Re: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . .
On May 5, 2005, at 4:14 PM, William T Goodall wrote: and (in my estimation) it is profoundly intellectually arrogant -- as well as probably disprovable -- to suggest that atheism is an insulation against nonsense. I don't think atheism is insulation against nonsense. I think atheism is an indicator that someone is insulated against nonsense. This suggests infallibility. I think you've missed what I was driving at, which is that *all* people are susceptible to flawed thinking; a good self-correcting process for thinking is certainly helpful, but using atheism as a litmus test to determine whether any given individual is less prone to believe other fanciful notions is itself, to me, flawed thinking, or a belief in nonsense. As an oblique corollary, Newton was one hell of a fine rational thinker. His treatises on physics and optics are very good examples of that. However, he also attempted to use that fine rational mind of his to try to prove Biblical claims. Erik might suggest that Newton was addled, and maybe he was in the religious arena. Gregor Mendel, even tough he was a monk, did some seriously groundbreaking work in genetics. His pea-plant charts are virtually cliche in science classrooms in the US, a little like the eye charts in optician's offices that read E FP TOZ LPED... This suggests that even though he might have been addled in some ways, he was an incisive thinker in others. The corollary is this. While one could argue that atheists are being fine rational thinkers in the arena of religion, there's pretty strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that they (we) can also be addled in ways not apparent to them (us). -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . .
On May 5, 2005, at 6:38 PM, William T Goodall wrote: On 6 May 2005, at 12:58 am, Dave Land wrote: I bet that listening to authorities is evolutionarily favored, and listening *critically* to authorities even more so. Categorically disregarding authority is no better than categorically following them: it is equally foolish. That's why one needs to figure out which authority figures actually know what they are talking about and which are authority figures because of monkey tribal nonsense. Which is why epistemology is important. I think you missed the 'just' in 'just because' in the last sentence you quoted. Yes; deductive thinking is important. It's very valuable. And it's not being inculcated properly, I think; students accepting the fact of evolution by rote are no more capable of thinking clearly (a priori) than other students accepting that the six-day creation was the way it really happened. (I know my phrasing here shows my bias. While I can argue for the contrary regarding matters of faith, I cannot in seriousness present evolution as anything but fact or creation as anything but fantasy.) I'm not personally trying to question your decision about nonexistence of deity. I'm just suggesting that not believing is not necessarily any different -- or any better, at its core -- than believing. There has to be something behind the declaration, something that approximates self-correcting ideation. [me re acceptance of authority] I think the tendency persists, and it's hard to counter its effects sometimes. This suggests to me that those who do not believe in a deity are no more proof from believing wacky things than those who do, It's true that many people are gullible and credulous and easily taken in by charlatans, and that this is a good explanation for the frequency of religious belief. And, naturally, anti-religious belief. There is a God and there is no God are equally statements of faith. No, they aren't actually. There is no God is a rational claim based on evidence. There is a God is a statement of faith made in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. That's not a valid statement without a lot of qualifiers; for instance you don't describe here what sort of god you're talking about. If a believer is a Deist, he might assert that the only role his god had was in the initial creation of the universe, perhaps twiddling the laws a bit in such a way that life could exist (a kind of anthropic principled god). If that Deist than went on to say that, after getting things going, that god has been totally hands-off, the results we see today would not in any way be affected; that is, that entity's presence would not be reflected in anything e see around us now. No fingerprints, no shadows, no hairs left behind at the crime scene. Therefore denial of that god's existence might be as much a statement of faith as asserting that such a god exists. Now Occam would probably disagree, but we have to start balancing elegances here a little. The universe's physics do seem to be slanted pro-life, as it were (contrarily, that's not surprising, because if they weren't slanted that way we couldn't be here); and of course we can't meaningfully speak of anything that happened before the universe we inhabit now came into existence. What we have, really, is something that is not testable or falsifiable, which precisely places a Deist's claim in the realm of faith. Thus it's meaningless to assert there's evidence either way, ultimately. What I see when I look around is a cosmos that suggests there is no deific entity currently pulling any strings anywhere. Thus the idea of an involved, omnipresent, -scient and -potent god is not one I can accept. But if we put on the table the suggestion that a hands-off entity got everything started and has since been watching things play out -- well, while I find the idea unlikely, ultimately I can't disprove it. It was this uncertainty that kept me an agnostic for quite some time, FWIW. So, depending on how you define your gods, denial of their existence can reasonably (I think) be seen as an expression of faith. A Pauline's involved god or a six-day clay shaper doesn't strike me as being remotely possible, and I don't think that statement is one of faith; however, the Deist idea is not one I can simply dismiss as readily. There, I'll freely concede, I am expressing a faith rather than a proximate certainty. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . .
On May 5, 2005, at 7:41 PM, William T Goodall wrote: Lack of evidence for something is evidence against it. Overwhelming lack of evidence for something is overwhelming evidence against it. That's a fair premise, I think. The claim is that there is a god, omniscient, omnipotent, created the universe and so on. A remarkable claim. Not the least because I didn't see anyone putting forth that claim in this thread; you're arguing against an idea no one's actually proposed in this discussion. Your straw god is easy to knock down but is not the focus of this flurry of electrons, I think. And after thousands of years not one shred of evidence or plausible argument to support the idea. Case closed. For the personally involved god idea, sure. Unless, of course, that god was something more like a universal scientist, possibly something akin to Sawyer's entity in _Calculating God_ -- one who got involved only in the most extreme moments, and even then indirectly, acting as a force of nature a la Job's whirlwind. That, you could argue, is a sophistry, and I'd likely agree. I'm presenting it here partly to be the Devil's advocate and partly to point out that not all conundrums necessarily have binary resolutions. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . .
On May 5, 2005, at 7:23 PM, Dave Land wrote: Also, it apparently matters to you that there is no God, or you wouldn't continue spamming the list with your refutations. You know, atheists getting pissed off about others' faith seems classically sysiphian. There are about 220 million of us opposed to the rest of the world. Like it or not we live in a world of faith; the best approach is probably not to get angry about that. It's a little like being furious at gravity for existing. And it really is insupportably arrogant to presume that the simple fact of atheism is sufficient to suggest a given individual is clear-minded, thinking rationally or proof against crackpottery. Unfortunately another hallmark of arrogance is being unable to concede being wrong, so I don't expect anyone who disagrees with that statement to suddenly change tune. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . .
From William T Goodall On 6 May 2005, at 3:19 am, Dave Land wrote: WTG: No, they aren't actually. There is no God is a rational claim based on evidence. There is a God is a statement of faith made in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Do you have evidence of the non-existence of God, or do you merely conflate the lack of evidence of the existence of God with evidence of God's non-existence? I know that I ask questions by way of making an argument, but this time, I really want to know what you consider to be the hard evidence of the non-existence of God. Lack of evidence for something is evidence against it. Overwhelming lack of evidence for something is overwhelming evidence against it. The claim is that there is a god, omniscient, omnipotent, created the universe and so on. A remarkable claim. And after thousands of years not one shred of evidence or plausible argument to support the idea. Case closed. Isn't it part of the God design specs that you can't prove its existence? It has to be a faith thing, not a proof thing. You may call that a slight of hand, but if I was on the design team, I would call it intelligent design. So, God is outside the normal bounds of proof, I guess that's part of the point of being/having a God. Those of a scientific bent may claim that's not fair, equally, those who have faith (And I am not amongst that number) would say that it is in fact crucial and very germane to the whole God caper. Andrew ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . .
On May 5, 2005, at 3:28 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: On Thu, 5 May 2005 14:01:00 -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote Sometimes, it seems to me, anger is really a masking emotion for fear. Only sometimes? How about always? Although other things may lie behind anger, I tend to think that fear is always there. That could well be true. I was thinking more, however, of the emotional range to which many men seem socially constrained -- anger or horniness, possibly exuberance. That is, when a man says he's angry, he could really be feeling fear, but expressing that fear in the only way he knows how. That's what I meant by masking emotion -- he's afraid but can't admit it, basically. As to fear being present with anger in all cases ... that's a very interesting idea, and my inclination is to agree with your assessment. If anger is (in essence) a response to perceived threat -- any perceived threat -- it could be easy to support the suggestion that there's at least *some* fear there as well. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Babble theory, and comments
Warren Ockrassa wrote: Thanks. In my cynical youth I would have been more inclined, I think, to agree with the Good news from the Vatican sentiments. But in the intervening years my rebellion against (specifically) Christianity and (generally) religion has moderated some. [KZK] So you are saying that age enfeebles the mind. I finally twigged to what troubles me with this statement; it's an inaccurate formulation of what I meant. As I noted elsewhere, we live in a predominantly religious world, and to me the sentiments expressed in a thread title such as Good news from the Vatican are not functionally different from those that might have been expressed in a headline such as Good news from New York on September 12, 2001. From one perspective either expression is witty and will bring a smile; from another perspective either expression is reprehensible and callous. Whether or not one subscribes to Catholicism, John Paul II's death caused a lot of sorrow in the Catholic world. Overlooking the (possibly-undeserved) post-mortem homilies, JPII was a figure looked upon with affection by millions, and their hearts were wounded by his inevitable end. Capitalizing on that death to drive home a point struck me as being insensitive at the very best. The cause of atheism (such as it might be) is not furthered by increasing suffering or being insensitive to the sensibilities of others. So no; age doesn't necessarily enfeeble the mind, but experience can lend insight into the minds of others. But there is wisdom to be found in doctrines which have endured for centuries or millennia, and it might even be argued that an organic, flexible interpretation of scriptures is more in keeping with the idea of a living gospel or living god than a rigid, hardline insistence on literalism. As an atheist, then, I might be more religious than many who claim to hold faith. At the very least I might understand Christianity better than some who claim to preach its truths. To 'know' Evil is to fight against Evil, or on Evil's behalf. Ah. So he who is not with us is against us? I can think of others who have used that simplistic formulation, and to great detriment too. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . .
On May 5, 2005, at 7:44 PM, Erik Reuter wrote: One more time: it is foolish religious people that are the concern, not the existence or non-existence of some god. Do you accuse psychiatrists who want their patients to stop talking to invisible pink unicorns of being worried about the existence of said unicorns? If so, you are in worse shape than I thought... For years I have struggled with the idea of sexual orientation. I'm currently of the inclination that it doesn't exist objectively. Gay, straight or in-between are, to me, ideas, nothing more. All human behavior can become very complex when the factor of consciousness comes into play. When we're hungry we eat -- that's biology -- but *what* we eat is a product, to a significant extent, of culture. A Chinese person might find jellyfish a delicacy. I don't. And within a given culture, there are subcultures; vegetarianism very probably is no more healthy than an omnivorous or carnivorous diet (there's essentially no objective evidence to show that one diet preference, within reason, is meaningfully healthy as opposed to another. (That is, an all-Twinkie diet is not healthy, but a diet that includes no meat at all is not necessarily any healthier than one that is virtually Atkinsesque). I've found through my own experience that my orientation is malleable. I used to identify as gay but for the last decade or so that's really been more a label of political convenience I use from time to time. In truth I'm comfortable with intimacy with any gender. I think I more or less talked myself to that point. This is pertinent because I sense here an impression that religious people just don't get it -- but then, why should they? If I'm right that sexual orientation is psychological rather than physiological -- no gay gene, mindset rather than hard-wired body response -- some might latch onto that and say, well, why don't gay people stop being gay? Probably for the same reasons religious people don't stop being religious. It's a comfort issue, a personal issue, and to the extent that it doesn't harm others, it's no one's business. If Person A has an outlook and set of behaviors that cause no harm to others, what right has Person B to suggest that Person A should change? Even if it's true that Person A could change any time he wants to, it's not really Person B's business to be demanding that change, at least to my mind. A few years back I was amused at the response I got from a colleague who was shocked to learn I was an atheist. She said she'd never met anyone who admitted to it before, as though it was something shameful; well, how is that idea any different from someone confessing to being gay? Minorities can get defensive, particularly when they feel embattled. Surely part of many atheists' frustration comes from that. But when atheists start behaving as though they're eminently right while everyone else is too restricted to see what's so obviously clear, I start wondering what the difference is between their views and that of gays and bisexuals who think avowed heterosexuals are afraid of themselves, or lack the insight necessary to appreciate sex outside their conformist views. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Garry Kasparov was a Steel-Drivin' Man...
Too much coffee and sterling desert stars do make one wander. For years a hallmark of whether computers were intelligent was taken to be their ability to beat a human at chess. Evidently the conceit was that humans, being intuitive thinkers taking concepts as logical chunks (etc.) were superior to computers in intuitive prediction. This was happily held for quite some time until a computer beat a human at chess in the late 20th century. Well, the argument then became that Garry Kasparov lost to Big Blue either because of a concession -- he forfeited the last match -- or because he was a human and so prone to being tired, wavering of attention, etc. IOW, the goalposts moved. No, what we said before was wrong; computers really haven't become intelligent. The attack used by BB was a brute force approach. Kasparov was and is still human because of his fallibility, and BB is not the first example of emergent intelligence (as we define it this week) in silicon. This reminds me of the Ballad of John Henry. You might or might not know it; the story is that John Henry, who worked on railroads in the 1900s, was faced with a steam-driven track laying machine, and he refused to accept the premise that the machine was superior to human ability. So he placed a bet: He would lay a mile of track before the machine could. The terms were settled and the bet began. As the man and the steam mechanical raced, they were neck and neck (so to speak) for most of the contest, but ultimately Henry won when the steam layer blew a rivet and exploded. Unfortunately Henry himself also expired; he had worked too hard too fast. The bet was declared in favor of Henry; he'd gone further. But had he really won, or had the goalposts for defining human just shifted slightly? Buddhists spend a lot of time trying to define what consciousness is, what I is. These questions, it seems to me, are deeply interrogative of what human means. Is there instruction to be found in the ballad of John Henry, the acts of Garry Kasparov, or the way we've seemed to react culturally to both? What happens in fifty or a hundred more years, when we will be able to upload our thoughts, ideas and dreams -- our consciousness -- into machines for permanent expansive storage? What happens when we develop machines that enable consciousness to exist indefinitely? Will it still be consciousness, or will we be arrogant and think it's just a copy? And if we think that, will it really be arrogance? Or will it just be John Henry driving steel until his heart burst? -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . .
* Dave Land ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Thanks for reminding me: the other pathetic logical fallacy that you frequently engage in is ad hominem attacks. Awww, poor Dave. Can't think. Likes to whine. Aw. -- Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Earth has developed a slight eccentricity in its orbit...
On May 4, 2005, at 6:07 AM, Max Battcher wrote: First source I could find (but it is mentioned in other places) that the enhanced love story was Adams' idea: Too bad. I was wanting to think the reason the movie sucked had to do with the shit introduced by others. Now I have to admit that some of the shit came from Adams. That doesn't change my opinion of the movie. It was bad. Bad, bad, bad. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: A very good NYT article on intelligent design
On May 2, 2005, at 4:46 PM, Maru Dubshinki wrote: On 5/2/05, Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... _Calculating God_, yeah. As it happens I just finished it this weekend. It's an interesting read but Sawyer leaves a gaping hole in his story (two, actually), which he also did with _Hominids_. In CG Sawyer's aliens suggest that the current universe's physics are too precisely honed toward life's development for it to be an accident; the idea is that some kind of superbeing prearranged the current big bang expansion to have the state it does. What we don't go into is how that entity managed to survive the previous universe's big crunch. That's a pretty significant omission, to me. And of course the main basis for the argument that the Fohrlinors and Wreeds propose is the way extinction events occurred simultaneously on their homeworlds *and* ours (give or take a couple million years) -- now if something that incredibly improbable actually had happened, sure, there'd be something worth looking at. But in order to knock aside any doubts at all the book has to suggest an additional not one, but two literal deus ex machina events. Framed in that carefully constructed context it's hardly surprising the idea of god finds a lot of support, but the fact is that without that elaborately constructed set of premises, the argument falls flat. In _Hominids_, BTW, the problem I had was his suggestion that consciousness developed in human brains initially as a quantum state change, something random rather than emergent that altered the way a given brain operated once and forever in the distant past. Well, how exactly did that trait get passed along to offspring? It *must* have been an emergent property of brain complexity, something that existed in DNA, or else it would never have occurred again. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books A goof point Warren, but you forget that genes aren't the *only* unit of inheritance- culture is also inherited. Yes -- but not biologically. If there is a discontinuity the culture gets lost. It is not innate. Sawyer could have just as well postulated a race of hominids, humanoid pre-cursors, which are poised just on the critical cusp of breaking into counsciousness, and only need an inspiration or model to make the leap themselves. One of them would be bound to 'get' counsciousness eventually, and by imitation it would spread vertically and horizontally (and would exterminate any groups that didn't 'get' it.) Reasonable, but not an argument for inheritance of a quality. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . .
At 12:29 AM Friday 5/6/2005, Dave Land wrote: On May 5, 2005, at 7:44 PM, Erik Reuter wrote: * Dave Land ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On May 5, 2005, at 6:44 PM, Erik Reuter wrote: The statements There is [a/no] God matter to people so much so that ^ some ^ foolish Another argument from conclusion. Also, it apparently matters to you that there is no God, or you wouldn't continue spamming the list with your refutations. Or, you are including yourself among some foolish people. You wouldn't be the first person on this list to self-identify as a Fool. Think, Dave. I know it is hard with your infection, but try! Or just pay attention, since William already explained a couple times. Thanks for reminding me: the other pathetic logical fallacy that you frequently engage in is ad hominem attacks. Though after the first few times they generally become ad nauseum . . . -- Ronn! :) IMPORTANT: This email is intended for the use of the individual addressee(s) above and may contain information that is confidential, privileged or unsuitable for overly sensitive persons with low self-esteem, no sense of humo(u)r or irrational religious beliefs (including atheism). If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution or copying of this email is not authorized (either explicitly or implicitly) and constitutes an irritating social faux pas. Unless the word absquatulation has been used in its correct context somewhere other than in this warning, it does not have any legal or grammatical use and may be ignored. No animals were harmed in the transmission of this email, although that ugly little yapping dog next door is living on borrowed time, let me tell you. Those of you with an overwhelming fear of the unknown will be gratified to learn that there is no hidden message revealed by reading this warning backwards, so just ignore that Alert Notice from Microsoft. However, by pouring a complete circle of salt around yourself and your computer you can ensure that no harm befalls you and your pets. If you have received this email in error, please add some nutmeg and egg whites, whisk and place in a warm oven for 40 minutes. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Close, but not yet...
On May 2, 2005, at 5:06 PM, Maru Dubshinki wrote: On 4/25/05, Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OK, fair enough -- but how would that really supply you with an answer? If you simulated all senders and receivers, how would that be significantly different from the message content's encryption itself? You'd have a reduced range of possible transmitters, sure, but you'd still have a range of equally-likely interpretations, wouldn't you? You are not working from a priori principles are you? You (as in the ridiculously wellfunded hypothetical opponent, Carl) have tons of information about your targets already, so you can narrow it down enough to be useful. It is placed in a somewhat Transparent Society right? Why would it be? The TS presupposes transparency... So the more I thought about that, the more it seemed that only people with actual organic abnormalities might be possessed of a different enough neural map that a Rosetta device couldn't read them. They'd have to be conscious, capable of more or less high function, but also organically variant. That pointed to schizophrenia. The tragedy of it, of course, is that in such a future it's in government and corporate interests *not* to treat or cure schizophrenia. I love it when dilemmas like that get dropped in my lap; they really punch up a story. I'm afraid I'm not following why the schizophrenics would be unreadable: if 'Rosetta' is flashing all its inputs and storing the (arbitrary) responses, simply differing from other humans wouldn't make much difference, I would think- the differences could be as random as one pleases, and they would still be compensated for. Now, if the Rosetta's were working from a precomputed table of action/reactions to decipher the thoughts, then I could see why neurologically atypical individuals would be useful. That's the idea, yeah -- there's basically a very large table of neural responses to stimuli, and as the patterns are matched the ways of reading those neurons become slowly more clear. It's based on a pretty big database; the only reason it takes a while to get a Rosetta translation to work is the human bottleneck. Sensations, images and so on have to be fed in and responses read, and that's what really takes the time. But since schizophrenic brains are both nonstandard -- significantly deviant from the normative clusters Rosetta would already contain -- *and* (presumably) unique from one another, there's never been a way to pattern their neural responses to anything. In essence each set of responses in a schizophrenic brain comprises its own database entry in the set, with no correlates. So 100 such brains would equal 100 entries with no (or proximally no) cross-matching of patterns. No 'correlates'? How realistic is it that schizophrenics are *that* alien? I really have no idea. All I know is that they don't respond isomorphically to pharmacological intervention, and that what drugs *do* work don't work consistently over time in even one schizophrenic brain. That's not necessarily meaningful to a scientist, but to an SF writer it's interesting. Look, I try to base my stories in the plausible, not the truly really hard SF, and that's why I have FTL transport and schizophrenic couriers as opposed to deep-enciphered data and lightyears' passage of messages between stars. I want my stuff to work in science, but I'm very very interested in human dynamics. To me the idea of a boy caught in interplanetary politics -- and so unable to get the help he needed -- was much more interesting to me than the idea that in the future, all wrongs will be righted. My SF is not about tech, or at least not totally, though I want to make that relevant. It is about what human means. I like those kinds of questions, and I like exploring them in my stories. I'm willing to fudge a bit to make them happen; for instance I have one deeply shattered character reflecting thus: == He fell, he fell four hundred years in forty days, cast from hell to watch a star rise on distant textured shores. He fell and in the fall was safe wrapped proof against cold, death so chill not even stars warmed it, and it was all around him and he had taken it with him and it is outside him still and he knows, he knows the others sense it. And they do not make him see it himself, they do not call it from his depths to hang before him, and he can stay wrapped in the shroud and hold still. If he holds still the pocket stabilizes, it is like not moving in cold water, thin layer of heat vanishing with any motion. Because outside, in the dark, is It is dark like a mirror of black water and it stirs and in it faces not his own reflect on him. [From my _A Fire in Arcadia I: Kindling_] == Now I'm talking here about a boy with a broken mind, and he's slowly reintegrating that. But how to make it sensible? He's been sent to another world by parents desperate to help him, but the trip itself cost time and he was affected by it
Re: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . .
At 01:28 AM 06/05/05 -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote: snip For years I have struggled with the idea of sexual orientation. I'm currently of the inclination that it doesn't exist objectively. Gay, straight or in-between are, to me, ideas, nothing more. Given the scientific evidence piled up in the last 30 years that's an amazing statement. Keith Henson ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Garry Kasparov was a Steel-Drivin' Man...
At 02:52 AM 06/05/05 -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote: snip This reminds me of the Ballad of John Henry. You might or might not know it; the story is that John Henry, who worked on railroads in the 1900s, was faced with a steam-driven track laying machine, and he refused to accept the premise that the machine was superior to human ability. So he placed a bet: He would lay a mile of track before the machine could. Please excuse my annoyance, but taking the very first Google link on John Henry would have taken you here: http://www.ibiblio.org/john_henry/ One such chore that figures heavily into some of the earliest John Henry ballads is the blasting of the Big Bend Tunnel -- more than a mile straight through a mountain in West Virginia. Steel-drivin' men like John Henry used large hammers and stakes to pound holes into the rock, which were then filled with explosives that would blast a cavity deeper and deeper into the mountain. In the folk ballads, the central event took place under such conditions. Eager to reduce costs and speed up progress, some tunnel engineers were using steam drills . . . . The contest was about drilling holes into rock for explosives, not track laying machines. Keith Henson ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: US riches, actual and hypothetical
On 5/5/05, JDG [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 10:24 PM 5/5/2005 -0500, Dan M. wrote: Unless you and Dan have some brilliant economic theory as to why Republicans tend to cause recessions and Democrats tend to produce uninterrupted economic growth regardless of the business cycle, your analysis is deeply flawed. This is one area where we differ. I believe that data come first, theory comes second. In Economics, the prevalence of spurious correlations makes that a dangerous paradigm. I won't say that no serious Economists follow that paradigm, but data mining is broadly looked upon with skepticism in Economics. One reason for this is that Economics relies heavily upon time-series data, and any two non-stationary time series will tend towards correlation over time. Sorry, you need to go back to class on that one. The spurious regression problem applies to time series where they both grow over time. The binary variable 'party of President', or 'party in control on Congress', the economic data works for both, is not a time-series growing over time. To give an example from another case of mixing Economics and Presidential Politics, there is a Economics professor - I believe at Yale - out there, who on a bit of lark constructed an Economic model that predicts the outcome of the two-way US Presidential race based upon economic factors. By all the usual statistical tests, this model is very robust. And yet, every four years that same model is spectacularly wrong. And so, after each Presidential election the model is tweaked to account for the latest observation - all to no avail. Every four years the model's future predictions are invariably wrong. It was not spectacularly or even invariablby wrong, although sometimes I believe he went back after the election and choose variables that could make it very wrong as a demonstration. There were several long discussions and papers I've read on using econometric models for elections and the problems of having a means of validating models before an election. People too often strive for these perfect models and use all the data and all the time series available which means there is no means of testing it. So, to return to the original point, the data says that 8 out of 9 recession have occurred under Republican Presidencies. Do you believe that this is inherently significant? If you don't like where the the data is leading do you always close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears and go Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah? JDG -- Gary Denton Easter Lemming Blogs http://elemming.blogspot.com http://elemming2.blogspot.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Galactic scripts.
On 4/25/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Has anyone worked on what the various galactic languages look like in print? I have a theory that except for dots and dashes, there are no letters that could be either flipped or reversed. No dyslexia in the Civilization of the Four Galaxies. William Taylor Google mail gives me Civilization 2 for $5 and a discount price for Civilization 3 Conquests advertisements for this email. Sorry, I just thought that was cool when I was checking through some older emails. It also gives a link to a star image. I would think that would apply to normal signage usage - not necessary for other communication. There may be formal, or ornamental fonts where possible mistaken communication is not a big issue and artistic or other consideration could override it. . About these links support/bin/answer.py?ctx=gmailhl=enanswer=6603 Sponsored Links Civilization 2 CD-Rom $5http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/adclick?sa=ladurl=http://search.store.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/nsearch%3Fcatalog%3D5dollarsoftware%26query%3Dcivilization%2Bcombat%2Bwar%2Bbeach%26.autodone%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fshop.store.yahoo.com%252F5dollarsoftware%252Fnsearch.html%26submit.x%3D14%26submit.y%3D8ai=BQOxA64J7Qqb9Gc_ssQHP78WoBPz2wQKEnfsHwI23AdDoDBABGAEgho-AAigCSI05qgEmQWNjb3VudEFnZTEyMHRvSW5maW5pdHkrTmV3c0JvdHRvbUZsYXSyAQlnbWFpbC5jb23IAQHaATBodHRwOi8vZ21haWwuY29tL3F0Z3Azdmw3amZsczVkcWNtOGs5Z2Rqb2N6dGc0a3foAQEnum=1 www.5DollarSoftware.com http://www.5DollarSoftware.com - The classic strategy game now at a classic price other great dealsCivilization 3: Conquestshttp://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/adclick?sa=ladurl=http://www.trygames.com/game/aff%3Dt_06tno/vid%3Db7e83565a6f3cb42335c840bb209b1deai=BcT2K64J7Qqb9Gc_ssQHP78WoBN-4jwqR7c2UAcCNtwHAuAIQAhgCIIaPgAIoAkiQOaoBJkFjY291bnRBZ2UxMjB0b0luZmluaXR5K05ld3NCb3R0b21GbGF0sgEJZ21haWwuY29tyAEB2gEwaHR0cDovL2dtYWlsLmNvbS9xdGdwM3ZsN2pmbHM1ZHFjbThrOWdkam9jenRnNGt36AEBnum=2 www.trygames.com http://www.trygames.com - Download a free trial or buy the full version for only $29.99. Aff Related Pages 'Wonderful' star reveals its hot naturehttp://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/pageclick?client=ca-gmailtype=1channel=AccountAge120toInfinity%2BNewsBottomFlatredir_url=http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html%3Fpid%3D16788 Space Ref - Apr 30, 2005 - Image: The Chandra image shows Mira A (right), a highly evolved red ... -- Gary Denton Easter Lemming Blogs http://elemming.blogspot.com http://elemming2.blogspot.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Soldier, Defender of the Truth, Fighter for Peace
Col. David. H. Hackworth, 1930-2005 Legendary U.S. Army Guerrilla Fighter, Champion of the Ordinary Soldier Washington, D.C., May 5, 2005 Col. David H. Hackworth, the United States Army's legendary, highly decorated guerrilla fighter and lifelong champion of the doughboy and dogface, ground-pounder and grunt, died Wednesday in Mexico. He was 74 years old. The cause of death was a form of cancer now appearing with increasing frequency among Vietnam veterans exposed to the defoliants called Agents Orange and Blue. *http://tinyurl.com/7tfq3* Both the Pentagon and the conservatives turned on him for being one of the first authentic heroes to say we didn't belong in Vietnam. He continued fighting for the ordinary dogfaces until the day he died. -- Gary Denton Easter Lemming Blogs http://elemming.blogspot.com http://elemming2.blogspot.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: US riches, actual and hypothetical
- Original Message - From: JDG [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 10:58 PM Subject: Re: US riches, actual and hypothetical At 10:24 PM 5/5/2005 -0500, Dan M. wrote: Unless you and Dan have some brilliant economic theory as to why Republicans tend to cause recessions and Democrats tend to produce uninterrupted economic growth regardless of the business cycle, your analysis is deeply flawed. This is one area where we differ. I believe that data come first, theory comes second. In Economics, the prevalence of spurious correlations makes that a dangerous paradigm.I won't say that no serious Economists follow that paradigm, but data mining is broadly looked upon with skepticism in Economics. But, I asked a very obvious question: the effects of the implementation of two general schools of thoughts on ecconomics. It's not as thought I tried hundreds of correlations, until I got a 3 sigma one. One reason for this is that Economics relies heavily upon time-series data, and any two non-stationary time series will tend towards correlation over time. To give an example from another case of mixing Economics and Presidential Politics, there is a Economics professor - I believe at Yale - out there, who on a bit of lark constructed an Economic model that predicts the outcome of the two-way US Presidential race based upon economic factors. By all the usual statistical tests, this model is very robust.And yet, every four years that same model is spectacularly wrong.And so, after each Presidential election the model is tweaked to account for the latest observation - all to no avail. Every four years the model's future predictions are invariably wrong. Do you know _why_ what I did and what he did are different? So, to return to the original point, the data says that 8 out of 9 recession have occurred under Republican Presidencies. Do you believe that this is inherently significant? If you look at the policies that were undertaken by Democrats and Republicans, then I would expect recessions to be more likely, longer and worse when Republican economic techniques are used. In my time series, we looked at two 12 consecutive year spans when Republicans had the White House and one 20 year span when Democrats did. Try a number of different types of cyclical functions, and see how likely this type of occurrence would occur randomly. One would expect a cycle to have periodicity that one doesn't really see here. In short, I agree one has to be very careful about seeing correlations when one tries hundreds of different combinations until one sees a signal. But, when one asks the one obvious question about Republican vs. Democratic economic policy, one can use the statistics that are valid for asking 1 question, not trying hundreds of questions. It may be worthwhile to start a thread on statistics. I'd be willing to walk through the foundations of statistics and ways to check for valid vs. invalid use of statistics. As I've mentioned before; Monte Carlo techniques are very good at turning tacit assumptions into explicit assumptions, allowing one to more clearly see the question one is asking. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Galactic scripts.
Hah- you obviously are not favored by our Google overlords; *I* can get the Civilization board game for a mere 41.95$ ! Civilization Board Game Only $41.95. Board game version of Sid Meyer's popular PC game. www.gameoutfitter.com http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/adclick?sa=ladurl=http://www.gameoutfitter.com/Browse_Item_Details.asp/Item_ID/465/categ_id/104/parent_ids/8,104/Name/Sid_Meierprime%3Bs_Civilization:_The_Boardgameai=B3o1ev457QvqAK5CUsAHfgtn7AoXctwij1oCdAcCNtwHQhgMQAxgDIIaPgAIoA0iQOaoBF0FjY291bnRBZ2UxMjB0b0luZmluaXR5sgEJZ21haWwuY29tyAEB2gEwaHR0cDovL2dtYWlsLmNvbS80NzNrZnVhaDl1NXU3aW5nN2xvc2d1MzkxM2hpcmR26AEBnum=3 ~Maru I for one... On 5/6/05, Gary Denton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 4/25/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Has anyone worked on what the various galactic languages look like in print? I have a theory that except for dots and dashes, there are no letters that could be either flipped or reversed. No dyslexia in the Civilization of the Four Galaxies. William Taylor Google mail gives me Civilization 2 for $5 and a discount price for Civilization 3 Conquests advertisements for this email. Sorry, I just thought that was cool when I was checking through some older emails. It also gives a link to a star image. I would think that would apply to normal signage usage - not necessary for other communication. There may be formal, or ornamental fonts where possible mistaken communication is not a big issue and artistic or other consideration could override it. . About these links support/bin/answer.py?ctx=gmailhl=enanswer=6603 Sponsored Links Civilization 2 CD-Rom $5http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/adclick?sa=ladurl=http://search.store.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/nsearch%3Fcatalog%3D5dollarsoftware%26query%3Dcivilization%2Bcombat%2Bwar%2Bbeach%26.autodone%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fshop.store.yahoo.com%252F5dollarsoftware%252Fnsearch.html%26submit.x%3D14%26submit.y%3D8ai=BQOxA64J7Qqb9Gc_ssQHP78WoBPz2wQKEnfsHwI23AdDoDBABGAEgho-AAigCSI05qgEmQWNjb3VudEFnZTEyMHRvSW5maW5pdHkrTmV3c0JvdHRvbUZsYXSyAQlnbWFpbC5jb23IAQHaATBodHRwOi8vZ21haWwuY29tL3F0Z3Azdmw3amZsczVkcWNtOGs5Z2Rqb2N6dGc0a3foAQEnum=1 www.5DollarSoftware.com http://www.5DollarSoftware.com - The classic strategy game now at a classic price other great dealsCivilization 3: Conquestshttp://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/adclick?sa=ladurl=http://www.trygames.com/game/aff%3Dt_06tno/vid%3Db7e83565a6f3cb42335c840bb209b1deai=BcT2K64J7Qqb9Gc_ssQHP78WoBN-4jwqR7c2UAcCNtwHAuAIQAhgCIIaPgAIoAkiQOaoBJkFjY291bnRBZ2UxMjB0b0luZmluaXR5K05ld3NCb3R0b21GbGF0sgEJZ21haWwuY29tyAEB2gEwaHR0cDovL2dtYWlsLmNvbS9xdGdwM3ZsN2pmbHM1ZHFjbThrOWdkam9jenRnNGt36AEBnum=2 www.trygames.com http://www.trygames.com - Download a free trial or buy the full version for only $29.99. Aff Related Pages 'Wonderful' star reveals its hot naturehttp://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/pageclick?client=ca-gmailtype=1channel=AccountAge120toInfinity%2BNewsBottomFlatredir_url=http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html%3Fpid%3D16788 Space Ref - Apr 30, 2005 - Image: The Chandra image shows Mira A (right), a highly evolved red ... -- Gary Denton Easter Lemming Blogs http://elemming.blogspot.com http://elemming2.blogspot.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Garry Kasparov was a Steel-Drivin' Man...
On 5/6/05, Keith Henson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 02:52 AM 06/05/05 -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote: snip This reminds me of the Ballad of John Henry. You might or might not know it; the story is that John Henry, who worked on railroads in the 1900s, was faced with a steam-driven track laying machine, and he refused to accept the premise that the machine was superior to human ability. So he placed a bet: He would lay a mile of track before the machine could. Please excuse my annoyance, but taking the very first Google link on John Henry would have taken you here: http://www.ibiblio.org/john_henry/ One such chore that figures heavily into some of the earliest John Henry ballads is the blasting of the Big Bend Tunnel -- more than a mile straight through a mountain in West Virginia. Steel-drivin' men like John Henry used large hammers and stakes to pound holes into the rock, which were then filled with explosives that would blast a cavity deeper and deeper into the mountain. In the folk ballads, the central event took place under such conditions. Eager to reduce costs and speed up progress, some tunnel engineers were using steam drills . . . . The contest was about drilling holes into rock for explosives, not track laying machines. Keith Henson He was referring to the popular legends/tall tales (not sure which; both seem to apply) of Henry; not the historical facts. Every popular depiction, cartoons, videos, shows, childrens' books, etc I've seen, they all depict it as driving spikes into the ground to fasten down rails. Not, though the truth is otherwise, as making holes for explosives. Artistic license, anyone? ~Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: A very good NYT article on intelligent design
On 5/6/05, Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On May 2, 2005, at 4:46 PM, Maru Dubshinki wrote: On 5/2/05, Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... _Calculating God_, yeah. As it happens I just finished it this weekend. It's an interesting read but Sawyer leaves a gaping hole in his story (two, actually), which he also did with _Hominids_. In CG Sawyer's aliens suggest that the current universe's physics are too precisely honed toward life's development for it to be an accident; the idea is that some kind of superbeing prearranged the current big bang expansion to have the state it does. What we don't go into is how that entity managed to survive the previous universe's big crunch. That's a pretty significant omission, to me. And of course the main basis for the argument that the Fohrlinors and Wreeds propose is the way extinction events occurred simultaneously on their homeworlds *and* ours (give or take a couple million years) -- now if something that incredibly improbable actually had happened, sure, there'd be something worth looking at. But in order to knock aside any doubts at all the book has to suggest an additional not one, but two literal deus ex machina events. Framed in that carefully constructed context it's hardly surprising the idea of god finds a lot of support, but the fact is that without that elaborately constructed set of premises, the argument falls flat. In _Hominids_, BTW, the problem I had was his suggestion that consciousness developed in human brains initially as a quantum state change, something random rather than emergent that altered the way a given brain operated once and forever in the distant past. Well, how exactly did that trait get passed along to offspring? It *must* have been an emergent property of brain complexity, something that existed in DNA, or else it would never have occurred again. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books A goof point Warren, but you forget that genes aren't the *only* unit of inheritance- culture is also inherited. Yes -- but not biologically. If there is a discontinuity the culture gets lost. It is not innate. Exactly- like I suggested, the character-in-charge-of-exposition could use the historical examples of wolfling children to point that out precisely. ~Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . .
On May 6, 2005, at 6:23 AM, Keith Henson wrote: At 01:28 AM 06/05/05 -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote: snip For years I have struggled with the idea of sexual orientation. I'm currently of the inclination that it doesn't exist objectively. Gay, straight or in-between are, to me, ideas, nothing more. Given the scientific evidence piled up in the last 30 years that's an amazing statement. Not when you've lived it. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Garry Kasparov was a Steel-Drivin' Man...
On May 6, 2005, at 6:39 AM, Keith Henson wrote: At 02:52 AM 06/05/05 -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote: snip This reminds me of the Ballad of John Henry. You might or might not know it; the story is that John Henry, who worked on railroads in the 1900s, was faced with a steam-driven track laying machine, and he refused to accept the premise that the machine was superior to human ability. So he placed a bet: He would lay a mile of track before the machine could. Please excuse my annoyance, but taking the very first Google link on John Henry would have taken you here: http://www.ibiblio.org/john_henry/ Please excuse *my* annoyance, but the title of the note very clearly suggests I was referring to the LEGEND of John Henry, not the facts behind his story. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Garry Kasparov was a Steel-Drivin' Man...
Maru Dubshinki said He was referring to the popular legends/tall tales (not sure which; both seem to apply) of Henry; not the historical facts. Every popular depiction, cartoons, videos, shows, childrens' books, etc I've seen, they all depict it as driving spikes into the ground to fasten down rails. ... Amazing! The words I know told me that John Henry was making holes for explosives in a tunnel. And that the contest was whether humans or machines were stronger. I had not realized there were other versions, although I am not surprised. Incidentally, I understood the song to be a recent mythological way for people in our culture to say that technological advance has overcome humans. (I did not know that there were other ways of depicting the contest besides the song.) -- Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . .
On 5 May 2005, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On another list there's been a discussion in the last few days about the findings of science, and particularly how many of us simply accept them without question. Yes. There is no way to avoid having to accept most things. People lack the time and the resources to do otherwise. Since belief in the religion of one's culture is so important, people do devote the time and the resources to it. One consequence is that many have numinous religious experiences. As Roy Rappaport (1) said A numinous experience compounds the emotions of love, fear, dependence, fascination, unworthiness, majesty and connection. It does not have any particular references, but 'is powerful, indescribable, and utterly convincing.' Traditionally, numinous religious experiences were interpreted in terms of a culture's religion. However, communications about numinous religious experiences often fails to cross cultures. In contrast communications about science often succeed in crossing cultures. This is because a scientific communication can also (but does not always) provide a numinous experience. In other words, a scientific communication can be `utterly convincing'. There are three ways that a person gains an undeniable, internal, numinous experience from a scientific communication: * From replicated internal experience This is to say, the listener *replicates the reasoning*. Mathematical beliefs come from this, because people reason. At the same time, internal experience includes dreams, visions, and personal revelation. Many religious beliefs are confirmed by revelation. Mathematics is transcultural because people from different cultures follow the same process of reasoning and come to the same conclusions. But people from different cultures who each have revelations often interpret them differently. * From replicated observation This is to say, the listener *replicates the observations* Astronomical observations and old-fashioned biology are examples. The key is that the person himself or herself makes the observations, and understands how they are made. Otherwise, the `observation' is simply a report by another: another case of _replicated hearing_. In addition, the person must also reason that there are no better alternative interpretations of the observations. * From replicated action This is to say, the listener *replicates the experiment*. Again, a key is that the person do the experiment and not let another do it. These three methods are successful because the person's own experience is undeniable. By the way, two other ways for gaining belief are: * From replicated culture For many people, this is the background of all their beliefs. Actually, this is a subset of _replicated hearing_, but people do not remember when they heard. It is `knowledge that they have'. * From replicated hearing This is the dominant mode for establishing a new belief, since it means going by authority. (It includes hearsay.) These two ways do not cross cultures. Dave Land is surely correct when he says that I bet that listening to authorities is evolutionarily favored ... After all, the children who didn't, died. But I am not so sure that ... listening *critically* to authorities even more so. As far as I can see, in periods during which nothing much changed during a generation, many could survive by accepting what they were told. As for definitive statements: any human decision regarding evidence involves a judgement. Is the evidence weak, suggestive, or strongly suggestive? Your judgement may be strong enough to bet your life on, but it is not an absolute. When the word `evidence' is used, should others presume that the writer means `suggestive' even if he or she uses absolute language? -- Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc (1) `Ecology, Meaning and Religion', Roy Rappaport, 1979, North Atlantic Books, p. 217 ISBN 0-913028-54-1 paperback ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . .
Robert J. Chassell wrote: Dave Land is surely correct when he says that I bet that listening to authorities is evolutionarily favored ... After all, the children who didn't, died. But I am not so sure that ... listening *critically* to authorities even more so. As far as I can see, in periods during which nothing much changed during a generation, many could survive by accepting what they were told. How often did things change significantly over the course of a generation? How many iterations would there have to be for listening *critically* to authorities to be selected for to the point where over half the population had the traits for the tendency to do so? Have we reached that point yet? If not, will we ever? Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: US riches, actual and hypothetical
On Thu, 05 May 2005 23:58:34 -0400, JDG wrote By all the usual statistical tests, this model is very robust.And yet, every four years that same model is spectacularly wrong.And so, after each Presidential election the model is tweaked to account for the latest observation - all to no avail. Every four years the model's future predictions are invariably wrong. Then it is an excellent predictor, isn't it? If it were not, then it would be right half the time. ;-) Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . .
On Fri, 6 May 2005 00:01:30 -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote As to fear being present with anger in all cases ... that's a very interesting idea, and my inclination is to agree with your assessment. If anger is (in essence) a response to perceived threat - - any perceived threat -- it could be easy to support the suggestion that there's at least *some* fear there as well. Behind anger, I think there's always a should. That guy shouldn't have cut me off on the freeway... Wes shouldn't have been killed in Iraq... I shouldn't have wasted time arguing about politics. And so, the opposite of anger is acceptance, in my view. I'm not saying that fear and anger don't are wrong... it is appropriate to be afraid of the lion and to be angry when he eats our friend. Fear and anger themselves call for acceptance. In another thread, I said I wanted to get out of the kill the other guy's argument mode of talking about things here. Another way to say that is that I want to figure out how to talk about difficult issues -- politics, religion, etc. -- while accepting others where they are. Hard to do, which pisses me off. Okay, that was a joke, that last thing. Mostly. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Morality Redux (was: Br!n something-Neocon-or-other)
I'm short on time, in-between lessons, but want to tie up a few of the multiple loose ends from my last post - I'll get to actual replies if it rains (ooh, being egotistical in assuming that there _are_ responses required! grin). I was surprised to find that morality and ethics were nearly interchangable according to my Oxford's Unabridged (c. ~1996); 'ethics' was considered more applicable in the context of professions, but each word was used in defining the other. I kind of thought that ethics was 'more' defined. That said, I must agree with those who state that morality is culturally-based, rather than an Absolute. The idea that morality has evolved as larger and larger groups are acknowledged to be People (family - village/tribe - city-state/tribal confederation - nation - race - gender -- non-humans?) seems particularly apt. While I try to live my life as a 'moral and upright' person, I do think that being trained as a physician pushed me to look for more demonstrable reasons to do - or not do - certain things. Of course I realize that science itself is susceptible to trends, slanting and even fads, but it's a little less corruptible than ...because God told me this! (Or maybe it just really hacks me off to be told that somebody else has The Whole Truth...wryness) Back to clarify my response to one of Gautam's points (IIRC): so morality can be _a_ reason to do/not do, but if it is _the_ reason, it needs to be above reproach (I think Nick said something along that line). Paying small attention to what motivates other governments WRT what the US should do/not do is presumptuously arrogant; OTOH, wanting the US to be morally superior in all its actions is also arrogant, maybe even more so? ...so I'm guilty of the latter. WRT Sudan (I know that was another thread, but I can't find that post right now), allowing the killing to continue is wrong; so B pushing the UN/others to take action is good and necessary, because the US cannot do it alone, given military resources stretched so thin. WRT Iraq, if Bush had stated that the US was morally obliged to do something because of past US government actions which helped Saddam stay in power/didn't get rid of him sooner, I might actually have to agree with that. As Dan said, doing nothing is an option, but it requires you to acknowledge that you have at least a partial responsibility for whatever ill results. It's moot now, but before GWII began, I and others thought that enforced inspections were a decent compromise between 'sanctions as usual' and flat-out war; I said something about 'the hammer of US troops hovering just across the border' as proper incentive. At the time, some said that 'keeping troops standing around in the desert summer' was not viable; yet I note that US troops have actively patrolled/fought through two summers, with another fast approaching. Debbi It's Not All-Or-Nothing Maru Discover Yahoo! Have fun online with music videos, cool games, IM and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/online.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Galactic scripts.
In a message dated 5/6/2005 7:53:43 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I would think that would apply to normal signage usage - not necessary for other communication. There may be formal, or ornamental fonts where possible mistaken communication is not a big issue and artistic or other consideration could override it. The big deal is that I'm working with Sah'ot's poetry holocube. The more unique it is, the better it works as a plot device to get him home. Vilyehm ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . .
Erik Reuter wrote: * Dave Land ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Thanks for reminding me: the other pathetic logical fallacy that you frequently engage in is ad hominem attacks. Awww, poor Dave. Can't think. Likes to whine. Aw. Eating more bran might help with that attitude, dude! xponent Peniscephalic Entropy Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Earth has developed a slight eccentricity in its orbit...
Warren Ockrassa wrote: On May 4, 2005, at 6:07 AM, Max Battcher wrote: First source I could find (but it is mentioned in other places) that the enhanced love story was Adams' idea: Too bad. I was wanting to think the reason the movie sucked had to do with the shit introduced by others. Now I have to admit that some of the shit came from Adams. That doesn't change my opinion of the movie. It was bad. Bad, bad, bad. Still have not seen it myself. But you are the only person I've run across so far who dislikes it greatly. (I don't pay a lot of attention to proffessional movie reviews, I disagree with them too often) xponent Coming Soon Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Garry Kasparov was a Steel-Drivin' Man...
At 11:50 AM 06/05/05 -0400, Maru wrote: snip He was referring to the popular legends/tall tales (not sure which; both seem to apply) of Henry; not the historical facts. Every popular depiction, cartoons, videos, shows, childrens' books, etc I've seen, they all depict it as driving spikes into the ground to fasten down rails. Anyone who has ever paid the slightest attention when walking near a railroad track knows that spikes are driven into the wooden ties rather than into the ground. Track laying machines might exist today, but they certainly did not for a *long* time after the early building of railroads. Not, though the truth is otherwise, as making holes for explosives. Artistic license, anyone? Can you go on Google and point out a few places where John Henry is up against a track laying machine or driving spikes to hold down the rails? I have *never* seen this, but your might be right. It has been a really long time since I was a kid. Keith Henson ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: US riches, actual and hypothetical
* Erik Reuter ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Productivity data is from: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/OPHPBS/2/Max You can see a graph of productivity growth here: http://erikreuter.net/econ/ophpbs.png *I did not include years 1953, 1961, 1969, 1977, 1981, 1993, or 2001 in the calculation of average annualized productivity growth for obvious reasons. I've added some more economic variables to the calculation. All data is from the St. Louis Fed website given above, covers the period 1947-2004 but does not include the years given above. All data are average annualized growth rate in percent, and all numbers are real inflation-corrected numbers. Rep Dem Statistic 4.7 7.2 Non-residential Investment 0.9 1.7 Hours worked business sector 1.7 1.6 Civilian Workforce 1.2 1.3 Population 3.4 4.6 Output business sector 2.5 2.8 Output per Hour business sector 3.2 4.0 Disposable Personal Income 2.5 4.8 Compensation, wages and salaries 3.2 4.3 Real GDP 2.0 2.9 Real GDP per capita 3.6 3.3 Inflation (personal consumption expenditure) In addition to the Democrats doing better than the Republicans across the board, two things are worth mentioning: * Investment grew significantly faster under Democratic presidential terms than Republican. This argues against the idea that the Democrats are getting credit for long-term improvements made during Republican terms. If investment pays dividends many years down the road, then it would actually be the Republicans who would be getting unfair credit from the Democrat's rapidly increasing investment. * Hours worked increased faster than the civilian workforce under Democrats, but hours worked lagged growth in the civilian workforce under Republicans. Democratic policies seem to make better use of the available workforce. -- Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Garry Kasparov was a Steel-Drivin' Man...
At 01:11 PM 06/05/05 -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On May 6, 2005, at 6:39 AM, Keith Henson wrote: At 02:52 AM 06/05/05 -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote: snip This reminds me of the Ballad of John Henry. You might or might not know it; the story is that John Henry, who worked on railroads in the 1900s, was faced with a steam-driven track laying machine, and he refused to accept the premise that the machine was superior to human ability. So he placed a bet: He would lay a mile of track before the machine could. Please excuse my annoyance, but taking the very first Google link on John Henry would have taken you here: http://www.ibiblio.org/john_henry/ Please excuse *my* annoyance, but the title of the note very clearly suggests I was referring to the LEGEND of John Henry, not the facts behind his story. I might be wrong about this. Can you point me to any accounts of the legend where John Henry was up against a track laying machine? Keith Henson ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Garry Kasparov was a Steel-Drivin' Man...
On May 6, 2005, at 5:16 PM, Keith Henson wrote: At 01:11 PM 06/05/05 -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On May 6, 2005, at 6:39 AM, Keith Henson wrote: At 02:52 AM 06/05/05 -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote: snip This reminds me of the Ballad of John Henry. You might or might not know it; the story is that John Henry, who worked on railroads in the 1900s, was faced with a steam-driven track laying machine, and he refused to accept the premise that the machine was superior to human ability. So he placed a bet: He would lay a mile of track before the machine could. Please excuse my annoyance, but taking the very first Google link on John Henry would have taken you here: http://www.ibiblio.org/john_henry/ Please excuse *my* annoyance, but the title of the note very clearly suggests I was referring to the LEGEND of John Henry, not the facts behind his story. I might be wrong about this. Can you point me to any accounts of the legend where John Henry was up against a track laying machine? Doesn't look like it. It's entirely possible (probable) that I was in error. My impression had been that it was a tunnel driller (rathe than a steam drill or steam hammer), but that didn't make any sense to me because it seemed that a machine of that type wouldn't have existed either. Refs I've dug up, though, all seem to paint Henry as having been, basically, a hole driller; explosives, it seems, were put into the holes to blast out rocks. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Garry Kasparov was a Steel-Drivin' Man...
On May 6, 2005, at 4:51 PM, Keith Henson wrote: At 11:50 AM 06/05/05 -0400, Maru wrote: snip He was referring to the popular legends/tall tales (not sure which; both seem to apply) of Henry; not the historical facts. Every popular depiction, cartoons, videos, shows, childrens' books, etc I've seen, they all depict it as driving spikes into the ground to fasten down rails. Anyone who has ever paid the slightest attention when walking near a railroad track knows that spikes are driven into the wooden ties rather than into the ground. Wow, it seems we have a budding Erik in our midst. It astonishes me that anyone can overlook ten grafs of commentary on what consciousness means to get so anal retentive over a frickin' myth. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Garry Kasparov was a Steel-Drivin' Man...
On May 6, 2005, at 5:29 PM, I wrote: Wow, it seems we have a budding Erik in our midst. It astonishes me that anyone can overlook ten grafs of commentary on what consciousness means to get so anal retentive over a frickin' myth. Bah. Sorry about that. Ignore the mood, please. That was rude and unnecessary. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Garry Kasparov was a Steel-Drivin' Man...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_%28folklore%29 In a bid to save his job, and the jobs of his men, John Henry challenges the inventor to a contest: John Henry VS. the Steam-Hammer. John defeats the Steam-Hammer in driving spikes, but in the process he suffers a heart attack and dies a martyr. In modern depictions John Henry is usually portrayed as hammering down rail spikes, but older songs often instead refer to him driving blasting holes into rock, part of the process of excavating railroad tunnels. ~Maru On 5/6/05, Keith Henson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 11:50 AM 06/05/05 -0400, Maru wrote: snip He was referring to the popular legends/tall tales (not sure which; both seem to apply) of Henry; not the historical facts. Every popular depiction, cartoons, videos, shows, childrens' books, etc I've seen, they all depict it as driving spikes into the ground to fasten down rails. Anyone who has ever paid the slightest attention when walking near a railroad track knows that spikes are driven into the wooden ties rather than into the ground. Track laying machines might exist today, but they certainly did not for a *long* time after the early building of railroads. Not, though the truth is otherwise, as making holes for explosives. Artistic license, anyone? Can you go on Google and point out a few places where John Henry is up against a track laying machine or driving spikes to hold down the rails? I have *never* seen this, but your might be right. It has been a really long time since I was a kid. Keith Henson ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Garry Kasparov was a Steel-Drivin' Man...
Maru Dubshinki wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_%28folklore%29 In a bid to save his job, and the jobs of his men, John Henry challenges the inventor to a contest: John Henry VS. the Steam-Hammer. John defeats the Steam-Hammer in driving spikes, but in the process he suffers a heart attack and dies a martyr. In modern depictions John Henry is usually portrayed as hammering down rail spikes, but older songs often instead refer to him driving blasting holes into rock, part of the process of excavating railroad tunnels. Maybe this will jog some memories. This is much like the tool that was used: Noun: star drill staar dril 1.. A steel rock drill with a star-shaped point that is used for making holes in stones or masonry; it is operated by hitting the end with a hammer while rotating it between blows These were used in the construction industry well into the 70s. xponent Roto-Hammer Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: US riches, actual and hypothetical
At 03:10 PM 5/6/2005 -0700, Nick wrote: On Thu, 05 May 2005 23:58:34 -0400, JDG wrote By all the usual statistical tests, this model is very robust.And yet, every four years that same model is spectacularly wrong.And so, after each Presidential election the model is tweaked to account for the latest observation - all to no avail. Every four years the model's future predictions are invariably wrong. Then it is an excellent predictor, isn't it? If it were not, then it would be right half the time. ;-) Cute. Just in case I wasn't clear, though, the model predicts the two-party popular vote percentage, not the binary outcome. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: US riches, actual and hypothetical
At 10:25 AM 5/6/2005 -0500, Dan M. wrote: So, to return to the original point, the data says that 8 out of 9 recession have occurred under Republican Presidencies. Do you believe that this is inherently significant? If you look at the policies that were undertaken by Democrats and Republicans, then I would expect recessions to be more likely, longer and worse when Republican economic techniques are used. Which policies and techniques are these?By what mechanism do these policies and techniques translate into recessions? One would expect a cycle to have periodicity that one doesn't really see here. Why would one expect the business cycle to have periodicity? But, when one asks the one obvious question about Republican vs. Democratic economic policy, one can use the statistics that are valid for asking 1 question, Not when the data set is so obviously flawed. If one reasonably expects that recessions are more-or-less exogenous, that is if on reasonably agrees that recessions are inavoidable in the long run, then one would expect them to be distributed independently of the Party in power. The fact that eight out of nine recessions happened to occur on one side of the ledger makes the eventual results a fait acompli - and in particular makes the growth extrapolations utterly meaningless. You earlier asserted that you would expect recessions to be milder under Democratic Presidencies - and yet, surely you would agree that there is no data to support this conjecture? Another important flaw is that economic growth for a given year is not an independent variable. It is serially correlated to the previous year's economic growth.Again, returning to your earlier assertion that you would expect recessions to be milder and expansions more robust under Democratic Presidencies - that suggests that what you are really looking at here is cycles. In which case, since World War II, we've only experienced three full political cycles - swings from Democrats to Republicans and backs (i.e. from the beginning of on Democratic Administration to the beginning of the first Democratic Administration following a Republican one.) Thus, I don't think that there is anywheres near enough data to run the type of analysis you are desiring. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . .
From: Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Subject: Re: Permission Slips Re: blah, blah, blah . . . Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 14:01:00 -0700 As I see it the problem is not religion; it's undisciplined, irrational thought -- and that is as prevalent *outside* of any church as it is inside. If you want to have a productive discussion with a religious person, attack the faulty thought process rather than its results. That's a mouthful right there, let me tell ya. A little on the idyllic side of the fence considering the set human precedent, but such sublimity usually is. Besides, it bespeaks the will to carry forward through our own fallibility, which, in and of itself is a precedent that we try and set, again, through the veil of our own fallibility, to ultimately persevere in the struggle to ensure that the institutions we leave behind are better than those willed to us by our forefathers. Or something like that... Warren, you are a noble beast! -Travis _ Powerful Parental Controls Let your child discover the best the Internet has to offer. http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-capage=byoa/premxAPID=1994DI=1034SU=http://hotmail.com/encaHL=Market_MSNIS_Taglines Start enjoying all the benefits of MSN® Premium right now and get the first two months FREE*. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Garry Kasparov was a Steel-Drivin' Man...
At 09:35 PM 06/05/05 -0400, Maru wrote: On 5/6/05, Keith Henson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 11:50 AM 06/05/05 -0400, Maru wrote: snip Can you go on Google and point out a few places where John Henry is up against a track laying machine or driving spikes to hold down the rails? I have *never* seen this, but your might be right. It has been a really long time since I was a kid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_%28folklore%29 In a bid to save his job, and the jobs of his men, I should go fix the Wiki because while steel driving men were not the absolute bottom of the pecking order, they certainly didn't have an men under them--unless you count the poor dude turning the drill steel (shakers). Of course when an 8 pound hammer missed the drill steel you needed a new shaker. John Henry challenges the inventor to a contest: John Henry VS. the Steam-Hammer. John defeats the Steam-Hammer in driving spikes, but in the process he suffers a heart attack and dies a martyr. There is a decent account based more or less on what was historically possible here: http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=7228 Incidentally, a drill steel has a very different configuration to a spike Spikes are pointed. Drills today have carbide inserts half again as large as the stem that screw onto the end of the drill steel. But up to perhaps the middle of the last century rock drills had a wide chisel shape on the end. This was to drill a hole larger than the stem because otherwise the drill would get stuck. There was a blacksmith shop associated with any rock drilling operation because the drills had to be reshaped in a forge after a few uses. If you were drilling any direction except up, the drill had to be frequently pulled out of the hole and the rock dust scraped out with a spoon. 1849 Jonathan Couch patents first practical American percussion-style steam powered rock drill. http://www.explosives.org/HistoryofExplosives.htm Simon Ingersoll . . . . invented a steam-powered rock drill in 1871. Faster, lighter and more productive than its predecessors, the Ingersoll drillthe first to be mounted on a tripodrevolutionized the drilling industry. http://www.irco.com/pressroom/irworld/irw1q05/centurydynamicgrowth1q05.html The first large-scale application of compressed-air energy occurred in 1871, during the excavation of the Mont Cenis railroad tunnel through the Alps. Engineers developed a water-wheel-driven air compressor that powered the rock drills used to dig the tunnel. Before the invention of air compressors, miners used steam-powered rock drills, but exhaust steam made working conditions in underground mines unbearable. http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_1741500785_3/Air.html In modern depictions John Henry is usually portrayed as hammering down rail spikes, He would be spinning in his grave, different occupation, lower status. If you want a picture of what driving spikes using a spike maul looks like, try here a little more than half way down the page. (Volunteers rebuilding a old line.) http://rypn.org/rypn_files/articles/Articles/031028WWF/Default.htm but older songs often instead refer to him driving blasting holes into rock, part of the process of excavating railroad tunnels. Well, the men who built that steam drill, they thought they were mighty fine John Henry, he drove his fourteen feet That steam drill, it only made nine, Lord, Lord That steam drill, it only made nine. Excuse me for being a grump, but I dislike abusing legends for cartoons, especially when they mash all the engineering and historical sense out of a story. Keith Henson ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Soldier, Defender of the Truth, Fighter for Peace
Gary Denton wrote: Col. David. H. Hackworth, 1930-2005 Legendary U.S. Army Guerrilla Fighter, Champion of the Ordinary Soldier Washington, D.C., May 5, 2005 Col. David H. Hackworth, the United States Army's legendary, highly decorated guerrilla fighter and lifelong champion of the doughboy and dogface, ground-pounder and grunt, died Wednesday in Mexico. He was 74 years old. The cause of death was a form of cancer now appearing with increasing frequency among Vietnam veterans exposed to the defoliants called Agents Orange and Blue. *http://tinyurl.com/7tfq3* Both the Pentagon and the conservatives turned on him for being one of the first authentic heroes to say we didn't belong in Vietnam. He continued fighting for the ordinary dogfaces until the day he died. From the This Is True mailing list: THIS WEEK'S HONORARY UNSUBSCRIBE goes to David H. Hackworth. An orphan, Hackworth paid an older man to pose as his father to certify he was old enough to join to join the U.S. Army because he hoped for sex and adventure. He was only 15. After enlisting he advanced quickly: he became the youngest Captain to serve in the Korean War, and then the youngest Colonel to serve in the Vietnam War. During his distinguished service he earned 91 medals (including two Distinguished Service Crosses, 10 Silver Stars, 8 Bronze Stars and an astounding 8 Purple Hearts). During his stay there he wrote a manual on how to fight back against guerilla warfare, and a General called him the best battalion commander I ever saw in the United States Army. But by 1971 Hackworth was convinced that the U.S. could not win the war in Vietnam and said so -- publicly -- and boldly spoke up against suggestions that the U.S. use nuclear weapons there. The Army moved to court-martial him, but he was allowed to resign instead, ending his 25-year career with an honorary discharge. But he didn't go quietly: Hackworth went on to become an outspoken anti-nuclear activist, earning him another medal -- the United Nations Medal for Peace. After his military career, he wrote a column on military matters for Newsweek magazine and newspapers, wrote several books, and served as a TV commentator during the 1991 Gulf War, the conflict in the Balkans, and, in 2004, predicted that American troops could be stuck in Iraq for at least another 30 years. Most combat vets pick their fights carefully. They look at their scars, remember the madness and are always mindful of the fallout, he said in early 2005. That's not the case in Washington, where the White House and the Pentagon are run by civilians who have never sweated it out on a battlefield. Col. Hack Hackworth, America's most-decorated living veteran, died May 4 in Mexico from bladder cancer. He was 74. -- Honorary Unsubscribe archive: http://www.HonoraryUnsubscribe.com xponent Twice Is Nice Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Einstein on Experiencing the Mysterious
The Mysterious -- Albert Einstein The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
