo-scientists to join with the politicians and share the same agenda. This is a fraud on a global scale, and those who swallow it will deserve the truly horrible consequences for humanity, dwarfing the largest wars in history, DWARFING THEM, in the horrors of its consequences. Should the lemmings succeed in implementing the politics of the global warmers, unfortunately many of their betters — ie, those with actual HUMAN brains — will also perish, and the culmination of thousands of years of advancing human civilization will be destroyed for absolutely no reason.
You who advocate global warming, do you have any idea what awful harm you will be doing to humanity and life on this planet? How dare you, ignorant as you are, spout off like a scientist when you can’t possibly have any idea of the topic, given the side you take. Look into yourselves. I think if you are capable of being honest with yourself you will find someone who needs something to crusade for so badly in order to shore up his self-esteem, or something to draw away the focus of the hate he has for himself, and for that reason has an EMOTIONAL NEED to believe in this hoax and to have someone to condemn as evil. If you are man enough to admit it, welcome to the club of human beings. If not, you consign yourself to membership amongst the worst enemies of humankind, human life, human civilization: you are a crusading ignoramus, about to add your own 2 cents to the savagery and barbarism recorded history’s litany of human disasters.
Aug 6, 2009 - 10:13 pm 108. seansarto:VANITY FAIR
(Dm, F, G)
It’s a vanity fair, its pay ta play (x3)
where yer free ta sit an’ stare
jest don’t ya get in nobody’s way
It’s a vanity fair, bookstore of dreams (x3)
We’ll sell ya either truth or dare,
neither one’s bein’ guaranteed.
It’s a vanity fair, of face an skin (x3)
Breakin the rules of this game
is the only way yer gonna win.
It’s vanity fair, it’s bait an’ switch (x3)
we’ll fill ya full of terror,
idolatry an’ artifice.
It’s a vanity fair, a world of magic tricks (x3)
ain’t no accountability
‘less it falls outside our prejudice.
It’s a vanity fair, now sing away (x3)
Aug 6, 2009 - 10:29 pm 109. Don L:Ain’t no reason enough ta care
’bout what happens beyond today.
Whenever will the conservatives of this nation learn rule number one -know your enemy! We have wasted years dealing with our paradigm of principle, reason, truth, history, whaatever…while the left wins time and time again with their paradigm of faux imagery, boldfaced lying, hypocricy, manipulation of the masses through the media, and dividing America into interest groups and conquering.
Aug 7, 2009 - 2:07 am 110. Anonymous:The left doesn’t give a hoot about truth -to them it only exists as a weapon when convenient. Truth is an impediment to their fortunes -hypocrisy is a badge of honor, because truth is whatever they say it is whenever they say it. It is flexible therefore irrelevant for its own value, and only serves as a means to their devious ends.
They just elected a leader on foam pillar and faux halo imagery, manipulating the non-critical masses, who (get this) want to be lied to. They want to believe that some leader on a white horse called the government will solve all the problems, usually caused by the government in the first place.(look at how it destroyed the black community and turned them into guaranteed votes in perpetuity -why should they ever want to make them independent?)
We are battling evil -evil people with evil ends in mind and evil means of obtaining it. Their leader supports the slaughter of innocent babies already removed from the womb – by witholding nutrition and hydration and yet the masses love him, because of their deceit.
People who would kill innocent babies because they’re inconvenient, will easily kill old people in the name of the economy and health care -it is the nature of fallen man to do such things. Look at the Netherlands where 1 in 11 of all deaths are involuntary euthanasia (by doctors) Look at pre-war Germany where the Nazi Doctors did the same so even the people were afraid of getting vaccinated by these cold-hearted government doctors.
We are there – call it consulticide or whatever -they’ll find a way -calling it a good, and like in Jonestown,Guyana, the masses will drink the Kool-aid. We no longer live for freedom when we sell our souls to the big government!
65 : You scrawled ” He rushed us into a war of choice in Iraq, and though we have seen document after document to corroborate the fact that there never were any WMDs, nor did Saddam have any connection with al Qaeda,”
Smoke crack, much ? I’ve seen many “documents” denying that there were ever death camps in Poland. Should I believe them ? Any scrap of paper that you write on with your crayons becomes, by definition, a “document”. I prefer to believe the Iraqi intelligence documents which have been translated and puiblished since the war’s end, which highlight your cluelessness.
You’re either an inveterate liar or just pathetically ignorant to write something so patently false. Actually, we know for a fact (and have for quite some time) that Saddam was up to his armpits in funding/supporting terrorists (AQ being only one of them). His WMD programs were alive and well, stockpiles or not, and ready to be kickstarted the moment sanctions ended.
L love how leftists come to this site and display their grotesque ignorance of just about everything. It makes me feel all smart and stuff.
Aug 7, 2009 - 7:03 am 111. Paul -Indiana:#84 Delia, it seems that those Mulattos stick together, dosn’t it?
Aug 7, 2009 - 11:58 am 112. Graham L.:110. Anonymous: “65 : You scrawled ” He rushed us into a war of choice in Iraq, and though we have seen document after document to corroborate the fact that there never were any WMDs, nor did Saddam have any connection with al Qaeda,”
Smoke crack, much ? I’ve seen many “documents” denying that there were ever death camps in Poland. Should I believe them ? Any scrap of paper that you write on with your crayons becomes, by definition, a “document”. I prefer to believe the Iraqi intelligence documents which have been translated and puiblished since the war’s end, which highlight your cluelessness.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html
“The Sept. 11 commission reported yesterday that it has found no “collaborative relationship” between Iraq and al Qaeda, challenging one of the Bush administration’s main justifications for the war in Iraq.
Along with the contention that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top administration officials have often asserted that there were extensive ties between Hussein’s government and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network; earlier this year, Cheney said evidence of a link was “overwhelming.”
But the report of the commission’s staff, based on its access to all relevant classified information, said that there had been contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda but no cooperation. In yesterday’s hearing of the panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, a senior FBI official and a senior CIA analyst concurred with the finding.”
You’re either an inveterate liar or just pathetically ignorant to write something so patently false. Actually, we know for a fact (and have for quite some time) that Saddam was up to his armpits in funding/supporting terrorists (AQ being only one of them). His WMD programs were alive and well, stockpiles or not, and ready to be kickstarted the moment sanctions ended.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report/
“Saddam Hussein did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to produce them, a CIA report concludes.
In fact, the long-awaited report, authored by Charles Duelfer, who advises the director of central intelligence on Iraqi weapons, says Iraq’s WMD program was essentially destroyed in 1991 and Saddam ended Iraq’s nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War.”
“L love how leftists come to this site and display their grotesque ignorance of just about everything. It makes me feel all smart and stuff.”
And I love how easy it is to school ignorant right-wing nutcases by debunking their right-wing bull**** with well-documented and corroborated evidence.
Aug 7, 2009 - 12:20 pm 113. billc:For Obama it is not religion but it is ego. He believes he has all the answers because he is so smart. He is very much like Ozymandias from that flawed movie Watchmen. He has made judgements on each of the above situations and because he is so smart it is obvious that his ideas are the right ones. Anyone who disagrees with him is both stupid, and evil. They are stupid because they refuse to recognize that his ideas are the one and only answer, and they are evil because they are trying to stop him from doing what he thinks will solve these problems.
Aug 7, 2009 - 8:58 pm 114. misanthopicus:Re #11/~Paules: [...] We are not like the huddled masses of Chinese or Russian peasants. Americans will resist authority in defense of individual prerogative. The anger on display at recent town hall meetings is understandable to anyone familiar with the American character. [...]
Alas, my dearest ~Paules, you are a bit off here, that is a generation – unfortunately the left won, won by controlling the education system and the passive entertaniment system.
America is not anymore a country of selfsufficient and individualistic trappers, homesteaders, pioneers or other variations of self-sufficient types – panem et circense is all, the risk-free employment has completely replaced the enterprising spirit, the youth is modeling their aspirations according to the whims of some “American Idol” despicable figures, precise and critical thinking has been replaced by fuzziness and open-mindedness, the manliness has been replaced by vulnerability, individualism has been replaced by collectivism and willed mediocrity, etc. etc.
No matter how much I hate what I’ll say, I think the Democrat Party and its throngs of “clients” (client in the originar sense of the word, i.e. person dependent on handouts), that keep it in power has entered its real Golden Age – and this for a long period, if not for ever.
Magellan was a criminal – efeminated waifs like David Sedaris is what the college graduates want to be -
Aug 8, 2009 - 8:40 pm 115. Marc Malone:#107 Pragmatist – great post!
For problems with your post, try refreshing the screen. It’ll appear like magic. Even leaving and coming back doesn’t necessarily make it happen. You must refresh. Smae thing when you want to see responses and new posts. You must refresh the home screen, and when you go to the articles, refresh again. The system doesn’t automatically refresh itself. Kinda stinks, pardon the pun.
#112 Graham L. – You’re referring to out-of-date articles. We found 500 tons of yellowcake uranium in Iraq in 2003, but didn’t get it out of country until Oct, 2007, when we sold it to the Canadians. Some was capable of ready production to weapons grade.
Of course, Bush, being a responsible President, didn’t just rush right out and tell the world. Politically, it would have been great for him, but as President, it would have been irresponsible until we had properly disposed of it all and ensured there was no more WMD of any kind, personal popularity be damned. He voluntarily took the political hit in order to do the right thing.
Aug 9, 2009 - 1:36 am 116. Y.K.:#31:
Usually, I leave you Americans to argue amongst yourselves (it’s almost hilarious, until I think of our own debates), but I’d rather you didn’t twist Israeli history to do it.
The critical error during the Waxman operation wasn’t that the rescue party didn’t know that Hamas gave orders to kill Waxman in case of attack (they reasonably assumed the worst case). The error was that the explosive used to break open the door was faulty, which gave the kidnappers far too much time to recover. When you correct others, it’s best to be accurate yourself.
Aug 9, 2009 - 7:23 pm 117. deguello:89 MOHO,As usual, you’re wrong.It’s white libtards that are going away.The reason why libtards support open borders is because libs(no doubt obeying some biological darwinian impulse to improve the gene pool)not only have fewer children than conservatives,but enthusiastically abort many of their would be progeny. They want desperately poor immigrants to degrade, debase,make welfare dependent,and vote democrat to continue their rackets.Unfortunately,these folks,especially the muslims have other plans,and helping to ensure the survival of the historical plague known as Liberalism isn’t one of them.BTW:Have you ever asked your mommy why she didn’t abort YOU?Pity she didn’t.
Aug 11, 2009 - 7:52 am 118. deguello:#112 As opposed to the “sophisticated” Graham Libtard who believes that documents created by marxoid cretins such as the health care bill ,TARP and ecconomic stimulus bills are actually going to help and not ruin the economy.You prefer to believe the intelligence services of a mass murdering totalitarian thug rather than you country’s.Tell me Graham, do you also believe that Castro was good for Cuba,that there were no gulags,and that the USSR was a kinder and gentler society than the US? Some people need crack to think and write like you,but a libtard’s brain manufactures its own hallucigens.
Aug 12, 2009 - 8:56 am