Re: [FRIAM] Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?

2017-01-05 Thread glen ☣ 
On 01/04/2017 10:15 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Sure... the situation would be improved, and we would call it a win, if we 
> could send Putin to the principles office... Part of my point was exactly 
> that it seems unlikely a public accusation by Trump would do anything towards 
> getting Putin to "learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those 
> things." Does anyone think Obama's sending home a handful of diplomats did 
> that?

Not to pile on ... but it seems we know that tit-for-tat isn't necessarily 
always the best strategy in games.  But since there is no free lunch, we also 
know that it's a decent default.  No, Putin won't change his ways just because 
we titted after he tatted.  But _not_ titting requires some longer term 
strategy.  Not only that, we have a long history of tit-for-tat in our spycraft.

So, I'll answer your question with another one.  Do we really think Trump has a 
long-term strategy for playing any type of game with Putin?


On 01/04/2017 08:25 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> The media should integrate a lot of sources of context into a coherent 
> picture of this man, and not just fire off these fact on-offs that come 
> across like cheap shots to his sympathizers.   What, if any, long-term 
> motives does he have, and how are his current and historical actions and 
> statements consistent with those motives?  Not what it is, but what it means. 
>   Doing this with evidence and repeated examples is what makes this reporting 
> and not just editorializing. 

I believe our incoming Cheeto-in-Chief is purely reactive.  Any memory he might 
have is occupied by logging all his "enemies" who have "slighted" him in one 
way or another, leaving no memory for strategy.  It'll take a lot of work to 
demonstrate (to me) that he has an understanding of strategy at all.  (Tactics 
are another matter, of course.  Anyone who lives to 70 has demonstrated some 
understanding of tactics.)

However, as long as he surrounds himself with actual strategists, they (and the 
"deep state") provide a good chance that no matter what nonsense goes on inside 
Trump's head, post-hoc analysis will show a relatively stable system.  If he 
_reacts_ in a singularly biased way (e.g. listening to Bannon more than 
Tillerson, say), then we'll see significant instability.  None of that will 
imply Trump has any kind of strategy at all, though.  He'll just jump up and 
tweet about any factoid that goes his way and claim it as part of his plan.  
Any factoid that doesn't fit the narrative will be "rigged" or simply ignored.

This raises, yet again, the logical possibility of philosophical zombies ... 
and challenges the behaviorist model.  If Trump _appears_ for all intents and 
purposes to have a strategy, does he actually have a strategy?  >8^D  Is the 
holographic principle reliable?

-- 
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?

2017-01-04 Thread Marcus Daniels 
Let me put aside Putin or any other boogeyman.   There is the separate question 
of how to cope with people -- powerful or not -- who make frequent or 
outrageous accusations.   Do you sit there with the moral high ground and do 
nothing due to the objections you cite?   You can do that, but I say that is a 
form of wishful thinking; it is pacifism.  Or do you progress the social arms 
race?  Do you make pre-emptive attacks instead of playing defense?   Do you 
modulate your rules in light of the fact your opponent demonstrates no regard 
for any sort of civil behavior?  I read you to say that you would not.

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Vladimyr Burachynsky
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2017 4:12 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is 
acting with respect to the truth?

I think I am responding to Eric Charles,

It appears as you suggest  rather trivial… Yet it does contain a rather 
startling component.
Accusation
This need not be based on truth it seems or context. Accusation by itself draws 
to itself Gullible believers
that then they are encouraged to riot , abuse others, or start phony wars. The 
demagogue uses these people
as Vicious Weapons for a time then he loses control and perishes or slinks off 
stage.
Is the Accusation a convenient excuse for brutality , lynching or riots. No one 
much discusses the Accusation’s properties itself. Always leaving a
false binary between truth or falsehood.  The accusation serves a purpose even 
if the truth-state is unclear.
Just why do people choose to believe an accusation without evidence…
To believe a false accusation or clouded insinuation seems to give license to 
vile actions against arbitrary targets.
Is an Accusation  then a Social Weapon regardless of truth.
Once an Accusation is unleashed does anyone escape unharmed.
vib

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: January-04-17 12:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is 
acting with respect to the truth?

Is it a lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his 
classmates, or goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior?

Sure... the situation would be improved, and we would call it a win, if we 
could send Putin to the principles office... Part of my point was exactly that 
it seems unlikely a public accusation by Trump would do anything towards 
getting Putin to "learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those 
things." Does anyone think Obama's sending home a handful of diplomats did that?

This is especially true as there is not any suggestion that votes were altered. 
If there were implications of that, it would necessarily throw the election 
into question, and have huge political implications. But that isn't among the 
things Russia is accused of. Instead, they are accused (by some) of an effort 
to selectively search for and release true reproductions of material authored 
by people in the inner circle of the Democratic Party, which is not itself a 
state entity. While there is reason to think the released material had 
implications for how the election played out, the material doesn't even rise to 
the level of a propaganda effort in the traditional sense of the spreading of 
false information or even false implications, and it is not a direct attack on 
the democratic process. In terms of its criminal nature, such an act should be 
viewed similar to hacking the email system at a start-up company, and releasing 
embarrassing (but accurate) materials regarding ongoing operations, shortly 
before an IPO.

That said, I fully agree with your take that this is a sideshow compared to 
many more important issues that could be covered by the news.



---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician
U.S. Marine Corps

On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 12:21 PM, Marcus Daniels 
mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
“Even if the intelligence community had iron clad proof, that everyone could 
understand and believe beyond a reasonable doubt (which they don't), it would 
only heighten questions about the legitimacy of Trump's win. At this point, 
that wouldn't be a win for Trump, or the country.”

For some narrow, short-sighted, definition of “win for the country”.  Is it a 
lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his classmates, or 
goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior?   In the long term it is a 
win if we learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those things.   
The supposed Russian hacking thing is a sideshow to the real problem of Trump’s 
conflict of interests in so many countries, esp. his outstanding debts to 
foreign banks.  Who really has their finger on him and how does his intend to 
use

Re: [FRIAM] Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?

2017-01-04 Thread Vladimyr Burachynsky 
I think I am responding to Eric Charles,

 

It appears as you suggest  rather trivial… Yet it does contain a rather 
startling component.

Accusation

This need not be based on truth it seems or context. Accusation by itself draws 
to itself Gullible believers

that then they are encouraged to riot , abuse others, or start phony wars. The 
demagogue uses these people

as Vicious Weapons for a time then he loses control and perishes or slinks off 
stage.

Is the Accusation a convenient excuse for brutality , lynching or riots. No one 
much discusses the Accusation’s properties itself. Always leaving a

false binary between truth or falsehood.  The accusation serves a purpose even 
if the truth-state is unclear. 

Just why do people choose to believe an accusation without evidence…

To believe a false accusation or clouded insinuation seems to give license to 
vile actions against arbitrary targets.

Is an Accusation  then a Social Weapon regardless of truth.

Once an Accusation is unleashed does anyone escape unharmed.

vib

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: January-04-17 12:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is 
acting with respect to the truth?

 

Is it a lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his 
classmates, or goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior?

 

Sure... the situation would be improved, and we would call it a win, if we 
could send Putin to the principles office... Part of my point was exactly that 
it seems unlikely a public accusation by Trump would do anything towards 
getting Putin to "learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those 
things." Does anyone think Obama's sending home a handful of diplomats did 
that? 

 

This is especially true as there is not any suggestion that votes were altered. 
If there were implications of that, it would necessarily throw the election 
into question, and have huge political implications. But that isn't among the 
things Russia is accused of. Instead, they are accused (by some) of an effort 
to selectively search for and release true reproductions of material authored 
by people in the inner circle of the Democratic Party, which is not itself a 
state entity. While there is reason to think the released material had 
implications for how the election played out, the material doesn't even rise to 
the level of a propaganda effort in the traditional sense of the spreading of 
false information or even false implications, and it is not a direct attack on 
the democratic process. In terms of its criminal nature, such an act should be 
viewed similar to hacking the email system at a start-up company, and releasing 
embarrassing (but accurate) materials regarding ongoing operations, shortly 
before an IPO. 

 

That said, I fully agree with your take that this is a sideshow compared to 
many more important issues that could be covered by the news. 

 





---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 12:21 PM, Marcus Daniels  wrote:

“Even if the intelligence community had iron clad proof, that everyone could 
understand and believe beyond a reasonable doubt (which they don't), it would 
only heighten questions about the legitimacy of Trump's win. At this point, 
that wouldn't be a win for Trump, or the country.”

 

For some narrow, short-sighted, definition of “win for the country”.  Is it a 
lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his classmates, or 
goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior?   In the long term it is a 
win if we learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those things.   
The supposed Russian hacking thing is a sideshow to the real problem of Trump’s 
conflict of interests in so many countries, esp. his outstanding debts to 
foreign banks.  Who really has their finger on him and how does his intend to 
use his new power in relation to that?  No one wants to dig into the hacking 
thing very deep because at the end of the day it proves nothing.  States do 
nasty things.  Yes, we get that.  Our networks and infrastructure are not 
particularly secure and like our shipping ports there are productivity 
consequences to being more cautious.

 

Marcus



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Re: [FRIAM] Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?

2017-01-04 Thread Marcus Daniels 
Well, I wasn’t talking about Putin.  I’m talking about Thiel’s remark:

"[..] our education culminates with the knowledge that the broader education of 
the body politic has become a fool’s errand."

Whether Trump is really legitimate (in a deep way) or not isn’t just a question 
of undisturbed counting, it is whether voters care more about facts or their 
feelings.   Does our democracy really have any more grounding than Netflix 
suggesting new movies to watch?   Do people care more about unknowable 
intentions or knowable behaviors?  If we as a democracy make terrible choices, 
at some point Karma has to close the loop.   It seems to me that will be the 
next phase of things.  Trump is just the instrument.

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2017 11:15 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is 
acting with respect to the truth?

Is it a lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his 
classmates, or goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior?

Sure... the situation would be improved, and we would call it a win, if we 
could send Putin to the principles office... Part of my point was exactly that 
it seems unlikely a public accusation by Trump would do anything towards 
getting Putin to "learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those 
things." Does anyone think Obama's sending home a handful of diplomats did that?


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?

2017-01-04 Thread Eric Charles 
Is it a lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his
classmates, or goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior?

Sure... the situation would be improved, and we would call it a win, if we
could send Putin to the principles office... Part of my point was exactly
that it seems unlikely a public accusation by Trump would do anything
towards getting Putin to "learn there are consequences to things and stop
doing those things." Does anyone think Obama's sending home a handful of
diplomats did that?

This is especially true as there is not any suggestion that votes were
altered. If there were implications of that, it would necessarily throw the
election into question, and have huge political implications. But that
isn't among the things Russia is accused of. Instead, they are accused (by
some) of an effort to selectively search for and release true reproductions
of material authored by people in the inner circle of the Democratic Party,
which is not itself a state entity. While there is reason to think the
released material had implications for how the election played out, the
material doesn't even rise to the level of a propaganda effort in the
traditional sense of the spreading of false information or even false
implications, and it is not a direct attack on the democratic process. In
terms of its criminal nature, such an act should be viewed similar to
hacking the email system at a start-up company, and releasing embarrassing
(but accurate) materials regarding ongoing operations, shortly before an
IPO.

That said, I fully agree with your take that this is a sideshow compared to
many more important issues that could be covered by the news.



---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician
U.S. Marine Corps


On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 12:21 PM, Marcus Daniels 
wrote:

> *“*Even if the intelligence community had iron clad proof, that everyone
> could understand and believe beyond a reasonable doubt (which they don't),
> it would only heighten questions about the legitimacy of Trump's win. At
> this point, that wouldn't be a win for Trump, or the country.”
>
>
>
> For some narrow, short-sighted, definition of “win for the country”.  Is
> it a lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his
> classmates, or goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior?   In the
> long term it is a win if we learn there are consequences to things and stop
> doing those things.   The supposed Russian hacking thing is a sideshow to
> the real problem of Trump’s conflict of interests in so many countries,
> esp. his outstanding debts to foreign banks.  Who really has their finger
> on him and how does his intend to use his new power in relation to that?
> No one wants to dig into the hacking thing very deep because at the end of
> the day it proves nothing.  States do nasty things.  Yes, we get that.  Our
> networks and infrastructure are not particularly secure and like our
> shipping ports there are productivity consequences to being more cautious.
>
>
>
> Marcus
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

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Re: [FRIAM] Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?

2017-01-04 Thread Marcus Daniels 
“Even if the intelligence community had iron clad proof, that everyone could 
understand and believe beyond a reasonable doubt (which they don't), it would 
only heighten questions about the legitimacy of Trump's win. At this point, 
that wouldn't be a win for Trump, or the country.”

For some narrow, short-sighted, definition of “win for the country”.  Is it a 
lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his classmates, or 
goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior?   In the long term it is a 
win if we learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those things.   
The supposed Russian hacking thing is a sideshow to the real problem of Trump’s 
conflict of interests in so many countries, esp. his outstanding debts to 
foreign banks.  Who really has their finger on him and how does his intend to 
use his new power in relation to that?  No one wants to dig into the hacking 
thing very deep because at the end of the day it proves nothing.  States do 
nasty things.  Yes, we get that.  Our networks and infrastructure are not 
particularly secure and like our shipping ports there are productivity 
consequences to being more cautious.

Marcus

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Re: [FRIAM] Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?

2017-01-04 Thread Owen Densmore 
On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 9:39 AM, Prof David West 
 wrote:

> Exactly why does anyone believe anything the "intelligence" community
> asserts to be the "truth?"
>

Ars Technica at least, believes the white house hacking report was a fail:

White House fails to make case that Russian hackers tampered with election
http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/12/did-russia-tamper-with-the-2016-election-bitter-debate-likely-to-rage-on/


​   -- Owen​

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Re: [FRIAM] Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?

2017-01-04 Thread Prof David West 
Exactly why does anyone believe anything the "intelligence" community
asserts to be the "truth?"


Two concrete reasons I doubt their veracity at the moment: 1) I have met
several members of Cozy Bear (when I was in Moscow the week before the
election) who readily admit the DNC hack and demonstrated many others.
They also expressed frustration that they had not been able to hack
Donald - because he does not use email or much tech at all - except
twitter. Cozy bear is not a state agency and although the state is aware
of their existence and ignores it as long as their actions are outside
of Russia. It is at most state ignored/tolerated and most definitely not
state or state sponsored. 2) the power utility laptop reported as part
of some "Grizzly Steppe" Russian cyber warfare initiative. Intelligence
community said that they had code fragments to prove it. In reality the
only thing on the laptop was an IP address associated with a
"suspicious" site in Russia.


BTW - it is well known that almost the entire power grid is infected
with malware (Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and even North Korean) and has
been for the past 5-10 years. Just as the power grids of those countries
are infected with US malware. MAD has moved from nuclear to electric.


davew







On Wed, Jan 4, 2017, at 08:48 AM, Eric Charles wrote:

> CNN's home page is taken to clustering stories. In their big cover
> story at the moment, The main headline is that Trump mocks
> intelligence agencies over the claims regarding Russian hacking.
> "Mocks" is a not-egregious interpretations of thing things Trump has
> said, so that seems like straightforward reporting. A subheading says
> that Assange claims he did not get at-issue emails he posted to
> Wikileaks from Russia. This is still relatively straightforward
> reporting. What Assange stated was that he did not get the emails from
> a state or state actor, which (if true) still leaves open the
> possibility that person who performed the hack was Russian or someone
> in Russia at the time. The final headline in the cluster is "Ex-CIA
> spokesman: Trump believes Julian Assange over the CIA[1]".
> 

> The latter headline (and associated story) ports in an odd assumption
> not present in the prior stories: The assumption that Trump's
> statements are with respect to the truth of the situation. I'm not
> sure why that is still a thing people are thinking.
> 

> In contrast with that, I would say - based on the previous stories and
> other associated reports, and Trump's general behavior - that Trump's
> statements regarding Russian hacking evidences only that he thinks the
> best way to play the situation is to not publically blame Russia. That
> seems like a reasonable play, regardless of what Trump thinks and who
> he trusts. I can't see anything Trump would gain by publicly blaming
> Russia, and it is also unclear to me what the U.S. would have to gain
> by Trump publicly blaming Putin. If Trump thinks they hacked the DNC,
> one would think he would ask the spy communities and the diplomatic
> communities for advice about how to handle that behind the scenes,
> countering spycraft with spycraft. There is nothing for an incoming
> president to gain by trying to call Putin out, in public, with scant
> evidence, the details of which would be inaccessible to most of the
> public anyway. (CNN was recently called out for running a story about
> Russian hacking that used pictures for the video game Fallout 4,
> presumably because they thought people would connect with that as a
> representation of what "hacking" looked like.) Even if the
> intelligence community had iron clad proof, that everyone could
> understand and believe beyond a reasonable doubt (which they don't),
> it would only heighten questions about the legitimacy of Trump's win.
> At this point, that wouldn't be a win for Trump, or the country.
> 

> Are we really going to get four years of the media trying to treat
> everything Trumps says as if it is a factual claim he deeply believes?
> Was this ever a viable assumption for any president? Were are the
> commentaries we would see if it were any other (recent) president,
> talking about how he might or might not believe it, but he's backed
> into a political corner, and is probably making the right move?
> 

> 

> 

> 

> ---

> Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.

> Supervisory Survey Statistician

> U.S. Marine Corps

> 

> 

> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove




Links:

  1. 
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/04/politics/george-little-trump-tweet-assange/index.html

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Re: [FRIAM] Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?

2017-01-04 Thread Marcus Daniels 
Eric writes:

“Are we really going to get four years of the media trying to treat everything 
Trumps says as if it is a factual claim he deeply believes?”

It is relevant if his supporters believe his actions come from core values that 
are in line with theirs.   Is his drama `hyperbole truth’ (that to them is 
benign) or is it there a pattern of lying that will eventually falsify that 
belief and show him to be something other than what they thought?   For 
example, if they came to believe he and his administration has contempt for 
them like they believe Mrs. Clinton and her band of elites do.   It seems to me 
his constant uninhibited contradictions and incomplete ideas are appealing to 
some: It makes them feel ok about their own behavior and reckon “Hey, he’s just 
a [pig of a] guy like me.”  That said, sure, it is naïve to think that his 
fanatical supporters could be persuaded anyway (and the people reading their 
newspapers probably already are), so why get all spun-up about it?

I think it is better is the media collectively develops a storyline about him.  
 That is what worked for him, that he could lock in minds around a story, even 
if it was false.   For example, explain why did he invent and persist with the 
birther thing?   (Because he knew there was a racist audience that could be 
manipulated.)   The media should integrate a lot of sources of context into a 
coherent picture of this man, and not just fire off these fact on-offs that 
come across like cheap shots to his sympathizers.   What, if any, long-term 
motives does he have, and how are his current and historical actions and 
statements consistent with those motives?  Not what it is, but what it means.   
Doing this with evidence and repeated examples is what makes this reporting and 
not just editorializing.

Marcus






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[FRIAM] Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?

2017-01-04 Thread Eric Charles 
CNN's home page is taken to clustering stories. In their big cover story at
the moment, The main headline is that Trump mocks intelligence agencies
over the claims regarding Russian hacking. "Mocks" is a not-egregious
interpretations of thing things Trump has said, so that seems like
straightforward reporting. A subheading says that Assange claims he did not
get at-issue emails he posted to Wikileaks from Russia. This is still
relatively straightforward reporting. What Assange stated was that he did
not get the emails from a state or state actor, which (if true) still
leaves open the possibility that person who performed the hack was Russian
or someone in Russia at the time. The final headline in the cluster is "Ex-CIA
spokesman: Trump believes Julian Assange over the CIA
".


The latter headline (and associated story) ports in an odd assumption not
present in the prior stories: The assumption that Trump's statements are
with respect to the truth of the situation. I'm not sure why that is still
a thing people are thinking.

In contrast with that, I would say - based on the previous stories and
other associated reports, and Trump's general behavior - that
Trump's statements regarding Russian hacking evidences only that he thinks
the best way to play the situation is to not publically blame Russia. That
seems like a reasonable play, regardless of what Trump thinks and who he
trusts. I can't see anything Trump would gain by publicly blaming Russia,
and it is also unclear to me what the U.S. would have to gain by Trump
publicly blaming Putin. If Trump thinks they hacked the DNC, one would
think he would ask the spy communities and the diplomatic communities for
advice about how to handle that behind the scenes, countering spycraft with
spycraft. There is nothing for an incoming president to gain by trying to
call Putin out, in public, with scant evidence, the details of which would
be inaccessible to most of the public anyway. (CNN was recently called out
for running a story about Russian hacking that used pictures for the video
game Fallout 4, presumably because they thought people would connect with
that as a representation of what "hacking" looked like.) Even if the
intelligence community had iron clad proof, that everyone could understand
and believe beyond a reasonable doubt (which they don't), it would only
heighten questions about the legitimacy of Trump's win. At this point, that
wouldn't be a win for Trump, or the country.

Are we really going to get four years of the media trying to treat
everything Trumps says as if it is a factual claim he deeply believes? Was
this ever a viable assumption for any president? Were are the commentaries
we would see if it were any other (recent) president, talking about how he
might or might not believe it, but he's backed into a political corner, and
is probably making the right move?




---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician
U.S. Marine Corps


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