The Obama Presidency - 2008 & 2012

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by panerd

It is totally a debate based solely on politics (mostly anti Al Gore) and religion and no reason whatsoever.

We'll just agree to disagree. I'm not here ultimately to debate the point. I was just noting in what is a political thread that the administration will get a lot more flack over any global warming legislation or agreements with other countries than they would have as little as one year ago.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by panerd

No doubt. I just have studied science my whole life and think the amount of reason used and the mythology used is enough for me to give them the benefit of the doubt over somebody that has "faith" in a 2000 year old book.

You're starting to sound like Rainmaker in this quote. The notion that most conservatives have blind faith in the Bible is highly outdated.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Looks the the entire White House press pool is refusing to do any interviews with any administration officials until the White House allows ALL press pool members to do the interviews. This move to blackball Fox News from press pool interviews stands in stark contrast to JPhillips assertion that the White House would not try to control the White House press pool.

White House's Fox News Boycott Attempt Prompts Network Revolt

[DaddyTorgo]

people don't believe in global warming?

wtf?

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Looks the the entire White House press pool is refusing to do any interviews with any administration officials until the White House allows ALL press pool members to do the interviews. This move to blackball Fox News from press pool interviews stands in stark contrast to JPhillips assertion that the White House would not try to control the White House press pool.

White House's Fox News Boycott Attempt Prompts Network Revolt

No, I merely pointed out that the first article you said showed the WH was blocking Fox didn't say that. The difference is that now you have some evidence.

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Looks the the entire White House press pool is refusing to do any interviews with any administration officials until the White House allows ALL press pool members to do the interviews. This move to blackball Fox News from press pool interviews stands in stark contrast to JPhillips assertion that the White House would not try to control the White House press pool.

White House's Fox News Boycott Attempt Prompts Network Revolt

good. So much for Liberal Media Bias.

All editorial and opinion shows should have a disclaimer when theyre aired on a News network.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

people don't believe in global warming?

What's that old saying? About how you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time?

Apparently not even Owl Gore is immune to that one.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

So much for Liberal Media Bias.

Unless they've figured out that having the administration officials for interviews isn't nearly as valuable to FXNC as having martyrdom handed to them with official status.

[miked]

To think that we are not having any effect on the environment as we pump shit in to the atmosphere and consume species until they are endangered is silly ignorance. It's just that these idiots let their personal feelings for the messenger get in the way, when in fact the messenger is just bringing data together from other respected sources.

Whether or not the Earth has "warmed" may be debatable, but the simple fact is we are probably not helping with all the pollution and waste dumping.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

people don't believe in global warming?

wtf?

No, lots of people don't believe it is manmade. There's a difference.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

The fact is that a large majority of scientists agree that man-made global warming is happening. Much like the argument against evolution, many try to muddy the waters and make it appear as if there is not nearly the consensus that there is. It's one thing to look at the scientific data and disagree, but all these amateur scientists that have convinced themselves they know better than those who study it for a living amuse me.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Ronnie Dobbs2

The fact is that a large majority of scientists agree that man-made global warming is happening. Much like the argument against evolution, many try to muddy the waters and make it appear as if there is not nearly the consensus that there is. It's one thing to look at the scientific data and disagree, but all these amateur scientists that have convinced themselves they know better than those who study it for a living amuse me.

There is also a ton of politically-driven "science" going on, there is a continued break-down in honest science being done across all disciplines, and there is a lot of science that points to natural factors having a pretty large impact.

But when it comes to the average person, the biggest factor affecting their opinion is that temperatures have been flat for most of this decade. And that's all they look at.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by miked

Whether or not the Earth has "warmed" may be debatable, but the simple fact is we are probably not helping with all the pollution and waste dumping.

And I agree with that 100% and I don't think anyone would say otherwise. I don't think there's any question that the pollution and waste dumping that occurs in many nations is a big issue. I would note that the U.S. is far more restrictive than most countries in that regard.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

No, lots of people don't believe it is manmade. There's a difference.

idiots

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

idiots

Are we stooping to namecalling already? You want to ignore the reems of evidence that show we are in a natural warming cycle and the effects the sun has had? But if you'd rather namecall, there is no point.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Looks the the entire White House press pool is refusing to do any interviews with any administration officials until the White House allows ALL press pool members to do the interviews. This move to blackball Fox News from press pool interviews stands in stark contrast to JPhillips assertion that the White House would not try to control the White House press pool.

White House's Fox News Boycott Attempt Prompts Network Revolt

Sounds like maybe this wasn't the case.

WH: We're Happy To Exclude Fox, But Didn't Yesterday With Feinberg Interview | TPMDC

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Are we stooping to namecalling already? You want to ignore the reems of evidence that show we are in a natural warming cycle and the effects the sun has had? But if you'd rather namecall, there is no point.

how do you feel about evolution?

there isn't any "reams of evidence" that you can provide by credible scientists that show that we are "in a natural warming cycle and the sun has had large effects on things." I'm not saying there's not reams of evidence, but I question the scientific credentials of those who are producing it.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Looks the the entire White House press pool is refusing to do any interviews with any administration officials until the White House allows ALL press pool members to do the interviews. This move to blackball Fox News from press pool interviews stands in stark contrast to JPhillips assertion that the White House would not try to control the White House press pool.

White House's Fox News Boycott Attempt Prompts Network Revolt

It's hard to believe, I know, but maybe there was less here than first reported. From Talking Points Memo:

dding to the Fox News v. White House feud today is a dust-up over an interview with pay czar Ken Feinberg. Turns out, it was a sort of miscommunication, but the White House adds that if they had left Fox out it would be a case of "Not that there's anything wrong with that!"

The version Fox has pushed all day is that the network was excluded from an interview roundtable with Feinberg yesterday, and that bureau chiefs from ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN came to Fox's defense.

TPMDC dug into it, and here's what happened.

Feinberg did a pen and pad with reporters to brief them on cutting executive compensation. TV correspondents, as they do with everything, asked to get the comments on camera. Treasury officials agreed and made a list of the networks who asked (Fox was not among them).

But logistically, all of the cameras could not get set up in time or with ease for the Feinberg interview, so they opted for a round robin where the networks use one pool camera. Treasury called the White House pool crew and gave them the list of the networks who'd asked for the interview.

The network pool crew noticed Fox wasn't on the list, was told that they hadn't asked and the crew said they needed to be included. Treasury called the White House and asked top Obama adviser Anita Dunn. Dunn said yes and Fox's Major Garrett was among the correspondents to interview Feinberg last night.

Simple as that, we're told, and the networks don't want to be seen as heroes for Fox.

TPMDC spoke with a network bureau chief this afternoon familiar with the situation who was surprised that Fox was portraying the news as networks coming to its rescue.

"If any member had been excluded it would have been same thing, it has nothing to do with Fox or the White House or the substance of the issues," the bureau chief said. "It's all for one and one for all."

A Treasury spokesperson added: "There was no plot to exclude Fox News, and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing."

But the White House isn't backing down from its feud with Fox.

"This White House has demonstrated our willingness to exclude Fox News from newsmaking interviews, but yesterday we did not," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

An administration source wondered if the networks were annoyed Fox disclosed logistical negotiations since they are treated as off the record, but the bureau chief did not view this in the same light as discussions about, for example, the president going to Iraq.

As for the ongoing battle, Earnest said: "The president and other high ranking officials and people like Ken Feinberg have done interviews with Fox in the past and will do them in the future."

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

how do you feel about evolution?

The current trend of rediculing to produce obedience isn't the proper way to produce scientific consensus.

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Dutch

The current trend of rediculing to produce obedience isn't the proper way to produce scientific consensus.

Have to disagree. A lot of people are acting "shocked" like they don't know that a large portion of the people who don't believe that global warming is human caused are the same people who believe literally in the Bible and evolution. Sorry but somebody who believes the Bible literally is an idiot. (Notice I didn't question faith, I questioned the 6000 year Earth crowd)

So somebody who can't figure out that we never coexisted with dinosaurs questioning the effects of greenhouse gases is like somebody coming up to me and saying they don't really believe that 1+1=2 and for me to please listen to their problems with the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. They deserved to be ridiculed.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by panerd

Have to disagree. A lot of people are acting "shocked" like they don't know that a large portion of the people who don't believe that global warming is human caused are the same people who believe literally in the Bible and evolution. Sorry but somebody who believes the Bible literally is an idiot. (Notice I didn't question faith, I questioned the 6000 year Earth crowd)

So somebody who can't figure out that we never coexisted with dinosaurs questioning the effects of greenhouse gases is like somebody coming up to me and saying they don't really believe that 1+1=2 and for me to please listen to their problems with the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. They deserved to be ridiculed.

Overgeneralization on a scale not even reached by Rainmaker at any point in time. That's simply not true.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by panerd

Have to disagree.

Yeah, fuck science. Mob rule ftw.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

It's hard to believe, I know, but maybe there was less here than first reported. From Talking Points Memo:

Or maybe there was plenty, but the administration realizes they're acting like immature adolescents at this point and is trying to find a way to backtrack.

Fox News Refutes Reports That 'Pay Czar' Interview Never Was Requested - Political News - FOXNews.com

FWIW........the call for the Obama administration to back off was universal on the Sunday morning shows on the major networks. They'd be best served to back off at this point.

[DaddyTorgo]

lol - isn't it likely that the truth is (as always) somewhere in the middle? maybe they requested the interview but their request got lost or something

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Dutch

Yeah, fuck science. Mob rule ftw.

I have no idea what this means? My thoughts go anywhere from you agreeing with me 100% to you mocking me. Not that worried about it but your response doesn't really make much sense.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

lol - isn't it likely that the truth is (as always) somewhere in the middle? maybe they requested the interview but their request got lost or something

Can't you read? Fox News says Fox News was treated unfairly.

From today's TPM:

After TPMDC posted Friday about the latest in the Fox News v. White House saga related to an interview with Ken Feinberg, a Fox executive stood firm to say the White House had excluded the network.

Several readers brought a Huffington Post story to our attention this weekend. They have an interview with Fox VP Michael Clemente where he claims White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs apologized for the situation.

I spoke to a Fox media relations aide this morning with another interview request for Clemente or the D.C. bureau chief. The aide referred us to this story in Mediaite, which also features Clemente saying Gibbs apologized. The aide would not make him available for an interview.

I circled back again, and a White House official was adamant that Gibbs did not apologize. The official insists that doesn't make any sense, since Fox got the interview and there would be no need for an apology.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

lol - isn't it likely that the truth is (as always) somewhere in the middle? maybe they requested the interview but their request got lost or something

Yeah, maybe we could all just make up what we think happened rather than actually looking to find out what actually did happen! Sounds like a fun game!

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Interesting discussion about the discontent of the independent voters. They mainly discuss how the Democrats have lost a good portion of the independents that backed them during the 2008 election. I'm sure there are also some that have left the Republicans as well, but it obviously is to a lesser degree since many of the independents swayed Democrat in the last election, so their move away from the party is much more noticable.

RealClearPolitics - Irate and Independent

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Yeah, maybe we could all just make up what we think happened rather than actually looking to find out what actually did happen! Sounds like a fun game!

how many times have you done the exact same thing and then never admitted the error when factually proven wrong? I mean you did it in the Iran thread when we were all on the same side.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Interesting discussion about the discontent of the independent voters. They mainly discuss how the Democrats have lost a good portion of the independents that backed them during the 2008 election. I'm sure there are also some that have left the Republicans as well, but it obviously is to a lesser degree since many of the independents swayed Democrat in the last election, so their move away from the party is much more noticable.

RealClearPolitics - Irate and Independent

I'm not sure the Dems have lost more. One of the misperceptions among the media is that independents are in the middle. The race for NY-23 where the Conservative Party candidate and the moderate GOP candidate are splitting the votes and endorsements of traditional Republican voters is a good example.

I'm not sure how to go about getting the data, but I'd love independents to get broken down so they aren't considered one ideology.

edit: Not really a discussion at RCP, but an editorial from a writer for one of America's most right wing newspapers.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

This is the flip side of the Fox News debate. A Democratic rep decided to be a funny guy on a Fox News interview. Rather than let his somewhat awkward statement stand as is, the Fox News interviewer got defensive and fired back. Had he not got defensive, no big deal. But IMO, the interviewer comes off looking bad along with the rep. He should have just thanked the guests and left it at that to keep it civil. Instead, both of them look pretty juvenile with their final exchange.

Fox News Anchor Yells At Democrat After "Fair & Balanced" Remark (VIDEO)

[Flasch186]

please, they both came off looking fine IMO.

[DaddyTorgo]

i for one applaud MBBF for his attempts at being more fair and balanced himself Flasch.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

please, they both came off looking fine IMO.

I guess I expect more of a State rep and the host of a national news show. The back and forth at the end sounded like a 6th grade schoolyard discussion than two grown men. Perhaps I'm asking too much.

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

i for one applaud MBBF for his attempts at being more fair and balanced himself Flasch.

What do you mean? I think they both looked fine. The Congressman took a swipe and the talking head simply said I wont stand for it. If anything I think the talking head looked better than the congressman but not by much. I actually dont think either of them did anything really outlandish in the clip I saw. {yawn}

[DaddyTorgo]

Since this seems to be the catchall political thread - how ironic is it that John McCain (who has widely professed to being technologically illiterate), who is also the biggest recipient of campaign contributions from telecom companies, has introduced this bill against net neutrality?

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

Since this seems to be the catchall political thread - how ironic is it that John McCain (who has widely professed to being technologically illiterate), who is also the biggest recipient of campaign contributions from telecom companies, has introduced this bill against net neutrality?

McCain used to be friends with Alexander Graham Bell. Seems like a perfect fit to me.

[lungs]

OMG Obama has played as much golf as Bush did in 2 years 10 months!

Do they consider that maybe, just maybe, Obama likes to golf more than GW?

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by lungs

Do they consider that maybe, just maybe, Obama likes to golf more than GW?

A president's use of some free time or his vacation has to be the most overscrutinized thing ever. The president has a 24/7 job. They're basically on-call at all times even when they're vacationing somewhere else. Looking at the before/after pictures of presidents tell you all you need to know about the stress involved in the job.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

This Gallup study that was just released confirms much of what I was saying regarding an earlier poll that said that only 20% of the population identify themselves as Republican. While many are turning away from the social stances of the Republican Party, there still remains a strong segment of the population (40%) that holds to conservative ideology. Liberal ideology is a distant 3rd.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/123854/Co...cal-Group.aspx

[Flasch186]

and then something comes out that flies in the face of MBBF but Im sure he'll find a way of invalidating it. Oh to live in a world where the only "truth" is that which supports your stance to begin with.

AP IMPACT: Statisticians reject global cooling - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON – Have you heard that the world is now cooling instead of warming? You may have seen some news reports on the Internet or heard about it from a provocative new book. Only one problem: It's not true, according to an analysis of the numbers done by several independent statisticians for The Associated Press.

The case that the Earth might be cooling partly stems from recent weather. Last year was cooler than previous years. It's been a while since the super-hot years of 1998 and 2005. So is this a longer climate trend or just weather's normal ups and downs?

In a blind test, the AP gave temperature data to four independent statisticians and asked them to look for trends, without telling them what the numbers represented. The experts found no true temperature declines over time.

"If you look at the data and sort of cherry-pick a micro-trend within a bigger trend, that technique is particularly suspect," said John Grego, a professor of statistics at the University of South Carolina.

Yet the idea that things are cooling has been repeated in opinion columns, a BBC news story posted on the Drudge Report and in a new book by the authors of the best-seller "Freakonomics." Last week, a poll by the Pew Research Center found that only 57 percent of Americans now believe there is strong scientific evidence for global warming, down from 77 percent in 2006.

Global warming skeptics base their claims on an unusually hot year in 1998. Since then, they say, temperatures have dropped — thus, a cooling trend. But it's not that simple.

Since 1998, temperatures have dipped, soared, fallen again and are now rising once more. Records kept by the British meteorological office and satellite data used by climate skeptics still show 1998 as the hottest year. However, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA show 2005 has topped 1998. Published peer-reviewed scientific research generally cites temperatures measured by ground sensors, which are from NOAA, NASA and the British, more than the satellite data.

The recent Internet chatter about cooling led NOAA's climate data center to re-examine its temperature data. It found no cooling trend.

"The last 10 years are the warmest 10-year period of the modern record," said NOAA climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt. "Even if you analyze the trend during that 10 years, the trend is actually positive, which means warming."

The AP sent expert statisticians NOAA's year-to-year ground temperature changes over 130 years and the 30 years of satellite-measured temperatures preferred by skeptics and gathered by scientists at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Statisticians who analyzed the data found a distinct decades-long upward trend in the numbers, but could not find a significant drop in the past 10 years in either data set. The ups and downs during the last decade repeat random variability in data as far back as 1880.

Saying there's a downward trend since 1998 is not scientifically legitimate, said David Peterson, a retired Duke University statistics professor and one of those analyzing the numbers.

Identifying a downward trend is a case of "people coming at the data with preconceived notions," said Peterson, author of the book "Why Did They Do That? An Introduction to Forensic Decision Analysis."

One prominent skeptic said that to find the cooling trend, the 30 years of satellite temperatures must be used. The satellite data tends to be cooler than the ground data. And key is making sure 1998 is part of the trend, he added.

It's what happens within the past 10 years or so, not the overall average, that counts, contends Don Easterbrook, a Western Washington University geology professor and global warming skeptic.

"I don't argue with you that the 10-year average for the past 10 years is higher than the previous 10 years," said Easterbrook, who has self-published some of his research. "We started the cooling trend after 1998. You're going to get a different line depending on which year you choose.

"Should not the actual temperature be higher now than it was in 1998?" Easterbrook asked. "We can play the numbers games."

That's the problem, some of the statisticians said.

Grego produced three charts to show how choosing a starting date can alter perceptions. Using the skeptics' satellite data beginning in 1998, there is a "mild downward trend," he said. But doing that is "deceptive."

The trend disappears if the analysis starts in 1997. And it trends upward if you begin in 1999, he said.

Apart from the conflicting data analyses is the eyebrow-raising new book title from Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, "Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance."

A line in the book says: "Then there's this little-discussed fact about global warming: While the drumbeat of doom has grown louder over the past several years, the average global temperature during that time has in fact decreased."

That led to a sharp rebuke from the Union of Concerned Scientists, which said the book mischaracterizes climate science with "distorted statistics."

Levitt, a University of Chicago economist, said he does not believe there is a cooling trend. He said the line was just an attempt to note the irony of a cool couple of years at a time of intense discussion of global warming. Levitt said he did not do any statistical analysis of temperatures, but "eyeballed" the numbers and noticed 2005 was hotter than the last couple of years. Levitt said the "cooling" reference in the book title refers more to ideas about trying to cool the Earth artificially.

Statisticians say that in sizing up climate change, it's important to look at moving averages of about 10 years. They compare the average of 1999-2008 to the average of 2000-2009. In all data sets, 10-year moving averages have been higher in the last five years than in any previous years.

"To talk about global cooling at the end of the hottest decade the planet has experienced in many thousands of years is ridiculous," said Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford.

Ben Santer, a climate scientist at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Lab, called it "a concerted strategy to obfuscate and generate confusion in the minds of the public and policymakers" ahead of international climate talks in December in Copenhagen.

President Barack Obama weighed in on the topic Friday at MIT. He said some opponents "make cynical claims that contradict the overwhelming scientific evidence when it comes to climate change — claims whose only purpose is to defeat or delay the change that we know is necessary."

Earlier this year, climate scientists in two peer-reviewed publications statistically analyzed recent years' temperatures against claims of cooling and found them not valid.

Not all skeptical scientists make the flat-out cooling argument.

"It pretty much depends on when you start," wrote John Christy, the Alabama atmospheric scientist who collects the satellite data that skeptics use. He said in an e-mail that looking back 31 years, temperatures have gone up nearly three-quarters of a degree Fahrenheit (four-tenths of a degree Celsius). The last dozen years have been flat, and temperatures over the last eight years have declined a bit, he wrote.

Oceans, which take longer to heat up and longer to cool, greatly influence short-term weather, causing temperatures to rise and fall temporarily on top of the overall steady warming trend, scientists say. The biggest example of that is El Nino.

El Nino, a temporary warming of part of the Pacific Ocean, usually spikes global temperatures, scientists say. The two recent warm years, both 1998 and 2005, were El Nino years. The flip side of El Nino is La Nina, which lowers temperatures. A La Nina bloomed last year and temperatures slipped a bit, but 2008 was still the ninth hottest in 130 years of NOAA records.

Of the 10 hottest years recorded by NOAA, eight have occurred since 2000, and after this year it will be nine because this year is on track to be the sixth-warmest on record.

The current El Nino is forecast to get stronger, probably pushing global temperatures even higher next year, scientists say. NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt predicts 2010 may break a record, so a cooling trend "will be never talked about again."

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

and then something comes out that flies in the face of MBBF but Im sure he'll find a way of invalidating it. Oh to live in a world where the only "truth" is that which supports your stance to begin with.

AP IMPACT: Statisticians reject global cooling - Yahoo! News

Ummmmm, why does that fly in the face of what I've said? They've noted a trend, but there's no research here to actually understand why the trend occurred or whether it's a man-made phenomenon.

In your rush to villanize me rather than address the specific points that were made in my posts, you've provided an article that doesn't address any of the points that I made. I never disagreed with the point that there is a short-term (i.e. roughly 100 years) increase in global temperature. I disagreed with the conclusion that it was a man-made increase in temperature.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

This Gallup study that was just released confirms much of what I was saying regarding an earlier poll that said that only 20% of the population identify themselves as Republican. While many are turning away from the social stances of the Republican Party, there still remains a strong segment of the population (40%) that holds to conservative ideology. Liberal ideology is a distant 3rd.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/123854/Co...cal-Group.aspx

It's amazing that those numbers have remained within the margin of error over almost twenty years.

I will take exception to your analysis of the numbers, however. Nowhere can I find data that says conservatives are rejecting the social agenda. In fact the three items they pull out that can be loosely seen as social issues shows growing support.

#
The percentage of Americans favoring a decrease in immigration rose from 39% in June/July 2008 to 50% in July 2009.
#
The propensity to want the government to "promote traditional values" -- as opposed to "not favor any particular set of values" -- rose from 48% in 2008 to 53% in 2009. Current support for promoting traditional values is the highest seen in five years.
#
The percentage of Americans who consider themselves "pro-life" on abortion rose from 44% in May 2008 to 51% in May 2009, and remained at a slightly elevated 47% in July 2009.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

It's amazing that those numbers have remained within the margin of error over almost twenty years.

I will take exception to your analysis of the numbers, however. Nowhere can I find data that says conservatives are rejecting the social agenda. In fact the three items they pull out that can be loosely seen as social issues shows growing support.

Fair enough. I can see your point there.

[ISiddiqui]

Maurice Greenberg Is Busy Building His ‘A.I.G. 2,’ C. V. Starr - NYTimes.com

Maurice R. Greenberg, who built the American International Group into an insurance behemoth with an impenetrable maze of on- and offshore companies, is at it again.

Even as he has been lambasting the government for its handling of A.I.G. after its near collapse, Mr. Greenberg has been quietly building up a family of insurance companies that could compete with A.I.G. To fill the ranks of his venture, C.V. Starr & Company, he has been hiring some people he once employed.

Now, Mr. Greenberg may have received some unintended assistance from the United States Treasury. Just last week, the Treasury severely limited pay at A.I.G. and other companies that were bailed out by taxpayers. That may hasten the exodus of A.I.G.’s talent, sending more refugees into Mr. Greenberg’s arms, since C. V. Starr is free to pay whatever it wants.

People who work in the industry say that if he is already luring A.I.G.’s people, he may soon be siphoning off its business and, therefore, its means to repay its debt to the government.

But executive pay caps for bailed out firms are a good thing, right!!

[Flasch186]

If a firm has taken bailout money than until they pay it back than they need to be more regulated than those firms that didnt need the bailout.

[ISiddiqui]

The law of unintended consequences... you limit executive pay, then those executives who could turn the company around leave for companies that will pay them the market rate.

[JPhillips]

I'm not sure it's a negative to lose a lot of executives who got AIG into the shithole in the first place.

[ISiddiqui]

Not all the execs were bad. And what about attracting other executives?

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Not all the execs were bad. And what about attracting other executives?

In this particular case I don't think we'll ever see much of the AIG money returned, so I'm not all that concerned about their staffing.

Moving forward I'd like to see a regulatory structure in place to either efficiently deal with these large institutions when they fail or break them into pieces that can't get too big to fail. Neither option, I expect, will make it through congress.