I committed myself to the position that New Scientist was not SCI.

Apparently it was in 2006, and it had an impact factor of .193 — good enough to be counted for tenure in many departments.

OldSkeptic wins, I lose — which serves me right for letting my logical pedantry get the better of me!

When I wrote “formally” did you read that in the context of formal logic? Publish and buy your ticket to Sweden. Don’t publish, don’t buy ticket.
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Fabius Maximus replies: OK, so I will not win a Nobel. Unfortunately my background in formal logic and philosphy of science is minimal, far too slender for this. Still, I think my point has some relevance. Evidence is the key to these things, and provides a basis for debate.

M.Simon: I’m afraid the U.S.A. election process has been taken over by the lobbyists and the big money interests. The absence of Congressional action is due to Congressional corruption, AFAICT.

We know for a fact that a lot of the rise in food prices is caused by turning farmland over to fuel production. So where are the calls in Congress to end mandates and subsidies for this stupidity?

The only candidate even speaking out on moving in that direction is the guy who will not accept a genocide in Iraq as the price of American withdrawal.
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Fabius Maximus replies: See comments #20 and #21 in “Higher food prices, riots, shortages - what is going on?” Diversion of crops to biofuels is a factor in rising food prices, but probably not responsible for “a lot” of the rise. As that post explains, temporary supply factors, rising demand, and years of underinvestment in agriculture are also factors. Although we do not have sufficient data to make a firm evaluation, in this I explain why inflation may be the major factor.

Sorry, but the evidence is in, we can trace HIV to SIV (monkees) even to the cat version. We have the genetic mechanisms to do it. Plus, there is reasonable evidence that HIV has been around a lot longer than most people think, maybe back to the ’20s, but in a limited population group in the west. Do a search on the New Scientist magazine.

Like many diseases of its type it simmered away for a long while, in local areas, until social conditions became conductive to its spread (e.g cheap, mass travel)

Yes and I’m a card carrying member of the Skeptics Society (and even have met James Randi, wonderful man by the way).

That does not mean that conspiracies do not exist, of course they do. Here in Australia we just recently had 2 major corporations done for conspiring to fix prices. You get people you get conspiracies. However usually, but not always, the ’stuff up’ theory is more accurate.

Two factors are noteworthy:
a) A lot of folks are speaking out and getting responses similar to the response Fabius made to Ken Hoop.
b) A lot of folks are shocked to realize that they don’t have money for food this month and thus are too distracted to speak out.

Beyond those two factors, I agree, there is a lot of passivity.

Fabius, if you can formally specify *any* pose which *cannot* work as a mental filter, publish it and you’ll be swimming in Nobel prizes. If you can do it, you’ll have cured human subjectivity, and we shall be omniscient, objective gods.

If you are bothered by the “conspiracy theory of history” you’ll only make it worse by dismissing it. The kind of people who do read the Protocols will use your posts to gather more converts. Contemptuous dismissals kill debate and inquiry. If you want to foster inquiry, debate, and rationality, you can’t afford to dismiss the claims with which you disagree.

Ken Hoop made the allegation that Feith, Perle, and Wolfowitz are loyal to Israel, not America. That’s not proven; it’s an accusation of crime. If you want to deal with it, don’t call him a hater: deal with it as you would deal with any accusation of criminal conduct.
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Fabius Maximus replies: Thank you for the offer. It is called relying on evidence. It does not make mental filters disappear, but provides a counter-balance. Please tell when I should make my reservations.

While the United States military definitely has this problem in Iraq, so does Al Qaeda. Many of the setbacks it has experience have resulted essentially because it also has become regarded as an occupier rather than a liberator. Therefore Sunni tribes have turned on it.

Note that this comment applies only to Al Qaeda and not to other insurgents - either Sunni or Shia.

I have not been there recently but many of my friends who were there in 2003-04 and are back there now say that the situation is increasingly favorable for the US and given the time a sort of victory is possible. In sum my humble opinion is that General Petreaus is correct in that an army of liberation only has a certain amount of time before it becomes an army of occupation.

The appropiate question now becomes can an “army of occupation” regain the populations confidence (diffidence?) that provides the opportunity to achieve strategic objectives or support a local government in achieving a “victory”? Subsequently, if this is possible can the US maintain the national will necessary to allow achievment of a desired endstate?

Chase Metcalf
U.S. Army

*The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government*
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Fabius Maximus replies: Thank you for this update from someone who has been there! First hand evidence is always valuable.