Bush major policy address

[foraker]

FWIW, university is what you make it. Some of the brightest people I know went to state school. Some of the dimmest, elite private universities. Depends on the motivation of the student.

 

So you know where I'm coming from:

BS: Geophysical Science

BS: Applied Mathematics

PhD: Marine Geology and Geophysics

 

Despite having gone to one of those private 'liberal' colleges (paid for by myself thanks kindly), the debates got pretty lively in history, philosophy, and even history of science classes. The profs were pretty good about slapping around anyone's preconceived ideas. They were also pretty good (the ones I had anyway) about not interjecting their own personal biases into things. The point was to get the students to think, consider, and express their views - not to make nice little carbon copies of themselves.

[foraker]

liberalism is based on emotion not intellect.

 

nice little angry knee-jerk response you had there.

[JayB]

FWIW, university is what you make it. Some of the brightest people I know went to state school. Some of the dimmest, elite private universities. Depends on the motivation of the student.

 

So you know where I'm coming from:

BS: Geophysical Science

BS: Applied Mathematics

PhD: Marine Geology and Geophysics

 

Despite having gone to one of those private 'liberal' colleges (paid for by myself thanks kindly), the debates got pretty lively in history, philosophy, and even history of science classes. The profs were pretty good about slapping around anyone's preconceived ideas. They were also pretty good (the ones I had anyway) about not interjecting their own personal biases into things. The point was to get the students to think, consider, and express their views - not to make nice little carbon copies of themselves.

 

I agree that it's generally the quality of the student that matters - but if you are being graded on a curve and you are competing against bright, dilligent peers - that certainly helps keep one's nose to the grindstone.

 

What happens in the classroom counts - but most of the debate at a university occurs outside of the classroom walls in study sessions, bull-sessions, random conversations, etc - all an important part of an education IMO, and a place where you'll spend a great deal of time having to defend your opinions if they differ from the consensus.

 

 

[Fairweather]

JoshK said: Blah blah blah blah blog ABC says blah blah blah blog XYZ said blah blah blah matt p you are wrong cause blog 123 says blah blah blah blah i'm lonely blah blah blah i'm gonna go jerk off to picture of condi rice blah blah blah blah

 

If this is what they're crankin' out now days, I feel vindicated having sent my daughter to another - albeit very liberal - university. Combine the above reply with constant spelling and syntax errors, very little demonstrated knowlege of history, an obviously limited world-view, and I propose that he does not represent his university well here.

 

 

 

He does write killer trip reports, though.

Edited October 11, 2005 by Fairweather

[cj001f]

Do you really think UC Boulder is one of the better universities? Always seemed like an okay university with a kick-ass location to me but I haven't really been following the rankings for a while either.

Depends. It's science and engineering programs (what I deal with) are well thought of, it's other programs often center around copious quantities of cannabis and Coors.

 

Sure college is what you make of it, but a "good" degree can open many more doors than an unknown one.

 

BS Optics, MS Optics (in progress)

[JoshK]

CU has one of the best astrophysics depts on the planet. It has also sent more astronauts up than any other (public?) school. There are some really great programs here, and some really smart profs. Of course there are other depts which aren't top notch. However, with the 2004 US professor of the year, two nobel laureates (sp?) in '01 and another this year I think you'd be hard pressed to characterize it as a shitty school.

 

As far as the other aspects, it is pretty hard to beat life here. I've met awesome people and the area offers everything. And I'm really looking forward to Haloween since last year featured both a big snowstorm and a big ass riot.

 

Winter/Spring in Boulder and Summer/Fall in Seattle would be ideal for me.

 

 

P.S. I have the answer to conservatives who complain about liberal academia - shut the fuck up and study something meaningful then get yourself into academia rather than persuing a business degree and devoting your life to the bottom line.

[JayB]

I had the same impression as Carl, more or less. Good for science and engineering, and respectable in the rest.

 

Location's hard to beat.

[Stefan]

liberalism is based on emotion not intellect.

 

I never heard that one before.

 

Liberals believe that individuals should be free to do whatever they please on the free market, within the law. Liberalism is more open to progress and change.

 

Conservatives look to conserve traditions and truths from the past.

 

Based on those explanations I gave above, if you are a conservative, then you would have been against women voting, and against segregation in schools. I guess women voting and segregation of schools were only emotional issues for liberals when these issues became hot topics in our nation.

[Norman_Clyde]

I think you mean against integration and for segregation.

 

BTW, KK, you can go on asserting "You're emotional and irrational but I'm not" but it doesn't quite wash. IMO people make up their minds irrationally which political stripe they embrace. Only then do they seek a rational argument to back up their beliefs. To a great extent this is true of all sides, though I'd say the more radical elements on each fringe have fewer rational arguments to fall back on.

[Stefan]

I think you mean against integration and for segregation.

 

 

oh yeah. That must be a Freudian slip for me!

[JayB]

liberalism is based on emotion not intellect.

 

I never heard that one before.

 

Liberals believe that individuals should be free to do whatever they please on the free market, within the law. Liberalism is more open to progress and change.

 

Conservatives look to conserve traditions and truths from the past.

 

Based on those explanations I gave above, if you are a conservative, then you would have been against women voting, and against segregation in schools. I guess women voting and segregation of schools were only emotional issues for liberals when these issues became hot topics in our nation.

 

My only quibble with your definition is that it doesn't seem to jive very well with the manner in which they are understood in the US. I think that your definition squares pretty well with the manner in which "Liberalism" is understood in Europe and the Anglosphere outside of the US, and the classical definition of the term - but anyone who aligns themselves with trade unions, tarriffs, protectionism, national ownership of the principal industries, laws against "hate" speech, etc - is most assuredly not liberal. Leftist, yes. Liberal in the sense that it's understood by most of the world, and in the terms in which it was originally defined - no.

 

Google "English Corn Laws" for a good example of what liberal used to mean.

[mattp]

I put this in the wrong thread this morning, but I have the actual source of the information now so you can better judge it now anyway.

 

Bush whacked Rove on CIA leak BY THOMAS M. DeFRANK

DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF

 

Wednesday, October 19th, 2005

 

WASHINGTON - An angry President Bush rebuked chief political guru Karl Rove two years ago for his role in the Valerie Plame affair, sources told the Daily News.

 

"He made his displeasure known to Karl," a presidential counselor told The News. "He made his life miserable about this."

 

Bush has nevertheless remained doggedly loyal to Rove, who friends and even political adversaries acknowledge is the architect of the President's rise from baseball owner to leader of the free world.

 

As special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald nears a decision, perhaps as early as today, on whether to issue indictments in his two-year probe, Bush has already circled the wagons around Rove, whose departure would be a grievous blow to an already shell-shocked White House staff and a President in deep political trouble.

 

Asked if he believed indictments were forthcoming, a key Bush official said he did not know, then added: "I'm very concerned it could go very, very badly."

 

"Karl is fighting for his life," the official added, "but anything he did was done to help George W. Bush. The President knows that and appreciates that."

 

Other sources confirmed, however, that Bush was initially furious with Rove in 2003 when his deputy chief of staff conceded he had talked to the press about the Plame leak.

 

Bush has always known that Rove often talks with reporters anonymously and he generally approved of such contacts, one source said.

 

But the President felt Rove and other members of the White House damage-control team did a clumsy job in their campaign to discredit Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, the ex-diplomat who criticized Bush's claim that Saddam Hussen tried to buy weapons-grade uranium in Niger.

 

A second well-placed source said some recently published reports implying Rove had deceived Bush about his involvement in the Wilson counterattack were incorrect and were leaked by White House aides trying to protect the President.

 

"Bush did not feel misled so much by Karl and others as believing that they handled it in a ham-handed and bush-league way," the source said.

 

None of these sources offered additional specifics of what Bush and Rove discussed in conversations beginning shortly after the Justice Department informed the White House in September 2003 that a criminal investigation had been launched into the leak of CIA agent Plame's identity to columnist Robert Novak.

 

A White House spokesman declined to comment, citing the ongoing nature of Fitzgerald's investigation.

 

However, 0n September 30, 2003, Bush said "And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is ..."

 

On October 6, 2003, he said "If anybody has got any information inside our government or outside our government who leaked, you ought to take it to the Justice Department so we can find the leaker"

 

On October 10, 2003, Scott McClellan specifically said that neither Rove nor Elliott Abrams or Lewis Libby were involved and that anyone who was involved in leaking classified information would be fired.

 

On June 10, 2004, President Bush was asked by a reporter, "Given recent developments in the CIA leak case, particularly Vice President Cheney's discussions with the investigators, do you still stand by what you said several months ago, suggesting that it might be difficult to identify anybody who leaked the agent's name? ... And do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have done so?" The President responded, "Yes. And that's up to the U.S. Attorney to find the facts.

[Stefan]

Remember the fundamentalist Christians believed George Bush to have high morals during the election. I doubt they have changed their opinion. War would also be considered a high moral value to these Christians.

[JoshK]

99% of the people in this country who complain about "liberals" don't really have a fucking clue what the actual word liberalism means.

[mattp]

Remember the fundamentalist Christians believed George Bush to have high morals during the election. I doubt they have changed their opinion. War would also be considered a high moral value to these Christians.

You're right about that, Stepan. Most of them STILL believe Iraq attacked us on 911 and that Saddam had WMD's, too. Even some folks who realize the truth in these matters still believe that Bush and his cronies didn't deliberately lie about these matters. Folks like PP and Fairweather apparently are in this group. Others say: "he lied, but that was OK with me."