Re: Call Bush to Action on Science, Math, and Engineering Education

Jim Thompson wrote: 
On Fri, 05 Aug 2005 10:22:03 -0700, Bob Monsen <rcsurname@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


ckurasek@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Below is the text of a petition urging President Bush and our national
leaders to call upon the nation to embark upon a modern-day 'Manhattan
Project' in scientific education and research to protect and extend
America's position of global leadership in technology and science; a
position that becomes more fragile and tenuous every passing day that
we continue to let our public schools lag behind the rest of the
industrial world, and increasingly Asian nations, in the sciences.


Well, with Mr Bush's recent disclosure that he thinks schools should teach "Intelligent Design", 


Just for the loonie right religious vote


When are you going to figure out that Bush is a card carrying member of the religious right?


his long standing positions on stem cell research and global warming, 


Likewise.

But Frist will win in the end.


Actually, Bush's silly position about limiting lines was a compromise. He wanted to prohibit it. What he did effectively moved research offshore.

After the Schiavo affair, I never thought I'd be saying this, but Frist appears to be moving in the proper direction. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that he is going to run for president, and is thus trying to move towards the center. Bush ran as a moderate in 2000. Remember the 'compassionate conservative'? Look what happened. If the trend holds true, Frist will get elected, then show his true colors by declaring a theocracy, and issuing a fatwah on abortion doctors. ;)


and with members of his administration editing scientific studies in order to help political contributors, I'm not sure I want his administration to do anything of the sort. 


But can you cite some fact... what scientific studies were edited?


A report on global warming was edited to remove references to greenhouse emissions by an ex-oil industry (and now, again, oil-industry) guy working at the whitehouse. It was big news, I'm suprised you didn't hear about it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/16/AR2005061601666.html

Here is a quote:

'Last week, the New York Times reported that a senior White House official had altered government documents to emphasize the uncertainties surrounding the science on global warming. That official, White House Council on Environmental Quality chief of staff Phillip Cooney, left the administration last Friday to take a public relations job with oil giant Exxon Mobil, a leading opponent of mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions.'


...Jim Thompson 

(editorial mode enabled)

These guys are going to do pretty much whatever they want, and nobody can say or do anything about it. They want Bolton at the UN, they just go ahead and break new ground with a recess appointment (he was booed on his first day). When they want a war in Iraq, they just pressure analysts to say what they want to hear about WMD, and ignore the majority of dissenting opinions (more Bolton nonsense.) When it turns out to be wrong, they blame the analysts, fire the head of the CIA (and give him the medal of honor), and then they rewrite history concerning the reason for going. They want tax cuts? They supress their own estimates and figures, and fire the Secretary of the Treasury when he doesn't go along. Feel like torturing prisoners of war? No problem. Have Gonzo write a memo redefining 'prisoner'. Presto, they are 'enemy combatants' with no rights. Somebody pisses you off? Plant a leak, and destroy his wife's career, knowing that the ensuing furor will distract attention from his message, which is that they lied about the 'yellowcake', since they knew it was false before the state of the union. Want more pork for your oil buddies? Draft an energy bill that is basically a giveaway, with no real incentives for conservation or alternative energy sources. We are talking BILLIONs in giveaways. Is the EPA getting in your friends' way with their annoying environmental laws? Dismantle its enforcement arm, and appoint energy industry lobbyists to high positions in the agency. Is PBS reporting the facts, and not the scifi you blather to FOX? Replace the PBS director with your ***-boy, who commissions a study on bias, and uses it to threaten their funding. Is a backlash on global warming threatening to cut into already inflated oil profits? Change reports so they support the position of big oil, which is that global warming isn't happening, or at least isn't proven, so we need 'all the facts'.

If Bush was actually good at running the country, I'd probably excuse some of these horrors. Every administration has it's problems. However, they suck at running the country. They have built up the deficit to the point where our currency is in danger of collapse, gotten us into an unwinable war in Iraq and thereby morphed the only arab secular state into a theocracy (and possibly created a bloody civil war at the heart of Islam), destabilized oil prices to the point where they are tipping $60, and managed to transform our real enemy (who originally numbered less than 1000; before all the attention, they were like the branch davidians meet weather underground) into a 100 headed hydra, in which pissed off european teenagers blow themselves (and the people around them) up on major metro lines and trains after listening to audio casettes, and moderate muslims shake their heads in dismay, but listen to Bin Laden's most recent tapes anyway, and secretly enjoy the bloody nose the US and Britain has received in Iraq. And they STILL haven't caught, or even come close to catching Bin Laden... Unemployment is so bad that most unemployed people are no longer counted, because they have simply given up looking for work. The standard of living for most Americans has decreased since 2000, just like it decreased under Bush I. They can't even pass their simple religious right agenda, like allowing prayer in schools, prohibiting abortion, teaching 'intelligent design', and stopping stem-cell research, despite having a zombie-like yes-man majority in both the house and senate, and a favorable supreme court. They make a big deal about social security reform, and spend 8 months on the road trying to sell it, but it falls flat because A) it's a stupid idea, B) their idea doesn't help social security stay solvent at all, and C) no congressman or senator who wants to be reelected is going to support it. They can't even keep their buddies in baseball from using steroids. Would you hire a CEO with a record like this? Really, would you?

--
Regards,
 Bob Monsen

If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has
so much as to be out of danger?
                                 Thomas Henry Huxley, 1877
.

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