Yesterday, on the Imus in the morning radio program, guest Mary Matilin discussed briefly Galileo's law of falling bodies, which states that all objects fall at the same speed, regardless of their mass; and that, as they fall, the speed of their descent increases uniformly.
One might well ask why Mary Matilin was talking about Galileo.
She was describing the way Democrats and RINO's (Republicans in name only) tend to completely ignore the facts presented to them logically, even when the evidence of those facts are staring them in the face. She said she is reminded of Galileo everytime she is on Imus' program and asked her opinion on politics.
Galileo, you may remember, proved that the Earth's gravity had the same amount of pull on a 1 pound object as a 10 pound object by dropping both of those objects from the top of the tower of Pisa at the same time. Of course, the two objects landed at the same time.
Also, if you remember the story, the rulers of the Church in that day, who were the rulers of all, refused to believe, even after witnessing with their own eyes, the demonstration first hand. Galileo was forced to recant his findings, and was later even arrested and kept under house arrest for the rest of his life.
For proving that the church was wrong.
She went on to say that is the perception she gets of the Democratic party and the RINO's, when truth stares them in the face. She expressed frustration with Imus in particular, which, of course sparked some outrage for questioning the great Don Imus.
But it occurred to me that she is exactly right, and the analogy of Galileo was right on the money.
Judge Samuel Alito was chosen to take the place of Sandra Day-O'Connor on the
SCOTUS, and proved, under unreasonable scrutiny and shameful character assassination by members of the Senate Judiciary committee, especially Senators Kennedy, Biden, and Durbin, that he is absolutely qualified for the position. Nevertheless, Senator Kennedy went totally ballistic during yesterdays Senate debate regarding the nomination of Alito to the bench.
By the way, it is my humble opinion that it is long past time for Kennedy to retire. He should have resigned and turned himself in for murder immediately after Chappaquidick. He is nothing but an embarrassment to the Democratic party now, and I dare say he is costing them votes in the next elections by his unhinged behavior. Most Democrats are distancing themselves from him. Or at least, trying desperately to ignore him.
And it's not just the Alito fiasco that proves this new Galileon theory. Time and time again, the Democrats and RINO's prove they have no sense of reason when it comes to anything involving a decision made by President Bush.
One doesn't have to wonder why.
It is what I've been saying all along. They hate Bush so badly, that they are unwilling to admit it is possible for him to do anything right, in their opinion.
There has been evidence presented in recent months that WMD do indeed exist, which is admittedly as yet unconfirmed, so there is some doubt as to the veracity of that evidence.
However, if conclusive evidence of WMD is found, and these arrogant, Bush hating Democrats, RINO's, and Liberals are proven wrong, they will still say we went to war with Iraq based on a lie.
It isn't truth they are interested in, it's whatever they can do or say to undermine the Presidency of George W. Bush, and diminish it's effectiveness.
All because they are so enraged that he won the 2000 election.
I will even submit that the reason for the current push by some of the angrier Liberals to have Bush impeached has nothing whatsoever to do with so-called lies or unfounded charges against Bush of any kind, but rather, it is revenge for the impeachment of President Clinton.
The facts are, there is no evidence of wrong doing by President Bush, and there is definite evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors by Clinton.
Which brings up another example of this new Galileon theory applied to Democrats and Liberals et al:
The stubborn, but erroneous belief that Clinton did nothing wrong, and was unfairly charged. The facts are clear and established that he committed perjury, which is what he was impeached for, and yet, those who defend him still insist the charges of impeachment were about sex.
And so, this rant is not an effort to convince any Democrats or RINO's or Liberals of the truth. It is simply an observation.
They can't be convinced anyway.
29 comments:
Mark,
another good observation...
BTW, did you hear the guy on Hannity that was Saddam's number two military man talk about how they loaded up plane after plane of WMDs and equipment and flew it to Syria?
Thanks, Timothy. Yes I heard that, that is what I was referring to. I will not go so far as to repeat it as fact because I think there are some serious questions about it. For one thing, why did he wait to talk about it until after he publushed his book about it? And why, if we supposedly know where the WMD's are, don't we go get them? I won't believe it til I see it.
I won't believe it until I see it either Mark, but I really want to believe it! :)
This is also a most excellent post! Thank you. (By the way, I think I was harder on fat Kennedy than you were!)
Yes, that is probably wise... to wait and confirm. The problem that I forsee if we ever find WMDs is that all the DEMS and liberals will start saying: "yes, but Bush has those planted," or some such thing. So it really won't matter if we ever do find any, they still won't believe and we will still remain divided.
"....did you hear the guy on Hannity that was Saddam's number two military man talk about how they loaded up plane after plane of WMDs and equipment and flew it to Syria?"
i heard a similar story, only they were flown to crawford.
oh, where does truth lie?!
KEvron
"There has been evidence presented in recent months that WMD do indeed exist, which is admittedly as yet unconfirmed, so there is some doubt as to the veracity of that evidence....
They can't be convinced anyway."
so there's evidence that doesn't confirm anything, eh? galileo revolves in his grave....
KEvron
Great post Mark. Remember with the libs evidence NEVER matters just the charge. As far as, "the swimmer, " goes since he left his mistress to drown and chose to save his political neck rather than a young women's life, anything he says is on no consequence other than to agrivate those of us who abide by the law and not use it to cover vehicular manslaughter!
Ken Taylor
Agreed.
And your point about not being able to convince the libs is proven in the comments again...
"....for every bull-headed lib I've met I've met about 10 bull-headed conservatives"
i met one who was particularly obstinate. he posted four "examples" of saddam's supposed wmd, which he'd culled from richard miniter's most ironically titled screed, misinformation. i gave the piq definitive proof, with links and quotes from authorities, debunking each example. you know what his answer was?
"I will believe Miniter before I would, Joe Wilson or Mary Mapes,LOL.[sic]"
of course, at no time in our conversation did i ever once mention either of these people, nor was either mentioned in the articles i posted.
you can lead a goat to water, but you can't make him think....
KEvron
Thanks for bringing up another example, Sheila. It has been gone over and over that no one is wiretapping innocent American citizens. The NSA has been wiretapping calls between al-Qaida operatoves outside the United States and inside the United States. Bush doesbn't care about what the average innocent American is talking about on the phone.
The Liberals that are screaming privacy encroachment continue to insist innocent Americans are being spied upon even though there is no evidence to support that.
Hee hee. I love it when you, or any other Repub or alleged Repub-supporter, uses the term RINO.
It means you're not really a Repub at all. You're a right-winger. An extremist. Out of the mainstream.
You think that what you think is right, period, despite what the best thinkers in your own party think, which includes everyone elected to the Senate and House from your party by definition.
"Hee," he said, again, adding, "hee."
Oh, keep thinking that about Kennedy. That way you'll keep being blind-sided by the truth:
Doesn't matter what the rest of us think about him personally; the people of Massachusetts, some of the strongest Dems in the country over all, keep sending him back, and it's up to them to bring him home, not you, and not me.
And in the meantime, he is one of the strongest voices -- one of the ONLY voices -- saying some of the things he says, which still need to be said, especially now.
God. Bless. Ted. Kennedy.
Yep. It's hard to believe there is that many stupid people in one state to keep electing that drunken murderer election after election.
Yep, those things need to be said, especially when they will insure a Republican majority on the legislature for the next 6 years at least.
Oh the article the court jester gave me only confirmed Minitor, just did it with a liberal spin and is the only reference site he ever uses. Saddam was a weapon of mass destruction just ask the Kurds.
Mainstream? Like what Joe Biden's idea of mainstream is? Less than 25% of America agree with him, but he is mainstream....odd kind of mainstream when 75% of America doesn't agree with "mainstream"
Hee, and again I say, Hee.
Oh, and ER? Thanks for proving my point.
"Oh the article the court jester gave me...."
"the" article? i gave you four articles.
"....is the only reference site he ever uses." (my emphasis)
four articles, four seperate sources, one of them an iaea bulliten meant to dispel the very disinformation you were promulgating.
here's the discussion, as it appears you've forgotten the gist of it.
you can lead an elephant to water....
JEster
"Like what Joe Biden's idea of mainstream is?"
mark, this is a red herring. you've introduce an unrelated subject (biden, instead of kennedy), and proceded to argue against (and with some rather dubious stats) that subject while abandoning the original argument.
KEvron
uh, "bulletin"....
KEvron
I will stay out of the politics part of this and simply correct a few things about Galileo.
First, Galileo Galilei never dropped anything from the Tower of Pisa. Or at least we have no proof of him doing so. In his writings, he refers to various experiments in which items were dropped from a height, but never does he indicate that he did so. In fact, the support for his "law of falling bodies" in his work De Motu (On Motion) comes from rolling down weights on an inclined plane. So where did the story come from? Vincenzo Viviani, Galileo's student and first biographer, claimed that Galileo demonstrated his conclusions by dropping weights from the leaning tower of Pisa. However, Vincenzo was never able to provide details of this or other witnesses to back his claim despite the fact that he said it happened in front of many teachers and students. (Vincenzo, who worshiped Galileo, also made up other stories about Galileo's life among the lines of our own fable about Washington and the Cherry Tree.) It's interesting to note that Vincenzo only told the story about the Tower after Galileo's death. He claimed Galileo had shared it with him as the old man lay on his death bed. But it's strange that the story had never been told before despite the fact that On Motion, while not published during Galileo's lifetime, had been shared with other mathematicians in tracts and in lectures by Galileo. Finally the Tower's history has been well documented, and although historians working for the Italian government conducted an intensive and exhaustive search hoping to link Galileo to the tower, they were never able to do so.
Second, Galileo was hauled before the Church for his Dialog on the Two Chief Systems of the World (1632), which was supposed to be an objective debate between the Copernican system(which said the earth revolved around the sun) and the Ptolemaic system (which said the heavens revolved around the earth and was supposedly Biblical). Galileo unwisely put the Pope's favorite argument in the mouth of one of the characters in his book and then proceeded to ridicule it. The Inquisition was not amused. Under the threat of torture, an elderly, ill and frightened Galileo was forced to recant his Copernican views and put under house arrest for the rest of his life. On Motion, where he explained his views on falling bodies, was never brought before the Church because it wasn't published until after his death.
Third, the Church leaders never saw any of his experiments and thus did not ignore the evidence of "their own eyes." In fact, the Ptolemaic system was quite clever in explaining observations to that point in history. Only the development of stronger and better telescopes allowed Galileo to see things that the Ptolemaic system couldn't account for. But Galileo was never allowed to nor did he try to present any evidence at his trial. (Truthfully, what was at stake for the church wasn't the infallibility of the Bible since that was a given even to Galileo during that period of history, but rather the infallibility of the Pope who claimed that the Ptolemaic system was divinely correct.) Galileo sat silent as he was accused and then he explained that he considered his book to only be a thought experiment and was not related to the real world. He had even included a disclaimer to that effect in the book out of a justified fear of the Church. This probably saved his life, but the trial and the house arrest afterwards broke his spirit.
Time also showed other Presidents who have stretched a law or tried to break one during war. Congress and the Judicial either allowed it or barred the President from what he was trying to do. No one tried to impeach them.
Sheila, what issue of Time is this? I'd be curious to check it out, if it's still on the newstands; or online.
Max Boot included mention of this in his LA Times piece about a week ago:
If you want to see real abuses of civil liberties, read Geoffrey R. Stone's 2004 book "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism." It tells how John Adams jailed a congressman for criticizing his "continual grasp for power." How Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and had the army arrest up to 38,000 civilians suspected of undermining the Union cause. How Woodrow Wilson imprisoned Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs for opposing U.S. entry into World War I. And how Franklin D. Roosevelt consigned 120,000 Japanese Americans to detention camps.
You can also read about how presidents from FDR to Richard Nixon used the FBI to spy on, and occasionally blackmail and harass, their political opponents. The Senate's Church Committee in 1976 blew the whistle on decades of misconduct, including FBI investigations of such nefarious characters as Eleanor Roosevelt, William O. Douglas, Barry Goldwater and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Bush may not have done this himself, but his administration has had a hand in illegal wire tapping and targeting of American Citizens who are guilty of Protesting only.
It's still up in the air whether anything was done illegally. Anyone who says otherwise, from the left or the right, can't support their side until everything's been released regarding the NSA wiretap program. For now, it's conjecture, and partisan politics. Personally, I feel like the President is on firm grounds on this one, in several ways. But I'm also partisan on this, so what else can I say?
And as far as the "targeting of citizens guilty of protest only"....well, I'm sure that the majority of people eavesdropped upon and monitored turn out to be innocent of any terrorist wrongdoing. That's just the nature of security. Think of all the people who go through the security checkpoint in an airport terminal. What's the percentage of them being a danger to the airport and to an airliner? It's probably less a hundredth of a decimal point. But in an age of nuclear weapons and chemical and biological agents and homicide bombers willing to sacrifice themselves for their ideology, I'm willing to sacrifice a reasonable amount of privacy to make myself and fellow citizens safer. It's why we put up with an invasion of privacy when we surrender our luggage for inspection at some airports.
When I did security work, everyone who enters your store should raise your eyebrows to a certain extent. You investigate with a reasonable amount of attention, until the person has proven to be "safe". Some will garner more attention than others. Some will deserve closer scrutiny and you will be derelict in your duty for not attempting to learn more.
If I were told to find out more on peace protestors, I'd go in without really assuming I'd find anything unusual. That the likelihood of finding any terrorist connnections is small. But can we really afford not to leave any stone unturned?
Is it so unreasonable to assume that even though we know most protestors are not a danger to the U.S., those who do wish to do us harm, which may include our own citizens, might also work openly in protests to bring about our ruin? I know this isn't specifically about protestors, so I hope people can see I'm just using this as an example, to go with what Sheila said.
But all of us cringe at the thought of having another freadom taken away. The freedom to protest and feel safe while protesting.
That freedom isn't taken away. The presence of police...monitoring peace rallies. Doesn't that make you feel safer? Not threatened by the government? Why is it any different if someone is also scrutinizing the participants at a rally? There may indeed be a terrorist-minded thug among you. wouldn't you want him exposed? If you are not a danger, why feel threatened by the government, simply for trying to protect its citizens from another terrorist attack on our soil?
That ONE freedom that others in countries across the globe envy us for.
Sheila, I'm sorry; but I really feel like the fear that our civil liberties are under attack is just so much scare-mongering and irrational. The NSA could care less if Kevron is looking up porn; but if they discover someone using a library computer to converse with others on a jihadi forum, talking about harming Americans and posting rudimentary instructions on how to make a hydrogen bomb....trying to discover forum members who are part of a mujahadin to find out how he could connect with them....wouldn't you want our government to know about this?
Tech, the info I got was a combonation of what Mary matilin said on Imus and what the world book encyclepedia
says. Whether the story of dropping weights from the tower is accurate or not, my point is that the rulers of the day, which was the church, stubbornly refused to accept his findings because they chose not to believe it, and not because there was any proof to the contrary.
Way to go Sheila
visit www.lcoliberal.blogspot.com
Mark, I quite understood your point. You, however, apparently missed mine. I will attempt to be less subtle in the future.
Facts are important. When someone uses the incorrect facts to support an argument, it makes the entire argument suspect, even though the argument itself may have merit.
This is the entire World Book Encycloydedia article on Galileo.
"Galileo, «GAL uh LAY oh or GAL uh LEE oh» (1564-1642), an Italian astronomer and physicist, has been called the founder of modern experimental science. Galileo made the first effective use of the refracting telescope to discover important new facts about astronomy. He also discovered the law of falling bodies as well as the law of the pendulum. Galileo designed a variety of scientific instruments. He also developed and improved the refracting telescope, though he did not invent it.
"Early life. Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa on Feb. 15, 1564. In the early 1570's, his family moved to Florence, and Galileo began his formal education at a school in a nearby monastery. Galileo's father, determined that his son should be a doctor, sent him to the University of Pisa in 1581. Galileo studied medicine and the philosophy of Aristotle for the next four years.
"Galileo's years as a student at Pisa marked a turning point for him. Never really interested in medicine, he discovered he had a talent for mathematics. In 1585, he persuaded his father to let him leave the university. Back in Florence with his family, Galileo spent the next four years as a tutor in mathematics. During this time, he began to question Aristotelian philosophy and scientific thought. At the same time, he gained his first public notice with his new hydrostatic balance, an instrument used to find the specific gravity of objects by weighing them in water.In 1589, Galileo was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Pisa. This position required him to teach courses in astronomy on the basis of the Greek astronomer Ptolemy's theory that the sun and all the planets revolve around the earth. Preparing for these courses deepened Galileo's understanding of astronomical theory. In 1592, he took up duties as professor of mathematics at the University of Padua, where he spent the next 18 years. During this time, he became convinced of the truth of the theory, proposed by the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, that all planets, including the earth, revolve around the sun.
"Galileo's Mature scientific career. In 1609, while still at Padua, Galileo built his first telescope. Turning it to the sky, he saw clear evidence that many of Aristotle's and Ptolemy's claims about the heavens were false. Galileo's first discovery was that, far from being perfectly smooth, as Aristotle and Ptolemy had thought, the moon was mountainous and pitted, much like the earth. He made his most sensational discovery in 1610, when he discovered four moons circling Jupiter. He named these moons the "Medicean Planets," in the hope of winning the favor of the Medicis, the ruling family of Florence.In 1610, Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, named Galileo his personal mathematician. This position brought Galileo back to Florence, where he continued his studies of the heavens. He made observations of sunspots and of Venus, noting that the planet progresses through phases similar to those of the moon. This fact confirmed his doubts about Ptolemaic astronomy and deepened his conviction of the truth of Copernicus' theory that the earth and planets revolve around the sun. Publication of these findings, starting in 1610, brought him wide renown.Galileo also pursued research on motion—especially the motion of freely falling bodies. The problem, as he saw it, was that the Aristotelian theory of motion, which referred all motion to a stationary earth at the center of the universe, made it impossible to believe the earth actually moves. Galileo went to work to develop a theory of motion consistent with a moving earth. Among the most important results of this search were the law of the pendulum and the law of freely falling bodies. Galileo observed that pendulums of equal length swing at the same rate whether their arcs are large or small. Modern measuring instruments show that the rate is actually somewhat greater if the arc is large. Galileo's law of falling bodies states that all objects fall at the same speed, regardless of their mass; and that, as they fall, the speed of their descent increases uniformly.
"Galileo and the Roman Catholic Church. Galileo's quick wit, which he often used to ridicule his opponents, earned him a number of enemies. In 1613, Galileo wrote a letter in which he tried to show that the Copernican theory was consistent with both Catholic doctrine and proper Biblical interpretation. Some of his enemies sent a copy of this letter to the inquisitors in Rome, who sought out and punished heretics—people who opposed church teachings. In early 1616, Galileo was summoned to Rome for a determination on the orthodoxy of his views. Although he was cleared of charges of heresy, he was ordered not "to hold or defend" the Copernican theory. That is, he could treat the theory hypothetically but not treat it as if it were true. In 1632, Galileo published his first scientific masterpiece, the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. In this work, he compared the Ptolemaic-Aristotelian theory to the Copernican theory to show that the Copernican system was logically superior. Once again Galileo was summoned to Rome, this time to answer to the charge of willfully disobeying the order not "to hold or defend" Copernicus' theory. In 1633, the Inquisition found Galileo guilty of the charge, forced him to recant (publicly withdraw his statement), and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Because of Galileo's advanced age and poor health, the church allowed him to serve his imprisonment under house arrest in a villa outside Florence. There, he passed the remainder of his years in relative isolation, eventually becoming blind. But he managed to complete his second scientific masterpiece, the Discourse on Two New Sciences, published in 1638. In this work, Galileo provided both a mathematical proof of his new theory of motion and an original study of the tensile strength of materials. He died on Jan. 8, 1642. In 1979, Pope John Paul II declared that the Roman Catholic Church may have been mistaken in condemning Galileo. He instructed a church commission to study Galileo's case. In 1983, the commission concluded that Galileo should not have been condemned. In 1984, at the commission's recommendation, the church published all documents related to Galileo's trial. In 1992, Pope John Paul II publicly endorsed the commission's finding that the church had made a mistake in condemning Galileo.
"Galileo's scientific contribution. Historians disagree about Galileo's role as the "founder of modern experimental science." In fact, some of them doubt that experiment, in the modern sense, played an important part at all in Galileo's scientific development. These historians maintain that Galileo's real originality lay in the way he approached scientific problems. First, Galileo reduced those problems to very simple terms on the basis of everyday experience and common-sense logic. Then he analyzed and resolved the problems according to simple mathematical descriptions. The success with which Galileo applied this technique to the analysis of physics, especially the physics of motion, opened the way for the development of modern mathematical physics."
______________ Smith, A. Mark. "Galileo." World Book Online Reference Center. 2006. World Book, Inc. 1 Feb. 2006 http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol.com/wb/Article?id=ar215300.
For a very readable and interesting book on Galileo, I suggest Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love by Dava Sobel. You can also find more about Galileo on the web at the Galileo Project (http://galileo.rice.edu).
Thanks, Sheila.
In regards to the hearings, the people I have been following, on the conservative side, want the hearings to go forward. None of them want this debate stifled. They just believe the President is on solid footing- which is why they feel this is good for Republicans.
A nice fat document with hundreds of cases of normal citizens who were spied on and are on a continued list.
I didn't say "no proof on wiretapping", which most clearly has taken place.
But when you say "normal citizens"....I stand by my point about how whenever you are conducting anything related to security where you need to monitor people, the majority of time, you are not going to score. In retail loss prevention (just trying to draw upon my experience), 90% of the shoplifters are nonprofessionals, without the intention of stealing when they enter your store; probably less than 10% of your customers are potential shoplifters. So, do you try to focus on the professional 'lifters who make up only 10% of your actual shoplifters who themselves make up less than 10% of your customers?
My argument is, those "normal citizens" probably gave off a reasonable reason to look into their lives further. In a nuclear age, I don't have a problem with this. When the next terrorist attack happens on our soil, we'll criticize an administration all over again for not having done enough.
As far as the House Bill, can you lead me to it? I'd like to know more.
A Kos Kid cited Cohen v. California as a reason Cindy was illegally removed from the SotU. So I'd like to know on what legal authority the police had to arrest her.
Smithy, I believe the formal charge when arresting Sheehan was unlawful behavior, a misdemeanor, but if she is convicted she faces a maximum of 1 year in prison.
That, I wouldn't mind seeing but it would most certainly give the left more ammunition to make specious Getapo tactics charges.
I believe this is the actual law in question.
No administration would ever put up with disruption of a SotU address. It's ridiculous to use this as "further example of civil rights being violated by the Bush Regime".
I suppose if Cindy Sheehan interrupted President Bush in the middle of his bowel movements, he'd get sued by the ACLU for denying Cindy her First Amendment rights, when he charges her with trespassing.
"That, I wouldn't mind seeing"
pretty steep sentence for a t=shirt, mark, but seeing as you hate her, i guess that would make it fair.
"....specious Getapo tactics charges."
you mean they'd spew despicable anti-american dribble like "a year?! prophet's beard! it was just a t-shirt!"? the treacherous dogs....
KEvron
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