gopher, while I agree that "believe that science is not politicized everyday is terribly naive", I'd like to remind you that this can be said of everything: how do you know that global warming deniers are not politicized?

As to the black-box model giving always the same results no matter what you put inside them, there are 2 possible interpretations: 1) the model is bad 2) the model is robust.
Just to give you an example of what I mean with "robust" model, I'll tell you about models of stellar interiors (I hope you'll agree this is a topic which is not very influenced by politics). In these models you have to insert the rates for nuclear reactions in the core of stars, and there are often large discrepancies between one set of rates and the others. But the results for solar-like stars are essentially the same regardless of the set of rates you use (to make it even more clear: take a set of "realistic" rates, and multiply every one of them by 10; then run the model using the "fake" rates, and compare to "standard" results: you'll get that "observable" quantities like luminosity, surface temperature and stellar radius change only by minor amounts - say, 10%): is this wrong? No: it is known since before the 1940s (before the first computer model of a stellar interior was run) that the luminosity of a star is mainly "set" by its hydrodynamical structure, not by the details of how its energy is produced: if nuclear reactions are faster in model 2 than in model 1, model 2 will have a slightly smaller/colder core than model 1, so that the energy produced by the two cores will be very similar. To an outside observer this might look crazy, but it's actually correct.

I don't have the slightest idea about whether climate models are in situation 1 or 2; but I would not discard them because of what you say about them.

I made no claim that "deniers" were not politicized. I exist in a field which constantly tries to generate policy from the predictions of mathematical modeling. While I come from a "school of thought" which is generally viewed as being "ideologically extreme", we are methodologically less bad than our opponents. Computational methods are expected to be clearly grounded in structured theory such that the underlying assumptions are explicitly laid out to avoid generating Black Box models.

Two of my friends actually generate the aggregate quarterly predictions that are used to target policy, and I would not trust anything that they produce to the degree of genuinely targeting blunt instrument government policy to it. Mathematical modeling is what it is. My skepticism is relatively even handed and universal to all applications of the methodology.

As for Astrophysics, I will just offer the opinion of my advisor, whose parents and in-laws are theoretical Physicists. "Almost all of our theories of cosmology are based on a single data point called the sun." He personally loves to point out examples where distant system observations contradict theories formulated under the assumption that our solar system is "normal" and the reaction is to do back flips and gymnastic contortions to explain why the observed contradictions are "special" cases".

Wow, reminds me of Soundgarden's song, "Black Hole Sun"

Gopher, I'm quite used to computer simulations (that's partly what I do); I'd say your skepticism is granted in some cases, but quite pointless in others. It depends on the actual work.
Just one example: I once made simulations including an effect called "adiabatic contraction" (AC), extrapolating it to scales ~ 6 orders of magnitude smaller than those where the effect was "seen" (actually there are doubts even about the detection on those scales).
This was more reasonable than it sounds because we used the simulations to see which observations could NOT be reproduced by including AC: if something could not be reproduced in the "maximal" case (the extrapolation was built so as to give AC the maximum possible intensity), then AC had nothing to do with it.
Now I find papers that take "my" extrapolation as a starting point and say "look, if we make the assumptions done in this (= our) paper, then we can reproduce these quantities", completely neglecting the fact that the assumptions were purposefully over-rating AC...

As to the comment of your advisor's parents and in laws, I'd agree with them if they substituted "sun" with "Universe": cosmology has huge problems (mostly "dark energy"; and, to a lesser extent, "dark matter"), and having more than one "universe" would help enormously. On the other hand, stellar evolution theory now really has plenty of data, and I completely trust its main results. As to planetary systems, you are right in implying that none of the ~1000 systems known is resembling our own.. but you also have to account for the fact that NO existing instrumentation can detect a system like ours.

@G-man,
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2012/11/03/so-what-were-the-assets-available-for-benghazi-part-ii/

Christ there was even british soldiers asking why weren't they called in, even they are pissed off. turkey had assets in the region.

Don't you get yet, your messiah is incompetent on the foreign policy issues. There were assets all over the place, but you refuse to see it, you blindly follow whatever Obama's says without question.

Here is what he is a narcissistic-sociopath.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-narcissistic-sociopath.htm

He can't be wrong, had has to love loved, ergo, the attacker would never do this because it would be against me and that can't happen. Instead the administration lies and said this is because some clown's article about muslims, which was almost immediately debunked. The alternative was Barry was wrong and the terrorist's aren't under control, and we can't have barry be wrong, oh my god the world would fall apart. Quit drinking the Kool-Aid. Again think.
Has a politician ever lied to you? Even a high honorable liberal?
Gates is lying, protecting the clown in the office. So the most powerful military nation in the world is afraid to send in fighter jets because we are not quite sure of the SAM in the region, really? you don't see something wrong with that, when an ambassador is under attack. Ruffhaus is right, you have been brainwashed. BTW, from what I know, its not that easy to lock on to a RAPTOR, hence the idea of stealth.

You're right I can't fake the extra 60% in arctic ice and the coldest yet temperature in the Midwest, and it's global warming, when in the hell am I getting my palm trees. Your argument is getting weaker each year.
Ask you yourself what do all your "scientists" say about a new ice age, is there going to be one? There was in the past and I believe they say there will be another one.

As for the Heritage Foundation and Krauthammer, then you are just a breed apart and we will never agree, your a leftist liberal and I am a conservative.

One of the refreshing things about VDiplomacy was the general absence of politics, and this thread clearly illustrates why it's impossible to talk about politics in these arenas. The thread opens up with a statement that Vladimir Putin is "schooling" Barack Obama in diplomacy (again), a position held by a majority of the world right now. Yet in wades Gman armed with an encyclopedia of leftist talking points and political propaganda points to diffuse that claim, and suddenly the discussion is off the charts on health care, global warming, and who knows what else? It's classic example of a leftist debate. They cannot win the argument on the facts, so lets inundate them with comments, shout them down, and call in SCIENCE on our side. Leftists call "Science" like college kids calling "shotgun" on a beer run. The logic seems to be if you claim that "Science" (which isalways capitalized as if it's a proper noun - because their real agenda there is to compete with God) first that it's on your side, and that automatically negates the facts.

If we're going argue politics here, we should appoint a party of moderators to evaluate the debate. Otherwise you get nothing out of the conversation except a data dump on the assumption that quantity of text trumps quality of comment.

I volunteer as political moderator!

@G-Man
I really liked your first post to an extent, and then you really dumbed things down. Obama's administration has very little to do with this issue, and the validity of global warming has absolutely nothing to do with the topic.

While I agree that Obama has done some great things considering the stubborn Congress he has been stuck with, saying that he is the greatest in 50 years is way premature and likely just wrong. You are however entitled to your opinion.

@everyone else
While Obama's foreign policy has been far from robust or decisive, G-Man is right that it is still far to soon to say that Obama is in the wrong. There's still lots of time for sanctions and a gradual increase in punishment.

What has Russia gained by invading Crimea? Practically nothing. It may be strategically defensible, but it is highly dependent on the rest of Ukraine for electricity. So its likely a test before invading the rest of eastern Ukraine, but if that does happen it will find itself incredibly isolated, the longer they stay. Despite the fact that most of the eastern population is Russian speaking, it is far from 100% Russian politically. They are a nation that has been persecuted for hundreds of years. There will likely be riots which will force the military to be more heavy handed. Everything Russia does will just increase its own isolation politically and economically. Despite what you may hear and believe, even a liberal president will not ignore these actions. We'll likely sanction them, kick them out of international organizations, and supply arms to the Ukrainians.

The argument that Russia is our greatest political opponent is close to absurd. They are surrounded by former republics that could potentially be a serious threat if coordinated. Russia's navy is limited to two high tech destroyers and a few good subs. Their air force while capable in dogfights is no match for us. Their army is capable, but any more needless aggression and they will find them selves incredibly isolated in a increasingly globalized world. China is far more shrewd and increasingly capable. Their cyber attacks are likely the greatest threat we face. Obama has done quite a lot to counter their territorial desires, and hopefully more to counter their cyber terrorism, but probably not enough.

I believe that Obama was right to set a red line with these situations, but they should have been handled differently. While a strike on Syria might have been politically aggressive, it would have done little to nothing to deter Assad, and Assad would still have biological weapons. Confiscating or destroying them is at least a better solution. To say that they haven't been eliminated yet is premature.

@RUFFHAUS
Your argument that liberals use science to divert the argument can be applied to conservatives as well, except they often use everything but science.

Sorry for taking everything off topic. That was my bad. My intention was to point out that the damage of the suggestion to ramp up U.S. oil and gas production as a way to control the European and world economy was worse than any potential gain, but I have very strong feelings about the environment and how we are stewarding the planet and got carried away from there. I'll let you guys get back to discussing Obama's diplomatic skills.

No G-man, the gas argument is legit because it is part of Barry's extremely incompetent skills as a leader. If he were to open up the canadian pipeline and public lands to fracking we can supply europe with gas that they need instead of Russia, thus the invasion which is mostly for the natural resouce in my opinion, brilliant on Vlad's move, would be pointless. Where it went off is the global warming, whether we supply the gas or russia is irrelevent to the global warming argument because we were only discussing the diplomatic tool of the natural resource. If that just made sense.

@Wiggles, well join the fray, bullshit, obama has failed on every foreign policy, screwed up egypt, screwed libya(cost us an ambassador, screwed up syria, screwed up ukraine, in all honesty you can't find one that he did succeed in, can you? So yes we can rate him and he sucks.

What did Putin gain by invading Ukraine, you are kidding right. NATURAL GAS. Which at the current time is power in Europe. Also he maintains a warm water port in Crimera, make sense now.

You mean like the red line he set in syria, the one he then said when breeched wasn't his red line but the international red line, that one?

I think you need to look at Russia's navy again and what they are building, they are building aircraft carrier killers.

http://rt.com/news/missile-cruiser-varyag-mediterranean-127/

Read and learn, ask yourself who has the most aircraft carriers in the world and then maybe you can figure out why Russia is building these.

They turned over on a third, they are delaying and won't turn over all, watch.
http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/third-chemical-arms-shipment-leaves-syria/

"Obama has done quite a lot to counter their territorial desires, and hopefully more to counter their cyber terrorism, but probably not enough."

Ahhhhh, like what?

@DEFIANT
I was wrong to say that he gained nothing from Crimea.Considering that Russia already supplies most of Ukraine's natural gas and produces excess of 600 billion cubic meters, it seems unlikely that they invaded for the less than 6 billion cubic meters. That gas isn't nearly as valuable if the Urkraine blocks the passage of gas and the US ends up supplying Europe, which I admit isn't likely. Its just as likely they invaded to avoid losing their lease on Sevastapol in 30+ years. They probably won't have another chance like this. You were right there.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2249rank.html
http://www.minek-crimea.gov.ua/files/file/arr_eng.pdf

I would agree that a few of Obama's foreign policy actions have been failures, but probably not the ones that you would. As I said before I believe he has done well in handling China, which I still believe is a greater threat. With China the Obama administration has relocated a larger percentage of our fleet to the Pacific. We have encouraged more alliances in the region. We have shown support of Japan against China in the Senkaku/Diaoyu disputes. We have supported the Philipines and Vietnam among other countries in similar disputes. I don't really see the point of discussing his successes and failures any more than that. I'm not going to convince anyone and you're not going to convince me.

Its not that I believe Russia isn't a threat, just not as big a threat as it is made out to be. Republicans only say that to score political points. You mentioned Russia has a Anti-Aircraft cruiser, which I agree, I marginalized, but there are still only three. With the exception of that, one heavy cruiser, some of their subs, their navy is dated and much less than half the strength of ours. Even the cruiser you linked to is nothing new. They have been around for decades. I couldn't find new such cruisers in production. Even with these cruisers we have a full complement of support ships to counter them. Maybe 20 to 30 years from now they will be a serious threat, but not now. Thank you for correcting me though.

As for Syria, we will strike them if they don't give up the rest of the biological weapons. They have till June to get rid of it all. That doesn't make it a failure. Clinton and Bush carried out many missile strikes against Iraq. I suppose there is a chance Obama will believe avoid striking Syria to avoid their anti-aircraft, but lets at least wait until it doesn't happen before claiming its a failure. Being hesitant to take military action doesn't equal weakness.

I find the idea that we have to show strength in every foreign policy situation absurd. Strength didn't stop Iraq from invading Kuwait. It hasn't stopped North Korea from testing missiles before and during Obama's administration. It didn't stop Russia from going to war with Georgia during Bush's administration. It didn't stop Yugoslavia. It didn't stop the Vietcong. It didn't stop the Korean War. I would say Sudan and Rwanda also, but apparently Americans don't care about Africa.

Obviously this is subjective, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were true that the decision to invade has been almost entirely decided by Putin. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/08/world/europe/russias-move-into-ukraine-said-to-be-born-in-shadows.html?_r=0

This is a better argument against Obama than anything I've seen on here.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2014/03/barack_obama_vladimir_putin_and_ukraine_the_president_has_bungled_his_dealings.html

i stumbled upon this website that Im sure Defiant will like it:
http://www.rense.com/general96/putinvobama.html