The vaunted CIA and FBI are asleep, at best.
Here is American society, attacked under open skies in broad daylight by the most reactionary and vicious force in the contemporary world, a force which treats Afghans and Algerians and Egyptians far worse than it has yet been able to treat us. “As to the 'Left' I'll say briefly why this was the finish for me. How can it be that such grotesque characters, calling down divine revenge on the workers in the World Trade Center, are allowed a respectful hearing, or a hearing at all, among patriotic Republicans?). (The punishment, in other words, that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson believed had struck America on Sept. Does it propose to welcome these new adherents or sympathizers by yelling in the tones of that great Democrat bigmouth William Jennings Bryan? By insisting that evolution is 'only a theory'? By demanding biblical literalism and by proclaiming that the Messiah has already shown himself? If so, it will deserve the punishment for hubris that is already coming its way. At the last election, the GOP succeeded in increasing its vote among American Jews by an estimated five percentage points. Perhaps one could phrase the same question in two further ways. I have my own differences with both of these savants, but is the Republican Party really prepared to disown such modern intellectuals as it can claim, in favor of a shallow, demagogic and above all sectarian religiosity? “At least two important conservative thinkers, Ayn Rand and Leo Strauss, were unbelievers or nonbelievers and in any case contemptuous of Christianity. There is no such thing as consensus science. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. What is relevant is reproducible results. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. “I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science.
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