They are only words.
 

The words that hurt your President's feelings are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...010_story.html

Well played!

BRAVO!

Like.

article paywalled did not read

Here is a chunk.

by Lena H. Sun and Juliet Eilperin December 15 at 6:53 PM

The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or *“evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, “will continue to use the best scientific evidence available to improve the health of all Americans,” HHS spokesman Matt Lloyd told The Washington Post. “HHS also strongly encourages the use of outcome and evidence data in program evaluations and budget decisions.”

The question of how to address such issues as sexual orientation, gender identity and abortion rights — all of which received significant visibility under the Obama administration — has surfaced repeatedly in federal agencies since President Trump took office. Several key departments — including HHS, as well as Justice, Education, and Housing and Urban Development — have changed some federal policies and how they collect government information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.

good lord

Best non-paywalled version of story i could find

http://ktla.com/2017/12/16/word-ban-...equest-report/

I keep watching the DC circus trying to figure out what actually matters. This one actually might, although we've got to to credit them with the elimination of vulnerable populations, that is progress.

They can just go back and replace the words with their definitions:

"This medication can be used to improve viability of the fetus."

becomes,

This medication can be used to improve viability of the *unborn offspring, from the embryo stage (the end of the eighth week after conception, when the major structures have formed) until birth.*

The CDC will have to get software that converts the banned words to phrases; or, the employees will take longer to spell it all out. Either way, the public can fault Trump for increasing costs.

I had no trouble with the link. I get the biggest concern is in the writing of budget proposals submitted so some schmuck in the congress or administration isn't offended and kill appropriations in spite.

Researchers, and citizen's for that matter, will have to use clumsy search terms to get at information. This is meant to slow peoples use of information. It makes us dumber and less effective.

NY Times story gives additional context (yet another paywall, sorry)

How "Trumpy" are these officials, really, if the intention is to get a bigger budget for the agency to do things the administration doesn't approve of?

AT MOST it was red on red crime from the Agency looking for its budget from Congress; which makes it interesting, but not at all surprising, not really all that damning, not really even NEWS. If it had been during the O administration, the facts would have been i-fuckin-dentical because that's how the budget works, you have to get stuff past the more idiotic Repubs in Congress. But you wouldn't click on that. S'boring.

Actual news story: CDC preens its 2018 budget proposals to get them passed in Congress

Story's presented narrative: Trump administration officials are Orwellian

if you assume the Post is harshly administration, you get closer to the truth, a truth you need even if you are anti-administration.

UT's 15-year running moral: Politics makes you stupid.

That's what I got from the original link, as I said in post 11.

As usual xoB has it sussed...


btw it wasn't paywalled for you because you hadn't clicked on enough WaPo stories yet... don't know what the limit is...

I believe the Washington Post and NY Times is 10 articles per month. Both now have an executive whose entire job is to best define this number. The concept is called funneling.

I clear cookies several times a day.

K. I just used incognito browsing to bypass and the original article does indeed mention the budget process a lot.

nutter aisle 3

Words can strike as hard as a blow.

No words banned ...

We had determined the seven words were suggested not to be used in budget proposals.

Yeah, it's to help pass the gatekeepers who are not reality based.

It's like spelling "B-A-T-H" in front of the dog so it doesn't run away.

So everything turned out okay! All it was was a science agency can't get funded in America, 2017 if they're suspected of doing "evidence-based" things. No biggie there.

It proves continuity, which should provide some relief from the chaos which abounds. :rolleyes:

Yup. Nothing to see here.

Well, politics is political... this is how the sausage is made

I've yet to have a satisfying wordjob.

Just sayin'...


:lol:

I didn't say "as good as"...

:lol2:

Anyhoo, the stock market keeps going up, up, up! This is great--because stock markets *never* crash!

Another way to look at this is, you can make people fund things they specifically disagree with, as long as your request contains the right language.

I'm still taken aback by the suggestion that funding decisions are based on a ctrl+f search.

I thought they had an army of lobbyists, can't they read things?

The Buddhists say, when things that seem negative are happening, there are always positive things too, if we care to look at them. For example, when pussy grabber announced he could grab pussy it was horrible, but also, started a national* discussion* of agreement* that this was wrong*, and re-affirmed a set of values that one expects will last for generations.

And so, from that Buddhist perspective: if you don't like your reality, you have the power to change it. You can easily find the good within the bad. It is there all the time.

Without personal judgement, I say, you seem bent on the opposite approach, focused on mining the negative. We all are these days; it's how it works, now. The news is a concern engine, forging headlines that freak everyone the fuck out. Armageddon, just around the corner.

But I bet the Buddhists are having a good day.




*if you're quibbling with these words, you're not invested enough to get the larger point; step back, please.

I'll quibble with your face, buster.

Observation, perspective: All signs indicate that when Republicans get in power, they aggressively push for a certain agenda, but when Democrats get back in power, for all the lamenting about how the Republican agenda was going to ruin the world, they don't push back equally as hard. It's like they're not trying to win. Or...? The doomsday talk (about what Republicans are doing) was more about 'making the opposition look bad', and less about 'what they were actually willing to do about it'.

From this angle, it looks pretty similar to when the Republicans spent 8 years complaining about Obamacare, but actually had no plan whatsoever for healthcare. Like, all the doomsday talk about Democrats was about 'making the opposition look bad'. I say we disregard anything either one of them says about the other, unless they have a record of actually addressing that issue with equal intensity as their opponent did.

After applying the 'doomsday filter' --the issues that both parties fail at are the most legitimate issues. Unfortunately, this is a useless exercise, because there's only two parties, and the deluge of money pouring into politics ensures there will always only be two parties, endlessly quibbling about symbolic issues while the fundamental problems with our civilization go unaddressed.

You dismiss it as quibbling, but I find the more important problem is the necessity, or even the fear or belief of the necessity of this tactic.

That we, as a country, citizens, scientists, politicians, all, can't agree on certain terms where an objectively correct and precise term exists, is not a quibble.. It should be an alarm. Certainly no one can be nor should be forced to listen to certain words. But being a politician is in some ways a package deal. Opting for an alternate word for "fetus" is nonsense. Opt to leave the room instead of requiring everyone else to distort reality.

That sounds like something a snowflake would do.

The quibble words are the ones marked with an asterisk, biggie; it's a footnote.

A sensible approach sir.

Would it be safe to say, then, that 'climate change' is one of the legitimate issues?

I mention it, at the top of the list, because it meets the criteria (one side works very hard to address the issue, in concert with their admonishment of the other side for not acknowledging the issue), and because it does appear, if we have any faith in science (the originator of every major advancement to the civilization we, effortlessly, participate in), that it really is quite a critical, time-sensitive issue.

Critical for what now?

Principal: continuation of our civilization in its present form, without significant changes to baseline human habitability conditions/standards. Secondary: continuation of global ecosystem without significant changes to baseline habitability conditions for non-voting life forms.

Need more detail. How's that going to happen?

No. Not doing this.

I'm not doing gas-lighting performance art today.

Nothing much going on, on a pre-holiday Friday night. I'm totally prepared to whomp out five paragraphs that nobody will read.

I should add, knowing full well that it embarasses me more than anybody else.

Yeah, I would have loved to quote the shit out of those paragraphs and make line-by-line rebuttals which would each spawn their own semantic rabbit-holes, creating an exponential vortex of misunderstandings and stubborn refusals to acknowledge even the most innocuous statements of the areas where we obviously agree--having been initiated into the sequence of confrontational debate tactics, and mutually unable to disengage from the formal dance of the amateur pundits; but on the other hand I'm tired--very tired, and I can't afford to do anything else in my life that will leave me filled with regret over the enormous amount of energy I've poured out into a pointless exercise in absolute uselessness that will benefit nobody, ever.

I just spent an inordinate amount of time writing, reading, editing, and posting that; then I read it again, edited the punctuation in two areas, then read the whole thing again to make sure it flows in the exact rhythm it would have if I'd said it out loud. It passed inspection on the final read-through.

Why am I like this?

:(

WHO'S EMBARRASSED NOW, MOTHERFUCKER ??

Because perfection is it's own reward.

It was good work sir

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wull,

Works even better for being a writer, where you also get to avoid interacting with people 99% of the time.

Or only go to facefuck a find a friendly echo chamber.

I thought about this. Sorry. There's a very basic problem with it so I get to write my paragraphs anyway. Sorry. I'll keep brief.

Traditionally, Conservativism stems from an instinct to preserve the status quo. Therefore actually addressing capital-P Problems is more often the Liberal instinct, and the personality types drawn to it want to Do Something.

As such, you should always find more Doing of Things from Liberals. And you and I agree* from our moral understanding, which teaches us that moving ahead is always the Right Thing To Do. Let's Fix Stuff. As such, the party that is best, is the one Doing More Things, addressing issues.

Buuuuut, Libs fail to appreciate the moral values that actually keep society together. We hate Conservatives and their preservation of the structures... that have gotten us to the level we are at today. Most societies are not doing so well, and preserving our very successful one is important, but we can't see that because it's not part of our moral fiber.

And, very often, this urge to Change will become destructive. For example, the urge to use the very latest in scientific understanding to improve our society. In the 1920s and 30s, the science in favor was Eugenics. Science agreed it was right. The science started in Britain and spread around the world, including the US. At the time, Germany was a leader of the scientific world. Germany decided that using science to improve society was the correct way, made it a cornerstone really, and proceeded ahead as fast as possible.

There is sometimes great value in NOT Doing Things. In being conservative. You and I, we don't appreciate that. Good luck to us all.



*it's true

Not quite. It was always controversial in the scientific world. It garnered more social,philosophical and political acceptance than scientific.

It's really not an equivalent of the science of climate change, about which, at least as far as some basic premises are concerned, there is a level of consensus which only exists in a few fundamental areas of science.