Your argument would be a lot more persuasive if Congressional Democrats weren't voting in favor of Constitutional violations like warrentless wiretapping and RNC distractions like the MoveOn censure.

Whenever some American gets all venomous about Ahmadinajad, that American is demonstrating a quality I'll call "toolishness."

The Iranian president speaks in Farsi, what he has actually said is translated. I bet no more then 0.01% of Americans with strong opinions about Ahmadinajad have bothered to read the translations. The strong opinions come from MSM spin, and

the MSM owners must be quite happy to have such influence over the indignation of so many Americans.

It's funny that people who would proudly consider themselves independent-minded would display such toolishness as to rant about a man who's real words and real actions are virtually unknown to them.

Could you code up Groenhagen filter? Or perhaps a filter for any gasbag who posts more then 1/2 of all the letters to an article?

At the very least, put the writer name at the top of the letter text rather then the bottom, so we won't have to read the first few words to figure out who it is.

There are worthwhile letters buried in the noise of "sez you!."

It can't be that hard to do, and this long time subscriber would really, really appreciate it.

Especially with these long threads on hot-button issues that bring out the rightwing moonbats like Groenhagen.

"Used, despite the fact that it makes absolutely no sense, because they could not come up with a word or phrase as appropriately descriptive as "wingnut."

Which is why I always use it against wingnuts. I won't let them confiscate a perfectly good insult.

Try it: you right-wing moonbat!

"but...that's supposed to mean 'liberals'!! waaaah!

Also, it helps to insult a wingnut en-passant, without directly addressing them. Don't feed the trolls.

Now if they actually show some sign of being willing to engage in real discourse, well, that's not the case with the one who's name need not be repeated, because I'm sick of seeing it, and I'm sure anyone reading this far is too.

I have huge respect for physicists over the "mushy sciences," as Robert Heinlein would say. But the ones who are the best thinkers are those who've broken new ground and who are forced to think very hard about reality to make any progress. Dyson's work seems to be mostly mathematical ruminations, like unification of mathematically equivalent representations ( similar to the unification of the Shroedenger's quantum differential equation with the matrix interpretation. was that Dirac? I forget. )

But he's right in that we can't predict the future, and most dire predictions turn out to be a wash.

His daughter, Bill Gate's favorite futurist, is one of the more puddin-headed big thinkers I've ever read, so perhaps Freeman is the same way.

Brilliant people can be puddin-headed. I knew several people in school who could manage difficult mathematics, but who would theorize in a promiscuously associative orgy of illogical ideas.

I hope Dr. Dyson is 100% correct, but the strength and scope of the global warming evidence says he's probably wrong, quite wrong.

"Grubert, Physics is mostly maths -- and Dyson is right about all the BS philosophizing that surrounds quantum mechanics, it is mostly ruminations from those who do not understand it, of that it is just a mathematical representation -- and it bores the lving shit out of most physicists (though these days I'm a lawyer.)"

You're right that physics is very mathematical, I took the physics undergrad route and still keep up to date on the field.

But physics isn't about math, the math must be verified by reality. Dyson is not a typical first-rate physicist, I'm not even sure he would be considered first-rate.

I disagree that quantum philosophy bores physicists at all. The real nature of the world is the question that drives fundamental research. Physics used to be called "natural philosophy," and current practitioners still philosophize freely. And the leading philosophies of quantum physics are not "BS." They may be viewed as naive in the future, but they're all perfectly good attempts at making some sense of an apparently contradictory reality.

I'm certainly not a "we must all wear sackcloth" anti-technologist, but Dyson's hand-waving invocation of unspecified technological miracle cures isn't the mark of a real thinker, it's emotionally driven denial of a real problem.

( personally, my dream/hope is cheap fusion power applied to environmental cleanup and carbon sequestration. )

"a lot of say quantum mechanics couldn’t be verified for a very long time – indeed some of it seem to contradict reality when first hypothesised – "

Quantum mechanics was the theory that explained well-verified experimental evidence. It was the results that apparently contradicted reality, the theory was developed to describe the results.

Scientists had a hard time accepting the theory because they had a hard time accepting the results, not the other way around.

Not to be snarky, but I can certainly agree that Dyson is a "fist rate" physicist while remaining uncertain as to his real reputation in the world of physics.

"nd observationally even say a ptolomaeic view of the cosmos was more consistent with observed reality than the Copernicus model, until opotics and measurement technology caught up."

The Ptolemaic system had been modified many times because existing observations of planetary positions with existing technology fell out of sync with earlier models. More circles were added to the model until the complexity became a bit hard to accept.

Not arguing with your overall point though; chicken-or-egg is always a valid perspective for any causal question.

It's about time the Religious Right acted according to it's shrill principles.

I've thought for years that this unholy coalition was ripe for a split, if only the Democrats had the smarts and moxie to do it. It's a pity we had to wait for a Republican candidate so "morally unacceptable" to initiate the fracture.

Not that Dubya doesn't share a good deal of the credit too.