From the "I could have told you that" department:

[laurence]

Still, I'm glad it's now official:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,182641,00.html

I think I'll print out a few copies and whenever some one starts a political debate at work I can just hand it out and say, "next topic, please!".

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Its not just limited to politicians. I floated an article here a verrry long time ago that showed that most people have a fully formed programming system that makes the decisions usually in a grave absence of any facts. People that can ignore their 'programming' and make fair decisions with some consistency are very rare. People that change their minds about things, even with the sudden presence of significant new 'facts' are equally rare.

 

[Martha]

This bums me out. This is one reason why I don't like politicizing selection of judges. In Minnesota, when the governor is about to appoint a judge, the bar association gives all lawyers a list of those who applied to be judge and we vote for our favorite. The vote totals are given to the governor. The last time a judge was appointed in my area, an overwhelming majority voted for one candidate. The local lawyers knew him well, considered him as a person with no axe to grind, and would make fact based decisions. Instead, the governor appointed a guy with all of six votes. But of the same political party.

 

[haha]

The local lawyers knew him well, considered him as a person with no axe to grind, and would make fact based decisions. 

A few days ago I read an interesting article on a legal topic I think called "judicial realism". It supposedly is an academic area that came of Yale Law School. The gist of it is that all judges are prejudiced, because they are human. They rule in accordance with their prejudices; and more or less unconsciously find all sorts of high minded theories and precedents to justify their ruling.

Then there is the old style. Years ago before genetic testing in paternity cases, a lawyer buddy of mine told me about a case he had lost defending a man. I asked what went wrong. He said, "Well, we paid all his buddies to testify that they had slept with the woman; but the plaintiff's attorney just paid the judge."

Ha