william.scherk

No need to kid about murder. A threat of arrest (from an arm of the same state that invited them) can do the trick. How to make friends and influence people! Cheers for America and Iowa. Iowa elections are a model for the world. Want to look closely at the model? You will be jailed. All hail reason bound tightly by emotion. The foreigners who would otherwise be shot, beaten, body-parts FedExed? In Iowa two citizens of Americas allies, from Denmark (marxist torture hellhole) and Macedonia (religious terrorist state and EU/NATO candidate) What remains clear is that although the US allies in Texas (Germany/UK) and in Iowa (Denmark/Macedonia) have been purged from the list of those allowed as observers, the Kazakhstanis (from that meadow of democracy and Russian cosmodromes) are still expected to do their dangerous 'looking' at polls in Phoenix Arizona, Jefferson City Missouri, and Lansing Michigan. I call on Ohio patriot Dennis May to start his gun acquisition programme early, and not wait till the day after the Apocalypse, and to get on the blower with other patriots near the enemy actions (Brant Gaede leaps to mind), to make sure that if the government won't prevent these foreign intrusions on soveignty, the devoted servants of freedom certainly will. There on a hill in swampy, battered New Jersey, Adam can stop cursing Christie for praising Obama, and book his trip north -- because that Azerbaijani mole is still on her way to Concord New Hampshire. Why isn't she being threatened? Why should she escape the righteous wrath of Freedom-lovers? We have seen the cancer cell. To arms, portly gentleman, to arms! Just kidding. I meant, To the keyboards, portly gentlemen. to the keyboards.

So you say. And if somebody has a different opinion (or any questions about any Israeli policy) no doubt they are stupid or traitors or socialists or all three. Anyway, America has a few 'special relationships.' First with hideous socialist hellhole Canada, second with the UK, third with NATO, and finally with the Jewish State. Firm and irrevocable relationships between USA defence, intelligence and 'deep government' arms -- and those arms of state in these three entities, by treaty and tradition. But the angry honey badgers in their fall-out tunnels are also aware that some Freedom-lite places are also American allies. Pure global strategy: Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan. American ideals and values were born from humanity, not a 'nation' apart from others. The values of freedom, democracy and rule of law are universal values. Human rights are universal values. Freedom from torture, arbitrary arrest, detention and curbs on civil liberties are values we share as rational human beings. So, blackhorse, the criterion of 'Freedom' does not explain why America allies with the harshest religious regimes (Saudi Arabia) or other repressive autocracies (Uzbekistan, etc). -- while Mark may seem a hardliner (anti-Israel) to you, it is likely that you each share deep basic values. Criticism of your own state (America) is second-nature to you both. What I wonder is where you may draw the line in criticism of Israel, and of course your take on the elephant in the room, the Occupied Territories under Israeli tutelage, blockade or control. What kind of "Freedom" do you contemplate for them: a freedom under a One-State solution? A freedom under the Two-State solution? An internationalized Jerusalem? Expulsion? Right to return? There is a content to criticism of Israel (and within Israel) that bears responding to, I think, if only to sharpen your own Israel First biases. Examining the content of inter-Israeli policitics is a good guide to what is OK to criticize and what is not. I wish you could move past the one-line declamations into a careful examination and disposal of issues that fester between the Likud-style bloc and the Labour-style bloc, even into an examination of fraught and pressing issues of security.** But here's a question that might flesh out your opinions and presciptions, blackhorse -- if you only had one single choice, which country would you designate as America's greatest ally, who must be defended at all cost? If one is too few, maybe could rank your top ten choices. ___________________________ ** A story from Israel today, credited to the man who leads war in Israel, Ehud Barak:

Perhaps. It would certainly be true if you left the election up to the danged socialist windbags up here in Canada. A new Angus Reid poll shows a thumping number of Canuckis in the bag for Obama .... See also the dire details as spun by dirty commie Michael Bolen. -- yet another reason to keep our border strong and distinct, no?

Sort of on topic -- from the Iranian English-language propaganda network PressTV. Click the image to read the whole story behind the story. It is quite amusing (if anything from PressTV can be said to be amusing). The photo of New York in chaos is not what it seems.

Thanks for the note on Kahneman. I found his book "Thinking Fast and Slow" in a full-text version here (PDF).

Nice! and on the appropriate day. The only thing I would quibble with or delete is "my hand leapt to my shirt pocket."

So, Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs fame says, "I pray dearly that in the ungodly event that Tehran or its jihadi proxies (Hez’ballah, Hamas etc) target Israel with a nuke, that she retaliate with everything she has at Tehran, Mecca, and Medina." She is plain, she is pointed, she is a little bit crazy. She would issue a command (via Jehovah) that Israel bomb the fuck out of Mecca and Medina (which are not in Iran but in Saudi Arabia, Iran's enemy, and America's linchpin ally in the Gulf). Why not bomb Qatar (another US ally) or Bahrain (home of the US fleet) or Calgary, Alberta, Canada (which has a >gasp< Muslim mayor)? I guess Pam just gets all caffeinated about laying waste to Islamic cities, whether or not the cities are in enemy Iran. It just feels exciting good to pray for destruction of human lives. This exciting event (bombing Mecca) would lie in the same crazy-purse as Bwook, who is on record calling for ferocious destruction in a pre-emptive nuclear striike. Perhaps Bwook will point out to Pam that bombing the fuck out of Mecca and Medina is kind of like targetting the Vatican when the enemy is the Russian Orthodox Church. Of course, she might be right -- that bombing the fuck out of the holy places in Saudi Arabia would bring a complete end to any Islamic Terrorism. And Bwook may be wrong about Iran. Maybe he and she can still get together (despite the storm) and compare fantasies, and come to common ground: Let's Nuke 'Em All! Yargh! As far as I can tell Geller is not sharing a hope/fantasy/kookrant that Europe have the fuck bombed out of it. (incidentally, recall that Ba'al, who demurs from this particular nutty Nuke Mecca prayer, has also fantasized about Jerusalem destroyed by a meteor. So if he is trying to suggest Pam is crazier or more one-eyed than him, I just do not see it.) Ba'al draws from the same hate bag as Pam, I think, in terms of full-on collective loathing (from his fantasy above): In the end, I do not see much daylight between Geller, Bwook or The Avenging Angel of OL. Who said this? Bwook, our Angel, or Geller? The fun part of the Total War doctrine is the blind spot about future consequences. What would be the likely result of overwhelming nuclear attack on any Muslim nation? Peace? An end to 'targetting civilians' with terror and annihilation? Magic!

What is this entry about? On the surface and in the text, it is about a charge by North Carolina congresswoman Sue Myrick that the Department of Homeland Security is ignoring "mounting evidence of a Hezbollah presence in Mexico." The blackhorse masquerading as a honey badger sez "I saw it coming 30 years ago." Fair enough. He saw that the Party of God would try to infiltrate the US (via plants, sleepers, moles) and do terrorist things. He also saw that the security conglomerate of the USA would ignore this threat to America. So? What to do? The first thing may be to take her word for it, without doing any premise-checking. Why? Well, FoxNews presents fair and balanced news, Myrick served in the 112th Congress with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and she was mayor of Charlotte. According to her website, she was Chairman of the permanent select committee's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Human Intelligence, Analysis, and Counter Intelligence. While noting that she has no confidence in Homeland Security, she notes several arrests (and a guilty plea) of terror-agents who have been implicated in Hezbollah's (and/or its ally Iran's) illicit activities in Latin America. So, given her distrust of DHS, Myrick is sure that they are not doing the right thing. In the end, she says what seems quite reasonable (if you accept that there is plenty of evidence): And to add to the firmness of the message, here is Myrick herself, from the front page of her website, laying out her priorities, and what she thinks about the Party Of God**: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv1eQ71Aoro ___________ ** Yes, this is fallacious, as in 'poisoning the well,' but hey.

Interesting thread and comments. Matt Faherty asks if it should be illegal for an individual to purposefully incite violence against another person or property. The examples that illustrate "incitement to violence" are not representative of the offence (inciting violence) under consideration -- I think it much better to examine a case or hypothetical that is realistic, and that conforms to cases that have actually been tried and judged and appealed on free speech grounds. Falsely shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre comes from a famous judicial decision**. It has taken on baggage as a metaphor and as an example of overweaning government intrusion on acts of speech (the case at law concerned criminalizing anti-draft communications during WWI). Does it pertain to urging violence or violent action? No. As a thought-experiment, the trope of Fire! involves a communication designed to get a reaction (leave the crowded place) -- it is provocative. If false (knowingly false), if it provokes a panic and injuries or death result, have there been actual prosecutions? † Incitement to violence is rarely charged in the West, and each case needs examing for it particulars. In Australia this year two men were charged with "recruiting persons to engage in criminal activity and publishing to incite the commission of a crime" (details here). The situation in the USA has been clarified at the Supreme Court in the case of Brandenburg v. Ohio. In this case previous curbs on speech were struck down and a 'test' was laid down, now known as the Brandenburg test. This test considers three things: intent, imminence, and likelihood. See the case of anti-war protester Gregory Hess, who was was ultimately cleared of wrongdoing by the Supremes in 1973. In this appeal, the conviction of Hess was overturned because there was judged to be no 'clear and present danger.' Tony, can you give a few examples that illustrate this contention? That is fine as an opinion on laws governing incitement to violence. You want them removed, with nothing to replace them. This would make me free to incite violence upon your person. I could freely urge other folks to attack you or your property or your family. I hope you continue to play examples or scenarios in your mind. Consider your own country and its laws against incitement to violence. Consider a situation of violence and raw emotion, and the power of demagogues to encourage violence -- as with the charges brought against Julius Malema. __________________ ** (Wikipedia article on Schenck vs United States.) † The Wiki article leads to a couple of historical tragedies that followed upon a false alarm. See the sad tale of "Fire!" in the case of the Italian Hall distaster of 1913.

Damn. You found me out. I've only read about half of it. But based on my incomplete reading, may I recommend it to you? It's a good faith recommendation. Either you will love it or it will send chills up your spine. (It's hard to tell with you. I do know you enough to know you will not be indifferent to it.) I took a look inside the book at your Amazon link, hoping to find out what they might have to say about elections. The gist of the book is fun and intriguing, and the rule of thumb (Automatic and Reflective 'systems') makes sense. On elections, I mean to look up this reference (from page 20): Oh, pshaw. Fiddlesticks. "Gotcha over substance game"? What is this -- something trotted out when one is Gotched? Does this presume that Substance accrues to you or LSE or Thaler via some ineffable quality while not telling us what the substance was? Touting videos is something I do (not a lot) and have no problem with. If one wants another person to follow one thoughts or comment on an idea, a video is as good a place to start as any. A start, not a finish, for me, though. Some videos can appear convincing in and of themselves at first glance, because a strong argument is made and the criticisms to that argument are dealt with transparently -- references are given by slides or notes or verbal citations, and the literature, if there is any, is mentioned. A speech in itself is able to be transformed into text and then given the same critical attention as any other document. Sometimes videos are 'pop' presentations or stand-alone presentations where there is no particular critical framework designed-in -- like some TED talks that have no particular scholarly pretensions. This is great -- they are introductions to ideas, and are not be treated as state-of-the-art or conclusive this or that. Idea-fests. Good fun. Of course, some videos are worth little on some subjects when they are empty of consideration of any counterargument, and misrepresent or evade critical challenges made to the actor/announcer's theses or findings. Anyhow, "gotcha over substance game." I don't get it. I hope I rarely play simple gotcha for base motives. Gotcha can be satisfying now and again. When someone makes an obvious blunder (like me mis-citing Adam in place of MikeE) or other (factual claims made of fudge and wishes) then gotcha is its own reward for all parties: correction. Michael, our epistemological challenges overlap all the time. In some areas of this huge world we each watch over, one or the other of us has more depth of knowledge. For you over me, that would be your world of music (a pointless aside, but I must say of those parts of your life that I might pine for or even envy your talents over my own are those of the years in concerts, recording, conducting, arranging, touring, dark-siding. These are the stories I relish from you, the darker more direct stories of achievement and corruption and love and life and danger. O Globo. And as I relish them, there is no way I could touch these stories in terms of truth, accomplishments, insights and punch. I would not even criticize them in least aspect, because you are a good writer who is his own best critic). That is not the only place where you have uncontested strengths and depth of knowledge much superior to mine. Where we align, I should think, is on the necessity of the reflective approach (in tanden with our emotional valences) to matters of fact, identification, integration, comprehension. Not on narrative or meta-narrative perhaps, but on the dogwork of checking facts and getting things straight, naming things and groups of things accurately, checking for black swans, that sort of thing. You needn't think of me as a Progressive zombie on some matters, then. I am not trying to be your boogeyman, not in any other way than I want to be a boogeyman of reason. If I am challenging your arguments strongly sometimes it could be to your benefit, or the benefit of your writing and persuasive abilities. If I challenge your lack of specifics it is only to the benefit of your story and the clarity of your arguments. Them arguments and cancer/hitler arguments are weak, unreflective. On back to the subject. I have nothing but a cynical bemusement towards the UN most of the time. A supranational convenience and an oddity, it has military forces under its command as peacekeepers around the world, sometimes dug in place for forty years, and it has a magic garden of acronyms and embroidered missions and commissions and directorates and yadda yadda on various subjects from the extremely boring and dire to the pellucid and tragic. There is a UN commission since disbanded or not for every freaking international conflict or question since day zero for the UN, mandates and treaties up the gazoo, a millions spiderwebs of more or less flabby directives and procedures. It has five grim-faced mandarins from the Big Five who actually run its business. The ability to look into elections is one I want for the West (as it expands its borders as I hope it continues to do). I want detailed reports on Turkish elections (supervised by the EU), I want data from the recent Belarus election, and if they come by agreement with the ACRONYM, I will take it. We in the OSCE (we fifty-six nations) have found a treaty-like way to get the right to look closely at the other's democratic business and machinery. I do not see a downside to this intelligence from a Western point of view. In the years since the OSCE has done its business, see the numbers of states who have joined after demonstrating their democratic credentials (from Estonia to Malta) and the extent of the range of Western-style democracy to the East. NATO gains, solid alliances. At the edges, pretenders like Belarus and Kazakhstan against real Free World nations like the UK and Germany and Spain. If you want (like the Texas attorney-general) to bar OSCE monitors (all two of them, one fiendish German and one evul Brit) in Austin Texas, then he willl and he did and they responded and the rest will happen and it won't be worthy of frothing over. American elections are marvels of transparency and money, rules and procedures. That some Americans want to pull a gun or deportation order on election monitors (it should matter from which country?) is sad news to me, a reflection of emotionalism, nationalism, needless and irrational. Free, transparent elections are the norm here (in Canada and USA), and give grand lessons to all lesser nations. I just do not get a snapping turtle reaction (the lizard brain, the SuperStory, the gunplay and corpse-dellvery of Adam's jokey outburst?). When you do not want us to inspect elections in foreign lands, that's a different kind of turtle story. I can maybe continue this thread with extremely boring reports from other election-monitoring missions, which I actually do find fascinating and dire. We who are the beacons of all that is rich and free and luscious in every aspect of life, the West, we cannot expose our democratic machinery? Why not? It is immeasurably cleaner and better conducted than the other. So, Michael if it just comes down to you do not want reciprocal election-monitoring agreements, I still do not see the grounds beyond the automatic systems reaction and a revulsion for Them.

Resurrecting this thread briefly to answer Carol's inquisition on origins, and to catch more clues on Michael Marotta's forefathers and foremothers. Like Carol, I have a not-so-secret interest in 'heritage,' having been born in a major knot of aboriginal cultures (Prince Rupert, 1958) and having heard lore of the Norwegian Village. I am afraid to look to see if I have already answered Carol, but will check this answeragainst earlier remembrance. I wonder, having had my uncle Jack stamp out some family myths of origin, how many families have soft spots in their narratives and lore of 'who we are and how we got here.' The family historian until her death, my auntie Shirley, she stressed our English roots for some reason, perhaps aspiring to a genteel middle class correctitude associated with the old country. So she gave us absolutely nothing based on Nana's old-country cookery, just Melton Mowbray pies and Baked Pudding with Hard Sauce that she had learned from a book. The most ethnic she got was imported American Velveeta. No, but. Yes, but. Yes, but. And no. Scherk itself is the same as Sherk, Shirk and a few other respellings. The greatest concentration of Scherks is in southern Ontario. None of my elder Scherk's spoke other than English in my memory, but I assume a German-land, as we are associated with Pennsylvania Dutch (Deutsch) and the Mennonite sect. Apparently in the recent centuries, my Scherk family had origins in southern Ontaria via Pennsylvania via Netherlands. In the mix were a Belgian (Walloon) maternal admixture. The Anabaptists had to head for the hills if from Germany, the hills led them to other regions less hostile to the sects over time. Scherks are to be found from Serbia to France, and through Hungary to the Carpathians. Grandma one was last born to a family from Bergen, Norway, and ever behind. Norse all the way back to Neanderthal. Other grandma born to a family from north of Bergen, Norway, though lore suggests a certain tiny stature in that line came from Sami (Lapp) inmixture. Other Grandpa all the way back to London and some bog in Ireland, of Protestant Scot stock that blurred in and out in the melting pot until it went to sea to America (half that generation is still south of the line) and Canada in the late 1900s. Family lore (debunked in part) suggests this maternal great-grandmother was a Anglified Jew. I believed it all those years and secretly treasured my Irish Jew heritage, wrong as it was. The only ethnic food I ever got at home was Norwegian (courtesy of first grandma). Thank you for this. I shall maybe fork up Grandpa in the Ellis Island documents before you get back on line.

Edit Dupe. D'oh!

It is a tough question to answer, depending on the area of the world. Another question (which I will try to answer and post back) is what governed travel between here (North America) and the various not-heres. I will try to find out something fairly simple: what documentation did a non-US citizen require to enter the US, such entry leading to citizenship. Here's some odd notes from the history of (Canadian) passports that lays out some realities of travel/cross-border immigration that I was ignorant of: More at this link, including this bit that I found intriguing: Before 1862, Canadians, as British subjects, could travel freely to and from the United States without passports. To travel to Europe, however, a Canadian had to obtain a British passport from the Foreign Office in London. Those who were not British subjects by birth could still go to the United States with a certificate of naturalization, which was issued by local Canadian mayors mainly for the purposes of voting in municipal elections. During the American Civil War, however, authorities in the United States wanted more reliable certification from people living in Canada. In 1862, the Governor General, Viscount Monck, introduced a centralized system for issuing passports. For the next 50 years, a Canadian passport was really a "letter of request" signed by the Governor General. I think maybe before I die (or finish transcribing Uncle Kookiepants's last dialogue with Brook) I shall satisfy my curiosity by reading a good history of in-migration to the US. Certainly there were meticulous documents kept at US ports of entry. The myth and history of Ellis Island is captured today for search among these documents. Apparently there are twenty-odd million 'cases' surviving in modern databanks, so that a gentleman like Michael Marotta can hunt down the specifics of Great-Grandpa Whatsisname and his arrival and disposal. See the site of the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island society that manages these documents and makes them publicly available (for a fee). The larger site also contains a search feature for we amateurs: click here and search direct for a male Marotta circa 1900. I get eleven hits; MEM, do you see your forebears here?

Absolutely. And so ... there should absolutely be no 'foreign' observers of any election, anywhere, ever. Despite agreements between the countries. It's not murky at all for this topic. USA citizen = us. Not USA citizen = they. This is beyond evasive. I see a jumble of characters all assigned the word THEY. When queried, you just delete and blow off the questions. I just do not understand. Murky pronouns, undeclared 'stories' attached to them, and no coherent argument. Now the OSCE is lumped in with some more murk. The USA citizens of some progressive document is assigned the same identity as the OSCE non-citizens. In the book you point to but do not cite, we expect there is some discussion of election monitoring? Is there, Michael? Have you read the book you wave at? Does it support any of your points? Here's a Story: Once upon a time there was a group of people. We call these people Them. They are legion. Some are from the USA, some from bad places. Some are guineas. Some vote. Anyway, they started a cancer called Progressivism. They gave it to good people, by nudging them with the UN. Then the cancer ate away at the story of America. Then some other guys came along. They are not the same Them, but other guys. They had a story. It was a bad story even about elections or torture or sumpin'. Then Adam said kill the fuckers. And I said, no, make fun of them. And then there was a story, in a book or somewhere. A narrative. And then the bad cancer horse gift blew up and almost killed each other, but I figured it out. They are crooks. They do not share the story. They do. They the other guy cancer torture somepin' Romney. The end.

No more so than their veto over the results from Belarus (or Russia). Here is an interesting bit from the OSCE's lady, Giovanna Maiola, quoted from an email at The Hill blog: I expect that the two scheduled observers in Austin Texas will observe the threat by the Texas AG, and not cross his red lines. However, the head of the nasty cancer organization of trojan horse exploding gifts has said this in a letter to Secretary Clinton:

All I get from this is that you liken the OECD to cancer. You assert this, you proclaim it, you maintain it, you make this your story. And you give nothing at all to support this story, not by reference to the OECD 'story' and not by reference to reality.

This is a position I can respect. If I read you correctly, the agreements between and among OSCE members to observe elections should be abrogated unilaterally by the USA. I think you would agree to remove the USA from this organization. The over-arching position you appear to have is that no one from outside your country should be able to 'monitor' or otherwise observe any aspect of US elections. This has a corollary, perhaps, if extended beyond. If the OCSE should have no possibility of election-monitoring in the USA, then the OCSE should have no possibility of monitoring elections in other members. In other words, no election observation in Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Russia, Montenegro. Do you support this? Again with the murky use of "They." In this instance 'people from outside the USA checks and balances' you say use a different 'playbook.' I do not know if you are talking about the members of the OSCE. When you use these general pronouns, it is rarely clear who you are talking about. "They" adhere to a different story? Well, what is that story, Michael? Where have you read that story? I think this might be part of the story of "Them":

Trying to invade and dilute USA sovereignty, that's what. Translation: The UN (or the OECD) is trying to invade and dilute USA sovereignty. Translation: The OECD election monitors are trying to subjugate (US institutions) no cooperate (with US institutions). Once the OECD subjugates US institutions, the OECD wil rule. Translation: It is the OECD. The OECD and its election monitors are all about power. Attempted translation: Progressives (who remain unnamed) sugarcoat the attempted subjugation of US institutions by stressign that the UN/OECD is only concerned with preventing Romney getting elected. The OECD does not want Romney to be elected because of torture or sumpin'. Torture or sumpin' ... ? Translation: Progressives don't really want to see Romney get elected. Translation: The OECD election observer mission is a Trojan Horse. A Trojan Horse is a 'gift' that conceals armed warriors who will kill you. Like an Xmas gift that blows up in your face. Translation: The OECD election observer mission is like the first few highs on crack cocaine as well as being like an exploding Xmas gift. The mission feels great, and then you are a slave. Adam can speak for himself, but the hell my "ramble" is kooky. Well, from my point of view your rambling remarks and argument-by-analogy, even translated back to refer to OECD election missions as dangerous (if lovely) addictive drugs or/and gift-horses: the mission conceals a danger to those who harbour or invited them in or accept a snort. This is a start to an argument, or a story, or a three-times-removed 'narrative,' but it is not an argument. Stripped down to its thesis it starts out, "This OECD mission is an attack on US Sovereignty just like cocaine or gift horses." As a start, a beginning, okay, but where is the middle and the end? Translation: The OECD observer mission is like a cancer cell. I (MSK) can identify cancer. and I know that cancer can be 'nurtured.' If you nurture foreign election observers/cancer, then foreign observers will kill "you" (the USA/me/whatever). Translation: I (MSK) see someone unnamed as standing around a cancer cell, saying 'Where's the danger?' Translation: That unnamed person standing around the cancer cell is (you) WSS, and (you) WSS think I am stupid. Translation: Okay, forget the OECD, cancer, horses and kooks. The real deal is power. The source of power in human societies is story. That core story of power behind human societies justifies the use of force. It is on page fourteen. It's about persons. Strong persons, a person. A person grows strongly. That person grows really strong on the page fourteen story about horses. Fast forward. Fast forward again. Forget horse stories, forget cancer. That person, the strong one, well, he kills off the people who believe the old story (see page fourteen), and then fast forward. It is tough to kill everyone off because of the stories. Fast forward. Strong-arm dictators are like dinosaurs ... on their way out. Translation: Those unnamed cancer trojans (Progressives, story telling strong persons, horse cancer) look at the story, and they nudge. Nudgity nudge nudge. Fast forward past the boring parts where I make this fit to the conclusion. Conclusion. The nudges move the story. The story holds limitations in place. Story. Nudge. Trojan. Cancer. Translation: OK. Back to sovereignty. That's also based on a story. Back to cancer. Cancer eats at that story. Then there are some other guys. I don't know who they are. But anyway. Let's call the other guys (not me!), um, um, aspirants. Yeah. Okay. Pause. Aspirants want more power (over, um, oh, elections) but that is not available right now. Cancer. Structure. Our structure. Forward. The aspirants will not ask for permission. Um. Okay, there is a thing. The thing is called "The UN Thing." It's a thing. It's cancer. It's aspiring. It is a horse. It is a cancer horse aspirant cancer kind of thing. And, um, oh yeah, the thing is becoming malignant. Like cancer. Yeah. Translation: It is time to cut the cancer out of the organism. The organism is our structure based on a story (not page fourteen). The thing is the thing. Cancer. UN. Yeah. Translation: Okay. So ... the aspirant horse cancer story sucks. They (the aspirants, whatever) want to rule, and so get it (IT!) away from us. Yeah. Cancer UN horse story. They wish things. Get it away. Torture or sumpin'.

Are you sure about this, or is it unchallenged family lore? The guinea was a one-pound gold coin at its introduction in 1663, according to Wikipedia. Its value fluctuated according to its gold content -- at one point reaching as high as 30 shillings. The value of a guinea was fixed in 1816 to be worth 21 shillings. As need not be told to anyone of Italian heritage, 'guinea' is a derogatory word referring to Italians and other 'darker-style' world immigrants. Multiple sources confirm these two distinct uses of the word, as a visit to the OED will show. The slur is apparently derived from 'Guinea Negro' and extended into a term of disparagement for 'non-white' immigrants from the southern regions of Italy ... Have you mixed up two instances of the term, MEM? Here is the Word Maven's take on 'guinea': As for 'wop' being derived from WithOut Papers/WithOut Passport,' it is perhaps one of those words with an obscure folk etymology. Here is some dude named Casselman taking it on:

Malignant cancer news ... (from Forbes today) Texas Attorney General Tells U.N. Election Observers To Keep Their Distance

Can we hold you to this, crazy person? In New Jersey and New York, your targets for death are: Siegfried Hotzapfel & Renate Pasch from Germany David Kidger and David Godfrey from the United Kingdom The ones you do not beat to death can be shot, as you suggest. As for MSK's ramble, it is only marginally less kooky than your call to arms, Adam. Tell us you did a little homework, and then tell us you were kidding, and then tell us some more less-insane targets for murder than election observers. Maybe the Walmart greeters or the airport gropers?

It is applied science. As explained in a report from the UK's New Scientist, The big question mark over gasoline from air, the larger issue concerns efficiency -- energy in (electricity) versus energy out (gasoline). It is sweet technical news, but the economics are uncertain at the moment. The carbon-neutrality is dependent on two things: atmospheric carbon-dioxide 'captured' and 'released' in exhaust from the cultured gasoline -- and 'renewable' source for the electricity doing the work of conversion. My first image was of a table-top Galt's Machine, extracting something negligible to produce something marketable. Good luck to the guys riding that pony. Here's NS's quickdraw of the process: The AFS plant comprises a CO2 capture unit in one shipping container, with a methanol reactor and miniature gasoline refining system in another. Air is blown into a sodium hydroxide mist, snagging CO2 as sodium carbonate. A condenser collects water from the same air. To make methanol – formula CH3OH – hydrogen is generated by electrolysing the water while the carbon and oxygen come from electrolysing the sodium carbonate. The methanol is then converted to gasoline. More cogent detail and some nasty comments at Physics org: "Which means this is never going to happen`" Yes, Kelvin has said too, the planes heavier than air are impossible. And he was top expert of his era, not just an anonymous Internet windbag.. Which means this is never going to happen. Yes, Kelvin has said too, the planes heavier than air are impossible. And he was top expert of his era, not just an anonymous Internet windbag.. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-air-fuel-synthesis-petrol-future.html#jCp Which means this is never going to happen. Yes, Kelvin has said too, the planes heavier than air are impossible. And he was top expert of his era, not just an anonymous Internet windbag.. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-air-fuel-synthesis-petrol-future.html#jCp Which means this is never going to happen. Yes, Kelvin has said too, the planes heavier than air are impossible. And he was top expert of his era, not just an anonymous Internet windbag.. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-air-fuel-synthesis-petrol-future.html#jCp Which means this is never going to happen. Yes, Kelvin has said too, the planes heavier than air are impossible. And he was top expert of his era, not just an anonymous Internet windbag.. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-air-fuel-synthesis-petrol-future.html#jCp Which means this is never going to happen. Yes, Kelvin has said too, the planes heavier than air are impossible. And he was top expert of his era, not just an anonymous Internet windbag.. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-air-fuel-synthesis-petrol-future.html#jCp

Yeah. I was freaking out too. What really needs to be done is to figure out how to get the US out of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe**, which sponsors these observer visits as part of its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. The idea that states can, will and do allow observers is a good one. US elections are complex techological affairs (in Canada we still use a paper ballot and pencil) with sometimes immense November ballots. There is nothing wrong with anyone 'observing' US elections -- they are a marvel. Moreover, I believe the OSCE ought do the reverse, and have the same institutional courtesy afforded its visitors in places with dodgy elections (Belarus, etc), and in Russia. Mutual inspection, in a way. A trade. Here is the whole long Press Release from the danged acronym. I feel faint -- it looks like the US government invited the thugs in! It is bilateralism, akin to altruism, on evil's doorstep. ____________________ ** (From Wikipedia) The OSCE is an ad hoc organization under the United Nations Charter (Chap. VIII), and is concerned with early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation. Its 56 participating states are located in Europe, the former Soviet Union and North America and cover most of the northern hemisphere. It was created during the Cold War era as an East-West forum.

I thought to put both Brook and Peikoff's vocal infelicities in perspective. Here is a drunken whale singing to its captors. The careful listener will find the cadences of Objectivish speech in the song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtIv8RIbDbk

I will transcribe some or all (or just the exciting bits) of the Peikoff/Brook dialogue. I am experimenting with a simple way to type as fast as the talkers talk. I do this by slowing the tempo down. This is for illustrative purposes. That Peikoff and Brook sound insanely drunk (or on Quaaludes) is the only benefit of listening. Peikoff and Brook on the down-slow by wsscherk