Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Parallel-Processing Reading — of eBooks
It's Not Your Father's Book-Reading Anymore
Related source » Amazon Kindle e-book downloads surpass paperback books in USBy now most of us have heard about the e-book, "a text and image-based publication in digital form produced on, published by, and readable on computers or other digital devices". Many of us have heard of Amazon's Kindle device for reading and storing e-books. And some have even researched the advantages and disadvantages of e-books as compared with traditional hard-copy printed books. My purpose, however, is to describe what I consider to be the most revolutionary aspect of this new way of reading books.
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“Amazon has claimed that it has sold more e-books for its Kindle device in the United States as compared to paperback books in the last three months of 2010.”
— 2011-01-29 (sify.com)
I currently own a second-generation Kindle (illustrated above), having received it as a gift from my wife who, in the process, inherited my first-generation Kindle. It has enabled me to reinvent myself as a reader of books.
I have been reading books my whole life (practically), first as a student, then as a professional researcher, and finally as a retiree. I never mastered "speed reading", let alone relatively fast reading, primarily because my temperament is such that I don't want to miss anything in the process. Such attention to detail was instilled in me by my long-time emphasis on educational and professional reading habits, until I entered the more relaxed state-of-mind in retirement.
I have developed a parallel-processing mode of reading books via my Kindle. Since this very compact electronic device can store literally thousands of digital volumes, it now serves as my very portable personal library. Moreover, my complete e-book library is virtually unlimited because the Kindle comes with unlimited backup storage of all my e-books purchased from Amazon along with free Wi-Fi downloading as required.
By "parallel-processing mode" I mean reading multiple books at any given time-interval (on the order of ten books, though that number would probably vary according to individual taste). I have chosen to collate my books into several categories (e.g., physics, history, evolution, economics, fiction, references, etc.) and typically, I cycle through several categories daily, reading my current choices of e-books in those categories. What a blast!
This approach has eliminated those not infrequent patches of time when my reading used to stall because, for whatever reason (when I read books in series-mode), I got bored with a book. I have also abandoned the self-imposed obligation to finish every book I start. That guilt-trip was probably a consequence of my parents' repeated admonitions to clean my plate because of all those "starving children in China", many of whom are probably now struggling with American-style obesity.
The future of reading is now.
Post 1,554 Parallel-Processing Reading — of eBooks
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Stream of Consciousness • River of Effluent
Shit Happens and Flows Downhill
Image via WikipediaThe Pretender-in-Cheap is so imaginative that wonderfulness springs forth, fully formed, from the bowels of His brilliance, like Athena from the head of Zeus. It's all downhill from there, as it informs the cabinets of lesser beings, who append their own detritus to the surging effluent. And mighty is the accompanying wind.
What's that I hear about a ruckus in Egypt? We (in the regal sense) have an app for that. A quick change in the water closet and presto, with a hearty "Hi-yo, Silver!", the platitudes of destiny issue forth to be folded into Clinton-esque inanities, like cigars taken from the chlamydia of a village idiot, for instant dissemination to the automatons at MSNBC et al.
Next!
We have a new governing paradigm — stream-of-consciousness responses. No more surprises; instant gratification and response brought to you by The Won, the only, the infallible, The Obama Himself.
Yay!
Post 1,553 Stream of consciousness; river of effluent
Friday, January 28, 2011
These Votes Are Made for Booting
Voting with Your Feet
Related source » Census: Fast Growth in States with No Income Tax
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“Census Bureau director Robert Groves announced on Tuesday the first results of the 2010 census and the reapportionment of House seats (and therefore electoral votes) among the states. […] [G]rowth tends to be stronger where taxes are lower. Seven of the nine states that do not levy an income tax grew faster than the national average. The other two, South Dakota and New Hampshire, had the fastest growth in their regions, the Midwest and New England. Altogether, 35 percent of the nation's total population growth occurred in these nine non-taxing states, which accounted for just 19 percent of total population at the beginning of the decade.”
— By Michael Barone, December 22, 2010 (aei.org)
These votes are made for booting,
and that's just what they'll do.
One of these days these votes
are gonna walk away from you.
[with apologies to Nancy Sinatra]
We need to take greater advantage of our republican union of states. Consensus or bi-partisan policy in the federal government is rare; most policy is enacted in a contentious environment, usually polarized between conflicting socio-economic visions.
But our 50-state union offers a useful testing ground for alternative policy-solutions to problems great and small. I propose we implement a strategic legislative process to increase the efficiency of enabling a more nearly perfect union for our evolving society.
To wit, for selected Congressional bills, ones that are perceived to be far-reaching with respect to the fraction of our population affected as well as overall cost to deploy the program, let there be a trial period, defined as follows. Let "P-1" be such a bill passed by Congress and signed into "provisional" law by the President. Let the term of P-1's provisional status expire with the next national census. And, let P-1 be treated as Federal law only in those states whose overall Congressional caucuses voted in favor of the bill.
Now then, after the next census, if there was a net population inflow to those states that had voted to implement P-1, this law becomes permanent and is extended as such to all 50 states. Otherwise, this provisional P-1 becomes null and void, as if it had been repealed.
Such a stepwise ratification process for far-reaching legislation will take into account the well-known economic concept, namely "voting with your feet". Any takers for such a stroll?
Post 1,552 These Votes Are Made for Booting
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Getting Real
• Labels:
It is all relative,
Life (and Other Concepts)
Image by PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE via FlickrTracking Your Brain Train
Related source » Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain [Kindle Edition]
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“Conscious states of mind are felt.”
— Antonio Damasio, Self Comes to Mind
“To be real. That is the answer.”
— TheBigHenry
“Personal reality emerges from the process of consciousness felt.”
— TheBigHenry
“Happiness is the pursuit.”
— TheBigHenry
Reality, like "truth", is many things to many people, which is to say, "Who's to say what it really is?" Ultimately, "reality" depends on the nature and context of its quest. As is frequently the case, when questing for the most important and elusive answers, Albert Einstein's universal qualification applies: It's all relative.
Let us, therefore, content ourselves with a more manageable quest — what constitutes a person's own reality? Let us contemplate how to respond to the common admonition, "Get real!"
Whatever one's personal beliefs are concerning life, death and everything else, it behooves one to decide how to live one's life. We can not control most external influences, but we can make an effort to train our own brain's activity. And in the larger sense of a "consensus" reality, among which I include mainstream scientific theories, there is reason to believe that the nature of reality is process, as opposed to stasis. Hence, one's personal reality is, to some extent, within our own control.
There are techniques, such as meditation, to assist you in conditioning your mind to a desirable train of thought. The first step in your pursuit of happiness is to imagine it. The second step is to define or redefine your quest's specific objective. The third is to train your brain to stay on track toward this objective.
Because I believe in practicing what I preach, here is my current thinking on the subject matter:
- TheBigHenry's Current Reality
- Happiness is the pursuit.
- My objective is to become as knowledgeable about what strikes me as important in life, as life itself and time permit.
- My brain-training includes reading, thinking, writing, and meditation, wherein my mantra is, "Neatness counts".
Post 1,551 Getting Real
Monday, January 24, 2011
Wake Up and Smell the Mendacity
Image via WikipediaRelated source » Israel's supporters better wake up!
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“As we all know by now, Israel has lost the battle for public opinion in the West. […] The West is experiencing a total inversion of truth, evidence and reason. A society's thinking class has overwhelmingly subscribed to an immoral, patently false and, in many cases, demonstrably absurd account of the Middle East, past and present, which it has uncritically absorbed and assumes to be true. […] This has led to a kind of dialogue of the demented in which rational discussion is simply not possible because there is no shared understanding of the meaning of language. So victim and victimizer, truth and lies, justice and injustice turn into their precise opposite. […] The problem is that we are dealing with a pathology — to which we nevertheless respond as if it were rational behavior. […] Remarkably, this in turn echoes a very similar inversion of reality within the Islamic world, where such inversion has a theological base. […] So while Muslims deny the Holocaust, they claim that Israel is carrying out a holocaust in Gaza. Antisemitism is central to Jewish experience in Europe; Muslims claim that 'Islamophobia' is rife throughout Europe. […] What is remarkable is that instead of treating this as a pathological deformity of thinking, the western progressive intelligentsia has largely embraced it as rational and true. And to a large extent this is because that same western intelligentsia has itself supplanted rationality by ideology. […] This is because, rather than arriving at a conclusion from the evidence, ideology inescapably wrenches the evidence to fit a prior idea. […] In other words, both Israel and diaspora Jews have to stop playing defense and go onto the offence. […] It's time for Israel to realize that military campaigns against its enemies are not enough. It has to call time on its false friends too, and start fighting both these and its more obvious enemies on the battleground of the mind.”
— By Melanie Phillips, Jan. 10, 2011 (jewishworldreview.com)
Read it and weep, my friends. Or risk losing your mind. It wasn't simply guns, germs and steel that secured the West's preeminence among the world's civilizations. It was rational thought.
"Islamophobia" is not an appropriate response to the war being waged against the West. We must acknowledge, however, that Islamofascism is waging war against the West. And we must respond in kind.
There isn't much that an ordinary citizen can do to influence world events, of course. But that is not an excuse to do nothing. Everyone with a conscience and an understanding of rational thought must, at the very least, endeavor to think rationally. And if time and energy permit, one must act to whatever extent is reasonable on the conclusions arrived at by means of rational thinking. In short, reject all insidious spin being hurled against rational individuals by all the usual suspects having all the usual axes to grind.
As for our Chamberlain-in-Chief, rational thought clarifies his woeful lack of credentials to lead the fight against the West's enemies. The Obama's rejection of Churchill's wisdom (gained from massive expenditures of "blood, sweat and tears") along with The Obama's naive quest of "peace in our time" by disgraceful pandering to the very enemies of peace, define The Obama in terms of the worst characteristics of our least effective Presidents: James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Warren Harding, and Jimmy Carter. Ironically, The Obama could obtain a saving grace if he is made a one-term "lame duck" President like another of our least effective ones, and the one most appropriately nick-named, Millard "Mallard" Fillmore.
Post 1,550 Wake Up and Smell the Mendacity
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Consciousness as Fifth Dimension
Location in Three Dimensions of Space • Position in Fourth Dimension of Time • Self-Awareness in Fifth Dimension of Consciousness
Related source » Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain [Kindle Edition]
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“In neurological jargon, regaining consciousness after a closed-head injury can take its sweet time, during which the victim is not fully oriented to place or clock, let alone to person.”
[emphasis added]
— Antonio Damasio, Self Comes to Mind
 |
| Illustration of spacetime curvature (Image via Wikipedia) |
Not to belabor the analogy too much, it is, nevertheless, worth noting that the mind-numbing complications of up to a total of eleven dimensions [!] have been treated mathematically by string theorists who, I dare say, have just as much difficulty visualizing those extra seven dimensions (beyond the four of spacetime) as the rest of us mere mortals have.
Let me now posit the following conceptual analogy: the dimensional representation of consciousness is to spacetime as spacetime itself is to space (i.e., 3-space). Moreover, by thinking of consciousness in such mathematical terms, we have the means to illustrate consciousness visually in the context of spacetime reality!
We can illustrate this graphically by suppressing two of the three space dimensions (thereby visually representing 3-space as linear space) and allocating the remaining two of the three visual dimensions to time and consciousness, respectively. Thus, in an (x,y,z)-graphical representation of an individual's consciousness in the context of spacetime reality, we could let "x" represent the individual's self-orientation in space; "y" represent the individual's personal sense of time; and "z" represent the individual's feeling of consciousness.
An individual's conscious state of mind can only be felt by that unique individual. This means that our postulated consciousness-dimension is to be thought of as an array of infinitesimal, so-called "curled-up", orthogonal dimensions, each of which can accommodate one uniquely-conscious self.
Post 1,549 Consciousness as Fifth Dimension
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Obamanoids with $-Shaped Dilated-Pupils
Image via WikipediaRelated source » Everything starts with repeal
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“Suppose someone - say, the president of United States - proposed the following: We are drowning in debt. More than $14 trillion right now. I've got a great idea for deficit reduction. It will yield a savings of $230 billion over the next 10 years: We increase spending by $540 billion while we increase taxes by $770 billion. […] As National Affairs editor Yuval Levin pointed out when mining this remarkable nugget, this is a hell of a way to do deficit reduction: a radical increase in spending, topped by an even more radical increase in taxes. […] In fact, the whole Obamacare bill was gamed to produce a favorable CBO number. Most glaringly, the entitlement it creates - government-subsidized health insurance for 32 million Americans - doesn't kick in until 2014. That was deliberately designed so any projection for this decade would cover only six years of expenditures - while that same 10-year projection would capture 10 years of revenue. With 10 years of money inflow vs. six years of outflow, the result is a positive - i.e., deficit-reducing - number. Surprise.”
— By Charles Krauthammer, Friday, January 21, 2011 (washingtonpost.com)
How does one debunk phony arithmetic? Most common-sensible people would say via arithmetic logic. There is a caveat, however — the audience to be persuaded must be conversant with arithmetic logic.
I have watched and heard Charles Krauthammer (during his regular appearances on Fox News Channel's "Special Report with Bret Baier") debunk, numerous times, the phony leftist talking-points underpinning the deficit-reducing "virtue" of Obamacare. The hopelessness of Charles' efforts is written all over his face, as a sad smile emerges from Bret Baier's empathy.
People with a modicum of common sense and an elementary grasp of arithmetic understand that Obamacare does not compute. Such people also understand that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) computes its numbers based on prescribed algorithms and input provided by Congressional charlatans. "Garbage in; garbage out" is a fundamental axiom of computing.
Nevertheless, the slavish Obama-supporters with $-shaped dilated-pupils can't/won't understand any of this. All they care about is how big government will provide them with good jobs, good housing, cheap gasoline, and free lunch, none of which is possible even in principle. Sigh.
Post 1,548 Obamanoids with $-Shaped Dilated-Pupils
Friday, January 21, 2011
Teeth D'Olbermann Down for the Count
• Labels:
feed the crazy,
poetry and shit,
Say what?
Blustery douchebag and leftist-propaganda organ part ways. So sad.
OMG, no more "Countdown" with Count Clown! Whatever shall we do for pathos?Related source » MSNBC, Olbermann Call It Quits, Cancel Show
"Countdown" Down for the Count
(Image via Theo)
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“Cable host Keith Olbermann and news channel MSNBC abruptly parted ways on Friday night, as the network announced that his contract had ended and the last installment of his show would air that evening. […] After MSNBC lifted its suspension, Mr. Olbermann released a statement apologizing to viewers. But at least some senior executives and others at the network remained angry over Mr. Olbermann's behavior, before and during the affair, a person familiar with their thinking said at the time. […] An MSNBC spokesman said that Comcast was informed of the decision, but not involved in making it.”
— By SAM SCHECHNER, JANUARY 22, 2011 (wsj.com)
Oh well, there is still lots of garbage to choose from. There's Chris "Tingleberry" Matthews, Bill "Big Shot" Maher [Yiddish "Macher"], Rachel "Mad Cow" Maddow, and lots of other obnoxious talking heads.
So sad.
Post 1,547 Teeth D'Olbermann Down for the Count
The Mother of All Unintended Consequences
Image via WikipediaRelated source » The Unintended Consequences of a Unilateral Declaration of Statehood for Palestine
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“Anyone taking seriously the Palestinians’ current diplomatic offensive against Israel — by way of a UN resolution on settlements and international recognition of Palestine as an independent state — should think again. […] They think such a step might put them in a better position to negotiate with Israel on the outstanding issues that remain unsolved without realizing that such a dramatic step — taken from Ramallah by the PA rather than from Algiers by the PLO as happened 23 years ago — may trigger far worse consequences this time. Israel might take unilateral actions to respond, which would expose the inadequacy of Palestinian proclamations and further reduce for the future the space available for a Palestinian sovereign entity.”
— EMANUELE OTTOLENGHI - 01.21.2011 (commentarymagazine.com)
Perhaps The Obama is having an impact on the Arabs. The latter are eagerly following in the footsteps of our own Commander-in-Chief of Unintended Consequences. Well, Israel should embrace their fool's mission.
If they unilaterally declare statehood, Israel can immediately hold them accountable for the actions of their home-grown terrorist organization, Hamas, and their ally terrorists, Hezbollah. If those terrorists launch any attacks, Israel can treat that as an act of war by the self-declared state, and thereupon pound them into the sands of time and iniquity.
Moreover, that piece of detritus known as I'madinnerjacket better hope that he and his puppet masters are hangin' some place like London, if and when they attempt to "wipe Israel of the map". Do they think Israel is like defenseless Alfred Dreyfus?
If the I'madinnerjacket scum make such a contemptible attempt, there will be no hole in the whole Islamofascist world for them to crawl into, just a few hours later. That would be the mother of all unintended consequences.
Post 1,546 The Mother of All Unintended Consequences
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
LBJ: Too Big for His Britches?
Image via Wikipedia“The presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was; and no matter how big, not big enough for its demands.”
— Lyndon Johnson
Put This On: LBJ Buys Pants from Put This On on Vimeo
Not only did the presidency make every man who occupied it not big enough for its demands, butt [sic] it also made most men not big enough for their pants. In the case of Lyndon Johnson, however, his pants may not have been big enough for his package.
There is little doubt that LBJ lived life large. Extra large. Especially in his pants, as it were.
Bill Clinton always claimed to admire JFK, neither of whom was a stranger to the concept of living life large (in his pants). Big Bill, presumably, still does, on the side, so to speak.
But the above video gives audio-evidence to the intriguing possibility that Big Lyndon may have been the complete package in that
Talk about junk in the trunk ...
Post 1,545 LBJ: Too Big for His Britches?
No tipping, please. It's our pleasure to serve you …
The best and the brightest? Not so much …
Related source » Hank Johnson Guam Tip Over
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
— psvanbeek
There's a village in Guam whose idiot has been
The official Congressional motto, "We're from the gummint. We're here to help you!", was designed with this guy
OMG, I just had a horrible thought. What if this guy teams up with Corrine "Gradulates" Brown (D-FL)? Lawd a'mercy.
Yikes!
Post 1,544 No tipping, please. It's our pleasure to serve you …
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Seymour Hersh? I'd rather stick needles in my eyes!
Image via WikipediaRelated source » The Unraveling of Seymour Hersh
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“The New Yorker’s investigative reporter Seymour Hersh seems to be unraveling. […] Hersh also alleged that General Stanley McChrystal, who headed Joint Special Operations Command before becoming the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and his successor, Vice Admiral William McRaven, as well as many within JSOC, 'are all members of, or at least supporters of, Knights of Malta'. 'Many of them are members of Opus Dei', Hersh continued. […] These are the mutterings of a fevered, obsessive mind. His strange, conspiracy-plagued world is dominated by neo-conservatives and Opus Dei crusaders who are reliving the 13th century. Such writers now find a welcoming home at the New Yorker.”
— PETER WEHNER - 01.18.2011 (commentarymagazine.com)
A few years ago I had a subscription to the New Yorker. I especially enjoyed the magazine's cartoons. Then I read one of Hersh's "articles". I immediately cancelled my subscription.
Not only didn't I want to see more Hersh. I didn't want to hear, read or smell any more of him either. What a freakin' lunatic. I can see him now, preparing his next rant while sitting in traffic, naked, eating glass.
See-Less Hersh is a Life Master of the Anti-American Association of Self-Loathing Juice, along with other high achievers, such as that cunning-linguist Yesam Chumpsky, as well as that despicable self-hater Bobby Fischer (now mercifully gone to his just deserts).
Hersh also served as press secretary for the presidential campaign of Senator Eugene McCarthy in 1968. Surprise.
Post 1,543 Seymour Hersh? I'd rather stick needles in my eyes!
Monday, January 17, 2011
Sometimes You Must Battle for Peace
• Labels:
American cultural literacy
Image via WikipediaRelated source » Let Freedom Ring: MLK Day
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“On this day, I am especially proud to be a West Virginian. […] ”
— Secular Apostate, 1-17-2011 (secularapostate.net)
Post 1,542 Sometimes You Must Battle for Peace
Sunday, January 16, 2011
D'you want galoshes wid dat?
 Image via Wikipedia |
| Have ewe seen me? |
Related source » Sheep thefts in Britain likely connected to rising global food prices
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“Allen is one of 19 farmers to fall prey to sheep rustlers in the majestic lake region over the past 12 months, with the thefts here only one part of a bizarre surge in rural crime that has seen incidents of sheep rustling skyrocket across Britain.
The culprit? Globalization.”
— By Anthony Faiola, January 16, 2011 (washingtonpost.com)
Yeah, sure. Blame it on globalization. Better yet, blame it on global warming, or the "when nothing else will be believed"-scapegoat, Juice.
Look, these British sheep are prime meat for the "woolly slavery" market, analogous to the Eastern-European lovelies of the "white slavery" market. But it's not the cooked meat the woolly-market is after, if you catch my drift.
In those countries where women are routinely stoned-to-death for displaying more than 3.14 square-millimeters of ankle-skin, these woolly lovelies can command a pretty penny; especially the good-looking ones.
Ask any French Foreign-Legionnaire. He will likely be able to quote the going rate for a good-looking woolly in various regional markets. More likely than not, he'll be familiar with prices for goats and poultry, too.
Females of the porcine persuasion need not apply, however.
Post 1,541 D'you want galoshes wid dat?
Saturday, January 15, 2011
D'you got a problem wid dat?
Image via WikipediaWhat's not to like?
Related source » Only In AmericaShe's young. She's pretty. She loves her country. She sings. She speaks in complete sentences. She doesn't buy into the negativism, no-accountability, and free lunch the leftists are selling.
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“This is a video I edited to show how the song I Am America inspired people all over the country […] ”
— pastormikebranch
She promotes uplifting optimism for American values and principles.
What exactly would any sane American object to in all that?
Post 1,540 D'you got a problem wid dat?
Friday, January 14, 2011
It Must Be Mating Season for Crazy
Image via WikipediaThey're Coming Out of the Woodwork Like Cicadas
Related source » To Be Fair, the ‘Cloward-Piven Maneuver’ Does Sound Kind of Dirty
[This related article is recommended in its entirety.]
“Similarly, Frances Fox Piven, the co-inventor of the "bankrupt the game" school of very high-stakes municipal gambling thinks that sex is the impetus behind the Tea Party.”
— Ed Driscoll, January 14, 2011 (pajamasmedia.com)
I don't know about you, but this roller-coaster ride between the "ups" of ROTFLMAO and the "downs" of uncontrollable retching are exhausting for me. Where the hell are all these wackos coming from? And why the hell are they all coming?
The following entertainment, provided by what can only be described as Batshit-Crazy Pelosi's evil twin from the East Coast, is the latest and thus far the greatest merde coming from barking-mad Bedlam. The only respite from ROTFLMAO comes at 1:27 in, when Piven discloses that, "I don't have any data on this"! No shit, Sherlock. Well, did you evah?
Frances Fox Piven: The Tea Party Is All About Sex
Post 1,539 It Must Be Mating Season for Crazy
If you feed it, it will metastasize …
Image by Getty Images via @daylife… Speculations on barking madness (and other epidemics)
I don't know what to think anymore. The Tucson madness seems to have catalyzed a runaway barking-madness of inextinguishable proportions.
I am not normally a fan of conspiracy theory, which ordinarily is the first refuge of those who bark. But these no longer strike me as normal times, even by today's hyperbolic standards. So … What if the obsession to demonize Palin, a run-of-the-mill flawed individual (as most of us are) of a certain charm and abundant baggage, is an emergent attempt to drive the right into spitefully nominating her to challenge The Obama in 2012, anticipating a likely landslide-victory for the latter? By today's standards of conventional wisdom, that no longer sounds that implausible to me.
One of the most outlandish things I have heard in recent weeks is that The Obama's eulogy for the victims in Tucson, which by many accounts that I respect was very well prepared and delivered, somehow has been hyperbolically elevated to the rarefied heights of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address! Such a comparison is the very essence of barking madness.
In this great Nation's grand history of two and a quarter centuries, one might expect to have had two and a fraction Presidents who qualified for "hundred-year greatness". And as luck would have it, such has, indeed, been the case — George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and, arguably, though by no means universally acknowledged, FDR. Any speculative musings, by people prone to tingles in their nether regions, about The Obama's claims to our pantheon of greatness is barking madness.
I could go on, but then I would probably need a double dose of anti-depressant …
Post 1,538 If you feed it, it will metastasize
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Neatness and Generosity of Spirit Count
Image by paulidin via FlickrAs a young boy attending elementary P.S. 179 in Manhattan in the early 1950s, I remember learning the Palmer Method of cursive handwriting. And six decades hence I still recall my teacher's general admonition to our class: "Neatness counts!" It is remarkable how this early-childhood experience, with appropriate adjustments, adaptations and generalizations, has guided my activities — physical, intellectual and even emotional. "Neatness" evolved into the concepts of accuracy, clarity and rationality; and "counts" became the general concept of measurement.
In recent years, with the advent of pronounced socio-political polarization in our midst, my "neatness counts" mantra has become inadequate to the task set before us all — how to make sense of a world gone mad. Accuracy, clarity and rationality have been subsumed by torrents of mendacity, mudslinging and ubiquitous barking madness. And our scales and yardsticks of measurement have been replaced by the loaded dice of diluted authority (as represented by high profile Nobels awarded to lowlifes and blowhards), the universal clamor of would-be experts (broadcast via the internet), and the unbridled posturing by everyone with an ax to grind, which is to say just about everyone.
As I am slowly beginning to realize, the difficulty is no longer with the virtue of generalized "neatness" nor with the process of measuring. It has to do with our units of measure.
The well-established measures work up to a point. The objective is to find reason, hope and sensible guidance in the chaos of seven billion self-involved, mostly angry, and vastly ignorant automatons who have easy access to provocation, misinformation, and explosives. The distillation of reasonable guidance can only be accomplished via stages of elimination, having increasingly finer (and concomitantly more difficult) filtration of chaff.
Eventually we are left with an appropriate distillate of potentially useful guidance, albeit extremely difficult to discern because the final selection is fraught with dangerous misguidance as well. Enter the tie-breaking measure: a modicum of generosity of spirit.
If one is genuinely interested in comporting oneself in accordance with a personal set of ethical standards one must develop a keen sensitivity to that ephemeral generosity of spirit which illuminates the path of righteousness. It is difficult to define such a spirit, but there exist criteria that provide a forensic process. Beware "monolithicism"! Aside from God, The Obama, and Paul Krugman, nobody is omniscient. Even Albert Einstein failed in his efforts for grand unification.
Anyone who never grants another's point on any subject is bereft of generosity of spirit. Such slick, often articulate, brazen self-assurance, well lubricated with conceit and pomposity, must be shunned at all cost.
Post 1,537 Neatness and Generosity of Spirit Count
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
A Straitjacket Named Freedom
Image via WikipediaRelated source » Arizonans Rally to Prevent Westboro Church Disruption of Shooting Victims' FuneralsLet's get serious for a moment, shall we? I acknowledge that freedom of speech and all the other individual freedoms enumerated in our Constitution's Bill of Rights are nearly sacrosanct. But even the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments have limits of applicability.
[This related article is recommended in its entirety.]
“But when the church announced it would picket the funeral Thursday for the 9-year-old girl fatally shot over the weekend at a Tucson grocery store by a gunman who allegedly killed five others and injured 14 others attending a town-hall session by Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Tucson- and Phoenix-area residents started organizing immediately. […] The Westboro church, led by Fred Phelps, believes that tragic events like the deaths of soldiers are punishment for tolerance of homosexuality. The Supreme Court last fall heard arguments in a case brought against Phelps by the father of a soldier killed in Iraq whose funeral was protested by the group in 2006. […] The court is expected to issue a ruling soon on whether free speech can be curbed at specific locations and events.”
— By Judson Berger, January 11, 2011 (foxnews.com)
These nuts led by Fred Phelps comprise indecent exposure by their very presence. And if that isn't sufficient to pass Constitutional muster, how about "incitement to riot"? Even biker gangs are offended by these execrable creatures.
Can we please stop being the world's laughing stock for our inability to be reasonable? Freedom was never intended to serve as a straightjacket.
Post 1,536 A Straitjacket Named Freedom
D'you want flameboyantly crazy wid dat?
• Labels:
doodie pants,
feed the crazy,
People (and Other Work),
WTF?
Image via Wikipedia
Related source » Citra woman accused of setting boyfriend's genital area on fire
Flamegirlantly-crazy Girlfriend
Victoria Eltonya Bynes
She allegedly sprayed her boyfriend's crotch with gasoline and set it afire.
[This related article is recommended in its entirety.]
“A 29-year-old Citra woman was arrested Saturday after she allegedly doused her boyfriend's genital area with gasoline and set him afire. Victoria Eltonya Bynes, of 17355 NE 16th Terrace in Citra, was charged with aggravated battery and was taken to the Marion County Jail, where she bonded out on $10,000 bond early Sunday morning. Her boyfriend, Andrew Williams, 42, of 17360 NE 18th Ave. in Citra, was transported to Shands at the University of Florida in Gainesville with serious injuries.”
— By Susan Latham Carr, January 9, 2011 (ocala.com)
OK then, if it's January it must be flamboyantly-crazy time: Bynes reportedly told her boyfriend's mother, "Your son has some explaining to do". I'm guessing the son is not very good at explaining things; certainly not to an inflamed girlfriend.
Look, I don't care how bad the explanation, whatever could possess a person to light up someone's crotch? Must all your meat be well done? Yo, Eltonya, take a tip from Elton and express your flameboyance with weird glasses. Gasoline is a bit over the top, d'you know?
My advice? If your girlfriend demands "some explaining", while holding a gasoline container, grab your family jewels and high-tail it the flock outta there. Pronto, Tonto.
Post 1,535 D'you want flameboyantly crazy wid dat?
Monday, January 10, 2011
You don't know jack, Jack!
• Labels:
feed the crazy,
ipso facto,
Vengeance Is Mine
Image via WikipediaRelated source » Don’t Ignore the Politics of Mossad’s Iran Assessment
[This related article is recommended in its entirety.]
“Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is clearly doing her best to defuse the bombshell dropped last week by Israel’s outgoing Mossad chief, Meir Dagan. During a visit to the Gulf states yesterday, she stressed that Dagan’s assertion that Iran will not go nuclear before 2015 is no excuse for not keeping up the pressure on Tehran. In their posts last week, Jonathan Tobin and J.E. Dyer both offered good reasons not to be reassured by Dagan’s prediction. But Clinton also alluded to a very different reason. “We don’t want anyone to be misled by anyone’s intelligence analysis,” she said. That’s a diplomatic way of saying what two respected Israeli military analysts said openly that same day: Dagan’s public assessment must be evaluated in the light of its clear political purpose — to thwart any possibility of an Israeli military strike on Iran, which he is known to oppose. […] Dagan is both a dedicated patriot and a consummate professional, but even patriotic professionals are still human. And it is only human nature to read the tea leaves in a way that supports what you would most like to believe.”
— EVELYN GORDON - 01.10.2011 (commentarymagazine.com)
Double crosses? Triple crosses? In the bowels of 21st-Century clandestine warfare there are more crosses than in a 3-D game of tic-tac-toe. Even the major political players know only as much as their operatives want them to know. As for the public, you don't know jack, Jack. And that goes for Hillary, too.
Even Stuxnet is just the tip of the iceberg. The stakes have never been higher, and include nuclear weapons, existential warfare, and the survival of Western civilization. You think unemployment is a big deal? Well, it is. But it shrinks by several orders of magnitude in comparison with stuff you don't know anything about.
How do I know all this? Funny you should ask. Call it intuition or an educated guess. The truth is I don't know jack either. But I do know that I don't, which puts me one giant leap ahead of your average talking head, and two giant leaps ahead of that jolly old headless-horseman, Joe "BFD" Biden.
Post 1,534 You don't know jack, Jack!
Thursday, January 6, 2011
I love the smell of guano in the morning!
• Labels:
American cultural literacy,
doodie pants,
feed the crazy
Image via WikipediaRelated source » House members read the Constitution
[This related article is recommended in its entirety.]
“Washington (CNN) -- Members of the new Republican-led House of Representatives took part Thursday in an unusual event: a reading of the U.S. Constitution on the floor of the chamber. The move was initially conceived primarily as an expression of the GOP's small-government values and a nod to conservative Tea Party activists who helped propel the Republicans to their landslide victory in last November's midterm elections. While some progressives derided the event as a political stunt, a number of congressional Democrats took part in the reading.”
— By the CNN Wire Staff, January 6, 2011 (cnn.com)
 |
| Children |
It's official — the Liberal street is batshit crazy. As the Boehner House commenced the reading of the Constitution of the United States into the public record, the Liberal street commenced frothing at the mouth, claiming our Nation's founding document has outlived its relevance and its expiration date. Mind you, this is the same Constitution that the "street's" arch enemy, President George W. Bush, supposedly "shredded", to their apoplectic outrage. Such a prima facie contradiction, I submit, is a suitable definition for "batshit crazy".
Accordingly, the Liberal street needs to be treated in like manner to the treatment of any other batshit-crazy "street". We must feed their crazy, for there is no reasoning with those who have crossed over to the batshit side.
Hence, be it hereby resolved that every American, who has not yet breeched the batshit event horizon, will write his Congressman and demand that, upon completion of the reading of the Constitution, the House will undertake the reading into the record, in its entirety, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations.
Let the screeching begin. I love the smell of guano in the morning.
Post 1,533 I love the smell of guano in the morning!
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