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Moving The Nihilism Gauge

smijer — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 11:00:55 +0000

Spotted linked numerous times around the interwebs in the last 24 hours: How Facts Backfire. Not news to me. Moves the needle on my old nihilism gauge, though. I increasingly find myself wondering how is the proper way to live in a world where knowledge is strongly devalued. I’d be inclined to grow a beard and become a poet, but I’m not good at poetry.

Seriously, I don’t know which are the symptoms and which are the causes of depression – but I’m feeling down about it all. Maybe it’s time to stop thinking for a while.

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Perspective adjustment

smijer — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:21:18 +0000

Now wouldn’t be a bad time for one.

I know they’re terrorists, but they’re our terrorist. And that’s the definition of true romance.

But the money quote is here:

That aside, here’s the neocon logic, as best I can explain: When a reporter acknowledges the passing of a revered, if controversial figure in a way that doesn’t sufficiently convey what a completely evil terrorist neocons think that figure was — that’s unacceptable. But when the United States spends nearly a trillion dollars, loses over four thousand of its own troops and over a hundred thousand Iraqis to establish a new government largely dominated by that same “terrorist’s” avowed acolytes — that’s victory.

The fact that neconservatives ever wielded such influence over US foreign policy would be comedic in its era of error if the results were not so heartbreakingly tragic. The fact that they still dictate foreign policy in the GOP is terrifying. That they are able to cow our establishment media into adopting an incoherent and unjust double standard is nothing short of shameful.

But make no mistake, if and when this country elects another Republican President, the neocons will be back at the helm of this nation’s foreign policy. One wonders if we can survive another such bout.

Further thoughts… American politics are broken badly. We’re a year and a half into complete Democratic control of government, and the American system of constitutionally protected freedom has done little but corrode further along the trends that got their momentum under the very neocons under discussion.

Buck can say better this than having McCain & Palin at the helm, but I don’t know. True, the war with Iran would likely already have been started – and true, we may manage to dodge that for a while longer. But it – or something much like it – will come. It may be that we have to “hit rock bottom” as they say sometimes before we recover our senses and our care for justice, peace, and freedom. The difference between the GOP and Democrats may very well be nothing more than a difference in tempo and route to the bottom. If hope is to be held out, it is the hope that there will exist some means of restoring justice, peace, and freedom when the time comes that we start wanting them back. There’s no guarantee that this will be the case, but we can hope.

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A Local Story

smijer — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:40:58 +0000

No one got shot, but this got a lot of attention around town yesterday, and it’s almost as bad.

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GWAPTGE

smijer — Fri, 28 May 2010 18:15:44 +0000

A good friend is doing it. So are a couple of acquaintances. But me, I wouldn’t do census work. As Doug points out, this is not about following the lead of Erick Erickson , himself as far as we know a chicken hawk in the global war against part-time government employees.

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Selected Boogers Digest

smijer — Fri, 21 May 2010 11:00:52 +0000

Did I mention that these things pile up? Fast? No room to catch up all the boogers since a week ago, but some favorites follow:

Synthetic Genome+Natural Cell=New Life? | The Loom | Discover Magazine from blogs.discovermagazine.com

(Answer: not really… but an interesting release nonetheless. And complete with a bunch of good links to Zimmer’s fantastic writing on the subject from the past)

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Rekers and the Barbarism of Anti-Gay ‘Therapy’ from Dispatches from the Culture Wars

I’m not sure that anti-gay therapy these days is so barbaric, but the fact that this guy was not just tolerated but celebrated in the anti-gay right for so long speaks to a moral deficit of the highest order. That it would continue to be tolerated and celebrated if Reker’s rental boy vacation hadn’t come to light speaks further to this moral deficit. That Reker could have the career he had without his partner, James Dobson, figuring out that he was a raging closet case speaks to an intelligence deficit.

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IOKIYNAM* from Obsidian Wings

It ‘s OK if you’re not a Muslim.

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Hurt Locker producer: criticizing our lawsuits makes you a moron and a thief from Boing Boing

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Charges Dropped Against British Preacher from Dispatches from the Culture Wars

The British preacher who was arrested for saying homosexuality is a sin in England has had the charges dropped after a public outcry that included gay rights activists:

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Who You Gonna Call? from Improv Everywhere

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Kagan’s Political Advice: Does Principle Matter? : Dispatches from the Culture Wars

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Humanoid robot officiates human wedding

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Cars can be hacked (!)

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Why N. T. Wright would not be asked to speak at the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer event

Too much to excerpt – this one is a must read.

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Learning from my Introductory Physics Class from Starts With A Bang

A must read for anyone interested in eductation, on either end of it.

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Boogers Digest (Thursday)

smijer — Thu, 13 May 2010 22:21:37 +0000

These things pile up super quick.

Outrageous Outrage of the Day!
from Little Green Footballs

This is a case in point on the politics makes you dumb front.

NYU Students Raise More than $100,000 to Build Facebook…
from Mashable!

Via someone I follow on Google Reader. There’s a high probability I will dump Facebook for the new platform if it pans out & Facebook doesn’t clean up its act.

Links for 2010-05-13
from Uncertain Principles

His links are better than mine.

Repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
from SayUncle

Uncle noticed what MilBloggers had to say on the matter.

Like you and me, only better
from SayUncle

Just weird.

The 12 Tribes in Revelation 7
from Boston Bible Geeks

Even as a non-religious person I’m prone to be impressed by a preacher elucidating something from the Bible that you wouldn’t have noticed if you weren’t paying real close attention… but often as not the preachers are not finding something interesting there as much as they are putting interesting things there. BBG are pretty good at doing the real thing and it’s neat when they do. My applause.

The Mysterious Case of Mirin Dajo, the Human Pincushion
from Skepticblog

His show involved being run through with a fencing foil in the most realistic way possible: doing it for real. As always, the mind is boggled and wants to take the easy answer, which is of course “magic”. But the truth is stranger than fiction.

Poll: Majority of Americans Deserve Neither Liberty…
from Poli-Tea

… nor Security.

Too much television.
from View From The Porch

Another one I re-shared from someone else I follow. A cautionary tale on more than one front.

The Nature Of Scholarship in the Blogosphere
from Exploring Our Matrix

Mostly just for the cartoon… but some good links there, too.

Desperate man in electronics store toilet tweets for…
from Boing Boing

… and gets it.

Possible Breakthrough In Hydrogen Energy
from Slashdot

Headline misleading – closer to “possible breakthrough in hydrogen energy storage and transfer efficiency”. But still very worthwhile.

How’s this?
from Post Politics: Political News and Views in Tenne

Bob Corker is, depending on your view, trying to get a good idea passed by stripping it of bad baggage… or just calling a bluff. This amendment was mentioned in the last Digest, and I still think it probably is a good one.

Police torture methods questioned after “murdered”…
from Boing Boing

A Crack in the Mirror Neuron Hypothesis of Autism…
from news.sciencemag.org

Possibly also a crack in the mirror neuron hypothesis of self-consciousness, but I guess we’ll see.

Creationist vs. creationist on Homo habilis
from The Panda’s Thumb

There’s probably less difference than you think between a human and our closest living relatives – Chimpanzees, Bonobos or both. But there’s a lot less difference between humans and many of our extinct relatives in the Homo and Australopithecus lines. And sometimes the differences are so blurred that no one can reliably tell the difference. What should give alarm bells to the creationists involved here is this. Each is supremely confident that humans and our extinct neighbors can be differentiated cleanly in to human “kind” and non-human “kind” (as in “created kind”). Each confidently place these extinct neighbors into those categories. And each of those confident groupings is remarkably different than the other. Somewhere, someone should be second-guessing that supreme confidence.

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Boogers Digest

smijer — Wed, 12 May 2010 16:59:44 +0000

My intention is/was to add a new Booger digest as soon as the last link scrolled off the page from the previous digest. So RSS/facebook readers would still have a chance at the links. I’ve been derelict, but I hope to do better. Here’s the current batch.

Turley on Kagan
from Dispatches from the Culture Wars

I lean toward Turley’s view, myself.

Mojave Cross Stolen
from Dispatches from the Culture Wars

I lean toward Ed’s view, myself

Jewish and Christian Approaches to the Psalms
from Ancient Hebrew Poetry

This conference is something I see only as through a glass, darkly. Even so, it looks fascinating.

The 5 Percent Down Fall
from Post Politics

Probably was a good amendment.

ScienceShot: Flash Floods Make Gems on Titan
from News – Up to the minute news and analysis from Science

Sir Ian ‘Gandalf’ McKellen mistaken for homeless,…
from Boing Boing

Hiding Police Brutality in Seattle
from Dispatches from the Culture Wars

Badass Quote of the Day
from Dispatches from the Culture Wars

NATO’s ‘Most Damaging’ Spy
from 3quarksdaily

Bill Clinton to Bloomberg: I’m glad you don’t like…
from SayUncle

The Story Behind Twitter’s ‘Accept’ Bug
from Little Green Footballs

Reverse Reparations
from Obsidian Wings

The case against Elena Kagan – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com
from www.salon.com

GOP: Slavery and Disenfranchisement of Women Were…
from Obsidian Wings

He’s perfectly fit to possess and use a firearm, as…
from The Northern Muckraker

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History, not politics

smijer — Thu, 06 May 2010 14:35:24 +0000

Seriously… Yes there are political lessons for today in this, but I don’t wish to draw them out so much as to clarify the past. In part because of today’s political climate, people have forgotten what socialism is. In part because of forgetting what socialism is, people have forgotten what capitalism is. A clear-eyed look at the past might help undo some of that confusion, and let the political chips fall where they may.

A clear-eyed look at the past will tell you the difference between Adam Smith and Ayn Rand. It is that Adam Smith was sane.

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This Happened Yesterday

smijer — Tue, 04 May 2010 19:43:07 +0000

Papaw smijer is now papaw smijer twice over. Behold:

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Booger Digest

smijer — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:33:10 +0000

For those who don’t click through… And to archive… And because I don’t have enough original thoughts to post of my own.

Who Wants to be A Millionaire

From onegoodmove

(He Means “Beat”)

Where does oil come from?

From Boing Boing

Whistling Dixie

From Balloon Juice

Whatever DougJ is doing, I’m not casting aspersions. Just highlighting the money quote which is certainly being ironic when it says “Thank God we now live in a post-racial world”. We don’t.

Claude Allègre: The Climate Imposter

From RealClimate

Ex-Muslim President of Liberty University Under Fire…

From Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion

(for faking his ex-Muslim pedigree)

The Universe is Not a Black Hole

From Cosmic Variance

Dinosaurs outgrow their baby feathers : Nature News

From www.nature.com

Noah’s Ark Update: Yep, Its a Hoax

From Science and Religion

Not necessarily a hoax. I’m not sure about the info from Randall Price. Hoax is one option. Shrine is another. The history and geology of the region strongly suggest there was never a big enough flood to land a boat at that altitude, and that the location has been at that altitude since before there were boats.

Read this: Superbug

From Boing Boing

Scary

Frist supports (the heathcare bill)

From Post Politics

Just a few years ago, this fellow was diagnosing patients from the Senate floor. His diagnosis of the healthcare bill may not be trustworthy, but between this and his clean water campaign, I’m beginning to like this man.

26 hours

From SayUncle

Quiz: Deepak, 2Pac or Six Pack?

From Skepchick

Been thinking a lot lately about what “makes sense”. Beginning to realize that some of the silliest things people believe are snuck into those brains under the guise of “making sense”. More reason for the empirical method.

We’re the rhomboid, they’re the rectangle with the…

From Post Politics

Ha!

Bedtime for Bonzo

From Post Politics

Ronald Reagan, for all his faults and the policies with which I disagree could not have survived in modern politics. Because he was usually trying hard to do the best thing for the country instead of slavishly toeing an ideological line. I don’t wonder why Bill Frist got out of politics when he did. It’s poison.

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