121. bump

brandon at 10:28PM on Feb 14th 2008

122.
Reply to: 117

William,

Other than Sam Neill played Dr. Grant in Jurassic Park, I'm not sure I'm anymore
enlightened about the worthiness of Pinker, Gould,or Crichton and how they would make our next president better than any other. Maybe it
would get a little too involved for a blog. I just don't see how one makes the connection: knowledge of the Big Bang age = good president.
Personally, I would be happy if he/she just had a basic understanding of Aristotle, Locke, A.Smith, Madison, and Hamilton, but that would be
too much to ask of any of the current candidates. In fact, you'd probably have to go back to Woodrow Wilson before you had a president
that was acquainted with any of those writers just mentioned. Again, I'm just trying to see the logic behind assertion that "I want a
Presidential candidate who reads the books of Sam Harris, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Pinker, Michael Crichton... and UNDERSTANDS them."
Also, do you really believe that those are truly Clinton's favorite books? It's a predictably P.C. collection of books. True Clinton.
Angelou, Ellison, and Marquez. Yeah Right. And Max Weber!!!

Monty at 10:32PM on Feb 14th 2008

123. Reply to: 120

William,

I'll read through your response.

Thanks.

Monty at 10:34PM on Feb 14th 2008

124. I read Pinker's The Blank Slate Thought it was excellent.

Jerry Brown at 10:49PM on Feb 14th 2008

125. ATHEIST

Reply to: I just don't see how one makes the connection: knowledge of the Big Bang age = good president.
____________

In my experience, peole without a comprehensive (or even basic) knowledge of the Big Bang are friggin' idiots. How much do you have to know? 13.7 billion years ago, the universe started. It wasn't an act of Creation. It was an explosion. a "bang" that sent (what would become) matter out in all directions.

Reply to: Also, do you really believe that those are truly Clinton's favorite books?

I think he put his wife's book on the list for the usual reasons, not because it was his favorite. By the time she got through writing it, he was probably sick of it.

the rest, yeah.

Background on Clinton: When Bill was four years old, his mother married Roger Clinton, later the owner of a car dealership in Hope. Two years later, the family moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Life at home for Bill and his mother was not always easy. Roger was an alcoholic and a gambler, often losing the family’s money, including Virginia’s earnings as a nurse-anesthetist. He beat his wife and verbally abused Bill and Bill’s younger brother, Roger, Jr., who was born in 1956

Clinton attended a Roman Catholic school for two years in Hot Springs before attending public schools. He was a popular student and maintained top grades. He held several student offices, played the tenor saxophone, and was a member of the all-state band. In 1963, after his junior year in high school, Clinton was elected as one of two delegates from Arkansas to Boys Nation, a government study program for young people sponsored by the American Legion

During his senior year at Georgetown, Clinton won a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford in England, and he spent two years in Oxford’s graduate program. In 1970 Clinton enrolled at Yale University Law School, where he studied for a law degree
_________

A band geek. Played the sax. Yeah, I can believe he liked all of those books. Especially at Georgetown, he attended schools that said "The civil rights movement is important. Learn about it."

today, science is important. The Internet, the human genome, stem cell research. We need a President who can impress us with his incredible knowledge of... well, what the next President will have to do.

William Hays at 10:49PM on Feb 14th 2008

126. ATHEIST

Reply to: 122. Again, I'm just trying to see the logic behind assertion that "I want a
Presidential candidate who reads the books of Sam Harris, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Pinker, Michael Crichton... and UNDERSTANDS them."
_________

Let's move on to Michael Crichton. I think he needs to take more time and write characters with more depth, who are challenged from different directions.... but let's read an interview:

LINK: Michael Crichton is the only person to have had, at the same time, the number one book, the number one movie, and the number one TV show in the United States.

Always interested in computers, Crichton ran a software company, FilmTrack, which developed computer programs for motion picture production in the 1980s; for this pioneering work he won

*** an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Technical Achievement Award in 1995. ***

Crichton has won an Emmy, a Peabody, and a Writer's Guild of America award for ER.

.
What is it exactly that drives you into writing a particular story?

MC: I don't know why I do what I do. And I try not to analyze it too much. Generally I am aware of trying to do one of two things. Either I am trying to solve a problem of narrative (for example, how could you make people believe in dinosaurs, at least for a few hours?) Or I am trying to understand a problem in the real world (what's the relationship between aggressor and victim in sexual harassment?) And out of that effort may come a book, or a screenplay.



CRICHTON: As CP Snow indicated so well in "Two Cultures," the problem is not to come down on one side of the debate or the other. The problem is to be able to deal with both sides at once. We are, as a society, tremendously dependent on science and technology. I would long ago be dead if I had lived in an earlier time. So there is no going back. At the same time, the creators of technology often do not seem to be as concerned about the effects of their work as outsiders think they ought to be. But this attitude is changing.

Just as war is too important to be left to the generals, science is too important to be left to the scientists. But in recent years so-called humanistic criticism has been incredibly ill-informed and, frankly, rather fantastical. (I am speaking particularly of post-modern criticism.) Scientists aren't going to listen to people who have no idea what they are actually doing, or to those who scare the public with absurd risks.

As for science changing the definition of humanity, that horse left the barn long ago. Planning a hip replacement when you're older? Implanted pump to deliver medications? How about a PDA to carry information in your pocket? A cell phone to link you around the clock, around the world. A pill to relax you, another to pick you up. Jet planes to carry you in comfort quickly to any spot on the planet. And of course with freedom from disease, from vaccination and pharmaceuticals, once you get there. And a handheld GPS to tell you location within inches.

Not so long ago, parents did not name their children for a while, because so many of them died young. Often they posed for pictures with the dead infant, before it was buried. Hawaiians didn't celebrate the birth of a child until it was a year old -- a custom still followed today. Not so long ago, one woman in six died in childbirth. Being "human" included these facts of life.

All that's changed, of course. And in doing so, it's changed the definition of what is human. What our lives are like, what our expectations are like, at least in the industrialized countries of the world. Nobody's complaining about that part of the impact of science on humanity.

_____________

If you can't see the influence of Michael Crichton in my writing... I'm disappointed.

The enlightened viewpoint... the eternal search for the Correct Answer.

Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist. When I tell Christians I don't respect their beliefs, I am trying to SHOCK them.

christianity is a con game. Part of the con is that, in America, we are supposed to respect all religious beliefs. And that's nonsense.

Science has proven there is no God. It's just that no one knows it yet. The evidence is right there in front of you.

William Hays at 11:02PM on Feb 14th 2008

127. Science has not proven there is no God.

Jerry Brown at 11:11PM on Feb 14th 2008

128. ATHEIST

Science has proven there is no God.

The problem is, we allow a certain prejudiced group to tell us what standard of "proof" we have to meet.

Do we have to examine every possible case individually? Or, can we find a rule that allows us to predict an answer based on a smaller sample rate?

The fact is, the universe existed for nine billion years before the earth was formed.

There is NO POSSIBLE way to say that life on earth was created by an intellect that wants a personal relationship with us.

Our current thinking about God... is like the scientific community in Europe in 1850. They lacked enough firepower to prove how life on earth reached "humans"... and then, with one book, they had it.

You don't need a Creator God... once you understand HOW DNA and Evolution works.

William Hays at 11:18PM on Feb 14th 2008

129. The Clintonistas, like the Clintons themselves, will use any contrived, fallacious argument to advance the notion that Bill was actually successful in fighting terror and that Hill has lots of experience in conducting foreign policy.

Even lefties in the media who have been covering for the Clintons for so long are fleeing like rats from a sinking ship and turning on Hill and Bill en mass. It's becoming painfully apparent that the Clintons are frauds and have all the depth of those happy little cardboard cutouts.

Like Richelle's little tap-dance (#15) & Cliff's laundry list of half-truths(#12), the Clintons are madly scrambling to find a way to stop the truth from marching relentlessly forward and exposing the disaster that was the Clinton years, even if it is happening 8 years late. The Clintonian chickens are all coming home to roost now and all the doctrinaire lefties can do is obfuscate and try to change the subject.

Dave at 11:28PM on Feb 14th 2008

130. The idea there is no God is just that, an idea. It is impossible to prove God exist or God does not exist. If you want to believe there is no God so be it. It is fine with me. From what I have read of your writings I cannot help but wonder where all the hostility is coming from, but I doubt if you know the answer to that.

Jerry Brown at 11:23PM on Feb 14th 2008

131.

Bush, on the other hand, took a nice, looooooong vacation before 911 and ignored the Clinton Administration's urgent warnings during the post 2000 election transition period to make fighting terrorism a high priority.

During Clinton's term, the 1993 bombers of the World Trade Center were caught and brought to justice (without waterboarding or invading the wrong country--how economically thoughful of Bill!). And I, as a resident of Southern California, deeply appreciate that his administration successfully thwarted the millenium bombing plot against LAX. Oh, and let's not forget that FEMA functioned beautifully under the Clinton Administration (you might have heard about a little quake we had here in 1994). FEMA did what under Bush? Oh, yeah: a heck of a job on Katrina, eh?

Dinesh, maybe you should spend more time gazing into your wife's eyes and less time babbling inanely about things you don't bother to research.

Amelie at 12:03AM on Feb 15th 2008

132. Bush had Osama's brother's family flown from the states where they made their home the night of 9/11.
Why? Don't you think a bit of behind the scene waterbaording might have been desireable. The circumstances most certainly called for it as the nation was in mortal peril. They say you can waterboard for that one. Anyhow, off goes the bro. Yep, on a military plane he's with a note for Osama? Te letter reads: Osama, you're days are numbered,or something along those lines. However, we are sending your brother to you as a token of our sworn goal to get you dead or alive. Listen to your brother, Osama.
It's true, Osama, I heard it straight from the horse's mouth. Which horse? Brother, I don't know, it's difficult to make them out because they all look like the horses behinds to me.

Enough on Osama,CLinton's foreign policy, Hilary's lack of it, and the complete and unremitting idiotcy of being moribund in Iraq while Bush, taking his cues from Clinton's do nothing style to punish the terrorists, switches his let's get em attitude to Saddam! He was a governor of a state with no foreign policy experience: most of our presidents have not been foreign policy experts, Dinesh, including Dubya. Maybe sitting at his father's feet he absorbed all he needs to know.

boredwell at 12:39AM on Feb 15th 2008

133. D'Souza, you are not only fact-challenged, you are, as your picture suggests, a drooling idiot. You have revealed yourself as yet another of those "geniuses" who are rebelling against their parents and hailing your new messiah. One of the young, educated "in crowd" of whom we keep hearing, I guess. Lord help us all!! Concentrate, now --- "We are the ones we have been waiting for." "We" does not mean "us" (who WOULD swear or affirm on the BIBLE to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, or repeat the Pledge of Allegiance, or salute the US Flag). Your pipe dreamers ("We") definitely do not include me and certainly not other grounded, thinking Americans.

seehowsheruns at 2:02AM on Feb 15th 2008

134. George Soros and his funded site MoveON are busy at working a fix on who gets the Democrat nomination for President. Can the Democrats be so dumb as to not see this attempted move by Soros and MoveOn to gain total control over the Democrat Convention.

First, MoveOn rigged a vote of it's membership and the winner of that vote, Obama, has MoveOn and Soros 100% support. The present Primary Race between Obama and Hillary could leave each candidate without a clear cut majority to be the Democrat Nominee at the Democrat Convention.

Enter Soros, MoveOn, and 796 Super Delegates. These delagates while they may be designated by the voters to vote for a certain candidate, they CAN CHANGE THEIR MINDS or make up thier mind free of what the voters may want. MoveOn is pushing its membership to push these delegates to firmly announce who they will support, Hillary or Obama, and commit themselves NOW.

Once Soros and his puppet MoveOn knows the preference of these Super Delegates, they can force them change their support to then whoever Soros and MoveOn want to win.

Democrats deserve the right to pick who they want to represent their party, free from outside interference from the self proclaimed owners of the Democrat, MoveOn and George Soros

robert okane at 6:11AM on Feb 15th 2008

135. Cliff's laundry list of half-truths(#12),

xxxxxx

Dave, they're gleaned from every news service and every news room. They are 100% true.

Here's the list again. I say you're just mealy-mouthing a generality that means nothing. If you think these things aren't true, go ahead and go after 'em if you think you can.

When you're done, I have a much much longer list you can have a look at too.

Your party cuts and runs from wars, raises taxes, borrows from communists to give to billionaires, has bigger governments than democrats, undermines freedom and liberty, runs the national debt into the trillions and gives it all to billionaires, sows domestic discord, outsources jobs of returning war patriots to communists, disregards antitrust legislation, abolishes habeas corpus and the bill of rights, cedes eminent domain to anyone with the bucks, friend or foe, pollutes the environment, sells arms to enemies, opens the borders to mexico, dumbs down the school system to make testing profits, wages war on pretext for profit, fails to capture bin Laden, failed to be prepared for 911, was asleep at the wheel during katrina, uses the Attorney General's office for political vendetta, undermines the secret CIA Iranian weaponizations covert surveillance program for political vendetta, interferes with states rights when convenient, commits torture and destroys the evidence, outsources our port security to a dubai corporation, attempts to merge church and state, goes to war without raising taxes but allows a dubai corporation to profit via no bid cost plus contracts, kills 644,000 Iraqi citizens in two years, eliminates Al Qaeda's greatest middle eastern enemy on our childrens' money borrowed from communists, cages elections, ignores veterans, exploits the military, ignores congressional subpoenas, loses billions in Iraq, attempts to overthrow the New Deal, initiates twice as many signing statements as all other presidents combined and covers up for financial and homosexual scandals in congress.


so, if those are half truths, give us the REAL story, mr. harvey!

good day.

Clif Kuplen at 12:48PM on Feb 15th 2008