American Philosopher, Vince Lombardi
"Academy, n. (From ACADEME) A modern school where football is taught" (Bierce).
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Friday, December 28, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
McBeatnik
Tired of praising NASA, Al Gore, and the Bangles, McMax offers some insights into the political mindstate of the 50s:
"""" Mr. "X" needs to pick up a book by Jack Kerouac or William S. Burroughs and get a sense of what was really going on in those days........ The real people, the ones who were actually alive and had functioning senses, went underground. The media of the time didn’t mention them and that’s why they are believed to have never existed by the conservatives who long for the good old days. Drunks, bums, hookers, addicts, artists, jazz musicians, existed and thrived in the underworld as they do today. Belief in God, or the lack of it, had nothing to do with it then and it doesn’t now.""""
Generalized, oversimplified, tasteless--the usual NW posse fare. Kerouac for one WAS a media star for some time (the Beats were featured in LIFE, and other rags), as were quite a few jazz musicians. The beats may have not been Eisenhower conservatives, but they weren't card-carrying communists either, or RichardDawkins-like Tory atheists and skeptic philosophers (or wannabe Tory atheists---Kerouac never rejected his Catholic roots completely). And they sure in the phuck were not monolingual phonies and hicks like the NW crew (for one, however F-ed up most of the beats were, they were quite well read in French lit----so start with like Voltaire's Candide, and uh start over, McBubba).
Tired of praising NASA, Al Gore, and the Bangles, McMax offers some insights into the political mindstate of the 50s:
"""" Mr. "X" needs to pick up a book by Jack Kerouac or William S. Burroughs and get a sense of what was really going on in those days........ The real people, the ones who were actually alive and had functioning senses, went underground. The media of the time didn’t mention them and that’s why they are believed to have never existed by the conservatives who long for the good old days. Drunks, bums, hookers, addicts, artists, jazz musicians, existed and thrived in the underworld as they do today. Belief in God, or the lack of it, had nothing to do with it then and it doesn’t now.""""
Generalized, oversimplified, tasteless--the usual NW posse fare. Kerouac for one WAS a media star for some time (the Beats were featured in LIFE, and other rags), as were quite a few jazz musicians. The beats may have not been Eisenhower conservatives, but they weren't card-carrying communists either, or RichardDawkins-like Tory atheists and skeptic philosophers (or wannabe Tory atheists---Kerouac never rejected his Catholic roots completely). And they sure in the phuck were not monolingual phonies and hicks like the NW crew (for one, however F-ed up most of the beats were, they were quite well read in French lit----so start with like Voltaire's Candide, and uh start over, McBubba).
Dr. Jeff Glassman on AGW guestimates
(Glassman, neither conservative nor a creationist nor a member of the Gore church, takes apart the IPCC/AGW guesswork, manipulations, and CO2 hype. Perhaps the Goreans might peruse recent US weather patterns-- with record freezing temperatures in the Midwest over the last few weeks: maybe, in some PC postmodernist fashion, poor people freezing to death is actually a sign of AGW too )
(IPCC claim: "The present atmospheric CO2 concentration has not been exceeded during the past 420,000 years, and likely not during the past 20 million years.")
Glassman: """"""Keeling's Mauna Loa record now covers 50 years, and during that entire time it exceeded 300 ppm, the top of the grey bar range. What are the chances of detecting such a 50 year span during the last 420,000 years by one of the 363 ice core samples? It is 50 divided by the mean sample interval, 1140 years, which is 4.4%. If the claim is extended to cover the 650,000 year period covered by the extended Vostok record comprising 685 samples, the chances are 5.3%. Thus the IPCC claim is true with a confidence level of about 5%. Usually scientific claims are expressed in confidence levels better to much better than, and not much worse than, a coin toss, such as 80%, 90%, 95%, or better. The IPCC could be 95% confident that an interval such as the present was undetectable among the Vostok ice core reductions.
[In the Fourth Assessment Report, the Consensus on Climate introduces qualitative expressions to stand for quantified "likelihood of the occurrence" of events. Very unlikely is less than 10%, "extremely unlikely" is less than 5%, and "exceptionally unlikely" scores as less than 1%. 4AR, Technical Summary, p. 121. In the IPCC discussions on carbon dioxide and its immediate effects in the GCMs, the Consensus uses this scoring to impart a quantitative and objective score to what is actually no more than the writers' subjective opinions. Science precludes such subjectivity.""""
[However, with regard to the unprecedented nature of the Mauna Loa record, the confidence level is objective, calculable by the ratio of the record length to the sample interval. The IPCC could have said that the chances of having detected an interval like the modern record in the Vostok record was extremely unlikely. When the Consensus had a chance to be objective, it declined. Proclaiming an impending catastrophe trumped objectivity. """"""
(Glassman, neither conservative nor a creationist nor a member of the Gore church, takes apart the IPCC/AGW guesswork, manipulations, and CO2 hype. Perhaps the Goreans might peruse recent US weather patterns-- with record freezing temperatures in the Midwest over the last few weeks: maybe, in some PC postmodernist fashion, poor people freezing to death is actually a sign of AGW too )
(IPCC claim: "The present atmospheric CO2 concentration has not been exceeded during the past 420,000 years, and likely not during the past 20 million years.")
Glassman: """"""Keeling's Mauna Loa record now covers 50 years, and during that entire time it exceeded 300 ppm, the top of the grey bar range. What are the chances of detecting such a 50 year span during the last 420,000 years by one of the 363 ice core samples? It is 50 divided by the mean sample interval, 1140 years, which is 4.4%. If the claim is extended to cover the 650,000 year period covered by the extended Vostok record comprising 685 samples, the chances are 5.3%. Thus the IPCC claim is true with a confidence level of about 5%. Usually scientific claims are expressed in confidence levels better to much better than, and not much worse than, a coin toss, such as 80%, 90%, 95%, or better. The IPCC could be 95% confident that an interval such as the present was undetectable among the Vostok ice core reductions.
[In the Fourth Assessment Report, the Consensus on Climate introduces qualitative expressions to stand for quantified "likelihood of the occurrence" of events. Very unlikely is less than 10%, "extremely unlikely" is less than 5%, and "exceptionally unlikely" scores as less than 1%. 4AR, Technical Summary, p. 121. In the IPCC discussions on carbon dioxide and its immediate effects in the GCMs, the Consensus uses this scoring to impart a quantitative and objective score to what is actually no more than the writers' subjective opinions. Science precludes such subjectivity.""""
[However, with regard to the unprecedented nature of the Mauna Loa record, the confidence level is objective, calculable by the ratio of the record length to the sample interval. The IPCC could have said that the chances of having detected an interval like the modern record in the Vostok record was extremely unlikely. When the Consensus had a chance to be objective, it declined. Proclaiming an impending catastrophe trumped objectivity. """"""
Monday, December 24, 2007
A Bubba belches "Tolkien".
"Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein." (Nietzsche, "Jenseits von Gut und Böse")
Tolkien, from German "tollkühn" meaning, "foolhardy". Das Stimmt! Du bist tollkühn.
"""""Tolkien was much inspired by ancient Germanic literature, indigenous pre-Christian religion (Germanic paganism), linguistics, legend and culture, for which he confessed a great love. Tolkien spent much of his scholarly time studying and lecturing on these subjects, as well as producing a number of introductions and essays. These sources of inspiration included Anglo-Saxon literature such as Beowulf, the Norse sagas (such as the Volsunga saga and the Hervarar saga[89]), the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, the Nibelungenlied and numerous other culturally related works.[90]
Despite similarities to the Volsunga saga and the Nibelungenlied, the basis for Richard Wagner's opera series Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tolkien dismissed critics' direct comparisons of his work to Wagner, telling his publisher: "Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases."
Tolkien himself also acknowledged Homer, Sophocles, and the Finnish and Karelian Kalevala as influences or sources for some of his stories and ideas.[91] Tolkien also drew influence from a variety of Celtic — Scottish and Welsh — history and legends.[92][93]
A major philosophical influence on his writing is Alfred the Great's Anglo-Saxon translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, known as the Lays of Boethius.[94] Characters in The Lord of the Rings such as Frodo, Treebeard, and Elrond make noticeably Boethian remarks. Also, Catholic theology and imagery played a part in fashioning his creative imagination, suffused as it was by his deeply religious spirit.[95][96]""""""
Gut Glueck, Bubba
"Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein." (Nietzsche, "Jenseits von Gut und Böse")
Tolkien, from German "tollkühn" meaning, "foolhardy". Das Stimmt! Du bist tollkühn.
"""""Tolkien was much inspired by ancient Germanic literature, indigenous pre-Christian religion (Germanic paganism), linguistics, legend and culture, for which he confessed a great love. Tolkien spent much of his scholarly time studying and lecturing on these subjects, as well as producing a number of introductions and essays. These sources of inspiration included Anglo-Saxon literature such as Beowulf, the Norse sagas (such as the Volsunga saga and the Hervarar saga[89]), the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, the Nibelungenlied and numerous other culturally related works.[90]
Despite similarities to the Volsunga saga and the Nibelungenlied, the basis for Richard Wagner's opera series Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tolkien dismissed critics' direct comparisons of his work to Wagner, telling his publisher: "Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases."
Tolkien himself also acknowledged Homer, Sophocles, and the Finnish and Karelian Kalevala as influences or sources for some of his stories and ideas.[91] Tolkien also drew influence from a variety of Celtic — Scottish and Welsh — history and legends.[92][93]
A major philosophical influence on his writing is Alfred the Great's Anglo-Saxon translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, known as the Lays of Boethius.[94] Characters in The Lord of the Rings such as Frodo, Treebeard, and Elrond make noticeably Boethian remarks. Also, Catholic theology and imagery played a part in fashioning his creative imagination, suffused as it was by his deeply religious spirit.[95][96]""""""
Gut Glueck, Bubba
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Monday, December 17, 2007
A Modest Proposal: End the popular vote
"Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good." (HLMencken)
As Mencken realized, the American citizenry's innate faith in the voting process (and thus in democracy) ranks as one of the most pernicious of modern political fallacies. Deciding on politics and selecting representatives merely by polling the population at large obviously does not result in "good" politics--majorities have no problems voting in Dubya's or Feinstein's (that is, unless DiDi and crew engaged in some old Tammany Hall style ballot-stuffing). Voting thus seems analogous to, say, an incompetent algebra teacher who asks for a show of hands to a difficult word problem, and then assumes whatever the majority decides upon is the correct answer. Imagine counting the hits to a Britney Spears fan site and to a Debussy fan site, and then, since Britney.com has 1,000,000+ per annum, and Claude.com barely cracks 1000, claiming that Britney is clearly the superior artiste: that is the American vote. (the utilitarians themselves understood the potential problem associated with democracy, and the tyranny of the majority).
Implementing voter-intelligence tests at poll booths might offer one solution. Tests on Readin', writin', Riemann, and RPC buffer attacks for starters. Or perhaps a sheepskin requirement (and one not in Recreation Studies). Voters should demonstrate some basic intellectual competency: the ability to read and understand like the state's voter pamphlet for one. Failing that, Vox populi will decide, and Britneyopolis--or Oprahopolis (about the same) will become the norm.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Dissent: Rational, and not-so-rational.
""Among people who have learned something from the 18th century (say, Voltaire) it is a truism, hardly deserving discussion, that the defense of the right of free expression is not restricted to ideas one approves of, and that it is precisely in the case of ideas found most offensive that these rights must be most vigorously defended.""" (Noam Chomsky)
The Chomsky's not our favorite Ivy League intellectual, but he raises an important point here (whether he himself obeys his own maxim is another matter). The connection to Voltaire and the Enlightenment also might be noted: monarchists had for years, nay centuries, stifled criticism and dissent (as had religious clerics), and that was arguably one of the "historical crimes" which jacobins rightfully objected to (of course when the sans cullottes seized power, they engaged in censorship and communication control as well, as did the Bolsheviks, later-day sans cullottes. So did the nazis).
Authentic democracy depends to some degree on "communication rights". Totalitarianism on the other hand, whether communist or fascist or theocratic, depends on controlling and eliminating those communication rights. Unfortunately, blogs and websites, as much instruments of communication as the old daily newspaper (regardless of the grumbles of a few metro editors), have over the last few years become ever more controlled, moderated, policed: Bukharins, Goebbels, and J-edgars rule the cyber-roosts to a large extent.
In his introduction to a new printing of Orwell's 1984, the novelist Thomas Pynchon recently suggested that the Net could become some crypto-totalitarian zone, "a development that promises social control on a scale those quaint old 20th-century tyrants with their goofy moustaches could only dream about." Pynchon's prognostication should not be dismissed out of hand. Cyber-Bukharins are on the rise. We here at Contingencies contend that liberal sites–-like a DailyKOS–-are generally as guilty as the rightist-bonehead sites in that regard, regardless if the Kossack’s intentions rate higher on the Benevolmeter. Troll-paranoia, for instance, on KOS and similar sites has resulted in all sorts of moderation guidelines and procedures. “Troll” doesn’t really even mean what it used to mean: now it connotes something like outsider, dissenter, renegade, crypto-fascist-on-meth, etc. Formerly on newsgroups it had more of a hacker connotation: real trolls didn’t merely say speculate on Hillary’s pubic hair style on a dem site, but like played pranks, launched viruses, engaged in ID theft, phucked things up.
The membership/registration jazz, and the mandatory login/pass (or worse, the pinche verification capchas) seems pretty anal really: on the old sites you
just posted something and let it fly (wordpress is a bit better, but many
wordpress sites are heavily moderated as well). In certain contexts some moderation or deletion is understandable (like deleting some hick conspiracy buff afflicted with verbal diarrhea who remains convinced that Dick Cheney piloted the planes into WTC on 9-11), at least if people agree not to use obscenity or discuss their favorite sapphic erotica DVDs.
---------------
A rather sullen and resentful scribbler aka Demonweed shows the characteristics of the cyber-Bukharin. AS his regular brain-farts indicate, he has difficulties with writing, and with rationality. Apparently, D-w doesn’t quite know what a valid argument consists of, either, regardless of his supposed interest in philosophical hype and trite bon-mots from the Greats (Russell!!! What a joke. D-w. would not know the theory of logical types from his TCP-IP settings). D.w. in fact revealed his real character with a bon-mot from Dan Quayle, offered sans irony or sarcasm.
The cyber-Bukharin like Demonwind however is usually a clever ghoul. He writes things which appear to be profound. He indulges in ideology. He attempts lightweight satire or invective, while generally avoiding any sort of fact-based argument. Demonweed in fact lost his ass on some global warming sites: not merely due to rightist-boneheads (yet even the anti-AGW writing of a Bonehead like Crichton should not be dismissed), but by all sorts of people (including some non-conservatives) who actually know something about the difficulties associated with the science, rather than the hype, of AGW (i.e., see Dennis Rancourt, canadian physicist, green, and AGW skeptic). Then, after his trashing, D-weed started into his usual milquetoast defamations, bogus inferences, and preacher-speak: anyone who objects to that great liberal Al Gore and his Chevy-sponsored eco-politics supports the Republicans, if not the aims of fascism itself! Suffer fools gladly.
Al Gore more or less flunked his science courses at Harvard, misrepresented
evidence of AGW (as was proven when the Feds themselves corrected Mann, the
hockey stick guy); the political record of Big Al, who took Occi money for
years, is a few baby steps away from say Reagan’s. But who cares: Gore’s the
hero of the PC bogus suburban-greens.
The Demonweed sort of control freaks, now proliferating at an alarming rate, should not be mistaken for Hunter S. Thompson like gonzo hipsters either. D-weed's own blog, a collection of moralisms and generalized idiocies (he hasn't quite grasped what inductive reasoning--ie. economics-- entails either) demonstrates how square he really izz: “What You Should Think”. Hah. Sounds about like a collection of Paul Craig Roberts columns (and reads like that as well, at least if one can make it past 3 or 4 paragraphs of humorless, rhetorical sludge).
One could continue, ad nauseum. Even a few ancient scribes, however, knew the score in regards to the politics of language: "Thou shalt not bear false witness". Consider that carefully, Demonweeds.
""Among people who have learned something from the 18th century (say, Voltaire) it is a truism, hardly deserving discussion, that the defense of the right of free expression is not restricted to ideas one approves of, and that it is precisely in the case of ideas found most offensive that these rights must be most vigorously defended.""" (Noam Chomsky)
The Chomsky's not our favorite Ivy League intellectual, but he raises an important point here (whether he himself obeys his own maxim is another matter). The connection to Voltaire and the Enlightenment also might be noted: monarchists had for years, nay centuries, stifled criticism and dissent (as had religious clerics), and that was arguably one of the "historical crimes" which jacobins rightfully objected to (of course when the sans cullottes seized power, they engaged in censorship and communication control as well, as did the Bolsheviks, later-day sans cullottes. So did the nazis).
Authentic democracy depends to some degree on "communication rights". Totalitarianism on the other hand, whether communist or fascist or theocratic, depends on controlling and eliminating those communication rights. Unfortunately, blogs and websites, as much instruments of communication as the old daily newspaper (regardless of the grumbles of a few metro editors), have over the last few years become ever more controlled, moderated, policed: Bukharins, Goebbels, and J-edgars rule the cyber-roosts to a large extent.
In his introduction to a new printing of Orwell's 1984, the novelist Thomas Pynchon recently suggested that the Net could become some crypto-totalitarian zone, "a development that promises social control on a scale those quaint old 20th-century tyrants with their goofy moustaches could only dream about." Pynchon's prognostication should not be dismissed out of hand. Cyber-Bukharins are on the rise. We here at Contingencies contend that liberal sites–-like a DailyKOS–-are generally as guilty as the rightist-bonehead sites in that regard, regardless if the Kossack’s intentions rate higher on the Benevolmeter. Troll-paranoia, for instance, on KOS and similar sites has resulted in all sorts of moderation guidelines and procedures. “Troll” doesn’t really even mean what it used to mean: now it connotes something like outsider, dissenter, renegade, crypto-fascist-on-meth, etc. Formerly on newsgroups it had more of a hacker connotation: real trolls didn’t merely say speculate on Hillary’s pubic hair style on a dem site, but like played pranks, launched viruses, engaged in ID theft, phucked things up.
The membership/registration jazz, and the mandatory login/pass (or worse, the pinche verification capchas) seems pretty anal really: on the old sites you
just posted something and let it fly (wordpress is a bit better, but many
wordpress sites are heavily moderated as well). In certain contexts some moderation or deletion is understandable (like deleting some hick conspiracy buff afflicted with verbal diarrhea who remains convinced that Dick Cheney piloted the planes into WTC on 9-11), at least if people agree not to use obscenity or discuss their favorite sapphic erotica DVDs.
---------------
A rather sullen and resentful scribbler aka Demonweed shows the characteristics of the cyber-Bukharin. AS his regular brain-farts indicate, he has difficulties with writing, and with rationality. Apparently, D-w doesn’t quite know what a valid argument consists of, either, regardless of his supposed interest in philosophical hype and trite bon-mots from the Greats (Russell!!! What a joke. D-w. would not know the theory of logical types from his TCP-IP settings). D.w. in fact revealed his real character with a bon-mot from Dan Quayle, offered sans irony or sarcasm.
The cyber-Bukharin like Demonwind however is usually a clever ghoul. He writes things which appear to be profound. He indulges in ideology. He attempts lightweight satire or invective, while generally avoiding any sort of fact-based argument. Demonweed in fact lost his ass on some global warming sites: not merely due to rightist-boneheads (yet even the anti-AGW writing of a Bonehead like Crichton should not be dismissed), but by all sorts of people (including some non-conservatives) who actually know something about the difficulties associated with the science, rather than the hype, of AGW (i.e., see Dennis Rancourt, canadian physicist, green, and AGW skeptic). Then, after his trashing, D-weed started into his usual milquetoast defamations, bogus inferences, and preacher-speak: anyone who objects to that great liberal Al Gore and his Chevy-sponsored eco-politics supports the Republicans, if not the aims of fascism itself! Suffer fools gladly.
Al Gore more or less flunked his science courses at Harvard, misrepresented
evidence of AGW (as was proven when the Feds themselves corrected Mann, the
hockey stick guy); the political record of Big Al, who took Occi money for
years, is a few baby steps away from say Reagan’s. But who cares: Gore’s the
hero of the PC bogus suburban-greens.
The Demonweed sort of control freaks, now proliferating at an alarming rate, should not be mistaken for Hunter S. Thompson like gonzo hipsters either. D-weed's own blog, a collection of moralisms and generalized idiocies (he hasn't quite grasped what inductive reasoning--ie. economics-- entails either) demonstrates how square he really izz: “What You Should Think”. Hah. Sounds about like a collection of Paul Craig Roberts columns (and reads like that as well, at least if one can make it past 3 or 4 paragraphs of humorless, rhetorical sludge).
One could continue, ad nauseum. Even a few ancient scribes, however, knew the score in regards to the politics of language: "Thou shalt not bear false witness". Consider that carefully, Demonweeds.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Intense, man: The Sean Penn School of Rhetoric
The intensity of Sean Penn often has impressed us. Few boomer/Gen X sorts under 50 or so could forget intense Penn classics like "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" or "The Falcon and the Snowman." His interactions with the media also have been intense--as was marriage with like Madonna. Whoa! That's like real intense. Sean lately has morphed into a quasi-romantic marxist writer of sorts--another John Reed iteration, in a sense (a slightly less intense thespian, Warren Beatty, played the part of Reed in "Reds", and was nearly believable for a few scenes). Sean doesn't care for the Iraqi war, or for most American politicians, GOP or Democratic. That's somewhat understandable ( we don't support Bushco). Penn also travels across the world (who's footing the bill, tho? SF Cthulicle? That's zionist capital, man) and writes up little reports on the good people in those distant locales. He parties with communists and disses the yokels back in Amerika who don't understand the sublimity of marxist insurrection. Marxism is itself intense, dude, according to Penn. (Marx may have simmered, but was rarely intense. He described the supposed failures of capitalism in cold and precise terms (even Marx's errors, like the Labor Theory of Value, are impressive in their precision).
"His mind moves upon the Silence"
Here's Sean on the Constitution, and some other intense political stuff:
""""But I was talking about the Constitution. Most importantly, our own. And what an odd week it has been. Our culture is engrained with a tradition that blurs the line between what is right, what is just and what is constitutional, with what is a scam. That tradition is the cult of personality. What can TV sell, what kind of crap will we buy. And at what point are we buying and selling our rights, our pride, our flag, our children, and succumbing to meaningless slogans that are ultimately pure titles for un-Americanism. How do we know what’s American and what is not? Because John Wayne tells us so? Because Sean Penn tells us so? Susan Sarandon? Bill O’Reilly? Michael Moore? Senator Bull? Or Senator Shit? Ann “my bowel expenditure” Coulter? No. It’s our Constitution. We don’t use it just to win. We depend on it because it’s the only “us” worth being. And because it’s our children’s inheritance from our shared forefathers and the traditions that really do speak best of our country.""""
PennSpeak
Not exactly John Kenneth Galbraith. As with a powerful five- minute reading at say a Bay Area espresso joint, it's meant to shock a little. The Constitution. Cult of personality. TV crap. The Bowels of Ann Coulter (OK, I agree there, Seanie. Ann the man's not merely with the Orangemen, but Vichy. Like most real Vichy sorta talented in her own sinister fashion: as even a Bukowski would have granted). All way intense, man. Sean Penn does some representin', for the Peeps.
The real question, though, is this: who the phuck is Sean Penn anyways? He's another actor: not a politician, nor a political theorist, nor philosopher, scientist, or even pro-muckraker like Daddy Cockburn, nor belle-lettrist (ala Buk. or beats, like). Penn's not a grand shakespearean sort of thespian, nor somewhat noirish sort like Beatty, but more like an actor as rock-star. Pop culture icon, really. We don't have his CV here, but it's unlikely he ever earned ye olde sheepskin (even some history or econ. courses might have helped. Start with like Mao and work backwards).
As academic snobs say, there's really an agency issue with the Penns and the Sarandons (and with the Reagans and Thompsons, as well). The celebrity actor-politicians (regardless of flavor) are the Alcibiades--not the Socrates; they start from Pathos, not Logos. They produce oratory (typically intense, and emotional) if not marketing plans, instead of thoughts: even when slightly correct (i.e. supporting a secular constitution), they pitch something, play a part, strike a pose. We barely hear "Sean Penn": we hear.....the Snowman.
The intensity of Sean Penn often has impressed us. Few boomer/Gen X sorts under 50 or so could forget intense Penn classics like "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" or "The Falcon and the Snowman." His interactions with the media also have been intense--as was marriage with like Madonna. Whoa! That's like real intense. Sean lately has morphed into a quasi-romantic marxist writer of sorts--another John Reed iteration, in a sense (a slightly less intense thespian, Warren Beatty, played the part of Reed in "Reds", and was nearly believable for a few scenes). Sean doesn't care for the Iraqi war, or for most American politicians, GOP or Democratic. That's somewhat understandable ( we don't support Bushco). Penn also travels across the world (who's footing the bill, tho? SF Cthulicle? That's zionist capital, man) and writes up little reports on the good people in those distant locales. He parties with communists and disses the yokels back in Amerika who don't understand the sublimity of marxist insurrection. Marxism is itself intense, dude, according to Penn. (Marx may have simmered, but was rarely intense. He described the supposed failures of capitalism in cold and precise terms (even Marx's errors, like the Labor Theory of Value, are impressive in their precision).
"His mind moves upon the Silence"
Here's Sean on the Constitution, and some other intense political stuff:
""""But I was talking about the Constitution. Most importantly, our own. And what an odd week it has been. Our culture is engrained with a tradition that blurs the line between what is right, what is just and what is constitutional, with what is a scam. That tradition is the cult of personality. What can TV sell, what kind of crap will we buy. And at what point are we buying and selling our rights, our pride, our flag, our children, and succumbing to meaningless slogans that are ultimately pure titles for un-Americanism. How do we know what’s American and what is not? Because John Wayne tells us so? Because Sean Penn tells us so? Susan Sarandon? Bill O’Reilly? Michael Moore? Senator Bull? Or Senator Shit? Ann “my bowel expenditure” Coulter? No. It’s our Constitution. We don’t use it just to win. We depend on it because it’s the only “us” worth being. And because it’s our children’s inheritance from our shared forefathers and the traditions that really do speak best of our country.""""
PennSpeak
Not exactly John Kenneth Galbraith. As with a powerful five- minute reading at say a Bay Area espresso joint, it's meant to shock a little. The Constitution. Cult of personality. TV crap. The Bowels of Ann Coulter (OK, I agree there, Seanie. Ann the man's not merely with the Orangemen, but Vichy. Like most real Vichy sorta talented in her own sinister fashion: as even a Bukowski would have granted). All way intense, man. Sean Penn does some representin', for the Peeps.
The real question, though, is this: who the phuck is Sean Penn anyways? He's another actor: not a politician, nor a political theorist, nor philosopher, scientist, or even pro-muckraker like Daddy Cockburn, nor belle-lettrist (ala Buk. or beats, like). Penn's not a grand shakespearean sort of thespian, nor somewhat noirish sort like Beatty, but more like an actor as rock-star. Pop culture icon, really. We don't have his CV here, but it's unlikely he ever earned ye olde sheepskin (even some history or econ. courses might have helped. Start with like Mao and work backwards).
As academic snobs say, there's really an agency issue with the Penns and the Sarandons (and with the Reagans and Thompsons, as well). The celebrity actor-politicians (regardless of flavor) are the Alcibiades--not the Socrates; they start from Pathos, not Logos. They produce oratory (typically intense, and emotional) if not marketing plans, instead of thoughts: even when slightly correct (i.e. supporting a secular constitution), they pitch something, play a part, strike a pose. We barely hear "Sean Penn": we hear.....the Snowman.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Mitt the Mormon waves his Flag of Phreedom.
"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."
Those old dead crackers Madison and Jefferson are rolling in their graves (or perhaps laughing at the freak). Mitt's mistaken in regards to the Founding Fathers, anyway. A few FF’s were somewhat religious, or nominally Xtian (such as Adams); most were not (i.e. Madison and Jefferson, pal even of a few jacobins). The “freedom” that MittMan insists upon also meant the freedom to not be religious (as outlined in First Amendment). Not that many fundies understand the meaning of the separation of Church and State (for that matter, neither do most of the GangstaCrats of DailyKOS and similar e-union halls).
Master Snitchens cares not for Mitt or the Mormon clan:
"""""Romney does not understand the difference between deism and theism, nor does he know the first thing about the founding of the United States. Jefferson's Declaration may invoke a "Creator," but, as he went on to show in the battle over the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, he and most of his peers did not believe in a god who intervened in human affairs or in a god who had sent a son for a human sacrifice. These easily ascertainable facts are reflected in the way that the U.S. Constitution does not make any mention of a superintendent deity and in the way that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention declined an offer (possibly sarcastic), even from Benjamin Franklin, that they resort to prayer to compose their differences. Romney may throw a big chest and say that God should be "on our currency, in our pledge," and of course on our public land in this magic holiday season, but James Madison did not think that there should be chaplains opening the proceedings of Congress or even appointed as ministers in the U.S. armed forces. Trying to dodge around this, and to support his assertion that the founders were religious in the Christian sense, Romney drones on about a barely relevant moment of emotion in 1774 and comes up with the glib slogan that "freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom." Any fool can think of an example where freedom exists without religion—and even more easily of an instance where religion exists without (or in negation of) freedom."""""
Oooo. Direct hit. Ghastly!
Hitchens/Romney
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Bubba discovers Verification!
Bubba finally makes it through the first chapter of Semantics 200 and goes googley at the V-word: Verification (the simplified form of V-theory asserts that the meaning of a proposition depends on the method by which it is verified: statements which are not verifiable, at least in principle, are not meaningful--according to verificationists). Verification was a hot topic in the 1920's or so in the Vienna Circle; pragmatists such as CS Peirce and Wm. James were well aware of the issue (one can also note a concern with verification with the early empiricists/Hobbes/experimentalists, etc.). Quine updates verification to include the entire domain of knowledge. To most college-boys aware of say induction, it's sort of passe; to the Bubbas of Blogland, it's a deep one.
Verification does not usually play well with ideologues: truth is somewhat malleable to stalinists, or nazis, or mafiosos--or to belle-lettrists (even notable literary works do not feature verifiable statements; nor do most space operas) . Dems are often as much veri-phobic as is the nutty right. Often a big liberal site such as KOS sort of controls verification.
A few verified statements:
—muslim terrorists blew up the WTC, and killed 2500+ Americans
—Saddam and baathists had centrifuge materials; they were not in compliance with UN inspections, and harbored terrorists, including some with ties to AQ (see Robb Silbermann). Bush may have misrepresented the danger, but danger there was.
—most leading dems agreed to war effort in Afghan and Iraq
—Obama has ties to radical muslim groups
—Iran has pledged to destroy Israel; the Prez had denied holocaust
–any manipulations by Bush/Cheney in regards to intelligence were approved by dems
etc. etc
Bubba finally makes it through the first chapter of Semantics 200 and goes googley at the V-word: Verification (the simplified form of V-theory asserts that the meaning of a proposition depends on the method by which it is verified: statements which are not verifiable, at least in principle, are not meaningful--according to verificationists). Verification was a hot topic in the 1920's or so in the Vienna Circle; pragmatists such as CS Peirce and Wm. James were well aware of the issue (one can also note a concern with verification with the early empiricists/Hobbes/experimentalists, etc.). Quine updates verification to include the entire domain of knowledge. To most college-boys aware of say induction, it's sort of passe; to the Bubbas of Blogland, it's a deep one.
Verification does not usually play well with ideologues: truth is somewhat malleable to stalinists, or nazis, or mafiosos--or to belle-lettrists (even notable literary works do not feature verifiable statements; nor do most space operas) . Dems are often as much veri-phobic as is the nutty right. Often a big liberal site such as KOS sort of controls verification.
A few verified statements:
—muslim terrorists blew up the WTC, and killed 2500+ Americans
—Saddam and baathists had centrifuge materials; they were not in compliance with UN inspections, and harbored terrorists, including some with ties to AQ (see Robb Silbermann). Bush may have misrepresented the danger, but danger there was.
—most leading dems agreed to war effort in Afghan and Iraq
—Obama has ties to radical muslim groups
—Iran has pledged to destroy Israel; the Prez had denied holocaust
–any manipulations by Bush/Cheney in regards to intelligence were approved by dems
etc. etc
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Politics of "compassion"
“The idea of equality, therefore, both in its bourgeois and proletarian form, is itself a historical product, the creation of which required definite historical conditions which in turn themselves presuppose a long previous historical development. It is therefore anything but an eternal truth.”(Karl Marx).
You were programmed to be compassionate. That doesn't make it right (or wrong). Even Marx, regardless of his monsters, understood the hypocrisy and BS of the liberal Ignis fatuus.
“The idea of equality, therefore, both in its bourgeois and proletarian form, is itself a historical product, the creation of which required definite historical conditions which in turn themselves presuppose a long previous historical development. It is therefore anything but an eternal truth.”(Karl Marx).
You were programmed to be compassionate. That doesn't make it right (or wrong). Even Marx, regardless of his monsters, understood the hypocrisy and BS of the liberal Ignis fatuus.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Russell's Teapot
Most participants in the Dawkins vs. Theists debate have yet to grasp Dawkins' central point (however primitive), which he adapts from Sagan (with help from Bertrand Russell): a monotheistic "God" cannot be established via empirical proof, the "normal", inductive method of the sciences. He provides numerous rebuttals of inductive proofs of God, such as the Design argument: obviously the Design argument, even if one granted its plausibility, does not establish any judeo-Christian theology. (Design remains something to be reckoned with, however, instead of swept away with a wave of some fur-covered hands; Chas.Darwin himself, gazing at a human eye, speculated on how such a marvelous device could arise ex nihilo. )
Dawkins makes use of a celebrated passage from Bertrand Russell's "Is There a God?" in his "The God Delusion". The analogy has irritated more than a few fundamentalists, and not without reason: it is not only witty, but based on a rather sound argument: Bertie demonstrated that Christians who believe in God merely because he cannot be conclusively disproven to exist are guilty of committing the Appeal to Ignorance fallacy:
"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense."
A few Christians claim the analogy is irrelevant, and typical of the Russellian or Dawkinsesque scoffer. That objection is not entirely without merit (this is only one of many anti-theological arguments made by Lord Russell, of course); religious people who object to the analogy may have a point--yet that point holds only in regards to the somewhat whimsical quality of the language, not to the argument itself.
Here's one grumble about the Teapot analogy from a theist and fairly well-known conservative blogger,
The Maverick Philosopher
""""But the real appeal to atheists and agnostics of the Teapot passage rests on a third move Russell makes. He is clearly suggesting that belief in God (i.e., belief that God exists) is epistemically on a par with believing in a celestial teapot. Just as we have no reason to believe in celestial teapots, irate lunar unicorns (lunicorns?), flying spaghetti monsters, and the like, we have no reason to believe in God. But perhaps we should distinguish between a strong and a weak reading of Russell's suggestion:
S. Just as we cannot have any reason to believe that an empirically undetectable celestial teapot exists, we cannot have any reason to believe that God exists.
W. Just as we do not have any reason to believe that a celestial teapot exists, we do not have any reason to believe that God exists.
Now it seems to me that both (S) and (W) are plainly false: we have all sorts of reasons for believing that God exists. Here Alvin Plantinga sketches about two dozen theistic arguments. Atheists will not find them compelling, of course, but that is irrelevant. The issue is whether a reasoned case can be made for theism, and the answer is in the affirmative. Belief in God and in Russell's teapot are therefore not on a par since there are no empirical or theoretical reasons for believing in his teapot."""""
Billy the Maverick Philosopher seems to miss the mark here (tho' he has a good heart). The (S) formulation of the analogy offers a rather powerful objection to any inductive arguments for God, however whimsically stated (and instead of Teapot, one could instantiate Zeus, or flying spaghetti monster, or perhaps an incredibly powerful alien who resides in the Teapot millions of lightyears away). And Dawkins in a sense bases a great deal of TGD on that exact argument: that lacking any empirical, observable proof of God, it's far more likely than not that He does not exist (or perhaps, to claim that a monotheistic God exists, is about like saying "Zeus exists").
Moreover, Billy the MP, while correctly pointing out the Ad Ignorantium fallacy that Russell attacks as a typical sort of pseudo-argument, doesn't quite understand all the implications of the analogy, especially the implications of the following passage:
"""But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense."""
That is the real issue, however mundane: shouldn't humans be allowed to doubt--strongly doubt-- the existence of some X which cannot be observed, inferred, nor empirically proven to exist? (nor, quite arguably, proven deductively or mathematically: neither Design or the Ontological argument are really necessary). That is the crux of Russell's analogy: not only that "God" cannot be proven to exist, but that we are not, according to Christian tradition, even to doubt His existence given that lack of proof. The noun "teapot" is not the point. Make it "JHVH in a spaceship" (perhaps teapot-sized), and the argument still holds.
Even if we agreed that Russell's analogy was, in terms of language and imagery, incredibly rude, blasphemous, obscene (the reduction of the Almighty to a Teapot??!! Preposterous!To the stake), that does not negate the force of the argument.
At the same time, the Russell's Teapot example provides some ammunition for theists, at least by implication: for one, some theists argue, quite correctly, there are limits to human reason, and to empirical science (those who say otherwise should say offer a valid prediction for next month's weather-- or the Super Bowl winners). Even if Design does not establish JHVH, there are no proofs showing that God can not exist, nor showing that a Design argument could not hold. So it becomes, as Dawkins grants, a matter of weighing evidence, even probability. There could very well be some Being (or beings?) who controls, like time, space, all physical laws. To say that unicorns exist one does not contradict one's self; similarly, "God exists" is not a contradiction (as it is with "G. exists and he doesn't exist"). So it would seem it is sort of a matter of proof of some sort: either a monotheistic G. exists or.... He don't (and if not monotheistic, then not G., at least in traditional sense). The conceptual games often obscure that basic tautology. Either that, or one sees a burning bush or perhaps some Golden Plates carried by celestial creatures, ala Joseph Smith, and changes one epistemic outlook .
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Slang, n.
"The grunt of the human hog (Pignoramus intolerabilis) with an audible memory. The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under Providence) of setting up as a wit without a capital of sense." (Bierce)
Grunt
"The grunt of the human hog (Pignoramus intolerabilis) with an audible memory. The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under Providence) of setting up as a wit without a capital of sense." (Bierce)
Grunt
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