Wayward Son

In the past I have done two of the five public service jobs talked about. I would rank them in terms of best wages compared to least work (and factoring in the expense and years of education needed) in Ontario as: fire, paramedic, police officer, teacher and nurse. I would say that the first two are definitely overpaid, with the next two as likely overpaid, and nurses as the only one which I feel is likely about right. Fire requires no education. Most work 24 hour shifts, which they can do because they are not busy. Most of the firefighters I know work separate jobs, in some cases a second full-time job (something you can do when your firefighting job only takes up 7 or 8 days a month). Paramedics used to be paid crap 15 - 20 years ago, and the job was harder back then (the old #30 stretchers were complete hell on your back). Now it has swung to the opposite extreme. I worked full-time for 10 years. All it requires is 2 years of college. Police have a harder job than the previous two. Lots of endless paperwork. No education required, but it is difficult to get hired without some. I have worked as a teacher too, but quickly decided against making it my career. The job requires far more hours (depending on what you are teaching) than people think. Depending on the class the students can be dreadful to deal with (and sometimes the parents can be worse). Still the pay is good, and the benefits are great. Unlike the other four jobs, there is no shift work. But on the other hand you take a lot of work home work with you, and to be a good teacher the planning never ended. The time off is great, but the vacation time, stat time etc as a paramedic was almost as much. Five years of university (soon to be 6) and tons of upgrading. For nursing it depends on what you end up doing. Some jobs are very tough, some are pretty simple. 4 years of university. Of the five it is the last one I would choose as a career (but it is the only one with a decent job market at the moment, and for the foreseeable future).

If you don't feel that the way Doug and Rob Ford went after the media (knowingly spreading lies both about themselves and the media they were attacking) was both hypocrisy and an abuse of power then you can't be helped. And while as Mayor of Toronto Rob Ford does not write drug laws, he can influence drug policy both in Toronto and throughout the rest of the country. He has consistently, while on council and as mayor, opposed the funding and even the existence of prevention and treatment programs within Toronto (along with safe use/harm reduction measures). He has supported a tougher criminal justice stance on drugs and drug users. He has supported more police, more targeting of drugs and poor areas by those police, more drug sweeps. Rob Ford has never had a speck of sympathy for anyone caught with illegal drugs, until it was himself - and then (after denying it, and ruthlessly attacking the media) he expected everyone to have bucketloads of sympathy for him because he had a problem (which he refused to try to deal with). I have seen some extreme hypocrisy among politicians, but never to the extent that I have seen with Rob Ford who takes double standard to a whole new level.

I have never had a problem with Rob Ford using drugs. I do have a problem with Rob Ford's (tough on crime, tough love...for everyone except himself and his family, I guess) lies, hypocrisy and abuse of power on this issue. You may remember the way the Ford's (and many of their supporters) went after the media...for doing their job. I support equal rights for homosexuals too. But if I criticize one of the many vocally anti-gay Republicans who have been "caught" having gay sex, it is not the act I am criticizing, but the hypocrisy of their views. If Rob Ford admitted to what he was doing, and asked to be treated the same way the criminal justice system treats low income, non-politically connected, people in his own neighborhood I would be his biggest supporter on this issue. Perhaps if the wealthy and well-connected were treated the same way as the poor when it comes to drug use then we could have some meaningful legal reforms.

Sure with the Lib budget being close to the NDP it could simply split the left between the two with much of the center joining the right and voting for Hudak. I believe that is the more common scenario. However, I could see things possibly going the other way too. It seems most people in this province don't seem to be interested in either the right or the left, which is why this completely incompetent (and that is being way too kind to them) group of Liberals stayed in power last election. The current similarity between the Liberals and NDP may result in many people who can't stomach the Liberals again, voting for the NDP as they view that as rejecting the incompetence and corruption of the Liberals, but not rejecting the policy direction. Of course anything can happen over the next few weeks. I don't see too many people enthused about any of their options. I know long time Conservatives who will not vote for the PCs under Hudak, long time NDP supporters who really, really don't like Horwath, and Liberals who have sympathy for the mess Wynne inherited yet feel that their party must lose power to purge the corrupt elements of it. I think we are headed for another minority (either PCs or Liberals), but I think that people are frustrated enough that there could be a major shift in any direction during the campaign (something which occurred during the election campaigns of both 1990 and 1995 if my memory serves me).

The way I see it there are at least 4 ways this budget can be looked at: Is it good for yourself? (beats me) Is it good for the province? (I lack the expertise to assess that) Should it be rejected by the opposition parties on principle as the Liberals have shown themselves to be groundbreaking when it comes waste, incompetence, corruption and unethical behaviour? Should support or opposition for the budget be based on what you view to be the political consequences of an election? I feel that Sid Ryan is squarely in the fourth camp (afraid of a potential Hudak government). I personally feel that it would be unethical to prop up this completely unethical government so that leaves me in the third camp.

Completely untrue. The Ontario government's revenues have been going up year after year. Yes, for two years during the worst of the economic collapse their revenues dropped, but by the following year they were at record highs again and have increased every year since. They are currently about 60% higher then they were the last year of the PC government. I hate the Ontario Liberals with a passion. Their scandals and corruption (one of which affected me personally, and from which I will suffer financially for the rest of my life) are at a level where I simply can't believe that they will not be wiped off the map, never to recover, similar to the old Federal PCs in 93. But unfortunately the general public seems to be willing to accept that over the alternatives. Their abysmal record speaks so strongly for itself that there is no need to make up crap about it.

Perhaps it is ironic, however, scientific skepticism, the method of thinking about claims which James Randi uses, is a method that needs to first be appreciated (as it appears is the case with GH) before one can extend it more areas of one's life (and no one does it 100% of the time, including Randi). I was lucky enough that my own introduction to the method was through Carl Sagan's "Demon Haunted World" where Sagan attacked examples of pseudo-science that I had long thought were silly. It was only once I became comfortable and confident with the value of the method that I turned it towards my own beliefs, many of which seemed to me to be as solid as a brick wall, but fell like a house of cards to skeptical inquiry.

People who have absolutely no clue what a theory is should probably learn the basics about how science works before they enter a debate about a scientific issue.

Yeah, in trying to brief I wasn't clear. What I mean is that the immune system has to be able to tell the difference between cells, proteins etc that are self (meaning your own genetic code or the genetic code of your natural bacteria flora) and cells, proteins, antigens etc that are not-self. It keeps genetic integrity of ridding the body of anything that is non-self. That includes both viruses that can alter our genetic code along with bacteria and viruses that cannot. The immune system will have no idea whether the non-self it detected is dangerous, or has the ability to alter our own genetic code - just that it is non-self and therefore it has to go. That includes our own cells that have mutated (although it is imperfect at this) and which the immune system now classifies as non-self, which is why I classified it as maintaining genetic integrity - the immune system sees things as either self or non-self. (Food, of course, is non-self, but the digestive system alters it before it comes in contact with the immune system. At least normally. Most food allergies are not actually immune system reactions, but instead are various non-IgE processes - such as lacking the enzyme to digest lactose).

A gut based system? I can't really give you my "interpretation" of the immune system on a forum - the topic is way too complex for that. My understanding of the immune system corresponds with Janeway's textbook "Immunobiology" because that is the standard, and while the textbook will be altered every couple years by new knowledge accumulated in the scientific literature, which I don't have time to follow, and while I assume that my copy of Janeway is already an edition or two out of date, it would be extremely arrogant for me to hold views on the immune system that contradict or do not conform with the general consensus of the experts in the field. In a short sentence or two, the immune system is the very complex system which aims to maintain our genetic integrity from the invasion of foreign genetic code. It reacts against foreign substances (it also reacts against altered self substances - which is also considered foreign genetic code, and sometimes it mistakenly considers part of the unaltered self to be foreign). It protects the whole body. So no, while the guy makes up a part, it is not a gut based system. I have worked both as a front-line health care worker, and subsequently in the sciences. My experiences as a front-line health care worker was that others expected that I was knowledgeable about things like the immune system, and that simply was not the case. However, some others felt that they did have the background to have a certain amount of authority on the topic, while they knew as little as I did (and often held opinions on the immune system that were flat out incorrect) - or in other words, knowing just enough to be dangerous, and many others would elevate front-line health care workers to a position of authority on this scientific field without understanding that the health care worker barely knew the most basic information. An argument which I hear from time to time goes along the lines of "I know a nurse who doesn't vaccinate her children, and she clearly knows what she is talking about." It is extremely unlikely that she does. Compared to other health care workers, medical doctors are the ones who have been taught about the basic sciences, but even then it is minimal and not more than what is required for the clinical side. There is simply no time for more, and the return on the investment for teaching them more basic sciences in terms of patient outcomes would be low at best. I know of no medical school that has a prerequisite of an immunology course. Most require a year of biology, but some have no science prerequisites at all. The first two years of medical school are generally in the classroom, and they concentrate on basic sciences geared towards the clinical side. They are also teaching a lot of non-science material in there as well. There is simply no time to teach more than the basics of the basic sciences, and diagnosing and treating illness does not require detailed knowledge of the sciences. For instance probably every doctor out there can diagnose and treat most insect related bites and diseases, yet almost none of them would have ever opened a textbook on medical entomology. The few cases that are really unusual get sent to a specialist, but even then the specialist may have consult an entomologist at a university. In the United States they concentrate more on the basic sciences than we do in Canada, and even there the test after second year medical school (USMLE step 1) is where basic sciences will be tested, and it is much more geared towards to the clinical side. The popular set of study books for the USMLE step 1 called First Aid for the Basic Sciences General Principles includes 20 pages on principles of immunology. It is fairly basic stuff. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, as otherwise medical school would be 20 years long. By flipping through the pages I noticed that it has 4 paragraphs on the complement system, so that is what I will use as a point of reference, especially as the complement system is one of the first things that any immunology textbook will deal with. The field of medicine where knowledge of the immune system is most important is internal medicine. Those are the people that are considered to be "the brains" and the amount of knowledge they need to possess is staggering. "The book" for internal medicine is Harrison's and more basic sciences knowledge is needed, but even then content on the immune system runs less than 200 pages and concentrates highly on the clinical side. There are 4 paragraphs on the complement system, but they are more dense than the USMLE book. Of course if the IM has specialized in something like Infectious Diseases then he/she may have read a text like Essential Clinical Immunology which deals with the complement system over 3 pages (15 - 17). That book is still highly clinical based, and deals mostly with immunological concepts relevant for disease states. However, coverage of the basic sciences in that text is still minimal compared to the undergraduate/graduate immunology textbook Immunobiology by Janeway, and even that just charts the course for immunology graduate students who use it as a jumping off point to hit the journal articles and specialize on a specific aspect of the immune system. Yes, there are some MD/PhD's like Offit who have spent their career studying immunology related issues. But Sears is not one of them. Medical doctors understand the diagnosis and treatment of various cancers. But that doesn't mean that they have read Weinberg's Biology of Cancer. They could of course, and they would pick up the material quickly, but again, the time vs reward is low. They need to have some knowledge of cells, molecular biology and other basic sciences, but no one expects them to have read Albert's Molecular Biology of the Cell, which alone would take a couple years of dedicated study to master, or Watson's Molecular Biology of the Gene, Gilbert's Developmental Biology, Brock's Biology of Microorganisms etc (while on the other hand, almost no one on the science side will have read Robbins Pathologic Basis of Disease, but MDs will know much of that material cold). I have not read most of those texts either (but I have studied parts of all of them), which is all the more reason why I defer to those who actually are experts on the topic. People like Sears and Mercola don't. When they advocate a different paths based on their worldview and hunches, instead of accumulated scientific knowledge, it is nothing but arrogance and can be dangerous. When they advocate novel treatments given outside of legitimate clinical trials with ethical standards, they are being abusive towards those patients. It would be an outrage if a drug company did so, and it is no different when those far outside the mainstream do so. They experiment on a vulnerable sector of the population for their own gain, and they take advantage of uninformed, desperate parents (although, even saying they experiment is probably too kind. At least if their patients were participating in trials something could be gained).

Neither Sears or Mercola are reliable sources. Mercola is an extreme nutcase who will promote anything as long as it has no evidence to support that it works. He has gone as far as writing an article back in 2009 promoting the idea that people can get all the sustenance that they need through staring at the sun. He recognizes that his supporters are so gullible and stupid they won't question him even then. Sears is not as extreme, but his ideas, and his alternative vaccine schedule, have very little support from mainstream medical science, or medical governing bodies for a reason. I have a very busy week, so while I would generally like to, I see no point in spending it knocking down the unscientific claims of unethical medical practitioners who make a lot of money off telling anti-science parents what they want to hear. Just as I see no point in tackling Topaz's claims that eating good food will protect you from viruses, and that sugar will lower immune system function. While it is true, significant malnutrition will hamper some components of immune response, such deficiencies are very rare in the first world. And while it is true that there was a study in the 1970s that showed a link between sugar consumption and weakened immune response, that study, despite still being promoted by all the cranks, has not been supported by subsequent studies with better methodologies. The immune system simply does not function the way that most people intuitively feel it should. Cranks everywhere take advantage of that gap between reality and desire.

Well that is actually not having it my way. But seeing as your reading comprehension is extremely poor I will take what I can get from you. I asked for you to back up the claim you made with actual evidence, instead of biased opinion. You have not, but instead respond to what you think I said. As of right now, I have a choice. I could either go with the evidence brought forth by Gautam Mukunda, who teaches at Harvard Business School. Or go with the opinion of an extremely biased forum poster who has a shit-fit when someone asks him for evidence to support his claims.

Actually, I didn't make such a statement. I asked you to provide evidence for the statement you made. Something that you have not bothered to do. My gut would tell me that evidence and performance should correlate, but I don't care what my gut wants to believe, I care what the evidence actually says. Any evidence that electoral-vote.com is partisan? I don't know or care either way, but the only thing I could find stated that the person who runs the site is a Libertarian, who likes Goldwater, wants a balanced budget and leans towards the democrats. Doesn't seem like a propaganda site to me, but I understand that to you anything that is not to the far right extreme is socialist propaganda. No metric can be perfect, so it measures the quantity of years which it feels qualifies, and not necessarily the quality of those years. I understand that is not the way you would do things: How much relevant experience to be President of the US is obtained by being President of Screen Actors Guild? Who did that? Reagan! Oh, I love Reagan! Being the President of the SAG is great experience. How much relevant experience to be President of the US is obtained by being a community organizer? Who did that? Obama! Oh, I hate that socialist! None. Absolutely no experience. Your extreme political bias leaves you completely incapable of looking anything political in an unbiased manner. And that is why sites use metrics that are concrete. They don't claim that it is perfect, but it does weed out some of the bias. I think that both FDR and Wilson would be fine with their achievements and not be worried if someone like you felt any comparison was insulting. Further, I did not say that either had less experience than Obama (only that Lincoln did), but only that both did not have a lot of experience. Neither did TR who you chose to skip over. Wilson, but the way, was not Governor of New York for a term, but Governor of New Jersey for a fraction of a term. He was running for President for a year out of his two years as Governor, and people like Prince and Ackerman took the oath to be acting governor for at least 13 periods during those two years - which included month long absences in the year before Wilson was running for President. Anecdotal. I could not care less. Truman was VP for 82 days. I am open to believing or not believing that previous experience is correlated to performance as soon as you actually provide legitimate evidence to show that it is actually true. I also trust that you must have supported Barak Obama in the last election as he had 4 years experience as President - certainly the most relevant experience - and Romney had no oval office experience.

1) Perhaps you could find evidence that relevant experience is correlated with performance for Presidents. 2) Obama had more relevant experience than Abe Lincoln. Neither Roosevelt had a whole lot of experience. Same goes for Wilson. All 4 of them are generally ranked pretty high experts. 3) The 3 presidents who had previously spent 8 years as VP were Nixon, Adams and GHW Bush. Did not seem to help them out much. 4) However, electoral-vote.com ranks the 3 Presidents who had the most relevant experience as Buchanan, LBJ and Ford....no thanks.

I will never support safeminds by going to their site. Safeminds is a group of pathological liars whose books include "Evidence of Harm" and "The Age of Autism" which both were 100% convinced that vaccines caused autism. They were completely wrong, and based on lies. They have caused a lot of harm to a lot of vulnerable children. Aluminum has been used as an adjuvant in vaccines for 90 years. It didn't replace the preservative thiomersal, because the two have completely different purposes. People naturally consume far more aluminum then they could imagine in their normal everyday lives, which depending on the amount and the form it takes can be dangerous. 90 years of study have not found reasons to fear aluminum in vaccines. Of course, at the same time evidence showed that thiomersal was safe as well, but that didn't stop hysteria leading to its removal and making vaccines less safe in the process. Here Investigators who followed the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic in six major pediatric hospitals in Australia found that ten percent of the flu patients had serious neurological complications, including death. One of the largest published series from the 2009 influenza pandemic, the data underscore the need for more routine influenza vaccines to reduce the risk of infection and the possibility for neurological symptoms, the study authors conclude. 1) It was a pandemic. One of the main reasons that the WHO delayed calling it that is because very few people actually understand what the terms endemic, pandemic and epidemic mean. 2) I am not sure what you mean when you say that others, besides GSK, could have done it but didn't. Many pharmaceutical companies created H1N1 vaccines.

Are you basing that on a hunch, or do you have a scientific or evidence-based reason for it? All of our childhood vaccines put together expose children to about 4% of the antigens that the smallpox vaccine alone used to. We live in a sea of viruses and bacteria, so children are exposed to countless antigens every day. There is absolutely no evidence for things like "immune system overload." Why is this worse? Japan lengthened their vaccine schedule in the 80s and then reversed the decision because, not only were there no benefits, but it had also resulted in increased deaths from vaccine preventable causes Examples of journal articles showing these findings you think science is seeing? Well 1) It actually states that it is less than 1 in 10,000 2) at the time the patient information leaflet was made they simply could not have known the actual likelihood for something that rare and 3) patient information leaflets are simply legal speak designed to minimize legal liability for outcomes that may or may not actually be linked to the vaccine. Large jury awards have been given out in the past for vaccine injuries in which their was no evidence that the vaccine caused the injury, and lots of evidence that things other than the vaccine caused it. However, when juries look a large pharmaceutical company with deep pockets, and a poor child with a terrible condition where do you think that their sympathy lies? Combine that with the fact that most people know almost nothing about the immune system, and most of what they do know is wrong, and that most people hold suspicions, based on emotional instead of evidence that vaccines must be dangerous on some level. Combine all that and companies that make vaccines need to go overboard when it comes to legal liability. When it comes to things like neurological complications, most of them will be minor. The influenza virus is known to cause neurological complications at a higher frequency than the vaccine. One study in Australia found that almost 10% of children brought to hospital with the swine flu had neurological complications. The WHO has a set of standards for declaring something a pandemic. The swine flu pandemic is the only instance I know of where they delayed actually calling it a pandemic for a couple weeks after it met the standard. The reality is the opposite of your conspiracy. As for GSK having a cure.....um.....every single influenza vaccine maker had access to the exact same thing at the exact same time. There was nothing magical or unusual about it at all.

Damn...I missed learning about economics from a medical doctor and a couple journalists.

I am not really interested in partisan nonsense and screeds by any political ideology. I am interested in facts. I never said that hollywood was not democrat leaning, in fact I said that the evidence strongly supported that it was. Here are the facts: Ronald Reagan kept his democratic membership until 1962. He last publicly endorsed a democratic candidate in 1950. He endorsed Eisenhower and Nixon in 1952, 1956 and 1960. He was last head of SAG in 1960. He became the Republican Governor of California in 1967. That is a 2 year gap between when he officially switched memberships and his last time as head of the SAG. Last I checked 2 years is not more then a decade. During the last 12 years he held a democratic party membership he publicly endorsed zero democrats, while publicly endorsing all 3 Republican Presidential tickets. During that same period he strongly opposed civil rights legislation and was the mouthpiece for the AMA's fight against medicare. He was as Republican in thought and action as they get.

I can be pretty sure that you can't find a prominent Christian author/philosopher/theologian who has not been criticized by other christian authors/philosophers/theologians (and that includes William Lane Craig, who has been criticized by many). So, according to your "logic", that allows me to dismiss the whole bunch for that reason alone.

From Terry Eagleton's ridiculous review: When one is discussing whether gods exist there is absolutely zero requirement to have an opinion or knowledge on any of that nonsense Eagleton spouts, just as there is no requirement to have detailed knowledge on the recipes of witch's brews to discuss whether there is evidence that witchcraft exists, or the requirement to know the names of all the fairies to discuss whether there is evidence that fairies exist. I don't need to go to homeopathy school and spend a lifetime dedicated to understanding the finer aspects of that insanity to reject homeopathy based purely on its lack of evidence and being contrary to known physical laws. What Eagleton spouts is pure nonsense and probably the stupidest argument that could be made against Dawkins' book, and in that review what Eagleton really attempts to do is shield himself and others from outside criticism in areas where they feel they are authorities. If you can't criticize or reject religion unless you have devoted yourself fully to the craziness then you also say, can't criticism marxism unless you are a marxist and understand Marx as well as Eagleton does - and yes Eagleton pulls the same crap with his fervent defense of marxism. That review along with a couple similarly stupid reviews resulted in Myers writing the Courtier's Reply:

For me this has nothing to do with the actual words that were said. The responsible thing for our national broadcaster to do was to challenge Flanagan on his statements allowing him the opportunity to express what his actual views are, and why he holds those views. Debate the merits of those views, and possibly at that time assess their relationship with him going forward. The irresponsible thing for our national broadcaster to do was to fire someone based on a couple comments given in response to an off-topic question in what appears to be in a forum that was hostile towards him. I don't agree with most of Flanagan's political views (that I know of). I don't agree with his comments as they were given at that time. At the same time I applaud Flanagan for engaging in discussion and debates with public audiences that may be hostile towards him. I applaud him for being willing to say things that are unpopular. I don't think we gain anything from the CBC deciding that certain topics, debates and views are out of bounds, especially when said at a university. Let's say that Flanagan really does believe that child pornography is a victimless crime. Do we benefit more from the CBC saying that such views are not allowed to be said? Or from challenging Flanagan on his views and countering those views with evidence in favour of the opposite? I support the latter. The reaction speaks volumes concerning 1) academic freedom 2) freedom of speech and 3) the responsibility of academics and intellectuals to discuss controversial and challenge unpopular positions. I find the treatment of Flanagan for stating an unpopular view which I disagree with no more acceptable then would find it if someone was treated the same way for stating an unpopular view which I agree with.

I agree. One of the principles that Ray Hyman outlined for criticism in a debate is the principle of charity. It is a very hard principle to live up to when it comes to one's political opponents. Flanagan made some comments in response to an off-topic question that were brief and certainly not the entirety of his thoughts on the matter, and political opponents have assumed the worst intentions, instead of first granting him the right to fully explain his comments and then judging his position with the same openness they would give someone they didn't already hate. The speed of the reaction from the CBC, University of Calgary, and political parties shows that their actions were taken more out of emotion and fear of backlash than weighing the evidence is a reasoned manner before making a decision.

Well I brought up the middle name because it is an easily verifiable fact which you got wrong, and to me at least, it shows that the substance of your post is more likely opinion over fact. Is Hollywood more Democrat than Republican? Yes, the evidence seem to strongly support that. Are over 90% Democrats as you claim? Seems unlikely as that would indicate that almost every single person has a political membership. Most people don't have political memberships. A large number of people don't care about organized politics. I accept that the Hollywood elite may be far more likely to hold political party membership than other groups of people, but close to 100% seems like a pretty high bar. The only study I could find which looked at the Hollywood elite found that although Democrats were far more represented than Republicans, only about 25% had memberships in the Democratic party, and less than 50% had donated money to any democratic or left-wing cause. Reagan has said that he didn't leave the Democratic party, but that it left him. I feel that was an exaggeration, for strategic political reasons, as some of Reagan's political views did indeed shift, while others did not. However, the Democratic and Republican parties did switch positions in many ways in the 100 years after the civil war. And Reagan's parents being democrats at the time of Reagan's birth and youth doesn't actually say much about where they stood on the political spectrum. This was just after the progressive Republican presidency of Teddy Roosevelt whose trust busting and massive increases in regulations on big business would be both the nightmare of modern Republicans and wet dreams of modern Democrats. And it is before the realignment that occurred with Roosevelt's new deal, before Truman in 1948 accepted the northern liberals plank of expanding civil rights which led to the formation of the Dixiecrat party in 1948 led by Thurmond, and before Nixon's southern strategy. Reagan, despite being a registered democrat in the 1950s supported Eisenhower and Nixon. As for the SAG being dominated by Democrats, that may be true...although at the time we also the black-list of actors who were suspected of having communist sympathies, and it was lead by well known Republicans Reagan and Heston (those two had the second and third longest terms among Presidents of the SAG), and Pidgeon, another California Republican, took over after Reagan. So, I don't know if the substance of your post is correct or not. It may be, although I think it far more likely that it is partially correct, but smothered in opinion and bias. I don't feel that you have supported your thesis very well and instead just parroted the claims of right-wing media. As for the accuracy of the movie Argus....I don't care. It's a movie. I watch movies for entertainment value. A read books and articles for educational value.

Odd that he got his middle name from President Wilson, considering his mother, Nelle Wilson, came from a family that had a long affinity for the name. The oddity increases when you realize that Ronald Reagan was named after President Woodrow Wilson before Wilson had become President....or even taken office as the Governor of New Jersey for that matter...in fact he had held no elective office at the time Ronnie was born. Impressive that he could see the future that clearly.

I agree with Dawkins not debating William Lane Craig. Interestingly for Craig bellyaching about Dawkins has refused to debate him, he has refused to debate John Loftus (his excuse is that he will not debate a former student) or Matt Dillahunty. I don't know how Loftus would do, but I suspect that Dillahunty would crush Craig. To me the reason why Craig would want to debate people like Dawkins and not people people like Dillahunty is due to debating styles. Craig is about rhetoric not actual good arguments. Debating him is like punching a cloud because what he says is completely nonsensical and when he talks about things like evolution it is clear to those who understand the topic that he has absolutely zero idea what he is talking about, but to those who understand little of the topic they see someone who is talking confidently and using big words. They don't understand what he is talking about and therefore assume that he must really know his stuff, when the reality is the opposite. Dawkins is used to debating actual evidence and therefore in a debate with Craig he would try to punch the cloud. Dillahunty is used to countering nonsense arguments and exposing them for what they are, and in a debate with Craig he would expose the cloud, expose that there is no substance to what Craig is actually saying, expose the ridiculous debating style of Craig for what it is. When you are debating WLC, you are not debating the chosen topic, you are debating a stream of logical fallacies, arguments from authority, strawmen, extreme quote mining, appeals to emotion, gish gallops and so on.