News of America resisting calls from the Arab world to bomb Iran simply show it is more than capable of a rational appraisal in global affairs.
Harwood, who describes such times as "the outcome-sinks-in-and-the-emotion-sinks-out period", says most athletes move quite quickly to a more rational appraisal of their performance.
The furor surrounding Sputnik, Brzezinski shows, grew not from a rational appraisal of American or Soviet abilities but from bitter rivalries within each government for political or bureaucratic advantage.
But reporters, too, may find that as a relationship with a source develops, their ability to deliver a coldly rational appraisal is compromised by a sense of compassion, or attachment.
Shiller gently suggested that the rapid rise in the market, and in particular the Nasdaq, might reflect trend-following on the part of investors rather than a rational appraisal of future prospects.
An irony is that Mr. Greenspan, despite having introduced the notion of overexuberance into the national dialogue, increasingly sees high stock prices -- a lot higher than they were in 1996 -- as a rational appraisal of corporate America's profitability and prospects.
Should you believe, based upon a rational appraisal of scientific evidence and application of reason and logic, that our planet and universe are ruled by nothing more than physical laws, and that humanity and all other living beings are no more than evolving, spiralling coils of self-replicating DNA, the door to the Scout hut is slammed in your little face.
This too might be thought to be amenable of broadly rational appraisal.
This glib conclusion, which would put the argument beyond the pale of rational appraisal, is a little premature, though.
This has been understood as involving a rational appraisal of one's desires, testing them for internal consistency, their relation to reliable beliefs, and the like.
