Letters to the Editor
-
Re the Possibility of NH Election Fraud
I hope the laudable desire of many readers of GG's blog to pillory the antics of the corporate media's clownocracy will not create psychological resistance to considering the evidence for electoral fraud in New Hampshire.
Anyone who's not familiar with the compelling evidence of such fraud in Ohio in 2004 will do well to research the question, however cursorily, before succumbing to the temptation to ignore the evidence regarding such fraud in New Hampshire.
There's no legitimate justification for ignoring the evidence afforded by pre-election and exit polls in New Hampshire, let alone more direct evidence of election fraud there.
There's no significant tension in my mind between calling out the clowns regarding their adolescent-revenge reporting on HRC and the very real possibility of electoral fraud in NH.
I hope there isn't any in the minds of the readers here, even in those of HRC supporters, especially in view of any such tension's potential for blinding one to the serious possibility and implications of such fraud.
KR
-
@ Bystander
Au contraire.
Indeed it does stink!
Remember this guy?
Connections was a ten-episode documentary television series created and narrated by science historian James Burke. The series was produced and directed by Mick Jackson of the BBC Science & Features Department and first aired in 1978. It took an interdisciplinary approach to the history of science and invention and demonstrates how various discoveries, scientific achievements, and historical world events built off one another in an interconnected way to bring about particular aspects of modern technology...
Connections explores an "Alternative View of Change" (the subtitle of the series) that rejects the conventional linear and teleological view of historical progress. Burke contends that one cannot consider the development of any particular piece of the modern world in isolation. Rather, the entire gestalt of the modern world is the result of a web of interconnected events, each one consisting of a person or group acting in rational self-interest with no concept of the final, modern result of what either their or their contemporaries' actions finally lead to. The interplay of the results of these isolated events is what drives history and innovation, and is also the main focus of the series and its sequels.
To demonstrate this view, Burke begins each episode with a particular event or innovation in the past (usually Ancient or Medieval times) and traces the path from that event through a series of seemingly unrelated connections to a fundamental and essential aspect of the modern world. For example, the program traces the invention of plastics from the development of the fluyt, a type of Dutch cargo ship.
Burke also explores three corollaries to his initial thesis. The first is that, if history is driven by individuals who act only on what they know at the time and not because of any idea as to where their actions will eventually lead, then predicting the future course of technological progress is futile conjecture. If we are astonished by the connections Burke is able to weave among past events, then we will be equally surprised by what the events of today eventually lead to, especially events we weren't even aware of at the time.
The second and third corollaries are explored most in the introductory and concluding episodes, and they represent the downside of an interconnected history. If history progresses because of the synergistic interaction of past events and innovations, then as history does progress, the number of these events and innovations increases. This increase in possible connections causes the process of innovation to not only continue, but to accelerate. Burke poses the question of what happens when this rate of innovation, or more importantly change itself, becomes too much for the average person to handle and what this means for individual power, liberty, and privacy.
Lastly, if the entire modern world is built from these interconnected innovations, all increasingly maintained and improved by specialists who required years of training to gain their expertise, what chance does the average citizen without this extensive training have in making an informed decision on practical technological issues, such as the building of nuclear power plants or the funding of controversial projects such as stem cell research? Furthermore, if the modern world is increasingly interconnected, what happens when one of those nodes collapses? Does the entire system follow suit?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series)
I love that show. Weapons research can lead to discoveries that save lives and research designed to save lives can lead to some of the most horrible battlefield atrocities imaginable. Mustard gas was a result of early cancer research and development of anti-carcinogens. We don't even use Mustard gas today it is so horrible. Rail guns are just a weps app of high speed transit systems.
-
@ R.P.
I remember -- fondly -- when railguns were supposed to help us mine the moon inexpensively so that orbitals at the L-4 and L-5 libration points could serve us as a last-resort escape from the Pauliacs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Frontier:_Human_Colonies_in_Space
http://motley-focus.com/atavist.html
Give peace a chance.
-
@ondelette
When are you going to stop destroying our dreams with facts, logic and scientific reasoning? Never I hope.
-
My Bad, I had it bass ackwards
It only strengthens my point.
Mustard Gas led to the first chemo. I knew that.
Modern-day chemotherapy has its origins on the battlefields of the First World War. Military doctors noticed that soldiers exposed to mustard gas, a chemical warfare agent, died because their bone marrow was destroyed (a condition called 'bone marrow aplasia'). Doctors began to investigate why this might have happened, and in 1942, 'nitrogen mustard' was used in a hospital in the US to treat lymphoma patients, albeit with limited success...
http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerandresearch/learnaboutcancer/treatment/chemotherapy/
-
Ondelette and branding
Maybe if the media was known to spend hours of time analyzing and vetting campaign platforms and positions, the candidates would rise to the challenge and spend time honing these, instead of branding themselves.
"Branding" is the perfect word to use here, yet for some reason you and some others are struggling mightily against the implications of it. Human beings are rational only up to a certain point. After that, they rely on instinct and intuition for a great deal of their behavior.
Primaries are not won or lost on subtle differentiations of what can be promised. Or even middling ones for that matter... how many expect candidates to even come close to fulfilling promises after the vote? Platforms are only window dressing. They are part of the branding experience.
I can understand that a scientist prefers not to see momentous decisions made on a whim but essentially that's the basis for most of the advertising industry. An industry that is inextricably part of politics. It is just not possible to take emotion out of politics, or for that matter, good television. Which is what the news has become.
To make a small leap, what the left has asked for is what they got, when trying to whip up emotional opposition to Bush and the war. The loudest, most controversial, most emotional messages were the ones that cut through the clutter and appealed to the most people. As it has always been throughout time.
Trying to turn the entire process around on a dime, into staid sober analysis of minute detail, just isn't going to happen. Demanding that the news industry be opiniated, challenging, and biased one day - then abstract, dispassionate, and analytical the next is absurd. They aren't here to serve you today and someone else tomorrow.