US Government Restricting Research Libraries 753
An anonymous reader writes: "In a move that has been termed 'positively Orwellian' by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility Executive Director Jeff Ruch, George W. Bush is ending public access to research materials at EPA regional libraries without Congressional consent. This all-out effort to impede research and public access is a [loosely] covert operation to close down 26 technical libraries under the guise of budgetary constraint. Scientists are protesting, but at least 15 of the libraries will be closed by Sept. 30, 2006."
Bush (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
One way to slow the spending would have been to not have a war (or at least not THIS war), eh?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
not quite hitler-like but certainly the worst president in all of US history. yes, far worse than even nixon.
uniter? puh-LEEZE. never before has one president torn the country so apart. I'm not even sure the civil war/slavery days had the country as divided as we are now (seriously).
"hail to thief" - the thief that stole office. twice!
Let's even narrow the scope: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
If you believe any one of those 8 statements, you're part of the extremist problem. There are MORE than 2 sides to every issue. People who want to limit your choices to either Bush is good or bad are simplifying things for their own manipulative purposes. It's not all black and white. Everyone's shit stinks. If support everything the Bush administration does, you're not paying attention. If you think the Bush administration has no rationalization for it's actions, again, you're not paying attention. To imply that Bush is actively working to ruin the country is as ridiculous as claiming that Bush is the messiah.
The facts are that there are people of good conscience on BOTH sides of the aisle. Both parties are working to prevent people of good conscience from coming together and working together, because they think compromise weakens the party.
I'd rather see the rhetoric turned down and the responsibility turned up.
Re:Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless the US converts to a proportional representation system it's highly unlikely that more nuanced politics will develop.
Any two party system is just barely one party away from a dictatorship. And it shows.
Re:Bush (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
Do not mistake me taking up for Bush in approving everything he does. I'm quite disturbed by both this issue, the NSA Domestic Wiretapping issue, and our handling of the Iraq war. Those issues will definitely weigh in my political choices. It should be an interesting election cycle in November.
JOhn
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wah. Myself, I don't think a President has much to do with an economy. They can certainly do things that make economic growth harder, and many presidents have spent a lot of time doing that. I also don't hold Bush "responsible" for 9/11.
I do hold him responsible for every single decision he's made since, and there have been some surpassingly rotten ones.
Technically ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically
We've had Reagan talk about "The War on Drugs" and Bush talk about "The War on Terror" and the media LOVES to talk about "The War in Iraq", but none of these are "Wars"
In some ways I think his current actions with the libraries and Iraq are good examples of Bush's presidency. Using Executive action and Executive order to create sweeping changes in the way things are done.
The framers of the Constitution wanted the ability for centralized control in times of crisis (instead of relying on congress to do anything rapidly), but feared centralizing too much power. Bush has been running roughshod over the Checks and Balances that are supposed to be in place to govern these sort of actions, when there ISN'T a crisis (and not every day after 9/11 is a crisis).
Carter was America's Chamberlain (Score:3, Insightful)
When you are a world leader, you are supposed to lead; if you aren't capable of handling the existing situation, please don't run for office. With the cold war, Watergate scandal, oil crisis, and post-Vietnam situation, those were difficult times, it's true. But Carter managed to make it worse by his weakness.
His one grea
Re:Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
Such as, and I'm just throwing this out as a really CRAZY hypothetical here, by continuing an effective policy of hardline trade restrictions designed to prevent the target nation from gaining the ability to engage in the proscribed behavior?
Yea. I mean, if only he'd done SOMETHING like that.... er... wait....
Paint with both hands, gang, or just be reduced to partisan whining.
Since when is it not fair to lay blame for a thing squarely at the feet of the responsible parties?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bush (Score:5, Informative)
Iran had a constitutional revolution against the Monarchy in 1912 - unfortunately the events of the Bolshevik revolution in bordering Russia, and the two world wars, prevented many of the constition's provisions from seeing fruition. The bolshevik years in particular, led to the rise of the so-called "Reza Shah" - a cossack mercenary. He was crowned Shah with the help of british provacateurs.
By 1950, constitutional courts and the people managed to wrest power, and actually realize the vision of 1912. It was shortly lived. After the US covert actions destroyed teh Mossadegh government, Reza Shah's profligate, wastrel son was recalled from his position in the bordellos of Paris, and plopped on the Peacock throne of Persia.
Marcos
Pinochet
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
Same smell. And it's a much bigger list.
You want the 'cause of terrorism'? Get your head out of fairytales about "freedom" and look what the US/UK axis has done to destroy LIBERTY throughout the world for more than 75 years.
Re:Bush (Score:4, Insightful)
Pinochet
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi"
You forgot Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Ladin. Both created wholely from US assets to serve US purposes.
Re:Bush (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bush (Score:5, Informative)
The economic disaster was as a result of the Arab Oil Embargo (note I didn't say price increase, this was a flat out embargo!) which of course was caused by the Arab - Israeli conflicts. It wasn't just U.S. double digit inflation; it was a world wide crisis. Notice that Carter made peace in the Middle East his top agenda and his efforts ended the embargo!
Getting vaguely back on topic... (Score:4, Interesting)
Getting vaguely back on topic, the US federal government has imposed an anti-R&D approach for decades.
Ask anyone in the US trying to do medical cannabis research if they've had any luck obtaining research materials, permits, or approval to do useful studies. In the meantime, the federal government denies the validity of all "foreign" research in Canada, the UK, Israel, Australia, etc.
What was the purpose of the IBM breakup a few decades ago, if not to stop a company from leveraging their own investment in R&D to continue growing their business? In theory it was because IBM had grown to a near monopoly, yet no action is taken against Microsoft when they are far closer to a monopoly than IBM ever was. Obviously market dominance was not the reason for the breakup.
Pharmaceutical research is often forced offshore because US regulations don't permit the kind of testing that would be needed to determine the efficacy of some drugs. Plus that means the US government and US pharmacorps don't have the embarassment of another national Thalidomide debacle -- future mistakes will be kept out of sight in foreign nations.
Bottom line is the US government has done a great deal to ensure that true R&D doesn't happen, because what is a great new product/service line to the owner is a huge threat to the status quo that pays the lobbyists and thereby the government's members. R&D is profitable for new companies, but it's a loss for the ineffective and staid "competition" that cuts R&D budgets in favour of short-term profits to satisfy the stock market.
Therein lies the crux of the matter: The US corporations and federal government, or rather their management, will happily let anything crumble and die, provided they can turn a profit now.
Re:Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
It was President Eisenhower that overthrew a democratically elected government and installed a wildly unpopular Shah that resulted in the hostage fiasco. So blame good ol 'Ike for getting us into the democracy-killing-for-oil business.
And his efforts were unfotunate. Having diminished our military ability to the point that we couldn't manage a rescue attempt without abject failure, Carter left us with not only a damaged economy, but damaged military and failed Middle East policy.
There's a saying, "Presidents fight with the army of the last administration". Why? Mainly because it takes time to train soldiers and keep them up to date.
Following Vietnam, the use of special forces fell out of favor and were downsized under the Ford administration. When the need for those forces came up under "Desert Eagle" they were not ready. (You can't blame Carter for not having filters on the helicopters. He wasn't the one that blew of the British's advice!) As a result, it was Carter who recognized the need for these units and restored funding - not Reagan. That's a matter of record - not spin.
And perhaps Clinton could be accused of being distracted from foreign affairs, having become preoccupied with his own?
Cute. But we were much more recognized and respected as a nation under Clinton. You know, back when we weren't endorsing torture and preemptive nuke strikes. Go figure.
And the army Clinton left for Bush won the battles quickly and efficiently. Now that they are essentially beat-cops in the worst neighborhood on earth, I pity the President that's going to have to restore their strength.
Paint with both hands, gang, or just be reduced to partisan whining.
Well gosh, why don't you just hustle on over to Iraq and bask in all the happy Iraqis that you helped free? They'll give you a 'warm welcome' (ala Blackwater) and make you the 'head'(minus body) of the parade.
Re:Bush (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to blame a president, blame Eisenhower.
BTW, I don't know where you were at in the 90's but the US flew *constant* combat missions over Iraq in the 90's to the point where, IIRC, some 50% of us pilots had combat time on their record. A number I heard was that in WWII only about 15% of US pilots had rated combat time.
Clinton also fired cruise missiles at Ossama. He missed, but he tried.
Re:Bush (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, it was Clinton who declared him public enemy number one and set up the special "Get Ossama" bureau that under Bush . .
But I'm sure that after the US moves to "liberate" France from the French, sparking World War Last, people will forget all that.
KFG
Re:Bush (Score:5, Informative)
Iraq and WMDs (Score:4, Insightful)
While it may be true that we now know Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction
It was known before Bush Jr order the invasion that there were no WMDs, the chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter kept stating this. However there were some in both the White House and in the press that did what they could to discredit him because they wanted the invasion to take place no matter what the truth was. As early as 2000 the PNAC [newamericancentury.org] had plans on it's website with the plans for the invasion.
had no ties to international terrorism
Saddam did have ties to "terrorists", Palestinian terrorists, but not with al qaeda or bin Laden. Saddam knew bin Laden wanted him dead as his government was sectarian not religous based, a theocracy, and because he persecuted Muslims in Iraq. In the December before the invasion bin Laden in a radio broadcast talking to Iraqis said they should rise up and overthrow Saddam and to fight invaders when invaded. To bin Laden Saddam was worse than the US because whereas the US wasn't Muslim, Saddam was.
FalconRe:Bush (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah that's probably why he'd been working with other nations on counter-terrorism issues since 1995, and why dozens of (potential) attentats against american lands and allies were busted under his presidencies.
As far as Iraq goes, he stricly kept with the trade restrictions, and if you're bothered with Saddam's disregard for international laws, why ain't you disgusted by Bush&co's disregard for both national and international laws?
Hell, even on Saddam, he was a freaking bastard, but at least he was our bastard.
Re:Bush (Score:5, Funny)
Like when Clinton bombed Baghdad, for example? All the Republicans were screaming bloody murder, as I recall. How convenient that you've forgotten. But don't let that distract you from your partisan rant.
REAGAN deserves blame for Hostage Crisis (Score:5, Insightful)
After being elected in November, he opened back channel negotiations with the Ayatollah. The gist is Reagan offered to supply Iran with arms on the condition that Iran held our hostages until he took the oath. That's two months those innocent people had to live in captivity so Reagan could score political points.
The only justice in the whole thing is that Reagan is forever stained by Iran-Contra. That's little consolation to the hostages, I'm sure, but it's something.
Carter worked tirelessly in the months before leaving office to secure their release. There was little he could do outside of ordering an invasion of Iran. I think we can agree that would not have been a good thing.
Re:REAGAN deserves blame for Hostage Crisis (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bush (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bush (Score:5, Informative)
Al Gore never owned any share in Occidental Petroleum, even I as a european know that. His parents (mother & father) had quite a few shares, nothing impressive though.
Re:Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
Living in this country during the Carter years was crappy in some ways, sure, but it got better. But the way things are going, living in this country for the foreseeable future will be crappy in a lot of other ways, thanks to the current administration, and I don't see it getting any better.
History repeating itself? (Score:5, Interesting)
China used to be one of the most advanced civilisations in the world. They developed so many stuff before any other country. Then suddenly some idiot in there decided to cut off china from the rest of the world and not only stop building technically advanced ships but actually destroy its unmatched fleet of ships. Shortly afterwards Britan was able to conquer the country using the technology that chinese themselves invented.
The fact that US seems to be closing libraries makes me wonder if its another version of the same events.
Re:History repeating itself? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been to China. Any notion that the Chinese Government controls all those people is strictly illusory. As soon as the government's eye is not on them, they go on and do whatever it is they need to. And especially during the period in question, there was almost no real contact between the people who ruled from the Forbidden City, and the people who were ruled over. When you contrast that to Bush's stage-managed presidency wherein he has rarely if ever come into contact with someone who was not a carefully screened supporter or piece of harmless hugmeat, the parallels become unpleasant. Furthermore, the kinds of advances that used to take decades now happen in weeks. We are already being left behind by other nations. I've also been to South Korea. Their adoption of technology and modern lifestyle has happened at a seriously breakneck pace. I talked to people who were younger than me (and I'm merely a GenX-er) who had grown up in thatched-roof houses. They now have something like 90% of the country wired for broadband.
The Bush Admin's open hostility to science is no secret. This isn't an isolated incident; it's part of a total trend of deliberately ignoring information which is inconvenient. And to suggest that we could possibly petition this Congress to do something about it is absurd.
Finally, we are reading an article that is obviously skewed in the direction of an environmentalist PAC. Perhaps we should hear both sides of the story---or is the witch hunt too far underway to surrender to reason?
As I've noted already in this thread, we've been getting our news for the last several years from networks who think that fake JonBenet Killer news stories are worth our 24-hour-a-day attention. And if this news story is somehow not factually true I'm sure evidence to that effect will surface, but in the meantime we don't need to balance our news consumption with fiction.
Re:Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you under the mistaken impression that everybody liked us before Bush was elected?
Re:Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying that Bush is responsible for making people hate our country is wrong.
- In the 1990s, an increasingly stronger portion of people began to question the US cultural dominance and thus gave birth to the anti-globalization movement.
- In the Middle East it's the resentment of secular western thought, which had heavily grown throughout the entire 20th century. It's basically a backlash against the rise of rational thinking that's prominent in both the US (and Europe).
- Muslims (and a fair number of socialists) all around the world strongly dislike the strong US backing of Israel.
- Many countries in the world strongly believe that the dominant super power role of the United States is wrong because it is not right for one country to shape the destiny of others after its own will. Sovereignity of other nation states should be respected.
Bush might not be the only reason they hate America, but due to his rise to Presidency at this special point of time in our history he has surely become the icon for it.
Re:Bush (Score:5, Interesting)
A 1-minute search on Google reveals this [commondreams.org].
Re:Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
uh, there was a massive energy crisis during the carter administration. a huge spanner in the economic workings of the country that just happen to ocur under his watch. blaming carter for the actions of opec is a little bit unfair.
now, if you're looking for a president who really tanked the economy, i'd suggest reagan. in his eight years he moved the national deficit from 2.5% ($80 bn) of gdp to 6% ($250 bn). if you wonder why the national debt is so out of control, it's because ron spent it all on military adventurism while cutting taxes for the upper 10%.
Re:Bush (Score:5, Funny)
To be fair, that upper 10% did tinkle down... errr trickle down... on the rest of us.
Re:Bush (Score:5, Funny)
It's called the "golden shower" theory of economics.
Re:Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No he didn't, what he did was get a country with a negative economic balance (i.e., which was losing money and had to borrow) into a country with a positive economic balance (in Clinton's later years as a president, the USA were earning money and could reimburse their debts or something)
In came Bushie, and the USA's national debt is now above 8500 billion dollars (increasing at nearly $2b/day)
Calling Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
This is getting really old, too. This marks about the sixth time I've seen someone trying to compare Bush's presidency to Carter's. There is NO comparison. Carter was a nauseatingly honest individual who was elected largely in response to the nauseatingly dishonest Nixon administration. He entered the political game playing it straight at a time when the opposition was patently playing it crooked, and inherited (as another poster has mentioned) a terrible situation at a terrible time. What he didn't do was leave a huge mess for future generations to clean up -- most of the situations of Carter's presidency that people didn't like were strictly temporary.
On the other hand, Bush has destroyed a huge budget surplus and left trillions in debt to my kids. His deliberate neglect has more or less wiped one whole American city right off the map. He has ruined America's standing as the leader of the free world with his farrago of lies on Iraq, and he has opened a gaping crack in the Middle East which seems destined to consume innocent lives for decades to come. He has fundamentally damaged the conscience of the nation by actively condoning torture, and actively assaulting our cherished civil liberties -- the one aspect of America that truly makes us American. He has starved the middle class and pushed millions into poverty with his patently worker-unfriendly policies (better known as his "Ownership Society" initiative). He has contributed to the further decline of public education, ensuring that millions can't compete in a modern job market, through his unfunded No Child Left Behind. He has bitterly divided America with his lies and hateful, cynical rhetoric. He has flaunted his authority recklessly and led with all the gravitas of a 21-year old fraternity prankster. In a simple character evaluation of Jimmy Carter versus George W. Bush, there is no question who I'd rather have in charge.
Re:Calling Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
"His deliberate neglect has more or less wiped one whole American city right off the map."
I do not come to defend Bush, because I can't stand the guy, but The Corps of Engineers admit the failure was theirs [forbes.com]. The levee system in and around New Orleans was in a sad state of disrepair prior to Katrina, and it could be argued that Katrina saved lives by busting up the levees when many were already evacuated.
Could you imagine the nightmare that would've ensued from a garden variety severe thunderstorm at high tide in the middle of the night causing a levee rupture? No warning, no news coverage, many people asleep... the death toll could've been 10x higher.
Re:Calling Bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
The Louisiana National Guard were all deployed to Iraq, stationed at Camp Liberty in Baghdad, while Katrina was ravaging the area.
Bush is the commander in chief and the Army Corps of Engineer fall under him.
Responsibility is his.
Re:Calling Bullshit (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but who started the hurricane, hmmmm?...
Re:Calling Bullshit (Score:5, Funny)
God, obviously. And since Bush claims to be in communication with God, he should have had plenty of warning and/or should have been able to convince God to send the hurricane to Mexico or somewhere.
Therefore, it's still Bush's fault!
Re:Calling Bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
As far as blame for the levy failures, there's plenty to go around. The city didn't want to use enough land to build levies as wide & strong as the Army Corp indicated were necessary. That would have entailed destroying more peoples' houses under emminent domain and was about as politically popular as emminent domain almost always ends up being.
Re:Calling Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, that's false. USA Today revealed that Clinton's 'surplus' was really a $484 billion deficit [usatoday.com]. The print version included a chart (which I cannot find) showing that Bush's deficits are actually better than Clinton's.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, blast that Carter (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Calling Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Um, no. That honor belongs to Dwight D. Eisenhower, who in 1953 changed the standing policy established under Truman that the U.S. would not back extra-diplomatic actions against secular and democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq in the oil field dispute between Iran and the U.K., despite British pressure to do so. Eisenho
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
a simple google for "budget surplus clinton" makes it clear that by the end of clinton's time in office, the federal government was running an annual surplus. it is true that there was still an overall federal debt, but that's quite a different issue. its also not clear if we can really thank clinton or serendipity for the surplus, but denying it was there is ridiculous.
complaining about underfunding makes sense if you believe that there is massive overfunding of things that should not be high on our pr
Re:Bush (Score:4, Interesting)
First, 'double-didgit' inflation was initiated under Nixon, partially to pay for Vietnam, but mostly a result of Nixon's choice to make the dollar fiat, as opposed to redeemable for gold. Inflation stayed in double-digits under Ford, whose idea to beat inflation consisted of wearing buttons with "Whip Inflation Now" printed on them. Inflation was tamed under Carter thanks to Volker jacking up the interest rate. An unpopular solution, but sometimes its necessary to take the punch bowl away. Reagan took the credit, and dumped Volker for Greenspan when he had the chance to restart the 'play now pay later' budget monkeyshines.
Speaking of Greenspan, its funny how Carter gets pegged as raising taxes when payroll 'deductions' were doubled by Reagan under Greenspan's insistence that the additional money would make SS fiscally sound. Reagan ended up wasting the additional money for the Star Wars boondoggle.
Another thing Reagan gets credit for is strengthening the US military. It was infact Carter who brought back the use of Special Forces after the cuts in the programs under Ford led to the failed Desert Eagle mission.
Carter's mistakes - maybe funding the Afghanistan resistance, which gave us Bin Ladin. The Carter Doctrine, which did nothing to discourage America's dependence on the Middle East's oil, and possibly not looking 'Presidential' enough to win another four years.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It was the stationing of American troops in Saudi (i.e. the holy land) and American support for Israel that pissed off Bin Laden, not the existence of America in general or anything Carter did. Anyway the weapons and money provided to the Taliban during the Soviet occupation was long gone by the time the USS Cole and Kenyan Embassy bombings occurred. The Taliban fought the Soviets with Stinger missiles and LAWs - the at
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Carter at least was honest, had integrity, was reasonably intelligent, and had his own ideas. What's Bush other than the stooge for a bunch of gangster puppeteers sitting on the sidelines and calling the shots? High taxes? Keep in mind that the Reagan tax cuts were mostly for the wealthy.
Jimmy Carter: a profile in courage. (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember this period well.
Note that legally there is not much effective that a President himself can do about inflation, as the most critical factor involved is the money supply, which is controlled by the Federal Reserve. In addition, the economy was still reeling from the impact of high energy prices on entrenched energy inefficiencies. The result was stagflation: a brutal combination of economic stagnation and inflation.
There's not much you can do to make an economy energy efficient overnight, but what Carter did about this was appoint Paul Volcker as Fed chairman, who proceeded to change the one variable that could be changed quickly: the money supply. Volcker who took office in August of 1979, proceeded to attack inflatoin vigorously, at tremendous political cost to Carter.
Check out these graphs: prime rate [wikipedia.org], Consumer Price Index [wikipedia.org], and unemployment [wikipedia.org].
This is the story they tell. Roughly in the middle of his term, Carter hires Paul Volcker as Fed Chairman, with the job of stopping inflation. Volcker starts the cut off the money supply in order to break the back of inflation. Immediately, the rate of inflation starts to drop, economic growth stalls, and unemployment begins to rise.
Right around the time of the 1980 election, the prime rate is approaching it's historical high of 21.5. This continues to strangle economic growth and drive rising unemployement.
But inflation IS responding to Volcker's shock treatment. Carter gets no political boost from this, becuase he's only succeeded thus far to change the second derivative of prices. Which is to say that prices aren't dropping, they are continuing to rise at historically high rates. But the inflation rate is moving rapidly in the right direction, something that is only apparent when looking at data graphs, not when you go to purchase a quart of milk. What ordinary people see is high prices that continue to increase at a high rate, reduced economic growth, and decreased job security. This experience of economic insecurity creates a new class of voters: the Reagan Democrat. Ronald Reagan successfully argues that Carter has mismanaged the economy, and the voters buy it because everywhere they look, they see pain.
In the first half of Reagan's term, far too early for his economic policies to have had such a dramatic effect, inflation returns to its approximate historical average. Immediately the Fed release their death grip on interest rates, and economic growth ensues. Unemployment continues to rise for a short time as weak companies shed workers, but overall in the context of an economy poised to resume growth, this is a good thing.
Unemployment hits its peak in 1983. By this time, Reagan's fiscal policies are having an effect as well. The biggest thing he can influence strongly is federal spending, and he has embarked on a program of unusually high levels of peacetime deficit spending. Wikipedia does not have a nice graph but you can look it up from the CBO: The last Ford budget had a deficit of 4.1%; Carter's budgets had deficits of 2.7,2.7, 1.6, 2.7 and 2.5%. Reagan's first term budgets had deficits of 3.7, 5.6, 4.7, and 5.1%. An economy is primed for rapid growth responds rapidly to the stimulative effects of federal spending unchecked by offsetting taxes. When the 1984 election rolls around, Reagan looks like an economic genius: inflation under control, economic growth back on track, unemployment rapidly dropping.
Carter of course looks like an economic idiot even though arguably Carter's fiscal restraint and Volcker's severe anti-inflation policies made the strong recover of the 80s possible. Reagan's spending policies would have be
Re:Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
Nixon was bad, but his administration did have some accomplishments that substantially advanced America in many fields. I see Nixon as a politician with a shakesperian-level personality flaw of paranoia.
Vietnam was Lyndon Johnson's fault, NOT Nixon's. He inherited a war that was well into escalation. Nixon had to find a way to escape the war while trying to save face, when the threat of the USSR was still very relevant. Vietnam in some ways was a proxy war, legitimately or not, for European cold war angst.
Nixon's accomplishments included: a) getting the US economy off of the gold standard allowing for the next several decades of unprecedented US global economic domination -- HUGE strategic decision that in hindsight seems simple but took great forward thinking, b) desegregating the US south, Johnson's promise but Nixon's administration delivered, c) managing the tight-rope of the middle east through shuttle diplomacy, and avoiding ANOTHER vietnam for the US, d) leveraging Detente between China and the USSR, at a time when the communist alliance could have become much stronger.
These legacies are overlooked given the tragic (and deserved) end to his corrupt administration. A fair and balanced review of Nixon's career has to acknowledge that, especially in the first term, Nixon did deliver several important contributions to the long term success of the US.
In contrast, the past ~7 years for the US has been a complete wash. Aside from a ongoing mediocre economy despite a terrorist attack, I can find nothing positive. Perhaps time will provide a better context for judgement, but I doubt it -- record deficit, an administration that squandered unprecedented world sympathy into global skepticism, Osama Bin Laden is still free, Iraq has no exit or success strategy, regressive economic and social policies in almost any scientific field, and a US culture that is as polarised as it has been since the civil war. This isn't _all_ Bush's fault, but its on his watch and the buck stops with him.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm one of those "libs." Actually, more socially libertarian and fiscally somewhat liberal. We need to *get the hell out of Iraq*, stop involvement in the Middle East (which is a lost cause IMHO) and concentrate on our own New Deal. Massive government subsidies for energy conservation, clean energy production, environmental, space, an
Wow... Now that's editorializing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wow... Now that's editorializing... (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't seem to be "internal" in the sense of a decision made by EPA scientists or lawyers. It looks like it was made by a political employee high in the EPA hierarchy. People like that implement the policies of the White House.
Re:Wow... Now that's editorializing... (Score:5, Interesting)
no surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:no surprise (Score:5, Funny)
Not for long
Positively Orwellian (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Positively Orwellian (Score:5, Funny)
Hopefully the trains will run on time.
Mark story -1 Troll and -5 Just Plain Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Some points:
- The information will be made available online
- The information will be available through library loan
- Not all the libraries are closing
- Bush is not defying Congress. He sent them a budget which they either approve or amend
Boy, it certainly made for a good story though! For about 2 minutes... *sigh* Do some research before posting or blogging next time.
Re:Mark story -1 Troll and -5 Just Plain Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Scan news for "Bush"
2. Figure out how to write/re-write article to ensure that Bush looks as evil as possible
3. Leave out any actual facts in favor of baseless speculation, particularly facts that might help to explain Bush's actions in a reasonable way
4. Comment on the demise of society, blaming it all on Bush
5. For an extra bit of irony, mention/imply that only Republicans are responsible for dividing this country
6. Sell news bits for profit
No "Step 2: ???" necessary.
Re:Mark story -1 Troll and -5 Just Plain Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
most of the time thats not entirely necessary, the actions speak for themselves. unconstitutional actions, obvious power grabs, dumbing down the education system, its all pretty clear. bush is trying to gather as much power as possible for himself/his office.
3. Leave out any actual facts in favor of baseless speculation, particularly facts that might help to explain Bush's actions in a reasonable way
because nobody pro-bush would EVER do that. shock, horror. especially bush himself. more shock, horror.
4. Comment on the demise of society, blaming it all on Bush
strike bush, replace with democrats, and its the basis for a solid republican "talking point"
5. For an extra bit of irony, mention/imply that only Republicans are responsible for dividing this country
slow down. rumsfeld YESTERDAY claimed youre with us, or youre appeasing the fascists. par for the course of rovian politics, if youve been paying attention.
im not a republican, im not a democrat. id just like a little sensibility in our government.
Re:Mark story -1 Troll and -5 Just Plain Wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Uh, according to the article you cite, Bush is taking action BEFORE Congress has had a chance to act on his budget proposal. He isn't waiting to get approval. Furthermore, they say that they will digitize the 80,000 documents beyond boxed and stored, but I'll be very interested to see how quickly that will happen and how well they will be indexed. And the point that institutional memory will be lost when librarians are laid off is not addressed at all. The article is a lot more accurate than you make out.
Re:Can you read? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you think that because an article attributes a decision to "the EPA" that means that the decision was not made by political appointees implementing administration policy, you're incredibly naive. Bush may well not have been personally involved in this decision, but it sure looks like a political decision, not something that EPA scientists and lawyers have come up with.
Yep, I missed it because it isn't in the article. What the article says is that "all EPA-generated materials will continue to be available by inter-library loan. That excludes material not generated by the EPA. You need to be more careful about accusing people of not reading the article. I've obviously read it more carefully than you have. Furthermore, even if this does mean that the boxed materials will be available by interlibrary loan, how easy do you think it will be to find what you need, and how long a delay will there be in getting the boxed materials out of storage? I know from personal experience that it can be a real impediment to research to have to wait several weeks or even days to get something out of storage, and that often it is difficult to identify what you need if you can't go look at it on the shelf online.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
concerns presented by the very people who use the library. The Library Journal article CXI references indicates that the EPA is moving to enact budgetary proposals that have not been approved by Congress. While it is possible that Bush had not
Book recommendation... (Score:5, Interesting)
Despite the inflammatory name, the book doesn't assert that Republicans are inherently anti-science, but it is a chronicle the past few decades of politicization of science, and how even though Liberals do their own part to misrepresent science, the overwhelming lions share of open distortion percieved by the overwhelming majority of scientists has been unfortunately solidly Republican. It's a rather impressive, well-documented book that I highly recommend showing a trend of scientific limitations and games like today's story.
Ryan Fenton
Re:Book recommendation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, but that doesn't matter in today's politics. All you have to do is find a single instance of someone from the other side doing something similar to what you're doing, and that makes it magically okay for you to continue doing it.
There are no ethics anymore. Instead of people striving to be ethical, they just strive to find other people being unethical so they can excuse their own unethical behavior.
Re:Book recommendation... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is an extremely important thing to realize. People have been able to justify things way too easily nowadays. When a politician lies they say "well they all lie" and just accept it as part of the territory. Instead of striving toward excellence and taking exception at the failures of striving toward this ideal, the American public seems to like just putting up with mediocrity by thinking that everyone is corrupt liars who steal and the crook you know is better than the one you don't so why even bother punishing them for it. It's a ridiculous mindset. Unethical is unethical, it's the adult equivalent of the "Well Jimmy's dad said he could" argument.
Re:Book recommendation... (Score:4, Insightful)
We are a society of poor managers. We'd rather manage by gut feelings rather than the facts. We'd rather vote on our beliefs and what the TV preachers (fox news) tell us instead of what works. That's the real problem. And we are learning the hard way that employees left out of control are going to do what works for them, not us.
There IS an election coming up in November. I hope that people will vote not based on commericals but on facts. The problem is that the media who is supposedly providing us with facts is not doing it correctly either. I see a trend though, towards the positive. It all starts with your immediate representatives, the people who help to run your city. They work for you, tell them what you want. Then to your county government, they work for you, tell them what you want. State, federal, they work for you, tell them what you want. And if they don't do it, well, you're going to learn what all managers do: If you want it done right, sometimes you have to do it yourself. And that means, *gasp*, actually going out and getting involved.
Stop watching 60 hours of television a week and dedicate 10 hours to doing something that actually benefits you. It takes time, it takes a lot of work, but we citizens are more empowered than ever. All we have to do is TRY.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or perhaps scientists just don't like it when some politicians are telling them that yes, why, the bible is a perfectly truthful historical recording, and yes the earth is 6000 years old, and yes evolution is just a figment of your imagination and you were created out of dirt by a bearded old man sitting on a cloud, and yes it should be taught in school, and no, no one cares about the difference between the notions of "stupid bigotic retardation" and "scientific theory".
Funniest part is that people always
Mass Exodus program? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mass Exodus program? (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing new... (Score:3, Interesting)
Wars are expensive.. And the money's gotta come from somewhere.. Rather than raising taxes (which I'm sure they'll do anyway), they're cutting expenses elsewhere... Rather than fire people, they're "consolidating". Sounds better, but it's the same thing.
If this were Bill Clinton... (Score:3, Insightful)
The always progressive and forward thinking Bill Clinton has proposed legislation that will modernize the nation's research libraries by making all of the information contained in the libraries available online, eliminating the wasteful need for old-fashioned brick-and-mortar facilities. At least some people in the federal government are embracing technology. Kudos, Bill!
Am I wrong?
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. [slashdot.org]
Clinton got bashed back in his day. The reason it seems we bitch more about Bush than we did Clinton is because Bush is a big fuck-up.
Bush supporters get a little tetchy about criticism of this administration, forgetting that all administrations are taken to task when watchful (and slightly paranoid) people catch them with their hands inside the cookie jar of liberty. The Bush administration just happens to be raiding it a lot more than previous administrations, and a lot more blatantly.
As has been pointed out by others, this story is potentially misleading. I'd write that off to many of us being a bit jumpy around Bush. When the school bully tends to walk up behind you and smack you on the head, you start jerking your head around at the oddest moments. It might look silly when the bully isn't behind you, but it might just save you a few headaches.
But, had Clinton tried doing this, he would have received much the same treatment.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Google is Your Friend (Score:4, Insightful)
I would like to read an objectively written fact based story behind this and not just a lot of reactionary Bush bashing.
Re:Google is Your Friend (Score:4, Insightful)
If by "lib" you mean libertarian, then you are correct. Many here believe that the government should not be engaged in this kind of work (environmental research), but if they are going to do it, they'd better be honest and open about it. Most attacks on the Bush administration you'll find here are over civil-liberties issues. Perhaps it's because any geeks concider themselves part of a (socially) persecuted minority. And because learning is so important to geeks hey also believe in the free flow of knowlege and feel empathy with the down trodden.
Attempts to stiffle the flow of information are looked down upon around here. We do tend to be open-source fanatics, which is all about sharing information and research.
EPA bureaucrats, not Bush, decided this (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't anybody bother to look at the source data before flaming? Or is this news "too good to check"?
This is the EPA engaging in political tactics. To begin with, they haven't yet been asked to cut their budget, and they may never be. The closing of libraries is not Bush's idea--it's EPA bureaucrats saying "Look what you made us do!"
The proposed budget cut constitutes a fraction of of a percent of the EPA's budget, and it could be achieved with a minor reduction in the EPA's bloated administrative costs.
This is a standard tactic in every government in the world. Faced with budget cuts, the bureaucrats respond by threatening to terminate one of the few things they do that actually provides a service. The mystery is that they often get away with it.
The special irony in this item is that the EPA isn't planning to cut the service—just the way it's delivered.
Re:EPA bureaucrats, not Bush, decided this (Score:5, Insightful)
For all intents and purposes, an EPA bureaucrat (as part of the Bush administration) making a decision is the same as the POTUS (or those who make decisions for him) making the decision.
Inaccurate (Score:3, Insightful)
How on earth do things like this get posted? The first link is to an "op-ed" site that is so obviously anti-Bush that it defies credibility. The article itself is a hysterical mish-mash of fact(?) and opinion that exists only to throw around needlessly inflammatory catchphrases. "Orwellian?" Check. Reference to "Fahrenheit 451?" Check. "Who could have ever envisioned that Ray Bradbury's vicious, futuristic, dystopian society would ever come to fruition; but it may indeed have done just that!" Yeah, it MAY have! Or maybe not... Dude, chill out.
At least the link from PEER is more factual. And of course the facts aren't all that exciting, at least compared with visions of vicious, dystopian futures:
1. Nowhere is George Bush mentioned.2. PEER seems to be mainly concerned with being able to use a library "to locate [...] information and have it produced to a court house in a timely manner." No impression is given that, as a result of these budget cuts, access to all important materials is going to be forever lost. It just sounds like it might be a bit harder to get it in certain cases, hence their concern.
3. The summary of this story makes it sound like this is a grave issue for members of the general public, and said public's access to information of general utility will be severely curtailed in the near future. However, the PEER summary clearly states in its headline: "Prosecutions [of polluters] at Risk from Loss of Timely Access to Key Documents." That is, the usefulness of this information is limited in scope to certain legal proceedings. Of course these cases are very important, but it's not like the libraries that you and I visit all the time are closing their doors.
I know I'm going up against a bunch of knee-jerk leftists here (wow, look at some of these comments!), but I had to at least try and appeal to reason. Slashdot, please stick with tech and science news. If you're going to delve into politics would it be possible to at least provide the most basic quality control to stories that get posted? This story isn't inherently biased, but the way it was presented is just appalling.
Actually it is more accurate than not (Score:4, Insightful)
"In a move that has been termed 'positively Orwellian' by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility Executive Director Jeff Ruch,
The post directly quotes and attributes the quote correctly. You might not like the piece it's quoting, but the post accurately represents it.
George W. Bush is ending public access to research materials at EPA regional libraries
His administration is doing so, not him. Being as Presidents do almost nothing personally--the bulk of their work is accomplished by staff and appointees--it's a little unreasonable to expect to trace every decision all the way back to him. As Eisenhower said, "The buck stops here." I would not call this totally inaccurate. Give it 1/4 accurate.
without Congressional consent.
The action is being taken prior to Congressional review of the EPA budget. Accurate.
This all-out effort to impede research and public access
The degree to which this is the intent is a matter of opinion. Certainly EPA would never admit this whether or not it were true.
However, there is simply no question as to whether this will impede research and public access. It will. It will now introduce a delay and review process to accessing information that did not previously exist. Rather than walking in and copying a document, a person would now have to wait either for an inter-library loan delivery, or a no-deadline-defined scanning process to complete. This delay substantially reduces the capability for quick-response litigation. And since I'm guessing you think I'm a "knee jerk leftist" now (since I disagreed with you), I'll point out that this also impedes the ability of businesses to quickly access research materials to fight EPA regulation changes, fines, or stays. The business community is just as interested in EPA transparency as the enviros are.
1/2 accurate.
is a [loosely] covert operation
Accurate--the import of this decision was gleaned from a leaked internal EPA memo, not a public communiction.
to close down 26 technical libraries
Accurate--this is the plan.
under the guise of budgetary constraint
Budgetary constraint is the reason given. The degree to which that is a guise is up for debate. 1/4 accurate
Scientists are protesting,
Accurate.
but at least 15 of the libraries will be closed by Sept. 30, 2006."
Accurate.
Of 9 assertions in the post, I scored it about a 7, so about 77% accurate.
What's that law... (Score:3, Insightful)
While this is obviously a bad thing for science and public education, any similarity to 1984 is sketchy at best.
The topic at hand (Score:3)
If you voted for Bush, this is your fault.
Re:Big deal (Score:4, Funny)
About 12 minutes (Score:3, Interesting)
So, let's assume that money has been evenly spent over the last five years (it hasn't, as the first year or so were taken up by fabricating a reason to go into Iraq, and operations in Afghanistan, which had been hiding bin Laden, have always been secondary). So, that gives us a per-minute estimated cost of:
Re:Math not your strongest asset? (Score:3, Insightful)
You place the butter in the middle of the potato. Lots of butter on that one spot, but wouldnt you prefer to spread butter all over? Try it, and find that one spot now has a lot less butter than it used to.
Everyone knows butter doesnt just spontaneously appear, if you want to spread something to another area, you need to reduce it in some other area!