tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post6245663441173607306..comments2024-03-28T06:22:23.961-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Which crisis will we face next?David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger116125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-89559279302337136672017-03-10T14:55:56.207-08:002017-03-10T14:55:56.207-08:00onward
onwardonward<br /><br />onwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-33338547045763397552017-03-10T13:54:17.044-08:002017-03-10T13:54:17.044-08:00Please use locumranch's full monicker when he ...Please use locumranch's full monicker when he is clearly trying to be cogent and is laying off the strawmanning? We want to reward this. Even though - (sigh) - he is still wrong about everything. Except some Etymology points.<br /><br />Look, the one thing found in almost every study of brain activity, brain chemistry and personality is that Republicans are very very fearful people. And writhing is stark terror, now that they are confederates. This helps to explain why it's redder good ol' boys who are screeching over terrorism, despite the fact that city folk are the targets, and we can see that our parents in the 1940s suffered worse damage in any given week than we have across the entire "War on Terror."<br /><br />Not one thing that the screechers ever accuse Obama of ever came true. Not one, at all, ever. Nor, (with a few blemishes) the Clintons. Utterly scandal free and free of a scintilla of gun-seizing and black helicopters or even a whiff of corruption. <br /><br />Logical assertions can be disproved... but not fear-drenched hysterias.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46239120598662883472017-03-10T13:23:37.776-08:002017-03-10T13:23:37.776-08:00From Maximum Overdrive: "Curtis, are you dead...From <i>Maximum Overdrive</i>: "Curtis, are you dead?"<br /><br />From <i>Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan</i>, Kirk to Spock just after the Kobayashi Maru test: "Aren't you dead?"<br /><br />:-)<br /><br />As for Simpson, I'm pretty doggone white, and I applauded the acquittal - because so far as I could tell, the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Simpson killed anyone. (In fact, knowing LA traffic as I do, I found the prosecution's timeline improbable.) If the standard for a capital crime is not met at trial, the defendant <i>should</i> be acquitted, per the wise words of Benjamin Franklin: "That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved."Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11903687674146271189noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-12391381672545956482017-03-10T13:21:44.719-08:002017-03-10T13:21:44.719-08:00@LarryHart,
I don't recall the line from '...@LarryHart,<br /><br />I don't recall the line from 'Escape from New York', but I think it must be referencing 'Big Jake', as the line is something of a running joke in that film.greg byshenknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-3673516195124908892017-03-10T12:54:56.629-08:002017-03-10T12:54:56.629-08:00@greg byshenk,
Movies often quote from other movi...@greg byshenk,<br /><br />Movies often quote from other movies as an inside joke. I wouldn't know if the gag from "Escape From New York" was homaging "Big Jake" because I never saw the latter. One of the great disappointments of my late father's life was that he couldn't convince my brother and me to be interested in seeing "Big Jake" at the time it was out in theaters (late 60s? early 70s?). He thought it would be a good father/son bonding thing, and we just weren't into westerns.<br /><br />Now that I miss the man, dang, I could have taken one for the team.<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-7900048442187997902017-03-10T10:18:04.242-08:002017-03-10T10:18:04.242-08:00Hmmm...I thought it was Mark Twain... ;)Hmmm...I thought it was Mark Twain... ;)A.F. Reynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-33167599424796436672017-03-10T08:59:25.112-08:002017-03-10T08:59:25.112-08:00"I thought you were dead..."
I thought t..."I thought you were dead..."<br />I thought that was from 'Big Jake'.greg byshenknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-45412788593895069232017-03-10T08:22:03.391-08:002017-03-10T08:22:03.391-08:00Larry said @Paul SB,
(quoting "Escape from N...Larry said @Paul SB,<br /><br />(quoting "Escape from New York")<br /><br />"I thought you was dead."<br /><br />Close, but I'm recovering. Quoting Eeyore: "Thanks for noticing."Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-70851246397137206002017-03-10T08:08:13.722-08:002017-03-10T08:08:13.722-08:00Jeremiah's Invisible Tennis Net has no strings...Jeremiah's Invisible Tennis Net has no strings. It's a polite fiction; they are arbitrarily agreed upon. But Jeremiah is a cheat. Whenever his opponent hits one he claims it was in the path of the string netting. But when he hits one right into the net zone he cries about the falsity of the whole arbitrary rule and demands his point.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-45670811901765101072017-03-10T07:36:17.519-08:002017-03-10T07:36:17.519-08:00From today's www.electoral-vote.com :
Senate ...From today's www.electoral-vote.com :<br /><i><br />Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is less pessimistic than Cotton. Yesterday, he called on Republicans to put aside their differences and pass the House bill. He said that when the other party occupies the White House, you can aim for perfect solutions, but when your party is in charge of everything, people expect results, even if they are not 100% perfect in every way. Whether McConnell can actually control his caucus, however, is a different story.<br /></i><br /><br />I find this bizarre, to assert that when your party is merely an annoyance to the majority, that's the time to press your agenda without compromise, whereas when you control all of the levers of power, it is time to pass half-assed measures so you can claim victory.<br /><br /> LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-75301951316828770152017-03-10T06:39:45.421-08:002017-03-10T06:39:45.421-08:00Republican Ohio governor John Kasich writes an opi...Republican Ohio governor John Kasich writes an opinion piece in today's New York Times.<br /><br />https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/opinion/john-kasich-end-the-partisan-warfare-on-health-care.html<br /><br />This part stood out for me:<br /><i><br />In 2010, one side of the political aisle in Congress, the Democrats, chose to “fix” health care unilaterally, without bipartisan support. The result was Obamacare, which has run up government spending while failing to drive down the cost of health care.<br /></i><br /><br />First of all, in what way did Obamacare "fail to drive down costs"? Health care premiums had been increasing by double-digit percentages until Obamacare kicked in.<br /><br />More to my point, though, Republicans were the ones who refused to work on even the concept of universalizing health care. If the minority refuses to work with the majority, is that a sin of the <b>majority</b> that they acted without support from the obstructionists?<br /><br />It occurs to me that our two parties are increasingly polarized in this manner. One party does stuff, and the other stands atwhart history shouting "NEIN!". But the two polarizations are not equal. Reality has a liberal bias.<br /><br />Think of it as analogous to time travel. In every day, non-sci-fi life, we travel forward at a rate of one second per second. Democrats argue among themselves as to whether one second per second is optimal, or if we could do better to accelerate "faster" through time, and if the latter, which "speed" is best. Eisenhower-era Republicans might argue that one second per second exists for a reason, and that we'd do well not to upset the apple cart, but those Republicans hardly exist in national politics any more. The Republican Party seems to exist on a spectrum between those who insist on bringing time to a "standstill"--where any advance forward, no matter how "slowly" is anathema, vs those who think that even "standing still in time" is insufficient, and that anything short of <b>backwards</b> time travel is a betrayal of principle.<br /><br />The extremes on the two sides are not equivalent. One wants to move too quickly to a destination that will be reached eventually in time. The other wants to metaphorically sail up a waterfall. It makes sense that the two sides cannot reasonably compromise. It does not make sense to lay the blame for this failure on both sides.<br /><br /><br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-13908681148364065242017-03-10T06:31:22.930-08:002017-03-10T06:31:22.930-08:00I feel the latest CIA revelations from Wikileaks o...I feel the latest CIA revelations from Wikileaks once again proves the points in "The Transparent Society" book. That the powers that be will cheat and gather your login info before the point of encryption. Thus making it useless.Aristonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03763596757262594053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-80225134815323257012017-03-10T06:06:54.662-08:002017-03-10T06:06:54.662-08:00@Paul SB,
(quoting "Escape from New York&quo...@Paul SB,<br /><br />(quoting "Escape from New York")<br /><br />"I thought you was dead."<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-34170550749052607662017-03-10T06:05:37.238-08:002017-03-10T06:05:37.238-08:00locumranch:
Ergo, he must invariably conclude tha...locumranch:<br /><i><br />Ergo, he </i><b>must</b><i> invariably conclude that (either) the holder of the disparate viewpoint is deluded crazy or admit that he is, much like our left-leaning David does when he condemns the degenerate Red political right lest he admit to his own Blue taint of moral complicity.<br /></i><br /><br />Wherefore "must"?<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-24855000295888442792017-03-10T05:59:20.931-08:002017-03-10T05:59:20.931-08:00Tim H pointed out how market forces led to further...Tim H pointed out how market forces led to furthering the depopulation trends in 1960's rural America, Dr. Brin discussed the huge extent to which liberal government raised most of the nation's rural Caucasians out of the grinding poverty that had been characteristic for a couple centuries (to say nothing of improvements in nutrition and health care. Almost the entirety of the South used to be called "The Goiter Belt" because so many people had that disease due to poor nutrition - a problem solved by FDA fiat). Both Larry H and Dr. Brin pointed out that electing Republicans makes it worse for rural Caucasians, while electing Democrats results in improvements for all. Yet Loci persists in his delusions - as Donzelion said. <br /><br />But in spite of all the pixel shed over Arabic and English etymologies, the point little Loci was trying to makes was simply to slander a civilization, to put hundreds of millions of people into the same box and say that they are all a bunch of terrorists. This is no different than his constant harangue against both city-dwellers and women. The primary problem here is overgeneralization, or what in the common parlance would be called prejudice, or racism and sexism. In more scientific terms it is systematic bias. This is a key difference between sentient human beings and backward-looking troglodytes. Painting with too broad a brush. I don't know what social circles he circulates in, but most of the nation is slowly inching its way away from that ancient, primitive and ultimately self-destructive way of thinking. <br /><br />True, there have been some recent political events that show a backslide, but the trend is clear enough. Loci may be "walking down the up escalator" but he is walking down it with a decreasing number of people. And in the process he and his ilk have lost what credibility they once had. Most people can see the Emperor's new fashion statement - naked aggression, and as Larry once pointed out (or maybe it was Dr. Brin, or both) the more Team Trog slides toward defeat, the louder they screech.<br /><br />BeastPaul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-18526700596242533992017-03-10T05:57:42.627-08:002017-03-10T05:57:42.627-08:00donzelion:
traders MIGHT be highly virtuous if (a...donzelion:<br /><i><br />traders MIGHT be highly virtuous if (and only if) they applied the fruits of their trade to producing 'useful/wonderful' things (great public works) (magnanimity), and so long as they did not apply themselves merely to amassing/hoarding wealth.<br /></i><br /><br />Caveat emptor if I'm using the terms amateurishly. I see quite the distinction between amassing wealth by providing the commons with a previously-unavialable resource (i.e., refining ore, or taming a wilderness) vs hoarding, the mere act of claiming more of the commons as your own private property, off-limits to the public.<br /><br />Hoarding, as I use the term above, is on the spectrum of legal (or not) theft, somewhere between insider-trading and pillaging. The other kind of wealth-amassing is truly wealth-creating, a win-win which benefits the commons at the same time it makes an individual wealthy. It makes sense to be wary of the former while extolling the latter as a virtue. To me the essential sin of the Ayn Rand/Paul Ryan wing of conservatism is to willfully conflate the two things, equating hoarders with wealth-creators.<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-82715900604190891232017-03-10T05:45:23.387-08:002017-03-10T05:45:23.387-08:00donzelion:
Scott Pruitt is hardly alone in shrugg...donzelion:<br /><i><br />Scott Pruitt is hardly alone in shrugging aside causes of global warming, which are quite unlikely to drown Kansas any time soon <br /></i><br /><br />Not from rising oceans, no. But Kansas is already subject to severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, which will become worse over time. More drenching rain on very flat land is "a <b>kind</b> of drowning, Your Honor."<br /><br /><i><br />(and if they wipe out Miami, then Florida will be that much safer as a red-state).<br /></i><br /><br />But also much less influential. Florida now has more than one tenth of all electoral votes. Florida-without-Miami would be more like Alabama or Mississippi. And if all of those urban dwellers move up to Atlanta, then Georgia becomes one more solidly-blue state.<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-35546986654420964342017-03-09T23:51:39.073-08:002017-03-09T23:51:39.073-08:00It's clear that Donzelion is something of an A...<br />It's clear that Donzelion is something of an Arabic language scholar and, as such, he has my respect & admiration. His expertise in Arabic, however, in no way diminishes my grasp of English Etymology, it being a given that most English Etymology references attribute the origin of the term 'Assassin' to the Arabic root "haschishin" (meaning 'hashish-user"), at least according to translations of Marco Polo, as well as the other possible word origins reported above, while still other sources allege that it comes from a Persian word 'hassassin' meaning 'dagger' (according to 'The History of the Knights of Malta', circa 1860). <br /><br />Be that as it may, the study of etymology is fraught with frequent translation & transliteration error which often makes simple homophonic substitution the most likely explanation as in the case of al-Hassan's followers (aschishin), or their killing dagger of choice (hassassin), being the most likely source of the Anglicised term 'Assassin'.<br /><br />Finally, it behooves us to note that our resident Arabic language scholar is something of an 'a priori' Muslim Apologist, as evidenced by (1) his spirited rejection of what amounts to a 12th Century slander of al-Hasan ibn-al-Sabbah & his remorseless Shiite killers and (2) his insistence that the honorific 'Hassan' indicates profound physical handsomeness.<br /><br />So sure is Donzelion of both his Arabic expertise & the innocence of his valued Muslim study subjects that he must ASSUME that Islamophobia (no matter how well-reasoned & supported) represents either bigotry or delusion, elsewise his fragile ego would be crushed by cognitive dissonance.<br /><br />Ergo, he must invariably conclude that (either) the holder of the disparate viewpoint is deluded crazy or admit that he is, much like our left-leaning David does when he condemns the degenerate Red political right lest he admit to his own Blue taint of moral complicity.<br /><br /><br />Bestlocumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-49286137969056041242017-03-09T22:51:39.707-08:002017-03-09T22:51:39.707-08:00Unsurprisingly, I call BS on almost everything loc...Unsurprisingly, I call BS on almost everything locumranch has said since i got home. Still, he is debating with better panaches and some surficial traits of sane disputation, so let’s reward that.<br /><br />Still, he is old enough to remember horrid images of “hillbilly” poverty, not just in Appalachia but across the white south. One wave of “liberal aggression” — the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Interstate Highway System and federal health clinics and agricultural offices — had slashed that poverty in half.<br /><br />Johnson’s subsequent War on Poverty went vastly more to white southerners and Appalachians than any other groups. They benefited spectacularly, so that “hillbilly” stereotypes pretty much went away. Did they still lag the nation? Sure. But most of the grinding misery was GONE by Reagan’s time! And what remained was largely mismanagement by loony state governments.<br /><br />It is entirely a different world, and the parents in the Greatest Generation knew this and voted democrat. It’s their Boomer sons who are stunning ingrates.<br /><br />Why?<br /><br />You guys have got to read at least the writeup on this book.<br /><br />WHY did conservatives love Bush’s No Child Left Behind? Because it demanded accountability from teachers! Yay! Why did they swing around and hate it? Because the testing showed that Red States do crappy at educating their kids. They flunk across the board, in every category and keep falling farther behind? The solution? Private church schools! Yay!<br /><br />Oh, BTW, stop whining about Blue Folks contempt for redders. You’ve got it NOW! And I guess there were always some who sneered. But NOTHING like the incessant yowls that city folks have no values. We have heard that shit repeated incessantly, all our lives, frantically. Now that all national comity is gone, we don’t have to wince and take it, anymore.<br /><br />"The yeoman of his own acre is the backbone of the German people's strength and character. Cowards are born in towns, heroes in the country." -- Heinrich Himmler<br /><br />Diametrically opposite to true. Who is screeching about “terrorism”? City folks who are the targets if ISIS? Or whimpering good old boys?<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-34598838965630170062017-03-09T22:51:27.175-08:002017-03-09T22:51:27.175-08:00Carl M I am not someone who has forgotten left win...Carl M I am not someone who has forgotten left wing terrorism! But what’s your point? It is insatiable oligarchic imbeciles who are causing the words “Karl” and “Marx” to be spoken aloud again, in countless places where they had been forgotten. <br /><br />Jumper we can move planets if they have a big moon! See my riff on this by googling my name and “lift the earth!”<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-1901831711166739682017-03-09T20:18:53.817-08:002017-03-09T20:18:53.817-08:00LarryHart: re this exchange -
Brother Doug: &qu...LarryHart: re this exchange - <br /><br />Brother Doug: <i>"As far as I can tell, most of the suffering of "Red America" has been at the hands of their own leadership, who foists the blame onto others."</i><br /><br />Your own addition: <i>"...the proposed solution--elect Republicans--is the equivalent of spraying gasoline on a fire in order to put it out. "Who could have known that wouldn't work?"</i><br /><br />There is a strange sort of jubilation in anticipating someone burning up in such a 'bombing' as that - so long as it happens to someone else, somewhere far away. Jonah was hardly unusual in wanting to see the wicked people suffer, rather than repent. Scott Pruitt is hardly alone in shrugging aside causes of global warming, which are quite unlikely to drown Kansas any time soon (and if they wipe out Miami, then Florida will be that much safer as a red-state).donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-74834074922768727812017-03-09T20:07:54.000-08:002017-03-09T20:07:54.000-08:00Alfred: While trade was generally viewed as '...Alfred: While trade was generally viewed as 'zero sum' up until the 17th century, trade in certain goods was considered an extension of reaping the fruit of the earth, and thus not entirely 'zero sum.' The 'older virtue ethics' held 'magnanimity' as the highest possible virtue (followed only by liberality) - traders MIGHT be highly virtuous if (and only if) they applied the fruits of their trade to producing 'useful/wonderful' things (great public works) (magnanimity), and so long as they did not apply themselves merely to amassing/hoarding wealth. Indeed, where wealth is concerned, Aristotlian ethics could readily merge with Christian doctrine (numerous parables of rich men).donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-84960137846040814092017-03-09T19:59:53.072-08:002017-03-09T19:59:53.072-08:00Carl M: Noted; I haven't read Burrough's b...Carl M: Noted; I haven't read Burrough's book, but am well aware of the history of leftwing terrorism. The dichotomies I prefer separate 'ethnonationalist' groups from 'leftwing' groups - they operate differently (and are fought and defeated through different means); my preference is for Gurr, and subsequent research on political violence following his approaches.<br /><br />One point though: the number everyone cites by Max Noel ("at least 1900 bombings in 1972") is problematic, because statistical sources at the time would include a large number of 'bombings' that today would NOT be counted as terrorist attacks (e.g., we had 282,600 arson fires from 2007-2011, according to the National Fire Protection Association - many of which would have been classified as 'bombings' in a different era given the various ignition mechanisms, but today are treated differently). <br /><br />Had I come of age in the '60s, I'd have been as frustrated with left-wing trolls and their delusions as I am with Locum's delusions. Delusions hurt people. This is one of the reasons I find Dr. Brin's writing here refreshing and keep returning (even if I criticize him occasionally, I do not distrust his intentions).donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-62392701835933051672017-03-09T19:29:36.990-08:002017-03-09T19:29:36.990-08:00Locum: re the origins of the term 'Assassin...Locum: re the origins of the term 'Assassin' - <br />The Arabic common name 'Hassan' means 'handsome.' The word is transliterated h-s-n using the standard trileteral root typical of semitic languages (both Arabic and Hebrew, as well as Aramaic, but not Persian, which is an Indo-European language). The Arabic word for "to kill" (which, as with semitic tongues, becomes the base for 'killer' and 'murderer') is variously q-t-l ('qatala' in its basic form), and the word for slaughter is dh-b-H (strong H, a consonant not present in English). H-S-N as a verb means "to make handsome" and has nothing to do with murder, slaughter, or extermination. Please name your source. Mine is the Hans Wehr dictionary, the most respected in the English/Arabic world, as it reviews all uses and transformations of trileteral roots.<br /><br /><i>"Nothing personal, Donzelion, but your knowledge of language history & economics are substandard."</i><br />Seeing as how I studied this language for years, lived among scholars and studied both the Assassins and other sects, it is sort of personal. And you're either making things up, or you've found a source that is itself an idiot. I have put my life on the line, lived and worked in these regions, and walked beside our soldiers through places where people were shooting when they were shooting. On this subject, you're an armchair dilettante who might have read a book or played a videogame somewhere (name it, and I'll offer my critique - and also if needed, evaluate the sources behind the sources). <br /><br />That said, Bernard Lewis (of Princeton) did review the evidence that the word 'Assassin' might be linked to Hassan, and rejected it as even less probable than the 'hashish' origins. There is at least some historical basis for the 'hashish' claim (not that the Assassins actually used it, but that their opponents accused them of doing so), dating to the 12th century, with well-authenticated backing (typically, the Fatimid Caliphate, itself Shi'a, albeit not Nizari/Ismaili).donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-81058197883429729422017-03-09T19:05:39.657-08:002017-03-09T19:05:39.657-08:00Locum, I'm hesitant to to say much about "... Locum, I'm hesitant to to say much about "Red America" because the causes are a tangled "Charlie Foxtrot" of ideas that seemed good at the time, objectification of human beings and bad ideas enshrined by long habit. One example, back in the 60s, farm support policy was altered to encourage larger, more efficient operations, this reduced the number of participants in the rural economies, starving small town businesses. It didn't end there, makers of agricultural equipment experienced a change in what they could sell, the market in small equipment dried up, and the fewer, larger sales to larger operations didn't need as many worker, are even as many manufacturers and became one of the factors in the "Rust belt". This is just one of many things going on, and the affected people surely didn't deserve it, voting Democrat might help, but would be insufficient, campaign finance might be an appropriate place to start shoveling.Tim H.noreply@blogger.com