If you've closely watched John McCain over the years, it becomes clear
he employs situational ethics when it comes to campaign tactics. He
likes to talk about honor, integrity, and civil discourse, but he's
perfectly willing to bend the truth or engage in cheap mudslinging if
it suits his political purposes. There appears to be no consistent
logic of what constitutes vigorous but fair campaigning versus uncivil,
dishonorable campaigning except that if it's done by McCain or a friend
of McCain, it's the former, and if it's done by his opponent,
particularly someone he doesn't like or know very well (e.g. Romney) it's the
latter.

Plug-in Hybrids

Bottling up science

"Disingenuous demands for proof drown out reasoned calls for precaution
in public health. In field after field, year after year, conclusions
that might support regulation are always disputed. Animal data are
deemed not relevant, human data not representative, and exposure data
not reliable.

"Whatever the story—global warming, sugar and obesity, secondhand smoke,
plastics chemicals that may disrupt endocrine function—scientists in
the "product defense industry" will manufacture uncertainty about it.

"Perhaps it is not surprising, but many of the same scientists who cut
their teeth manufacturing uncertainty for tobacco now battle the
regulatory agencies on behalf of the manufacturers of asbestos,
benzene, bisphenol A (a chemical in hard plastic baby bottles),
chromium and virtually every other toxic chemical in the news today."

"The mission of our public health and environmental agencies is to
reduce hazards before people get sick or the environment is irreparably
damaged. Regulators don't need certainty to act."

The Audacity of Listening

Gail Collins makes the point that if you actually were listening to Obama over the years, you would not be so quick to attribute all of his recent decisions to political expediency, but rather an adherence to two of his common themes, making smart decisions (as opposed to dumb ones) and being willing work out compromise. The only true "flip flop" was his decision to forego public financing.

I have felt for months that the media has not been willing to actually listen and comprehend what Obama was actually saying, because the media has been too impatient and shallow to take the time to actually do their job of journalism by filtering and processing information so that readers and viewers can have a clear, concise, and accurate report of conditions and events.

During the primary debates, Senator Obama clearly stated numerous times
that he would retain the right as commander in chief to respond to
facts on the ground. This whole story about Senator Obama possibly altering his Iraq stategy has been manufactured by the
McCain campaign (who go even further and deliberately distort his statement by saying he has "reversed" his policy) and a news media that is more interested in salacious
headlines than actual news. If these reporters actually could remember
anything before yesterday, this would not be a story (assuming these
reporters even watched the debates).

11 healthy foods