No cognitive dissonance (or buyers remorse) here!

[alan1]

1000 to 1 that he does better than Bush. Of course, should he do nothing at all, he would succeed in doing better than this administration of incompetants.

haha, good one.
So four years from now if he is 99% failure the mantra can be "He's not as bad as Bush". I mean there are so many people that call Bush a 100% failure, so I guess the bar is set pretty low to meet your expectations.

 

[editec]

haha, good one.
So four years from now if he is 99% failure the mantra can be "He's not as bad as Bush". I mean there are so many people that call Bush a 100% failure, so I guess the bar is set pretty low to meet your expectations.

We didn't set the bar, BB, we just note where it's set.

 

[alan1]

We didn't set the bar, BB, we just note where it's set.

Well, I didn't say you set the bar, just that it was set low (according to some people).
This was the first presidential election since I turned 18 that I didn't cast a ballot for that position. I still voted, I just skipped the president part of the ballot because (in my opinion) no presidential candidate was remotely worthy.

 

[auditor0007]

I don't like Obama, and I certainly didn't vote for him. But I am willing to wait and see. So far, I think he has chosen fairly well when it comes to his cabinet, and I agree with his wanting to spend on infrastructure. I see that as being a much better alternative than just sending people money in the mail.

What I don't like is my opinion that he is sleazy. Having lived in Chicago, I know how sleazy the political environment is there, and he was a big part of it. Maybe I will be proven wrong, but I believe before all is said and done, that we will see this side of Obama.

 

[Caligirl]

... we're all so relieved WE'RE NOT DISAPPOINTED YET!

 

[Caligirl]

What he HAS done is appoint a center-right cabinet, a hawkish foreign policy team, and a pack of Wall St. insiders to his economic team....

He's also shown definite dedication to science, so I am happy - that was my main reason for voting for him! I can't see us goijng wrong if we start living in a reality-based world again!

 

[Jon]

What he HAS done is appoint a center-right cabinet, a hawkish foreign policy team, and a pack of Wall St. insiders to his economic team.....

Basically, what he's done is appoint "more of the same" when his campaign slogan was "CHANGE we can believe in." In other words, he lied to every one of you, and you bought it.

 

[alan1]

Basically, what he's done is appoint "more of the same" when his campaign slogan was "CHANGE we can believe in." In other words, he lied to every one of you, and you bought it.

But it was said so eloquently.

 

[Caligirl]

Basically, what he's done is appoint "more of the same" when his campaign slogan was "CHANGE we can believe in." In other words, he lied to every one of you, and you bought it.

He's made changes dude.

If you ever donated to his campaign you'd be hip to that. We get emails every week or so, in order to organize the network of supporters. House parties to brainstorm healthcare wishlists, to network, etc etc -

He wanted to get America involved in the process from the ground up/ That was the change he ran on, bottom up instead of top down. You are seeing what he is doing from the top, but I tell ya, he is working the base too.

(And the change I voted for was science - he's delivering. )

 

[Paulie]

But it was said so eloquently.

I know! I just couldn't help but pull the lever!

 

[Oddball]

He's also shown definite dedication to science, so I am happy - that was my main reason for voting for him! I can't see us goijng wrong if we start living in a reality-based world again!

The only "sciences" I've seen him dedicate himself to are those of NLP and hypnosis.

And in those areas he's the political equivalent of a Ross Jeffries wannabe.

 

[Caligirl]

Well, I am totally impressed that he is picking scientists for advisors!

Woohoo!

YMMV

 

[garyd]

What scientists? The High priest of the global warming claptrap?

 

[Caligirl]

Here are seven off the top of my google-noodle:

During the campaign:

Barack Obama has established a small but well-regarded inner circle of science advisors that includes a vocal critic of creationism, a Nobel laureate who has championed open-access research, and another laureate who used his prize money to defend academic freedom against the war on terror. Though their influence on the policies of a prospective Obama administration are unknown, they've played a prominent role in establishing his science platform to date.

Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate and former head of the National Institutes of Health; Gilbert Ommen, a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; Peter Agre, a Nobel laureate and ardent critic of the Bush administration; NASA researcher Donald Lamb; and Stanford University plant biologist Sharon Long.

And after winning the election:

Holdren will become Obama's science adviser as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Lubchenco will lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees ocean and atmospheric studies and does much of the government's research on global warming.

Holdren also will direct the president's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. Joining him as co-chairs will be Nobel Prize-winning scientist Harold Varmus, a former director of the National Institutes of Health, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Eric Lander, a specialist in human genome research.

These are huge names in different areas of science. When i saw Lander I thought "Wow I think I know him - and he's big" (used to work in a genome lab long ago). Whn Cali-hubby heard Varmus he said "Geesh, these guys are huge."

So, more than just the global warming guy, whoever it was that you had in mind specifically. Obama is the best candidate (from the sciences perspective) in decades.

 

[garyd]

Oh common the government has been shoveling money at the sciences since before I was born.

 

[Caligirl]

Private dollars outstripped federal dollars in 1980-and you can see the trend to 2000 here:

And under W here:

which could be good or bad depending on your POV, and I don't mind where my paycheck comes from as long as I can still put food on the table. It is interesting that scientific findings that are paid for by the taxpayer belong to the taxpayer (all that medical research etc that most people want public), but when it is paid by private companies there is no obligation to put the info in the public domain.

We're used to science being 'open' but due to private funding being a larger percentage of funds, research is not necessarily as available to the public as it would be when paid with taxes. I also undertsand the flip argument, that Joe shouldn't have to pay to have grizzly bear DNA studied, etc.

But to a scientist it is hard to have a CIC who thinks the way that W does on the pertinent issues. Not just funding, but science education, and a seeming general misundertanding of the important differences between science and faith and how to keep them separate.

W had one bad story after another about a devaluation of science coming out of his whitehouse. Was it all liberal media spin? I dunno, but seeing him talk at SOTU and other speeches did not ease my concerns!!

I don't care if people don't value science, but it's one of my voting issues, and the thread is about whether people think Obama is delivering and so I still say oh YEAH! baby, you betcha! Love those science picks!

 

[alan1]

Since when is it the governments responsibility to fund science?
Then, we have to ask, what science should be funded by government?
Science you want to know about, or science I want to know about?

 

[Oddball]

R&D is best funded by those who stand to profit from its success or lose from its failure.

All gubmint funding of R&D does is subsidize failure.

 

[Caligirl]

Then, we have to ask, what science should be funded by government?

Implants and viagra.

 

[Caligirl]

Sorry for derailing the thread. I now return you to your previously scheduled discussion.