Apologies Demanded

Ronald Reagan Brandenburg Gate Speech 28th Anniversary

2015-06-12T12:08:00.000-04:00

28 years today President Ronald Reagan gave his speech at the Brandenburg Gate, addressing the whole of western civilization, especially the Germans in the audience, but with a special line directed at his Soviet counterpart and his evil empire.

The speech commemorated the 750th anniversary of Berlin, which is difficult to imagine for us dirty Americans, since our nation is relatively young compared to the rest of the western world. The various nation-states that were once the mother countries of various empires spawned from Europe are all ancient, many centuries older than our shining city. That explains their many wars over the centuries as well as the longstanding rivalries. Truth be told the only reason why the European Union exists now is because the cultures that used to own such ambitious globe-spanning empires are now comparatively pathetic and effectively puny; in order to compete or even measure up to the mighty United States they pooled their own interests , just to compete or be relevant on the global scale. Which of course does not blunt the fact that the greatest world power ends up being the world police, influencing interests and keeping peace for a number of reasons.
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"Calvin Coolidge and the Moral Case for Economy" (IMPRIMIS February 2013 • Volume 42, Number 2)

2015-06-11T00:52:00.000-04:00

Amity Shlaes is a syndicated columnist for Bloomberg, a director of the
Four Percent Growth Project at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, and a member of the board of the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation. She has served as a member of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal and as a columnist for the Financial Times, and is a recipient of the Hayek Prize and the Frederic Bastiat Prize for free-market journalism. She is the author of four books, Germany: The Empire Within, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, The Greedy Hand: How Taxes Drive Americans Crazy and What to Do About It, and Coolidge.

The following is adapted from a talk given at Hillsdale College on January 27, 2013, during a conference on “The Federal Income Tax: A Centenary Consideration,” co-sponsored by the Center for Constructive Alternatives and the Ludwig von Mises Lecture Series.

Proper Goat Anatomy

2015-06-09T00:47:00.000-04:00

Naturally Proper Goat Anatomy is best described using a baby goat.

Why on earth is there a baby goat on this blog?

I was informed that goats are cute. Baby goats are cuter. Attractive young women like baby goats. I'm attempting to drive traffic. So we have Goat Tuesday. Every Tuesday, if I can plan far enough ahead, is Goat Tuesday.

Given that I did not have my shite together for Memorial Day or D-Day, the odds that I can keep a weekly Cat Monday or Goat Tuesday seem slim.

Still, I admit that it is worth a try. At some point though I might attempt to reconcile while Kelly Ripa is in a bikini on this blog but goats are also on this blog. Likely no attempt will be made. One is for one sort of audience and the other of the other.

Jenner invited to judge Miss USA pageant

2015-06-08T15:46:00.001-04:00

I haven't yet decided on a consistent appellation for the newly re-famous ex-athlete yet, although I am leaning towards the name that his mother gave him, if only because of my confidence that the history books will still regard him with the nomenclature under which he established his place in distant athletic history.

In the end "Caitlyn Jenner" will be the name recognized as what he used after he ceased doing relevant stuff,

This is ESPECIALLY true if/when transgender modifications become more commonplace.

As he has newly re-entered the realm of fame the Miss USA organization invited Bruce Jenner to judge this year’s beauty pageant in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Obviously they are using his new name. If one were to ask what her qualifications are to judge the contestants the answer is fairly obvious. Jenner is definitely an expert on fake boobs.

Likely he can skillfully detect them from the judge's table.

Obviously I've decided that it's not "too soon" to make these jokes. Removing the more politically charged elements from this affair, which mostly involves stripping off tropes, cliches, and bumper stickers about "bravery", "courage", "acceptance" and "tolerance" and then avoiding the "it's none of your business" banality we have a public figure that surgically changed his body (we make Pamela Anderson jokes) and changes his name (we make John Cougar jokes and Prince jokes and Ron Artest jokes). A man does both at once he'll get both of those genre of jokes at once.

Now while it appears that I've typed an extra paragraph after my punchline as a preemptive defense from critics that is definitely not the case. For one thing I do not have enough of an audience to get criticized by anyone significant, let alone someone significant enough to have a significant enough sized audience to affect my attempt to grow an audience. The genuine reason for these extra paragraphs is not to indulge in more philosophy about identity or identity and humor. This is a blog, after all, and I can use another post for that purpose and it would be more appropriate. The reason why I'm including this extra wall of text is not merely so you can spend more time reading this, and therefore getting more bang for your free, but so it looks more elegant when we show another photo of Miss USA 2014 Nia Sanchez in a bikini.

Baltimore is Not Too Damned High

2015-06-08T07:30:00.000-04:00

After Freddie Gray died from injuries sustained in his custody by Baltimore law enforcement apparently some level of violence arose in the city. In the course of this violence prescription drugs were looted from 27 pharmacies and two methadone clinics.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts on Wednesday said police were working with federal partners such as the Drug Enforcement Administration to seize more than 175,000 "units," or doses, of prescription drugs... "There's enough narcotics on the streets of Baltimore to keep it intoxicated for a year," Batts said. "That amount of drugs has thrown off the balance on the streets of Baltimore." Batts' comments came the same day that Rite Aid said looting at its locations included prescription drugs, as well as the theft of personal medical information. DEA Special Agent Gary Tuggle said even more drugs have been stolen than reported. About 40 percent of the looted pharmacies have not finished counting losses, he said.

This is hilarious. In lieu of a joke I could compose myself, I invoke Doug Mataconis.

Apparently there were enough drugs stolen during the Baltimore riot to keep the entire city high for a year.
To be fair, Baltimore "high" could potentially be a better place than actual Baltimore.

I've been to Baltimore. I have stayed in Baltimore. Doug is not wrong.

Although I suppose "Baltimore is not too damned high" is my joke. I stand by that.

DOCTOR WHO is on Disney XD

2015-06-07T19:20:00.002-04:00

This strikes me as extremely wrong but I cannot place my finger on exactly why.

Just based on the clips this appears to start in the second season of the Welsh series with David Tennant. Perhaps they are just promoting it that way.

Understandably I reckon Tennant may be the most popular of the incarnations of the contemporary series. The series is also purportedly for kids. I'm just surprised that Disney has a license for it. Last I knew BBC America broadcast the program the same year as BBC, and SyFy had the license to broadcast reruns of the program a year later. I think various PBS stations ran the program in the "UHF"/"VHF" broadcast non-pay frequencies.

Where would I look to discover the syndication and licensing arrangements for the episodes?

American Pharoah

2015-06-07T00:32:00.002-04:00

Now that American Pharoah has won the Triple Crown, I can tell you what has changed for this horse and therefore all of the United States.

When American Pharoah dies he will be buried instead of being turned to glue.

"American Pharoah" by Maryland GovPics - 2015 Preakness Stakes. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

the Corrupt Organized Religion of World Football

2015-06-05T15:38:00.000-04:00

Football, or as we in the enlightened Shining City on the Hill call it, soccer, represents one of the planet's most widespread religions, reaching almost as far as Christianity, and likely displacing much of the Church as it goes.

Attributed to American exceptionalism, we treat this sport as a diversion for children and a quasi-disorganized pickup game for young adults, with the virtues that it involves a lot of footwork, awareness, movement and actual teamwork. This is good developmentally for anyone whose joints still work, and for those joints are a little squeaky, yet still possess high resistance to pain, they can play goalie. Naturally attempts to monetize soccer in our country have yet to match the commercial wonders achieved by accepted national pastimes such as baseball and football. Our televised organized soccer still falls short of the Russo-Canadian phenomenon called hockey.
The National Football League will continuously dominate broadcast television with a solid foothold in the sports cable markets; Major League Baseball rules the radio and is an everpresence in the afternoon on Fox Sports affiliates with a few weekend games on the broadcast stations. National Hockey League is difficult to find, Foreign organized soccer, in the devil's lands called football, is easier to find on television every weeked than the American version. This amuses me.

That said, despite my agreement with Hank Hill on the virtues of soccer, by which I mean there are barely any, it's good for kids. It was good for me as an adult. My beloved country, however, turns its attention to this cursed psuedosport (what kind of sport has ties so often and the clock counts up?) when we qualify for the FIFA World Cup. As soccer is a religion, it is an organized religion, and church is the Fédération Internationale de Football Association. Now comparing oneself to the corruption that is FIFA is hardly a defense for your sports league. The National Football League and its counterparts for other games should not even try. Still, I love it when shots are taken at a vile secular institution. Yet since I lack any passion for soccer, let alone knowledge to explain how FIFA is an assault on the game, I turn to foreign devil John Oliver.

Naturally when the story progressed, Mr Oliver returned to it a year later.

I lack his knowledge and passion but I love how FIFA's corruption is so well known to John Oliver that it is his base standard for what corruption is, and therefore is the go-to allegory for how corrupt something is.

The wonderful thing is that the United States has the power to oppose these people, take them to task, and hold them accountable. If this enhances our global influence among the savages and Eurotrash, then we should pursue it to the greatest jurisdictional limit. Certainly it's a less expensive method than two long and very bloody wars.

If I was a more extremist right-winger I would ask how this is any of our business. There are two answers to that. The first is that as a game, the rules must be enforced because games have rules. More importantly, as to a question of jurisdiction, we shouldn't enforce the rules of the game necessarily, or whether the competition is fair, as we should not have Congressional hearings about steroid use in Major League Baseball. Yet this is commerce on a global level and unfortunately we are involved in it. We're involved in international commerce.

Certainly taking FIFA accountable is similar to addressing bribery in Major League Baseball. A player being paid to throw a game affects commerce. Mind you, I'm not going to engage or explore the myriad amounts of crony capitalism and corruption in American professional sports today. The reason is I am not going being paid for this and this is my hobby. Suffice to say though that the reasons why bookies don't bribe a professional baseball player in modern times, at least in the Major Leagues, is because no bookie can afford to try, and no baseball player would risk losing his five or six digits a year for a small amount. The corruption and damage done by international soccer is best compared to that done by hosting the Olympic games, so that could be a lot more fun to explore.

Even without corruption, hosting an international sport can destroy your city or your community, simply because the infrastructure is so damned expensive and the resultant income is not reciprocal. While it resembles an honor your city may never recover.

Our Dying Language (01) - Gentleman

2015-06-05T14:13:00.003-04:00

In our wonderful language we tend to misuse and abuse words and this misuse unfortunately falls into a trend. At that point people misuse the word more than they use it and the definition changes. That is usually a shame because the word becomes a mere synonym for words we already have, and the unique term with its distinctive meaning is destroyed more thoroughly than a unlucky gambler shoved through a wood chipper by a bookie. In the end suddenly the word is useless qnd broken for its original purpose. Furthermore, in its place, we now have long explanations and paragraphs instead of just the word, the one term, with the commonly recognized meaning. We have lost something. This happens to multiple words. This is worse than disuse. It's misuse and we can never resurrect these words. The people that did this, and I was born later, should be brought back to earth and then backhanded repeatedly. Although that might be a harsh consequence. I have others in mind beyond this example, hence the number in the title, but once I run out I am going to have to perform research. We have a long history in our language, how hard can it be? But here a dead word that we resurrected as a misshapen zombie.

The word gentleman originally meant something recognisable; one who had a coat of arms and some landed property. When you called someone "a gentleman" you were not paying him a compliment, but merely stating a fact. If you said he was not "a gentleman" you were not insulting him, but giving information. There was no contradiction in saying that John was a liar and a gentleman; any more than there now is in saying that James is a fool and an M.A. But then there came people who said - so rightly, charitably, spiritually, sensitively, so anything but usefully - "Ah but surely the important thing about a gentleman is not the coat of arms and the land, but the behaviour? Surely he is the true gentleman who behaves as a gentleman should? Surely in that sense Edward is far more truly a gentleman than John?" They meant well. To be honourable and courteous and brave is of course a far better thing than to have a coat of arms. But it is not the same thing. Worse still, it is not a thing everyone will agree about. To call a man "a gentleman" in this new, refined sense, becomes, in fact, not a way of giving information about him, but a way of praising him: to deny that he is "a gentleman" becomes simply a way of insulting him. When a word ceases to be a term of description and becomes merely a term of praise, it no longer tells you facts about the object: it only tells you about the speaker's attitude to that object. (A 'nice' meal only means a meal the speaker likes.) A gentleman, once it has been spiritualised and refined out of its old coarse, objective sense, means hardly more than a man whom the speaker likes. As a result, gentleman is now a useless word. We had lots of terms of approval already, so it was not needed for that use; on the other hand if anyone (say, in a historical work) wants to use it in its old sense, he cannot do so without explanations. It has been spoiled for that purpose.

Today's example is brought to you by Clive Staples Lewis (and me) but mostly C.S. Lewis, one of the greatest intellectual giants of western civilization of the last century or so. The excerpt is from Mere Christianity. He illustrates his point well and concisely, noting how our ideas of what ought to be actually hurt how things are.

Which is why we should never let Social Justice Warriors have a say in anything. Transforming our ideas of what the Gentlemen should be, and how they should act, into an expectation of how they act has transformed a factual statement and an objective notation into a moral quantifier and an opinion. Genuine objectivity is rare enough but we actually pulled some of it out of our own language and killed it dead, while we forced its family and friends to watch helplessly as we slowly stripped the flesh from its bones.

Subjectively I might have noticed it because I hang on the philosopher's words and I despise having one word transformed into a paragraph, unnecessary words borne solely out of stupidity and some warm and fuzzy nonsense. Personally I love the word in its original meaning because I embody the word in its original meaning, despite that we do not, strictly speaking, embrace nobility in the United States, I now hear and read weak-willed ninnies accuse other people of not being a gentleman, which is just a hoity-toity mangled throwback saying outright that they don't like someone.

If you don't like someone, say it in as few words as possible, yet be precise. (Especially since there are plenty of people that I didn't like at one point or another and have great affection for now. Not liking someone is no reason to burn bridges and close doors. Do not miss out on good people just because you do not like someone; tastes change. Also do not hold it against someone if they do not like you; their tastes change). It is probably a better idea to not tell someone that you do not like them. Doing so is mere self-indulgence. If you do not approve of someone's behavior and that behavior affects you, then that is the point that should be made concisely and precisely. Telling someone that he is not a gentleman is only about your taste and your reaction and it is about your indulgence.

My friend Scott has attempted to replace the word in his phraseology. "Landed Gentry" is a fine term. May it pass far and wide in use. It sounds dignified to the ear and easy to the tongue. It is still inferior because it is more letters, takes up more space, contains more syllables, takes longer to say, and compared to the original word that it modifies, is redundant in its construction. Gentleman used to mean an individual whom was landed by inheritance and possessed a coat of arms by that same inheritance, If the meaning was not murdered so long ago, this modification to the original term would be redundant on the face of it, without the explanation of the history.

Yet the deed is done. We killed a good word.It has been spoiled for its original purpose.

videophones and telegrams

2015-06-04T08:25:00.000-04:00

Warren Ellis on predicting the future:

Videophones. We were told again and again that videophones were not only imminent, but that they made so much sense that they might as well already be here, they fit so well into our lives. Only nobody wanted to have to get dressed to answer the house phone. Or put make-up on, or shave. Videophones hit the social fabric and bounced off, and when video calls finally arrived, they were mostly relegated to business usage and long-distance relationship maintenance by appointment. The basic unit of communication has become, not video calls or even voice calls, but text messages.

Who saw that coming? The return of the telegram? Pretty much nobody. The industry of futurism is bad at the future.

Admittedly this shocked me too. We have Skype and this does exist, but it's not a regular method of exchange by many people on a regular basis... compared to the wonderful idea and better execution of SMS text messaging.

"Warren Ellis by Gage Skidmore" by Gage Skidmore. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

gatitos

2015-06-03T08:41:00.000-04:00

Lindos gatitos :3
Posted by Cerebro Digital on Saturday, 1 March 2014

I normally only engage in cat videos or pictures on Mondays, theoretically.

Because Caturday is overused. So Wednesday it is.

"Cat poster 1" by Alvesgaspar - Top left:File:Cat August 2010-4.jpg by AlvesgasparTop middle:File:Gustav chocolate.jpg by Martin BahmannTop right:File:Orange tabby cat sitting on fallen leaves-Hisashi-01A.jpg by HisashiBottom left:File:Siam lilacpoint.jpg by Martin BahmannBottom middle:File:Felis catus-cat on snow.jpg by Von.grzankaBottom rigth:File:Sheba1.JPG by Dovenetel. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Noah Galloway is no Runner-Up

2015-06-02T16:27:00.000-04:00

There is a rumor that cyborg athlete Noah Galloway was passed up for the Arthur Ashe Courage Award by ESPN. That description is literally true. The rumor is phrased in such a way to give the impression that Noah Galloway is the runner-up for the Arthur Ashe Courage Award while the Arthur Ashe Courage Award is awarded to Caitlyn Jenner. That description is a lie.

Caitlyn Jenner is the recipient of this award. Noah Galloway deserves this award. Neither statement is in dispute.

When I finally read the rumor it had taken the form of a meme. The meme is an outright lie.

ESPN has never given any hint as to who else was considered to recieve the Arthur Ashe Courage Award this year. Noah Galloway was not mentioned by ESPN. All of this fake outrage was fueled by a lie. Naturally many ideologues that consider themselves to be conservatives and tell other people that they are conservatives, fauxservatives, fell for the lie and wrapped themselves in it so they can feel good about throwing silly tantrums at the world while telling lies to their friends. In part, of course, this lie feeds into their need to worship soldiers and war.

When informed of the lie that they soaked themselves in, guzzled, imbibed, and drank to their very souls, these fauxservatives will, and I have seen this, justify their anger and their nonsense with a sentence that starts with the phrase "true or not". That just says "my rage is valid even if the facts only exist in my own head"or "well it might as well be true." It is either true or it is not. If it is not these people should pull their asses back to reality.

The truth always matters.

Many raging wankers reserve the right to hold a lie to their hearts in order to justify their own feelings.

There are a couple of facts. The first is that there are plenty of people more deserving of this award, or any award, than a guy whose award was granted for his attitude in the face of his own body modification. The second is that if ESPN were considering Noah Galloway at any time for this award, he would be a runner-up; the second fact is true but only hypothetical as we have no way to know that ESPN considered the army veteran for the award at all this year.

Interestingly, Caitlyn Jenner is the name used to identify a 65-year-old woman while the award given out in the name of Arthur Ashe is granted to athletes; Bruce Jenner was a professional athlete.

Jenner’s unyielding resolve and hard work enabled him to win a gold medal in the 1976 Olympics and break world records. He then parlayed that success into a variety of roles across different areas including television, film, auto racing and business. Although Jenner first captured the attention of the nation for his athletic prowess and determination, the same strength of character shone through this past April when he sat down with ABC’s Diane Sawyer to come out as a transgender woman.
“In the past few months, the overwhelming outpouring of support from all over the world for my journey has been incredible,” said Jenner. “However, being honored with this award, which is named after one of my heroes, is truly special. For the first time this July, I will be able to stand as my true self in front of my peers.”

The premise is that Caitlyn is the true self and that Bruce Jenner was the lie. The professional athelet, whose athleticism won those contests was the lie and the present state, a result of modification through surgery and drugs, is the truth? Considering that many athletes win these contests and competitions through unnatural modifications of the body this is not ironic.

We should be clear that the transition from Bruce to Caitlyn hardly qualifies or disqualifies someone for an Arthur Ashe Courage Award but it is clear now that this was given for a more political reason, a fashion reason, than anything to reflect actual courage or heroism. A sex change is an indulgence; a public release of this by a former celebrity is certainly an indulgence. An indulgence is not now nor has it ever been an act of courage.

I should never have to type that sentence. How is anyone embracing the idea that what is effectively a press release is courageous when real people risk their lives for higher causes every day?

Some people need their knees smashed with a clue stick. They include the people that call Bruce Jenner courageous and they especially include people that deny whether the truth matters.

Obviously the clue stick is not a literal stick and I do not endorse attacking literal knees. But I do endorse feeling every ounce of contrition and misery.

In either case the origin for this stupid lie stems from some guy on the Twitter telling a joke.

Caitlyn Jenner wins Arthur Ashe Courage Award. And the runner-up is .... pic.twitter.com/DKUdnPT8Gx
— Gerry Callahan (@GerryCallahan) June 1, 2015

Whether Callahan intended to bear false witness or was being facetious is unknown. I speculate the latter. As it is though, he also posted something mocking Bruce Jenner's chosen name.

A 65-year-old woman named Caitlyn? That's just weird
— Gerry Callahan (@GerryCallahan) June 1, 2015

I do not join in the spirit of the mockery but I agree that Caitlin or Caitlyn sounds like the name of someone named less than 25 years ago, not 65 years ago. Mr Jenner certainly did not embrace dignity with this change, but that's likely why he got the award.

Frankly this nontroversy has brought Bruce Jenner back to light for the first time in ages; outside the reality show viewer community his star has long faded. Beyond that I'm unfortunately not a good enough sports fan to know who Arthur Ashe is, that he died of AIDS, or have heard of his award until today; I never watch the Espys. It's also especially true that heroes, veterans like Mr Galloway do not require awards. He does what he does regardless of our gratitude and appreciation. As it is, unless ESPN wants to make a specific announcement, it cannot truthfully be said that Noah Galloway is a runner-up for the 2015 Arthur Ashe Courage Award.

The Royal Academy of Farting *****

2015-06-02T00:07:00.001-04:00

"BenFranklinDuplessis"
by Joseph-Siffrein Duplessis - http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/brush/ben.htm.
Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Benjamin Franklin

to The Royal Academy of Brussels

1781

GENTLEMEN,

I have perused your late mathematical Prize Question, proposed in lieu of one in Natural Philosophy, for the ensuing year, viz. “Une figure quelconque donnee, on demande d’y inscrire le plus grand nombre de fois possible une autre figure plus-petite quelconque, qui est aussi donnee”. I was glad to find by these following Words, “l’Acadeemie a jugee que cette deecouverte, en eetendant les bornes de nos connoissances, ne seroit pas sans UTILITE”, that you esteem Utility an essential Point in your Enquiries, which has not always been the case with all Academies; and I conclude therefore that you have given this Question instead of a philosophical, or as the Learned express it, a physical one, because you could not at the time think of a physical one that promis’d greater Utility.

Permit me then humbly to propose one of that sort for your consideration, and through you, if you approve it, for the serious Enquiry of learned Physicians, Chemists, &c. of this enlightened Age.

It is universally well known, That in digesting our common Food, there is created or produced in the Bowels of human Creatures, a great Quantity of Wind.

That the permitting this Air to escape and mix with the Atmosphere, is usually offensive to the Company, from the fetid Smell that accompanies it.

That all well-bred People therefore, to avoid giving such Offence, forcibly restrain the Efforts of Nature to discharge that Wind.

That so retain’d contrary to Nature, it not only gives frequently great present Pain, but occasions future Diseases, such as habitual Cholics, Ruptures, Tympanies, &c. often destructive of the Constitution, & sometimes of Life itself.

Were it not for the odiously offensive Smell accompanying such Escapes, polite People would probably be under no more Restraint in discharging such Wind in Company, than they are in spitting, or in blowing their Noses.

My Prize Question therefore should be, To discover some Drug wholesome & not disagreable, to be mix’d with our common Food, or Sauces, that shall render the natural Discharges of Wind from our Bodies, not only inoffensive, but agreable as Perfumes.

That this is not a chimerical Project, and altogether impossible, may appear from these Considerations. That we already have some Knowledge of Means capable of Varying that Smell. He that dines on stale Flesh, especially with much Addition of Onions, shall be able to afford a Stink that no Company can tolerate; while he that has lived for some Time on Vegetables only, shall have that Breath so pure as to be insensible to the most delicate Noses; and if he can manage so as to avoid the Report, he may any where give Vent to his Griefs, unnoticed. But as there are many to whom an entire Vegetable Diet would be inconvenient, and as a little Quick-Lime thrown into a Jakes will correct the amazing Quantity of fetid Air arising from the vast Mass of putrid Matter contain’d in such Places, and render it rather pleasing to the Smell, who knows but that a little Powder of Lime (or some other thing equivalent) taken in our Food, or perhaps a Glass of Limewater drank at Dinner, may have the same Effect on the Air produc’d in and issuing from our Bowels? This is worth the Experiment. Certain it is also that we have the Power of changing by slight Means the Smell of another Discharge, that of our Water. A few Stems of Asparagus eaten, shall give our Urine a disagreable Odour; and a Pill of Turpentine no bigger than a Pea, shall bestow on it the pleasing Smell of Violets. And why should it be thought more impossible in Nature, to find Means of making a Perfume of our Wind than of our Water?

For the Encouragement of this Enquiry, (from the immortal Honour to be reasonably expected by the Inventor) let it be considered of how small Importance to Mankind, or to how small a Part of Mankind have been useful those Discoveries in Science that have heretofore made Philosophers famous. Are there twenty Men in Europe at this Day, the happier, or even the easier, for any Knowledge they have pick’d out of Aristotle? What Comfort can the Vortices of Descartes give to a Man who has Whirlwinds in his Bowels! The Knowledge of Newton’s mutual Attraction of the Particles of Matter, can it afford Ease to him who is rack’d by their mutual Repulsion, and the cruel Distensions it occasions? The Pleasure arising to a few Philosophers, from seeing, a few Times in their Life, the Threads of Light untwisted, and separated by the Newtonian Prism into seven Colours, can it be compared with the Ease and Comfort every Man living might feel seven times a Day, by discharging freely the Wind from his Bowels? Especially if it be converted into a Perfume: For the Pleasures of one Sense being little inferior to those of another, instead of pleasing the Sight he might delight the Smell of those about him, & make Numbers happy, which to a benevolent Mind must afford infinite Satisfaction. The generous Soul, who now endeavours to find out whether the Friends he entertains like best Claret or Burgundy, Champagne or Madeira, would then enquire also whether they chose Musk or Lilly, Rose or Bergamot, and provide accordingly. And surely such a Liberty of Expressing one’s Scent-iments, and pleasing one another, is of infinitely more Importance to human Happiness than that Liberty of the Press, or of abusing one another, which the English are so ready to fight & die for. — In short, this Invention, if compleated, would be, as Bacon expresses it, bringing Philosophy home to Mens Business and Bosoms. And I cannot but conclude, that in Comparison therewith, for universal and continual UTILITY, the Science of the Philosophers above-mentioned, even with the Addition, Gentlemen, of your “Figure quelconque” and the Figures inscrib’d in it, are, all together, scarcely worth a

FART-HING.

Liberty and Security by Volokh

2015-06-01T07:32:00.000-04:00

From the Eugne Volokh of far off 2002:

LIBERTY VS. SECURITY: People often say that it's "a fallacy" to "sacrifice[]" "civil liberties . . . in the name of heightened security" (I'm quoting a generally quite thoughtful and interesting message I received from a reader).
     This could mean one of two things. First, it could mean that we should never allow restrictions on liberty in order to get security. But this can't be right, because we of course must restrict liberty in some measure in order to protect ourselves against enemies foreign and domestic.
     That's why the Fourth Amendment prohibits only unreasonable searches and seizures, not all such searches and seizures; that's why the government can search your home, albeit with a warrant and probable cause. That's why we have trials and prisons, even though we can be positive that even with the best justice system, some innocent people will be wrongly convicted. We accept these restraints on our liberty, because they're needed in order to get adequate security.
     Ah, but maybe the statement means simply that we shouldn't allow new restrictions on liberty, beyond the ones we already have. "Sacrifice civil liberties" would thus mean "diminish the liberties that we now enjoy," with the baseline being the current rules, rather than some regime of perfect liberty.
     But why should we think that the current regime is the perfect one? Maybe it doesn't restrict the government enough in some areas. Or maybe it restricts the government too much in others. Or maybe when current laws bars "unreasonable searches and seizures," events that increase the threat to our security might make "reasonable" what might not have been reasonable before. There's no particular reason to enshrine the current rules as the ones from which we may never budge, no matter what the reasons.
     Finally, some articulate this via the quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." But all the work is being done here by the qualifiers "essential" and "a little temporary." Of course giving up something essential in order to obtain a little temporary benefit is a mistake. But one can equally correctly say "They that can give up essential safety to obtain a little temporary liberty deserve neither safety nor liberty." Unless the statement claims that all liberty is inherently essential, or all safety benefits are inherently little and temporary (in which case it's just mistaken), it's simply a truism that at most calls on us to carefully measure how much we're giving up and how much we're getting in return.
     This having been said, I fully agree that (1) many proposed restrictions on liberty are likely to be unproductive or even counterproductive, (2) the government often has lots of incentive to ask us to give up more liberty than we need to, and (3) we therefore should closely scrutinize all proposals for restricting liberty in order to get safety. And I know that there are good arguments that (4) the current regime already asks us to give up too much liberty in many areas.
     But the analysis has to acknowledge that we must sometimes sacrifice some liberty in order to protect ourselves, and thus has to focus on the specifics of each proposal -- the magnitude of the loss to liberty, the magnitude of the gain to safety, the alternative means that might yield a better trade-off, and so on -- rather than on broad generalities about liberty and safety in the abstract.

I generally agree.... although we often launch off of the de-contextualized Franklin quote because of the meaning we would use if we spoke the words, while ignoring the actual meaning as intended. In this case that's fine.

"Eugene Volokh" by UCLA School of Law
Original uploader was Neutrality
at en.wikipedia -
http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/volokh.jpg
Transferred from en.wikipedia; transferred
to Commons by User:Sreejithk2000
using CommonsHelper..
Licensed under Public Domain
via Wikimedia Commons.

Presidential Election Swing Map

2015-05-29T08:27:00.000-04:00

This is a 2004 through 2012 presidential election swing map by county.

Click to make bigger.

Darker blue = more Democrat. Darker red = more Republican. Percentage tiers as follows: • <1 13="" 17="" 1="" 21="" 25="" 5="" 9="" :="" color="" no="" span="">

Byron Allen says President Obama Wears Blackface

2015-05-28T08:15:00.000-04:00

Mildly unfunny comedian and successful television producer Byron Allen declares that there is white man behavior and black man behavior and that President Obama is definitely a white man, based on his behavior. That seems racist.

The “Comics Unleashed” host took issue with the president’s use of the word “thugs” to describe the looters and arsonists in last month’s Baltimore riots.
“We’re being murdered in the streets. We’re being murdered in the courtroom. We’re being murdered in boardroom,” Mr. Allen said. “You have to stand up at some point. It’s OK to be the president of the United States and also be a black man. It’s human. And guess what? People will respect you more if you stop acting like you’re not.
“President Obama is, at this point, a white president in blackface,” he added. “Black America would have done much better with a white president.”

Or it's outright racism.

Although I won't dispute inequality in the courts or even possibly in the boardroom... although that last part may simply be jealousy from a television executive whose works primarily appeared on MyNetworkTV, or maybe UPN at best.

I'm not one of those that will jump to declare "thug" synonymous with the N-word and I condemn those that do.

blackface
"Minstrel PosterBillyVanWare edit"
by Strobridge &
Co. Lith - http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/var.1831.
Licensed under Public Domain
via Wikimedia Commons.

Really this sort of accusation is gross and uncalled for. Mind you one blessing of the First Amendment, protected political speech, is so Byron Allen and others can expose themselves as jackasses.

Bruce Bartlett on the Fox News Effect

2015-05-27T08:32:00.000-04:00

Smart people know that echo chambers are hurting this country. Fox News is one such echo chamber. wrote a fifteen page paper for the Social Science Research Network on theat topic. The adviser for Ronald Reagan asserts that some people tie their perspectives too tightly to Fox News. From on interview on CNN:
Lifelong conservative Bruce Bartlet

Many conservatives now refuse to even listen to any news or opinion not vetted through Fox, and to believe whatever appears on it as the gospel truth.

Not taking in multiple sources and perspectives on any portion of reality that you did not witness yourself can be disastrous, especially when one takes in information in order to determine one's own actions.

This seems obvious. There are indeed both right-wing and left-wing echo chambers yet the right-wing echo chamber was deliberately constructed as a commercial reaction to the bulk of the news media trending left-wing.

That's correct: I asserted that the right-wing media came about to make money from a Republican and conservative audience, not as an ideological counterpoint or to elect a certain kind of candidate to public office. For my purposes right now I condemn the people on my own side, but in principle the same problem holds true for Democrats.

Many conservatives live in a bubble where they watch only Fox News on television, they listen only to conservative talk radio — Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, many of the same people... And so, they are completely in a universe in which they are hearing the same exact ideas, the same arguments, the same limited amount of data repeated over and over and over again. And that’s brainwashing.

This certainly creates a problem when there may be an actual reason something occurred that runs contrary to the orthodoxy promoted by, for example, Mark Levin.

Erick Erickson versus Memorial Day

2015-05-26T12:46:00.000-04:00

Erick Erickson is nominally a grade-A Master Douche-Bag. How he managed to con people into joining his audience is something I am never entirely sure. Which is not to say that Redstate is not a fine product where a lot of people provide content and few people collect ad revenue (basically making Erickson a small business version of Google/Blogger, which I shouldn't be against.... except I tend to think of Google as a sort of government in and of itself.... but that's a philosophy for another time).

My general wonderment at the Son of Erick having an audience is that his massive level of contempt for other human beings. Every month month or week he posts something on the internet or says something on his radio show (which still is not in my market so I barely consider it of note) that makes me observe that he is the kind of ass that likely would get beaten half to death in a bar fight.... just for shooting his mouth off.

As an aside when I'm in a bar I converse easily with the patrons around me. Mostly because they must be buzzed and therefore have low standards. Self-deprecation!

Back to the point where I support my argument.

To celebrate Memorial Day Erick Erickson insulted a large number of his audience or his potential audience.

Millennials, I realize you think you're the greatest generation. Please see the attached as a reminder you're not. pic.twitter.com/DP4ORtCqO1
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) May 24, 2015

Let's be honest, whether or not the generation that won World War II and defended freedom is truly the greatest generation is not only debatable it's completely tasteless to debate it even though they brought the New Deal, expanded the role of government and diminished the role of the private sector in the realm of caring for our fellow man. That said there is nothing to be gained by having an argument about whether "old people suck" or not. We debate policy and our way of life or we move on. The point of Memorial Day, after all, is to celebrate freedom and remember sacrifice. We celebrate the fallen and their cause by being free and making feast. This is good. It is not a day for weeping and grousing.

straw men

Although if you are still mourning the loss of a loved one that gave their lives in combat for our freedom, we are there for you. We're Americans. That is what we do.

So in order to praise these heroes, the Son of Erick insults an entire generation (which oddly enough, contains many heroes that gave their lives in the last two wars). To praise people from World War II he asserts the straw man that young people all think that they are the greatest generation, which of course, I have never heard anyone of my generation or young say. So he insults them with a lie and then uses his lie as the basis for his argument. He did not have to do that. How does he still have an audience after asserting that most of his audience are self-praising jerks? Most of us honor our heroic dead and sympathize with those left behind without turning on the living heroes... or the heroic dead of the modern generation. I can't say for certain I'm a millennial but my nephew is. He's a decent person, humble, hard-working, and like a lot of people's sons and nephews, deserves better to be insulted by a C-grade radio show host.

Master Douche-Bag
"Erick Erickson by Gage Skidmore" by
Gage Skidmore. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

simple update via a Facebook friend:

The average age of service ranges from 29 in the Army to a mere 25 in the Marines. Those ARE the Millennials.

Of course putting people down is the only way the Son of Erick knows to raise people up.

Bruce Bartlett versus Lawrence O'Donnell

2015-05-26T08:03:00.000-04:00

Far leftist Democrat commentator Lawrence O'Donnell desperately wants to have a fight with independent (possibly former conservative) former Republican Bruce Bartlett but rapidly collides with the dilemma that because of his background Mr Bartlett hates most Republicans and refuses to be pigeonholed or to align himself with viewpoints of an accepted orthodoxy.

Mr Bartlett certainly seems conservative in his methodology and is correct that most Republicans desire to use a 1980 solution for 2011 problems, 2012 problems and now 2015 problems.

It is not 1980.

Lawrence O'Donnell is still a jerk. He eventually get satisfaction from finding someone that can hit the Republican candidates with a rhetorical sock full of pennies yet the great divide between O'Donnell and Bartlett is that Bartlett is less ideological at his premise and he can critique the proposed fiscal policies without using a straw man.

Schrödinger's Cat

2015-05-25T14:50:00.000-04:00

The Wikipedian description:

Schrödinger's cat: a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor detects radioactivity (i.e. a single atom decaying), the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. This poses the question of when exactly quantum superposition ends and reality collapses into one possibility or the other.

We need to be especially aware that the Schrodinger's Cat experiment is a thought experiment, a satire, and a critique and not an actual experiment with a real cat. Which is to say that Erwin Schrodinger has never killed a cat in a box by using radioactive material or otherwise.

The scientist explains it thus:

One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.
It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.

from a translation that was originally published in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 124, 323-38. [And then appeared as Section I.11 of Part I of Quantum Theory and Measurement (J.A. Wheeler and W.H. Zurek, eds., Princeton university Press, New Jersey 1983).]

"Schrodingers cat" by Dhatfield - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Schrödinger's thought experiment actually entered into the common ideaspace, however usually as a misunderstood principle invoked as cliche, metaphor, or trope.

I enjoy that it's employed as humor. Essentially though it's a fair description of when an individual or institution fails to commit to a given dogma or a contrary one, when an outright explanation is far more worthwhile than a lack of controversy. Essentially when one fails to suggest or determine for others if a state of being is certainly one or the other, then the metaphor is invoked and it is hardly charitable.

This t-shirt here is brilliant. The undead cat, be it liche or zombie is used to suggest intelligence, at least on a superficial or beginning level. Now, I understand the stuff of quantum mechanics thrown to the viewers on PBS. This could suggest that I am intelligent. Yet I'm no quantum mechanic. Philosophy can be applied to the sciences but I cannot apply the science, expand the science. I'm layman in that field. But in many respects the thought experiment is meant to explain a point to people like me, regardless.

Most importantly though, to me, is that this just plain opens the doors to humor.

Oh the jokes.

Someone is going to come along and make fun of this blog post.

and I deserve it.

Now the real reason I write stuff like THIS is not only to practice writing, as I must practice every day to at the very least entertain my fantasy of becoming a professional writer, but because I would rather link to my own definition of a given term than the wikipedia version. I also want to believe that my own blog may be more reliable to ever-present for my purposes than any given university's page.... which is unreasonable to a degree... although while Michigan State University may outlive me by a thousand years they can eject a professor and his displays of work and definition any week or year. That implies the professor's tenure has an exception.

Now I can explain the issue of Heisenberg and I certainly will at a later date. I'm uncertain when that date will be.

Later I intend to visit this site as it explores the concepts further than I intend at this time.... and more importantly illustrates and exhibits the concepts.

In the meantime

Schrodinger's Cat by tatabatata on DeviantArt

Game of Triggers

2015-05-20T00:18:00.000-04:00

I don't know what this "trigger" bullshit is that is the Big Thing this year but yeah if you're freaked out by boobs, gay people, violence, blood, and a mixture of all of those don't watch GAME OF THRONES.

Or read them

we will never get rid of poverty

2015-05-19T02:02:00.002-04:00

Although first of all.... Jesus plainly says we will never get rid of poverty.

We will always have the poor, in His words. It was said so offhandedly and casually as if the sky was blue that it is inarguable.

However. We are still required to love as Jesus loved.

I argue theologically that the point of feeding the hungry is less to eliminate hunger for the sake of the hungry but to demonstrate Christ's love.

Meaning that the reason for charity is less that the poor need charity but that people are poor so we have people to be charitable to.

We exist to love and worship after all.

Human deficiencies are caused by sin. But the reason God simply doesn't supernaturally feed them or erase our ills is also because of the free will that led to sin and deficiencies. We're supposed to demonstrate the love of Christ of our own free will.

Now the Church used to be a helpful organized entity and for the most part it still is.

shoot home invaders

2015-05-04T16:08:00.001-04:00

from Rick Ector

Words: I just love the way the media plays with words when they report a story. For example, today one outlet stated that "A home invasion turned deadly." Since when was a home invasion a benevolent activity? If a person is ever so emboldened to come into your home uninvited and unannounced, the home owner should treat the invasion attempt as an attack on his safety and the safety of his family. Moreover, shooting a home invader is not "taking the law into your own hands." Once someone invades your home, the well-being of the occupants is not a concern. In fact, it is the ultimate disregard for the safety of any one legally present. Once a thug comes into your home, especially while you are there, there are only a handful of things that can happen. With exception of one outcome, all others are bad. Shoot home invaders. It is your duty. True story.

Gwyneth Paltrow ALS ice bucket challenge

2015-04-28T23:41:00.000-04:00

I still think Gwyneth Paltrow, awful person in many ways, is awesome in a bikini.

Here is proof.

December 31, 2013 USMagazine

Yello - Oh Yeah

2015-04-28T19:07:00.000-04:00

I have learned something today. I think it's the first time I ever heard the whole song in all years.