tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post6398709780800410117..comments2024-03-28T15:48:48.514-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Religious and polysyllabic justifications for treasonDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger71125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-43390516311836299532017-07-29T11:49:51.599-07:002017-07-29T11:49:51.599-07:00All straw man all the time, 24-7.
Only an idiot or...All straw man all the time, 24-7.<br />Only an idiot or a liar would claim people are running around claiming perfection. Who??<br />Therefore, locumranch, you're an idiot and/or a liar. My money is on "and."Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-10662980732922995992017-07-29T10:54:13.856-07:002017-07-29T10:54:13.856-07:00onward
onwardonward<br /><br />onwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-90053316910486243062017-07-29T10:47:35.225-07:002017-07-29T10:47:35.225-07:00Blah blah blah... "nothing is real! Nothing ...Blah blah blah... "nothing is real! Nothing is true! It's all subjective! You fact-users are bullies! Waaaaa-a-a-a!"<br /><br />ALL of the civilizations that tried your approach were total disasters of filth, grinding poverty, ignorance, disease, capricious injustice and horror. <br /><br />ALL of the civilizations that tried the Periclean approach (objective reality exists, but delusional humans can only find it through open-flat-fair-adversairial and grownup discourse) all of them have blossomed and succeeded. All right, there has been only one. But it accomplished more than ALL others, combined.<br /><br />And we've done it despite tantrum throwing ankle-biters kicking and screaming "Give me back my chains!"<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-72680596283715557372017-07-29T10:45:23.214-07:002017-07-29T10:45:23.214-07:00Oh look, more argument by assertion! Surprise! Aft...Oh look, more argument by assertion! Surprise! After our buddy loci retires and the Republicans have taken away his health care, too, he might consider working at a movie theater to pay for his pre-existing conditions - he's got this projection thing down!<br /><br />And I am sure that those who would call him Tim are not impressed by his attempt at getting some halo effect by using his (nick)name. Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-12254173080580046602017-07-29T09:40:16.712-07:002017-07-29T09:40:16.712-07:00"I'm rubber and you're glue": Is...<br /><br />"I'm rubber and you're glue": Is this childish chant really the best at dialectic that some of you can do?<br /><br />The theories we construct, the assertions we make & the truths we offer represent our subject take on reality rather the 'ultimate' in Objective Reality. <br /><br />To remind you of this, that's why the likes of Treebeard & I hang around here and why the likes of Tacitus2 absent themselves, as those who assume perfection of purpose, form & knowledge desist in its pursuit.<br /><br />This is also the why & the how of civilisation's fall because the assumption of apical perfection offers descent as the only directional option ...<br /><br />Hence the assumption of catastrophe whenever purposeful, political or climate change occurs.<br /><br /><br />Best<br />_____<br /><br />Eeek! Trump is the destroyer of worlds because all Pre-Trump things were the very pinnacle of perfection.locumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-69237792351479018092017-07-29T08:26:24.728-07:002017-07-29T08:26:24.728-07:00http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/special-report...http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/special-reports/exclusive-winning-candidates-helped-voters-fill-out-their-ballots/V0ieae6VcZNNWF6I9ylRdM/<br /><br />Here's the sort of election tampering which actually <i>should</i> be investigated.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-7716151124388318212017-07-29T05:32:11.762-07:002017-07-29T05:32:11.762-07:00https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/us/politics/joh...https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/us/politics/john-mccain-health-care-senate-collapse-skinny.html<br /><br /><i><br />By the time the end came, Vice President Mike Pence — dispatched to the Senate to cast a tiebreaking vote — instead seemed resigned. Ms. Collins had clustered with the other two “no” Republicans, waiting to cast their votes.<br /><br />“All of the sudden someone tapped on my back and it was the vice president,” Ms. Collins said. “He obviously had heard that John has decided to vote no. He was well aware of my vote and Lisa’s position and he was there to talk to John.<br /><br />“He said, ‘Boy, are you tough,’ but he softened it by putting his arm around me as he said it.”<br /></i><br /><br />Was his wife in the room while he was doing that?<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-68488659069186288752017-07-29T05:09:29.131-07:002017-07-29T05:09:29.131-07:00a god or a madman:
yet only a god or a madman wou...a god or a madman:<br /><i><br />yet only a god or a madman would dare claim unerring knowledge of what Objective Reality is.<br /></i><br /><br />And unless you credit the possibility of your being a god, the conclusion is clear.<br /><i><br />Now, let the yowling resume.<br /></i><br /><br />Naw, it just finished.<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-32145213292607680942017-07-29T05:05:34.583-07:002017-07-29T05:05:34.583-07:00From today's www.electoral-vote.com :
The &qu...From today's www.electoral-vote.com :<br /><i><br />The "no" vote from McCain was certainly a big surprise. Had he voted "yes," the bill would have passed. To make it worse, he could have issued a kind of legislative "pocket veto" by simply staying in Arizona, claiming he was too ill to travel. No one would have contradicted him. Instead, he made a point of flying to D.C. to cast the final and decisive vote, possibly his last vote ever. For Republicans who don't like McCain—and there are many—he is an obvious traitor to the Party. <br /></i><br /><br />Ok, maybe McCain's point really was to give the finger back to Trump. I'm not sure why he voted "yes" on debate first, unless he really wanted to give the Senate a chance to act as the world's greatest deliberative body, and only after they pointedly failed to do so drop the hammer. In any case, his dramatic flight to DC while medically endangered to the cheers of McConnell and Trump and then casting the deciding "no" vote humorously echoes such Trump antics as his "eat crow" meal with Mitt Romney.<br /><br />Maybe my summer daydream wasn't so far off after all.<br /><br />Another thing I don't quite understand about the way the vote went down. Remember that several GOP Senators were bizarrely willing to vote for the "skinny repeal" as long as the House guaranteed not to pass it? If my understanding is accurate, what they wanted to do was send it to a conference committee with the House and have them both hammer out an alternative plan that may or may not resemble what they originally passed at all. Then, the leadership of both houses would insist that their members vote for the new thing or else be responsible for Obamacare succeeding. Well, if that was the plan, why didn't they just do that with the version that the House already passed?LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-41790192013847467522017-07-29T04:54:26.709-07:002017-07-29T04:54:26.709-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Theresa williamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17287986721251835460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-54502558151933940962017-07-28T19:20:55.110-07:002017-07-28T19:20:55.110-07:00Did you see that? He can parrot the right words e...Did you see that? He can parrot the right words even! But when nearly ALL evidence shows it applies to him, not us, that thought cannot even cross the mind.<br /><br />CarlM I wrote this reply to you, and I don't recall whether I posted it.<br /><br />You said: “if you have a flat wealth tax with personal exemption, you don't need identification! That's the beauty of it. Tax all wealth at the top rate and let those who identify themselves get a rebate by identifying themselves.”<br /><br />Huh… well… that IS an alternative to my Wealth Revelation Treaty. Only how you’d actually tax wealth that has no declared owner is beyond me. You’d have to slice of … chunks? Of land? Of this shell-masked business. Of that shell-masked hotel?<br /><br />My approach wagers that several trillions of property will just be abandoned rather than the owners revealing themselves. Most of those would be illicit or criminal activities or persons. The tsunami of abandoned property could one-time erase public debt. (And we would hope the next generation would learn a lesson.)<br /><br />Yes, illicit drug lords would transfer vast wealth to be laundered through 10,000 poor families, who would declare it, then “sell it” back openly. Only what a boon for those 10,000 poor families who will get a cut that would be big enough to look credible!<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-49318155983598347722017-07-28T18:58:59.041-07:002017-07-28T18:58:59.041-07:00"... yet only a god or a madman would dare cl..."... yet only a god or a madman would dare claim unerring knowledge of what Objective Reality is."<br />- Funny how this is precisely what locum does in nearly every post.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38918065405944875422017-07-28T18:41:34.639-07:002017-07-28T18:41:34.639-07:00What are the odds locum strawmans "what scien...What are the odds locum strawmans "what scientists think?" How likely?Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-72905050135456797522017-07-28T18:04:51.205-07:002017-07-28T18:04:51.205-07:00Yes, indeed.
Both David & I agree that "...<br /><br />Yes, indeed.<br /><br />Both David & I agree that "Objective. Reality. Exists", the distinction being that most scientists do not claim to possess unerring knowledge of "Objective Reality", but only claim to possess subjective approximations thereof. <br /><br />The Scientific Method has allowed us (humanity) to construct better & more accurate approximations of Objective Reality, yet only a god or a madman would dare claim unerring knowledge of what Objective Reality is.<br /><br />Now, let the yowling resume.<br /><br /><br />Bestlocumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-10867225416140672822017-07-28T17:33:49.747-07:002017-07-28T17:33:49.747-07:00locumranch is wrong (pardon the redundancy) about ...locumranch is wrong (pardon the redundancy) about the ACA repeal attempt. It failed because the Senators' constituents wanted it to fail. That's how democracy is supposed to work. McConnell and Trump tried to threaten those Senators with a primary challenge if they didn't deliver on their "promise" to repeal the ACA, but the constituents to whom that promise was made were the ones admonishing those Senators <b>not</b> to repeal. The idea that they would then punish the Senators who voted as those constituents demanded--against repeal--isn't much of a threat.<br /><br />The dysfunction is actually in the action of electing Republicans in the first place. The Republican voters apparently prefigured the Senate vote on the Skinny Repeal--voting for Senators who campaigned on repealing the ACA while expecting or hoping that they wouldn't actually repeal the ACA once elected.<br /><br />It has already been pointed out many times on this list that a subset of Americans asserting their right to due treatment as full citizens is not "the same thing" as a subset asserting their right to dominate others as a birthright. That's a different thing, in fact the opposite thing. This false equivalence belongs in the same dustbin of history with Supply Side economics.<br /><br />The ACA repeal failed because:<br /><i><br />You don't have the votes.<br />Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.<br />You don't have the votes.<br />You're gonna need congressional approval, and<br />You don't have the votes.<br /></i><br /><br />And the reason they couldn't muster the votes was because:<br /><i><br />I'll give him this.<br />His health-care plan was a work of genius.<br />I couldn't undo it if I tried.<br />And I tried!<br /></i><br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87608575039799848872017-07-28T15:52:03.255-07:002017-07-28T15:52:03.255-07:00“how my various cult-like 'hallucinations'...“how my various cult-like 'hallucinations' are to be tested against your cult's preconceived notions of consensus reality”…<br /><br /> No. they fail the way you’d fail by screaming “I’m on the ground floor!” after stepping out a 40th story window. Objective. Reality. Exists. <br /><br />“a defeat that serves to demonstrate massive government dysfunction” <br /><br /> No, it demonstrates the stunning hypocrisy, dishonesty and lunacy of your cult. 7 years they have screeched readiness to offer us something better. Seven. Years. Of. Howls. Maniacal arm-waving and promises. Obamacare was their own damn plan and they have nothing to replace it.<br /><br />“we're just a little short at the moment”<br /><br />Because you gave it all to your yes massa plantation lords.<br /><br />The rest is incoherent yowling.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-19961142716513099042017-07-28T14:46:11.220-07:002017-07-28T14:46:11.220-07:00I agree with Lloyd_F's description of what sci...<br /><br />I agree with Lloyd_F's description of what scientists 'do' with the following clarifications:<br /><br />"Scientists test their ideas against (their conception of CONSENSUS) reality (and), when multiple lines of evidence point to the same conclusion there will be a consensus (about the perceived CORRECTNESS of their consensual reality) that is used as the basis for further investigation (into their preconceived notion of consensual reality).<br /><br />That said, allow me to describe how my various cult-like 'hallucinations' are to be tested against your cult's preconceived notions of consensus reality:<br /><br />Following last night's defeat of the ACA repeal, a defeat that serves to demonstrate massive government dysfunction rather than any perceived validation of the ACA, the Trump Administration will follow through on its promise to allow 'Obamacare to implode' by the application of the Brownback Strategy.<br /><br />Brownback, the former Kansas Governor who has just resigned (and, I mean 'just') in order to join the Trump Administration, developed a rather unique & apropos federal nullification strategy during his Kansas governorship.<br /><br />Some would call Brownback's nullification strategy one of 'targeted bankruptcy' as it nullifies federal edict (not by overt defiance but) by the targeted bankruptcy (and/or elimination) of program-specific funding sources.<br /><br />This strategy allowed the then Governor of Kansas to virtually ignore federal mandates on the basis of inadequate state-level funding, much in the same way that inadequate funding allowed the US automaker GM (circa 2012), US financial institutions like AIG (circa 2009) & major US airlines (circa 2005) to run roughshod over federal legal mandates pertaining to business practices, investments & pensions.<br /><br />"Gosh Darn", exclaim various confederates, conservatives & trumpians, "We would absolutely LOVE to fully fund all of your federal (and oh-so-enlightened) Nanny State entitlements, freebies & circuses but -- who would've guessed -- we're just a little short at the moment, even though we have (literally) millions for defense but not one penny for tribute".<br /><br />Most would-be social progressives are to discover that it's not much fun to have the 'turn-about-is-fair-play' principle applied to their very own brand of leftist identity politics. <br /><br />For, with the demographic passing of the historical white majority, so passes the utility of minority identity politics UNLESS would-be social progressives wish to sanction the very ethnocentric identity groups that they so despise ... such as the Alt-Right.<br /><br />Poor Matthew must be crying in his Bosco & pooping his nappies right about now.<br /><br /><br />Best<br />locumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-64323042199976262272017-07-28T14:43:00.468-07:002017-07-28T14:43:00.468-07:00On your caution regarding impeaching Trump in favo...On your caution regarding impeaching Trump in favor of Pence, theologian (and your fellow science fiction writer) C.S. Lewis says: "I am a democrat because I believe that no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretensions of such power, the more dangerous I think it both to rulers and to the subjects. Hence Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point may be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely more because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations."Creigh Gordonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05267728698204033199noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-61376224037398568822017-07-28T14:26:46.741-07:002017-07-28T14:26:46.741-07:00Fascinating look at politics in Shia-majority Iraq...Fascinating look at politics in Shia-majority Iraq right now.<br />https://english.aawsat.com/amir-taheri/opinion/tehrans-new-scheme-iraq<br />Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-81111305303106766002017-07-28T12:55:13.577-07:002017-07-28T12:55:13.577-07:00Treebeard focuses again on the loony left, whose m...Treebeard focuses again on the loony left, whose main concrete contribution is to ensure mainstream progressives don't get elected. He's mentioned in the past the attacks on religion, which are more organic than just one faction, resulting from the rejection of fairy tales by reasonable people such as the founders of the USA. I suspect the bundling of sadism with religion is more than a little of what is actually being "attacked."<br /><br />Sane Americans of all types will reject "doubletalk." I have a big suspicion for example that transgender people are often "trickster" types who comprise some 30% minimum narcissists. Others have surrendered to their own experience of being surrounded by a chauvinist family upbringing and mistakenly adopting those tenets. I don't know if fetishists should get the separate status as requested. And many feminist thinkers agree. On the other hand, it's no bigger a deal than respecting dietary, beard, sabbath or head-covering exceptions.<br /><br />As far as "whiteness" Treebeard mentioned, it's an error to call the infuriating blindness of some Anglos to the tilt on the playing field "whiteness." (a causation - correlation error, or perhaps synecdoche ). That seems to be a "gotcha" aimed at non-Anglos who use that as a shorthand. <br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SynecdocheJumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-80176591615807497892017-07-28T12:28:37.514-07:002017-07-28T12:28:37.514-07:00"Dig this well. Despite his stint at Goldman-..."<i>Dig this well. Despite his stint at Goldman-Sachs — a job requirement in the Trump Administration — Bannon has never been a plutocrat. He is a fascist. The genuine article, not any of the ersatz things that silly lefties call by that name</i>"<br /><br />The irony is that Evola would have despised Bannon. Evola felt the power of the "merchants" - I.e capitalists - was the epitome of decadence. He supported a romanticized version of feudal Japan or India under the caste system, with a ruling class of priests and warriors keeping those pesky vulgar shopkeepers in place. The sight of a former Goldman Sachs employee propping up a property tycoon in his name would have Evola spinning in his grave. Laurencehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15525214461529206205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-36939861471716035982017-07-28T12:09:01.864-07:002017-07-28T12:09:01.864-07:00WTF do we have to fear about “loss of whiteness” w...WTF do we have to fear about “loss of whiteness” when the basic Anglo-Scots- Enlightenment Revolution is taking over the world! Not through power and bluster (though power certainly helped erect Pax Americana), but through culture!<br /><br />Hollywood spreads the memes of that Anglo-Scot (and yes, Lutheran/Jewish) revolution with stunning effectiveness. Nearly all immigrants raise kids here who become as American as can be (“white” in every way except the least important: skin color.) Though yes, our cultural richness does deepen and spread. We eat SO much better now!<br /><br />But most telling is: “No amount of abstract, intellectual arguments or "facts" is likely to change this basic revulsion, and this sense that I am a target of a vast campaign of cultural destruction.”<br /><br />Yes! Absolutely right! You DO have that sense! And you are frantic for someone to blame for it. And the most distressing possibility of all - that the demon is *within* — must be rejected! And since all facts seem to point that way, then facts are the enemy.<br /><br />Like the fact that this way of thinking made life hell for nearly all of our ancestors. And when we started paying heed to fact, only then did we start getting justice, vast productivity, knowledge, stunning power and accomplishment. And fun.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52621988252222124202017-07-28T12:07:26.547-07:002017-07-28T12:07:26.547-07:00Treebeard’s whine is better than average. As Locum...Treebeard’s whine is better than average. As Locumranch did recently, he whinges and moans and says untrue things… but in a way that seems genuine and speaks from his cult’s palpable, zero-sum fears. (Hence my use of both full names.)<br /><br />Never mind that women have not stopped admiring brave and strong men. Or that bravery and strength among males are doing just fine. It’s just that the brave and strong males don’t mind having brave-strong females at their side. (And yes, we like them to be all squishy and squeaky at the right times; they seem to like it that way, too. Most of them.)<br /><br />Confident hetero males know they are still “on top”. They just don’t need to frantically be on-top by the same repressive and horrifically unfair MARGIN that frantic homophobes and wife-beaters demand. A demand that society waste immense amounts of talent, just so the insecure (like locum and treebeard) can feel reassured. Indeed, we are growing accustomed to the fact that women and minorities and - yes - gays can be really good at their jobs and ambitions, too.<br /><br />Again, the confederate feudalist plantation lords got a million poor white southerners to march and die for them for one reason. Oppressed and crushed under feudalist boots, those poor whites could still say: "At least I can beat blacks and wimmin." This is the confederate fever, reborn.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-25945335928140946402017-07-28T12:06:27.128-07:002017-07-28T12:06:27.128-07:00Treebeard is so sad that he will no longer get a h...Treebeard is so sad that he will no longer get a headstart on everything compared to brown people, female people, gay people. SO SAD! <br /><br />"It's not fair that the liberals will make me compete with the rest of humanity! Wahhh! My feelings are hurt that I don't get an advantage anymore! I'm gonna call you names and make threats that I would never dare to say in person because I'm a coward! Waaahh! I'm gonna find a strongman to protect MY interests by pushing the rest of you down." <br /><br />What a weak, weak psyche. <br /><br /> matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-21125559733158652622017-07-28T12:04:17.601-07:002017-07-28T12:04:17.601-07:00CarlM the one thing on this planet that threatens ...CarlM the one thing on this planet that threatens us above all else is the oligarchy's ability to scurry around sheltering secrets. Moreover you know this.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.com