The Bush Administration is the most Politicized ever

[preslove]

A buddy of mine works for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), which has a congressional mandate to find out what's going on in the health care system. He's hopping pissed because their non-partisan findings were REJECTED by the Bush administration for being too pessimistic! They have to put out a rosier report that smooths over the problems in the system. This has never happened before. Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, LBJ, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, and FDR (the modern presidents with large research organizations) NEVER interfered with the actual, non-partisan data collection that goes on within the federal government. This would be stupid since the only way to come up with good policies is to LOOK AT THE FACTS. But the Bush II administration already knows what policies it wants put in place and doesn't need any inconvenient facts to get in the way. This is happening across the board, in the EPA, the General Accounting Office (it brought back the Laffer Curve), and the Intelligence Community (they didn't like what was coming out of the CIA or the Pentagon's intelligence service, so they created a new one). We're gonna have to wake up people if we want to keep any semblance of a democracy.

 

[Corn]

You're right, you need to wake up...........

 

[preslove]

You're right, you need to wake up.......

You are great at being glib, too bad you have nothing to say

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: preslove

You're right, you need to wake up.......

You are great at being glib, too bad you have nothing to say

Ignore Corn. He is an avowed partisan, and therefore he must toe the party line.



Unfortunately, you are correct. Knowing many research types, I hear the most god awful stories. The administration treats research like everything else. Take what sounds best, and screw the rest.

 

[preslove]

Yeah, its a consensus in the scientific community that Global Warming is a serious threat to our way of life AND that industrial emissions (not, as the Reagan administration claimed, cow farts) are the main factor in Global Warming, but the EPA doesn't consider it a pressing issue....

 

[Pandaren]

If the economy doesn't pick up, the Iraq occupation continues with no end in sight, and jobs keep moving overseas, this Bush administration may be history soon.

I hope the Bush administration goes. U.S. credibility is weak overseas, since no WMD have been found in Iraq even though the U.S. and U.K. claimed that Saddam Hussein possesed WMD and could deploy WMD easily.

I feel like the Bush administration is running the greatest Empire in recorded history into the ground.

 

[sandorski]

The Bush admins "use" of Intel reminds me of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: Ignore the Experts, Dictate the results/"Truth".

 

[DT4K]

Originally posted by: preslove
Yeah, its a consensus in the scientific community that Global Warming is a serious threat to our way of life AND that industrial emissions (not, as the Reagan administration claimed, cow farts) are the main factor in Global Warming, but the EPA doesn't consider it a pressing issue....

Global Warming?
LOL, you are pretty gullible if you fell for that one. You've got quite a flexible definition of the word "consensus".

You want an example of political motivations dictating actions instead of scientific fact?

One of the leading advocates in the global warming debate

Timothy Wirth - Democrat
"What we've got to do in energy conservation is to try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."

 

[ITJunkie]

None of this suprises me really. Bush is looking for a few good "goosesteppers".

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Shanti

Originally posted by: preslove
Yeah, its a consensus in the scientific community that Global Warming is a serious threat to our way of life AND that industrial emissions (not, as the Reagan administration claimed, cow farts) are the main factor in Global Warming, but the EPA doesn't consider it a pressing issue....

Global Warming?
LOL, you are pretty gullible if you fell for that one. You've got quite a flexible definition of the word "consensus".

You want an example of political motivations dictating actions instead of scientific fact?

One of the leading advocates in the global warming debate

Timothy Wirth - Democrat
"What we've got to do in energy conservation is to try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."

Interesting quote, but it does not support your assertion.

 

[DT4K]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Shanti

Originally posted by: preslove
Yeah, its a consensus in the scientific community that Global Warming is a serious threat to our way of life AND that industrial emissions (not, as the Reagan administration claimed, cow farts) are the main factor in Global Warming, but the EPA doesn't consider it a pressing issue....

Global Warming?
LOL, you are pretty gullible if you fell for that one. You've got quite a flexible definition of the word "consensus".

You want an example of political motivations dictating actions instead of scientific fact?

One of the leading advocates in the global warming debate

Timothy Wirth - Democrat
"What we've got to do in energy conservation is to try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."

Interesting quote, but it does not support your assertion.

What assertion is that?
The quote was simply one of many examples of democrats deciding what they want and interpreting or twisting the facts to suit their agenda.
Many politicians do it whether they have a D or an R.
But global warming is an example of science fiction, not science.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Shanti

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Shanti

Originally posted by: preslove
Yeah, its a consensus in the scientific community that Global Warming is a serious threat to our way of life AND that industrial emissions (not, as the Reagan administration claimed, cow farts) are the main factor in Global Warming, but the EPA doesn't consider it a pressing issue....

Global Warming?
LOL, you are pretty gullible if you fell for that one. You've got quite a flexible definition of the word "consensus".

You want an example of political motivations dictating actions instead of scientific fact?

One of the leading advocates in the global warming debate

Timothy Wirth - Democrat
"What we've got to do in energy conservation is to try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."

Interesting quote, but it does not support your assertion.

What assertion is that?
The quote was simply one of many examples of democrats deciding what they want and interpreting or twisting the facts to suit their agenda.
Many politicians do it whether they have a D or an R.
But global warming is an example of science fiction, not science.

Nope, he merely stated that even if he was wrong, the results would still be benficial. Now, if he had said that it was bunk but he would espouse it as truth for the purpose of acheiving lowered energy consumption, then you'd have a point. He did not state that however.

As for Science/Science Fiction, check the Data, it is not Fiction.

 

[tweakmm]

Don't you know the new policy? The agenda doesn't change because of the facts, the facts change because of the agenda.

 

[DT4K]

So you don't think there's anything wrong with trying to "ride the issue" even if it's wrong and incorrect?
So you are saying that it is fine to do what you want even if you are using false information to argue that what you are doing is necessary?

LOL, you are another example of selective interpretation to meet your own agenda.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Shanti
So you don't think there's anything wrong with trying to "ride the issue" even if it's wrong and incorrect?
So you are saying that it is fine to do what you want even if you are using false information to argue that what you are doing is necessary?

LOL, you are another example of selective interpretation to meet your own agenda.

Is it "wrong" or "incorrect"? Is it "false information"?

You are selectively interpreting, not me. You assert that he is willing to lie, he merely has stated that he is willing to err on the side of caution. Big difference.

 

[osage]

partisan and politicized yes, but clearly not the most ever.

my vote would be for the Nixon administration, perhaps some of you are not old enough to remember King Richard

 

[KenGr]

Originally posted by: preslove
Yeah, its a consensus in the scientific community that Global Warming is a serious threat to our way of life AND that industrial emissions (not, as the Reagan administration claimed, cow farts) are the main factor in Global Warming, but the EPA doesn't consider it a pressing issue....

This is how things get misrepresented and become "true" by repetition. There is a consensus that the global warming greenhouse gas theory is valid. (Far from a unanimous consensus, though.) There is no consensus on how much warming could result and what the net effect of this warming could be. I've done some investigation and found credible estimates of long term temperature increases from a fraction of a degree to 10 degrees or more. An interesting result if you actually dig into the modeling is that the more catatrosphic the prediction, the more likely you can conclude that there is no point in taking any action. The models appear to be so shifted toward the conservative assumption that there is no feasible action that would make more than a tiny moderation in the temperature increases.

Having spent many years modeling large closed system thermodynamic transients, I know how easy it is to create a bounding conservative model and how almost impossible it is to accurately model a large system. And the systems I've worked with are orders of magnitude smaller than atmospheric models. There is always a tendency to bias assumptions toward conservative values. The more unknowns that exist will compound the conservatism in the final results.

If you look at the models behind the Kyoto agreement, you will find that Kyoto doesn't prevent global warming, it only delays it a few years since it does not address the developing world. Although it's been widely touted as the solution to global warming, it would only result in a few years to discover some dubious new technology that will reverse the hypothetical warming trend.

 

[Moonbeam]

Bush is a stupendous disaster.

 

[her209]

becareful before they out your friend too

 

[tallest1]

Send your stuff to the Media if you feel its really important for the American people to know, IMHO

 

[naddicott]

Well, I could re-hash for the 100th time the fallacies behind the "global warming is false" argument neo-Cons love to bring up, or I could let my CPU cycles continue to actually advance the science of climate modeling by running the ClimatePrediction.net project - yes, that's a shameless plug for TeAm AnandTech Distributed Computing. Use the search function on this forum if you want to revisit old debates (much useless banter - a few interesting links).

 

[sMiLeYz]

I trust real scientists that study climate change, and real scientific data on Global Warming more than I trust what some random guy on the internet says about Global Warming.

Next thing the crazyies are going to tell me evolution is a myth.

 

[KenGr]

Originally posted by: sMiLeYz
I trust real scientists that study climate change, and real scientific data on Global Warming more than I trust what some random guy on the internet says about Global Warming.

And well you should. However, I would urge you to make sure you are actually looking at what real scientists are saying, instead of what reporters and politicians tell you. For example, would you consider the National Academy of Sciences real scientists? Here is what they say about the certainty of global warming (remember, I didn't say global warming wasn't real, I took issue with preslove's assertion that "its a consensus in the scientific community that Global Warming is a serious threat to our way of life AND that industrial emissions [are the cause]":

"computer models suggest that average global surface temperatures will rise between 2.5 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit and 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius by the end of this century...The report identifies several components of climate change that are highly uncertain and make it difficult to predict future changes."

The Academy also says:

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that global warming in the last 50 years is likely the result of increases in greenhouse gases, which accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community, the committee said. However, it also cautioned that uncertainties about this conclusion remain because of the level of natural variability inherent in the climate on time scales from decades to centuries, the questionable ability of models to simulate natural variability on such long time scales, and the degree of confidence that can be placed on estimates of temperatures going back thousands of years based on evidence from tree rings or ice cores. "

Finally, they say:

"The NACCI concludes that the United States is likely to be able to adapt to most of the climate change impacts on human systems, but these adaptations may come with significant cost for some regions... In the near term, agriculture and forestry may benefit, but hotter and drier conditions increase the potential for crop distributions to change. Areas around the country that already have water shortages or water quality problems could see these problems exacerbated. "

You can easily find serious reputable scientists who believe the actual impact of global warming is well on either side of the wide band the Academy is quoting. However, you have to actually read the scientific papers and reports, not the comic book versions you get in the press, be it conservative, liberal or allegedly in the center.