"Only North American scientific output has grown "considerably slower" than the world as a whole."There once again is more proof that cuts in education--technical education--as espoused by the Republican party as a whole is detrimental to the future viability of our nation.
More to the point, something is wrong when we celebrate mental mediocrity like <Ms. Palin's> under the misapprehension that competence or, God forbid, "intelligence," makes a person one of those "elites" — that's a curse word now — lacking authenticity, compassion and common sense.Has the Republican "dumbing-down" of America--which started with the Reagan administration's severe Department of Education budget cuts and continued through George W. Bush's insidious "No Child Left Behind Act"--turned us into a nation of fools, willing followers of a woman who believes in witchcraft and demons, and is not above using her political office to resolve personal vendettas?
"But there's a few more problems. Scientists are at odds with each other over whether string theory should even be considered science.
"Many maintain that the theory cannot be proved, or disproved, as far as is known, so it isn't science. Others hold out hope that some very expensive machines in the future may verify, or debunk, the theory.
"So the Starship Enterprise is coasting through very thin air, to say the least."That's some point. Is String Theory science's religion? I'll be investigating that further shortly.
"I think there’s a huge tendency among journalists to underrate the extent to which macroeconomic conditions drive everything in politics. For example, John Sides reviews the data and concludes that public trust in government is basically just driven by economic statistics:"
I think this is a potential problem for Democrats. The American voter has little time or memory for history. Republicans, time and again, run this country into the ground and get voted out. Then, when Democrats get things running again and people's pocketbooks begin to fatten, complacency sets in and the Republicans with their corporate sponsors are a shoe-in, since all it takes is a 10% swing in independent voters coupled with a non-voting 10-15% of Democrats who can't believe their vote would be needed to keep the party in power.The relationship is striking. The economy explains about 75% of the variance in trust. If you delete 1964, which looks like a potential outlier, the economy still explains 73% of the variance.Of course the economy is not the only important factor. But it gets far less attention than it deserves when the hand-wringing begins. So, sure, perhaps we can and should tinker with the political process. Clip lobbyists’ wings. Get leaders to make nicey-nicey with the opposite party. But the process is less important than outcomes. More people will trust the government again when times are good, even if government ain’t.
"Oh yeah - I just found out about this great site called google.com." http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2007/dec/14/dallas-gay-man-adversely-affected-christian-purity/
"What about sea level rise? Alarmists have claimed for years that sea level, because of anthropogenic warming, is rising, with ominous consequences. Based on modeling, the IPCC estimates that sea level will rise 1.8 millimeters annually, or about one-fourteenth of an inch.But the government's own NOAA Satellite and Information Service shows the following:
[Chart #5] But in a study published this year in Global and Planetary Change, Dr. Nils-Axel Morner of Sweden found that sea level rise hysteria is overblown. In his study, which relied not only on observational records, but also on satellites, he concluded: "There is a total absence of any recent 'acceleration in sea level rise' as often claimed by IPCC and related groups." Yet we still hear of a future world overwhelmed by floods due to global warming. Such claims are completely out of touch with science. As Sweden's Morner puts it, "there is no fear of massive future flooding as claimed in most global warming scenarios."
While 1,200 separate e-mails were released this week, 243 others were withheld by the state under a claim that executive privilege extends to Todd Palin as an unpaid adviser to the government. Still, just the subject lines of those e-mails provide a glimpse of the ways the Palins divvied up their responsibilities when she became governor in December 2006, less than two years before Republican Sen. John McCain pulled her onto the national political stage by nominating her as his vice presidential candidate.The 243 still-secret e-mails between Todd Palin and senior officials reach into countless areas of state government and politics: potential board appointees, constituent complaints, use of the state jet, oil and gas production, marine regulation, gas pipeline bids, postsecondary education, wildfires, native Alaskan issues, the state effort to save the Matanuska Maid dairy, budget planning, potential budget vetoes, oil shale leasing, "strategy for responding to media allegations," staffing at the mansion, pier diem payments to the governor for travel, "strategy for responding to questions about pregnancy," potential cuts to the governor's staff, "confidentiality issues," Bureau of Land Management land transfers and trespass issues and requests to the U.S. transportation secretary.
