Sunday, August 30, 2009

UnRealism

""""""The spectacle grasped in its totality is both the result and the project of the existing mode of production. It is not a supplement to the real world, an additional decoration. It is the heart of the unrealism of the real society. In all its specific forms, as information or propaganda, as advertisement or direct entertainment consumption, the spectacle is the present model of socially dominant life. It is the omnipresent affirmation of the choice already made in production and its corollary consumption. The spectacle’s form and content are identically the total justification of the existing system’s conditions and goals. The spectacle is also the permanent presence of this justification, since it occupies the main part of the time lived outside of modern production."""""

Under the shimmering diversions of the spectacle, banalization dominates modern society the world over and at every point where the developed consumption of commodities has seemingly multiplied the roles and objects to choose from. The remains of religion and of the family (the principal relic of the heritage of class power) and the moral repression they assure, merge whenever the enjoyment of this world is affirmed–this world being nothing other than repressive pseudo-enjoyment. The smug acceptance of what exists can also merge with purely spectacular rebellion; this reflects the simple fact that dissatisfaction itself became a commodity as soon as economic abundance could extend production to the processing of such raw materials.


Holy Liberté, égalité, fraternité, Batman

60.
The celebrity, the spectacular representation of a living human being, embodies this banality by embodying the image of a possible role. Being a star means specializing in the seemingly lived; the star is the object of identification with the shallow seeming life that has to compensate for the fragmented productive specializations which are actually lived. Celebrities exist to act out various styles of living and viewing society unfettered, free to express themselves globally. They embody the inaccessible result of social labor by dramatizing its by-products magically projected above it as its goal: power and vacations, decision and consumption, which are the beginning and end of an undiscussed process. In one case state power personalizes itself as a pseudo-star; in another a star of consumption gets elected as a pseudo-power over the lived. But just as the activities of the star are not really global. they are not really varied.""""


(la authentique Gauche! scary. We don't agree with Debord's poMo anti-realism as applied to a micro level--i.e. Electricity. We do agree with Debord to some extent in regards to the macro, as applied to society, politics, consumerism. Vegas, Disneyland, the NFL, political rhetoric, the latest Tarentino spectacle should not be mistaken for Reality).

(Debord)

Friday, August 28, 2009

Solaric

Dr. Soon on the Sun (and against the Church of Gore):


"""""We have known for nearly 80 years that small changes in solar activity can cause large climatic changes. Where sunlight falls, for how long, and with what effect, determine how climate will respond.

The most recent scientific evidence shows that even small changes in solar radiation have a strong effect on Earth’s temperature and climate.

In 2005, I demonstrated a surprisingly strong correlation between solar radiation and temperatures in the Arctic over the past 130 years. Since then, I have demonstrated similar correlations in all the regions surrounding the Arctic, including the US mainland and China.

The close relationships between the abrupt ups and downs of solar activity and of temperature that I have identified occur locally in coastal Greenland; regionally in the Arctic Pacific and north Atlantic; and hemispherically for the whole circum-Arctic, suggesting that changes in solar activity drive Arctic and perhaps even global climate.

There is no such match between the steady rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration and the often dramatic ups and downs of surface temperatures in and around the Arctic.

I recently discovered direct evidence that changes in solar activity have influenced what has been called the “conveyor-belt” circulation of the great Atlantic Ocean currents over the past 240 years. For instance, solar-driven changes in temperature, and in the volume of freshwater output from the Arctic, cause variations in sea surface temperature in the tropical Atlantic 5-20 years later.

These previously undocumented results have been published in the journal Physical Geography. They make it difficult to maintain that changes in solar activity play an insignificant role in climate change, especially over the Arctic.


Ego Dominus Tuus

The hallmark of good science is the testing of a plausible hypothesis that is then either supported or rejected by the evidence. The evidence in my paper is consistent with the hypothesis that the Sun causes climatic change in the Arctic.

It invalidates the hypothesis that CO2 is a major cause of observed climate change – and raises serious questions about the wisdom of imposing cap-and-trade or other policies that would cripple energy production and economic activity, in the name of “preventing catastrophic climate change.”

Bill Clinton used to sum up politics by saying, “It’s the economy, stupid!” Now we can fairly sum up climate change by saying, “It’s the Sun, stupid!” """"


This type of objective, fact-based research (rather than ideology-based) might ruin an eco-bot's day. Given Dr. Soon's research, the eco-bot can't really pin global warming on anyone, even Cheney and GOP! Soon, a Harvard astrophysicist and sun researcher (a bit beyond Al Gore, Harvard alcoholic), has over the last few years produced a number of articles criticizing the IPCC/Mann models. He still claims solar activity, not CO2, accounts for most global warming (–that is, assuming the temp data is correct–still an issue).

Unfortunately, some petroleum people did contribute a bit of cash to Soon’s research, so the KOS lemmings automatically assumed he was in the pocket of Big Oil, which is not a valid argument: simply because Dr. X receives some money from a corporation–-or even has support from those villainous repubs–-does not prove bias. It’s relevant, but not proof. AGW researchers take money from oil companies as well (BO's eco-guy, Chu worked for BP)). Dr. Soon has become public enemy #1 for the Mann/Hansen/IPCC groupies, though he certainly knows more about the atmospheric hard-science than the climate “modellers,” or a Gorean at the KOS party-house, even those KOS grafix experts.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

AC Grayling

Those who seek the truth and those who claim to have it:


"""If one were asked to prescribe the fundamental condition for a good world, it would be: peace and freedom for all, where "freedom" means personal autonomy and mental liberation from prejudice, superstition, ignorance and fear. Cynics will no doubt think this a saccharine sentiment merely, if only on the grounds that it is unattainable and that one had better stick to the realities of a world in which the majority of people are trapped in economic and intellectual prisons made by history, perpetuated and promoted by demagogues and the greedy and powerful.

The cynics are of course right about the realities, but that does not mean one should shrug one's shoulders and capitulate. There is something one can do to fight back, by taking part in the battle that underlies it all: the battle (to put it in Voltaire's terms) between those who seek the truth and those who claim to have it.

On one side are those who inquire, examine, experiment, research, propose ideas and subject them to scrutiny, change their minds when shown to be wrong and live with uncertainty while placing reliance on the collective, self-critical, responsible and rigorous use of reason and observation to further the quest for knowledge.

On the other side are those who espouse a belief system or ideology which pre-packages all the answers, who have faith in it, who trust the authorities, priests and prophets, and who either think that the hows and whys of the universe are explained to satisfaction by their faith, or smugly embrace ignorance. Note that although the historical majority of these latter are the epigones of one or another religion, they also include the followers of such ideologies as Marxism and Stalinism – which are also all-embracing monolithic ownerships of the Great Truth to which everyone must sign up on pain of punishment, and on whose behalf their zealots are prepared to kill and die.

If anyone does not know how to pluck from history and the contemporary world examples of these opposing mindsets and their operation then he is either deaf, dumb, blind and illiterate – or he is one of the creatures of faith."""



Grayling's writing annoys at times. He tends to be a bit reductionist (--blanket statements that all religion is rubbish, etc--) like many an anglo logician. Compared to the writing of the astro-turf baptist rightists, OR the Badiou groupies and fatwa-blessing left, however, Grayling-Speak seems like Reason itself, comparable somewhat to Lord Russell's writings on religious hysteria.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Cennétig mac Lorcáin

Brian Boru's paddy Lorcain MacCennétig initiated the Kennedy family around the River Shannon (the O'Brien's moved 'em north a bit), though a variation of the name probably predates Lorcain.

"The eponymous ancestor of the O'Kennedys was Kennedy, nephew of Brian Boru, or Cinneide in Irish, the resultant surname being O Cinneide (Brian Boru's father was Cennetig - thus, Brian Mac Cennetig). They are thus a Dalcassian sept, and at first their territory was around Glenomra near Killaloe, and their occupation is perpetuated by the name of the civil parish comprising that area, viz. Killokennedy, but pressure from the powerful O'Briens and MacNamaras caused them to cross the Shannon and settle in Upper and lower Ormond. There they soon increased in power and importance, and from the eleventh to the sixteenth century they were Lords of Ormond.""""

(MacCennetig -> O Kennedy -> Kennedy, apres-Cromwell. And same root word for Canada--MacKenzie, when the micks swim over to Scots-land ("scoti" actually a word for irishmen, in Pax Romana times, and "Caledonia" the name for what is now Scotland.). From O.Ir. cinneide, "ugly head," say the etymologists, but we humbly suggest it's probably related to Old german form (or gothic), kennen as in to know, cunning, clever. Possibly distant relation to MacYidden. That said, Padraig Kennedy of the US Kennedys supposedly had eyes of blue. It's pre-Norman invasion, fer-shure. Norman names usually relate to Latin or frenchy--like Belle-amie, ie good byatch in french-gaul. )

Ted Kennedy's thoughts on a Stanford Frat boy.


"Justice Rehnquist is outside the mainstream of American constitutional law and American values and he does not deserve to be chief justice of the United States," Kennedy told a packed hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee" (1986).

Demos (and DINOs) who love Judicial Review might recall that Rehnquist (and the SCOTUS majority) opposed an additional recount in Bush/Gore 2000. Rehnquist also wrote the opinion in favor of California's unconstitutional Three Strikes Bill. Although Rehnquist was known as a rightist and Nixonian even in '86 (and possible racist), he was confirmed by the Senate, 65-33, including 16 democrats (and Scalia was approved by the entire Senate, 98-0--including all Democrats, even "liberals" such as Kennedy, Gore, Hart, Dodd, Biden, and Leahy)

Bugliosi on Rehnquist

More on Rehnquist:


""""When the Founding Fathers were framing the Constitution, they considered giving the Senate the power to appoint judges. Instead, a compromise was struck: the President would make the choices with the "advice and consent" of the Senate. Throughout the 19th century, this was taken to mean that the Senate could balk on ideological grounds, and indeed, the Senate refused to confirm some 20 Supreme Court nominations. But in the past 50 years, the only serious challenges (such as the rejection of Nixon Appointees Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell) have occurred when political objections were linked to questions of fitness and competence. Some liberals feel that it is time for the Senate to reassert < its political prerogatives. In that case, Scalia and Rehnquist make inviting targets. "My own view is that the Senate's role is to be a partner in the appointment process and examine the views of the nominees, at least when the President is so self-consciously trying to shape the court," asserts Yale Law School Professor Paul Gewirtz. Democrat Alan Cranston of California, who voted against Rehnquist's confirmation as a Justice in 1971, last week asked, "Can a man who has an extreme right-wing ideology manage the court in a fair and balanced way?"""""

Monday, August 24, 2009

Democratic Racists

Prevarication, ESL-style, from one 'Motya at a "Town Hall" in the Bay Zone:

"""......a 30-something woman posed something very like the following question (as close as I can remember): “Given the fact that there has never

been a single example in history of the government managing any program successfully, why should we have any faith that they wil be able to improve the

situation with health care?”

This, first of all, is simply the witless verbatim parroting of bullet poionts from any number of AM radio hosts, who in turn got their marching orders in faxes

from the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, American Enterprise Institute, etc.; and Jackie should have immediatley asked which yakking head the

questioner was brainlessly quoting. ....."""""



The 30-something woman posed a reasonable question--not real profound, but understandable, given the history of corruption and incompetence of Medicare (and many other govt. programs, whether run by Demo or GOP ). Sen. Durbin has himself alluded to Medicare incompetence, and argued for public option, rather than single-pay and simply expanding the vast Medicare or VA bureaucracies. Of course, the content of the woman's question or her political affiliation (--that's not necessarily a conservative-only talking point) doesn't matter to Motya, policy expert, ESL student, and expert-profiler, except as subject matter for his poorly-phrased Ad Hominem. Merely question any aspect of the Obama Administration or The Health Care Agenda, and you're the witless verbatim parroting siding with the Fox News people, Heritage Foundation, La-Rouchies, NRA types, neo-nazis, according to Comrade Motya. Thou shall not question the power of the Dink-o-crat State!

The KOS sorts of Dinks rely on this type of defamation, whether they are scribbling their thoughts on health care, the military, the economy or environment--anything where Govt is involved. These sort of neo-Tammany tactics--really, racist--do create a pop-gonzo effect: just scrawl the usual Fuck.These.People, and the issue has been addressed for the Regs--the dissenter is Guilty and troll-rated for merely posing the question, and virtually put on the boxcar to the Fox-gulag.

(Oh Frabjous INS day!)
Pynchon voiceover on youtube?




Capn Tom himself narrates from his new potboiler, Inherent Vice, and channels Ray Chandler, the 60s (and boo-coo surf rock references), Moider, and cheap mexican commercial--Gum-sandal. Must say, Pynchon's surfer detective still sounds a bit like a Joisey goomba. Vineland featured a few noir-like scenes, if memory serves me well.

Another interesting Pynchon speech has appeared on youtube: TP won a big prize for Gravity's Rainbow (best 500+ page surreal nightmare about WWII, evah--far superior to any Tarentino kitsch), and taped a Jimmy Durante meets Elmer Fudd voice to thank the board of directors (not to be confused with Professor Irwin Corey, who delivered the speech in person--unless the youtube is corey? whatev).

(a place you'll never be, New Mormon Worlds)

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Yale University Press removes images of Mohammed from a book

Hitchens/Slate:

Yale University Press announced last week that it would go ahead with the publication of the book, but it would remove from it the 12 caricatures that originated the controversy. Not content with this, it is also removing other historic illustrations of the likeness of the Prophet, including one by Gustave Doré of the passage in Dante's Inferno that shows Mohammed being disemboweled in hell. (These same Dantean stanzas have also been depicted by William Blake, Sandro Botticelli, Salvador Dalí, and Auguste Rodin, so there's a lot of artistic censorship in our future if this sort of thing is allowed to set a precedent.)


Now, the original intention of limiting the representation of Mohammed by Muslims (and Islamic fatwas, before we forget, have no force whatever when applied to people outside the faith) was the rather admirable one of preventing idolatry. It was feared that people might start to worship the man and not the god of whom he was believed to be the messenger. This is why it is crass to refer to Muslims as Mohammedans. Nonetheless, Islamic art contains many examples—especially in Iran—of paintings of the Prophet, and even though the Dante example is really quite an upsetting one, exemplifying a sort of Christian sadism and sectarianism, there has never been any Muslim protest about its pictorial representation in Western art.



Yale's capitulation to the muslim-mollycoddlers should offend any authentic creatives (even the marxist-hipster sorts).

Friday, August 21, 2009

Western Civ. 101

(Ezra Pound/Canto XIV)


Io venni in luogo d'ogni luce muto;

The stench of wet coal, politicians
. . . . . . . . . . e and. . . . . n, their wrists bound to
their ankles,
Standing bare bum,
Faces smeared on their rumps,
wide eye on flat buttock,
Bush hanging for beard,
Addressing crowds through their arse-holes,
Addressing the multitudes in the ooze,
newts, water-slugs, water-maggots,
And with them. . . . . . . r,
a scrupulously clean table-napkin
Tucked under his penis,
and. . . . . . . . . . . m
Who disliked colioquial language,
stiff-starched, but soiled, collars
circumscribing his legs,
The pimply and hairy skin
pushing over the collar's edge,
Profiteers drinking blood sweetened with sh-t,
And behind them. . . . . . f and the financiers
lashing them with steel wires.

And the betrayers of language
. . . . . . n and the press gang
And those who had lied for hire;
the perverts, the perverters of language,
the perverts, who have set money-lust
Before the pleasures of the senses;

howling, as of a hen-yard in a printing-house,
the clatter of presses,
the blowing of dry dust and stray paper,
fretor, sweat, the stench of stale oranges,
dung, last cess-pool of the universe,
mysterium, acid of sulphur,
the pusillanimous, raging;
plunging jewels in mud,
and howling to find them unstained;
sadic mothers driving their daughters to bed with decrepitude,
sows eating their litters,
and here the placard ΕΙΚΩΝ ΓΗΣ,
and here: THE PERSONNEL CHANGES,

melting like dirty wax,
decayed candles, the bums sinking lower,
faces submerged under hams,
And in the ooze under them,
reversed, foot-palm to foot-palm,
hand-palm to hand-palm, the agents provocateurs
The murderers of Pearse and MacDonagh,
Captain H. the chief torturer;
The petrified turd that was Verres,
bigots, Calvin and St. Clement of Alexandria!
black-beetles, burrowing into the sh-t,
The soil a decrepitude, the ooze full of morsels,
lost contours, erosions.

Above the hell-rot
the great arse-hole,
broken with piles,
hanging stalactites,
greasy as sky over Westminster,
the invisible, many English,
the place lacking in interest,
last squalor, utter decrepitude,
the vice-crusaders, fahrting through silk,
waving the Christian symbols,
. . . . . . . . frigging a tin penny whistle,
Flies carrying news, harpies dripping sh-t through the air.

The slough of unamiable liars,
bog of stupidities,
malevolent stupidities, and stupidities,
the soil living pus, full of vermin,
dead maggots begetting live maggots,
slum owners,
usurers squeezing crab-lice, pandars to authori
pets-de-loup, sitting on piles of stone books,
obscuring the texts with philology,
hiding them under their persons,
the air without refuge of silence,
the drift of lice, teething,
and above it the mouthing of orators,
the arse-belching of preachers.
And Invidia,
the corruptio, fretor, fungus,
liquid animals, melted ossifications,
slow rot, fretid combustion,
chewed cigar-butts, without dignity, without tragedy
. . . . .m Episcopus, waving a condom full of black-beetles,
monopolists, obstructors of knowledge.
obstructors of distribution.


Note reference to the Reformer hisself! John Calvin, a "petrified turd." Scawee--especially when one considers that Calvinism remains (apart from a few rustic lutherans and arminian nitwits) the official creed of American WASPism. And alas, more than a few zionist-bankers and money-men reside down Malebolge-way, and Churchill and his goons--the "murderers of Pearse and MacDonagh" (of course, old wives' tales, merely metaphorical, ta ta). Or consider some techie-corporate pedazo de mierda like Issac Asimov: stuffed in a hole, according to Pound-code. Capiche?

'For Aristotle, knowledge is qualitative and observational. Today knowledge is quantitative and theoretical, at least as far as our leading natural scientists are concerned. Who is right ? That depends on what kind of information has privileged status and this in turn depends on the culture, or the 'cultural leaders' who use the information. Many people, without much thought, prefer technology to harmony with Nature ; hence quantitative and theoretical information is regarded as 'real' and qualities as 'apparent' and secondary. But a culture that centres on humans, prefers personal acquaintance to abstract relations (intelligence quotients, efficiency statistics) and a naturalists' approach to that of molecular biologists will say that knowledge is qualitative and will interpret quantitative laws as bookkeeping devices, not as elements of reality'. (Feyerabend, Against Method, 1993)

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Euler plagiarizes d'Alembert

"""[the volume] appeared with a series of articles by Euler including one on the precession of the equinoxes and three others on subjects that d'Alembert had enthusiatically described to Euler in their correspondence. D'Alembert quickly took alarm. All of his work was being stolen! Even his most important contribution, his book on the equinoxes, had not received a single mention from Euler.

D'Alembert was now thoroughly annoyed. Just at the time when his work with the Encyclopédie was achieving so much success, Euler apparently was not only obstructing his efforts, but also borrowing his ideas and claiming them as his own.""""


(American schoolkids learn of that good Berliner, Euler, but of d'Alembert--every bit as capable as Euler (d'Alembert's wave equation actually anticipates aspects of quantum theory)--they know little or nothing. Euler's good for business; the french encyclopedists are not. That wasn't always the case. Ben Franklin corresponded with d'Alembert, as our friends at the Infidels site remind us: "Franklin consorted chiefly with Freethinkers, among whom were Mirabeau, D'Holbach, D'Alembert, Buffon, and Condorcet. Respecting his religious belief, Parton classes him with Goethe, Schiller, Voltaire, Hume, and Jefferson, and says they would all have belonged to the same church."""

Franklin was not the only Framer who admired the French encyclopedists. Jefferson owned numerous texts of Voltaire, and kept a bust of Voltaire in his library at Monticello (it is still there)-- Bor-reeng to some in the Age of Tarentino, but a fact which serves as a correctio to those who consider the Founding Fathers squares, sunday-schoolers, or crypto-fascists (Voltaire was no deSadean nihilist, and consistently denounced military and monarchical despots, religious hypocrisy, and controls on the freedom of speech). John Adams, supposed conservative, took Le Grand Tour of France himself. Describing the embrace of Franklin and the aged Voltaire, he referred to Franklin and Voltaire as Solon and Sophocles (perhaps slightly ironic, but respectful). That nearly suffices as a counterargument to the biblethumpers who insist that orthodox Calvinists brought about the American revolution.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

St. Cupertino




One of The Flying Saints.

"The masses then style unusual phenomena, "miracles," and partly from piety, partly for the sake of opposing the students of science, prefer to remain in ignorance of natural causes, and only to hear of those things which they know least, and consequently admire most. In fact, the common people can only adore God, and refer all things to His power by removing natural causes, and conceiving things happening out of their due course, and only admires the power of God when the power of nature is conceived of as in subjection to it." (Spinoza--anathema, according to the catholics, jews, and protestants).


Oper ist nicht für die Bauern, Mc Müll-mann

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

The dress of thought


A different language is a different vision of life. Federico Fellini


Learn a new language and get a new soul. Czech Proverb


But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. George Orwell


If a language is corruptible, then a constitution written in that language is corruptible. Robert Brault

The PC [political correctness] movement exists not in order to improve the well-being of those whose oppression it purports to combat. Rather, its purpose is to wrap its proponents in a kind of verbal comfort-blanket. Erik Kowal

Learning preserves the errors of the past, as well as its wisdom. For this reason, dictionaries are public dangers, although they are necessities. Alfred North Whitehead

Every American child should grow up knowing a second language, preferably English. Mignon McLaughlin

Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the Devil; for which reason I have, long since, as good as renounced it. Thomas Carlyle

I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my dog.
- Emperor Charles V


Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.
Ludwig Wittgenstein


He who does not know foreign languages does not know anything about his own. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Kunst and Alterthum

Language is the dress of thought. Samuel Johnson

Language is the most imperfect and expensive means yet discovered for communicating thought. William James

Rident stolidi verba Latina. (Fools laugh at the Latin language). Ovid

We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves. John Locke

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Wunder f-n bar

Monday, August 17, 2009

Kind of Blue @ 50

(Kaplan/Slate).

""Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, which was released 50 years ago today, is a nearly unique thing in music or any other creative realm: a huge hit—the best-selling jazz album of all time—and the spearhead of an artistic revolution. Everyone, even people who say they don't like jazz, likes Kind of Blue. It's cool, romantic, melancholic, and gorgeously melodic. But why do critics regard it as one of the best jazz albums ever made? What is it about Kind of Blue that makes it not just pleasant but important?

On March 2, 1959, when its first tracks were laid down at Columbia Records' 30th Street Studio (the album would be released on Aug. 17), Charlie Parker, the exemplar of modern jazz, the greatest alto saxophonist ever, had been dead for four years, almost to the day. The jazz world was still waiting, longing, for "the next Charlie Parker" and wondering where he'd take the music.""


Kaplan knows the score on KOB: a definite classic featuring Bill Evans and the Miles Davis Band. Even at 100th spin or so, KOB still sounds fairly fresh (unlike the usual classic rock--say the Beatless--which was banal at 10 spins). That said, Davis' solos were pleasant, and on occasion poignant, but not spectacular. 'Trane's technique impresses, but he wasn't the greatest melodicist, and at times honks a bit. Adderly may win the horn shoot out: he understood Parker-like melodic phrasing and wit. Mr Evans of course sets the mood: brooding, imagistic, dark but not quite nihilism, like Ravel on heroin. A tune like Blue in green reveals a complex, harmonic dream-vision that few if any musicians of any genre will ever attain. The rhythm section did their job--minimal, tight, no rocker or Buddy Rich-like heroics with the stix. Sort of the official soundtrack for urban entropy.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Phunn with Feyerabend, continued

""The most important consequence is that there must be a formal separation between state and science just as there is now a formal separation between state and church. Science may influence society but only to the extent to which any political or other pressure group is permitted to influence society. Scientists may be consulted on important projects but the final judgement must be left to the democratically elected consulting bodies. These bodies will consist mainly of laymen. Will the laymen be able to come to a correct judgement? Most certainly, for the competence, the complications and the successes of science are vastly exaggerated. One of the most exhilarating experiences is to see how a lawyer, who is a layman, can find holes in the testimony, the technical testimony, of the most advanced expert and thus prepare the jury for its verdict. Science is not a closed book that is understood only after years of training. It is an intellectual discipline that can be examined and criticised by anyone who is interested and that looks difficult and profound only because of a systematic campaign of obfuscation carried out by many scientists (though, I am happy to say, not by all). Organs of the state should never hesitate to reject the judgement of scientists when they have reason for doing so. Such rejection will educate the general public, will make it more confident, and it may even lead to improvement. Considering the sizeable chauvinism of the scientific establishment we can say: the more Lysenko affairs, the better (it is not the interference of the state that is objectionable in the case of Lysenko, but the totalitarian interference which kills the opponent rather than just neglecting his advice). Three cheers to the fundamentalists in California who succeeded in having a dogmatic formulation of the theory of evolution removed from the textbooks and an account of Genesis included. (But I know that they would become as chauvinistic and totalitarian as scientists are today when given the chance to run society all by themselves. Ideologies are marvellous when used in the companies of other ideologies. They become boring and doctrinaire as soon as their merits lead to the removal of their opponents.) The most important change, however, will have to occur in the field of education.""""
(from How to Defend Society against Science)



Bada boom; bada bing. Richard Dawkins, knocked down (then Dawk. probably knows less then Nurse Bernadettius does about endocrinology--). Dr. Feyerabend--a graduate student in physics before switching to philosophy of science-- wanted to facilitate citizens' access to scientific knowledge, and valued responsible, non-totalitarian scientists. (He's not a Luddite, though mistaken as such). He had little respect, however, for the right-wing Gurus (right-wing, even when DinkoCrats, or "marxists") and would-be Lysenkos who make up the majority of the academic science establishment. Contingencies grants there might be potential problems with Feyerabend Praxis--, at least in regards to difficult engineering or medical problems. PF's not rejecting Expertise, however. He's pointing out how science assists the forces of darkness, essentially.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Hecklers Unite

Lindorff/Counterpunch:

""""Many progressives are getting all bent out of shape over the "brown shirt" rabble organized by health industry PR firms to disrupt the so-called "town meetings" being organized all over the country by Democratic members of Congress.

What they are conveniently forgetting is that these are not really "town meetings" at all, at least in the sense of the town meetings I grew up with, and started out covering as a young journalist in Connecticut--that is, meetings called and run democratically, with leaders elected from the floor, open to all residents of a community.

These "town meetings" are really nothing but propaganda sessions run by members of Congress who are trying to burnish their fraudulent credentials as public servants, and trying to perpetrate a huge fraud of a health care bill that purports to be a progressive "reform" of the US health care system, but that actually further entrenches the control of that system by the insurance industry, and to a lesser extent, the hospital and drug industry.

ObamaCare is to health reform what bank bailouts are to financial system reform, which is to say it is the opposite of what its name implies.

The right-wing nuts who cry that ObamaCare is introducing euthanasia for the elderly and infirm, or that it is socialism, are ignorant wackos, to be sure, but they are right about one thing: Americans are about to be royally screwed on health care reform by the president and the Democratic Congress, just as they've been screwed by them on financial system "reform."

The appropriate response to this screw-job is the one the right has adopted: shut these sham "town meetings" down, and run the sell-out politicians out of town on a rail, preferably coated in tar and feathers they way the snake-oil salesmen of old used to be handled!

This is not about civil discourse. This is about propaganda. The Obama administration and the Democratic Congressional leadership have sold out health care reform for the tainted coin of the medical-insurance industry, and are holding, or trying to hold, these meetings around the country to promote legislation that has essentially been written for them by that industry--legislation that will force everyone to pay for insurance as offered, and priced, by the private insurance industry. What a deal for those companies--a captive market of 300 million people! There will be little or no effort to control prices, and the higher costs will be financed through higher taxes, and through cuts in Medicare benefits.

This isn't "reform." It's corruption, pure and simple."""""


Wow. Does Lindorff--a progressive, not a "tea-bagger" whatsoever -- mean to suggest the medical-insurance industry controls Obama's Democrats, as well as Republicans? Scary--and lacking the usual sophomoric bipartisan drama of the usual Dink-o-crat (now getting his usual fear-mongering on in regards to those evil town haller disruptors). That said, we don't agree that a Medicare would automatically solve the problems. One big VA type of system would be swell--but US corporations would (apparently--health care rather murky business to be sure) rake in millions by having their health care premiums reduced or rolled over to the govt.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

The Wonder, Work, and Power Meme (Nietzsche, cont.).

"But what of the thing that the priest promises to the believer, the wholly transcendental "beyond"--how is that to be demonstrated?--The "proof by power," thus assumed, is actually no more at bottom than a belief that the effects which faith promises will not fail to appear. In a formula: "I believe that faith makes for blessedness--therefore, it is true." . . But this is as far as we may go. This "therefore" would be absurdum itself as a criterion of truth.--But let us admit, for the sake of politeness, that blessedness by faith may be demonstrated (--not merely hoped for, and not merely promised by the suspicious lips of a priest): even so, could blessedness--in a technical term, pleasure--ever be a proof of truth? So little is this true that it is almost a proof against truth when sensations of pleasure influence the answer to the question "What is true?" or, at all events, it is enough to make that "truth" highly suspicious. The proof by "pleasure" is a proof of "pleasure"--nothing more; why in the world should it be assumed that true judgments give more pleasure than false ones, and that, in conformity to some pre-established harmony, they necessarily bring agreeable feelings in their train?--The experience of all disciplined and profound minds teaches the contrary. Man has had to fight for every atom of the truth, and has had to pay for it almost everything that the heart, that human love, that human trust cling to. Greatness of soul is needed for this business: the service of truth is the hardest of all services.--What, then, is the meaning of integrityin things intellectual? It means that a man must be severe with his own heart, that he must scorn "beautiful feelings," and that he makes every Yea and Nay a matter of conscience!--Faith makes blessed:therefore, it lies. . . . "(from the AntiKhrist, Mencken's translation)
One could imagine some enthusiastic xtian, like one now bellowing out her support for Sarah Palin (or really, for B.O.), saying something like "I believe that faith makes for blessedness--therefore, it is true." That efficaciousness of faith (to borrow a term from Quine) in a sense suffices for the True Believer. The Griswold family marches into the First Church of The Redeemer, sings a few hosannas, listens to Pastor Sunday lecture on the Anglicized Gospels, and feels uplifted before getting back in the Yukon and heading towards Carrows, and the kids seem calmer, and well, blessed: what more proof does Pops Griswold need? That's a point which the madman Nietzsche understands-- and which the overly analytical skeptic --the Bertrand Russell sort--often has overlooked, regardless of his effective skewering of vague theological concepts.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Wagner Festival approved.

Except for Mike Antonovitch's nay vote, LA superviors gave a thumbs up to the 2010 production of Wagner's The Ring and other performances of Wagner's music. It's rather amusing to hear Anty, one of LA's most conservative politicians, whining about a few anti-semitic hints in Wagner (eastsiders know all about Asstonsilvitch's rightist, sheriff-loving, pro-development politics). Wagner actually had a number of jewish friends and associates. Even his most virulent essays were hardly Mein Kampf. The protests of The Ring exemplify typical bad LA politics--an opportunity for any ambitious bureaucrat to obtain some PR and cred. by making some obvious PC rant on the local media outlets.

We here at Contingencies do not pretend to be great opera buffs or Wagner buffs. After an hour or so of The Ring one starts to understand Mark Twain's comments regarding Wagner's music (--it's "better than it sounds",etc.). Wagner music does sound rather schmaltzy at times (like all that Disneyesque stuff with Tannhauser, etc). At certain points in Wagner's music-stream, however, something like beauty jumps out. The Parzifal theme, for instance, resonates--no Disney schmaltz there, but the Knight in the dark forest, headed for Chapel Perilous. Intense, really (but you've got to have the ears--or soul--to hear it) . The naive PC person thinks "that's Hitler's favorite composer," and doesn't really care what it sounds like. Yet Hitler also liked Beethoven (and others). So is Ludwig Van also in the banned composer list, merely because that crazy, murderous peasant aka Der Fuhrer approved of his melodies? Nein.


Last week, Antonovich had proposed a motion urging L.A. Opera to broaden the scope of the festival as a way of achieving "balance, historical perspective and a true sampling of operatic and musical talent." In the motion, he criticized festival organizers for celebrating the work of "a racist whose anti-Semitic writings were the inspiration for Hitler and the Holocaust."

Today's board meeting brought out a number of individuals who objected to what they see as a festival that will glorify Wagner and his anti-Semitic politics. "People make festivals for people they admire," said Peter Gimpel, a lawyer and classical scholar. "I'm horrified by the Orwellian tactics of L.A. Opera. What they are doing borders on historic revisionism, which is worse than anti-Semitism."

Carie Delmar, who runs a website that has protested the festival, said that the "festival is an affront to everything this city stands for."

Those who came to speak in favor of the festival emphasized the symposiums that will be held to discuss Wagner's racism. "It's because of his anti-Semitism that a festival like this should delve into the very issues that are important," said Seth Brisk, a director of the American Jewish Committee.

In the end, supervisors Yaroslavsky, Gloria Molina and Don Knabe voted in favor of the substitute motion, while Antonovich was the lone vote against Yaroslavsky's measure. (Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas was not present during the meeting.)

Following the vote, Stephen Rountree, the chief operating officer of L.A. Opera, said that he "couldn't be more pleased" with Yaroslavsky's motion. "We will continue to pursue partners for the festival and continue our efforts to achieve a level of introspection about Wagner's life," he said.

A spokesman for Antonovich said that "we were hoping L.A. Opera would be open to create a more balanced event. But we're pleased we were able to raise the issues in the minds of the people."


Wunderbar
"Target the natives," says McChurchill.


Target the natives for genetic enhancement
our goal is to make them thrive



So says one "Max"of Brave New Worlds. Max's pop-utopian doggerel depends not only on a big, stupid generalization (and thus a fallacy), but racism of a nearly Mengele sort. Which natives are those? All non-caucasians? Does McMax have the data showing the breakdown of scores of various ethnic groups on various tests, across the world? Nyet. It's really not even worth criticizing but brings to mind a few topics still current in the nature/nurture debate.

Richard Lewontin has offered some fairly intelligent criticism of what we might call naive genetic determinism. The Lewontin/SJ Gould faction had issues--they at times drift to a sort of ivy league marxism --but they at least understood that Darwinism and genetic determinism might pose a danger to human liberties. Winston Churchill had no problem quoting Darwin as justification for his eugenics plans (as did a few nazis). To say that genes cause everything (or most of everything) does not necessarily imply one supports eugenics or a Final Solution, but there does seem to be some relationship: most eugenicists of whatever political view have relied upon a notion of a superior race (usually caucasian), and that alleged superiority was supposedly owing mostly to "genetic factors". That's not to deny Darwinian evolution whatsoever, but to question its application to ALL human activities (especially higher sort of language, mathematics, or Justice). That said, Darwin probably knew less about genetics than the average high school biology teacher. Mendel and others developed the science of genetics a few decades after Darwin's demise.

Contingencies suggests genetic determinism usually functions as a sophisticated "naturalist fallacy", really. Consider the usual mafia melodrama, with some mamacita saying of her bad boy son-- after he shoots up some cops, etc-- that he's got his papa's sicilian blood (irish, scottish, italian, african, whatever). That's a typical variety of "folk psychology": not merely the character is inherited but nationality, according to many primitive cultures. That's been proven to be mostly nonsense. There might be something like shared characteristics--probably due to appearance, language, political/historical factors, etc--but the grand generalizations about race and nationality are not supported by evidence. Conditioning matters, greatly. Caucasian chess players most likely made generalizations about latinos or hispanics until a cuban, Capablanca, defeated the greatest chess players in the world, most of them caucasian or jewish. Capa. was not born a grandmaster, of course (though hereditary factors played a part, indirectly, at least: ie good chess players, like good professors generally come from nice bourgeois homes. That doesn't mean that the bourgeois are "better"--perhaps more fortunate, or for that matter, more successful predators).

Lewontin:

The most violent eugenicists, and in some ways racists, were geneticists who said, "Genes dominate everything, and if there are differences between groups and how rich they are, how much power they have, it must be in the genes." Only for a short period, during the Second World War, when the consequences of that ideology in the national socialist state in Germany became clear, did people back off that. When I was in high school during the Second World War, we got a pamphlet saying there really aren't any important differences between races, and so on; but that disappeared when the war was over. Within ten years of the end of the war, [genetic determinism] had come back again. Biologists in general are biological determinists. That has a very powerful ideological effect, because they speak to reporters, they talk on the radio, they have TV interviews, and they push over and over again the determinism of the gene.

My wife and I went yesterday to the Berkeley Art Museum, and there we saw an exhibit called "Gene Genesis." The poster for that exhibit, which is all over, has a quote from Jim Watson. And what does the quote say? It says, "We used to think our fate was in the stars, but now we know it's in our genes." Now, I mean, that's rubbish, you know, but that's what's pushed; and if you're a Nobel prizewinner like Jim, you get all the more credit for it.

So scientists had that ideology that as organisms, we are governed, body and soul, by our genes.

Secondly, more broadly, scientists want to make claims for the importance of what they do in the general sense. So Jim Watson wants to say, "You should support work on the genome, because after all, everything that's important in life is determined by genes." And that's not ideological; that's purely political. That is a crass way of trying to increase and guarantee the support of research.

The same is true for medical research. We're told over and over and over again that if we do this research people's lives will be saved. People will be cured. Well, obviously, medical cures do arise out of some kinds of research; nobody can deny that. But promises are made of an extreme sort which do not correspond to actual truth. This guy [William] Hazeltine, who is the head of one of these private genome organizations, finally said what everybody wanted to say but didn't have the nerve to say. He said, "Death is nothing but a succession of preventable diseases." Well, if death is nothing but a succession of preventable diseases, then if you give us enough money, you'll live forever. Now, no sensible person believes that. But that's the kind of appeal that is made. "Give us more. Give us more power, give us more money, and we will not postpone your death; we will prevent it."

There are a lot of sick people in the world. Most of them are sick, ultimately, because they're underfed and overworked. That's not the case for Americans. Most Americans are sick because they've lived a long time, and their machines are breaking down. You know, the transmission goes, and then you need a brake job, and so on. There's a tremendous public demand -- people are in pain, and there's a demand to relieve that pain and relieve that anxiety. Science cashes in on that in a very cynical way by making promises that can't be kept.


(to be continued...)

Sunday, August 09, 2009

The Yuppie Don, Michael Franzese.........sings

Franzese, ex-mafia boss, found Jeezuss while in prison and now lectures jocks on the evils of gambling and the mafia-connection to pro-sports of all types:

""At the peak of his criminal career during the 1980s, Franzese was rated by Fortune magazine among the top 20 most wealthy and powerful Mafia bosses and ran businesses that were generating a weekly turnover of about $7 million. With 12 bookmakers reporting directly to him, gambling contributed significantly.

So how does it happen? How do athletes become entangled in the web of organised crime? Franzese explains a typical scenario.

"I would get a call, 'Hey Mike, this certain player is in for us, $10,000, $15,000, $20,000, do you want me to stop him?' I would say, 'Of course not. Let him get into you for more, $100,000, $250,000. Let him bet'. We used to purposefully put him in the situation that we wanted.

"Before you know it this guy has nowhere to go. Finally, you say, 'OK this is exactly how we are going to work this out. Tomorrow night, you are favourites to win by 10 points, you make sure you win by six. I don't care how you do it – do whatever you have got to do. If you do this a couple of times, we're even. If you don't do this a couple of times then don't worry, you don't have to call me any more, I'll find you'."

According to Franzese, the competitive nature of sportsmen draws them to betting. Footballers in Britain certainly have a long culture of gambling while, in America, the issue was brought into sharp focus when basketball's Charles Barkley revealed losses of $10 million. The big danger, though, is when the money becomes owed to the wrong people.

"These guys are sophisticated in the sport that they play but, when it comes to their knowledge on the street, believe me they are babes in the woods," Franzese said. "When I speak to these guys, I say, 'I don't want to mess with you on the field, you would eat me up but, I tell you what, you come into my business, the business of gambling and I'll make a sissy out of you.

"We don't play by rules. There's no guy blowing a whistle'."

Franzese first became involved in organised crime at a time when his dad, Sonny, the Colombo family underboss, had been sentenced to 50 years in jail. The memory of taking his oath and becoming a sworn "made man" on Halloween 1975 remains vivid. "Money and power were the driving forces," he says. "I witnessed a lot of things that were unpleasant."

Franzese, though, was successful and being groomed to become the 'boss' of the entire Colombo organisation when, in 1984, he met his present wife, Camille. Eventually he decided to take a plea, do some jail time and left the mob in 1993. "All hell broke loose," he says.

"My dad disowned me, a contract was put out on my life. I should either be dead or in prison for the rest of my life, that's certainly what I earned. For some reason I got a second chance."""


FUGGETABOUTIT

(+Morricone/OUATITW

Saturday, August 08, 2009

12th Street Rag

12th street rag, big band version


(from the Jazz Journal, volume 4, number 1, dated 1951):
EUDAY L. BOWMAN and the 12th STREET RAG
By S. Brun Campbell

"Euday L. Bowman was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on November 9th, 1887, and was educated in public schools. Eventually he became an arranger for popular orchestras. His musical works were Eleventh Street Rag, Twelfth Street Rag, and Petticoat Lane Rag, all named after streets in Kansas City, Missouri, and Colorado Blues, Kansas City Blues, Fort Worth Blues, Tipperary Blues, Shamrock Rag, White Lily Dreams, and Old Glory On Its Way. He died in New York City on May 26th, 1949, while there on a business trip. In his later years he was in poor health, and in very bad financial circumstances. He lived with his sister, Miss Mary M. Bowman, at 818 So. Jennings Street, Fort Worth, Texas, in an old worn house with a few small rooms. The old car that Mr. Bowman used to collect and sell paper salvage stood in the backyard as evidence of his stranded financial straits.

Although Euday Bowman wrote the Twelfth Street Rag in 1914, it was not until 1948 that he realised any money from it. He first published it himself, then he sold it for $100.00 to the Jenkins Music Publishers of Kansas City, who published it for many years. In 1937 the rights reverted back to him. I have been informed by the Jenkins Music Co. of Kansas City that they were transferred to Shapiro-Bernstein Music Publishers of New York City, who now own the work for publication.

On Monday, August 14th, 1950, a treasure trove of memories were moved away from Euday Bowman’s old home for his belongings and those of his sister, were off sold at public auction. Furniture, dishes, and Euday’s piano which he had owned since 1895, and which he bought in Hartford, Connecticut, were among the items that were auctioned off. One of his old friends, Mrs. Myrtle Stewart, bought the piano for $46.00. His accordion, and 600 new records of the Twelfth Street Rag, which Bowman played himself, were some of the other items, along with the family Bible, that went under the auctioneer’s hammer. His friend, Ed Lally, played Twelfth Street Rag on Bowman’s old piano as a farewell to the composer as the household goods were sold to settle the estate.

Reports at the auction were that the estate got $3,000.00 in on the Twelfth Street Rag in July of 1950, alone. But for Bowman, the money from his composition came almost too late, as he was in poor health and had to spend some $2,000.00 with doctors the first month after his royalties started coming in, Ironi-cally, the new things the Bowman’s had bought, went along with the old things, under the auctioneer’s hammer.

But the tall, lanky Texan, Euday Bowman, will always be remembered for his famous Rag, for it has proved to be one of the most popular pieces
of ragtime ever written. Very few people knew that his sister, Mary, who was a music teacher, wrote part of the tune, and shared in whatever profits were derived from it. It is too bad that both had to die just as they were commencing to enjoy the royalties that they both had waited for so many years.

I understand that Bowman and his sister have no heirs, and if such is the case, the royalties no doubt will go into the A.S.C.A.P. treasury, for he was an A.S.C.A.P. member. Whoever the lucky person was who bought Mr. Bowman’s 3-foot high collection of old music and the original Twelfth Street Rag manuscript, which he wrote, should be as proud of that wonderful collection as he was.

He was the last of the early Ragtime composers. It seems strange that Scott Joplin, the composer of the Maple Leaf Rag and Euday Bowman, composer of Twelfth Street Rag, should both be born in Texas. Joplin was born at Texarkana, Texas, in 1868."


That's 12th Street, Kansas City. Pendergast turf, and Mr. Bowman actually played in some of the nicer KC bordelloes, at least for a few years. Jazzmen from 'Nawlins to New York knew this tune well. Louis Armstrong played it (even in 50s and 60s).

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Miércoles con Feyerabend

All Ideologies must be seen in perspective, said Feyerabend.

"""""I want to defend society and its inhabitants from all ideologies, science included. All ideologies must be seen in perspective. One must not take them too seriously. One must read them like fairy-tales which have lots of interesting things to say but which also contain wicked lies, or like ethical prescriptions which may be useful rules of thumb but which are deadly when followed to the letter.


Now, is this not a strange and ridiculous attitude? Science, surely, was always in the forefront of the fight against authoritarianism and superstition. It is to science that we owe our increased intellectual freedom vis-a-vis religious beliefs; it is to science that we owe the liberation of mankind from ancient and rigid forms of thought. Today these forms of thought are nothing but bad dreams - and this we learned from science. Science and enlightenment are one and the same thing - even the most radical critics of society believe this. Kropotkin wants to overthrow all traditional institutions and forms of belief, with the exception of science. Ibsen criticises the most intimate ramifications of nineteenth-century bourgeois ideology, but he leaves science untouched. Levi-Strauss has made us realise that Western Thought is not the lonely peak of human achievement it was once believed to be, but he excludes science from his relativization of ideologies. Marx and Engels were convinced that science would aid the workers in their quest for mental and social liberation. Are all these people deceived? Are they all mistaken about the role of science? Are they all the victims of a chimaera?

To these questions my answer is a firm Yes and No.

Now, let me explain my answer.

My explanation consists of two parts, one more general, one more specific.

The general explanation is simple. Any ideology that breaks the hold a comprehensive system of thought has on the minds of men contributes to the liberation of man. Any ideology that makes man question inherited beliefs is an aid to enlightenment. A truth that reigns without checks and balances is a tyrant who must be overthrown, and any falsehood that can aid us in the over throw of this tyrant is to be welcomed. It follows that seventeenth- and eighteenth-century science indeed was an instrument of liberation and enlightenment. It does not follow that science is bound to remain such an instrument. There is nothing inherent in science or in any other ideology that makes it essentially liberating. Ideologies can deteriorate and become stupid religions. Look at Marxism. And that the science of today is very different from the science of 1650 is evident at the most superficial glance."""""


A Richard Dawkins would probably do a spit-take with his Earl Grey to hear science called an "ideology." And even Contingencies grants Feyerabend's "social constructivism" does at times present problems to a westerner's sense of Truth, whether empirical-scientific or logical. However the Dawkins or Carl Sagan sort of techie nerds--the types who take Star Trek to be some dee-eeply symbolic work of art, man (like this little Nixonian-on-crack)-- generally misread Feyerabend, especially his classic "Against Method"--assuming they bother to read anyone apart from like their fave Heinlein or Asimov space-dreck.

Feyerabend does not, as do some postmodernists, deny scientific realism per se. Though he's not fond of Kuhn, he does understand, as did Kuhn, the provisional nature of scientific knowledge (whether in terms of theories, or nomenclature itself. 00001001 works for 9). He's not saying knowledge is impossible, or claiming "there's nothing outside the text". Bridges work. Planes fly; CPUs spin. Feyerabend does however question the ideology of science, especially in regards to how the scientific establishment functions, whether in terms of economics, politics or education. Scientific knowledge--whether that of bio-chemistry, or experimental physics, or CPUs, even the "science"of undergraduate micro and macro-economics-- has become an institution, closely aligned with industry, and dare we say capitalism. Patents are big business, whether in terms of pharmaceuticals or software or CPUs.

Feyerabend jacks the Institution, really. And it was a Jack worthy of Marx and Engels (though not quite as hysterical, or dangerous). Understanding Science as a sort of handmaiden to industry and business may not be that radical, but Feyerabend wants to show us that the Big Guns of science are really not gurus. We should not mistake the local software engineer for the high point of human civilization (then, neither is the french professor). There's a lot one could say on this (and more shall be said), but I think a key element of Feyerabend's critique relates to how scientists control and take advantage of institutions and universities, and how their code of efficaciousness (to use Quine's favorite criteria) has percolated throughout all human activity.

Consider an experimental chemist. What she does in a lab is not that difficult. Yes, memorizing the formulas and equations required work and study--perhaps a great deal of work (though like most of her colleagues she's probably from an upper-class home, which allowed her the time, comfort and money to become an egghead, more or less). Yet the end result--a new medicine, or fertilizer, or weapon--is what counts. She, like her colleagues, dedicates herself to results. Anything which does not work, doesn't matter. Obviously that's important, even crucial in some fields (like medicine). But that results-oriented, experimental knowledge does not represent the sum total of human knowledge, though it is mistaken as such.

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Las Llaves del Reino de los Cielos

"Y yo te digo que tú eres Pedro y sobre esta roca, Yo edificaré mi Iglesia y el poder del infierno no prevalecerá contra ella. A ti te daré las llaves del Reino de los cielos; y todo lo que atares sobre la tierra será también atado en los cielos; y todo lo que desatares sobre la tierra será también desatado en los cielos." (Mateo 16 18-20)

(vulgate: 18 Et ego dico tibi, quia tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram ædificabo Ecclesiam meam, et portæ inferi non prævalebunt adversus eam.

19 Et tibi dabo claves regni cælorum. Et quodcumque ligaveris super terram, erit ligatum et in cælis: et quodcumque solveris super terram, erit solutum et in cælis.)

en el griego: κλεῖδας τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν. κλεῖδας/kleidas: keys/claves/llaves. βασιλείας/basileias-- kingdom, reign (cognate with basilica). οὐρανῶν/"ouranon"--plural. air, heaven, sky. Like Uranus! Father Ouranon. Ouranon also appears in the writings of greek philosophers such as Plato, where he uses the term without the mythological connotations. Ouranon is the realm of the Platonic forms ...and one might say, the Idea.

We hold to the Greek primacy thesis regarding the New Testament, btw. That was all greco-romanic territory (the Romans, even after subduing the greeks, still used the koine greek). Even jewish people (assuming JC was even jewish, which is debatable--) grew up learning greek. Hebrew was not a complete language, and rarely used, except by a very few rabbis--the Septuagint was actually the "official" text . Aramaic was a sort of street dialect (which later evolves into hebrew). Phoenician--punic, more or less-- was still in use, but the greek rulers of egypt were after Alex, speaking, yes, greek. The writing of the NT itself was nearly definitely in koine greek--not quite the classic hellenic greek of Plato, but a merchant's tongue, though not lacking a certain eloquence at times.

St. Jerry translates "ouranon" to latin cælorum--plural. Luther calls it Himmel--singular; finally to Heaven via anglo. Muy feo.

cælorum--plural "sky," skies, heavens, though "celestial"implied as well.

ligatum: bind, tie (atares, sp, bound)

New Contingencies Edition, Revised: "And I say to you that you are Peter, and on that rock I will build my church, and the power of perdition itself will not prevail against it. And to you I give the keys of the King of the celestial realms, and all that holds about the earth also holds to the celestial realms, and all that is undone on earth shall be undone in the celestial realms."

(JC, monarchist? tal vez)

Monday, August 03, 2009

Buh bye Belle-Ron

Whoa, the mormon subluxanator and quack got his feelings hurt. Touched a nerve, by like pointing out the lack of data or evidence to support you or your palsie's undergraduate stalinist-Freud lite? And as I mentioned, liar, Popper and others pointed that out, years ago. You don't know jack about psychology, just like you don't know jack about first-order logic, or real science (your nursey courses from 25 years ago in Casa Grande don't mean jack either) Now, make shit up Kissingerius. Anything to keep the attention off your fraud and tax shelter. You're just another Tea-bagger, phony, as DU peeps now know as well (and we've also traced you at far right, anti-tax sites, Tea-ron, byatching about health-care premiums).

The Belle-ron usual: when somebody says something logical which ruins his little fraudulent ideology, lie,libel, and defame. Or plagiarize people! Or start quoting the Good Book (we have your Hagee fundie-racist church ID'd as well. Capiche?).

Your sweat-shop business is finito, fraud.

Per the democrats, and labor board, and Sac Bee (heh heh). Capiche, Schwarzenegger boy? (your lies and fraud have been exposed on DU as well! heh heh. Bad news, eh Schwarzi-wannabe).

And the HW chiropractor-quack site has been exposed to whistle blowers including--CA consumer affairs.

Capiche, mormon-mason misogynist? You might consider tickets back to Provo, occultist. Take yr dreck with you.

Now, get ready for trabajo (and regular tests for crack or tweek, basura)



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