As for the article itself, I have no axes to grind either way and my main feeling on reading it was that McCain was just being measured against the personal views of the author. When they agreed (nuclear) McCain was good. When they disagreed, McCain was bad. Both of them left the facts feeling a little bruised…

I see this as laziness, or fear of those ‘newfangled’ computers, or at least a lame excuse not to enter this century.

and shame on you for not bothering to fix the error. or is it more important to seem learned than to be learned?

The actual quotation is:

“We must bring private corporations more directly into the process”

He actually doesn’t specify which corporations he’s talking about. Nothing he says excludes the corporations that are running private schools. Nor does he actually specify what “process” he’s talking about. We perhaps can assume that he’s talking about public school education as being the “process” but it’s not clearly stated. It all depends on which corporations he’s talking about. He’s unclear on that point and I suspect deliberately so.

http://ncea.org/news/SATScores2008.asp

2008 SAT results

Reading:
public schools — 467
religious schools – 532
independent schools – 550

Math:
public schools — 510
relgious schools — 531
independent schools — 574

Writing:
public schools — 488
religious schools — 529
independent schools — 553

Yes, I must now admit that independent schools run by those nasty, immoral corporations have been a complete disaster for education. That’s why their average SAT scores are 83, 64, and 65 points higher than for public schools in reading, math, and writing, respectively.

Hmmm, apparently the BA has never heard of private schools before.

http://www.capenet.org/facts.html

There are 29,000 private K-12 schools in the USA representing 23 percent of all schools. 6.1 million students attend these schools representing 11 percent of all students. Who is running these schools if not corporations? Apparently the parents who are sending their kids to these schools thought that they shouldn’t leave something as critical as their kid’s education to the government (which has been doing a poor job of it).

I know, that’s insane, isn’t it.

McCain still DOES support embryonic stem cell research, which is a step forward for the GOP. Most GOPs want to ban embryonic stem cell research completely, so McCain’s stance is a step forward in that direction. However, heavily regulating it is also not a very good idea either.

Embryonic moral qualms? It depends on your definition of a life – and there really isn’t a right or wrong answer with this. You can’t mock someone for their beliefs, although discarded human embryos certainly do not seem to have the same potential to life than a normal one. However, the question is still there and legitimate -

which leads us to “fetal farming”. You’re right, it’s never existed, we don’t have to worry about growing fetuses and using them for scientific experiments (yet), but first of all, obviously he signed the bill. Why not? I’ll bet Obama signed it too, because although the bill is shallow and the issue is transparent, it sounds good. But the legislation does raise an important question – if we allow embryonic stem cell research to go unregulated, then at what point do we start crossing moral boundaries? Can we harvest embryos solely for research purposes? Must we only rely on discarded embryos? What bout notification of the donors for use in embryonic stem cell research? There’s a lot of sticky stuff out there.

Finally, you’re completely wrong on adult stem cells. Yes, some of them are multipotent as opposed to pluripotent but already with an hMSC you can differentiate it into three distinct tissue types – osteo, cardiac and neural. Adult stem cell research must be strengthened IN ADDITION to embryonic. The results we’re getting from adult stem cells are more immediate and quantifiable, whereas embryonic stem cells may still be a couple to a dozen years away from seeing concrete results, although the possibilities may be better.

How do we know the answers were indeed crafted by John McCain ( or Barack Obama) and not by surrogates? Did John see Barack Obama’s answers before turning his in or were both released at the same time?

ZZMike,

You forgot to include this tidbit with your tirade:
“These tables list the top donors to these candidates in the 2008 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate , rather the money came from the organization’s PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals’ immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

Because of contribution limits, organizations that bundle together many individual contributions are often among the top donors to presidential candidates. These contributions can come from the organization’s members or employees (and their families). The organization may support one candidate, or hedge its bets by supporting multiple candidates. Groups with national networks of donors – like EMILY’s List and Club for Growth – make for particularly big bundlers.”
ZZMike, simpleton, conservative, idiot

Yes, Jess, Paul Krugman knows economics, especially that related to foreign trade, much better than you do. Much, much, much better. That’s what happens when you get a PhD in the field, work in it for several years, win the Clark Medal, and then teach the topic at Princeton.

But he calls shenanigans against your ideology, so he must just misunderstand. Even though none of the facts support your contentions.

Just clamp your hands on your ears, recite the mantra, “La la la, I can’t hear you!”, and all those mean, nasty bits of reality will dry up and blow away in the considerable wind generated by those advocating supply-side economics.

” Why is a first term Senator pulling down almost $300,000 a year from Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Countrywide Financial, and Washington Mutual? He has not even completed his fourth year in the Senate and received a total of $1,093,329.00 from these eight companies and their employees. (all data from OpenSecrets.org). John McCain’s numbers, according to OpenSecrets.org for the period 1990-2008 (i.e., 18 years worth of data) only collected $549,584.00. In other words, Barack is receiving $273,582.25 (and 2008 is not over) per year while McCain raised a paltry $30,532.44.

Want another shocker? Barack Obama has received more from one source–Goldman Sachs $542,252.00 – than McCain has from all of the companies combined. Who the hell is more beholden to lobbyists? And why does a junior Senator from Illinois rate this kind of dough?”

I don’t recollect science education or research taking off like a Delta rocket under the Clinton administration, then being grounded the minute Bush got in.

The danger that Obama and his cohorts present far outweighs anything McCain could bring to the office.

Autumn: “PS, I’m a Market-Democratic-neo-socialist.” That explains a lot. Socialism does indeed work wonders. Look how well it’s worked in every place it’s been tried.

Michael Parmeley understands it.

Pieter: “Luke, did you hammer a nail in the ceiling and used it to type your comment on your laptop? There are ways to use a computer without lifting it, you know…”

Are you being deliberately dense? We’re not talking about lifting the computer. Stephen King writes on a typewriter. Big Deal.

And FDR was effectively crippled. He could not walk without help. But he led the coutry through the largest war we’ve ever seen.

Do we really want the President – or even a mere president of a corporaation – wasting his time clicking away at a computer? That’s what staff is for.

You (in Southern, “y’all”) may wish for an Obama presidency. But be careful what you wish for – you may get it. And this time, it’ll be a lot harder to recover. (We recovered from Jimy Carter, but it wasn’t easy.)

Already corporations provide a lot of research and education opportunities to undergraduate and graduate students. This is not only in the form of money donated to universities, but also in the form of internships and work study programs that are offered in partnership with universities. In this aspect Corporations are doing a great service.

Regarding getting corporations involved more with K-12 education might not be so bad either. years ago when I was in High School I was heavily involved in the FIRST program at my high school from the first year it was offered until I graduated. For those of you who are unaware, FIRST stands for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology”. It is a great program that inspires high school students about the real world applications of science and technology. For anyone who doesn’t know about this program I strongly suggest that you read up on it, and if possible support you local high school’s chapter. Anyway, one of the integral parts of this program was working with local companies. Most of the education and support (much of it financial) came from our partner companies. These companies benefited not only from the tax write off that they received but also from potentially recruiting future talented engineers. I think that our country could seriously use more programs like this one. However, I am not sure if this is what McCain had in mind when he said that we need more corporate involvement in education.

He could have voted “Present.”

Luke, did you hammer a nail in the ceiling and used it to type your comment on your laptop? There are ways to use a computer without lifting it, you know…

Phil, if an anti-fetal farming bill comes up, the only thing you can do is to vote against it, even if fetal farming does not actually happen.

I won’t argue that this may be what is happening with Freddie and Fannie (charming names!), but I question using those grounds to criticise the intervention. In other words, you may dislike the concept of the intervention (which is fine), but what would be the alternative? Isn’t a government intervention in this situation cheaper in the long term than letting the whole system spiral in an unpredictable direction, but presumably towards a wholesale depression?

Personally, I’d much prefer my government to spend a billion dollars preventively today than to be spending half a billion dollars a year for a decade in remedies.

In closing, though, I realise that there is a shortcoming in the intervention – it doesn’t change the culture which allowed the debacle to arise in the first place. That change can only come from within the industry itself, and until it occurs, further problems may arise. But if nothing else, the intervention and the publicity surrounding it should remind people in the industry that the government and the public are watching them.

The same Paul Krugman who stated “And even if we are now facing an unsustainable dollar overvaluation comparable to that of early 1985, those old enough recall that despite grim warnings of an impending “hard landing”, the correction of that overvaluation was almost entirely benign”?

The same one who claimed the problem was that other countries weren’t inflating their currencies as fast as we were?

Yes, he knows the topic far better. I must hang my head in shame now.

Ron Paul is your choice for economic advice?

I’m afraid it’s beyond my ability to take you seriously. I’ll stick with Krugman, who actually knows the topic, and doesn’t have any ideological hangups about economic policy.