{"id":617,"date":"2006-02-02T11:22:51","date_gmt":"2006-02-02T16:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2006\/02\/02\/the-truth-the-whole-truth-but-perhaps-not-the-literal-truth\/"},"modified":"2006-02-02T11:22:51","modified_gmt":"2006-02-02T16:22:51","slug":"the-truth-the-whole-truth-but-perhaps-not-the-literal-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2006\/02\/02\/the-truth-the-whole-truth-but-perhaps-not-the-literal-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"The truth, the whole truth, but perhaps not the literal truth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Would it surprise you to learn that, when George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address presented a goal of cutting down on our imports of oil from the Middle East by 75%, his advisors had to explain the next day that this wasn&#8217;t meant to be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/storyonly\/2006\/2\/1\/201048\/6377\">the literal truth<\/a>?  Turns out that we import about 20% of our oil from the Middle East, and that region has the most abundant and easily accessible supplies, so that even if alternative fuels displace an amount equivalent to 75% of our imports from the Middle East, those will really be the last to go.  (We import about 60% of our oil all told, so reducing all imports by 75% is not on the agenda.)  Apparently some of our oil-producing allies in the region took him seriously &#8212; just like they did last year after the <a href=\"http:\/\/preposterousuniverse.blogspot.com\/2005_01_01_preposterousuniverse_archive.html#110643839012740834\">Second Inaugural Address<\/a> gave them the mistaken impression that we had something <a href=\"http:\/\/preposterousuniverse.blogspot.com\/2005_02_01_preposterousuniverse_archive.html#110831722074776700\">against repressive dictatorships<\/a>.   They need to understand that these speeches are not about the ordinary &#8220;literal&#8221; truth that scientists are so fond of, but a larger, purpose-serving truth in which our President specializes.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ucomics.com\/tomtoles\/2006\/02\/02\/\"><img class=\"alignright\" src='http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/files\/uploads\/tt060202.gif' alt='Toles - Bush and Science' \/><\/a>   Would it surprise you to learn that, when George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address proposed a multibillion dollar initiative to strengthen education and research in math and science, two-thirds of the money is actually not in the form of funding, but rather<a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/worldlatest\/story\/0,,-5586829,00.html\"> tax breaks for businesses<\/a>?  In fact, tax breaks that already exist, but are renewed annually, and Bush would simply like to make permanent?<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s that?  You wouldn&#8217;t be surprised?  You hopeless cynic.  Next you&#8217;ll be wondering how our President can be a rancher if he doesn&#8217;t know how to ride a horse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Would it surprise you to learn that, when George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address presented a goal of cutting down on our imports of oil from the Middle East by 75%, his advisors had to explain the next day that this wasn&#8217;t meant to be the literal truth? Turns out that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-science-and-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}