Perry: Government you can TRUST.

[Kai]

My dad used to say, "The entire field of biology, with all it's advancements, discoveries, and innovations, is ultimately based on evolution.  There is no meaningful argument against evolutionary theory."

I dunno if that's precisely true (paging Kai), but it makes a lot of sense.  Science is connected.  If you deny evolution, you have to re-explain everything that's been built off of it.

It is. Frankly, there wasn't biology before 1859. Once we knew that species changed over time, and that the mechanism was natural selection, life started to make sense. After the Mendelian and molecular revolutions, it /really/ started to make sense, because then we not only knew how changes occurred, but where inherited variation originated (i.e. DNA).

The great geneticist Theodosius Dobzansky said, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution", and he was a theist. It's basically like claiming geocentrism is the best supported cosmological model. It's /way/ out there. Any biologist who doesn't accept it...wait, lets put it this way. A person who doesn't accept decent with modification cannot be a biologist in any real sense of the word. It's that essential.

This is why the difference between creationism and intelligent design matters.

Intelligent design includes descent with modification.  Creationism does not.

Oh FUCKING JESUS CHRIST, BABYLHORV.

I am not going to waste my time digging up all kinds of notes on Intelligent Design Creationism just being the next iteration of anti-evolutionary dogma, so I will instead just link to PZ Myers (because if he's good for anything, it's clarifying the history of religious movements encroaching onto science). http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/09/creationism_evolves_by_jerks.php

[Epimetheus]

Yeah, I think any denial that it can all occur naturally is the same horrid stupidity.

[Kai]

Precisely.  The author I quoted makes exactly the same point.  Yes, a theory should not include unnecessary information....but when you're dealing with groups of people, the pool of relevant information is going to be a lot larger.  Off the top of my head, sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, behavioural economics, sociology, social psychology, history, the sociology of religion, political philosophy and strategic cultures would be a starting point for understanding in IR, and likely economics as well.

There is actually a branch of IR which deals with this multi-level approach quite well.  Conflict studies, at least as I was led to understand it, works at the individual level (psychology, ideology), the social level (culture, socio-economics) and the national/international level to fully understand any given conflict situation.  However, they're generally more taken with the critical (quasi-Marxist) or postmodernist approaches, due to the same perception of science = abstract parsimony a la Kenneth Waltz.

So, what is the best starting point? Obviously economic/social systems are high enough complexity of factors that we can't completely isolate any one, but trying to take them all at once is an impossibility of scale. Which one would you work at, to take a bite out of the whale (if you will) in an attempt to understand the whole? Or would you just suggest conflict studies without the marxist or postmodern assumptions?

[Cain]

Most of my notes concerning such things are on my Kindle.  Mostly, my experience of conflict studies comes from its utility in the "roots debate" in terrorism ie; what are the causes of terrorism and what is the definition of terrorism.  It basically takes a multi-level approach, showing what factors should be considered in the analysis of conflict.

These levels are:

Structural: the global economy, territorial disputes, nature of the international system, colonialism

Culture: history and memory (what stories do people tell about themselves, and why), identity, sub-cultures of violence

Socialisation: socio-economic opportunities (or lack thereof), social/political/religious trends, institutionalised discrimination/inequality, protracted conflict, modernisation and urbanisation, social construction of reality, internal group dynamics,

Psychological level: social construction of reality, a cause or ideology, identity

This isn't an exhaustive list, of course, (for some reason I have a lot of notes on the "displacement theory" of violence) but it gives you the idea, the outline of a toolkit for examining one facet of political behaviour.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Ron Paul just kicked Perry in the balls...

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20102135-503544.html

Shit's gonna get nasty.

That ad was like something one of you asshats would cook up...

[Luna]

Aaah, Rick, Rick...

"Smaller government!  Smaller government!"

"Hey, I know how to cut government spending!  Let's cut fire department spending by 75%!  That's a GREAT idea!"

"Oh, fuck.  Wildfires.  People are PISSED.  Obama, HELP!!!"

http://firedoglake.com/2011/09/07/after-rick-perry-cut-fire-department-funding-by-75-texas-ravaged-by-wildfires/

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Aaah, Rick, Rick...

"Smaller government!  Smaller government!"

"Hey, I know how to cut government spending!  Let's cut fire department spending by 75%!  That's a GREAT idea!"

"Oh, fuck.  Wildfires.  People are PISSED.  Obama, HELP!!!"

http://firedoglake.com/2011/09/07/after-rick-perry-cut-fire-department-funding-by-75-texas-ravaged-by-wildfires/

but the  part is these fucktards don't give a fuck. They'll probably say Glod did it.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Aaah, Rick, Rick...

"Smaller government!  Smaller government!"

"Hey, I know how to cut government spending!  Let's cut fire department spending by 75%!  That's a GREAT idea!"

"Oh, fuck.  Wildfires.  People are PISSED.  Obama, HELP!!!"

http://firedoglake.com/2011/09/07/after-rick-perry-cut-fire-department-funding-by-75-texas-ravaged-by-wildfires/

Your wildfires bring all my boys to the yard,
And their funding,
It's better than yours,
Damn right it's better than yours,
I can teach you,
But I have to charge.
   \

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

 

from Texas, no less.

[Luna]

 

You notice how earthquakes and hurricanes are God expressing his fury... but wildfires that leave thousands homeless aren't?

[Phox]

You notice how earthquakes and hurricanes are God expressing his fury... but wildfires that leave thousands homeless aren't?

That's because hurricanes and earthquakes only happen to you sinful Yankees and smudgy people.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

BUT THA LORD PROMISED THAT HE WOULDN'T FLUD THE EARTH ANYMORE HE'S GONNA USE FAR THIS TIME! ENDTIMESENDTIMESENDTIMES....

[Phox]

BUT THA LORD PROMISED THAT HE WOULDN'T FLUD THE EARTH ANYMORE HE'S GONNA USE FAR THIS TIME! ENDTIMESENDTIMESENDTIMES....

Yes, and when the sinful Yankees start burning along with the faithful in Texas (okay, so the sodomites in California burn too, but that's only because they were flaming to begin with...), THEN it will be the end times. For now, though it's just a horrible, horrible tragedy. 

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

BUT THA LORD PROMISED THAT HE WOULDN'T FLUD THE EARTH ANYMORE HE'S GONNA USE FAR THIS TIME! ENDTIMESENDTIMESENDTIMES....

Yes, and when the sinful Yankees start burning along with the faithful in Texas (okay, so the sodomites in California burn too, but that's only because they were flaming to begin with...), THEN it will be the end times. For now, though it's just a horrible, horrible tragedy. 

To the best of my knowledge, the Montrose isn't burning. You may be on to something. 

[Luna]

http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/152316/how_rick_perry_has_been_on_the_public_dole_his_whole_life/

Interestingly, even his tea-partyish hatred -- nay, loathing! -- of big government's intrusion into the lives of ordinary citizens turns out to be just another Perry Tale. In fact, there would be no Rick Perry without the steady "intrusion" of government into his life.



Local taxpayers in Haskell County put him through their public school system -- for free. He and his family were dry-land cotton farmers, and federal taxpayers helped support them with thousands of dollars in crop subsidies -- Perry personally took $80,000 in farm payments.



State and federal taxpayers financed his college education at Texas A&M, even giving him the extracurricular opportunity to be a cheerleader. Upon graduation, he spent four years on the federal payroll as an Air Force transport pilot who never did any combat duty.



Then, in 1984, Perry hit the mother lode of government pay by moving into elected office -- squatting there for 27 years and counting. In addition to getting regular paychecks from taxpayers for nearly three decades as a state representative, agriculture commissioner, lieutenant governor and governor, he also receives platinum-level health care coverage and a generous pension from the state, plus $10,000 a month for renting a luxury suburban home, a covey of political and personal aides and even a publicly paid subscription to Food & Wine magazine.