” It is built into our DNA and has served humans well for survival and intellectual efficiency for thousands of years.”
 
Well, that’s a wild over-simplification – and misunderstanding – of genetics.  What you’re talking about is actually a learned side-effect of societal behavior, with (as yet) no demonstrated genetic markers.  You know what does turns out to be probably built into our DNA?  Liberal and conservative psychological tendencies.  Indeed, exactly what I was talking about – the liberal tendency for basing their position on facts and consumption of opposition opinions and the conservative tendency to ignore facts that disagree with their pre-existing position and avoidance of opposition opinions – appear to be mostly hereditary rather than learned traits.  This is why it’s so easy to paint liberals as being “wishy-washy”; opinions tend to change over time as new data becomes available, which presents an illusion of uncertainty, as opposed to the conservative steadfastness of maintaining fidelity to the same positions, even if a given position is demonstrated factually-incorrect on multiple occasions.  Indeed, they often do as you have a tendency to do; point to opposing data in their own defense, because they are reading their beliefs into the facts rather than the other way around.  These, too, are of course dichotomous over-simplifications on my part, but the basic premise holds true.
 
As an aside, the fact that you openly admit to perverting the course of justice because of an attorney’s theoretical politics is not only an affront to out legal system, but is more than a little horrifying, and were the presiding judge to find out about it he would be well within his rights and duties to declare a mistrial due to juror bias.

IP says:  ”…..disagrees with them politically, and thus he doesn’t seem to feel that they could possibly be capable of presenting accurate data”.  Exacatmundo IP, as you point out so do I and, if you were honest, so you you, Mr. Schneider, Hemingway, etc.  I use that talent often, just recently in a jury setting where the defense attorney was an obvious left winger, and many times before.  It’s called credibility IP, and we all judge it from people who say and write things, many times based on their politics, and other times on various other obvious outward clues about their character, education, or experience.  The difference is I admit using that most basic of human talents and you deny it.  It is built into our DNA and has served humans well for survival and intellectual efficiency for thousands of years.

Dr. J:
 
You seem to have missed the point; stever automatically dismisses Independent Source PAC not because of the data they are using or the sources from which they draw, but because he disagrees with them politically, and thus he doesn’t seem to feel that they could possibly be capable of presenting accurate data.  He is, as such, suffering from the same malady of which you have yourself demonstrated a propensity for on more than one occasion – deciding whether to accept or dismiss individual datum based on a preexisting belief, rather than forming those belief based upon available data.   Considering that a mere day earlier he had accused Mr. Shneider of that particular sin, I found the hypocrisy of his attitude rather difficult to stomach.  He hardly helped his cause with the statement, “I’m not going to engage in Hemingway’s link chases.”  Heaven forbid that stever ever inconvenience his preconceived notions by reading anything written by anyone with the temerity to disagree with him; if he did, he might be forced to acknowledge that they are indeed capable of independent thought.
 
(note: I’m just now noticing your last reply, which is why I’d not responded before now)

Actually IP, the credibility of a source, which involves education, background, experience, track record, etc. is quite an important factor before reading anything they say.  Without credibility it is hard to trust anything some say, and thus easy to disregard it based on real facts involving the source, that’s not immature at all,  but one of our valuable human instincts.  I have used it many times in jury settings for instance, as well as scientific evaluations of various sources.  For instance, your credibility around Democratic Party candidates is very high in my opinion, based on your previous insightful and accurate descriptions of same.  When it comes to those outside the party, well not so much, as your experience and worldview tends to cloud your objective judgement there.  But nobody is credible about everything anyway.

IP I’m not going to engage in Hemingway’s link chases.. I’ve been down that road (in particular with ISPAC) and its never objective, always agenda driven “studies” and reports. 

I never actually disagreed with stever’s point that the organization’s name is misleading; however, his knee-jerk dismissal of any and all data that happens to be presented by them simply because he disagrees with their general politics is at best narrow-minded and at worst wildly self-limiting.  Choosing to disagree with something because of who says it rather than what is actually being said is hardly an act of maturity.

IP, you didn’t answer stever’s point.  You are good at deflections and obfuscations that promote your opinions and world views without answering anything asked.  Independent Source PAC says this:  
“Independent Source Pac investigates and exposes the hypocrisy and corruption of conservative political candidates, office holders and interest groups.”

Does that sound “independent” to you?????

IP For some one who routinely dismisses my comments for a wide variety of reasons, you seem very keen to respond to them even so.  Why is that?  I would think you’d find them easy to ignore. 

In any case ISPAC is not independent, I’m not sure why they use that name since upon easy inspection, they clearly are not nor oyherwise pretend to be.  My point was only to point out that Hemingway, once again, has used a biased source to discredit another biased source.    Once again.  Shockingly they disagree.

Independent Source PAC is not “independent”…

Translation: stever has an objection to any facts that disagree with his preexisting world view, therefore any organization that uses those facts must be biased in any and all situations; after all, how could anyone disagree with things that stever just made up?  Considering that just yesterday you accused all liberals of refusing to accept the possible validity of viewpoints held by others (which is, incidentally, exactly the opposite of the definition of “liberal”), it might behoove you to look in a mirror, stever.
 
I have a far less dim view on TFA than most people on my side of the aisle do these days, having seen the program’s potential for success, and its occasional successful results; however, the fact remains that none of their success has ever come in New Mexico, and Secretary-designate Skandera’s insistence on giving them even more money is indicative of a far deeper problem; specifically, her insistence on taking more and more control over our children’s education away from the people and handing it over to private organizations over which we have no real oversight.  As usual, her idea of performing her duties is to turn over ever-increasing amounts of her responsibility to others and then assuming that they’ll do the job for her.

Independent Source PAC is not “independent” Try again Hemingway.

Teach for America New Mexico has been rightly criticized by Independent Source PAC (See Below). Supposedly the program replaces experienced teachers with brand-new employees brought in at beginners’ salary levels. Its quick training course leaves TFA teachers  with insufficient classroom experience, before going  into some of the most disadvantaged school districts in New Mexico. This controversial organization received $500,000 in the 2012 budget.

See Page 16-18 in this Independent Source PAC study on TFA.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/78175188/PAC-report-on-Hanna-Skandera

Here is a video on Teach for America in New Mexico – again by Independent Source:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG9TGQSVOyI&context=C3cd44aeADOEgsToPDskKz2YHlDve9_C6RY3AEfPwa

Here is the video on the TFA office – strange.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__hwY3MFvYA

Here is the statement in budget for the $500,000 for Teach for America. That is a lot of money for a poor program!

“The general fund appropriation to the public education department for teaching assistance for low income students includes five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) for a nonprofit organization that
provides teaching support in schools with at least sixty percent of the enrolled students eligible for
free or reduced-fee lunch, with a priority for schools with eighty-five percent or more of the students
enrolled in the school eligible for free or reduced-fee lunch.”

http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/12%20Regular/bills/house/HB0002AFS.pdf