xtcian

I think it would be fun and educational to do this in real life. But some of the topics wouldn't work because the only people who really know the answers wouldn't and couldn't talk. It's disingenuous for anyone to speak about whether Michael Jackson is a child molester unless they were in the room or was an attorney working on the case. Most people's opinions are formed from a few days of court TV or general reactions to MJ's weirdness. Opinions, even from intelligent people, on whether Iraq has or wants nukes are the same - there is a right answer, but only the top experts and the leaders of Iraq have the non-B.S., real knowledge to know. The rest of us form our opinions from the New York Times or hearing from some college friends who's pals w/someone at the Defense Department, and right away that adulterates the conclusions by inserting gossip and hearsay. We can get that anywhere. I think 99 percent of the world is much more honest on those topics by keeping their mouths shut and opening their eyes more. It doesn't matter how intelligent you and I are - we don't know the answers; we can only form opinions based on third-hand knowledge.

But some of the topics do indeed lend themselves to this kind of forum. Was the war in Iraq justified? That's something that experts could hash out. Bird Flu, also good; George W and global warming and Shakespeare - I'd love to hear people talk about these topics without B.S. agendas and nonsense.

Here's a question for the experts off the top of my head: Is there such a thing as true, everlasting love, and is it ever ok to 'settle' for less?

I apologize for the grammatical errors in the above - it's 4 a.m. and I've been working on a novel, as if that's an excuse.

CL has limited our ability to address your topics, Ian, because if we weren't in the room or working on the case, we cannot comment. Therefore, I cannot weigh-in with an informed opinion because I either was not there or was not born, but here are my 2 cents:

1. I'd like to think Shakespeare wrote his own plays, borrowing liberally from others at times and occasionally relying on the inspiration of Gwynneth Paltrow. Others are not convinced. See below:

http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/shake_did_write_plays.html

2. The gloved one. If it looks and acts like a molester, interviews with sickening sound bites like a molester and is creepy like a molester, then it's really impossible to know for sure. I do know, however, that the idiot parents who let their children sleep in Mike's "molester's den", er um, "bedroom", should be kicked in the teeth. Rinsed off. And then kicked in the teeth again. Just like shampoo.

It's fine to go visit Molester-land Ranch if your kid is dying with cancer and wants to ride the rides and play with the llamas. But don't let them out of your sight. Besides, he hasn't had a significant album since 1991. That's 15 years ago and more like 22 years ago since he was king of the world with Thriller. The children today weren't even alive then and they don't know him.

Of course, for my money, the moonwalk is still the coolest dance move I've ever seen.

3. Bird flu. One of our three animals killed a bird the other day and none of them got so much as a sniffle. I don't know what you can draw from that, but I'll keep a lookout for whether our animals develop a fever.

4. W's legacy. I am always curious as to why a resigning general or admiral would take a stance against the sitting president when there is no obvious political or financial gain to be made. W has had that happen several times over the past year. Kind of like an admission against interest in court, the retirees' voices make my ears perk up. When they slam the war and the decisions to start and/or sustain it, I listen. It's hard to know whether they have an agenda, but at least they were in the room and part of the plan and their words (both pro and con) get my attention.

But in reality, Americans have the collective memory of a "gypsy moth" (Sorkin line from 'Isaac and Ishmael' WW episode) and we'll likely recall that he kept us safe from terror [so far, knock on wood] at home, idiot school-shooting Colorado loners, notwithstanding. And with gas prices coming down ($2.10 a gallon at Costco the other day), W won't even be on our radar.

5. Iran. Why wouldn't they want nukes? Everyone else in the area has them and they just sat back and watched the U.S. invade and take over their neighboring country. Not to get all Patrick Swayze on you, but I imagine there are folks in Iran running around shouting, "Wolverine", drinking deer blood and looking to prepare for a fight. Can you blame them?

I think I effectively posted myself right out of the Top Ten. Dammit.

Yes*
Yes**
Yes***
Worst Ever****
No*****

Next question...

*If they just want peaceful nuclear energy, a breeder program would be an absurd and expensive distraction.
**Like terrorism, the proper reaction is for the folks whose job it is to worry about such things not to try and scare the pants off the rest of us and just do their fucking jobs.
***Actually no one has ever proven anything other than that sketchy people have been able to extort money out of MJ, but he's one weird motherfucker, and doesn't do himself any favors in how he's addressed these charges.
****for the next century the US will have two preoccupations: 1) trying to clean up the mess GWB has made 2) documenting how truly awful Bush and the Republican Party became.
*****Shakespeare wrote the bulk of his work, but probably had uncredited collaborators. And some of the stinkers like Titus Andronicus may have been attributed to him in order to get attention.

The only one of these that inspires a response from me is the Shakespeare thing. There is so much craziness surrounding this question, and I feel like the debate is essentially useless. There's nothing actionable about the answer. I suppose if someone did sit down and decide that five of his plays were definitely not him, then those plays would be lost in about fifty years.

But the idea of him being gay, a woman, Jewish, a group of people, etc., is frustrating as an off-off jackass in New York because there are so many average thinkers who's approach to his identity is a spastic indication of how their shows will be produced.

Anyway. I'm excited about the other questions, I'm just never gonna be one of those ten people. Unless the debate is whether or not someone's singing in tune, or if you need an ADD 2nd Ed. Dungeon Master.

Yes, Iran wants nukes.

Bird Flu is pure hype and fear tactics.

Michael Jackson, yes.

George W. Bush will be remembered as the first president willing to stand up to radical Islam after years of inaction during the 1990s. Bush will also be remembered as having the stock market hit an all-time high during his Presidency.

Shakespeare, no.

Global Warming is pure hype and fear tactics. Both the journals Science and Nature have published studies recently finding that Antarctica is both cooling and gaining ice. Dr. Mitchell Taylor from the Arctic government of Nunavut, a territory of Canada, said recently: “Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in numbers. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present.” Temperatures in the arctic were higher in the 1930s than they are today.

Barry Bonds, yes.

how do you define "smart", though? lots of people with high intelligence (IQ scores, SAT scores etc) have *zero* common sense.

there are people who know the meaning of lots of big words, but could no more assess nukes than they could fly to the moon.

i think the question of who is smart is the really interesting one. Playwrights and professors from blue states, or more pragmatic, black and white red-staters (which oversimplifies polarities, but you know what I mean)?

Bill Clinton is smart in a nimble-minded, quick thinking way, and Bush seems to be less so. But we don't know as of yet (and it will take years to know for sure) who was the better President.

I think it is very hard to aknowledge the smarts of someone with whom you vehemently disagree.

Since you asked what my question would be, not what I think about your questions, here is my answer:

Is there intelligent life in the universe outside of our planet?

I meant Iran when I wrote that at 4 a.m., also. Oops.

GFWD, I didn't mean to limit anyone's opinions or discussion. It was just that sometimes people talk out of their arses about things that they can't really know about. If yer gonna get 10 experts in a room, no one is an expert on whether an individual molested young boys unless he was there or has great knowledge on the case. I didn't mean to apply that to every issue, just ones where the evidence or hints are not obvious.

Can Dave Barry be one of the ten smart people, every time? How about Bill Moyers?

Also, smart people don't waste their time becoming knowledgable about Michael Jackson. Unless you and your kids share his neighborhood.

Good idea, but I think part of problem is that either: A. The only people who REALLY know about things like Michael Jackson are himself and whoever he messed with, if he did, and B. Who KNOWS about bird flu, peak oil, etc? We can all speculate, even intelligently speculate, but can anyone really know until the actual event happens? Hmm.

CL, It's all good. You made a good point. Only a handful of people really know what happened at freaky Mike's house. And, as Piglet astutely said, you only need to pre-occupy yourself with him now if the Meagan's Law Gazette gets dropped off on your front porch with the latest breaking news.

Rebecca, as for intelligent life outside of our planet? Duh.

Have you not seen E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind or Independence Day? Never heard of Roswell, NM? Space aliens are real, sister. Sigourney Weaver wasn't battling anything from this earth when she got into that human forklift to protect Newt.

The better question is, are there any other FRIENDLY aliens out there. Or did we peak with E.T. and Alf and Mork?

Seriously, I think it's naive to think we're the best and most advanced that the Universe has to offer. And can you imagine the kick ass iPods and cell phones some of those intelligent cats have? Gives me goose bumps just thinking about it.

Hi from the land of coup and flu. (Zzzzzzz.)

Bird flu is real, but on a smaller scale and therefore perhaps more insidious than originally anticipated. Thailand just confirmed another death from it this week. We hear about it and read about it all the time in these parts, cuz over here, many folks live with their fowl wandering in and out of their dirt-floored homes.

Will the flu blow up into what Roche et al want us to fear, during our lifetimes? Maybe not. I hope not. But the Spanish flu epidemic that killed millions of people had to start somewhere, right? Kinda like the boiling frog theory.

Anyway, I'd ask the 10 smart people about the meaning of life: Is there a point to all this mishigas, and if so, what is it?

Remember Enron?

Weren't they, according to the documentary's title "The Smartest Guys in the Room?" That didn't turn out too well, did it?

I heard something brilliant recently, on some talking heads news analysis show: "Some mistakes are so huge it takes a PhD to make them." I think that quote sums up the worst of modern society extremely well.

Because connecting the dots is what the human mind does best, the smartest minds especially, and in situations with incomplete information, it's likely that diffrent great minds will connect those dots differently, creating in some cases intractable differences of opinion -- and in other cases, disasters of epic proportion.

I think humanity will be better off in direct correlation to our collective ability to say, "I don't know enough about that" or as CL said, to keep our mouths shut, our eyes and ears open.

I can't add anything to the answers to questions Ian has raised. But, like Rebecca, I'll add my own:
What happens after you die?

I'm of a mind that you simply cease to exist. It's like going to sleep. You really don't know you've been asleep until you wake up. Same with dreams.

I WANT to believe in heaven and all that, and I actually do believe in God, but I'm having issues reconciling this whole after life deal.

Speaking of life after death, my question is what happened to the second season of Paradise Hotel?

"Is global warming for real or are we just in the middle of a warming cycle that has occurred many times before?"

Q.

Is the US Constitution outdated

Q.

Is Federalism a valid governmental form given today's technological advances.

Q.

Should government be involved in marriage, period.

6 person poll, didn't allow discussion and I don't even know how smart me and these people are :-)

Iran: 5 yes, 1 no
Bird Flu: 3 yes, 3 no
Michael Jackson: 4 yes, 2 no
Bush Remembered Good President: 0 yes, 6 no
Shakespeare: 2 yes, 4 no

Really good questions coming out everybody. Kinda makes me wish we could get answers to them.

My questions:
What really happened in that house in Durham with the Lacrosse players?
Did OJ kill his wife?

Whenever someone starts talking about bird flu and things they've seen on the nightly news I direct them to Barry Glassner's great book (which needs a post 9/11 update) called, "The Culture of Fear." It sheds a lot of light on the way we feel (as Americans) about a variety of things.

I'm an Oxfordian re: Shakespeare (i.e. all one guy, different name) and CLian re: everything else. Re: whether there's "true, everlasting love" and if it's ok ever to "settle," I say "yes, of course" to both, although about the second you definitely have a bad attitude.

Oop...forgot my question for the smarties. Um, how about: "Are we living in a democracy?" and/or "Free trade: Good or bad?"

A Kennedy brothers trifecta:

(1) Did Oswald act alone?

(2) What (and/or who) motivated Sirhan Sirhan?

(3) What did Ted Kennedy do in the several hours between the time he drove off the bridge at Chappaquiddick, and did he really dive down several times to try to save Mary Jo Kopechne?

Oops! I left out part of question (3): it should ask what Teddy did between the time he emerged from the water and the time he called police (10 hours later)?

Claverack Weekender - I'm with ya, buddy! What DID happen to Paradise?
Along the same lines, why did Firefly get the ax?

1. John Schultz' question (climate change?)
2. Tanya's question (afterlife?); possible follow-up: Will my dogs be there?
3. Should we bother being nice to each other, or just make it good for our offspring?
4. Why did that copy machine in the undergrad library ADD $65 to my copy card in 1989?
5. What if Spartacus had a Piper Cub?

Okay, if anyone is still reading. Here's one I've wondered about.
In the afterlife (assuming yes to the question that there is one) - what happens to people who have had two husbands (ie were widowed and remarried)? Who are they with? Does the other person feel left out? If so, how good can the afterlife really be? Also, how old are you there? Can you pick your age?

Neva- I think in Heaven you don't care about who married who or anything like that. It's all love and reunions. I truly believe Heaven is individual for everyone. I don't think my heaven would be heaven for an african tribesman and vice versa. I believe God lets us create our own Heaven and in my case, I'm riding in on a great grey horse named Crystal, with my 17 year old body(I'm 33 now) and my friends and family waving me in. It makes the going not so scary.

Sorry to hear about the Saints today, Ian, but I have some news that may cheer you up.

http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php?js_enabled=1

Available now in electric cars: 0 to 60 in 4 seconds, 135 mpg equivalent at a cost of 1 cent per mile, and a range of 250 miles on one charge.

That's a major improvement. Still pretty pricey, however.

Ian should buy this since Tesla was also his favorite band in the 90's.

Tesla ROCKS, baby!

Tessa should buy the Tesla and then together they can rock the baby with their new band, "Tessla."