... except perhaps a few of "those" churches in the South. On the other hand, they do vote, which is at least as devistating:
From Fundie's Say The Darndest Things
Average rating: 3.62Rated 13 times.
"DURING THE TIME WHEN ISRAEL - GOD'S CHOOSEN PEOPLE - were backslidden, HE [GOD] raised up Wicked Rullers, TO CHASTEN HIS OWN! SO it is today! God has given us a respite, with BUSH - but remember the Agenda of the ENEMY! HILLARY CLINTON - Hopes to be the Next President of the USA! UNLESS - CHRISTIANS - CRY OUT IN REPENTANCE FOR OUR SINS, AND FAILURE TO OBEY GOD, She will BE IT!"
Friday, February 10, 2006
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Which Superhero Are You?
Here
I was surprised at the answer I got although I tried to answer honestly. Given the type of hero I play well in City of Heros, I expected to get "The Flash".
Your results:
You are Superman
Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...
I was surprised at the answer I got although I tried to answer honestly. Given the type of hero I play well in City of Heros, I expected to get "The Flash".
Your results:
You are Superman
| You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.  |
Note to Atheists: Morality Comes Only From God, Stop Acting Moral!
A guy who missed the point of atheism:
One of my friends told me the other night that he had stopped to help a stranded motorist.
"Why would you do that?" I asked.
"Because it was the right thing to do. She needed help."
"But," I protested, "that doesn't make any sense. You wasted your time and efforts on a complete stranger, and for what? You got nothing out of it. You should have kept right on driving."
He gave me a puzzled look.
What I meant to say is that God is the basis for good and evil, and once you reject him and his rules, you're left with nothing but self-serving and self-preservation. In short, you're left with being your own god.
No. Atheists merely reject the idea that morality must be imposed by a mythical figure, we do not reject the idea that people must have morality for society to work. In fact, that’s the point. If you're only following a moral code because you're afraid you'll get caught by god (or more terrestrial authorities), while I'm glad your following the rules, don't expect me to respect you. What you're saying is that you are fundamentally untrustworthy without fear of punishment. Further, you probably believe that everyone else is the same way. Hence, god is needed everywhere, to watch all the time, to keep folks on the right path.
I believe people are capable of more, the right and wrong can be taught as core values and that fear of god is superfluous. I try to live up to my highest ideals and while I don't always succeed, I don’t think I fail more than the faithful, and I know that the consequences are mine to bear.
One of my friends told me the other night that he had stopped to help a stranded motorist.
"Why would you do that?" I asked.
"Because it was the right thing to do. She needed help."
"But," I protested, "that doesn't make any sense. You wasted your time and efforts on a complete stranger, and for what? You got nothing out of it. You should have kept right on driving."
He gave me a puzzled look.
What I meant to say is that God is the basis for good and evil, and once you reject him and his rules, you're left with nothing but self-serving and self-preservation. In short, you're left with being your own god.
No. Atheists merely reject the idea that morality must be imposed by a mythical figure, we do not reject the idea that people must have morality for society to work. In fact, that’s the point. If you're only following a moral code because you're afraid you'll get caught by god (or more terrestrial authorities), while I'm glad your following the rules, don't expect me to respect you. What you're saying is that you are fundamentally untrustworthy without fear of punishment. Further, you probably believe that everyone else is the same way. Hence, god is needed everywhere, to watch all the time, to keep folks on the right path.
I believe people are capable of more, the right and wrong can be taught as core values and that fear of god is superfluous. I try to live up to my highest ideals and while I don't always succeed, I don’t think I fail more than the faithful, and I know that the consequences are mine to bear.
Monday, February 06, 2006
An Accidental Nuke
I haven't worked this out, or the possible yeild, but it's at least remotely possible.
Finally!
I finally got an email asking me to transfer millions out of Zimbabwe. Soon all of Africa will by under My control! (note, it came with the following spacing. One big block of text)
Subject:
Assistance From You
Date:
2/4/2006 5:57:00 P.M. Pacific Standard Time
From:
kz@netscape.net
Reply To:
karongaz@netscape.net
To:
toast171@aol.com
Dear One, My name is Master Karonga Zungu, the son of Mr.Ellies Karonga of blessed memory from Zimbabwe, During the current crises against the farmers in Zimbabwe from the supports of President Robert Mugabe to claim all citizens both black/white farmers farms, who where not his party members and his followers, he ordered all white/black farmers who were not in his party to surrender all their farms to his party members and his followers. My father was one of the most successful multy farmers in our country and because he did not support Mugabe`s ideas, Mugabes supporters invaded his farm and burnt everything in the farm, killing him and made away with a lot of farming items in my fathers farm. Before his death, my father had deposited with banking firm in (Europe) the sum of (USD $12 MILLION) for buying of new farming materials.But I can't transfer it, to where i live becouse I'm an Asylum seeker,and not allowed to operate bank accounts, i want to go into arrangement by which i can live in your country and get my money back for benefitable investments. I have agreed to offer you 10% of the total sum for your assistance as soon as the money gets into your account also 5% has been set aside for all expences onece the money is cleard,any expences incured by you in the act of claiming this funds and making the transfer to your account will be deducted from the 5% before any other step is taken. I want truth and honest to be our watch word in this transaction and please treat this transaction with strictly confidential for the successful out come of it. All I want you to do is to furnish me with your personal full name as in your passport/private phone and fax numbers and also your private e-mail address if any for easy and urgent communication. Note:reply email karongaz@netscape.net Best regards,. Your brother in need. Karonga zungu
Subject:
Assistance From You
Date:
2/4/2006 5:57:00 P.M. Pacific Standard Time
From:
kz@netscape.net
Reply To:
karongaz@netscape.net
To:
toast171@aol.com
Dear One, My name is Master Karonga Zungu, the son of Mr.Ellies Karonga of blessed memory from Zimbabwe, During the current crises against the farmers in Zimbabwe from the supports of President Robert Mugabe to claim all citizens both black/white farmers farms, who where not his party members and his followers, he ordered all white/black farmers who were not in his party to surrender all their farms to his party members and his followers. My father was one of the most successful multy farmers in our country and because he did not support Mugabe`s ideas, Mugabes supporters invaded his farm and burnt everything in the farm, killing him and made away with a lot of farming items in my fathers farm. Before his death, my father had deposited with banking firm in (Europe) the sum of (USD $12 MILLION) for buying of new farming materials.But I can't transfer it, to where i live becouse I'm an Asylum seeker,and not allowed to operate bank accounts, i want to go into arrangement by which i can live in your country and get my money back for benefitable investments. I have agreed to offer you 10% of the total sum for your assistance as soon as the money gets into your account also 5% has been set aside for all expences onece the money is cleard,any expences incured by you in the act of claiming this funds and making the transfer to your account will be deducted from the 5% before any other step is taken. I want truth and honest to be our watch word in this transaction and please treat this transaction with strictly confidential for the successful out come of it. All I want you to do is to furnish me with your personal full name as in your passport/private phone and fax numbers and also your private e-mail address if any for easy and urgent communication. Note:reply email karongaz@netscape.net Best regards,. Your brother in need. Karonga zungu
Friday, February 03, 2006
Penultimate comment on the STOU Speech
From Pharyngula,
Did he say anything in that speech that was actually true? I'm beginning to suspect that if he started by saying, "My fellow Americans…," that it might be fruitful to check into the INS records and see if he actually is a citizen.
Snort!
Did he say anything in that speech that was actually true? I'm beginning to suspect that if he started by saying, "My fellow Americans…," that it might be fruitful to check into the INS records and see if he actually is a citizen.
Snort!
Thursday, February 02, 2006
We Slowly Become The Things We Despise Most
... well, only if we are intellectually lazy and guided by emotion rather than logic. While not perfect in this, I had to give up on many cherished political traditions I had when I was young, once I took an objective, non-emotional view of them. Unions, for example, were hard to give up on, but I have come to the conclusion, there days of usefulness are long, long past.
Here's what it looks like when judges and fine legal minds contort themselves to hang on their goals instead of their principles. It's a little long, but worth the investment:
Judge Richard Posner's comments in the New Republic on how he would go about deciding the constitutionality of the NSA surveillance program are refreshing for their honesty:
You [Professor Philip Heymann] say that "First we have to address ... the defiance of legislated prohibitions and the absence of published standards and any known system of accountability to the other branches." Why first? The way I approach a case as a judge--maybe you think it heresy--is first to ask myself what would be a reasonable, sensible result, as a lay person would understand it, and then, having answered that question, to ask whether that result is blocked by clear constitutional or statutory text, governing precedent, or any other conventional limitation on judicial discretion. That is how I would proceed if asked to decide a case challenging the legality of the NSA surveillance program. I would try to find out as much as I could about the program--its contribution to national security and the inroads it makes on liberty and privacy--before I started waxing indignant over it, and that indeed is what I have tried to do, and the result of that inquiry is my article. I missed such an inquiry in the letter to Congress you co-signed that was published in The New York Review of Books.
The ironies abound. If this is how defenders of the NSA program must proceed in order to argue for its legality, they well fit the caricature of judicial activism that generations of conservatives have tarred liberals with when liberals argue for extensions of civil rights and civil liberties protections. That is, instead of being constrained by law in the first instance, defenders argue that a program would be good policy and therefore strain to find that it is not illegal or unconstitutional.
Posner, however, is no ordinary conservative. He has long abandoned the belief that one must speak in pious platitudes about doing what the framers intended, or not legislating from the bench. He regards all this as mere blather designed to mystify what is really going on in legal decisionmaking. Instead, he views the judicial task "pragmatically," in his words, as an extension of ordinary policy discourse, which is only mildly constrained by legal texts and doctrines, if at all.
Posner's candor lays bare a jurisprudential problem for both sides of the ideological spectrum. Defenders of the President must come up with what I can only regard as makeweight legal arguments for justifying what he has done, arguments that would indeed require judges to legislate from the bench, if that hackneyed phrase has any meaning. (For those of who you want a detailed defense of that claim, I direct you to Marty's many posts on this site.)
Moreover, the muscular presidency that the Republican Party now promotes also has little connection to the original understanding of the President's power, despite Professor Yoo's valiant efforts to selectively quote sources to suggest that it is so. Rather, the best defense of expanded Presidential power is that the Constitution must keep up with the times, or as it is so often put, that "9-11 changed everything." That is to say, to justify their constitutional claims, defenders of the President must become that most dreaded and hated of liberal stereotypes, a bevy of living constitutionalists.
But lest liberals rejoice in this irony, it is worth noting that Posner's candor challenges them as well. Posner has dared critics of the President to abandon a debate about what the rule of law requires and concern themselves only with what the best policy is. To respond to this challenge, critics must rediscover and renew their faith in the rule of law-- in the importance of law as an institution that constrains arbitrary power even when that constraint also prevents *them* from doing what they think just and right.
Here's what it looks like when judges and fine legal minds contort themselves to hang on their goals instead of their principles. It's a little long, but worth the investment:
Judge Richard Posner's comments in the New Republic on how he would go about deciding the constitutionality of the NSA surveillance program are refreshing for their honesty:
You [Professor Philip Heymann] say that "First we have to address ... the defiance of legislated prohibitions and the absence of published standards and any known system of accountability to the other branches." Why first? The way I approach a case as a judge--maybe you think it heresy--is first to ask myself what would be a reasonable, sensible result, as a lay person would understand it, and then, having answered that question, to ask whether that result is blocked by clear constitutional or statutory text, governing precedent, or any other conventional limitation on judicial discretion. That is how I would proceed if asked to decide a case challenging the legality of the NSA surveillance program. I would try to find out as much as I could about the program--its contribution to national security and the inroads it makes on liberty and privacy--before I started waxing indignant over it, and that indeed is what I have tried to do, and the result of that inquiry is my article. I missed such an inquiry in the letter to Congress you co-signed that was published in The New York Review of Books.
The ironies abound. If this is how defenders of the NSA program must proceed in order to argue for its legality, they well fit the caricature of judicial activism that generations of conservatives have tarred liberals with when liberals argue for extensions of civil rights and civil liberties protections. That is, instead of being constrained by law in the first instance, defenders argue that a program would be good policy and therefore strain to find that it is not illegal or unconstitutional.
Posner, however, is no ordinary conservative. He has long abandoned the belief that one must speak in pious platitudes about doing what the framers intended, or not legislating from the bench. He regards all this as mere blather designed to mystify what is really going on in legal decisionmaking. Instead, he views the judicial task "pragmatically," in his words, as an extension of ordinary policy discourse, which is only mildly constrained by legal texts and doctrines, if at all.
Posner's candor lays bare a jurisprudential problem for both sides of the ideological spectrum. Defenders of the President must come up with what I can only regard as makeweight legal arguments for justifying what he has done, arguments that would indeed require judges to legislate from the bench, if that hackneyed phrase has any meaning. (For those of who you want a detailed defense of that claim, I direct you to Marty's many posts on this site.)
Moreover, the muscular presidency that the Republican Party now promotes also has little connection to the original understanding of the President's power, despite Professor Yoo's valiant efforts to selectively quote sources to suggest that it is so. Rather, the best defense of expanded Presidential power is that the Constitution must keep up with the times, or as it is so often put, that "9-11 changed everything." That is to say, to justify their constitutional claims, defenders of the President must become that most dreaded and hated of liberal stereotypes, a bevy of living constitutionalists.
But lest liberals rejoice in this irony, it is worth noting that Posner's candor challenges them as well. Posner has dared critics of the President to abandon a debate about what the rule of law requires and concern themselves only with what the best policy is. To respond to this challenge, critics must rediscover and renew their faith in the rule of law-- in the importance of law as an institution that constrains arbitrary power even when that constraint also prevents *them* from doing what they think just and right.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Manimal
I have to admit, I shot soda through my nose when I read this:
President panders to anti-manimal lobby! Dr Moreau flees country in rage!
I didn't listen to the State of the Union Address last night, preferring to maintain my equanimity by attending a talk on quantum physics, but I knew I could trust my readers to email me with choice weird science bits. I'm getting a lot of "WTF?" email about this statement from Bush:
Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research, human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling or patenting human embryos.
It's pure political calculus. He throws away the mad scientist and pig-man vote, and wins the religious ignoramus vote…and we know which one has the majority here.
Update:
Server trial by fire
Now we'll really get to see how well this new server provided by Seed holds up. Pharyngula just get linked by Slashdot, and I've seen a thousand hits come roaring in in 5 minutes. My lovely old Mac G5 server would have been screaming and shaking at this point, and you wouldn't be reading this article, that's for sure.
President panders to anti-manimal lobby! Dr Moreau flees country in rage!
I didn't listen to the State of the Union Address last night, preferring to maintain my equanimity by attending a talk on quantum physics, but I knew I could trust my readers to email me with choice weird science bits. I'm getting a lot of "WTF?" email about this statement from Bush:
Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research, human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling or patenting human embryos.
It's pure political calculus. He throws away the mad scientist and pig-man vote, and wins the religious ignoramus vote…and we know which one has the majority here.
Update:
Server trial by fire
Now we'll really get to see how well this new server provided by Seed holds up. Pharyngula just get linked by Slashdot, and I've seen a thousand hits come roaring in in 5 minutes. My lovely old Mac G5 server would have been screaming and shaking at this point, and you wouldn't be reading this article, that's for sure.
The Communist Manifesto
err.. I mean the Discovery Institue Manifest.
Nice.
It reminds me a lot of those pamphlets I used to see the Campus Crusade For Communism hand out, i.e. it makes no actual sense but justifies an opinion some folks already have.
I'm sure a lawsuit is pending.
Nice.
It reminds me a lot of those pamphlets I used to see the Campus Crusade For Communism hand out, i.e. it makes no actual sense but justifies an opinion some folks already have.
I'm sure a lawsuit is pending.
Monday, January 30, 2006
The Big Picture
... continues to be one of my favorite economic blogs.
This is an interesting piece on how economists are often "perplexed"
WSJ: "After the economy navigated a brutal hurricane season to post robust growth in the third quarter of 2005, growth cooled considerably in the fourth quarter. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of U.S. economic output, increased at just a 1.1% seasonally adjusted annual rate as free-spending consumers became more cautious and the gaping trade deficit continued to provide a drag on the expansion. For all of 2005, GDP growth averaged a 3.5% annual rate. What does the slowdown in the fourth quarter mean for the economy in the months ahead?
Economists weigh in with their reactions:
"In both its overall appearance and underlying detail, the 1.1% fourth quarter growth in real GDP ranks as the most perplexing report in memory. At face value, such weakness would seem to make it more difficult for the Fed to tighten monetary policy again. But the underlying details reinforce -- if not increase -- perceptions that much faster growth lies ahead. Nonetheless, the confusing and conflicting contradictions with other data make it difficult to be confident in any inferences about the outlook."
-- David Resler and Gerald Zukowski, Nomura Securities International
* * *
"Consumer spending was actually a little better than expected, rising by 1.1% in the quarter vs. our forecast of +0.3%. I think more of the decline in auto sales was apportioned to the business sector (fleet sales) and less to the retail side than we expected. Housing posted a reasonable gain of 3.5%, but this was less than half of our assumed rise. The monthly source data pointed to a bigger gain, so this is a bit puzzling."
-- Stephen Stanley, RBS Greenwich Capital
* * *
"The consensus was a bit optimistic but this is a big surprise. The softness against our 2.6% forecast is explained by two components, fixed investment and government consumption. The former rose only 3.0%, with equipment and software up only 3.5%. This is baffling, given the 19.5% annualized leap in the value of capital goods production and the 14.9% rise in shipments of core nondefense capital goods. We expect big upward revisions."
-- Ian Shepherdson, High Frequency Economics
* * *
"While this was a disappointing report, there are signs of a very sharp rebound in GDP growth in the current quarter. First, much of the miss in fourth-quarter inventories is likely to spill over to the first quarter. Second, at least a partial rebound in defense appears likely. Finally, the ramp for consumption spending is even more favorable in the aftermath of the fourth quarter data. The bottom line is that we now see a very good possibility of 5%+ GDP growth in Q1 -- versus our prior estimate of +4.2%."
-- David Greenlaw and Ted Wieseman, Morgan Stanley
This is an interesting piece on how economists are often "perplexed"
WSJ: "After the economy navigated a brutal hurricane season to post robust growth in the third quarter of 2005, growth cooled considerably in the fourth quarter. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of U.S. economic output, increased at just a 1.1% seasonally adjusted annual rate as free-spending consumers became more cautious and the gaping trade deficit continued to provide a drag on the expansion. For all of 2005, GDP growth averaged a 3.5% annual rate. What does the slowdown in the fourth quarter mean for the economy in the months ahead?
Economists weigh in with their reactions:
"In both its overall appearance and underlying detail, the 1.1% fourth quarter growth in real GDP ranks as the most perplexing report in memory. At face value, such weakness would seem to make it more difficult for the Fed to tighten monetary policy again. But the underlying details reinforce -- if not increase -- perceptions that much faster growth lies ahead. Nonetheless, the confusing and conflicting contradictions with other data make it difficult to be confident in any inferences about the outlook."
-- David Resler and Gerald Zukowski, Nomura Securities International
* * *
"Consumer spending was actually a little better than expected, rising by 1.1% in the quarter vs. our forecast of +0.3%. I think more of the decline in auto sales was apportioned to the business sector (fleet sales) and less to the retail side than we expected. Housing posted a reasonable gain of 3.5%, but this was less than half of our assumed rise. The monthly source data pointed to a bigger gain, so this is a bit puzzling."
-- Stephen Stanley, RBS Greenwich Capital
* * *
"The consensus was a bit optimistic but this is a big surprise. The softness against our 2.6% forecast is explained by two components, fixed investment and government consumption. The former rose only 3.0%, with equipment and software up only 3.5%. This is baffling, given the 19.5% annualized leap in the value of capital goods production and the 14.9% rise in shipments of core nondefense capital goods. We expect big upward revisions."
-- Ian Shepherdson, High Frequency Economics
* * *
"While this was a disappointing report, there are signs of a very sharp rebound in GDP growth in the current quarter. First, much of the miss in fourth-quarter inventories is likely to spill over to the first quarter. Second, at least a partial rebound in defense appears likely. Finally, the ramp for consumption spending is even more favorable in the aftermath of the fourth quarter data. The bottom line is that we now see a very good possibility of 5%+ GDP growth in Q1 -- versus our prior estimate of +4.2%."
-- David Greenlaw and Ted Wieseman, Morgan Stanley
Liftport Art
I have long been fascinated by the idea of a skyhook, a platform in geosynchronous orbit at the equator with a cable/powered-lift-system/rope-ladder hanging down that can be used to reach orbit cheaply. IF the human race is actually going to leave the planet, AND there is no technologizable change in the physics of inertia, THEN we need a sky hook.
Liftport has a terrific gallery of what the platform migh tlook like.
Liftport has a terrific gallery of what the platform migh tlook like.
Headline: People Make Poor Decisions!
Especially when it comes to politics:
Researchers asked staunch party members from both sides to evaluate information that threatened their preferred candidate prior to the 2004 Presidential election. The subjects' brains were monitored while they pondered.
…
"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," … "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts."
Researchers asked staunch party members from both sides to evaluate information that threatened their preferred candidate prior to the 2004 Presidential election. The subjects' brains were monitored while they pondered.
…
"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," … "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts."
Friday, January 27, 2006
Revenge Is A DIsh Best Served At High Volume
This is just beautiful. Read to the bottom for the payoff.
Right for the Wrong Reason
While I agree with his thesis, I think his arguement is actually wrong.
Fortunately some folks help out in the comments section.
Fortunately some folks help out in the comments section.
The technical term for this phenomena is called "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
A good rant on the physics of "go" verses the physics of "stop"
If anything, 4 wheel drive merely allows you to get yourself into more dangerous situations. We saw a Porsche 911 fishtailing all over the road. He was aware of his limitations in the snow and was going 30 mph. His torquey, rear wheel drive system had little in the way of traction in the snow -- and he knew it. He crept along in the right lane and still ran into some trouble. (On the other hand, I drove our rear wheel drive SLK home from White Plains Christmas Day 2002 in 6 inches of snow -- it took 3 and half hours versus the usual 60 minutes. I had no problem, but that's mostly because I am not an idiot.)
Now back to our 70 mph snow fools: In the event of loss of traction -- not too hard to imagine in 4 inches of snow -- you are merely a two ton hunk of steel sliding across a frictionless surface until you either regain directional control or run into some mass which stops you. Your Anti-Lock Brake System (ABS) is useless when your tires cannot make contact with the pavement. Modulating brake lock up when snowplaning on a 2 inch cushion of white stuff does you no good whatsoever. The technical term for this phenomena is called "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
If anything, 4 wheel drive merely allows you to get yourself into more dangerous situations. We saw a Porsche 911 fishtailing all over the road. He was aware of his limitations in the snow and was going 30 mph. His torquey, rear wheel drive system had little in the way of traction in the snow -- and he knew it. He crept along in the right lane and still ran into some trouble. (On the other hand, I drove our rear wheel drive SLK home from White Plains Christmas Day 2002 in 6 inches of snow -- it took 3 and half hours versus the usual 60 minutes. I had no problem, but that's mostly because I am not an idiot.)
Now back to our 70 mph snow fools: In the event of loss of traction -- not too hard to imagine in 4 inches of snow -- you are merely a two ton hunk of steel sliding across a frictionless surface until you either regain directional control or run into some mass which stops you. Your Anti-Lock Brake System (ABS) is useless when your tires cannot make contact with the pavement. Modulating brake lock up when snowplaning on a 2 inch cushion of white stuff does you no good whatsoever. The technical term for this phenomena is called "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
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