j_b

Design for Confusion By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: August 5, 2005 I'd like to nominate Irving Kristol, the neoconservative former editor of The Public Interest, as the father of "intelligent design." No, he didn't play any role in developing the doctrine. But he is the father of the political strategy that lies behind the intelligent design movement - a strategy that has been used with great success by the economic right and has now been adopted by the religious right. Back in 1978 Mr. Kristol urged corporations to make "philanthropic contributions to scholars and institutions who are likely to advocate preservation of a strong private sector." That was delicately worded, but the clear implication was that corporations that didn't like the results of academic research, however valid, should support people willing to say something more to their liking. Mr. Kristol led by example, using The Public Interest to promote supply-side economics, a doctrine whose central claim - that tax cuts have such miraculous positive effects on the economy that they pay for themselves - has never been backed by evidence. He would later concede, or perhaps boast, that he had a "cavalier attitude toward the budget deficit." "Political effectiveness was the priority," he wrote in 1995, "not the accounting deficiencies of government." Corporations followed his lead, pouring a steady stream of money into think tanks that created a sort of parallel intellectual universe, a world of "scholars" whose careers are based on toeing an ideological line, rather than on doing research that stands up to scrutiny by their peers. You might have thought that a strategy of creating doubt about inconvenient research results could work only in soft fields like economics. But it turns out that the strategy works equally well when deployed against the hard sciences. The most spectacular example is the campaign to discredit research on global warming. Despite an overwhelming scientific consensus, many people have the impression that the issue is still unresolved. This impression reflects the assiduous work of conservative think tanks, which produce and promote skeptical reports that look like peer-reviewed research, but aren't. And behind it all lies lavish financing from the energy industry, especially ExxonMobil. There are several reasons why fake research is so effective. One is that nonscientists sometimes find it hard to tell the difference between research and advocacy - if it's got numbers and charts in it, doesn't that make it science? Even when reporters do know the difference, the conventions of he-said-she-said journalism get in the way of conveying that knowledge to readers. I once joked that if President Bush said that the Earth was flat, the headlines of news articles would read, "Opinions Differ on Shape of the Earth." The headlines on many articles about the intelligent design controversy come pretty close. Finally, the self-policing nature of science - scientific truth is determined by peer review, not public opinion - can be exploited by skilled purveyors of cultural resentment. Do virtually all biologists agree that Darwin was right? Well, that just shows that they're elitists who think they're smarter than the rest of us. Which brings us, finally, to intelligent design. Some of America's most powerful politicians have a deep hatred for Darwinism. Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, blamed the theory of evolution for the Columbine school shootings. But sheer political power hasn't been enough to get creationism into the school curriculum. The theory of evolution has overwhelming scientific support, and the country isn't ready - yet - to teach religious doctrine in public schools. But what if creationists do to evolutionary theory what corporate interests did to global warming: create a widespread impression that the scientific consensus has shaky foundations? Creationists failed when they pretended to be engaged in science, not religious indoctrination: "creation science" was too crude to fool anyone. But intelligent design, which spreads doubt about evolution without being too overtly religious, may succeed where creation science failed. The important thing to remember is that like supply-side economics or global-warming skepticism, intelligent design doesn't have to attract significant support from actual researchers to be effective. All it has to do is create confusion, to make it seem as if there really is a controversy about the validity of evolutionary theory. That, together with the political muscle of the religious right, may be enough to start a process that ends with banishing Darwin from the classroom. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/opinio...and&emc=rss

it's not self-defense so it violates UN charter. http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/law/2004/0916illegal.htm so, what have we determined? that it's not illegal for warmongers to not walk the talk and sign up? not quite the high moral ground, heh?

the war is illegal under international law because it never got approval from the UN (despite what pundits may say) and i doubt it is legal to use fake intelligence to convince congress to relinquish its powers. but the issue is also much larger than from a lawyerly perspective, i believe that "i was following orders" is widely considered an invalid argument.

well, we could argue whether they signed up to fight an illegal, impopular war but it wouldn't change the fact that there are not enough new signer ups to sustain the missions of the military in the short/medium term.

is this true?

i beg to differ, i talk about boobs all the time!

We Must Act Now to Prevent Another Hiroshima - or Worse The explosions in London are a reminder of how the cycle of attack and response could escalate by Noam Chomsky This month's anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki prompts only the most somber reflection and most fervent hope that the horror may never be repeated. In the subsequent 60 years, those bombings have haunted the world's imagination but not so much as to curb the development and spread of infinitely more lethal weapons of mass destruction. A related concern, discussed in technical literature well before 11 September 2001, is that nuclear weapons may sooner or later fall into the hands of terrorist groups. The recent explosions and casualties in London are yet another reminder of how the cycle of attack and response could escalate, unpredictably, even to a point horrifically worse than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. The world's reigning power accords itself the right to wage war at will, under a doctrine of "anticipatory self-defense" that covers any contingency it chooses. The means of destruction are to be unlimited. US military expenditures approximate those of the rest of the world combined, while arms sales by 38 North American companies (one in Canada) account for more than 60 per cent of the world total (which has risen 25 per cent since 2002). There have been efforts to strengthen the thin thread on which survival hangs. The most important is the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which came into force in 1970. The regular five-year review conference of the NPT took place at the United Nations in May. The NPT has been facing collapse, primarily because of the failure of the nuclear states to live up to their obligation under Article VI to pursue "good faith" efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons. The United States has led the way in refusal to abide by the Article VI obligations. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, emphasizes that "reluctance by one party to fulfill its obligations breeds reluctance in others". President Jimmy Carter blasted the United States as "the major culprit in this erosion of the NPT. While claiming to be protecting the world from proliferation threats in Iraq, Libya, Iran and North Korea, American leaders not only have abandoned existing treaty restraints but also have asserted plans to test and develop new weapons, including Anti-Ballistic missiles, the earth-penetrating 'bunker buster' and perhaps some new 'small' bombs. They also have abandoned past pledges and now threaten first use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states". [...] http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0806-25.htm

Hiroshima arguments rage 60 years on By Paul Reynolds World Affairs correspondent, BBC News website On the 60th anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima, new questions are being asked about whether it was necessary to drop the atomic bomb - and whether the bomb was really responsible for the Japanese surrender. [...] http://newswww.bbc.net.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4724793.stm

anytime ... well, fuck me! i didn't know the military couldn't meet its recruiting goals during any of the interventions you mentionned, or that they recalled people who got out years ago and didn't want to go, or signed up people in their late 40's, or had personnel doing several tours of duty against their will or even that there was ~10% chance of being dead or seriously injured ... but perhaps you are just fibbing and are well aware you are comparing apples and oranges. they didn't need your help then, but they do now, boy! here is your chance to walk the talk. isn't it what you wanted others to do? unfortunately, you'll have to keep dealing with the commentary and the vote from tax paying individuals like me whether you like it or not, hypocrite! walk the talk truth hurts, doesn't it?

Since you brought up walking the talk, when are you signing up for Iraq duty? Or do you really think that membership in the 101st keyboard battalion is good enough?

yep, totally agree.

decreasing our dependence on foreign oil would do more for homeland security than any amount of money poured into emergency and training. the $300billions already allocated/spent and the further $400billions needed over the next decade to keep control of iraq would have been better used to develop alternative energy technologies. addressing the problem of decreasing oil resources, diminishing exposure resulting from predatory foreign policy, developing new technologies and jobs versus the iraq quagmire and the fury of violent extremists, ought to have been an easy and obvious choice ...

critical thinking?

apparently you don't. it's very ugly to witness. get a hold of yourself! the only thing you proved is that you are a xenophobe. what is esoteric is your way of supplying supporting evidence that is meaningless (or at least unverifyable). the report clearly showed the analysed data and what it meant this certainly feels like grade-school level argumentation. I am officially bored with this thread. sigh.

how much do you charge for your psychobabbling via the internet? if anyone actually falls for it, i should give it a try. apparently you need more than one lesson. i didn't realize we needed to cover the number line: http://www.learningwave.com/chapters/integers/numline.html be ready for a quizz in a couple hours, especially with respect to negative numbers.

ah, yes. the tired "you hippy" standby/all purpose insult. perhaps you should think of something new. but hey, since you're around, did you finally figure out that if a (profit) = b (revenue) + c (labor cost), there is more than one way a can increase? or perhaps you knew it all along but were just playing dumb?

is it the deafening sound of silence that i hear?

amazing! either a) your ego is so large you won't ever realize you have been exposed as a fraud, or b) you actually don't care because most folks won't bother sorting through the pile of dudu you have laid upon us since the beginning of this thread. Your increasing spitefulness makes me believes in option b. so, to summarize, it appears you went to the BLS site, picked some numbers (in some ways you refuse to divulge), concocted some bogus comparison between this and the previous recession, presented your "analysis" as if it was BLS sanctionned, refused to admit your little exercise was "validated" in your living room, and to top it all you had the gall to dismiss the CBPP report as unsubstantiated? did i get this right? please feel free to offer any bit that might clarify the sequence of events ...

spare me the hypocritical tripe: The corporations which helped to immiserate Africa are being given control of its development. The G8’s debt reduction plan is little better than an extortion racket

you've got to be kidding. leveling from the bottom is one bad option for them and us. anyway, it's not by handing these people's national assets to multinational corps (such as the world bank and the imf are doing) that they'll get out of poverty. furthermore, as if you gave a rat's ass about poverty in the developing world, demagogue!

right, if it's just the neighbors down the street, who gives a shit. fuck'em oh, and don't forget that Dieter and Laurent produce more per hour than you do ...

ha! the truth comes out. BLS didn't just compare this recession to the previous one. you made some calculations and apparently you don't want to list the assumptions you had to make to compute these numbers. yes? no i didn't. i said i'd give you the benefit of the doubt w.r.t. your falsely asserting you already gave a link to the data and then, i quickly added that i'd still like to see a link. yes?

so PP, since you are back, how about that link?

you never tire of your bullshit, do you? most major corps have now gotten rid of pension plans for new employees so it's certainly not just a blip or short term trend. the trend of paying less for labor is definitely worldwide and long term if they can enforce it. classic strawman argument! nobody contested the need for profits, nor said that failing corps would provide more jobs, etc ... the issue is that already profitable corps are using globalization to force massive concessions from their employees because it results into increased profits.

bullshit HP Profits Jump 34% HP to slash approximately 15,000 jobs saying that corps pocketed a greater share of revenues since WW2 instead of creating jobs has nothing to do with whether failing corps create jobs. you want us to believe you are being sarcastic yet you keep making the same illogical statements! YO, PP! TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK