Obama's "Harvard" credentials

[_Calculus Crusader]

So Tarski, is there an error in the article somewhere or is all you have merely invective?

Also, please show how I or Dartagnan are racist by comparing quotes with the dictionary definition.

There is nothing there! How can I argue against innuendo and presumption?

Why don't we talk about Bush at Yale?

Or better yet, lets talk about your qualifications compared to Obama's. You seem to think yourself able to pontificate on anything. Tell us your background.
Oh, wait! Last time I asked for that you refused to tell me and accused me of ad hom. (hypocrisy!)

You, Dart and Droopy are unreasonable arrogant and hypocritical big mouths who only dismiss people of intellectual talent as "elitists". It's a small minded ploy which neither of you invented but are rather victims of memes crafted by more intelligent but corrupt deceivers like Karl Rove or Newt Gingrich ( 1996 GOPAC memo). These guys think you are there to be manipulated. You are.

Professor, you received a doctorate in mathematics from a good institution. Why, then, are you making recourse to Dawkins' bull**** concept of memes?

[_moksha]

It almost seems that the spirit of yellow journalism has permeated all the Republican proponents. It seems they are willing to stoop to spreading so many smears, even if they know its just vicious malarkey.

[_Calculus Crusader]

It almost seems that the spirit of yellow journalism has permeated all the Republican proponents. It seems they are willing to stoop to spreading so many smears, even if they know its just vicious malarkey.

I've seen the same from the other side. The lie about McCain crashing five planes is a "fine" example.

[_Tarski]

Professor, you received a doctorate in mathematics from a good institution. Why, then, are you making recourse to Dawkins' bull**** concept of memes?

Memes are ideas that spead well like slang. The fact that there is not yet an exact science of memes does not mean the basic idea is without merit.
For my purposes, you can take meme to simply mean an "idea" . In this case a packaged and crafted idea that one hopes speads--propaganda. Nothing rides on my use of that word.

by the way, I think you must have gotten the idea that memes are a wholy discredited notion.
I don't think so (but neither do I really care for my point here).

Dan Dennett is a careful thinker and he apparently takes memes seriously:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_ ... memes.html

In any case the word has passed into common usage and will have some kind of meaning, if only nontechnical, from now on. Similarly, the word "understand" now also has currency. The point is that you know what I mean --that's the point of communication.

[_antishock8]

Reducto ad racism, Tarski.

Refute the points, please. *watching paint dry on wall*

[_dartagnan]

Why is Harvard in quotes? It's not the real Harvard? LOL

Because that is always how his education is presented, the Harvard education.

Dartagnan you are certainly a racist. You can't fathom the idea that a n888r wrote such an intelligent book and is one of our brightest.

Again it just burns you up that I do not use that word. It kinds throws your entire perspective out of whack doesn't it? You see Tarski, the reason you're so often wrong is because you presume to know things about me that you simply don't. I'm perhaps the least racist person on this forum. If you're too stupid to even know what the word means, then I'm sorry. Maybe you should have studied something besides mathematics.

You have zero credible reason to launch such slander. Only a dark heart.

Ooooooh, yes, my heart is so "dark" isn't it? I mean I'm just supposed to sit here and listen to people bash McCain for having inferior intelligence when compared to Obama, yet I'm not permitted to test these claims without being called a racist? You're an idiot Tarski, in the same line as all the other morons in the media who are arguing that to vote for McCain is to prove you're a racist. Race-baiting is all you have isn't it?

Stop being a dick. You sound almost as stupid as BC who is already coming up with scenarios weere the press is forging things (without evidence as usual).LOL

You, apparently, don't understand what evidence is. The fact is Obama is not revealing his grades and he himself admitted that he doesn't know if he got into Harvard because of affirmative action. Only a blind fool, especially one in academia, would sit there and observe Obama's sudden rise as an academic star without benefit of a single piece of scholarshi to his name, and then act like there is nothing suspect about this. The process by which an editor for the HLR is determined was changed specifically to ensure minorities the opportunity to get in. This is a fact, not something invented from thin air.

I dare you to take this stuff public in your own name before any group of intelligent educated people and see what response you get. McCain would condemn you himself and I am absolutely sure of it.

What would it matter? The media won't touch it with a ten foot pole so people like you will remain gullible and insist Obama is "intelligent" just because he went to Harvard. Well, can we at least expect you to answer the dilemma by explaining how it was that George Bush got into Yale/Harvard?

Oh, I've been through a top university Ph.D. program and I know what my competition is at Harvard. S.T Yau, Sternberg, Kazhdan etc. Now I have seen supposedly bright folks flunk out of the Ph.D. program I went through from insufficient ability to understand the deep concepts despite years of trying. Yet I am a pea brain compared to these folks at Harvard. I know them and have seen what the do.

And the question is, is Obama legitimate? Is he really one of them? I bet you could pull several examples of scholarship from any one of those names you just mentioned and examine it for yourself. We all could. But Obama's academics are under lock and key. And what has surfaced, appears to be mediocre at best, and unimaginative at worst.

I have no reason to think that somehow in Harvard's law program it is so different that one can fake one's way through it.

You don't understand affirmative action. The whole idea is to equalize the playing field by letting minorities get in whether they are qualified or not.

It's not affirmative action when it comes to tests and so forth.

And what were his test scores? Ooooops. He won't tell us. If he were so smart as you like to think, then what is he hiding them for? Obama's education was funded by a radical Saudi who hates America. He donated millions to Columbia University where Obama attended and if you think big money spenders and political figures aren't able to offset subpar admission qualifications then you're an idiot who is out of touch with reality. This is why George Bush got into Harvard. He was the son of one politician and he was being groomed for the position to add more prestige to the university. Likewise, Obama was being primped for his position from day one. The funding he received for his political career, beginning with his overpriced edcuation, comes mostly from radicals who were looking to put him in office for their own purposes.

We fail black people just like white people all the time. I have never ever been even remotely influenced to go easier on a black person or anyone for that matter. You are just inventing this stuff and it's stupid and slanderous.

And you're just playing stupid. Are you a professor at Harvard? No. Are you familiar with the affirmative action? Obviously not.

Go accomplish something and stop slandering intelligent accomplished people.

Do you not know what slander is? There is simply little evidence that Obama is intelligent. The evidence is scant. The burdenis on you and everyone else who keeps buying into this nonsense that by graduating from Harvard, you're automatically more intelligent than someone who didn't. It is fallacious reasoning to the core. The guy taught Constitutional Law but he seemed to be using that class as a platform for complaining about injustices for the black man. He is just a tempered version of Reverend Wright. Richard already pointed out that Obama was wrong on a constitutional point that is supposed to be his area of expertise. The guy proves to be an idiot when it comes to economics and is essentially a marxist looking to revamp America to suit his own people. Yes, that is what his black liberation theology teaches, that the black race is chosen by God.

I claim you cheated your way through school. How else could you say the things you do? OK, How am I wrong?

Thanks for proving his point that you cannot say the points are "wrong." All you can do is dismiss them and rationalize them away in order to make yourself feel better about voting for someone so unqualified and undeserving. But you're dumbing down the argument beyond recognition. The argument isn't simply, Obama "cheated" because he doesn't appear intelligent enough. Obama admitted that he doesn't know if affirmative action got him into Harvard. Now this in and of itself should be telling. But no. For Tarski, it is racism to speculate about this.

Why don't we talk about Bush at Yale?

I've been trying to but you and analytics keep dodging. By your own standards George Bush is a very intelligent person. Now take this reality check and go rethink your flawed paradigm.
Memes! LOL. What an idiot.

[_Tarski]

Memes! LOL. What an idiot.

A meme is a word now, it has a meaning. It is used as an alternate and suggestive way to refer to ideas, especially those that have features that encourage spreading regardless of truth. To use the word as I did does not commit one to any dubious ontology of memes nor does it commit one to the idea that memetics can be made scientific which is the only thing in question. As usual, you get your stuff from the Internet and you don't really understand the issues.
You cut and past and paraphrase. But it always shows through that you don't know what you are talking about. In this case, to call someone an idiot for using the word shows you don't know what the criticisms of memetics real amount to. Many people who doubt the scientific status of memetics use the word "meme" as I did.

Even if I did have hope for memetics as a science (which I don't), I still wouldn't be an "idiot" on that basis since it is taken seriously by much more careful philosophical minds than either of us. Read some of Dennett's actual academic papers (or even his book "the intensional stance") and tell me he's an idiot. Wait! What am I talking about? Of course you will call him an idiot no matter what, he's an atheist! But wait, what if he supports McCain? Hmmm. LOL
It's all ideological with you, never intellectual.

Finally, I reiterate that you do not know how education and affirmative action actually works in practice. As far as getting in, it gives the person an edge but cannot overcome massive lack of qualification. In the classroom it is essentially nonexistent.
As far as releasing his grades, it would be madness to do so with the vultures like you out there. I wouldn't do it myself if I were him, unless I had never gotten anything less than the top score in every class and every test.

By the way, some of the people that were not smart enough to make it through my Ph.D. program graduated with honors when they got their undergraduate degree, while some that did make it, did not graduate with honors. You overestimate the significance of that.

You should follow your leader (McCain) and express admiration for Obama's accomplishments. McCain wouldn't take you.

[_asbestosman]

Richard already pointed out that Obama was wrong on a constitutional point that is supposed to be his area of expertise.

I'm not sure what mistake it was, but a couple of points. I see experts make mistakes in their field all the time. I have caught my engineering and math professors making mistakes on what are usually minor points, but I do not doubt their expertise because they have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to me at other times. Also, when it comes to constitutional points, I imagine there is a lot more open for interpretation than with engineering or mathematics. I can easily imagine experts disagreeing about constitutional law regarding the constitutionality of such things as privacy, hate speech, the extent of gun ownership, and abortion.

The guy proves to be an idiot when it comes to economics and is essentially a marxist looking to revamp America to suit his own people.

I'm still not a fan of Obama's economic policies, but I think he and Buffet make good points. I especially respect Buffet's opinions on the matter. While I believe that a simple redistribution of wealth is bad, and I'm not hugely concerned with the gap between rich and poor, I do believe that it makes sense to give back to the environment which allowed you to become wealthy--to the legal system which protects your wealth, the educational system that helped you learn how to do it, and the infrastructure that helps transport your product (electronically or physically).

I also believe that it makes sense to provide a certain amount of stability to society for your own safety, and also to let others have the chances you had to obtain wealth. I also believe that health insurance is largely unaffordable as companies have focused far too much on the bottom line. I think it makes sense to help the millions of people who through no fault of their own are effectively uninsurable (pre-existing conditions, students swamped with loans who suddenly get sick, and children in general).