 false, or the inferences logically invalid? Would you reject the conclusion that 2 + 2 = 4 merely because someone who told it to you was paid to do so? (Then you’d better reject everything everyone employed to teach math says.)
We’ve had a consistent message since our founding in 2005, a message grounded on our understanding of Christian worldview, theology, and ethics, and on the science and engineering and economics of climate change and energy production/distribution and how societies rise and stay out of poverty, and that message goes back as early as 1990 (my book Prospects for Growth: A Biblical View of Population, Resources, and the Future).
If Jones likes Smith’s message and offers to provide Smith a megaphone to spread it, what’s immoral about Smith’s accepting the megaphone?
All arguments of this sort commit the logical fallacy of argumentum ad hominem circumstantial: assuming that if someone who offers an argument stands to gain financially by doing so the argument itself can just be ignored and need not be refuted.
Try that when your heart surgeon advises quadruple bypass surgery to prevent a fatal heart attack.
Yes, the possibility exists that people’s thinking is swayed in part by their perceived gain, so that’s one factor that can legitimately remind us to test their arguments. But it doesn’t SUBSTITUTE for actually TESTING their ARGUMENTS—testing whether their premises are true and their inferences logical.
Further, we should be consistent—play fair. If we’re going to be suspicious of Jones’s argument because she has a financial interest in her conclusion, we must be equally suspicious of Smith’s argument if he has a financial interest in the opposite conclusion. That is certainly the case with, on the one side, the fossil fuel companies, and, on the other side, the renewable energy companies (not to mention also the thousands of climate-change researchers whose continued government grants, mounting into the billions every year, depend on their reaching conclusions that justify the funding) in the climate-change/energy policy debates. Those who attack only one side on “conflict-of-interest” grounds but fail to do the same to the other show their own bias.
Featured image “Money Trails” courtesy of Serge Melki, Flickr creative commons.Touching off the Kremlin’s most serious diplomatic confrontation with Washington since President Donald Trump took office six months ago, President Vladimir Putin announced Sunday that the United States would have to cut its embassy and consulate staff by 755, by far the biggest such forced reduction in years, in response to a package of sanctions awaiting Trump’s signature.
“I decided it’s time for us to show we do not intend to leave U.S. actions unanswered,” the Russian leader said in remarks aired in a prime-time evening interview on “Vesti,” a program on Russia’s Channel One.
The announcement marks a dizzying new turn in the relationship between Putin and Trump, whose interactions for months had appeared to be both courtship ritual and testing ground.
The cuts to American and local diplomatic positions, to take effect Sept. 1, would reduce the number of U.S. diplomatic staff in Russia to 455, the same number that Russia has in the United States.
In addition to the embassy in Moscow, the U.S. maintains consulates in St. Petersburg, Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg. His directive provided no breakdown of the numbers of U.S. personnel to be expelled and non-American staff to be dismissed, nor has the State Department issued any statement clarifying who would be affected.
A former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, tweeted that the number exceeds the total number of American diplomats in the country.
After the sanctions bill won Senate approval last week, the Kremlin had indicated that some expulsions were in the offing, and the Foreign Ministry said Friday that the number of U.S. personnel should be reduced to 455. Putin’s announcement formalized that _ and marked a huge escalation in terms of the usual diplomatic tit for tat.
By contrast, only 35 Russians were expelled by President Barack Obama shortly before he left office, and most of those were specifically singled out on suspicion of links to spying.
The Foreign Ministry had also said it seized two American diplomatic properties, including cottages just outside Moscow’s city center and a warehouse facility in Moscow.
Even during the days of the Cold War, retaliatory expulsions numbered in the dozens rather than hundreds, such as when the Reagan administration ordered out 55 Soviet diplomatic personnel in 1986.
Before Putin’s announcement, the White House had indicated that Trump would sign the sanctions bill, even though the president has for months expressed uncertainty over Russia’s involvement in what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as a concerted campaign of Kremlin interference meant to throw the election to Trump.
Trump held his first face-to-face meeting as president with Putin in July on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit in Germany _ an encounter in which critics said Trump failed to forcefully confront the Russian leader over election meddling.
At the same summit, Trump engaged in an unscripted private chat with Putin while both were attending a large dinner for leaders and their spouses, an encounter that shocked policy mavens, who said the president’s failure to have any U.S. representative privy to the conversation, even an interpreter, had been a perilous choice.
In a sense, Sunday’s announced retaliation by the Kremlin brings U.S.-Russia ties full circle from the Obama-ordered expulsions back in December. Trump, then president-elect, had praised Putin at the time for not responding in kind to those. It eventually emerged that Trump’s short-lived national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had discussed the sanctions issue with Russia’s then-ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak. Flynn was fired after just 24 days on the job.
Both Trump’s White House and the State Department were silent in the hours following Putin’s declaration. A day earlier, the State Department had elicited puzzlement when it described the U.S. sanctions as a bid to improve ties with Moscow. After Putin’s announcement, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a brief statement expressing disappointment.
Putin’s comments came hours after a senior Russian envoy had hinted at additional retaliation for an “unacceptable” U.S. sanctions measure overwhelmingly approved last week by the Senate, following a similarly lopsided endorsement by the House of Representatives.
Trump, who was at his Virginia golf course as the diplomatic confrontation erupted, has repeatedly called multiple investigations as to whether Russia colluded with his campaign a “witch hunt.” Ryabkov used similar language to describe the probes.
Although he repeated a blanket denial of Kremlin involvement in the election, Ryabkov did not directly address a question as to whether Moscow had given the Trump camp illegally obtained information that was detrimental to Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent.
“All the information we provide to anyone can be easily found in open sources,” he said.
Even while announcing the expulsions and staff cuts, the Russian president said there were still areas where the Washington and Moscow could cooperate, including counter-terrorism.
The latest round of internal turbulence at the White House carries potential repercussions for the Russia investigations being carried out by special counsel Robert Mueller, the FBI and Congress. Trump is replacing his ousted chief of staff, Reince Priebus, with Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general.
That gave rise to immediate speculation that the president might try to appoint Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has recused himself from Russia-related matters, as Kelly’s replacement. Such a step would theoretically leave Trump free to appoint a new attorney general who would be empowered to oversee the Russia probe, including the ability to fire the special counsel.
Sessions recused himself this year after it emerged that he had failed to report contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States while advising the Trump campaign. Over the last week, Trump has repeatedly attacked the attorney general on Twitter for his recusal, in what was widely viewed as an attempt to push Sessions into resigning.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have signaled that any move to sideline Sessions, either by firing him or seeking to transfer him to a new post, would be regarded with suspicion. More such warnings came Sunday.
Crispy almonds covered with white chocolate, which are given a distinctive look, taste and aroma by fine coffee beans. Brazilian coffee has an extremely rich and expressive taste like the country of origin itself.
 In cocoa dry matter in chocolate – not less than 43%.
« In praise of "American Girl" | Main | Broccoli Ice Cream »
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Erieblogging: Day Nine
Another un- or
underexplored question about Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins (parallel posted on
my own CivPro Blog).
Today's question: A federal court sitting in diversity or alienage jurisdiction is facing an issue of Australian common law. Does it have an Erie obligation to decide as the High Court of Australia would?
There is a reason to think that a federal court’s constitutional duties when interpreting state law are different from its duties when interpreting the law of a foreign nation. Assume, for example, that an issue of state law faced by a federal court is sufficiently unsettled that the parties could not have reasonably relied upon one interpretation rather than another. The federal court is still obligated to do its best to decide as the state supreme court would, even though whatever decision it comes to would not violate the due process rights of the parties. The reason is that the federal court’s constitutional obligations are not just