Science > Physics > Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectations for the Bush administration
| Topic: |
Science > Physics |
| User: |
"Robert Karl Stonjek" |
| Date: |
20 Aug 2003 09:19:26 PM |
| Object: |
Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectations for the Bush administration |
Nature 424, 861 (21 August 2003); doi:10.1038/424861a
No way to run a superpower
The scientific community had low expectations for the Bush
administration when it was first elected. The record since 2001 shows
that these expectations were justified.
From its outset, the administration of President George W. Bush drew a
line in the sand on several major science-related issues, including
global warming (it opposed government action to cut greenhouse-gas
emissions) and ballistic-missile defence (it would be deployed, and
would work). Critics, including scientists, have been shut out from
providing meaningful input on these issues.
More positively, from scientists' perspective, this administration's
budgets have been reasonably supportive and the president has, on the
whole, appointed competent officials to key positions. Over the past
two-and-a-half years, however, there has been a steady accumulation of
reported attempts by the Bush administration to distort scientific
evidence or rig advisory panels for political purposes. With the
Republican Congress ever compliant to the administration, few questions
have been raised about these complaints and the administration has been
under little pressure to justify its actions.
That's why this month's report by Henry Waxman (Democrat, California),
the senior Democrat on the Government Reform Committee in the House of
Representatives, should be welcomed. In a relatively comprehensive and
succinct 33-page document, Waxman's staff have, at the very least, put
together a cogent case for the prosecution
(http://www.politicsandscience.org; see Nature 424, 715; 2003). "The
Administration's political interference with science has led to
misleading statements by the President, inaccurate responses to
Congress, altered web sites, suppressed agency reports, erroneous
international communications, and the gagging of scientists," it states.
Waxman has a good record in health and environmental issues, and his
staff's detailed criticisms of administration actions deserve to be
taken seriously. But the White House response has been
characteristically curt, deriding Waxman as a biased observer who was
"playing politics". The rest of the administration's defence has been
unintentionally self-revealing. "This administration looks at the facts,
and reviews the best available science based on what's right for the
American people," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told The New
York Times.
Administration officials have offered no point-by-point repudiation of
the allegations in the report, either when they were first made or when
Waxman repeated them. If they had done so, many of the allegations might
have been laid to rest. There has been some political interference in
agencies' decisions, and decisions have been made on the basis of
political considerations rather than science. But Waxman does not
establish that that this has been much more pervasive than under
previous administrations.
It isn't by the prevalence of junior-level dabbling that this
administration should be judged. Two things stand out in its track
record on science: its handling of a few key scientific issues; and its
culture of iron-clad corporate discipline, which has come into conflict
with relative independence customarily enjoyed by US scientific
agencies. Waxman is on his strongest ground when he attacks the impact
of the latter on such nominally independent agencies as the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. The premature departure of Christine Todd
Whitman, a moderate Republican, from the administrator's position in the
EPA speaks to the curtailment of that independence under Bush.
On this occasion, Waxman doesn't dwell on the Bush administration's
reluctance to engage. In 2001, the administration asked the National
Academy of Sciences for an assessment of global warming that it hoped
would cast aspersions on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change. From the administration's point of view, the academy
failed to come up with the goods, and it hasn't repeated the exercise.
On major policy issues such as global warming, ballistic-missile defence
and stem-cell research, Bush committed early on to an ideologically
driven approach, and has stuck to it. In an age when science pervades so
many aspects of government, this is a remarkable, and remarkably
ill-judged, approach to setting policy.
[Entire Editorial reproduced Above]
--
Kind Regards,
Robert Karl Stonjek.
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| User: "Uncle Al" |
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| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectations forthe Bush administration |
21 Aug 2003 09:23:52 AM |
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Robert Karl Stonjek wrote:
Nature 424, 861 (21 August 2003); doi:10.1038/424861a
No way to run a superpower
The scientific community had low expectations for the Bush
administration when it was first elected. The record since 2001 shows
that these expectations were justified.
From its outset, the administration of President George W. Bush drew a
line in the sand on several major science-related issues, including
global warming (it opposed government action to cut greenhouse-gas
emissions) and ballistic-missile defence (it would be deployed, and
would work). Critics, including scientists, have been shut out from
providing meaningful input on these issues.
Enviro-whiner issues are religion not science. The anti-missile
thingie is an obscenity by any measure except political patronage.
Bush the Lesser is a born-again Christian with multiple bellybuttons.
Science is the ENEMY.
[snip]
That's why this month's report by Henry Waxman (Democrat, California),
the senior Democrat on the Government Reform Committee in the House of
Representatives, should be welcomed. In a relatively comprehensive and
succinct 33-page document, Waxman's staff have, at the very least, put
together a cogent case for the prosecution]
Waxman is a fanatic California Liberal with fire shooting out of his
butt. Waxman's idea of a good time is the Belmont Learning Center, a
$1 billion (with a "b") still building four-story high school that
will be destroyed by its slum bunny contents within a year of its
oopening - if and when. It is 100% minority contractors and $1
billion just isn't enough. The Belmont Learning Center is being build
on a toxic waste dump! This is a subtlety the Environmental Impact
Report seems to have missed. OTOH, the politically connected prior
owners of the land did get a fantastic price for it.
Note that the Sears Tower in Chicago came in at about 2/3 $billion and
it is somewhat larger than a 4-story bungalow. Waxman would sell your
mother as a virgin, twice.
[snip]
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!
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| User: "Bill Vajk" |
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| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
21 Aug 2003 10:26:33 AM |
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Al Littlemanwearingbigboypants whines:
The anti-missile
thingie is an obscenity by any measure except political patronage.
Balderdash.
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| User: "Bill Vajk" |
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| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsforthe Bush administration |
21 Aug 2003 03:40:54 PM |
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Al Littlemanwearingbigboypants whines:
Bill Vajk wrote:
Al Littlemanwearingbigboypants whines:
The anti-missile
thingie is an obscenity by any measure except political patronage.
Balderdash.
Why don't you do a retrocranial eversion
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/sunshine.jpg
I defer to your most excellent personal positional exemplification.
I wouldn't consider competing with you on that level. Have you
modeled for any other posturing in this contortionist genre?
and read the recent American Association for the Advancement of
Science white paper on the subject? It punctiliously excoriates every
aspect of the thing from basic science through engineering to
"normalized" (falsified) real world test results.
Opinions are like armpits, everyone has.....
The only hope the
stupid thing has is to mount a sizeable nuclear warhead and shoot lots
of them all at once in a proactive mode. Assuming the interceptors
don't mostly fratricide each other, the resulting EMP at ground level
will blow everything electronic and much that is merely electric all
to Hell.
When we began developing the tactical hardware to sense an
incoming mortar round and lob one at the source before the
incoming had a chance to hit everyone thought it was a
crazy idea. Even with the relatively limited hardwired logic
available during the Vietnam theater we managed to develop
a highly effective piece of equipment. Wherever our equipment
was set up in the field, the enemy mortar fired only one round
before it, and usually the entire firing crew, was destroyed.
Every weapon system eventually spawns an effective counter weapon
system. No matter how shortsighted the opponents are, it always
works out that way
If the enemy stealths its stuff or adds decoys, even the hyped hit
probablity entirely vanishes.
There is no invincible weapon system. There never has been, nor
can there ever be. Difficulties present opportunities, not
folding up and running away from the problem.
Hey idiot critic troll Vajk, how effective was Saddam
Hussein's multi-$billion antiaircraft setup against a
piddling dozen airborne US targets?
They were as effective as millions of Arab soldiers in general
have been every time they've encountered numerically inferior
Israeli or Coalition forces. It is obvious from your rantings
over the years that you've never figured out that using a
tool effectively depends entirely on the competence of the
operator.
Compare the total
number of Hussein's launched projectiles with the projected number of
Bush the Lesser's. Compare the total patroled volume of conflict in
each case.
Ha ha ha. Hairydash.
Once again proving that some factual knowledge doesn't necessarily
translate into competent analysis of what facts mean. In your
case that's an old, and boring, story.
Fools like you fail to realize is that the development of
such counter weapons has a fringe benefit to up the ante
necessary to keep the opposition in the game. Even if
someone on our side tells them that the development project
is a ruse, they never dare to believe it. Ronnie's
tacticians knew exactly what they were doing. Denial of
effectiveness is part of a defense, or perhaps aggressive,
weapons system. It also means, obviously, that such denials
aren't necessarily true.
You're so narrow minded that you've lost, perhaps never
acquired in the first place, the perspective necessary
to deal effectively with data implicating complex systems.
As usual you're completely out of your element, Schwartz.
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| User: "Helmut Wabnig" |
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| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
22 Aug 2003 01:32:17 PM |
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On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 10:17:51 -0700, Uncle Al <UncleAl0@hate.spam.net>
wrote:
B
If the enemy stealths its stuff or adds decoys, even the hyped hit
probablity entirely vanishes. Hey idiot critic troll Vajk, how
effective was Saddam Hussein's multi-$billion antiaircraft setup
against a piddling dozen airborne US targets? Compare the total
number of Hussein's launched projectiles with the projected number of
Bush the Lesser's. Compare the total patroled volume of conflict in
each case.
Hmm, with all due respect,
I wonder how B. and B. (Bush&Blair) will get out of there, if ever.
Glorious withdrawal, like Vietnam?
OT, but could not resist, sorry.
w.
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| User: "Someone" |
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| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
22 Aug 2003 04:24:15 PM |
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Helmut Wabnig <hXXXwabnig@aXXXon.at> wrote in message news:<u6ockv4miq6e9njktltal2jdkgi4dr555r@4ax.com>...
On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 10:17:51 -0700, Uncle Al <UncleAl0@hate.spam.net>
wrote:
B
If the enemy stealths its stuff or adds decoys, even the hyped hit
probablity entirely vanishes. Hey idiot critic troll Vajk, how
effective was Saddam Hussein's multi-$billion antiaircraft setup
against a piddling dozen airborne US targets? Compare the total
number of Hussein's launched projectiles with the projected number of
Bush the Lesser's. Compare the total patroled volume of conflict in
each case.
Hmm, with all due respect,
I wonder how B. and B. (Bush&Blair) will get out of there, if ever.
Glorious withdrawal, like Vietnam?
Withdraw and invade again if it missbehaves - this has been the pattern since WW1.
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| User: "Uncle Al" |
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| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsforthe Bush administration |
22 Aug 2003 04:52:26 PM |
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Helmut Wabnig wrote:
On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 10:17:51 -0700, Uncle Al <UncleAl0@hate.spam.net>
wrote:
B
If the enemy stealths its stuff or adds decoys, even the hyped hit
probablity entirely vanishes. Hey idiot critic troll Vajk, how
effective was Saddam Hussein's multi-$billion antiaircraft setup
against a piddling dozen airborne US targets? Compare the total
number of Hussein's launched projectiles with the projected number of
Bush the Lesser's. Compare the total patroled volume of conflict in
each case.
Hmm, with all due respect,
I wonder how B. and B. (Bush&Blair) will get out of there, if ever.
Glorious withdrawal, like Vietnam?
OT, but could not resist, sorry.
I'll play with it. Science and technology are heresy in present-day
Islam. So is democracy of any kind. It is a question of boundary
conditions and system evolution thereafter.
European Dark Ages civilization had the same empirical Yahweh basis
set as Muslim Arabia - and the same 40-year lifespans. Greek humanism
first hit Arabia where the science was adopted and the
social/religious precepts were not. The Greek package was passed on
to European Christianity that then swallowed it whole and took off
with the Renaissance (the science end) and later the Protestant
revolution (the philosophic end). One needs wealth, leisure, and
unfettered imagination to support the mostly unproductive R&D
contemplation of the future. A few things will ignite, then society
goes ape when a few individuals suddenly acquire the wealth, power,
and persniketiness of whole governments and religions. Arabia stayed
poor and pure because it spurned the ungodly social aspects attendant
to technology, eventually discarding Greek science as well. All is
the Q'uran and the Q'uran is all.
Feudal states have a rich panoply of State terror. People who have
nothing to lose tend to be uncooperative both as individuals and
mobs. You must educate them about what they can still lose. It is a
continuing adult education project. George Orwell's "1984."
Christianity and Islam have no common basis for discussion nor do they
share common expectations, values, or views of what the future
constitutes. Islam is feudal and fatalistic. Democracy is the
outlandish concept of an individual alone in the universe.
Statistical quality control would be viewed as Muslim heresy - Allah
determines all things. Each views the other as literal madmen.
Three viable scenarios:
1) Turn tail and let them kill each other until another stable
brutal (feudal) dictatorship is established by whatever means
including local invasion. US petroleum supply/demand economics won't
allow this unless we drill northeast Alaska (Anwar) and those 20+
billion barrels of oil are really recoverably under there.
2) Another possiblity is to kill most of Iraq and start from
scratch with a Christian European secular state. Orderly disposal
camps with large people chippers and mush waste blown into the desert
to dry probably won't play in international politics. Hitler still
has a bad rap for doing stuff like that, and all he did was exerminate
Jews, Russians, Gypsies, queers, cripples, and the insane. None of
these were on anybody's "cherished" list, yet it has been politic for
60 years to condemn delivered good fortune.
3) The third possiblity is that we become another Saddam Hussein.
The US doesn't have the balls to even imagine it. Our experience with
Blacks and Mexicans, France with Algerians, and Great Britain with
wogs illustrates the long term undesirability of colonialism if you
are unwilling to absolutely exclude upon pain of death every last
colonial ***** from your homeland, forever.
Hello Vietnam - and remember how well the hometown crowd did after we
departed. Bush the Lesser is dog meat as surely as the Israeli-Arab
conflict will persist until one side gets nuked off the surface of the
Earth. The US has nothing that Muslim Arabia wants. The future
doesn't exist in Islam, individual lives have no value, chattels are
meaningless when tolerated at all. With what in God's name will the
US negotiate?
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!
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| User: "Nils Dalen" |
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| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
22 Aug 2003 09:00:16 PM |
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Uncle Al <UncleAl0@hate.spam.net> wrote in message news:<3F46909A.7088A1CF@hate.spam.net>...
European Dark Ages civilization had the same empirical Yahweh basis
set as Muslim Arabia - and the same 40-year lifespans. Greek humanism
first hit Arabia where the science was adopted and the
social/religious precepts were not. The Greek package was passed on
to European Christianity that then swallowed it whole and took off
with the Renaissance (the science end) and later the Protestant
revolution (the philosophic end).
Of course, you neglect that the pathway for the greek "package" was
through the muslim countries.
I believe that in their great series of books, Will and Ariel Durant
make the arguement that it was the French conquest of muslim Spain
that introduced these ideas into christian Europe. When the French
moved into Spain, they captured libraries and scholars whose training
trailed back to Greece.
i.e. the pathway was:
Greek-->muslim-->Spain (muslim)-->Spain/France (christian)-->Europe
(christian).
Nils
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| User: "Nine Stones" |
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| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
26 Aug 2003 03:29:11 PM |
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In message <892df052.0308221800.664bd511@posting.google.com>, Nils Dalen
<nilsdalen1912@yahoo.com> writes
Uncle Al <UncleAl0@hate.spam.net> wrote in message news:<3F46909A.7088A
1CF@hate.spam.net>...
European Dark Ages civilization had the same empirical Yahweh basis
set as Muslim Arabia - and the same 40-year lifespans. Greek humanism
first hit Arabia where the science was adopted and the
social/religious precepts were not. The Greek package was passed on
to European Christianity that then swallowed it whole and took off
with the Renaissance (the science end) and later the Protestant
revolution (the philosophic end).
Of course, you neglect that the pathway for the greek "package" was
through the muslim countries.
I believe that in their great series of books, Will and Ariel Durant
make the arguement that it was the French conquest of muslim Spain
that introduced these ideas into christian Europe. When the French
moved into Spain, they captured libraries and scholars whose training
trailed back to Greece.
But at the same time as the pyramids were being built, most of Northern
Europe had already, extensively, mapped out the trails across the sky of
the Moon and the Sun. Indeed, the Greeks were aware of the Hyperboreans
and their circular temple.
Europe was a massive battleground when the Roman Empire collapsed and it
took a long time to develop any sense of order because every tribe
wanted a piece of the action. When the dust finally settled it turned
out that a bloke with a funny white cap on his head was in charge.
Luckily he decided to give the skies back to the peasants and we've
never looked back since.
i.e. the pathway was:
Greek-->muslim-->Spain (muslim)-->Spain/France (christian)-->Europe
(christian).
This is all very well but why did Europeans take the records and
instruments and immediately incorporate them into their scientific
facilities.
I think there are some pieces missing from the story.
--
http://www.earthpoetry.demon.co.uk
RC
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
26 Aug 2003 05:11:01 PM |
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In article <MeieeoiXM8S$EwVr@earthpoetry.demon.co.uk>, Nine Stones <rc@earthpoetry.demon.co.uk> writes:
In message <892df052.0308221800.664bd511@posting.google.com>, Nils Dalen
<nilsdalen1912@yahoo.com> writes
Uncle Al <UncleAl0@hate.spam.net> wrote in message news:<3F46909A.7088A
1CF@hate.spam.net>...
European Dark Ages civilization had the same empirical Yahweh basis
set as Muslim Arabia - and the same 40-year lifespans. Greek humanism
first hit Arabia where the science was adopted and the
social/religious precepts were not. The Greek package was passed on
to European Christianity that then swallowed it whole and took off
with the Renaissance (the science end) and later the Protestant
revolution (the philosophic end).
Of course, you neglect that the pathway for the greek "package" was
through the muslim countries.
I believe that in their great series of books, Will and Ariel Durant
make the arguement that it was the French conquest of muslim Spain
that introduced these ideas into christian Europe. When the French
moved into Spain, they captured libraries and scholars whose training
trailed back to Greece.
But at the same time as the pyramids were being built, most of Northern
Europe had already, extensively, mapped out the trails across the sky of
the Moon and the Sun. Indeed, the Greeks were aware of the Hyperboreans
and their circular temple.
Europe was a massive battleground when the Roman Empire collapsed and it
took a long time to develop any sense of order because every tribe
wanted a piece of the action. When the dust finally settled it turned
out that a bloke with a funny white cap on his head was in charge.
Luckily he decided to give the skies back to the peasants and we've
never looked back since.
i.e. the pathway was:
Greek-->muslim-->Spain (muslim)-->Spain/France (christian)-->Europe
(christian).
This is all very well but why did Europeans take the records and
instruments and immediately incorporate them into their scientific
facilities.
I think there are some pieces missing from the story.
--
I would say so.
One of my coworkers (born and educated in China) said once "Many of
the great inventions in history (gunpowder, magnetic compass,
prionting press) were made in China and failed to have any significant
impact there. Same inventions, when they made their way to Europe,
changed the world".
Think about it. There is more to progress than just few geniuses with
great ideas.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
27 Aug 2003 02:59:05 PM |
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In article <3f4cdd8c.176992555@news.ucalgary.ca>, (Ken Muldrew) writes:
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
One of my coworkers (born and educated in China) said once "Many of
the great inventions in history (gunpowder, magnetic compass,
prionting press) were made in China and failed to have any significant
impact there. Same inventions, when they made their way to Europe,
changed the world".
Think about it. There is more to progress than just few geniuses with
great ideas.
A point that is articulated well in Daniel Boorstein's
_The_Discoverers_ (if anyone is interested in reading about such
stuff).
Well, you got me interested.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
28 Aug 2003 03:45:30 PM |
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In article <200308281217.h7SCHDkJ013114@ipp.mpg.de>, Bruce Scott TOK <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> writes:
Mati Meron wrote:
|> In article <3f4cdd8c.176992555@news.ucalgary.ca>, (Ken Muldrew) writes:
|> >meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
|> >>Think about it. There is more to progress than just few geniuses with
|> >>great ideas.
|> >
|> >A point that is articulated well in Daniel Boorstein's
|> >_The_Discoverers_ (if anyone is interested in reading about such
|> >stuff).
|>
|> Well, you got me interested.
Read also:
The Pursuit of Power, by W McNeill
Guns, Germs, and Steel, by J Diamond
It is a real worthy book list that accumulates here. Are you tracking
this, bah?
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
29 Aug 2003 04:43:34 AM |
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In article <KRt3b.32$P4.10768@news.uchicago.edu>,
wrote:
In article <200308281217.h7SCHDkJ013114@ipp.mpg.de>, Bruce Scott TOK
<Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> writes:
Mati Meron wrote:
|> In article <3f4cdd8c.176992555@news.ucalgary.ca>,
(Ken Muldrew) writes:
|> > wrote:
|> >>Think about it. There is more to progress than just few geniuses
with
|> >>great ideas.
|> >
|> >A point that is articulated well in Daniel Boorstein's
|> >_The_Discoverers_ (if anyone is interested in reading about such
|> >stuff).
|>
|> Well, you got me interested.
Read also:
The Pursuit of Power, by W McNeill
Guns, Germs, and Steel, by J Diamond
It is a real worthy book list that accumulates here. Are you tracking
this, bah?
I'm trying to. I even tried to find one of them (on the off-chance
that Barnes&Noble had one laying around) but forgot my cheat sheet
and I couldn't remember a blasted thing. "That" isn't the first
thing that goes when one gets older.
That "Pursuit of Power" was there, IF I recall correctly, but
it was fiction. Of course, I was mess by the time I got to the
bookstore so I may be completely confused.
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
29 Aug 2003 08:46:42 AM |
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In article <200308291406.h7TE6SFW019670@ipp.mpg.de>,
Bruce Scott TOK <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote:
BAH wrote:
|> That "Pursuit of Power" was there, IF I recall correctly, but
|> it was fiction. Of course, I was mess by the time I got to the
|> bookstore so I may be completely confused.
No, maybe some novel also used the title independently...
Or I don't remember what I looked at which more likely.
William
Ah, thanks, a first name.
.. McNeill is a professor emeritus of history at U Chicago who is
perhaps best known for The Rise of the West, and Plagues and Peoples.
Pursuit of Power has a Eurocentric focus, perhaps of course, but its
first part is an insightful and detailed account of the proto industrial
revolution in China and some of the reasons why it didn't run a similar
course as the later one in the West.
I read a book about ancient technology and the author raised similar
points about earlier cultures. IIRC, one of them was the kiln.
The mixing up of ideas requires travel. Curiously, iron required
customers traveling rather than those supplying the service.
Imperial monopoly and the means to enforce same has a lot to do with it.
A monopoly tends to diminish innovation, possibly due to NIH syndrome.
It would also create a huge probably that knowledge would be
purposely lost.
I have to learn about all of this. Thanks for the pointers :-).
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
29 Aug 2003 12:11:57 PM |
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In article <binpdh$nun$1@bob.news.rcn.net>, writes:
In article <200308291406.h7TE6SFW019670@ipp.mpg.de>,
Bruce Scott TOK <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote:
BAH wrote:
|> That "Pursuit of Power" was there, IF I recall correctly, but
|> it was fiction. Of course, I was mess by the time I got to the
|> bookstore so I may be completely confused.
No, maybe some novel also used the title independently...
Or I don't remember what I looked at which more likely.
William
Ah, thanks, a first name.
.. McNeill is a professor emeritus of history at U Chicago who is
perhaps best known for The Rise of the West, and Plagues and Peoples.
Pursuit of Power has a Eurocentric focus, perhaps of course, but its
first part is an insightful and detailed account of the proto industrial
revolution in China and some of the reasons why it didn't run a similar
course as the later one in the West.
I read a book about ancient technology and the author raised similar
points about earlier cultures. IIRC, one of them was the kiln.
The mixing up of ideas requires travel. Curiously, iron required
customers traveling rather than those supplying the service.
Imperial monopoly and the means to enforce same has a lot to do with it.
A monopoly tends to diminish innovation, possibly due to NIH syndrome.
NIH is the smallest part of it.
Technological and economic innovation results in social changes. The
social stack gets reshuffled. Now, when you're on the top of the
pecking order, you cannot go up. But, you may go down. The chance
may be slim but it is there. Thus, ruling classes in any society have
a vested interest in suppressing change. If they are in pretty full
control, little or no innovation will occur.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
.
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| User: "pete" |
|
| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
29 Aug 2003 01:21:34 PM |
|
|
wrote:
Now, when you're on the top of the
pecking order, you cannot go up.
You can expand your domain.
You can go from being the big fish in a small pond,
to being the big fish in a big pond.
This occurs to me as a symetry argument, because more than once,
I've been on the bottom at the begining of a small project,
which then expanded. Then, I got more managers and no help.
--
pete
.
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| User: "Ken Muldrew" |
|
| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
29 Aug 2003 12:47:28 PM |
|
|
wrote:
A monopoly tends to diminish innovation, possibly due to NIH syndrome.
NIH is the smallest part of it.
Technological and economic innovation results in social changes. The
social stack gets reshuffled. Now, when you're on the top of the
pecking order, you cannot go up. But, you may go down. The chance
may be slim but it is there. Thus, ruling classes in any society have
a vested interest in suppressing change. If they are in pretty full
control, little or no innovation will occur.
Since we're compiling a list let me add _The_Sources_of_Social_Power_
by Michael Mann (volumes 1 & 2) and also correct my earlier
misspelling of "Boorstin".
Ken Muldrew
kmuldrew@ucalgary.ca
.
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| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
29 Aug 2003 02:15:28 PM |
|
|
In article <3F4F99A9.230C@mindspring.com>, pete <pfiland@mindspring.com> writes:
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
Now, when you're on the top of the
pecking order, you cannot go up.
You can expand your domain.
You can go from being the big fish in a small pond,
to being the big fish in a big pond.
I said *on top*. Didn't say anything about "small pond". What's not
clear?
Consider China, during the time frame since the Empire came into
being, till, say, the 18th century. It was pretty much a planet of
its own. Nothing to expand into (at least nothing worthwhile). So,
the Chinese ruling class was on the top of the pecking (should i say
"Beiging":-)) order, secure in its supremacy (with the exception of
rather brief periods). On the other hand, the European aristocracy
(and even royalty) did not enjoy such status, at any time since the
fall of the Roman empire till modernity.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
.
|
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| User: "Uncle Al" |
|
| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had lowexpectationsfor the Bush administration |
29 Aug 2003 06:14:20 PM |
|
|
wrote:
In article <3F4F99A9.230C@mindspring.com>, pete <pfiland@mindspring.com> writes:
wrote:
Now, when you're on the top of the
pecking order, you cannot go up.
You can expand your domain.
You can go from being the big fish in a small pond,
to being the big fish in a big pond.
I said *on top*. Didn't say anything about "small pond". What's not
clear?
Consider China, during the time frame since the Empire came into
being, till, say, the 18th century. It was pretty much a planet of
its own. Nothing to expand into (at least nothing worthwhile). So,
the Chinese ruling class was on the top of the pecking (should i say
"Beiging":-)) order, secure in its supremacy (with the exception of
rather brief periods). On the other hand, the European aristocracy
(and even royalty) did not enjoy such status, at any time since the
fall of the Roman empire till modernity.
Both China and Japan were eggs. They were tremendously survivable as
long as everybody played by the rules - softly push in from the ends.
They crushed like dropped eggs when outsiders cheated. Both an egg
and a billard ball will take a lot of abuse, but you cannot
meaningfully fire an egg out of a cannon.
Management in a highly structured endeavor can display an amazingly
strong skin - but do you have an egg or a billiard ball? Keufel &
Esser thought they had a billiard ball with slide rules. HP
demonstrated K&E was an egg - then HP told Steve Wozniak to go away
and take the first Apple motherboard with him. All intensely managed
endeavors are eggs. The are only strong until somebody outside gets
clever. Like a fertilized egg, if somebody inside is allowed to get
clever it also breaks.
Professional management almost always degrades into a safe and serene
venue of formal and ritual stupidity. Attack the wet spots.
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!
.
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| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
30 Aug 2003 09:41:27 PM |
|
|
In article <3lm621-1se.ln1@lexi2.athghost7038suus.net>, The Ghost In The Machine <ewill@sirius.athghost7038suus.net> writes:
In sci.physics,
<>
wrote
on Sat, 30 Aug 03 10:08:57 GMT
<biq11e$jhq$4@bob.news.rcn.net>:
In article <kDN3b.50$P4.17665@news.uchicago.edu>,
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
In article <3F4F99A9.230C@mindspring.com>, pete <pfiland@mindspring.com>
writes:
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
Now, when you're on the top of the
pecking order, you cannot go up.
You can expand your domain.
You can go from being the big fish in a small pond,
to being the big fish in a big pond.
I said *on top*. Didn't say anything about "small pond". What's not
clear?
Consider China, during the time frame since the Empire came into
being, till, say, the 18th century. It was pretty much a planet of
its own. Nothing to expand into (at least nothing worthwhile). So,
the Chinese ruling class was on the top of the pecking (should i say
"Beiging":-)) order,
<GROAN> There must be something in the air; another set of guys
are in a pun mood, too.
It's the Labor Day holidays. Puns make one's mind work. :-)
I think...
... secure in its supremacy (with the exception of
rather brief periods). On the other hand, the European aristocracy
(and even royalty) did not enjoy such status, at any time since the
fall of the Roman empire till modernity.
Umm....I'm about to ask a dumb question..What is the definition
of the USA's pecking order? (I mean in Real Life. I don't want
to talk about what the Liberals want me to think.) It's not
clear that what is going on is confined to geography these days.
I'm asking because I'm beginning to think about pecking order
defined by communications' targets.
An interesting question, that. Liberals might decry "fat cats"
but can't be pinned down on the issue. (Certainly I'm well
above the average GDP per capita. I wish I was even higher. :-)
And I could lose some weight.) Is Bill Gates, the richest
man in the world, a "fat cat"? Larry Ellison? Alice Walton?
Michael Dell?
Who are these evil "fat cats" keeping the "little guys" down?
Dunno. The Kennedy clan?
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
30 Aug 2003 09:36:50 PM |
|
|
In article <biq11e$jhq$4@bob.news.rcn.net>, writes:
In article <kDN3b.50$P4.17665@news.uchicago.edu>,
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
In article <3F4F99A9.230C@mindspring.com>, pete <pfiland@mindspring.com>
writes:
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
Now, when you're on the top of the
pecking order, you cannot go up.
You can expand your domain.
You can go from being the big fish in a small pond,
to being the big fish in a big pond.
I said *on top*. Didn't say anything about "small pond". What's not
clear?
Consider China, during the time frame since the Empire came into
being, till, say, the 18th century. It was pretty much a planet of
its own. Nothing to expand into (at least nothing worthwhile). So,
the Chinese ruling class was on the top of the pecking (should i say
"Beiging":-)) order,
<GROAN> There must be something in the air; another set of guys
are in a pun mood, too.
... secure in its supremacy (with the exception of
rather brief periods). On the other hand, the European aristocracy
(and even royalty) did not enjoy such status, at any time since the
fall of the Roman empire till modernity.
Umm....I'm about to ask a dumb question..What is the definition
of the USA's pecking order? (I mean in Real Life. I don't want
to talk about what the Liberals want me to think.) It's not
clear that what is going on is confined to geography these days.
I'm asking because I'm beginning to think about pecking order
defined by communications' targets.
The US does not have a fixed pecking order. Thee is aset of
influential people but it is fluid and the influence is far from
decisive.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
.
|
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| User: "The Ghost In The Machine" |
|
| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
30 Aug 2003 11:00:12 AM |
|
|
In sci.physics,
<>
wrote
on Sat, 30 Aug 03 10:08:57 GMT
<biq11e$jhq$4@bob.news.rcn.net>:
In article <kDN3b.50$P4.17665@news.uchicago.edu>,
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
In article <3F4F99A9.230C@mindspring.com>, pete <pfiland@mindspring.com>
writes:
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
Now, when you're on the top of the
pecking order, you cannot go up.
You can expand your domain.
You can go from being the big fish in a small pond,
to being the big fish in a big pond.
I said *on top*. Didn't say anything about "small pond". What's not
clear?
Consider China, during the time frame since the Empire came into
being, till, say, the 18th century. It was pretty much a planet of
its own. Nothing to expand into (at least nothing worthwhile). So,
the Chinese ruling class was on the top of the pecking (should i say
"Beiging":-)) order,
<GROAN> There must be something in the air; another set of guys
are in a pun mood, too.
It's the Labor Day holidays. Puns make one's mind work. :-)
I think...
... secure in its supremacy (with the exception of
rather brief periods). On the other hand, the European aristocracy
(and even royalty) did not enjoy such status, at any time since the
fall of the Roman empire till modernity.
Umm....I'm about to ask a dumb question..What is the definition
of the USA's pecking order? (I mean in Real Life. I don't want
to talk about what the Liberals want me to think.) It's not
clear that what is going on is confined to geography these days.
I'm asking because I'm beginning to think about pecking order
defined by communications' targets.
An interesting question, that. Liberals might decry "fat cats"
but can't be pinned down on the issue. (Certainly I'm well
above the average GDP per capita. I wish I was even higher. :-)
And I could lose some weight.) Is Bill Gates, the richest
man in the world, a "fat cat"? Larry Ellison? Alice Walton?
Michael Dell?
Who are these evil "fat cats" keeping the "little guys" down?
[.sigsnip]
--
#191,
It's still legal to go .sigless.
.
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|
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| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
29 Aug 2003 02:05:57 PM |
|
|
In article <3f4f912c.7378323@news.ucalgary.ca>, (Ken Muldrew) writes:
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
A monopoly tends to diminish innovation, possibly due to NIH syndrome.
NIH is the smallest part of it.
Technological and economic innovation results in social changes. The
social stack gets reshuffled. Now, when you're on the top of the
pecking order, you cannot go up. But, you may go down. The chance
may be slim but it is there. Thus, ruling classes in any society have
a vested interest in suppressing change. If they are in pretty full
control, little or no innovation will occur.
Since we're compiling a list let me add _The_Sources_of_Social_Power_
by Michael Mann (volumes 1 & 2)
That's growing into a major project:-)
and also correct my earlier
misspelling of "Boorstin".
Oh, I found it anyway
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
.
|
|
|
| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
30 Aug 2003 09:34:16 PM |
|
|
In article <biq0fl$jhq$3@bob.news.rcn.net>, writes:
In article <puN3b.49$P4.17590@news.uchicago.edu>,
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
In article <3f4f912c.7378323@news.ucalgary.ca>, (Ken
Muldrew) writes:
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
A monopoly tends to diminish innovation, possibly due to NIH syndrome.
NIH is the smallest part of it.
Technological and economic innovation results in social changes. The
social stack gets reshuffled. Now, when you're on the top of the
pecking order, you cannot go up. But, you may go down. The chance
may be slim but it is there. Thus, ruling classes in any society have
a vested interest in suppressing change. If they are in pretty full
control, little or no innovation will occur.
Since we're compiling a list let me add _The_Sources_of_Social_Power_
by Michael Mann (volumes 1 & 2)
That's growing into a major project:-)
I don't know how you people do it. I read one book; because of
that book I need to read a gazillion more. Each of those gazillions
spur a need to read more gazillions.
Have to stop, at some point.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
.
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| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
30 Aug 2003 04:59:28 AM |
|
|
In article <puN3b.49$P4.17590@news.uchicago.edu>,
wrote:
In article <3f4f912c.7378323@news.ucalgary.ca>, (Ken
Muldrew) writes:
wrote:
A monopoly tends to diminish innovation, possibly due to NIH syndrome.
NIH is the smallest part of it.
Technological and economic innovation results in social changes. The
social stack gets reshuffled. Now, when you're on the top of the
pecking order, you cannot go up. But, you may go down. The chance
may be slim but it is there. Thus, ruling classes in any society have
a vested interest in suppressing change. If they are in pretty full
control, little or no innovation will occur.
Since we're compiling a list let me add _The_Sources_of_Social_Power_
by Michael Mann (volumes 1 & 2)
That's growing into a major project:-)
I don't know how you people do it. I read one book; because of
that book I need to read a gazillion more. Each of those gazillions
spur a need to read more gazillions.
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
.
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| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
30 Aug 2003 09:33:18 PM |
|
|
In article <biq0am$jhq$2@bob.news.rcn.net>, writes:
In article <xPL3b.47$P4.16928@news.uchicago.edu>,
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
In article <binpdh$nun$1@bob.news.rcn.net>, writes:
In article <200308291406.h7TE6SFW019670@ipp.mpg.de>,
Bruce Scott TOK <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote:
BAH wrote:
|> That "Pursuit of Power" was there, IF I recall correctly, but
|> it was fiction. Of course, I was mess by the time I got to the
|> bookstore so I may be completely confused.
No, maybe some novel also used the title independently...
Or I don't remember what I looked at which more likely.
William
Ah, thanks, a first name.
.. McNeill is a professor emeritus of history at U Chicago who is
perhaps best known for The Rise of the West, and Plagues and Peoples.
Pursuit of Power has a Eurocentric focus, perhaps of course, but its
first part is an insightful and detailed account of the proto industrial
revolution in China and some of the reasons why it didn't run a similar
course as the later one in the West.
I read a book about ancient technology and the author raised similar
points about earlier cultures. IIRC, one of them was the kiln.
The mixing up of ideas requires travel. Curiously, iron required
customers traveling rather than those supplying the service.
Imperial monopoly and the means to enforce same has a lot to do with it.
A monopoly tends to diminish innovation, possibly due to NIH syndrome.
NIH is the smallest part of it.
Technological and economic innovation results in social changes. The
social stack gets reshuffled. Now, when you're on the top of the
pecking order, you cannot go up. But, you may go down.
And you can go out
You can go out if there is someplace you know about worth going to.
(which you pointed out somewhere that China didn't).
They had no place to go to.
.. The chance
may be slim but it is there. Thus, ruling classes in any society have
a vested interest in suppressing change. If they are in pretty full
control, little or no innovation will occur.
They also can't have any wars. One of the problems I've been trying
to niggle out is based on a line that Alexander Hamilton wrote in
Federalist letter #8; "It is of the nature of war to increase the
executive at the expense of the legislative authority." Given that
this is true and that war also spurs innovation: it appears that
expansionism has its own constraint built in.
Yep.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
.
|
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| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
30 Aug 2003 04:56:49 AM |
|
|
In article <xPL3b.47$P4.16928@news.uchicago.edu>,
wrote:
In article <binpdh$nun$1@bob.news.rcn.net>, writes:
In article <200308291406.h7TE6SFW019670@ipp.mpg.de>,
Bruce Scott TOK <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote:
BAH wrote:
|> That "Pursuit of Power" was there, IF I recall correctly, but
|> it was fiction. Of course, I was mess by the time I got to the
|> bookstore so I may be completely confused.
No, maybe some novel also used the title independently...
Or I don't remember what I looked at which more likely.
William
Ah, thanks, a first name.
.. McNeill is a professor emeritus of history at U Chicago who is
perhaps best known for The Rise of the West, and Plagues and Peoples.
Pursuit of Power has a Eurocentric focus, perhaps of course, but its
first part is an insightful and detailed account of the proto industrial
revolution in China and some of the reasons why it didn't run a similar
course as the later one in the West.
I read a book about ancient technology and the author raised similar
points about earlier cultures. IIRC, one of them was the kiln.
The mixing up of ideas requires travel. Curiously, iron required
customers traveling rather than those supplying the service.
Imperial monopoly and the means to enforce same has a lot to do with it.
A monopoly tends to diminish innovation, possibly due to NIH syndrome.
NIH is the smallest part of it.
Technological and economic innovation results in social changes. The
social stack gets reshuffled. Now, when you're on the top of the
pecking order, you cannot go up. But, you may go down.
And you can go out (which you pointed out somewhere that China didn't).
.. The chance
may be slim but it is there. Thus, ruling classes in any society have
a vested interest in suppressing change. If they are in pretty full
control, little or no innovation will occur.
They also can't have any wars. One of the problems I've been trying
to niggle out is based on a line that Alexander Hamilton wrote in
Federalist letter #8; "It is of the nature of war to increase the
executive at the expense of the legislative authority." Given that
this is true and that war also spurs innovation: it appears that
expansionism has its own constraint built in.
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
.
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| User: "Bruce Scott TOK" |
|
| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
28 Aug 2003 07:17:13 AM |
|
|
Mati Meron wrote:
|> In article <3f4cdd8c.176992555@news.ucalgary.ca>, (Ken Muldrew) writes:
|> >meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
|> >>Think about it. There is more to progress than just few geniuses with
|> >>great ideas.
|> >
|> >A point that is articulated well in Daniel Boorstein's
|> >_The_Discoverers_ (if anyone is interested in reading about such
|> >stuff).
|>
|> Well, you got me interested.
Read also:
The Pursuit of Power, by W McNeill
Guns, Germs, and Steel, by J Diamond
--
cu,
Bruce
drift wave turbulence: http://www.rzg.mpg.de/~bds/
.
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| User: "Bruce Scott TOK" |
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| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
26 Aug 2003 01:10:09 PM |
|
|
Uncle Al wrote:
|> I'll play with it. Science and technology are heresy in present-day
|> Islam. So is democracy of any kind. It is a question of boundary
|> conditions and system evolution thereafter.
[...]
|> Christianity and Islam have no common basis for discussion nor do they
|> share common expectations, values, or views of what the future
|> constitutes. Islam is feudal and fatalistic. Democracy is the
|> outlandish concept of an individual alone in the universe.
|> Statistical quality control would be viewed as Muslim heresy - Allah
|> determines all things. Each views the other as literal madmen.
[...]
You've forgotten to note that Xian'ty is just as incompatible and
hostile to modern science as Islam is... we are only where we are due
to the Enlightenment and the secularisation of Europe. The US is lucky
to have partially participated in this advance. Unfortunately, this
secular modernity is skin deep in the US, as we can see from all the
attacks at the local educational level. Only in the US are there
anything approaching "monkey trials" or the "Intelligent Design" scam.
As soon as economical/environmental stresses associated with the decline
and fall of the Oil World become unmistakeable, the modern world will be
over for the US. Oh, it will still be a technologically advanced
country, but the idea of civilisation as the absence of violence, of
education free of the chains of ideology, will be gone. It will be a
brutal country, ruled by an elite fully able to channel the urges of its
subjects into harmless directions using media and entertainment. Europe
still has more or less a cultural choice whether to follow or not...
hard to say.
The pessimist would say it will just follow and that will be that...
--
cu,
Bruce
drift wave turbulence: http://www.rzg.mpg.de/~bds/
.
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| User: "Bill Vajk" |
|
| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsforthe Bush administration |
22 Aug 2003 05:43:31 PM |
|
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Helmut Wabnig wrote:
Hmm, with all due respect,
I wonder how B. and B. (Bush&Blair) will get out of there, if ever.
Glorious withdrawal, like Vietnam?
OT, but could not resist, sorry.
The US knew how to deal with postwar occupation after
WW2 and promptly set about establishing local control
by friendlies overseen by administrative military
types, undertook the restoration of utilities,
restoration of infrastructure, ad nausium.
We haven't forgotten how to do those things. The simple
fact of the matter is they're not being done this time,
and we're not doing those things with purpose.
Why does anyone think that the US would want to leave?
This is a region which was subject of a League of Nations
mandate prematurely abrogated by Britain as matters have
turned out. The clock is, as matters stand, rolled back
to 1922 where it should have, IMO, remained.
Here's a bit of the historical background:
http://www.solami.com/a3a.htm
We know who planned 9-11 and the festering sources of
discontent. We've efficiently selected the two countries
in the middle east most needing some US guidance, holding
on to the one best suited for future land based military
operations in the region to be freely undertaken as the
need arises. Before we're done we'll own fuel reserves
in the country and have emplaced refineries suited to US
military needs.
The message is clear. Keep messing around and you're
next. They've never responded well to kindness,
incorrectly seeing that as weakness. It wasn't. Now,
in two countries at least, they have few choices
remaining.
A lot of people don't realize that post 9-11 *is* a
different world. Since we are forced to tighten up
our security at home and forced to live in circumstances
not much to our liking we have no reasonable choice but
to export the problem so that we can eventually return
to the way of life we enjoyed before the mental midgets
became overly naughty.
Leave? Hopefully not for a long time. Think of this as the
beginning of repeating the Ottoman occupation of Europe in
reverse. What remains is imposing some form of exportable
US taxation on the local inhabitants. It is their way of
life and they expect it, so lets not disappoint them.
.
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| User: "Alex Leibovici" |
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| Title: Re: Nature Editorial] The scientific community had low expectationsfor the Bush administration |
23 Aug 2003 02:47:49 PM |
|
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Bill Vajk <bill9north@hotmailDITCHTHIS.com> wrote:
... They've never responded well to kindness,
incorrectly seeing that as weakness. It wasn't.
Unfortunately, it was. It is only less under W, and chances are it
will be fully back (the weakness, that is) after him.
Alex
Alex Leibovici
-------------
"You cannot reason a person out of something he has not been
reasoned into." Jonathan Swift
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