Surgeon General Describes Censorship From Bush Administration 805
UniversalVM writes "The NY Times is reporting that the former Surgeon General in damaging testimony given to the senate describes how he was repeatedly censored by the Bush administration while speaking out about topics such as global warming, Stem cell research and so on. The effort was to 'water down' or weaken reports on important issues to suit Republican Agenda. He describes how he attended one meeting where Global Warming was being described as a 'Liberal Agenda' and being dismissed. He tried to intervene thinking that the people there did not understand the science so he set about explaining it to them, the result? He was never invited back."
Even slashdot is in on the act (Score:5, Insightful)
On a more serious note, even if you think that global warming is a pile of horse manure, why would anyone object to the measures that are being suggested? Unless they owned a coal mine of course...
There's a lot of sense in heavy investment in nuclear, solar and wind power plus hybrid, diesel and electric vehicles even in a situation where the world isn't going wrong. Same with switching to CFLs and generally improving efficiency of resource usage etc... it's not like there are people who find clean air offensive... or at least I hope not.
Ugh... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't for a moment think that any of the potential presidential candidates and their future administrations will not be rife with corruption and political mumbo jumbo. However, the constant news of abuses of power and position to make hideously bad decisions has me regretting the past 7 years thoroughly.
We need Mr. T for president, or at least Secretary of Defense.
Anybody doing and Accounting of the ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Global warming? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok this guy gets away with everything (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely breathtaking!
These are the methods of a tin pot dictator, not the leader of a great and worthy nation.
That Bush & Crew would put their own puffed up egos ahead of the health and well-being of their own countrymen says it all. Sigh.
A big part of the problem ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Global warming? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ummm... (Score:1, Insightful)
I guess the argument could be made that this is yet another example of censorship from the Bush administration, but frankly, it's not a very good one. Since when does the surgeon general speak authoritatively about global warming? I see nothing in his (Dr. Carmona) background which would lead me to believe he had the same depth of knowledge on the subject as the scientists who actually study the theory. The surgeon generals also complained about political pressure, but if we're having an argument based in reality, I'd be curious what political appointment doesn't feel some degree of political pressure. Nothing new here.
Sucks... (Score:2, Insightful)
How many of us read the title and were shocked and/or appauled?
Kinda sad that we're numbed to seeing stuff like this.
Re:Story of my life (Score:5, Insightful)
But if you give a layman a reasonable overview of some issue that's actually relevant to the discussion, while restraining your tendency to sneer at stupid questions, and patronize people just because they don't already know what you're talking about, then you might find that some people are actually capable of being interested.
Feynman did a lecture series on quantum electrodynamics [princeton.edu] that was specifically geared toward people who didn't know what the hell quantum electrodynamics was. If you want to see an example of someone explaining a hard to understand topic to a bunch of people who have no background in a manner that is both accurate and entertaining, I highly recommend picking it up.
Re:Global warming? (Score:3, Insightful)
Global warming is part of the liberal agenda... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Grrrrrr. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, when your funding is managed by a bunch of people who simply don't believe the science, and who have no interest in different points of view, you can't really succeed at this. No matter how noble a sentiment it is.
Well, 'good' policy is subjective -- if your goal is to have a policy which starts with the supposition that homosexuality is bad, or Intelligent Design is valid, or abstinence only sex education isn't an oxymoron
Not when you can convince people of such silly things as "our lives would be easier if Pi was 3". And, in the case of global warming, while there seems to be a majority of people who agree, as long as someone dissents you can claim that it's not fact, but opinion and theory and muddy the waters. An uncritical/uneducated public (who has been fed what you wanted them) won't be able to tell the difference.
Sadly, nowadays, politically inconvenient basically means you get shut down. Especially in the current administration which has the attitude that "what we say is right, no matter what the truth is". They're not interested in truth -- they're interested in their position, and pandering to their base. Reality be damned.
Cheers
Lots of warming-related health issues (Score:5, Insightful)
- Malaria and other diseases [bbc.co.uk]
- heatwave deaths [npr.org]
- water quality [unisci.com]
It sure would have been helpful to have talked about them over the last seven years.Re:Global warming? (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember the Nuremberg Trials? (Score:5, Insightful)
Back then, the USA had leadership that demonstrated to the world how even the most heinous crimes (particularly the Holocaust)—in which many millions of people died—can and should be handled according to law and principle.
Compare that with what George W. does today.
Re:Even slashdot is in on the act (Score:5, Insightful)
It costs money to keep beaches free of sewage, breakfast free of weevils, jobs free of twenty hour days, students in school, Iraq free of terrorists, criminals in jail and hospitals free of credit card readers at the emergency room doors.
The fact that it might cost money, and that some of that money might need to come from taxes, doesn't necessarily make it a bad idea. It doesn't make it a good idea either - consideration is required in all things.
Re:Anybody doing and Accounting of the ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Like Guatanamo and the whole imprisonment without due process thing.
Or like illegally spying on US citizens.
Or...
You mention only the things that noone who's seriously talking impeachment would mention. I applaud you for attacking those that talk impeachment out of a knee-jerk political stance, however, you don't seem to realize that there's a relatively strong case for it.
Censorship funded in part by.... (Score:2, Insightful)
The letter B and
The number 666.
Re:Anybody doing and Accounting of the ... (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm with you--they should so impeach Bush. Clinton got impeached, and you say Clinton and Bush both did all of those nasty things.
And it can't be too soon, as far as I'm concerned.
And don't forget to impeach Mr. Burns...er, I mean Cheney too.
What? That's not what you meant? Well, too bad. The American people didn't mean "MORE IRAQ WAR, PLEASE" in the last fucking election either.
Re:Global warming? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps he was discussing the migration of diseases (and their carriers) that occur in warmer climates such as malaria / mosquitoes? Or the changes in heath that could occur in Inuit populations as that region warms? Or more cases of heat-exhaustion?
There are any number of legitimate health-related topics that could spawn a discussion of global warming.Science is politicized (Score:4, Insightful)
Somehow, somewhere along the line, science allowed itself to be bought through sponsorship of research, and then politicized through endorsement of certain political agendas which were suggested to be incarnations of scientific truth. Now, science itself is sullied, and is forever going to be caught in this battle between special interest groups vying for control of an oblivious electorate.
I think Lou Dobbs said it well:
With the electorate asserting a strong impulse to be independent, and with populism exerting a significant influence in the 2006 midterm elections, there is a possibility that all of those incumbents in the House and Senate may have to consider the possibility of actually having to represent their constituents and the popular will, rather than corporate America, socio-ethnic special interest groups and the tens of thousands of lobbyists who represent every interest but that of the common good and the nation.
Lou Dobbs - July 11, 2007 [cnn.com]
He's talking about government in general, but the same could be applied to science and even large parts of the computer industry. If science wants to have respect again, it needs to get rid of the perception that loyalties and bribes have made it a partisan football.
Re:Well It's About Time! (Score:3, Insightful)
Because in partisan politics, you can't possibly be seen to agree with something your opponent is in favour of.
Once you concede they might be right on one or two points, and doing good work, then you can no longer paint them as wrong on all topics.
Admittedly, I've got to agree. If anything should be completely apolitical it would be something like the Special Olympics. Hell, I'm pretty sure Arnold attends such events -- though, he happily disagrees with Bush on a number of things. So he's not such a dogmatic Republican as that.
Of course, from the article, when you read:
it's pretty obvious that the White House will still try to put their own spin on it. Being accused of stifling the Surgeon General? Claim that he failed in his duty as an advocate for truth and science. They're trying to control the message even when they're the topic.
Cheers
Re:Even slashdot is in on the act (Score:1, Insightful)
Simple, $$$, these measures cost lots of money, and somebody has to pay for it.
Even if you do not give a crap about global warming, that may or may not happen in 50 to 100 years, it is _all_ about economics. Everything we do starts with energy, and I mean _everything_! The cheapest way to generate energy is with carbon rich sources of energy. It is to costly to start up a nuclear power plant (or any power plant) in the USA because of echos of Three Mile Island, and rampant NIMBYism. Conservation is great, but it cost more $$$ because energy effcient machines cost more, and you have to replace existing machines
The whole global warming "issue" is a huge liberal boogy-man that they can flog, because the people it hurts most are the big corporations, not the little guy. At least that is what the little guy is lead to believe.
If you look real closely at who has to pay for these new methods, you just might get a glimps of yourself.
Re:Anybody doing and Accounting of the ... (Score:5, Insightful)
What a strange ethical logic you conservatives have. O.J. Simpson got away with murder (apparently), does that mean I am allowed to murder now also, and nobody can object because O.J. did it first?
For the party that is always yelling about "traditional values", and "strict constructionalism", you are starting to sound an awful lot like the moral relativists you like to condemn.
Re:Anybody doing and Accounting of the ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Going to war with a country that was not a threat....CHECK!
Lying to the country....CHECK!
Claiming Iraq had WMDs....CHECK!
Censoring the SG....CHECK!
Firing attorneys....CHECK!
It's astonishing that people who claim to be so preoccupied with morality would be so quick to abandon any semblance of morality for political ends.
You're like whiney little kids. You saw one kid shoplift a candy bar and instead of going to jail, he was sent home to his parents. So you decided you could rob a bank at gunpoint, and cry "foul" that, once caught, you're not simply being sent home as well.
Pathetic, really.
It's people like you that make democracy suck (Score:2, Insightful)
Who cares if he's republican, who cares if he's conservative. He's the president. That means he should act in the best interests of the nation WHETHER OR NOT he personally agrees with it. That means letting all sides be heard, not squelching things he doesn't agree with. That means doing things that his party may not like, because it's the right thing to do.
That type of thinking is why most elections are worthless nowadays, because you have people who tick a box for a party without caring about the person's beliefs or if that party really agrees with that they believe themselves.
Re:Even slashdot is in on the act (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Even slashdot is in on the act (Score:4, Insightful)
How is my pointing out that some countries just can't (or maybe won't) invest the LOTS OF MONEY needed to push large-scale energy conservation an argument that those that *can* "have the right to pollute more than anyone else"?
"Rights" have nothing to do with such an issue in the first place. This is a practical problem, not a moral one.
The reason I mentioned what I did, was I wanted to point out that what is clearly a long-term global problem (global warming -- if it indeed a problem, of course) needs to have long-term global solutions, and cleaner energy in the US alone isn't such a solution nor will it be anywhere near sufficient. It's also not a solution that many developing countries can even *afford* to participate in. If global warming will create problems such as rising coast lines, increases in the spread of certain illnesses, etc., then those problems would be more efficiently tackled *directly* and in a way that the global economy suffers as little as possible so we don't end up in a major depression. I fully support investment in cost-effective clean energy (nuclear mostly). But rather than putting all money that is to be spent towards 'fighting global warming' into clean energy, I would use much of it to create international programs to help populations all over the world deal with the *effects* of global warming. Assuming, of course, that we will have to deal with them (according to
I guess by what I wrote you can tell that I am on the fence with global warming being anthropogenic (and will be for about 10 years, or however long it will take to make sure the Sun isn't the culprit), but it's happening and the effects are being felt in some parts of the world. Every model predicts they will worsen, although some show that the degree of this "worsening" is dependent on continued output of CO2 into the atmosphere. But if it *will* worsen, why do I hear so much about reducing carbon footprints and so little about programs to combat the spread of malaria, etc.
Re:Well It's About Time! (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, take that "large minority" and all those that do not care and you entriely deserve the abysmally bad gouvernment you have at the moment. The unfait part is that the rest of the world also suffers from these obviously evil people...
Re:Horse Manure (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That happened to me.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
And that, friends, is how W got elected, and how every other president we ever have will get elected... through superior marketing.
Re:Well It's About Time! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Anybody doing and Accounting of the ... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the conviction that requires the Senate and a 2/3 majority vote where there are not enough votes.
As for the real reason, it has a lot more to do with avoiding the shotgun approach like the Republicans did with Bill Clinton and ensuring that the evidence they would use is clear.
The Republicans threw up several different charges instead of being far more pointed and direct with the perjury issue. If the Democrats do something similar, they would be laughed at as well, unless they had some kind of real earth-shattering, indefensible evidence. Otherwise, it looks more like a, "You did it to our guy, so we're doing it to you. Nyaaaah!"
Re:He Wants to Be a Politician (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because some of us, deep down, believe that with hard work, determination, and a little luck, we just might be the lucky guy stealing BILLIONS of dollars someday. I think many Americans, your correspondent not included, see such a transaction as nothing more than a prerogative of one in power. To the victor go the spoils; of course, George and Dick are certainly testing the extremes of the principle.
Re:Well It's About Time! (Score:3, Insightful)
He was the Surgeon General, not those political appointees. He was the one giving the speeches. If he had wanted to speak about a topic that some appointee had rejected all he had to do was speak about it anyway. Sure, he might have been fired, but what could he have been afraid of? There are plenty of people who share Dr. Carmona's opinions on matters of stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, prison, and mental and global health issues. If he had spoken about them, he would do so (presumably) with science and facts on his side. Sure he might have lost his job, but it would be on his own terms and the president would have to either refute his statements or admit to canning him for political reasons. In either case, no staffer has any say over the situation.
This whole story reeks of politics, cover-ups, and black mail. When a presidential appointee gets vetoed against his will by a staffer something doesn't add up.
Re:Global warming is part of the liberal agenda... (Score:3, Insightful)
And please, conservatives, drop the "small government" mantra. Everyone knows by now that it's a load of hypocritical crap.
Re:Well It's About Time! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't do these things anymore, but there's no certainty that I won't have to again. If the tech sector collapses again and I find myself doing tech support again (Please, no! not a 3rd time!) I may well find myself in that unpleasant situation again. And who knows, if I luck into a situation where I'm making millions I might hesitate to let my scruples ruin an otherwise good thing.
What I'm saying is this: Here is a man in the most high-profile position possible in his line of work. He can make a difference within the boundaries set for him. If he stands up for his beliefs, the administration will simply replace him with a less competent and more pliable subject. How does that help the public? And it sure hurts the individual. I don't think anyone can judge his actions unless they've been in a similar situation and done the "right thing," besides the fact that I don't think the ethical choice is clear.
Sometimes you can do more good as a reluctant part of the problem than you can as a noble but sidelined martyr.
Re:Well It's About Time! (Score:5, Insightful)
In the spirit of the Godwin's Law meme, I suggest a new meme for use on slashdot.
The law states: As a discussion addressing the topic of the Bush administration grows in size, the probability of comparing the Clinton administration activities to excuse Bush administration activities grows to one.
Following the traditional use of Godwin's law, I suggest that any mention of the Clinton administration when discussion the Bush administration results in automatic loss of the debate for the person bringing up the Clinton administration.
I also suggest that person have their head examined and study the process of logic. Repeat after me friends: Past mistakes do NOT excuse current mistakes.
As an aside, it's sad that we have to define these types of laws, and that our public education system does not encourage the type of thinking where everyone shares this mentality. Us vs Them groupthink is very damaging to any society.
Re:Story of my life (Score:1, Insightful)
Do these people really know what they are doing? (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems that so many important advances in the sciences have been in spite of government and religion instead of because of them. And yet while we HAVE these useful technologies, government and religion are all about using them and abusing them and often thanking "god" for them.
Will we ever have more than tiny revolutions where real "thinking" becomes popular?
Re:Well It's About Time! (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with you 100%--in fact, 120--but c'mon! Where was the outrage six years ago? This wolf-in-sheep's-clothes act has been going on since literally day one. It's partly gratifying to see people finally waking, but mostly just depressing and scary. Should things really have to sink this low before we start asking more from our leaders?
Re:Grrrrrr. (Score:3, Insightful)
Note well Virginia congressman Tom Davis at the hearing:
I think the main point of the hearings are, "What's the point in having these people if they're political appointees and can't generally say what they want to, anyways?" What is the role of a surgeon-general? He has a few formal duties, but if he/she isn't allowed to do health advocacy, the job is mostly a sinecure. Particularly in the current administration, who'd rather any difficult or complicated health advise be run past Tony Snow, to make sure it all jives with the current presentation of reality.
Also remember that congress had a Office of Technology Assessment [wikipedia.org], which performed a scientific advisory role for congress, and congress defunded it in 1995.
It seems like the job is faintly ludicrous if the president considers health advocacy to be political discourse. We'd be better off if scientists independently were more vocal and active in politics. So I guess I agree with you, sortof.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Plurality voting (and stacked plurality voting, even worse) essentially guarantees having only two parties, and that those two parties will actually be very structurally similar to one another. Of necessity, the two parties differ only minorly on a few of their positions, and any third party cannot be adequately served by the electoral system. Third-party candidates in fact act only as spoilers for the major-party candidate who is closer to their positions, and thus there is a strong disincentive for them to even try.
2) Gerrymandering has successfully been used to turn the overwhelming majority of legislative positions into "safe seats". ie, that that party which will win that seat is absolutely certain. This means that the only real election of significance is the primary that will choose the particular member of that party who gets the seat. Given that primaries are voted in only by members of that party, this means that the most extreme and partisan candidates are the ones who have the greatest chance of success.
3) Legislation that passes with 50%+1 of congressional support is exactly as much a law as legislation that passes with 100% support. This, unfortunately, incentivises those two parties being an intentionally divisive as possible. Reaching across the aisle and finding compromises does not strengthen your bill, it only weakens your ability to campaign as an extremist next time around. Legislation is therefore frequently given radioactive riders that make it intentionally diffcult for members of the opposing party to support it. For example, the bill that created the Department of Homeland Security was intentionally saddled with some aggressive union-busting provisions, to discourage Democrat legislators from voting for it; this allowed Republicans to brand Democrats as anti-security, and served their purposes far better than actual bipartisan cooperation would have.
Unfortuately, changing these fairly fundamental structural things about the American electoral and legislative systems would require action by exactly the set of people who have figured out how to profit from the current broken systems. So we're deadlocked.
Re:Well It's About Time! (Score:3, Insightful)
For the love of Pete!
How many times does this story have to repeat itself. The first was the supression of information out of NASA where scientific press releases/papers were altered by political appointees to better reflect the anti-evolution/anti-climate change stance of the present administration.
IF this is true?
Even a former CIA director tells a bleak tale of intelligence being skewed based on presupposition.
IF this is true?
Wake up people.
Re:Story of my life (Score:2, Insightful)
Another program that the GOP does its damndest to stop every time they have a little bit of power.
We should... (Score:1, Insightful)
Exactly. Which is why we should question why anybody listens to Al Gore on the subject.
Yes. Duh. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a combination of Social Darwinism from the libertarian side of the party and a desire to see crippled people more dependent on private organizations (i.e. churches) from the religious right side. (Another reason why, as a Christian, I can't stand the religious right.)
Re:You forgot to mention Bush three times... (Score:3, Insightful)
Who cares? I've tried explaining lots of different things without ever being an expert in the relevant fields. The point is, the people he was trying to explain something to DIDN'T WANT TO KNOW.
Re:Well It's About Time! (Score:3, Insightful)
One should not care who is wrong, just that they were, or are in fact wrong, try to change it, and attempt to not have it repeated in the future. Would it be OK for Bush to eat Jew baby brains if Clinton did too? My fucking goodness are people stupid...in this country...
In France (*ducks!), and in many other countries, they protest if their breakfast was cold and you can bet tomorrow their eggs will be piping hot. In other countries, the politicians actually fear the poeple (as it should be). In the US, they know that a good haircut, some big words and a great sound bite will win 51% approval no matter the agenda. And remember, if they can do it (you mean more power? hell yeah I'll do it!), they will. We are just too damned apathetic and under-educated in the US, and it's sad to watch... many of us are just waiting for it to end with one big toilet flush. Hopefully I'm stuck to the side of the bowl when it's through. But if not... oh well...
As it is right now the vast majority of us in the US live in a vacuum. We come home from our 10 hour work day (with a 30 minute lunch), feed the kids, clean the house, watch 30 minutes of Fox"News" and wake up in the morning and do it all again. This behavior seems absurd in other countries... because it is. People come to the US like poeple play the lottery. You can become really fucking rich here. If you are the greediest, most immoral person you will accomplish that goal without issue here. That's what the US is all about. When they speak of freedom in the US, that's what they mean. As many realize, the US is not the most free country in the world. In fact, there are many that are much more free. New Zealand, the Netherlands, Canada, Switzerland, etc... but it's harder to become super rich on the backs of normal people there. In those countries (actually, in all other industrialized countries), they have things like socialized medicine. OMG! Pinko Commie!!
You get the picture...
I'm not trolling here, but... (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously, you guys are smart. You know what the real deal is. Have you simply lost all morale? Or is it something else? Please, I am not trying to start a flame war here (hence my not posting as AC). I would love to hear your stories.
Re:You forgot to mention Bush three times... (Score:3, Insightful)
As for global warming, I think you raise a very valid point questioning the surgeon's general authority on that matter.
Re:Everybody is aghast but this is normal everywhe (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Story of my life (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the problem our former Surgeon General ran into was both that he didn't have Feynman's skills and that his audience not only didn't care about the science in question but they were actively seeking ways to discredit it.
Re:You forgot to mention Bush three times... (Score:5, Insightful)
Erm.
(And I don't even know what's meant by "unnatural" here--that's not the sort of word that would make sense in a scientific hypothesis. If you mean "occurs in nature"--since when are people not part of nature? Or is it just homosexuals that aren't part of nature? (That'd be circular reasoning if I've ever heard any.) And if by "natural" you mean "occurs in animals other than humans"--lots of other animals have homosexual sex.)
So, yes, the statement that "homosexual intercourse" is "unhealthy and unnatural" suggests someone that puts their personal prejudices ahead of any sort of clear-headed thinking about health.
Re:You forgot to mention Bush three times... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Story of my life (Score:2, Insightful)
Your comment boils down to "even though this controversial issue, trust me". Tell me: Who the hell are you, and why should anyone trust you?
You should be. Cite your damn sources next time.
Re:Well It's About Time! (Score:3, Insightful)
This is how oppressive regimes throughout history have managed to prevent revolution; stamping out sparks quickly, before they can light fires.
Re:Even slashdot is in on the act (Score:2, Insightful)
There's no conspiracy. It just the same thing that people have been doing for thousands of years: predicting doom, gloom, and the end of the world to hype the hell out of their pet theory for attention and money.
Like the population explosion, like the Y2K bug, people with agendas take a small thing and blow it all the hell out of proportion to get themselves on the 6 o'clock news. They've been wrong every single time before, and they're wrong now.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
IMO, the next "threat" will be domestic "terrorists" fighting back against what's happening (a la V for Vendetta).
Re:Hmmm... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Story of my life (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, all that construction around the ocean based measuring equipment has to skew the results. Also, all that urban sprawl in the 10's of thousands of ft range is really messing up the measurements of the weather balloons. Did you think that only one set of data is used in these models? Do you understand how modeling works?
Can someone explain to all the fish of the sea that we need them to stop building next to our ocean based equipment? And those damn avian cranes are starting to pop our balloons!
Here in Chicago, our 'official' temperature monitoring station WAS in the downtown area, and then was moved to the airport at a much later point, considerably outside of the urban heat island effect. This now results in the first frost of the year coming considerably earlier than it does in downtown. So, in this case, if its warmer NOW, then there are some serious problems with that theory you put forward that need to be explained.
There is also the slightly awkward fact that this 'argument' is actually PROVING what it claims to be dis-proving. That man-made effects are changing the environment and climate. Where exactly do you think that additional heat from the construction is going?
Scientific vs. unscientific (Score:3, Insightful)
This project has the potential to be meaningful, but it has a long way to go yet. They need a hypothesis, a rigorous way to test it, and repeatable results.
What the surfacestations project has right now is the beginnings of a hypothesis--that local changes have biased the long-term trends that weather stations have recorded. It's not really a strong one yet because they don't have good coverage yet...last time I checked there were like 15 station reports, out of well over a thousand, and that's just the NOAA stations.
Once they have good coverage they'll need to devise a quantitative way to test for bias in the readings. This might involve placing duplicate weather stations nearby but further from the alleged bias factors, and looking for long-term differences in readings. Or it might involve comparative statistical analysis to check the data trends from these terrestial stations with satellite and other terrestrial data sets. The point is, they are going to have to do some testing or comparison involving precise numerical data.
Then their conclusions have to be peer reviewed and published, where they will become public knowledge for other scientists to poke around in, look for flaws, and try to repeat.
Unfortunately you jumped right past all that stuff, straight to a belief that the mere existence of this site somehow provides support for your pet theory. It doesn't.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problems I enumerated would be largely addressed by moving to a better voting methodology. Plurality voting does a terrible job of expressing the will of the electorate, and, just like layering lossy compression, stacking multiple plurality votes only gets worse. By the time we've made it through gerrymandering, primaries, general elections, and the electoral college, the outcome bears very little relationship to the general desires of voters.
Two substantially better systems are approval voting (in which you vote yes or no on every candidate, and whomever gets the most yesses wins) or a Borda count (in which you rank candidates in your order of preference, and the candidate with the highest total ranking wins). Both of these allow voters to express their desires much more concretely, including allowing a vote for a third-party candidate to be meaningful and not threaten the success of a still-acceptable and more viable candidate. So everyone really could vote meaningfully for Nader or Perot without taking votes away from Bush or Gore, for example.
I wish I could dig it up, but around 2001 I saw a study in which someone had attempted to reconstruct from polling data what the outcome of the 2000 presidential election would have been if either of these methods had been in place. And the answer was that we would fairly likely have elected John McCain.
Now, I'm not a huge McCain fan. I disagree with him about some significant issues. But I am confident that he would be a much better choice for the job than George W. Bush.
The reason this is interesting is that if you asked a Bush voter for their opinion on this outcome, a lot of them would say something like, "I'm not a huge McCain fan. I disagree with him about some significant issues. But I am confident that he would be a much better choice for the job than Al Gore."
A candidate who is everybody's second choice is a much better electee than a candidate who is 50% of voters' first choice and 50% of voters' over-my-dead-body choice.
Re:Even slashdot is in on the act (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, last time I checked, the US was a democracy. That basically means you brought this on yourself. Of course those that voted for others do not deserve this.
But besides W, I have serious doubts the US qualifies as "great and worthy". In some regards it barely makes it into the 1st world. Overall I would rate it a "very big and a somewhat backwards 1st world country".
My impression is that many US citizens are so obsessed with their nation being "great", that they fail to check what others do. This way they do not know were true world leaders in specific areas are and what they could learn there. Just some keywords: Health system, public transportation, energy consumption and infrastructure, food safety, legal system, education system, banking system, phone system, Internet infrastructure,... . In all these (and a lot more) the US is significantly behind the best.
Just one personal observation: I have had food poisoning 4 times in my life. 3 times in the US, despite having spent only about 2.5% of my lifetime so far there. An there was no ''risky'' behaviour involved at all.
what an arrogant person you are (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, so you're one of those. Link to an article where mainstream science, or Al Gore for that matter, said global warming would "jeapardize the existence of man." You're creating a classic strawman argument. By pretending that the scientists investigating global warming are all alarmist hand-wavers, you have identified what your "research" consisted of. You read a bunch of conservative talking points saying that "alarmist" scientists think that global warming will wipe out all life, and since it won't, we can't trust them. But that isn't the mainstream scientific position, and anyone who has "researched" this would know that.
Do you also feel qualified to "research" the germ theory and weigh in with your insights? How damned arrogant can you really be? Can I do a bit of reading in my study, ponder a bit, and just expect to wash away plate tectonics, the heliocentric model of the solar system, the germ theory, the atomic theory, or other mainstream scientific theories? No, and only an arrogant ass would think that their opinion, based on a bit of half-assed "research" on conservative blogs, was more informed that the entire damned scientific community. Could you possibly have a higher opinion of yourself?
Re:Well It's About Time! (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference is that this isn't some joe-job in the private sector.
The Surgeon General is the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the US. He is also a physician, and has taken an oath that states (in part) "I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow."
His responsibility is to promote improvement of the health and welfare of the entire nation, not to prop up half-baked policy of the Bush/Cheney/Rove. Use of the post for plain political hackery is a tremendous breach of the public's trust and yet another nauseating example of the corruption at all levels of this administration.
Re:Well It's About Time! (Score:3, Insightful)
American consumers have got to be the most selfish, greedy, stupid people out there today. They're the reasons we have this government we have today; they'd vote in Hitler as long as they got to buy more stupid shit for themselves.