Iamon lyme: His full name is Artful "half page" Dodger

A political press agent or publicist employed to promote a favourable interpretation of events to journalists.


This is of American origin and came about during the 1980s, when the need for 'sound bites' became pressing enough to require a new class of publicist to provide them. The earliest printed references are from that period, For example, this from The New York Times, October 1984:

"A dozen men in good suits and women in silk dresses will circulate smoothly among the reporters, spouting confident opinions. They won't be just press agents trying to impart a favorable spin to a routine release. They'll be the Spin Doctors, senior advisers to the candidates."

So, why 'spin'? For the derivation of that we need to go back to yarn. We know that sailors and other storytellers have a reputation for spinning yarns. Given a phrase in the language like 'spin a yarn', we might expect to assume that a yarn was a tall tale and that the tellers spun it out. That's not quite right though. Until the phrase was coined, yarn was just thread. The phrase was coined as an entity, just meaning 'tell a tale'. That came about in the early 19th century and was first written down in James Hardy Vaux's A new and comprehensive vocabulary of the flash language, in 1812:

"Yarning or spinning a yarn, signifying to relate their various adventures, exploits, and escapes to each other."

So, spin became associated with telling a story. It began to be used in a political and promotional context in the late 1980s; for example, in the Guardian Weekly, January 1978:

"The CIA can be an excellent source [of information], though, like every other, its offerings must be weighed for factuality and spin."

From there it is a small step for the people employed to weave reports of factual events into palatable stories to be called 'spin doctors'.

It don't matter who you are, ya can't beat 100% success

Iamon lyme: Sorry, it's more than a chapter ;)

The Col: I thought you'd say "half-wit" Dodger

Artful Dodger: That's okay. A little laughter is good for the soul... too much laughter not so much.

Iamon lyme: I hear that if you laugh too hard you fart. So I always fart first and then laugh away.

Artful Dodger: Preemptive farting doesn't work for me.. I just end up farting twice.

Iamon lyme: That's not allowed?

Wife: "Did you fart?!"

Husband: "If you have to ask, it couldn't have been from me."

Artful Dodger: My wife would get mad at me and say, "You're doing that on purpose!"

I was dissapointed with the opening ceremony:( London is a bedlam at the moment hahahaha, I should have stayed home.

MissDelish: I'm watching from my Chair. It's nicer that way. Lots of cute chicks from other countries. And they are all waving at me!!!

MissDelish: Next time when you are in London, we'll be sure to ask Paul to organize the ceremony. But I'm not sure of the exchange rate... Him and his people not being of this Earth.

MissDelish: Strangeness is relative to the observer.

Everyone knows London will be Bedlam at the moment, it's called 100's of 1000's of people visiting... It'll be like rush hour all day.

That's why I've put off any trips I need to make into London until after the Olympics.

Iamon lyme: I never hold them in. That's why I'm so smart. You could say, "It's smart for Art to fart."

Anyone wanna hear more of Obama's gaffes? I play ya two for one. I'll post two for every one you can find on Mittens.

Now that the US has elected its first black president, I wonder if England is ready to elect its first black prime minister?

Iamon lyme: I was thinking more of what happened at the birth of our universe.. If the laws of nature were uniform then.. we wouldn't exist.

But, if we go back to what I said "Strangeness is relative to the observer" .. Then to most in the UK the belief that God created the world in 6 days and then rested, and that such is still 'believed unquestionably' (as many are forced to accept from birth in the USA) as very, very baroque.

Commentator Sarah Wildman says the Affordable Care Act finally makes healthcare affordable and accessible for women.

Fact: Before the Affordable Care Act it was perfectly legal to charge women more for health insurance; indeed it was the norm.
Fact: Before ACA, pregnancy was a pre-existing condition. So was a Caesarean Section. Both were legal cause for denying care.
Fact: Before ACA, pre-natal care wasn't normal women's care. Some 87% of insurance plans on the individual market did not offer maternity or labour and delivery as part of their coverage package.

Women have been going into debt, declaring bankruptcy, ruining their lives; all to give birth....

......The Affordable Care Act changes all that. It ends what's called "Gender Rating" - which allowed insurance companies to charge women more for being women.

It mandates maternity coverage. It ensures that pre-existing conditions will not force a woman to go without coverage. It ensures that insurance companies will no longer be allowed to turn down a woman for health coverage because she had a c-section.

The majority of Americans - some 63% - are covered by employer-based health insurance. Another handful qualify for Medicaid. Those of us on the individual market, at any given moment, are only 5-7% of the population.

But that number is misleading. It doesn't show those who are between jobs or starting new projects.......

......When I told my story in 2009 - of being billed $22,000 for the prenatal care and delivery of my child, despite having insurance that covered maternity expenses - I was shocked to discover how many fraudulent plans were out there.

Plans that charged women over $1,000 a month to include maternity care - only to discover that care would be capped at $3,000 or less for an entire pregnancy, and hospital care.

Coverage that insurance companies were well aware did nothing to actually cover the costs incurred. Plans that insisted women pay extra fees for a full year before getting pregnant. Plans that didn't allow women to be pregnant at all.

>>>>>>>> Such Freedom that women have in the land of the free ..... NOT!!

(V): "Commentator Sarah Wildman says the Affordable Care Act finally makes healthcare affordable and accessible for women."

Makes you wonder how the human race has survived up until now... what with all the stupid genes that keep getting passed along.

I'll change the subject this time..

Why have so many aliens crash landed on earth? With all of their advanced technology you would think landing on earth should be easy for them.

You can run but you can't hide. One dude goes seriously airborne. Sucks to be them.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b3d_1341648456

Oh boy, look at this
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2012/07/man-sentenced-to-30-days-in-jail-for-collecting-rainwater-on-his-property-2444266.html

poor man.

(V): The small percentage controlling most of the wealth in this world are no more likely to allow the simple voters to control decisions , than Gordon Ramsay is going to allow some reality show winner dictate his menu(and chances of success) at one of his restaurants

The Col: Nope. Billions are spent each year in 'lobbying' and back handers to make sure of that. The Nobles have not gone, they've just been renamed.

A formerly sceptical climate scientist says human activity is causing the Earth to warm, as a new study confirms earlier results on rising temperatures.

In a US newspaper opinion piece, Prof Richard Muller says: "Call me a converted sceptic."

Muller leads the Berkeley Earth Project, which is using new methods and some new data to investigate the claims made by other climate researchers.

Their latest study confirms the warming trend seen by other groups. The project received funds from sources that back organisations lobbying against action on climate change.

The team argues that the good correspondence between the new temperature record and historical data on CO2 emissions suggests human activity is "the most straightforward explanation" for the warming.

The paper reiterates the finding that the land surface temperature has risen 0.9C just in the last 50 years.

In a piece authored for the New York Times, Prof Muller, from the University of California, Berkeley, said: "Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming.

"Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I'm now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.".....

.....Prof Michael Mann, director of the Earth Science System Center at Penn State University, said that there was "a certain ironic satisfaction" in seeing a study funded by the Koch Brothers "demonstrate what scientists have known with some degree of confidence for nearly two decades: that the globe is indeed warming, and that this warming can only be explained by human-caused increases in greenhouse gas concentrations".

Prof Muller, meanwhile, describes his own change in standpoint as "a total turnaround".

He explained: "These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], the United Nations group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming."

(V): "Muller leads the Berkeley Earth Project"

I suppose it beats being an underemployed sceptic. Now Muller can afford to pay his light bill... no more shivering under the blankets on those cold winter nights.

Iamon lyme: So now because he didn't find in your view, you are begrudging him doing a job!!

If not as if he's some old preacher telling his flock the world is going to end and keeping the donations when 'the end' is a non event!!

... Is it that only Christian Preachers can use 'the end'??

Iamon lyme: It's pretty silly that the climate has become a political thing.I'll bet if a Republican rang the alarm on global warming it would considered gospel

The Col: "I'll bet if a Republican rang the alarm on global warming it would considered gospel"

Nope. It would recieve the same attention Democrats give to "birthers".

But you are right about it being a political game. Too bad we will never know what the reaction would be, because that is something I would bet on... easy money.

(V): Is attacking religion always your rebuttal when you have no rebuttal?

Iamon lyme: Jesus attacked those who abused devout people.

N' as "no rebuttal".. Is that why Al Gore keeps being used. He's not a good example, like those 'preachers' who take some families entire life savings.

.. If I really did want to attack a religion.. I'd start on Scientology.

(V): A simple 'yes' would have been sufficient, but thanks for the confirmation.

Iamon lyme: Hey.. since when have I been limited to one word answers!! Is this a new conservative board policy restricting freedom of speech for liberals yet again!!

Where is my memo??

(V): Oh my goodness no, I would never want you to be muzzled in any way! I look forward to your... I know there's a word for what you do, but for the moment it escapes me.

You are the classic champion of liberal ideals...

Iamon lyme: http://www.ihudaif.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/algore.jpg

Iamon lyme: Are you stereotyping me?

It’s a scientist’s duty to be properly skeptical, says Berkeley physics Prof. Richard Muller, who still says that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate change is speculative, exaggerated or just plain wrong. He has analyzed some of the most alarmist claims and his skepticism about them hasn’t changed.

What has changed is his doubt about the very existence of global warming. And he is now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause, he says.

But Hurricane Katrina cannot be attributed to global warming, he notes. The number of hurricanes hitting the United States has been going down, not up; likewise for intense tornadoes. Polar bears aren’t dying from receding ice, and the Himalayan glaciers aren’t going to melt by 2035. And it’s possible that we are currently no warmer than we were a thousand years ago, during the “Medieval Warm Period” or “Medieval Optimum,” an interval of warm conditions known from historical records and indirect evidence like tree rings. And the recent warm spell in the United States happens to be more than offset by cooling elsewhere in the world, so its link to “global” warming is weaker than tenuous.

So much for a total turnaround.  And what's so funny is how Muller was vilified, called a liar and a lunatic BEFORE his conversion but now he's a genius.  The Left wants it both ways. 


Besides, he's one guy with an opinion.  There have been climate scientists who were advocates of anthropogenic global warming but are now full on skeptics.  What about those guys?  hmmmmmmmm?    The Left loves to utilize the appeal to authority fallacy when it suits their point.  That other "experts" disagree with Muller doesn't seem to matter to their bottom line.

Richard Muller: Climate Profiteer

Remember Richard Muller, the Berkeley scientist who last
October declared climate skepticism to be over? Like other alarmists, he
is also a climate profiteer.<span>

In the Wall Street Journal commentary that rocketed Muller into the media spotlight, he wrote:

But now let me explain why you should not be a [global warming] skeptic, at least not any longer.

Muller’s tagline disclosed:

Mr. Muller is a professor of physics at the University of
California, Berkeley, and the author of “Physics for Future Presidents”
(W.W. Norton & Co., 2008).

But Dr. Muller is no mere Berkeley professor.

He is in fact president and chief scientist of Muller & Associates, which is:

Helping businesses make profitable investments in alternative energy

and

Helping governments build energy strategies that are right for them.

OPPS

Muller not a skeptic in 2003, either

From EthicsAlarms.com:

Here’s is Prof. Richard Muller, a Berkeley physicist, toward the conclusion of his 2003 paper on global warming data:

“Let me be clear. My own reading of the literature and study of
paleoclimate suggests strongly that carbon dioxide from burning of
fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history.
It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate.”

Earlier, it was pointed out that in 2006 Muller rated himself as two-thirds alarmist.

Artful Dodger: Hey, that's the al gore link I put up! Now I'll have to go find another one!

[]_ [[]] []_

Iamon lyme:" Nope. It would recieve the same attention Democrats give to "birthers".

But you are right about it being a political game. Too bad we will never know what the reaction would be, because that is something I would bet on... easy money."

I prefer to frame it as "I'll bet" I guess you know the future
My comment of it being considered "gospel" was from the Republican perspective, not Democratic

So children, what have we learned today?

*Well, for one, Professor Muller was not a total skeptic. He was 2/3's a believer in anthropogenic global warming long ago.

*Now he's gone all the way.

*His "turnaround" amounts to 33% as he was mostly there for years.

*He's written a book and likely he wants them to sell lots of them. The Left never allows the Right to get away with such a conflict of interest.

*Businesses whose livelihood is based on the need for anthropogenic global warming to be true pay Muller for his "expertise." So it's in his interest to hold to his latest view.

*This is a classic conflict of interest. Not to mention that Muller did NOT do a complete turn around as he was nearly 75% there from the start!

*---> Here’s is Prof. Richard Muller, a Berkeley physicist, toward the conclusion of his 2003 paper on global warming data:

“Let me be clear. My own reading of the literature and study of paleoclimate suggests strongly that carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate.”"


OK, class dismissed!

Artful Dodger: Ah shoot! I went to go find another global warming pic, but all I got was this stupid hat<a/>