I boxed up and mailed my server to my new apartment today. The cable and wiring alone weighed 10 lbs., so this was a Project a little larger than I was expecting. I took the big pieces, i.e. the server and monitors, along with a large box containing the external stroage and the aforementioned box of copper to the UPS store this afternoon. I had no real expectation for the cost, but the figure of merit floating in my head as $150 or so.
UPS guy: I have to pack the server if you want insurance.
Me: Okay.
(I had mailed a server to Geoff some years back, packed it myself, didn't insure it and, you guessed it, it arrived busted. I do not want go through that again with my heavily modded home system)
UPS: How much do you want to insure it for?
Me (calculating replacement value to self. Server cost $1500, memory + mods $500 or so... ): About $2000
UPS [looks at chart]: hmmm... for that much, they will only ship 2-day air.
Me: Okay.
UPS: What about the Monitors?
Me (replacement cost: $800 each): $1000
UPS: ok..
Me (to self:shit, out loud): Each.
UPS: [takes second look at monitors]: Okay. Now this box of drives, how do you want to ship that?
Me: I want it all together. Wires too.
UPS: Okay. Do you want to bother insuraning the drives?
Me (6 300Gig drives X $400 each =):yes, $2500
UPS: You don't have gold wires or anything do you?
Me (thinking): Noooooo...... ... No.
UPS: Okay. verify this, this and this address.
Me: Okay (verifies). What's the total?
UPS (adding ... adding ... adding): Hold on, that can't be right. (throws away tape, starts over.)
Me (to self): uh-oh..
UPS: ... ... (looks at tape).. oooooooookay. That's $825.46
Me (agape, jaw swinging freely in the breeze)
UPS: Sir?
Me (mental calculation of replacement cost of system: Server+monitors+drives + content = $9000+ ... shit! How did that happen? ... This is less than 10% of the value of the system. ... shit.): Go for it.
UPS: Yes sir! Cash or card?
Me(handing over MSFT AMEX): card.
UPS (rings up): Here you go sir! It should be there Wednesday.
Me: For 800 bucks you ought to have a host of seraphim personally fly it to my office.
UPS (without missing a beat): Yes sir, but we can't get them to work Sundays. Union Rules.
Me (Oh, is THAT my place? I'd better go stand there): hahahahhahahahahahahahhaha touche!
And that's how UPS got $825.46 to move my modded server to Redmond and where I learned a Valuable Lesson in the wit and snarkiness of UPS countervolken.
Saturday, October 15, 2005
All Four Horsemen, and Their Little Dog Too
I was reading this Bill Mahr monologue (very mildly amusing) , got to the end and was just stunned at his guest list:
I want to thank my terrific panel: Salman Rushdie, Ben Affleck, Andrew Sullivan, Kayla Williams and Ann Coulter
AS, Salman Rushdie and Ann Coulter??!!???
I have to find a tape of this show.
I want to thank my terrific panel: Salman Rushdie, Ben Affleck, Andrew Sullivan, Kayla Williams and Ann Coulter
AS, Salman Rushdie and Ann Coulter??!!???
I have to find a tape of this show.
Birth Snark
I'm catching up on stuff after a few busy days at work and while I pack up. So when I took a look at Slate this morning, the first article I read was Dana Stevens' on the Scientology Birth Plan.
Yes, of course the plan is total crap, but she does a great job summing it up into one line:
Apparently pretending to all concerned that pushing a human being out your coochie is not only painless, but downright relaxing, will "save both the sanity of the mother and the child and safeguard the home to which they will go."
I was in the room when my son was born. I have no idea at all why any rational woman would ever want a second child. If I were her, I'd fill the damnable portal with cement, cover it with the Seal of Solomon and chop my husband's dick off for good measure. "silence" isn't in it.
Read the rest of the article, it's pretty funny.
Yes, of course the plan is total crap, but she does a great job summing it up into one line:
Apparently pretending to all concerned that pushing a human being out your coochie is not only painless, but downright relaxing, will "save both the sanity of the mother and the child and safeguard the home to which they will go."
I was in the room when my son was born. I have no idea at all why any rational woman would ever want a second child. If I were her, I'd fill the damnable portal with cement, cover it with the Seal of Solomon and chop my husband's dick off for good measure. "silence" isn't in it.
Read the rest of the article, it's pretty funny.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Farting Elves - 12 Days Of Christmas
There are exactly 3 people on this planet for whom this is funny and at least two of them read this blog.
It's the First Day of School for Aspiring Vatican Exorcists
Oh yes, they are serious.
"There is no doubt that the devil is intervening more in the life of man these days," Father Paolo Scarafoni told the students, most of them priests who want to learn how to tackle the demon if they should ever encounter him.
"Not all of you will become exorcists but it is indispensable that every priest knows how to discern between demonic possession and psychological problems," he said.
The four-month course, called "Exorcism and the Prayer of Liberation," is being offered for the second year by Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University on Rome's outskirts.
The about 120 students from around the world will hear lectures on topics such as the pastoral, spiritual, theological, liturgical, medical, legal and criminological aspects of Satanism and demonic possession.
The parallels here between the Catholic and Scientology Churches' approaches to neurology and psychology are just too obvious to list.
Further down in the article though, there is something practical and useful:
"When confronted with a physical aspect of Satan, your only real hope of victory lies in rolling a natural 20", says Father Scarafoni
"There is no doubt that the devil is intervening more in the life of man these days," Father Paolo Scarafoni told the students, most of them priests who want to learn how to tackle the demon if they should ever encounter him.
"Not all of you will become exorcists but it is indispensable that every priest knows how to discern between demonic possession and psychological problems," he said.
The four-month course, called "Exorcism and the Prayer of Liberation," is being offered for the second year by Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University on Rome's outskirts.
The about 120 students from around the world will hear lectures on topics such as the pastoral, spiritual, theological, liturgical, medical, legal and criminological aspects of Satanism and demonic possession.
The parallels here between the Catholic and Scientology Churches' approaches to neurology and psychology are just too obvious to list.
Further down in the article though, there is something practical and useful:
"When confronted with a physical aspect of Satan, your only real hope of victory lies in rolling a natural 20", says Father Scarafoni
Firewall
While this looks like something I might have invented, I can only imagine the dubious looks and shocked outrage if I had proposed this to any of my friends or relatives.
"You want to put a fire where?"
via boing boing
"You want to put a fire where?"
via boing boing
Photoshop Phriday
It's PP over at Something Awful and today's theme is "Game Crossovers"
I laughed out loud at the Halo take-off (scroll down).
I laughed out loud at the Halo take-off (scroll down).
The American Programmer and the Science Advantage
Back in the early '90s I was a software engineer for a company that made FEA products for the manufacturing, automotive and airline industries. I was fresh out of grad school with no formal software engineering training, but I'd been programming since I was 13 and managed to land a job. I was no great shakes as a programmer (I'm no great shakes at any kind of real engineering, mechanical, chemical or software.) and realized after a few years that I wasn't going to be happy with it. So I moved into a different aspect of development, quality assurance (it turned out I had slightly more talent for this and enjoyed it immensely) where I worked until I moved into management.
Ed Yourdon wrote a book back then called The Decline and Fall of the American Programmer, basically saying that America had about 10 years before companies started shipping their software development needs overseas. At the time, it seemed unlikely, but obviously he was right.
Freedman today suggests that the governement may finally have decided that cutting all the science out of the ciriculum may not have have been smart (and may not have producded the army of god-fearing theocrats the policy was intended to generate -Ed).
Fortunately, two senators, Lamar Alexander and Jeff Bingaman, asked the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine to form a bipartisan study group to produce just such a list, which was released on Wednesday in a report called "Rising Above the Gathering Storm."
...
The report's key recommendations? Nothing fancy. Charles Vest, the former president of M.I.T., summed them up: "We need to get back to basic blocking and tackling" - educating more Americans in the skills needed for 21st-century jobs.
Among the top priorities, the report says, should be these:
(1) Annually recruiting 10,000 science and math teachers by awarding four-year merit-based scholarships, to be paid back through five years of K-12 public school teaching. (We have too many unqualified science and math teachers.)
I think this is a good idea. Most (but not all) of the math or science teachers I had were terrible at the subject. They didn't study it in school and were forced to teach it as punishment for whatever political failure was in vouge at the school . I became a scientist in spite of most of them, not becuase of them (with 2 exceptions)
(2) Strengthening the math and science skills of 250,000 other teachers through extracurricular programs.
The risk is that the US will become the France of the 21st Century. A has-been global power more obsessed with preserving language and former cultural victories and progressing to the 22nd.
Ed Yourdon wrote a book back then called The Decline and Fall of the American Programmer, basically saying that America had about 10 years before companies started shipping their software development needs overseas. At the time, it seemed unlikely, but obviously he was right.
Freedman today suggests that the governement may finally have decided that cutting all the science out of the ciriculum may not have have been smart (and may not have producded the army of god-fearing theocrats the policy was intended to generate -Ed).
Fortunately, two senators, Lamar Alexander and Jeff Bingaman, asked the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine to form a bipartisan study group to produce just such a list, which was released on Wednesday in a report called "Rising Above the Gathering Storm."
...
The report's key recommendations? Nothing fancy. Charles Vest, the former president of M.I.T., summed them up: "We need to get back to basic blocking and tackling" - educating more Americans in the skills needed for 21st-century jobs.
Among the top priorities, the report says, should be these:
(1) Annually recruiting 10,000 science and math teachers by awarding four-year merit-based scholarships, to be paid back through five years of K-12 public school teaching. (We have too many unqualified science and math teachers.)
I think this is a good idea. Most (but not all) of the math or science teachers I had were terrible at the subject. They didn't study it in school and were forced to teach it as punishment for whatever political failure was in vouge at the school . I became a scientist in spite of most of them, not becuase of them (with 2 exceptions)
(2) Strengthening the math and science skills of 250,000 other teachers through extracurricular programs.
This is a waste of time. Just fire them.
(3) Creating opportunities and incentives for many more middle school and high school students to take advanced math and science courses, by offering, among other things, $100 mini-scholarships for success in exams, and creating more specialty math-and-science schools.
Incentives are good, although I'm not certain this is the right one. Still, it's a start.
(4) Increasing federal investment in long-term basic research by 10 percent a year over the next seven years.
Again, incentives are good.
(5) Annually providing research grants of $500,000 each, payable over five years, to 200 of America's most outstanding young researchers.
I'm not sure how you will figure out who these people are given the disparate topics.
(6) Creating a new Advanced Research Projects Agency in the Energy Department to support "creative out-of-the-box transformational energy research that industry by itself cannot or will not support and in which risk may be high, but success would provide dramatic benefits for the nation."
A new DARPA would be a great thing.
(7) Granting automatic one-year visa extensions to foreign students in the U.S. who receive doctorates in science, engineering or math so they can seek employment here, and creating 5,000 National Science Foundation-administered graduate fellowships to increase the number of U.S. citizens earning doctoral degrees in fields of "national need." (See the rest at www.nationalacademies.org.)
The risk is that the US will become the France of the 21st Century. A has-been global power more obsessed with preserving language and former cultural victories and progressing to the 22nd.
New, Seattle Address
My new physical address as of Monday:
2201 4th Ave #500
Seattle, WA 98121
(206) 728-6210
I am literally down the block from the Space Needle.
2201 4th Ave #500
Seattle, WA 98121
(206) 728-6210
I am literally down the block from the Space Needle.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Sigh
Some still wonder why I don't trust the President or believe what he says.
At the WH Press breifing today:
Scott McClellan got asked whether the teleconference the president had with troops in Tikrit was scripted. Here's what he said ...
QUESTION: How were they selected, and are their comments to the president pre-screened, any questions or anything...
MCCLELLAN: No.
QUESTION: Not at all?
MCCLELLAN: This is a back-and-forth.
But...
I was listening to NPR this evening and on "All Things Considered" they played a sizeable chunk of the rehearsal where Alison Barber gives very specific instructions to the troops about what to do in case Bush goes off script. She then goes through a list of questions Bush is going to ask and rehearses the answers with the troops, coaching them along the way. You can listen to the entire rehearsal or read transcripts here.How did she know what Bush was going to ask if Bush and his cronies (Mclellan included) weren't involved? It seems as though Mclellan and the administration are caught up in another lie and I think this staged event is tantamount to Goebbels-level propaganda. Maybe I'm wrong, but an event this scripted and passed off as candid seems like nothing but a ruse for the American people.
When Clinton lied I was equally upset. Can this type of behvaior really be the norm for Presidents? If so, it's a damning indictment of the country as a whole.
At the WH Press breifing today:
Scott McClellan got asked whether the teleconference the president had with troops in Tikrit was scripted. Here's what he said ...
QUESTION: How were they selected, and are their comments to the president pre-screened, any questions or anything...
MCCLELLAN: No.
QUESTION: Not at all?
MCCLELLAN: This is a back-and-forth.
But...
I was listening to NPR this evening and on "All Things Considered" they played a sizeable chunk of the rehearsal where Alison Barber gives very specific instructions to the troops about what to do in case Bush goes off script. She then goes through a list of questions Bush is going to ask and rehearses the answers with the troops, coaching them along the way. You can listen to the entire rehearsal or read transcripts here.How did she know what Bush was going to ask if Bush and his cronies (Mclellan included) weren't involved? It seems as though Mclellan and the administration are caught up in another lie and I think this staged event is tantamount to Goebbels-level propaganda. Maybe I'm wrong, but an event this scripted and passed off as candid seems like nothing but a ruse for the American people.
When Clinton lied I was equally upset. Can this type of behvaior really be the norm for Presidents? If so, it's a damning indictment of the country as a whole.
Something Mildly Clever
I woke up in the middle of the night last night and couldn't manage to fall back asleep, so I started thinking about how I would prove the Four Color Theorem. (This is one of many little tricks I use to disctract myself from whatever is really bothering me and keeping me awake. It almost never works, but if I am going to be up I might as well think about something like this or Fermat's Last Theorem or non-orientable surface integrals or something like that).
(Yeah, I'm weird like this.)
I started by trying to divide up an arbitrary map using Poincare Maps. I quickly decided I didn't remember enough about Poincare Maps to have any chance with this. :(
Unfortunately, it didn't put me to sleep either.
So then I thought about Euler networks and tried to figure out if I could figure out the Euler characteristic of simple maps and expand outwards. I pondered this for about an hour, decided I couldn't get to fewer than 5 colors and finally fell asleep.
In looking up the wiki on poisson distributions below, I remembered my problem last night and try to see if there was any merit to what I was trying.
Is seems there was. :)
(although I was not as concise as the wiki version)
It's a little reassuring to know that the brain worms haven't gotten everything yet.
(Yeah, I'm weird like this.)
I started by trying to divide up an arbitrary map using Poincare Maps. I quickly decided I didn't remember enough about Poincare Maps to have any chance with this. :(
Unfortunately, it didn't put me to sleep either.
So then I thought about Euler networks and tried to figure out if I could figure out the Euler characteristic of simple maps and expand outwards. I pondered this for about an hour, decided I couldn't get to fewer than 5 colors and finally fell asleep.
In looking up the wiki on poisson distributions below, I remembered my problem last night and try to see if there was any merit to what I was trying.
Is seems there was. :)
(although I was not as concise as the wiki version)
It's a little reassuring to know that the brain worms haven't gotten everything yet.
The Statistics of Small Numbers
Dr. Nick makes an insightful observation
I’ve noticed for this blog anyway, if a post is going to get commented upon, it will be commented upon the first day it appears, and generally not thereafter. I wonder if this is true for blogs in general? I think it might be.
...
Yes. One might even expect a … wait for it… power law to apply, somehow?
I think it's more like a Poisson Distribution or, in cases where the numbers aren't so small, a Cauchy or even full-bore Guassian.
Wonkette makes a similar observation in a different context
The Huffington Post yelped, almost Drudge-style, "NBC/WSJ Poll: 2% Of African-Americans Give President Bush A Positive Rating," with the helpful modifier, "UNBELIEVABLE..." And, indeed, it is. For a good reason: It's not exactly true. While two percent grabs headlines and make Tim Russert all wriggly ("Only 2 percent -- 2 percent!" as he spurted last night), the more significant number is buried in report. Dug up by Dan Froomkin, it's this: Out of 807 surveyed for the poll, only 89 were black. As Froomkin puts it, "there is a considerable margin or error." Our statistics are rusty, but it seems like it could be high as +/- 10 percent. Sure, there's a possibility that Bush has a -8% approval ratings from blacks. Or maybe Kanye West should investigate whether NBC/WSJ care about what black people really think.
I’ve noticed for this blog anyway, if a post is going to get commented upon, it will be commented upon the first day it appears, and generally not thereafter. I wonder if this is true for blogs in general? I think it might be.
...
Yes. One might even expect a … wait for it… power law to apply, somehow?
I think it's more like a Poisson Distribution or, in cases where the numbers aren't so small, a Cauchy or even full-bore Guassian.
Wonkette makes a similar observation in a different context
The Huffington Post yelped, almost Drudge-style, "NBC/WSJ Poll: 2% Of African-Americans Give President Bush A Positive Rating," with the helpful modifier, "UNBELIEVABLE..." And, indeed, it is. For a good reason: It's not exactly true. While two percent grabs headlines and make Tim Russert all wriggly ("Only 2 percent -- 2 percent!" as he spurted last night), the more significant number is buried in report. Dug up by Dan Froomkin, it's this: Out of 807 surveyed for the poll, only 89 were black. As Froomkin puts it, "there is a considerable margin or error." Our statistics are rusty, but it seems like it could be high as +/- 10 percent. Sure, there's a possibility that Bush has a -8% approval ratings from blacks. Or maybe Kanye West should investigate whether NBC/WSJ care about what black people really think.
Civilization IV release Notes
Finally! Civ IV is ready for the streets! Release notes from Sid Meier.
I. Added Civilizations:
The Polish: Long have these hardy people existed in the unfavorable location between Germany and Russia, and have been overlooked as a major player in European history. Although much was destroyed in WWII, these proud people have outlasted the worst conditions and persevered with nothing more than potatoes and polka music. They are even America's third biggest ally right now in the fight against terror in Iraq. That tells you something!Special Unit: Polka band. Replaces the archer. This unit has a special attack that can lower the culture of any city it enters.Leaders: King Paskiewicz (seductive, warlike), John Paul II (religious, seafaring).
...
II. New Technologies
News Entertainment: Decreases war weariness via propaganda and confusion. Once you unlock this technology you may produce the special unit Bill O'Reilly. The unit may be used in an unhappy city by clouding the truth with unabashed lying and magic tricks.Prerequisites: Fascism, Television
Latin Pop Music: The discovery of this technology gives you the ability to generate a new form of happiness in the guise of festive Latin pop. It allows you to build the Latin pop radio station, making two citizens happy in your city. The downside is that you lose two production from the illegal immigrant influx.Prerequisites: The Tango, Radar
...
There is also a new Citizen type: the Blogger, which increases pollution.
I. Added Civilizations:
The Polish: Long have these hardy people existed in the unfavorable location between Germany and Russia, and have been overlooked as a major player in European history. Although much was destroyed in WWII, these proud people have outlasted the worst conditions and persevered with nothing more than potatoes and polka music. They are even America's third biggest ally right now in the fight against terror in Iraq. That tells you something!Special Unit: Polka band. Replaces the archer. This unit has a special attack that can lower the culture of any city it enters.Leaders: King Paskiewicz (seductive, warlike), John Paul II (religious, seafaring).
...
II. New Technologies
News Entertainment: Decreases war weariness via propaganda and confusion. Once you unlock this technology you may produce the special unit Bill O'Reilly. The unit may be used in an unhappy city by clouding the truth with unabashed lying and magic tricks.Prerequisites: Fascism, Television
Latin Pop Music: The discovery of this technology gives you the ability to generate a new form of happiness in the guise of festive Latin pop. It allows you to build the Latin pop radio station, making two citizens happy in your city. The downside is that you lose two production from the illegal immigrant influx.Prerequisites: The Tango, Radar
...
There is also a new Citizen type: the Blogger, which increases pollution.
Blog Errors
I'm having trouble with the blog this morning, it's chopping out text from postings. Appologies if I make even less sense than usual.
Antitrust
Trying to post this a 5th time:
Good Article in the SeattlePI on the effect of anti trust legislation.
Then there's the question of who antitrust law is supposed to benefit -- competitors or consumers. Proponents of the former argue that maintaining multiple competitors, especially in the face of a large, dominant player, is essential to protecting the latter. Others argue that near-monopoly companies (such as Microsoft and PC operating systems) are not necessarily detrimental to consumers, and if there's no proof consumers are being harmed, there's no basis for legal intervention.
The continuing antitrust fights involving Microsoft have raised a third point of contention: Whether bankruptcy law can move fast enough to deal with realities of the technology marketplace. The judgments and settlements in the government's antitrust cases seemed to be resolving yesterday's disputes tomorrow; by the case's conclusion the original point was moot.
If anything, the Microsoft-RealNetworks settlement announced earlier this week demonstrates how unresolved those first two debates are. Those who question the need for antitrust law won't find much to dissuade them from the belief that such suits are merely grabs for money, publicity or protection. Those who insist antitrust law doesn't go far enough will see just another example of Microsoft settling because it has the cash to make troublesome suits go away.
One of the best books on the law and econometrics of antitrust legislation is Richard Posner's. Definitely worth reading.
Good Article in the SeattlePI on the effect of anti trust legislation.
Then there's the question of who antitrust law is supposed to benefit -- competitors or consumers. Proponents of the former argue that maintaining multiple competitors, especially in the face of a large, dominant player, is essential to protecting the latter. Others argue that near-monopoly companies (such as Microsoft and PC operating systems) are not necessarily detrimental to consumers, and if there's no proof consumers are being harmed, there's no basis for legal intervention.
The continuing antitrust fights involving Microsoft have raised a third point of contention: Whether bankruptcy law can move fast enough to deal with realities of the technology marketplace. The judgments and settlements in the government's antitrust cases seemed to be resolving yesterday's disputes tomorrow; by the case's conclusion the original point was moot.
If anything, the Microsoft-RealNetworks settlement announced earlier this week demonstrates how unresolved those first two debates are. Those who question the need for antitrust law won't find much to dissuade them from the belief that such suits are merely grabs for money, publicity or protection. Those who insist antitrust law doesn't go far enough will see just another example of Microsoft settling because it has the cash to make troublesome suits go away.
One of the best books on the law and econometrics of antitrust legislation is Richard Posner's. Definitely worth reading.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Joys of Atheism
done excellently.
Theists often write and speak of the wonders and happiness their religion provides, citing miracles, doing good works for others, and security in the belief that they’ll ascend into a place called Heaven when their lives end. I have no doubts they’re sincere, and if this is what truly makes them happy, then it’s a good choice for them.
...
A common misconception that many theists labor under is the belief that the only kind people are those who follow a particular god or religion. To this, any atheist or freethinker with common sense will no doubt reply ‘rubbish.’ British philosopher Bertrand Russell, a well-known secularist himself, made the following statement in his essay ‘The Faith of a Rationalist:’ “Men tend to have the beliefs that suit their passions. Cruel men believe in a cruel god and use their belief to excuse cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly god, and they would be kindly in any case.” In other words, one doesn’t have to believe in a god to be a kind person. Many atrocities in past history have clearly demonstrated that religion and kindness were worlds apart.
...
Anyone who has voluntarily left Catholicism and other conservative faiths will no doubt cite lack of freedom to make individual choices as one of their chief reasons for seeking a different path. I was no exception. In my personal experience, there was no pleasure in being told that I would have to remain celibate until marriage, even if for some reason I chose never to marry. I didn’t see the point of having the church decide the circumstances under which I could have sex, whether it be as a single or married person. I thought it both absurd and intrusive that a church had the arrogance to tell me I should never use certain kinds of birth control to prevent pregnancy. Or that I couldn’t indulge in certain sexual acts that avoided pregnancy altogether.
Since I valued my freedom more than observing the arbitrary and cruel rules of Catholicism, secularism was by far the better choice.
Theists often write and speak of the wonders and happiness their religion provides, citing miracles, doing good works for others, and security in the belief that they’ll ascend into a place called Heaven when their lives end. I have no doubts they’re sincere, and if this is what truly makes them happy, then it’s a good choice for them.
...
A common misconception that many theists labor under is the belief that the only kind people are those who follow a particular god or religion. To this, any atheist or freethinker with common sense will no doubt reply ‘rubbish.’ British philosopher Bertrand Russell, a well-known secularist himself, made the following statement in his essay ‘The Faith of a Rationalist:’ “Men tend to have the beliefs that suit their passions. Cruel men believe in a cruel god and use their belief to excuse cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly god, and they would be kindly in any case.” In other words, one doesn’t have to believe in a god to be a kind person. Many atrocities in past history have clearly demonstrated that religion and kindness were worlds apart.
...
Anyone who has voluntarily left Catholicism and other conservative faiths will no doubt cite lack of freedom to make individual choices as one of their chief reasons for seeking a different path. I was no exception. In my personal experience, there was no pleasure in being told that I would have to remain celibate until marriage, even if for some reason I chose never to marry. I didn’t see the point of having the church decide the circumstances under which I could have sex, whether it be as a single or married person. I thought it both absurd and intrusive that a church had the arrogance to tell me I should never use certain kinds of birth control to prevent pregnancy. Or that I couldn’t indulge in certain sexual acts that avoided pregnancy altogether.
Since I valued my freedom more than observing the arbitrary and cruel rules of Catholicism, secularism was by far the better choice.
Open Letters to George Bush
Dear George
Econometrics is the contemporary reincarnation of Medieval Scholasticism. The only difference is that where the Scholastics carried on long disputations over how many angels could fit on the head of a pin, econometricists carry on long disputations over equations of regression that explain the constant relationships between multiple magnitudes in the economic domain. In both cases, superstition is concealed beneath a gauze of pseudo science. As with any superstition, if enough people believe it, it is true.
But, let us disregard all the pooh-bahs of complex theoretical formulas. The complexity doesn’t exist that can’t be reduced to a simple wisp of a thread even you can understand.
There are intelligent people I know who beleive the bolded part about science as well.
Excellent Use of Media Training 101
Superlative. I'd give John an "A" if he were in my media class.
I got this email from a news/spam email list I signed up for a few years ago. John Blair is a DJ at NY City's Roxy nightclub. The Roxy is a little "tired" and out of fashion.
Hi there, Mark! The rumor is NOT TRUE!!!!
MADONNA IS NOT PERFORMING at the ROXY!We've been bombarded with questions from all of you who read a posting on yahoo stating that Madonna is performing at the Roxy on Oct 22. While we live for Madonna and our doors are always open to her, please help us spread the word: MADONNA IS NOT PERFORMING at the Roxy!
John: Madonna is not playing at the Roxy
Public: Madonna is at the Roxy! Let's go!
I got this email from a news/spam email list I signed up for a few years ago. John Blair is a DJ at NY City's Roxy nightclub. The Roxy is a little "tired" and out of fashion.
Hi there, Mark! The rumor is NOT TRUE!!!!
MADONNA IS NOT PERFORMING at the ROXY!We've been bombarded with questions from all of you who read a posting on yahoo stating that Madonna is performing at the Roxy on Oct 22. While we live for Madonna and our doors are always open to her, please help us spread the word: MADONNA IS NOT PERFORMING at the Roxy!
John: Madonna is not playing at the Roxy
Public: Madonna is at the Roxy! Let's go!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)