Hi flipper,

"flipper" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 11 Nov 2010 11:10:25 -0800, "Joel Koltner"
wrote:
[percentage of deceptive people]
And how would you prove it? Especially since you've argued it's not
worth figuring out anyway. In fact, how do you even arrive at the
opinion other than simply 'wishing' it were so?

I can't prove it. I arrive at my opinion based on how people I've observed in
"the real world" behave when they're just giong about doing their regular
jobs, shopping for groceries, taking the kids to soccer practice, etc. vs. how
they behave on the Internet or while at political rallies.

I gather you're trying to make the argument that since 'everyone' (you
moderated with half) makes the same claim about 'the other guy' then
the claim is universally nothing more than partisan perception.

I won't go so far as to say "universally," but "typically" would apply.

Face it, the mark of a good liar is he sounds at least 'plausible' so
that 'two sides' may appear on the surface to be 'similar' means
nothing.

Agreed, although I don't think there are very many good liars out there
either. :-)

Worst economic situation since the great depression with virtually
universal agreement the country is accelerating toward bankruptcy at
an unprecedented rate and you think things are peachy keen?

I probably am wearing rose-colored glasses...

On this graph things don't look so bad:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...s-graphic.html -
- but I've seen other illustrations where things look much more dire.

There's more than one issue. Obviously the one above but you also
don't seem to give a whit whether anyone bothers with the Constitution
so, and I repeat, what's the point of having one?

I actually do give a few whits, just not nearly as many as you. :-)

Look, I'd have to admit here that you're in a much better position to debate
all this than I am -- you appear to be more knowledgable on the topic than I
am and I think you're more passionate about it. I do admire that, and like to
think your input to this has taught me a lot. But at the end of the day, when
it comes to the Constitution and how it holds this country together, I am in a
bit of a "gray fog logic" about it all.

We aren't quibbling about gnawing on the edge of perfection. We're
talking about economic collapse, a dead Constitution, and whether
we're going to have a country based on individual freedom, as the
founding fathers created it, or one ruled by a self anointed elite
class who claim omnipotent power over the ignorant, dumb, incompetent
chattel.

I think the "dead (well, dying, at least) constitution" and "country based on
individual freedom" is a ship that sailed some ~60-70 years ago now. I don't
think we're at a precipice that we're to fall over -- it's more like the
founding fathers scaled up a nearly-vertical cliff side back in 1787, and
while there were the occasional steep hills since then (e.g., 1791, 1861,
possibly the 1930s, etc.), in general since then we've been on relatively
level ground with a few rolling hills here and there... although the overall
trend since 1787 has been back towards the ground.

and while I do have great respect for the founding fathers and the
constitution, I'm OK with considering their words and the document "living."
I must have done a poor job for you to have the Gaul to even
contemplate uttering those words again.

:-) -- I'm attempting to wrap up the discussion in that I don't think I'm
really adding much value to it any longer and we're largely just re-hashing
things already said.

"Spin control" is another of those phrases that's been mangled to mean
nothing, or anything depending on how you view it.

"Spin" means emphasizing a thing in your favor that the listener
doesn't think is the 'important' thing. Like, say, loosing a historic
number of House seats and claiming it's better than things could have
been. You're trying to 'spin' the perception.

Of course, you could also just flat out lie for the same purpose but
to lump that strategy in with 'spin' makes the word meaningless
because there's already a word for the other: lie.

Hmm, OK -- I agree "spin" isn't really the right word there, but there has to
be a phrase for when you try to convince someone of your "interpretation" of
events without resorting to lying. Not really "puffery" either...

You won't buy this horse manure if I call it horse manure so I'll call
it a perfumed beauty facial pack.

Any business doing that would be hanged, drawn and quartered but you
apparently think it's perfectly fine for government.

It's a matter of degree -- no one advertises hot dogs based on how they're
made, nor does anyone trying to sell you that perfumed beauty facial pack
prominently mention that it contains cow dung, for instance.

As an interesting side note to the euphemism, women were burned at the
stake out of a concern for 'public decency'. Look up "hanged, drawn
and quartered" and you'll see why.

Even Ronald Reagan promoted a "kinder, gentler nation?" :-)

opinion; I can
accept that (at least at the time) he might not have felt he was behaving
badly. ...but clearly the house of representatives didn't believe him
either!
As I said, that statement is not why he was impeached.

Wikipedia seeems to think it was? Quote
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_cl...n_the_Senate):

"The two charges passed in the House (largely on the basis of Republican
support, but with a handful of Democratic votes as well) were for perjury and
obstruction of justice. The perjury charge arose from Clinton's testimony
about his relationship to Monica Lewinsky during a sexual harassment lawsuit
(later dismissed, appealed and settled for $850,000 brought by former Arkansas
state employee Paula Jones."

Sounds funny doesn't it? On the other hand I once though "next they'll
be telling you what to eat" sounded funny but that's the popular rage
now.

San Francisco banning Happy Meals seems pretty silly, IMO...

Now you're into a different area with "models" and they've been trying
to validate the climate models with the historical temperature record,
a task not made any easier by the gurus cooking the books. By that I
mean, even a good model isn't going to match bad data, now is it?

True, although I would like to believe that a good chunk of atmospheric data
collected over, say, the past 100 years at least had assigned error
tolerances, and if you know what the input error tolerances are, you can then
figure out the output error tolerances... although I suppose they could easily
be so large as to make the actual prediction meaningless. (I.e., you don't
need a fancy computer model to tell you that next year's average temperature
will be within +/-10 degrees of this year's...)

Perhaps we just don't have enough high-quality data yet to try to build good
models from yet.

But, back to models, to begin with they can't make the models work and
it's worse than that because a model 'working' is not proof the
underlying conjecture is correct.

The later doesn't really bother me -- if you have a model that makes useful
(accurate) predictions, I'm not too worried about how the model is built.
(Indeed, the folks building pyramids and cathedrals had various tables and
formula that let them perform very good architectual engineering, even though
their "models" weren't derived from physics directly.) The important thing to
try to understand is the limitations of the model -- where it will lead you
astray. (E.g., everyone here knows that it's really electrons that flow in
wires, yet we still use the model of positive current flow.)

When people perceive a 'problem' they want 'change', namely the
problem to go away.

That doesn't mean 'anything' is fine.

Ow, I've got a leg cramp. Okay, we'll cut it off. Whoa!!!!! That's not
what I had in mind.

Well, it won't 'hurt' any more.

And it's certainly a 'change', now isn't it?

Yes, but it's a safe bet that no Republican nor Democrat who wins the
primaries is such a radical candidate that they're going to be able to do the
equivalent of cutting the leg off the country. Politicians, I suspect, *wish*
they had that much power!

On EMTALA... I agree with your analysis (...and I personally think EMTALA was
generally a good idea, but given the analysis, I can understand why some
people would disagree).

---Joel