BTW, I don’t get to see Face the Nation these days on my Seattle affiliate until 11:30pm tonite, if I’m even still up and about by then. But it is now approaching 9:00am PST and I’m going to subject myself to George S+many letters and George Will not be Right!

About the only people showing competency are the scientists themselves and on the whole have conducted themselves exemplarily in reaching such decisions.

707!!!

hahaha. this is obviously where our thinking REALLY diverges. *g*

Without training and education, are your opinions of any value other than as opinions?

imo all the people paying the bills (ie the taxpayers) should have some voice in the research priorities. by this i mean priorities. for example how much should be spent on infectious disease research vs alternative energy. also, i’m a big fan of stiglitz’s proposal for prizes (big ones) in lieu of patents. the public’s priorities should also, imo, be reflected in the prizes (number and size) but this is aimed more at industry than academic science.

the technical/scientific approaches to fund i would give more weight to the scientific community (however that should be defined) via something like a modified nih study section.

like i said above though, i really don’t have any answers that satisfy me – just issues and interests that i’d like to see addressed.

Why is it necessary for Clinton to disclose his client base for his wife to be Secretary of State when no one demanded Bush pere disclose the client base of the Carlyle Group before his moron son was appointed president?

Thanks for the posting. I love the Lake!

Now to seemingly almost go Off Topic by actually referring to the talking heads of Sunday Morning, or the Pundits of Puke as they so often seem to me, I would like to say how impressed I was with Ted Turner’s appearance on Press the Meat.

I found his straightforward honesty refreshing, especially his ability to push back whenever necessary to his fellow Montana land baron Brokaw’s stubborn attempts to ignore reality.

His refusal to give Brokaw a free pass to demonize Putin, or ignore the American culpability in the deteriorating relations between Russia and the US had me almost spilling my coffee as I tried to cheer and clap. As a native of America with too much self respect to live there, I get so tired of the continually expressed sense of American Exceptionalism and the idea that America can do no wrong. To see a man who has benefited from the opportunities that America CAN provide call a spade a spade is truly refreshing and to watch Brokaw sputter and show his stupidity a pleasure indeed.

Perhaps the statement about self respect is too harsh, but many years ago due to personal contact I lost all respect for the US Department of Justice, even though I won my personal battle with them, and have long since discovered a place much more comfortable to live. My chosen home isn’t paradise either, perhaps paradise isn’t accessible on this plane, but at least I manage to live without being surrounded by jingoistic, ill-informed people who spend their time arguing about issues that to much of the world aren’t even in dispute.

I also liked the brief discussion of Christianity and the way Ted Turner pointed out that labels aside, or no matter what he and Jane Fonda agree or disagree about, that with his ACTIONS working for peace and fighting poverty, and devoting some of his wealth to those less fortunate and/or the common good, he felt he was at least acting in a Christian manner. I could only think about those agents of intolerance whose idea of Christianity is more about what everybody else does or shouldn’t do, while they live lives of greed, violence and intolerance.

Then at the end of the show, for the MTP minute, I thought it an excellent touch to show a segment of Eleanor Roosevelt, pushing back herself to the same sort of head in the sand, self important yet ignorant questioning that Brokaw this morning showed is alive and well fify-one years later. Perhaps someone involved in putting the show together, obviously not Broken Record Brokaw, saw the symmetry of ending the show with this particular clip at a time when it appears you will once again have an intelligent and compassionate First Lady.