tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post1619212888989478842..comments2024-03-18T21:52:45.757-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Noah, the Tower of Babel…and ScienceDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger151125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-36406046097336180962014-05-29T13:59:27.002-07:002014-05-29T13:59:27.002-07:00Gator:
I didn't say I agreed with him, and I ...Gator:<br /><br />I didn't say I agreed with him, and I can think of lots of other reasons not to kill millions. But I wondered if anybody else knew the quote, and how others would respond to it.<br /><br />Maybe, he meant, in the long run, millions of years from now, will it matter if humans exist(ed) or how they treated each other?<br /><br />He might have been suggesting that the Nazi regime wouldn't have lasted, the world would descend into a permanent dark age, but would it matter one way or another to the universe at large? <br /><br />(Like I said, I don't have the name of the philosopher I was quoting, I don't really know what he thought about God.)<br /><br />Martin Luther in his collection, "Table Talk" had another good quote--your god is that which you fear most to lose.<br /><br />We don't agree with everything Luther said, but that one seemed like a good definition.<br /><br />One more quote, then I'll go. <br /><br />J. B. S. Haldane - <br />My own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.<br /><br />If all sentient beings get some sort of afterlife (not necessarily the one in the Bible) that might seem pretty queer.<br /><br />(And by queer I'm sure he didn't mean gay, but...)<br /><br />I wonder, which of the following have souls?<br /><br />Humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans, Homo Idaltu, Flores, habilis, erectus, Chimps, Gorillas, parrots, octopi, sentient dust clouds, C3PO, R2D2, Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker....?<br /><br />(Trick question--the last four are fictional. Oh, well. I don't know. But I still wanna be nice.)<br /><br />(The Bible suggests there might be plants and animals in heaven--so there might be Denisovans as well.)<br /><br />Okay, I'll stop now before I get silly. <br />stephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09547870297907131499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-63681492992239441592014-05-28T13:10:01.191-07:002014-05-28T13:10:01.191-07:00@D Duffy
I am a pragmatic nihilist. If "I&qu...@D Duffy<br />I am a pragmatic nihilist. If "I" stub my toe, "I" hurt. If "I" throw a rock at "you", "you" complain. This is sufficient for lil ole me to go with a working version of "self" and "other". I suspect it is for you as well.<br /><br />There is no comparable pragmatic test for "god." There is nothing in science that corresponds to "god" where I can throw a rock at him and make him react. You want to call something that exists outside of time, before time, ?, and does not have any measurable interaction with the universe after the big bang "god". Well, I don't see the utility in that, but if it helps you sleep at night, I guess that makes it useful. I honestly don't see how you can find "meaning" in that. Gatornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-20694727891931144852014-05-28T13:00:30.295-07:002014-05-28T13:00:30.295-07:00@Stephen
"I read a quote in the New York Time...@Stephen<br />"I read a quote in the New York Times Book Review, and I wish I'd written down the name. This was from a philospher with a German-Jewish sounding name.<br />I don't find this quote anywhere.<br /><br />The only philosophically valid objection to the Nazi Holocaust is the possibility of eternal perdition in an afterlife."<br /><br />Wow. You can't think of any other reason not to slaughter millions of your neighbors other than fear of hell? I hope you don't live near me.Gatornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-14839830619706653982014-05-27T13:48:26.647-07:002014-05-27T13:48:26.647-07:00I read a quote in the New York Times Book Review, ...I read a quote in the New York Times Book Review, and I wish I'd written down the name. This was from a philospher with a German-Jewish sounding name.<br />I don't find this quote anywhere.<br /><br />The only philosophically valid objection to the Nazi Holocaust is the possibility of eternal perdition in an afterlife.stephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09547870297907131499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-43428686796908650632014-05-26T13:33:18.362-07:002014-05-26T13:33:18.362-07:00"It is not obvious to you that accidents are ...<i>"It is not obvious to you that accidents are inherently meaningless?"</i><br /><br />No, it is not. As I said, you state this as an axiom, when in fact if you wish to persuade others you must back this assertion with data.Jonathan S.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-69180532256441886982014-05-26T08:34:43.952-07:002014-05-26T08:34:43.952-07:00This really says it all.
From Kurt Vonnegut's...This really says it all.<br /><br />From Kurt Vonnegut's novel "God Bless You Mr. Rosewater" published in 1964:<br /><i><br />When the United States of America, which was meant to be a Utopia for all, was less than a century old, Noah Rosewater and a few men like him demonstrated the folly of the Founding Fathers in one respect: those sadly recent ancestors had not made it the law of the Utopia that the wealth of each citizen should be limited. This oversight was engendered by a weak-kneed sympathy for those who loved expensive things, and by the feeling that the continent was so vast and valuable, and the population so thin and enterprising, that no thief, no matter how fast he stole, could more than mildly inconvenience anyone.<br /><br />Noah, and a few like him perceived that the continent was in fact finite, and that venal office-holders, legislators in particular, could be persuaded to toss great hunks of it up for grabs, and to toss them in such a way as to have them land where Noah and his kind were standing.<br /><br />Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus, the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went <b>bang</b> in the noonday sun.<br /><br /><b>E. pluribis unum</b> was surely an ironic motto to inscribe on the currency of this Utopia gone bust, for every grotesquely rich American represents property, privileges, and pleasures that have been deined the many. An even more instructive motto, in the light of history made by the Noah Rosewaters might be: <b>Grab much too much, or you'll get nothing at all.</b><br /></i> LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-21610418022989740862014-05-26T04:48:01.867-07:002014-05-26T04:48:01.867-07:00Duncan Cairncross:
But I don't think democrac...Duncan Cairncross:<br /><i><br />But I don't think democracy can exist with massive inequality.<br /></i><br /><br />I'd put it slightly differently--I don't think democracy can exist without a robust commons which can support the community's needs.<br /><br />Think of it this way--a healthy society can produce enough food for its citizens and even provide a <b>surplus</b> which can be traded for luxuries or converted to cash which can be traded. But that's not where we are at. We consider <b>all</b> of the food to be someone else's private property. The private owners of the means of survival are not obligated to feed us with it. We therefore only have a right to live to the extent that we are useful to the private owners of the means of survival.<br /><br />That's the part that democracy cannot exist alongside.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-55797318165898305912014-05-25T22:40:06.094-07:002014-05-25T22:40:06.094-07:00Tony Said
"An inexorable accumulation of weal...Tony Said<br />"An inexorable accumulation of wealth would have reached an equilibrium by now, surely? Yet we are currently the most egalitarian society in history"<br /><br />First - you are not - America may have been back in the 1940's - but as Piketty shows you are now back where you were in the 1910's - actually its worse you are back where Europe was then<br /><br />The reason that inequality has not gone to a limit is;<br />War/Rebellion/Collapse<br />The re-distribution that occurred 1914 - 1945 - 1970<br /><br />Before that America was "insulated" by a very high growth rate <br />3 million to 300 million in 200 years <br /><br />Before Piketty there was an "understanding" that there were equalizing mechanisms in capitalism and that as time went by inequality would reduce<br /><br />Turns out - there is no such mechanism,the reason some economists thought there were such mechanisms is because their data was all from the time of redistribution -1914 - 1970(ish)<br /><br />Its not hopeless - simple things like wealth taxes can control the growth in inequality<br /><br />But I don't think democracy can exist with massive inequalityDuncan Cairncrossnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-39507340966067017072014-05-25T20:27:17.517-07:002014-05-25T20:27:17.517-07:00I never knew there was a cult based on a bad Wolfe...I never knew there was a cult based on a bad Wolfe essay so full of straw men it should have spontaneously combusted upon the ink drying.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-41352734221805569802014-05-25T19:15:23.602-07:002014-05-25T19:15:23.602-07:00Tim H:
but there is the possibility of another ec...Tim H:<br /><i><br />but there is the possibility of another economy rising as so much of the existing economy is sequestered out of reach of so many, it becomes irrelevant. What the .01% will then do with impressive numbers in their accounts, redeemable for increasingly less will be an interesting question.<br /></i><br /><br />That's kind of what I've been trying to express lately--if the .01% run off to Switzerland or wherever with their electronic representations of money on their computer hard drives--do they really impoverish the rest of us, or can we all agree not to recognize their electronic representations as having any claim on the real world?<br /><br />Back to the question of everything being owned by one--even in an oligarchy, it makes a kind of sense to work for (say) Charles Koch in order to get money that (say) Sam Walton will trade you goods and services for. If instead, all of the money that you can earn from Charles Koch is redeemable only <b>by</b> Charles Koch...well, isn't that just a master/slave economy without the money really playing a part? The lord of all things had better be <b>very</b> benevolent and wise, or else the only recourse the 99.99% have is the gullotine.<br /><br />Finally, if one person owns all of the money, how can he ever make more? Seems to me the economy would lapse into metaphorical heat death.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-40779872382946306882014-05-25T18:17:03.970-07:002014-05-25T18:17:03.970-07:00To clarify my own stance: I am not an economist ei...To clarify my own stance: I am not an economist either (in fact, I usually keep in the background here when economics is the topic.)<br /><br />Piketty is an exception because he has, by all accounts, drawn a solid conclusion from a rigorous interpretation of data.<br /><br />I am not comfortable with that conclusion (which doesn't mean it's wrong, of course!). What I'm doing is putting into words the reasons why I'm not comfortable with it.<br /><br />An inexorable accumulation of wealth would have reached an equilibrium by now, surely? Yet we are currently the most egalitarian society in history. I suspect something else is going on as well. What I would like to see is someone identify that 'something else' and combine it with Piketty's work to describe a economic model in dynamic equilibrium. Hopefully, it doesn't inevitably require collapse, or we might have to start working on a 'Piketty Foundation'.<br /><br />I suppose this has parallels with the inexorable march of entropic decay vs. the emergence of increasingly sophisticated self-organised systems (life)Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-69366342012141844862014-05-25T15:06:07.108-07:002014-05-25T15:06:07.108-07:00With the lock up of large portions of the economy ...With the lock up of large portions of the economy by the .01% I kind of expect a crash, since so few people control so much, but there is the possibility of another economy rising as so much of the existing economy is sequestered out of reach of so many, it becomes irrelevant. What the .01% will then do with impressive numbers in their accounts, redeemable for increasingly less will be an interesting question. In short, inequality is important, too much and the machine breaks.<br /> BTW, there is meaning in the universe because we say so.Tim H.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-30490649205821317392014-05-25T13:43:48.186-07:002014-05-25T13:43:48.186-07:00//*The type of meaning is not important. *//
... ...//*The type of meaning is not important. *//<br /><br />... then the existence of meaning is likewise unimportant.<br /><br />If any *type* of meaning is as good as any other, then any *particular* meaning is as good as any other, including meanings that are trivial or non-existent.<br /><br />Given the evidence provided, the most likely meaning of the universe is that the universe has no meaning, and that such is o.k.: we can live our lives and be good people anyway.<br /><br />In my experience, this is true: the ultimate meaning of the universe never informs any moral choice that I, or any genuinely good person, ever makes. For (to use the canonical example) you decide not to steal candy from a baby for fear of hell or hope of heaven, you are not a moral person at all; you are merely good at economics.<br /><br />Which is something Pekitty might have something to say about. If the Meaning of the universe is to have some sort of hierarchy, e.g. S.M.Sterling's Emberverse, then ever-increase wealth is in fact good and godly. If, on the other hand, the meaning of the universe is to do something about the hungry and all that Sermon On The Mount stuff, then a very different result would be indicated. <br /><br />Frankly, if *I* were constructing a universe that had a meaning that its inhabitants were supposed to support, I would have labelled it more clearly - even my mattress has a "Do Not Remove" tag on it. I lack the knowledge to discern whether Pekitty is right or wrong, but it seems to me that he is working on the right topics and getting people thinking about some of the right things.<br /><br />Perhaps the House of Representatives can forbid the Pentagon from reading his book, too. rewinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14008105385364113371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-31001419292870284712014-05-25T13:33:45.113-07:002014-05-25T13:33:45.113-07:00Alex Tolley:
On some level, the wealthy and power...Alex Tolley:<br /><i><br />On some level, the wealthy and powerful must realize that there's a certain amount of money that has to be possessed by others in order for their own to be of any value.<br /><br />I don't see why. If the monarch has all the money, and the peasants are just renters of his land, paying him for the privilege of working it (as they must to survive), the monarch has complete control.<br /></i><br /><br />Caveat emptor, I am not an economist, just an amateur who tries to think about these sorts of things.<br /><br />At the very least remove, the monarch who owns <b>all</b> of the money has to pay others to do things for him, at which point, they own some money themselves. So then he doesn't own <b>all</b> the money any more.<br /><br />But ok, you want to say they owe him back more than he pays them. So one person could own all the money. But what happens then? Who does he trade with? The whole idea <b>of</b> money seems to be undermined if it's not in general circulation.<br /><br />The lord in your example would have to provide food, shelter, and protection for his slaves in order to induce them to work for him. Money isn't going to be an incentive to work if the money is all presumed to be owed back to the lord anyway.<br /><br />Money creates more value in the economy when it circulates with high velocity. If one person owns all of it, that's about as low velocity as it gets. It no longer functions as an incentive to anyone else.<br /><br />And at the opposite least remove, in such a system, the other 99.99% of people would have to have some new (informal) method of trading among themselves, and whatever that method is would become the new money. One person owning all of the means of trade is not only disfunctional, it is unstable. It's not a system that can work or last for long.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-90205968133828116152014-05-25T12:37:31.260-07:002014-05-25T12:37:31.260-07:00I think the correct term is "pluripotent"...I think the correct term is "pluripotent", not "plenipotent" when referring to stem cells.Alex Tolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01556422553154817988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-14136870430783495652014-05-25T11:27:21.210-07:002014-05-25T11:27:21.210-07:00It's a matter of perspective.
In an embryon...It's a matter of perspective. <br /><br />In an embryonic setting, stem cells are 'plenipotent', capable of either recapitulating the entire organism or differentiating into specialized components. <br /><br />In the setting of full maturity, plenipotent cells capable of unrestricted or unlimited growth are termed 'cancerous', the most aggressive cancers also being the most undifferentiated.<br /><br />This analogy explains why democracies tend to flower in 'young' societies (the nascent USA, USSR & Australia) but tend to wither & die in the 'mature' setting (the late USA & France), perhaps as the metaphorical result of a societal immune response.<br /><br />This also explains why some mature societies are 'killed off' by the democratic impulse (the late USSR, Cambodia & Monarchical France) and why other slightly more vital mature societies can 'fight off' democratic growth with a mix of therapeutic bread & circuses, selectively toxic legalisms and metaphorical bone marrow ablation.<br /><br />Best<br /><br />locumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-40632505403151623312014-05-25T10:28:22.339-07:002014-05-25T10:28:22.339-07:00@ locum - so cancer cells would be "revolutio...@ locum - so cancer cells would be "revolutionaries" in your model?Alex Tolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01556422553154817988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-54712840963770227412014-05-25T10:25:54.036-07:002014-05-25T10:25:54.036-07:00On some level, the wealthy and powerful must reali...<i> On some level, the wealthy and powerful must realize that there's a certain amount of money that has to be possessed by others in order for their own to be of any value.</i><br /><br />I don't see why. If the monarch has all the money, and the peasants are just renters of his land, paying him for the privilege of working it (as they must to survive), the monarch has complete control. Yes, he has to pay sheriffs to police the land, but they in turn require his payments to survive too. As long as he can stay in power, he is OK. Naturally he has to use some of his wealth and income to pay personal protectors and armies to protect him from local or foreign bandits, but that reinforces his position, rather than weakens it. All those costs ultimately fall on the renter.<br /><br />Oligarchs today are doing the same thing. The costs are borne by renters as taxes, and these costs include "law enforcement", paying legislators, etc. <br /><br />"Capitalism" in the US is becoming increasingly predatory. Yet I see very little effort to stem it. False debt collection scams seem unchecked. Payday loans. Even the not quite 0.1% are being scammed by excess "management fees" by private equity firms. Everywhere one looks, another predator or incumbent is buying legislation to legitimize their thievery.Alex Tolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01556422553154817988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15453318153544576762014-05-25T10:17:49.470-07:002014-05-25T10:17:49.470-07:00For those concerned about political progression:
...For those concerned about political progression:<br /><br />Democracy is the sole purview of the non-specialist because, in order to allow any & every citizen an equal voice in the political process, the democratic society must assume a large measure of equality in component capability (aka 'plenipotence') which would then allow any individual to fulfill the requirements of any political role.<br /><br />Unfortunately, as specialization increases, there is a corresponding decrease in both equality & component capability which then requires unequal representation (through the adoption of either hierarchy or political subcaste) in order to function as a cohesive social unit, leading inevitably to the development of a highly ordered hierarchy composed of non-interchangeable, unequal & increasingly specialized components, one functionally indistinguishable from a feudal, monarchical or 'Empire of the Ants'-type system.<br /><br />In other words, political evolution is analogous to the differentation of biological cells wherein the plenipotent components of democracy are analogous to stem cells, specialization requires increasing levels of centralized control & hierarchical complexity, and democratic equality quickly becomes analogous to cancer (rather than vice versa) once society evolves past the fetal stage, so much so that a democratic rebirth will most certainly require the demise of the fully-developed feudal host.<br /><br />Best.locumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-14838968994347189042014-05-25T09:59:57.162-07:002014-05-25T09:59:57.162-07:00Larry,
"On some level, the wealthy and powerf...Larry,<br /><i>"On some level, the wealthy and powerful must realize that there's a certain amount of money that has to be possessed by others in order for their own to be of any value."</i><br /><br />There's also the trap of Cartman's amusement park (from South Park.)<br /><br />The Guy Who Owns Everything doesn't want to farm his own fields. And the farmers he hires must themselves be fed, along with the supervisor, and the sheriff who stops them from stealing his stuff, and so on until the poor rich bastard has a whole kingdom, with regional directors demanding he sign some Large Paper to protect <i>their</i> rights... Sigh. FML.Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-85540158516911608712014-05-25T09:42:09.781-07:002014-05-25T09:42:09.781-07:00Re: Piketty
We seem to at last getting some inter...Re: Piketty<br /><br />We seem to at last getting some interesting conversations on the web. The FT poked some very small oles in Piketty's spreadsheets, raising some questions, but not I think, causing much damage. There are certainly people who are claiming that r > g cannot be true over long periods, thus proclaiming that Piketty must be theoretically wrong. However, given the wealth of data and observations, the Piketty observations to be reasonably robust. Whether his explanation is correct will take some time to confirm. Unfortunately, economics being what it is, the debate may become ideological, rather like the God and "meaning" argument upthread.<br /><br />I've only cracked open the book so far, so this argument may have been answered, but it seems to me that the wealthy try to "rig the game" to keep r > g, so that their position is secured. A sort of natural selection of wealth accumulation.<br /><br />Alex Tolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01556422553154817988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-76156881252838770842014-05-25T09:31:22.066-07:002014-05-25T09:31:22.066-07:00Paul451:
Beyond the periodic reset, it may also b...Paul451:<br /><i><br />Beyond the periodic reset, it may also be that the greater the concentration of wealth, the harder it is to vacuum up the rest, it ends up costing more to steal the last morsel of bread from a homeless man than the morsel is worth.<br /></i><br /><br />Maybe the object of the <b>game</b> (as in "Monopoly") is to own <b>all</b> the money. In reality, I don't see how an economy would "work" after that happens. The game really would be over. On some level, the wealthy and powerful must realize that there's a certain amount of money that has to be possessed by others in order for their own to be of any value.<br /><br />In a healthy socio-economic system, perhaps the understanding of that fact <b>by</b> the wealthy and powerful is a damping mechanism.<br /><br />Currently, we seem to be in what Thom Hartmannn calls the "cancer stage" of capitalism, where the .01% really is willing to consume its host until there's nothing left to feed off of.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-24548464368906169812014-05-25T08:29:27.034-07:002014-05-25T08:29:27.034-07:00Tony,
"otherwise surely by now everything wou...Tony,<br /><i>"otherwise surely by now everything would belong to one."</i><br /><br />Beyond the periodic reset, it may also be that the greater the concentration of wealth, the harder it is to vacuum up the rest, it ends up costing more to steal the last morsel of bread from a homeless man than the morsel is worth.<br /><br />[However, "All belonging to one" is surely a reasonable description of any absolute monarchy?]Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-89207496487238385942014-05-25T08:24:46.555-07:002014-05-25T08:24:46.555-07:00Daniel,
"The question of what caused God is a...Daniel,<br /><i>"The question of what caused God is a meaningless question before the existence of time. Nothing precedes God in a timeless state."</i><br /><br />So as I said, "then a causeless God is without meaning." Therefore God's acts are without purpose and the universe remains without meaning. You haven't even tried to address this.<br /><br /><i>"The granting of free will to each individual thread is what allows the structure to be ever changing and with it the future observed by someone existing out of time."</i><br /><br />The structure isn't changing if it's possible to be viewed by someone out of time, that was my point. By positing an external observer, the universe is entirely pre-determined and fixed, and you cannot have free will.<br /><br /><i>"It occurs to me that there is an unspoken reason for the emotional opposition"</i><br /><br />I think you might be projecting. Most of the objections are based around the flaws in your logic.<br /><br /><i>"I have taken that consolation away and killed your last hope. And I have left your "bright selves" laying broken in the dust like toppled idols."</i><br /><br />Wow. Yeah, really projecting.<br /><br />I merely clap my hands to show that I believe in LarryHart.Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-81401148960087931222014-05-25T07:36:50.578-07:002014-05-25T07:36:50.578-07:00Rob, if you have time, you might like to hunt down...Rob, if you have time, you might like to hunt down a copy of 'The Book of Joby'. The first section, where Lucifer wheedles God into revisiting the notion of what man would do if he truly had free will, is frankly a bit drear as the Creator abandons a young boy to the Devil's machinations, and expressly commands the Archangels not to interfere unless asked directly. (drear because a, God's actually done this and b, the Devil is a bit of a douche as well) Get past that, however, and things start going off the rails in interesting ways.Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.com