Well you don’t expect the work of Harvard scientists to be quite so fungible. Damages the institutional brand, donchaknow. Harvard goes from “pre-eminent institution in one of the world’s most advanced educational systems” to “just another school where you can get bought and paid for results if you have enough money, no different from East Bumfuck Technical College, really.”
At least, in my eyes. YMMV.
He isn’t a Harvard scientist, although FOX news and its ilk try to present him as such. He is a part time employee of the Smithsonian, working at a think tank partly funded by Harvard. His degrees are from USC.
He also isn’t an astrophysicist, nor a climatologist.
The first amendment protects information by quantity while giving no consideration to value. You can gush out barrels of excretia with no concern for its fetidness, and the RW takes maximum advantage of this: repeat the misinformation enough and the mere act of spewing it lends it credence. They are hosing the stupid over us and we are having a hard time getting it all off.
Would that there were some way to mitigate the onslaught of vehement declaratives without losing the overall advantage of free expression. This is just getting ridiculous (and dangerous).
Look. I enjoy reading your posts. I enjoy seeing your baby pics. I love the pics of your baby kittens and puppies. Most of you won’t read this and respond. I know who you are. I forgive you.
But seriously, I don’t know if Scott Walker is a pedophile. I just don’t know! C’mon. Let’s be adults. There is no way for me to know if Scott Walker sexually abuses kittens and puppies.
We just don’t know.
Apparently he’s an aerospace engineer.
Me neither. I mean, I do occasionally sell him kittens and puppies and children of both sexes, but I have no idea what he does with them. And I ain’t about to ask.
Scott Walker: My stance against unions in Wisconsin would be a signal of toughness to Islamic jihadists and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Well, he’s got a point. If he’s willing to fuck over some of his own constituents, just think what he’d do to a bunch of people he doesn’t even know.
I thought he meant the Teacher’s Union was beheading hostages.
That’s a mighty wide stance. Even for a Republican. How’s he stand on the homophobia scale? Right wing batshit or over the edge?
Gay marriage is better than unwed pregnancy, outside of that, no.
People really put a lot of stock into making sure you’re married to the father before you give birth.
Because being able to impregnate someone is the only qualifying attribute for a life partner and person you’re legally bound to, obviously. Gotta make certain you can’t find anyone better.
C’mon - what decent man is going to marry a loose woman and raise another man’s child? She’s lucky anyone would marry her.
9/11 profiteer extraordinaire, Rudolph the red-nosed draft dodger Giuliani is finally backing off his asinine and infantile comments about Obama’s patriotism.
Someone needs to tell Giuliani one simple truth: Had Bloomberg been mayor on 9/11, he probably would have done a better job. Any competent politician, Cuomo or Christie for example, would have handled it just as well as Giuliani. We all got behind the mayor because there was a lot of important work to be done. That’s it, full stop. He was a giant cunt before the attacks, and a giant dick after them. Now that 9/11 has made him rich beyond his dreams, he should just stay at home and count his blood-soaked dollars and shut the fuck up.
Also, to all the idiots who spout nonsense about “American Exceptionalism”: that should be an aspiration, not something taken for granted. The Marshall Plan was exceptional, Abu Ghraib was not.
I don’t get the admiration for Giuliani. I can’t think of one thing that he did as mayor during and after 9/11 that nobody else would have or could have done. Yet he has milked that bloody cow for over 13 years now and shows no sign of stopping. His 2008 presidential campaign could not have been more amateurish and he went from front-runner to toilet faster than anyone I can recall.
Now he makes a living trying to gin up anti-Muslim hysteria and blowing racial dog whistles about Obama. Fuck him. He’s just another right wingnut now, no more deserving of the spotlight than Sarah Palin.
The only thing I find remarkable about him now is when he is seen in profile view, he has the flattest head I’ve ever seen. He’s the only bald guy in the world with a flattop. Sorta reminds me of the old Dick Tracy villain now.
Of course I call my papers deliverables – not because someone paid for them, but because that’s what they are.
No I do not, and this is where I see his biggest ethics breach is. I always disclose all my funding sources.
Not so directly, but I tailor my entire research program around getting the results NIH wants – that’s why they fund me. NIH WANTS certain results because they could lead to better health – that’s hard to quantify in the near term, so they really look at how many high-profile papers I publish. They like (positive) media attention as well.
I propose to study certain things, and if NIH thinks the topic is worthy they give me money. I can’t predict what the ultimate results will be after the work is done. If I don’t get the results they want, or can’t convince them that the results I did get are also interesting, ultimately they’ll cut my funding. I would never alter my data to get some preconceived result. The Data are the Data, and the Results are the Results. It’s my job to convince them that what I do find is interesting and worth spending taxpayer money on.
There are MANY research topics that I would love to investigate, but that NIH isn’t interested in in them, so they’ll never get done (at least not by me). Anyone who things industry manipulates what gets researched, but that the government doesn’t is naïve.
Meanwhile, Wayne Barrett vivisects Giuliani.
Giuliani is a sad case:
Daniel Larison lays the smack down on Giuliani’s exceptionalism…