william.scherk

Michael, thanks for forking up the press release from the self-styled "human rights activists" on Britain's barring them from the UK. This story from the UK Independent quotes the person who took the decision to bar them. The text of the letter from the Home secretary can be found at Little Green Footballs. It lists the 'unacceptable behaviour' policy. There is a campaign to overturn the ban on entry, by petition, which can be found here.

On today's once a season drop-in at Objectivism-with-one-hand, I discovered something meaty and weighty and fabulous. No, not an Objectivish BBQ dish, but a New Telegraph Course by Leonard Peikoff. My exaggeration of the technology to be used for the New Course is unfair, of course, but it reflects my feeling of falling, screaming, into a time tunnel. At the end of his career as an educator, Peikoff starts a fifteen-unit course of Writing -- all to be delivered by telephone (not telegraph) in 90 minute consecutive installments. Now, I might stop, remove my blinders, take a deep breath, and work carefully through my prejudices and biases in re Peikoff. That would not be fun, but hey. Still, if I find the whole notion of telephone courses to be anachronistic, if I think that the oral-culture holdovers from NBI times (courses on tape/vinyl) are weird, and if I think that this is likely to be a terrible waste of time and money for all concerned -- am I wrong? What makes me so sure? In case I haven't mentioned it in a while, I do not consider Peikoff a good writer, let alone a teacher of same. He Doesn't Write, He Yaps, I might say. Over to more fair and judicious opinions ... I leave OLers the link to discover the thrilling (and awkward) public relations bumf here. The link does not go to ARI or the Ayn Rand Center, because I cannot find news of the New Course on either site given my task time-allotment. Heck of an exciting launch, guys. Oh, and, er,

I clicked on the Media Mass article linked by MSK, where it said this: That link took me to a page headered by: The Mediamass Project : Media criticism through satire The page helpfully explains what they are doing with their site: All the celebrity feature pages have the same death-hoax story along with a story about a dog called Spinee. Definite oddbin territory.

William, It never is. I don't think you take issue with my reasons for doubting a great spike in refugee flows to Europe. In any case, I stand by my analysis. I find no reason to expect vast numbers of refugees to make it to Europe. There are large practical reasons -- besides official EU refugee policy and law, why Europe has accepted temporary numbers that are but a drop in the bucket compared to a) the population of the EU and b) the numbers already accepted as refugees elsewhere in the Middle East. If I had a way to question Glenn Beck on these issues, I would try to engage him on actual numbers, try to find out why he expects something new (a new refugee flow dwarfing the trickle now experienced) after two years of horrible civil war. Maybe I would ask: how many refugees from Syria do you expect to land in Europe? I could also ask: how will they get there? So, Michael, do you expect a great spike in refugees? If so, what numbers do you think would be necessary to -- as Beck suggests -- collapse Europe? Syria is landlocked except for the coastal provinces under the firm control of the Assad regime -- boats do not leave from Latakia or Tartous port for Europe full of Syrian people fleeing fighting. Fighting in the south sends waves of refugees across the border to Jordan. Fighting in the east sends refugees into Iraq. Fighting in the north west sends refugees into Turkey. This is all pretty plain -- there are close to two million internally displaced in addition to the two million in adjoining countries as noted above. Maybe look at it this way: how many Syrian refugees have made it to Europe after two years of war? I say quite few, relative to the internally displaced and in adjoining countries. I do not think you would disagree with me there. If we start from that place of agreement, roughly, what would make the situation change? I suggest that there are multiple barriers to Syrian refugee flow to Europe, of which I mentioned law and policy. European refugee law is not about to change, in my opinion, nor is policy. Europe, collectively, is in no mood to host more than a relative handful of refugees. I can agree with you here as well: "I believe ... that when living conditions are horrible. people tend to migrate--legally or otherwise. " I think this is quite true, whether the conditions are due to war, or drought, or other natural or political disaster. What I would emphasize is the why and the how and the whereby. Wars uproot people, and can send them fleeing. In such a crisis, those fleeing make it to the first welcoming area they can reach -- and the welcome is not only subject to law and policy, but also the mood of the day. The mood right now in Europe is to deny refugees a foothold. Consider, Michael, just one area of law/policy. If you read the Wapo article (it seems to me that the Blaze staff did) on the suffering of Syrians in Greece, you will note that real world constraints prevent the refugees in Greece from moving onward: Another number from that story lets us contrast the numbers of actual refugees in Europe from those in the immediate vicinity of Syria. "More than 34,600 Syrians have applied for asylum in E.U. countries since the conflict in their country started." If this is true, then what will change that number? Consider that Jordan has accepted nearly half a million registered refugees, with a pre-war population of six million. I appreciate the linking of the heart-eating Nusra commander to law and policy of the European Union as far as refugees go. I do not, however, see any particular reason to expect that those fleeing areas under 'rebel' onslaught have any means to leapfrog over Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan to the northern states. I just don't see it happening that way. Here is a site that helps to frame the discussion of refugees from (and within) Syria: http://syrianrefugees.eu/ -- see especially the numbers, maps and breakdowns of people requesting asylum in the EU. It is a tough, ugly situation, Syria. But the least likely outcome of a Syrian exodus of refugees is European collapse, in my considered opinion. I mean no offence to you as a fan of Glenn Beck, Michael. I just don't think facts support his suppositions.

I have had my eye on Syria since March 2011. The present situation is a hideous mess, with multiple actors playing by the most savage 'rules of war.' I do not dispute MSK's characterization of the mess, nor his (likely) position that the USA should keep out of the conflict. One statement is incorrect: "Syria is Shiite, not Sunni." The powerful Assad family belongs to a sect called the Alawites. This is a non-conformist Muslim 'mystery religion' that is grouped with Shiism or noted as an 'offshoot' of Shiism (though it is not at all compatible in practice). In present-day Syria, and since the rise of the dictator Hafez Assad (in 1970), Alawites have been at the apex of the power structure, but not to impose or implant Alawite faith or practice in society. In many ways (but not all), the Alawite power structure represents 'secular values' ... and a secular state. All that being true, it is only the regime that is majority Alawite (starting with the president's family). Syria writ large is an overwhelmingly Sunni county, with at least 75 percent of the population assumed to be Sunni. MSK points to the terrible heterogeneity of the 'rebel' forces -- and of the opposing political formations. Opposition to Assad`s minority dictatorship ranges from the civil (non-violent) to the most horrifying (the Al-Qaeda affiilated Jabat Al-Nusra).Also fighting inside Syria are armed elements of the Shia 'Party of God' Hezbollah -- along with Iranian Revolutionary Guard assistance . In addition to the regular armed forces of the Assad regime, there is also the 'shabiha' paramilitary forces (almost entirely Alawite), and local 'Defence Forces' (newer community-based paramilitaries). On the other side of the mess are a disparate congregation of fighters from outside Syria, from many parts of the world -- Sunni fighters, jihadi fighters. The hideous mess that is Syria is made more hideous and more complex by the old, invisible lines of the Cold War: Syria allied with Russia and Iran (and North Korea and Belarus), USA on the other side, with its allies the large and small Sunni powers (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar). I am no longer hopeful of any good outcome in Syria, no matter what the USA does or doesn't do in support of (some of) the forces fighting against the Assad regime. Too many old conflicts have been brought back to life in war: Sunni/Shia, Eastern Bloc versus the West, Iran vs USA, etc. Too many forces have only the slightest concept of war crimes, and with a background of state atrocities, those who have raised arms against the state have among their fighting forces the worst examples of religious mania and brutality. As for refugees set to overwhelm Europe, this is quite unlikely. See this Washington Post article that describes the conditions for Syrian refugees in the nearest 'European' country, Greece. The EU will not accept any but a drop in the bucket of the displaced people of Syria. Turkey has half a million in both camps and informal refuges. Lebanon is bulging with refugees. Jordan is also host to displaced folks in the hundreds of thousands. Beck's notion of a flood of refugees (from the Syrian conflict) entering Europe is not based on real conditions of law and policy. It is simple assertion: “The refugees will collapse Europe,” Beck said. “Not to mention start a civil war. People have no place to go" (from the story at the Blaze link). If in two years of savage fighting there is but a trickle of refugees reaching Europe from Syria, what conditions will emerge that changes facts on the ground? I don't think serious homework was done on this particular issue at the Blaze. "Everyone is on fire," says Beck, meaning all the Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Not true. Here's a couple of paragraphs from the Wapo report sketching the situation of Europe vis a vis refugees:

I probably should not do a dogpile on O'Donnell**, but I cannot resist one other spectacle of dumbosity. Here MSNBC's Rachel Maddow fetches up a video wherein O'Donnell explains the mission of her organization SALT. No hints. ________________________ ** I felt bad for the candidate at times during the 2010 campaign. I remember one hideous (and non-corroborated) story from some guy who wrote about a sleepover with her, sexually explicit and nastily personal. Her Senate race had everything ugly that US electioneering can produce, I think.

Actually, this sounds like a perfectly reasonable question. -Neil Parille Why aren't you still beating your wife? The question is poorly formed, based on O'Donnell's notion that human beings are descended from monkeys, and buttressed by her notion that we humans are an end-point of all primate evolution. She has misunderstood what evolution is and what it isn't. . The simplest way to illustrate this misunderstanding is via Youtube. Here is Richard Dawkins explaining what was stupid about the question ... no 'evolutionist' holds that humans are descended from monkeys, and so her question is not cogent. It simply shows her ignorance and lack of engagement. [i should have noted that O'Donnell's notions are what she ascribes to evolutionists -- what she thought was a claim of evolution.]

Jerry, what are the chances that a nutter like Waters was given any information about a top-secret spying programme by your NSA... ? I mean, how would she know? The Breitbart story seemed a case of mistaken identity of some sort. The American Thinker says in its story on kookiepants Waters that she was likely not talking about PRISM, but was instead talking about an electoral database ... information collected by the Democrats/Obama campaign on voters, intentions, etcetera -- a rolling database of everything the Democrats can find out about folks on the voters list -- for use in electoral campaigns. Have a gander at the story and see what theory seems to fit the facts ...

I don't envy MSK the leadership role on these threads, his role as arbiter between bigotry and reason. Some of the entries in the Joo threads seem to taunt listmembers on 'race' grounds. Some of the entries begin and end with assertions and claims and conclusions that are not warranted, that are based on fear and loathing of an Other who has poisoned the collective white chalice. I support MSK's attempt to curb wild and hateful assertions and claims. I also agree with the broad strokes of RB here: This could also be laid out with the notion of arguing with Creationists on scientific grounds. The best-equipped-for-prime-time Creationists do not accept any findings that contradict the conclusion, and begin from their conclusion: Gawds created the heavens and the earth, the 'kinds,' species, and every type of organism flourishing or extinct. No evolution of species is possible over cosmic or geologic time because the Kristien/Joo Gaud created it all in the beginning. Arguing backwards from the conclusion, via cherry-picked data, unsound assertions, and unwarranted claims, these argumentative strategies and tactics are poison to reason and to reliable knowledge. Take one word that throbs with 'value,' such as Darwinist, Evolutionist, Atheist, Joo ... and dress it up with code-words, prejudicial, partial (and faked) 'findings,' and you have the grill and coals ready for the burning. Add other coded phrases and winks and nods, and be ready to invoke censorship or 'correctness'; be ready to invoke skepticism as a positive scientific, rational quality of inquiry (for, say, the wink wink Holocaust), but do not actually use its tools. As with the creepy Joo-hate conclusions by the Stooge who is merely 'skeptical' of the Nazi extermination programmes, the question-beggaring can be striking. Here is an example of horse and cart and code, trussed and immovable. It is not necessary to illuminate even one of the damned groups, nor to drop a fact or two about the damned groups and their work/aims/achievements. They are assumed to be destructive. They are assumed to be alien and threatening (to the white Us). They are damned first ... and then comes the switch. Instead of explaining why any of us should presume that "opposing what Bnai Brith . . . has done to destroy America" is a good, and in place of arguing or proposing the actual mechanisms and activities that Bnai Brith has done to Destroy America, instead of 'showing the work,' the work is submerged in cant and hostility. By this non-argument's hidden premise, the only sane or rational response to Joo organization is presumed to be an angry opposition -- a mix of loathing, fear, other-izing, and rejection. Those who are revolted by lazy, coarse and unreflective summaries of Joo organizational perfidy would seem to be pre-damned themselves to the land of the blind, the lame and the halt -- pre-damned as PC fuzz, quislings, rectors and naifs. The premise is this: Joo Orgs Destroy America, blargh blargh blah grrrrr. What destruction have these organizations left in their wake? What have these dreadful and un-American groups (included the unmentioned 'other Joos') done to the USA? Where is the valid argument, and where is the reliable set of facts that leads to this wide-brush conclusion? (of course the adherent of racialist presumptions about The Joo can also turn table on questioners ... to reject the complex of unwarranted conclusions and non-rational valuations offered is to be part of a different Them, a cohort of folks who cannot face up to facts as assumed). Me, I find no understructure supporting such a wide antipathy to Joo things -- except for racial prejudice and thinking-in-groups. Mark, your lines above appear disturbingly prejudicial and void of argument. Do you really want OLers to take as fed the large meal of hatred, to swallow whole the notions that each of these Joo Orgs has committed 'destruction' of America? Do you take it as given that Bnai Brith has (through its actions) 'destroyed' something? Do you take it as given that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society has 'destroyed' something over its century of existence, something which you (I/We) mourn? Do you believe that both AIPAC and JINSA have (in some way or in some part) destroyed America? If you answer to yourself yes to these queries, how would someone who does not share your racial antipathy gain traction on your beliefs and prejudices and presumptive conclusions? Tell us. Tell us how The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society served to destroy. Tell us what exactly was destroyed, or is significantly damaged or in the process of destruction. Tell us how you arrived at your judgement. Please do not assume that your judgement is common currency. I am willing to give Mark a hearing, should he wish to dispassionately explain his antipathy to the Joos and the Joo organizations noted above. If he can tell us how he came to view these organizations as contributing to the destruction of the country, great. But until that time, I support MSK shutting down threads that smell bad to his nose, and defer to his vision and his judgement of what is and should be cleared-for-takeoff here. I am glad that Anti-Joo Airlines is currently grounded for inspection. Here's a quote from a day when racial prejudice was free and open and in flight across the USA, from "The Passing of the Great Race; or, The racial basis of European history," by Madison Grant. My own prejudgment suggests that these words do not stink to the McFakeynamed ones.

According to the website Infocalypse, the quote is this:

I guessed my way through (having only read lightly in the book, and having probably gained knowledge of its precepts by hanging out in O-forums for eight years, having its nostrums tolled like bells at regular intervals). I slunk by the finish line with 76%. I wonder if a relative baseline could be established -- the lowest possible score -- by giving the test to those with near-nil knowledge of Rand and her philosophy, these folks being otherwise of normal intelligence and normal retention. (How widely Randian epigrams and mantras have seeped into the cultural soup) As Merlin seems to acknowledge, some of these test questions call upon the testee to fill in a blank, from definitions or assertions that come world-for-word from The Virtue of Selfishness. If you, like me, guessed your way through this test, and intending to take the rest of the VOS tests, try again after discovering which test questions you failed. Try, try again. [and when I tried again, I got 96%. Grrrr.]

This is interesting -- a concerted effort to depart The Ocean State. Can you give us any names publicly? I imagine a plan as large as you imply will show some holes in recent demographics too. An unusual 'departure' rate may also have attracted wide comment, as with the disappearances of the gulchers in Atlas Shrugged. I bet the departed Rhode Island libertarians and/or conservatives are not actually in hiding. I admit I had forgotten what I knew about Rhode Island. I forgot the mildly and wildly weird stuff. Here is some from the Wikipedia entry on the wee state. Did we ever know that the official state drink was 'coffee milk'?** A case study is a lot of work. Can you make a case that Rhode Island is self-destructing, with some names, facts, numbers, comparatives? I don't think Rhode Island is consistently losing population. These 2000-2010 figures contradict your assertion, though it is true that Rhode Island and Michigan are two states that lost population between 2010 and 2012. Perhaps a more cogent explanation of Rhode Island's population trends (low and no growth rate) would come from a wider national scope. For example, this depiction of population changes for the USA suggests broader reasons for departures and arrivals (rather than by 'progressive social policy'. Looking at longer trends, changes in Rhode Island may be better understood as resulting from the long-term dynamics of the rise of the Sunbelt economies. In which case Rhode Island can serve as a bellwether, but not an outlier, of continuing economic shifts. Of course the numbers of men and women of consequence deemed to have left Rhode Island along with Baratheon since 2010 are small, between five hundred and a thousand -- the sums being uncertain since some departures were via cemetery, and since the sums must take into consideration the low live-birth rate of RIs valiant, galtish women, a rate far below the replacement ratio. Map of population change in U.S. states from April 1, 2010 to July 31, 2011. Legend: <−0.5% <−0.25% <0% <0.25% <0.5% <0.75% <1.0% <1.25% <1.5% <1.75% <2.0% >2.0% _____________________ ** according to Wikipedia The official state drink of Rhode Island is coffee milk, a beverage created by mixing milk with coffee syrup.

I found the strong coherent bells of gaud ringing in Kyrel's piece. Not in themselves unpleasant, indeed the opposite, for so many nice words strung together in a sort of song is in itself nice. Like a Christmas carol, a fine sketch of gloriously good human values ... up up up up up to the skies. However, a small bone stuck in my throat. The carol is lovely but by art, not by sense. By replacing a couple of words with cognates, I can show that bone. I liken the irritation a reaction to an inbuilt switch of words in the design of the carol, where the word 'spirit' comes to life.

I often put my ass in the saddle and cycle past the Peace Arch along the ominously-named Zero Avenue. This is the actual delineation depicted below (from Google Maps). It is a bit of fun to imagine crossing the un-fenced ditch to the world of northern Warshington state, pull tabs, native casinos, creaky old bridges and full-on marijuana decriminalization. <>Of course, the invisible rays from the motion-detectors, heatmaps, zonal trip triggers and so on make the border patrol computers ping like crazy and any stupid person crossing north to south will be seized forthwith, all things being equal. Further east along 0 avenue a few resourceful croppers have attempted ye olde catapult to avoid the controls and tripwires ... with little success. Canuckistan on left, land of Hope, Glory to the right. Brant, my part of the world has one of those unusual border features -- an exclave. This is Point Roberts, where the forty-ninth parallel leaves a chunk of stars and stripes surrounded by the crown and maple leaf. It strikes me odd that you seem to have some lingering martial ambitions towards my big country and its First World inhabitants, that you seem to have a lingering bad taste in your mouth vis a vis Canuckistani history Care to correct my misapprehension, or expand upon your seeming distemper? I know which side of the border you are on, but not that being onside there means you disdain the other side, further north, on rational principles. What difference rankles, if difference does? Do my and Carol's transnational notions not enter into your calculations of value or antipathy? Who are the 'invaders' from Massachusetts circa 1750, Brant, in your script? In the lands north of the present borders of New England, it was the French who were about to be vanquished for good (save St Pierre and Miquelon and the cursed Lousiana), not 'Canadians,' you see -- unless you make sure to note that the Canadiens (frenchies) had been subject to the French Crown at the time. What you USA types call The French and Indian War(s)** were not driven solo by a military run by "Americans" (who were not quite yet to be) but by the British/Crown, and in the real world, the (not-Americans yet) British military was having a Seven Years War. Which side of that scuffling were you on, Brant? Seems like the same side as Carol and I ... ________________________ ** Expressive graphic from Wikipedia

Brothers and sisters in war, brothers and sisters in peace. Land stretching from high arctic to bounteous plains to rich forests coast to coast. Boring hellholes like Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, so close and so far. Busy, very busy exchanges across our long border. I live two miles from this thing, the Peace Arch. Incised upon it, Children of a Common Mother. When we are not busily interchanging and trading and visiting each other, we still operate firmly in the First World, rich and resourceful. Oil, gas, minerals, rails, transport, sophistication and world-spanning culture, cousinly nations whose relationship is deep and stable. A mutual thing. Allies. Quite a package, Brant. Would you could visit us wee northerly cousins more often, at least for a wild week-long weekend in Quebec. Or a taste of my town, Vancouver, a kind of snotty, expensive Seattle:

Thanks for the paste, Adam. I have not seen any of this film, till tonight, when Youtube forked up this video on my plate. It is visually lush, lustrous, and beautifully composed. What a labour of love for so many. That Mussolini's fascists twigged so late to the film's power is amazing, that the dictatorship wished to extirpate it entirely, yet failed -- all a quenching of a Randian's thirst, a thirst left dry by the two el cheapo segments of Atlas Shrugged.

You don't need to have faith in Alex Jones. Just look at his documentation when you come across him and only look at that. Alex Jones' output on, say, chemtrails, FEMA camps, UFOs, Bilderberg tentacles -- these stories peddled via video/radio/internets tend to mix in hogwash with a few scant bones of fact. On balance, Alex Jones is not trustworthy. I can speak to my lack of faith in Jones' truthfulness quotient by invoking cognates of faith such as trust and confidence. I also have zero faith/confidence/trust that Jones conducts rational investigations of his subjects. Fair enough. Without getting into specifics (say his slamming of Angelina Jolie's double mastectomy) we can wield metaphors with abandon. Michael, for me, on balance, Alex Jones as information purveyor is unreliable. Not that he cannot identify smelly piles, or shine on dark places, but that his surmises are often tainted by cognitive bias and "it's all connected" bumf. If you find him to be a nice bomb in your metaphor, okay, I think I get it. I think you might agree with me that Jones' unreliability mars his credibility, all things considered. Let me put it this way ... I would never seek to consult Jones on matters of fact -- before consulting other venues and reporting. His baloney on FEMA camps did it for me (in the episode of Jesse Ventura's TV show that dealt with 'millions of coffins' and which fudged the difference between an immigration detention facility and a FEMA death camp). Frothing with wrongness and mistaken inferences, just about bottom of the barrel. The documentation for the camps claims? Absent. With that, I re-inter Jones in my mental crypt, and give way to more mature voices.

Fakey Name one and Fakey Name two have numerous personal bones to pick with their personal Bad Girl, non-Fakey Name, Marine welfare whore Kacy Ray. A full on "but she is baaaaaaaad, please help me punish her with scolding and withholding, and secrets told, the very Bad Girl's shocking history of being Bad." Bad Girl Kacy, with her large inquisitive eyes and her large Marine shoulders, is doing what a lot of girls like to do these days -- argue on public forums. The other two, McFakeyOne and McFakeyTwo, are trying to get read into the record the true and eternal sins of Bad Girl. Is this fun? Is this reasonable, reasoned and reason-rich, fodder for those like me and PDS and those who have roots extending back a few years here? I say it is not so much fun to have two crabby girls repeat four times too many times the deep defects of their Bad Girl. How to make "You are a bad girl and by now everyone should know it" exchanges more fun? I don't know. I don't know if it is possible. I have no faith whatsoever in Alex Jones, no expectations that he will dig past notions and suppositions to truth. I have no faith that Alex Jones knows how to reason his way to accuracy. I have seen enough of his deeply irrational outbursts to dismiss him as a fair player in the 'Information Wars.' Any examination of Alex Jones means examination of his output, for me -- are his claims true, are his sources sound, are his conclusions valid? Bad Girl Kacy says (it seems from the good girls' reckoning): "Alex Jones is fucked, as a purveyor of news and analysis." I agree. Be that as it may, how many more times will McFakerham bore readers with the intensely personal girl-on-girl action of "You, you you you you you You, are a Bad Girl. You you you you"? [redacted] 1. Kacy trolls. We/I are troll patrollers 2.Blah blah blah 3.He's trolling 4. He is on government subsistence 6. Kacy is bitchy too! This is poison. The intensely personal nature of this riposte to PDS is troubling to me. Using a bit of reduction, I could fairly say that the portly pseudonym is expecting all and sundry to agree that a dark badness infects Kacy and renders him Beyond Bad on scales of integrity and humanity. It is ugly in a psychological way, I find. If I was a girl on the outskirts of this three-way invecta-blah, I would edge ever so carefully further away. I would wonder why the goal seems to be Negation, and why the sentence sought by Judges Girlfake and GirlFalloon is so, um, Final, punitive. I might even consider that the two Kacy-glued McPersonalBitchos are fixated on vanquishing Kacy. Not mere correcting, but a bowed head, full acknowledgement that the good girls judgement was correct and necessary. I would probably get the impression that whatever the truth in their estimations of Kacy's argument, it is a creepy thing to expect him to submit to their psychological judgments and sentencing suggestions. This is the rough ground, when "Your argument is faulty" becomes "You. You you you. You are Bad. Bad to the bone. Admit it, or me and Stacey will make you suffer forevermore, wherever you alight." t's intellectually lazy to suggest, implicitly or otherwise, that the basic need for a military ... negates the plain reality that the military is ... a de facto jobs/welfare program for people who otherwise would have been cyclically unemployed or suffering degrees of economic hardship. The passive-aggressive stance is notable, despite a bland tone. Am I supposed to accept that Bad Girl Kacy is a military-welfare queen? Does the first set (military welfare queens) fully comprise the second set (Marines) and fully comprise the third set (bad girl Kacy)? Why the persistently personal cast? What would benefit you two girls if everyone shared your odd insistent psychological judgments -- if we all here said we believed Kacy to be a military-welfare queen, what then? What does that judgement entail? What is the sentencing required?

Thanks, Michael, for this bit of news ... and for the reading list. I am impressed with the depth of your researches. I was totally ignorant of the marriage. The mind boggles. Do you have any opinions yet on this seemingly irrational hookup? Via your link to Tony Ortega, I found an entry at Mike Rinder's blog that explores the Why, the WTF notion of the new bedfellows. (for those not hip-deep in chursh lore, Rinder is a high ranking apostate or 'squirrel' who has told tales of the topmost echelons of the shurch and its megalomaniac leader Miscavige). Fascinating psychology. I do not presently have a clue why this happened or to whom may accrue which benefits. I only see further bad PR and richly-appointed Saturday Night Live skits. I post a sample from Rinder's blog of his thoughts, in comments following his "Updated: It’s Official — The Nation of Islam and Church of Scientology Are One." The buffet of gauds just gained a new deeply fried confection, I think. ___________________________ added) I could not stop reading up on the genesis of this merge/alliance/hookup/hosepiping, and so found a picture whipped up by former urch members, at an ex-Scientologist message board 'thread that erupted in September 2012. Looks like the dalliance/doggy-style has deeper roots. Minister Nutterface Farrakan has made pointedly nice noises about Elron in recent years, and his Ministers have been feted at the Celebrity Centre as early as 2010 -- all this captured in historical videos at the thread linked above. Skeeeeeery stuff. It makes any or many Peikoffian sins seem trifles, blemishes in comparison. Ayn Rand and her most whacked-out acolytes may be quackish here and there, but are not even in the same solar system as the maniac urch of ientolo, and its new hosepipe black mawslim whackaloon franchise.

Despite the polls, the lady in the sari pouring coffee pulled off a majority upset over the socialists. The National post says it: Liberals stun pollsters, march to surprise majority victory in BC election Boring.

Meanwhile, in Upper Cascadia, an election. A Canadian election. Worse -- a British Columbian election. The party lineup is as follows: Liberal Party, in power since the last century, with 49 seats out of 85. Born again as the Social Credit Party self-exterminated. Not a 'liberal/progressive' party, despite the name, but the primary party that opposes the socialistic NDP... New Democratic Party, with only three runs at government in the last hundred years (the party was birthed out of the Cooperative Commonwealth Party, itself born from the prairie dirt. 36 seats. Conservative Party. With no current presence in the provincial Legislative Assembly, and a year of internal mayhem, stifled purges and nasty letters behind it. Led by a real character. Green Party, a relative latecomer to politics, with zero seats but marginal chances to win in the most progressive ridings (government-worker suburbs in and near the capital VIctoria) ... Libertarian Party. Not quite as vote-licious as the greens, but ranking number five either way. The list of 'Others' may give rise to a chortle.** Two polls this last week showed the Liberals between six and nine percent behind the NDP. I look forward to the departure of premier Christy Clark. She was chosen to lead her party in between elections, so this is her first chance to win on her own. My reason for wishing her departure is lack of honour. She allowed a crassly political stunt to be run from her office (ethnic outreach, fergaudsake) that contravened that loose rule of thumb: do no big-ass party deals/campaigning/expenditures on the public dime. "Mistakes were made" was the line she peddled as the scandal fumed. As that particular fuss fizzled on, her government/party slid to twenty points below the NDP in the polls. Mistakes were made. Heads will not roll. Here she is at Vaisakhi ... and at bottom her pouring coffee in a Chinese bakery, a Vancouver campaign event†. . I close this boring notice with a couple of links: Wikipedia's historical grid of general elections in BC (showing the birthing, waxing, and waning of the parties over time) -- and a link to 'preliminary election results' via Elections BC. The primary value of democracy for me is found in its turnover, its dismissals and revoking of privilege: "Thank you. You lost. Clear out your desk. Bye bye." Christy Clark is probably no better and no worse than any other loser in BC politics. Thus spake Scherk, at his most tedious. Results will begin to come in about an hour, at 8 pm Pacific time. I will post the results before work tomorrow, if the stars align. _________ ** [from the 'by party' tabulations page at Elections BC] OTHER - Parties not listed individually are grouped in the "OTHER" category above. Advocational Party, B.C. Vision, BC Excalibur Party, BC First, BC Marijuana Party, BC Social Credit Party, British Columbia Party, Christian Heritage Party of B.C., Communist Party of BC, Helping Hand Party, The Platinum Party, Unparty: The Consensus-Building Party, Work Less Party, YPP. The "OTHER" category also includes Independent candidates and candidates with no ballot affiliation. † This is from the Globe and Mail's auto-updated page of BC election night news ...

My thanks to Michael for catching, identifying, and correcting my error of attribution. That my point form points were not from Lakoff renders much of my argument into cottage cheese ... Re the question about 'The Bey,' my tortured metaphor was meant to illustrate a prejudice against monikers. I take the compliment on value given to heart: thank you. At this moment I will pause and google 'serapis bey' . . . Oy vey, oh my, an Ascended Master from the annals of Blavatsky's system of New Thought/Theosophy. Well, it has none of the sweetness and all of the abandon of the Vietnamese syncretic religion known as "Cao Dai." If in Theosophy the pantheon is crowded with spiritual beings from classic ages of humankind, in Caodaiism the pantheon or roster of saintly beings extends from Jesus ("Jesus is regarded as a Buddha and true Son of God, shed directly from God," sez Wikipedia) to Confucius through Joan of Arc, picking up Victor Hugo and Sun Yat-Sen along the way) to lesser lights of the historical past**. So many gauds and such a litter of gaud-spawn and gaud-infested joes and marys. It could make a head spin. All in all, for me the nom de fustiger Serapis Bey strikes discordant bells of religious mania, bong bong bongity bong bong. I blame my prejudices and all those bongs for my confusion. I have no clue to the man as he is, know not which principles brought him to speak, or caused him to devolve, drop out of the pantheon as a bat drops from the cave roof, to scuttle about the litter and loam of Objectivist Living. Perhaps the interesting story of Why I Visitroll Objectivish Sites could be told before the Bey is hoist back to the roof. The posse seems just a little bit more pathetic upon researching their adopted names. Ascended Masters, perhaps. Be they bats, masters, shrews or ascended nitwits, I bit them Welcome to the largest online repository of open dialogue on Rand, Objectivism and the struggle of reason against madness. Serapis Bey, master of the cave heights, can you tell briefly how Rand lit up your life -- again -- please? Until that tale is wrought, I leave myself with this visual depiction of the bey, in his sexiest tie-die outfit. Serapis Bey ... and for those who might enthuse or bark over the excesses of Cao Dai, a couple of pictures of their holy see, with its pantheon of Greats. Colour-coded monks and nuns! If that ain't Jesus and Mohammed and Dame Edna! The see hisself again, from the outside. ____________________ ** from an explanatory site

My prejudices seem to cause me to favour Steven Pinker over George Lakoff on the subject of language. What I treasure in Pinker's books is the clarity and detail of his vision (and so not necessarily the absolute truth value or sum of correctness). His works on language as 'instinct' suggest the How a mind acquires language -- and may well be incorrect at base and in details. Reading his "The Stuff of Thought: Language As a Window Into Human Nature" helped me more fully understand what he saw as the 'universal contours' of language, as a proto-language of necessity that has to give birth to similar underlying utterances in any language system, a prototype as lying behind or under the actual functions of language, again the how this might unfold in humankind's evolutionary journey, and again the how: under what circumstances new languages are birthed. He attempted to sketch or limn the How -- in detail, drawn from converging streams of evidence. This satisfies my naive belief that I can follow Pinker's further arguments and evidence as a whole ... Lakoff, on the other hand, leaves me on the beach as he sails from absolute to absolute. His popular excursions into politics leave me, like Pinker, bemused and unconvinced of the truth-weight of some of his claims. I don't know if prejudice keeps me from absorbing the lessons contra Pinker boomed out by Lakoff. I have yet to see Lakoff treading the same ground, overturning the same rocks, sifting the same fine grains of perception and suggestion, doing the same experiments with language. In almost all cases Pinker's popular science books and articles provide the means to follow his thoughts back to source. Lakoff's works often contain no references at all. As Pinker himself writes [added: http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/2006_09_30_thenewrepublic.html ]: That a book has no footnotes or references might seem a trifle, a very minor fault if fault at all, yet my mind bristles when a text says "So-and-so/So-and-so's mother said ex why zee" -- and gives no direct information on where and in what form So-and-so said whatever they are described as having said. It is uncheckable by simple means; it requires labour to track down and analyze. I hate that kind of slop. I hate it in the maunderings of Peikoff and I hate it in the booming cadences of Lakoff. The arguments seem to leave out a basis for a challenge. If Wittgenstein said/wrote something, why the hell give a reference? If 'people' do this or that thing or are prone to this or that error, why provide a warrant for the claim -- should I not just accept it? I see this kind of surfing above the details in the snatches of Lakoff going off his leash [added: these phrases are the words of Christopher S. Hyatt: To Lie is Human, Not Getting Caught Is Divine. Thanks to MSK for spotting my error in attribution]: -- Weak minded people say that there is a left brain and a right brain. -- What sells is the model -- not the product. The facts are that most of us live in a one dimensional, model discrete (yes/no) universe. -- Sooner or later they become organic and they look simple again. Complexity becomes a simple art form. -- However, these "appearances" are not enough for most men. They are too weak for life's luxury. In the end it is always weakness that demands too much understanding and not enough doing... These bricks of argument seem designed to curry favour, to be 'just-so,' and to be elevated far above the plane of Joe, Mindy, Doug and Fabindra. They are tolled, 'always'/never dikta -- possible true, but cloaked by what I call intellectual confection. "People," most people, They/Them" -- these take on an aspect of pure fudge. In any case, the dispute between the two hairy gentlemen seems predicated on personality and politics, terrifically unfruitful: Lakoff is weak-minded and insufficiently educated/Pinker is woolly and stupefied by his own bullshit. How to choose which team to follow and celebrate and include on your sagging Great Thinkers shelf? Oh him. He posts fitfully and (lately) tries not to get in pointless arguments. Sometimes discussion on OL is bristling with teeth and fact and passion and relevance to humankind's struggles. Sometimes it is a shore of flabby posturing and intellectual naptime. Once in a great while a question is posed or a claim is made that starts a grassfire of intelligent reaction. I like those kinds of threads but have lately by several months made a point to not get involved in posturing. I know where and what I am and what life still has to offer. Getting down and dirty on Objectivish grounds seems less ladylike/productive now that I am over 55. Perhaps this too shall pass, and I will get back to ferociously posting at length on topics large and small. To the entertainment of long-time lurkers. I tend to think of your posse as larger folks, much accustomed to sitting down and expostulating madly via the keyboard and internets. Without raising a sweat, and not at all expressing the same pout-rage in the non-internets world. I think of the late Greybird (another opinionated Steve). He was very much the spitting image of McFakeyname (guy with the tin crown and a major feast behind him) to my mind. In a snit over some long-dead opinion or grievance, and deeply offended at the drop of a hat. With your own lustrous nom de plume, with that kind of competition, how, how could I fare well here? Anyhow, to the eyes of my heart, in the Lakoff/Pinker exchange, I see clear advantage Pinker. His criticisms are substantially true, warranted, and not invested with undue emotion. Lakoff seems simple-minded and ruled by petty variants of emotions such as envy and frustration by comparison. Whereas several of Pinker's criticisms thunk home like javelins, much of Lakoff's rejoinder is testy and flustered. An angry teacher is not appealling, especially when said teacher has already crossed the line into guru behaviour. My two cents, rounded up to a nickel. May the Bey of Kowloon find in it what he seeks.

I think she looks great for a hundred and eight. Still needs a few more years to roll by under her walker before she comes close to the oldest man's agedness ... He is 126 and said to be hungry. In Japan of all places. Eat, drink and be merry with fambly. Many happy returns!

Michael Marotta, what is the price for a full-on, presumably competent finding? Have you paid for the full treatment?