william.scherk

Yes. As this applies to the Harrington issue, where exposing the litigation makes for an interesting snarl of competing interests. Unless one can deny reality (on philosophical grounds) that there are any public goods, the rest is as you suggest -- dealing with superstructure of legal traditions and state power that were birthed long ago, in the very first bureaucracies (alongside money and written language). I think of the way the first permanent agricultural human settlements (contemporaneous in the Middle East/Asia/Americas, though much more is known of the MENA settlements) drove progress in human achievement while hobbling freedoms enjoyed under a 'state of nature.' The difference being between the free-as-apes nomads/pastoralists/subsistance tribes -- and the unfree, complaining bazaar merchants. Water, once collectivized, was power. Power to feed greater numbers, and power to amass capital. The birth of permanent settlement was I think the real first birth of states, officialized hierarchy, and order -- however primitive it seems today. Management (or governance or government) emerged and grew as by-product, necessary 'evil' and contributor to human growth, I believe. Governance was essential for the flourishing of the first 'urban' communities, built and regulated to have systematized labour diversity, trade and communal protection (see any material on the Neolithic revolution in agriculture, its universal drivers and products) -- and each succeeding polity built upon the same basic forms, retaining and augmenting (or seizing and adapting) earlier governance norms and inventions. A lot of background there just to situate my observations in actual human history. Sorry. I think I almost follow this. Does this mean that you (YOU/one/the royal-you/we) find there is a principle that is so singularly stated? (in any case, libertarian/limited governance philosophies are true incubators, not mere talk-shops, I would argue) I find that that there are many currents of philsophico-political action, real political action, currents that are not necessarily allied, but which do move the apparatus of the state by increments. I give an example from recent Canadian history to illustrate (snooooooooze). The now extinct Reform Party of Canada had a platform that would best correspond to present-day Tea Party verities. "Freedom," reduced regulation of business, non-deficit spending, corraling and culling the proliferation of governing agencies and control structures, reducing the arms of an octopus state that had long grown dementedly self-perpetuating. Now, the Reform Party (have a nap here if you like) did not achieve power, until it was defanged and coalitionized with the Progressive Convervatives in several staged merges. But while its leader had a raft of seats in Parliament, its economic programme was stealthily adopted by the governing Liberal Party. Odd to note, but it was the leftist party that sucked the marrow from the Reform bones and injected into its own skeleton. This was the era of deficit reduction, privatizing or removing subsidies from moribund state companies (from the national flag carrier Air Canada to the Post Office), reforming business regulation, etcetera. Many of the economic freedom indicators that surprise Americans today (that it is easier to do business in Canada, that economic regulation is less strict, etc) were the result of this marrow transplant. The Liberal Prime Ministers Chretien and Martin did their reform work over a fifteen year period, reducing debt and introducing back-to-back black ink budgets, reducing corporate taxes, personal tax rates, etcetera. However, there is another libertarian-ish current that I have remarked upon before, what I call social liberatarianism. Unfortunately the Reform Party was a Christian fundamentalist party at birth, and was implacably opposed to certain freedoms (drugs, sex, religion, tits, whores, Frenchies, open immigration, etc). In the same timeframe as American governance (under putative Right-ist administrations such as ReaganReaganBushhiccupBushBush) expanded both in deficits and reach and intrusion (Patriot Act), Canada's state footprint shrank under the Liberals. By the time the Liberals were tired and feeble and out of ideas (thieved from the right) and it was time for a upfront Conservative government to assume executive power, the social liberties were embedded and the Conservatives had to abandon the nutter wing of Christian Heritage. This is where the mind boggles. Under a 'rightist' Conservative government we discover that abortion law is a non-starter, that bilingualism and multiculturalism are now an unremarkable backbone of Canadian reality, and so on. Further social liberties were proclaimed and longstanding injustices were formally redressed on the Conservative watch, then. The painful 100 year legacy of institutionalized racist oppression of the Indian Schools, for example, led to the current billions of dollars disbursed in settlements. Add formal apologies for actions taken against groups (Japanese-Canadian WW2 detainees, Asian Head-tax reimbursements, Metis recognition), declaration of Quebec as a nation within Canada, and so on. Now, here, in British Columbia, twenty years of Liberal (in BC this means Conservative, go figger) administrations led to record deficits, grotesque expansion of government spending and waste, sleaze, corruption and out of control cabinet spending, along with overweening arrogance. The current government is drowning, flailing in the polls, at about 20%, and BC will lurch back under a 'socialist' goverment next year without a doubt. _______________________ Freedom qua freedom is a waffly term abused by all, but on balance my country is now freer economically than the USA, freer in social terms, freer in social mobility and ease of making pots of moolah. Another puzzle. We have emerged rocking from the recession worldwide because of nimble national banks who were institutionally conservative (no wild derivative speculations or crashing magic-money pyramids and fucked up mortgage peddling) -- not because of regulation. All this to say that philosophy as drivers of social and political change cannot be easily boxed. The hideous lockjaw of the American two-party system is a reminder that hard and fast partisan walls get in the way of freedoms, gum up the ability of governments to steal, morph, self-extinquish, turn on a dime. No amount of philosophical jabbering from the sidelines can correct the institutional defects in your system, at least not in the short term, when the philosophy has no action plan. So, in many ways I regard current libertarian and minarchist debates and kerfuffles to be the equivalent of theological seminary productions or Civil War re-enactments. Entertaining and worth watching, but about as fecund and world-changing as a Tupperware party. When I come to Arizona, I want to meet you and Laure, enjoy several too many alcoholic drinks, learn to shoot a handgun, and get to know you as a man, not an objectivish person. You bring a lot of value to this forum, Brant, from my purely selfish point of view.

Brant, I thought I might bore you with another graphic. This is a Google satellite map of the city of Calgary, Alberta (just down the road from Jerry in Edmonton). Alberta is the province with the strongest 'free enterprise' governments, always conservative, and the home of the greatest anti-intrusive-state reform movements in modern history (the Reform Party of Canada principally, with its extremely influential minimal-state policies). But ... when you look at the urban form, you will see that the city ends abruptly at an edge. A tight control over land is the norm even in our most 'right-wing' province. View Larger Map Contrast this with the comparable 'twin city,' Denver Colorado (like Calgary a major city on the Rockies, with a large agricultural hinterland. View Larger Map There is no edge to Denver. The conurbations sprawls where it wants, with a diffuse exurbia. So different to the Canadian practice even in the province that is the most Objectivish. Hard to explain simply. So, any dreamworld of a future private-governance minimal state will face with the same pressures on agricultural land, the same lure of easy-to-service, cheap exurban farm-to-subdivision development. How these things would be settled in a competing-justice/unassailable-private-propery-rights utopia is a complete mystery to me. To my eyes, no amount of minarchist boilerplate addresses this mystery. A patchwork profusion of 'gated communities' with equally-demented restrictions up the ass would seem to be the result. How persistent, perennial water and land issues would be settled is smudged, covered with napkins or otherwise evaded. If you live in a settlement where a 'board' or 'bylaws' or 'commercial government' rules, where you may not plant begonias or paint your shitbox other than beige or park your RV or raise a radio tower or clip your hedges, what is the difference from living under rule of law (however gruesome)? I can rarely understand just how private and unaccountable governance or commercial autocracy will do a better job of solving perennial human disputes.

I am often intrigued by the tales Jerry Story drops here. This was one of them, where I wondered what the rest of the story was. On the surface, reading the pro-Harrington commentary, it seemed insane -- beyond the usual crazed state intrusions. Jerry likes the headlines, and tends to give a shallow overview of events snarled with his own cognitive errors. I knew there was more to the tale, and the first thing that had not been covered in pro-Harrington materials was the actual 'ponds.' What I did was pretty basic. Check, verify, seek context. Things I learned as a young skeptic. What are the facts(?) In the farming areas adjoining my community, and in many of the ranges/cattle country farms I have seen, run-off ponds are common, almost ubiquitous, but usually simply a hole dug in a a hollow and nowhere near the one-acre size of the ponds dammed by Harrington. (British Columbia has a massive set of law to constrain property rights, called the Agricultural Land Reserve. The first socialist government elected in 1972 put this in place. It reserves land across the province that is classified as prime agricultural land, bottoms lands usually. This legislation has not been overturned by subsequent governments of the non-socialist stripe. A look at the map of BC shows you that the extent of agricultural land is small, and of course our Fraser Valley (prime) would be the easiest to develop residential/industrial areas. Look at this snippet of a Google Map. The difference between developmenty patterns in the nearest equivalent conurbation (Seattle) shows starkly. All the arable bottom lands, flood-plains (non-bog) and previously farmed areas cannot be redeveloped outside of agriculture in BC under the ALR. Contrast to the ring of exurbia surrounding Seattle. View Larger Map Here is a portion of the ALR map covered in the photo map above. The green areas are subject to the ALR. It is one of those puzzles of governance that intriques me. As you may note, wars are fought over water, and water-rights are often highly-contested. The puzzle is that water respects no private property boundaries. It flows. In a perfect (Objectivish) world, the same pressures would remain. Cheap, easily developed agricultural land is the best for development. Similarly, in that perfect world, it remains to be seen how an efficient adjudication of water disputes would occur. When property maven A dams or diverts a waterbody for his own use, and property mave B downstream is impacted, then what? Where is a just settlement of opposing interests obtained. Most arnarchist/minarchist responses to these kinds of issue devolves into magical thinking ... the magic of the market will solve all problems most efficiently. I do not buy that pie-in-the-sky kind of dodge. It often seems to me that arnacho-minarchos cannot get their heads around the notion of public goods (air, water) that do not respect private boundaries.

Gotta thank OL posters and commentators for keeping me away from the carnage in Syria for a couple of hours today. This story interested me. All attitudes towards law and property aside**, I wondered what the terrain looked like -- how in hell these water holes could be a problem to anyone. So, I read the 2007 court judgement that was the best summary of legal actions taken against Harrington. In the judgement summary, I discovered pertinent details of the longstanding tussle between the law and Harrington. Here is a map visual of the Harrington property(s)☄. I include it so that the actual property in question could be viewed, in scale -- and so that we can have a look at the water bodies that were subject to the litigation. If you zoom in on the easternmost 'pond' you can see a boat-ramp, pier and other structures on the water (as does the most recent of the ponds on the south, which shows recreational watercraft ☜). You can also see the length of the retaining dams that had to be built to catch the water on all three bodies. Reading the judgement, media release (below) and a couple of other bits of information, you can learn that the easternmost pond was stocked with fish by the Harringtons. Does this make the law any less shitty and intrusive (particularly the odd Medford 1926 law)? Nope. But it does take a bit of the lustre off the story of a 'pond' for rainwater or snowmelt. The facts make the litigation less of David and Goliath struggle, at least to my damned socialist eyes. View Larger Map ** - I am not Objectivist by any means, but I do understand and often sympathize with the kind of ideal world of (zero to extremely limited) government that Objectivists would like to see. Obviously, in some conceptions there might be corporations ('Corporation of the City of Burnaby') or quasi-municipal bodies that could arise even within a stripped down administration, but I think it's fair to say that there would not likely be an Oregon Water Resources Department, or a stream of precedent legislation and judgements that has so stymied Harrington's plans. But, putting that aside for a moment, and returning to the real world of government, no one else in Oregon has been subject to ten-plus years of struggle to maintain a simple 'rainwater/meltwater' pond. Harrington's story is unique enough to attract a lot of attention. We have yet read here only the outraged reaction and Harrington's presentation of the dispute. I think that even if we all did reject the specific kind of oppressive state tutelage visited upon Harrington, we still ought try to gather as many facts as possible, if only to understand how things got to the point where a man must spend 30 days in jail, and where he must drain the waterbodies or face further penalties. So, those who want to understand a bit more of the context, please have a read of the judgement cited above, and see also this statement released by the Oregon Department of Justice: "Harrington Conviction and Sentence." ☄ - Harrington and his family own several parcels of land. I did a set of searches and ended up on the Jackson County, Oregon website, and looked for the (I thought) single property that corresponded to Harrigton's address, per search. The county site has made all property (taxes, etc) information available via mapping programme. By checking the adjoining properties, it became clear that the three water bodies in the map above are the cited rain/meltwater catchment pools, on separate but adjoining properties of a Harrington family member (see also this screen-capture of the EPA's water inventory map of the subject area; this shows the dotted-line of an intermittent creek and the first 'pool' that has been in place for some 37 years). Three of the four Harrington family properties (those containing the ponds) are owned by named [Harrington] persons and by "Farm of the Family Recreation Association" (one adjoing Harrington property is not shown in this map. It lies to the east on a daughter's property): ☜ - the first thing that came to mind when I saw the boat-ramp and boats was that the Family Recreation Association could be part of a plan to develop the ponds for business. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it makes the struggle of the Harringtons more complicated than they present ... -- I note in passing the photos and videos that have appeared in support of the Harringtons. In none of them do we see the structures, dams (one of which is twenty feet high) or watercraft. Here is one example. Try to place this bucolic scene on one of the ponds ... and read the southern Oregon Star-Tribune story excerpted below. The State of Oregon v. Rain Man Gary Harrington's 11-year battle with the state over his reservoirs continues to make waves August 05, 2012 By Mark Freeman EAGLE POINT — At 13 feet deep and well over an acre in size, one of Gary Harrington's three illegal reservoirs off Crowfoot Road looks more like a private playground than a rain-fed, backyard fire pond. A fishing dock lined with rods and rod holders is tethered to shore near an outdoor barbecue. Boats line the bank. A fish feeder floats nearby, dispensing food to the illegally stocked largemouth bass Harrington says he bought from a Medford pet store. It's a place where family and friends spend hot summer days and where wildfire rigs can hook up to a water line any time they need a refill, free of charge. "The fish and the docks are icing on the cake," says Harrington, 63. "It's totally committed to fire suppression." It's a story state police and water managers have heard for more than a decade and still consider irrelevant. Ditto for state courts that three times over an 11-year span have convicted Harrington of illegally storing water without a permit. On Wednesday, Harrington must report to the Jackson County Jail for a 30-day sentence for his latest conviction.

Carol, if a Windows box, look for a help file that tells you how to change 'Display' options. You will be looking for something between screen resolution (1200 X 800, whatever) and Old Eyes 'Accessibily. Me, I use the handy Dollar Store cheaters for those moments when I cannot read the freaking screen..

Interesting technical notes from Michael and Ninth, thanks. I'll let you know what I have used: -- Robot voice: TextAloud by Nextup. -- Sound editing: Audacity -- Video editing/compositing: VideoPad Textaloud is the only one that costs. It comes with two shitty voices, but has many accents/types available for purchase, among which the best from ATT Natural Voices. VideoPad has some unique plug-ins (filters) and also allows image-processing in an embedded bit of software. I otherwise use the open-source Gimp programme for images. Ninth, you already have more Youtube hits on yours than I do on my 12 most recent ones, sob sob. [Edit: in a crass attempt to cash in on interest drawn to Ninth's initial tight and effective video, here is mine, the only one of my last twenty to approach his number of views, snort, sniffle, sob sob.]

I'm impressed. The video does its job well, I thought -- starkly identifying the characters, the issues, the present day "institutional rapprochement" and the exasperated kingpin who extorts obedience by damning rhetoric. The Don of Objectivish things comes across as a thug-crossed-with-a-politician. The exchange with the 'unfriendly' made me think of a celebrated Baath party meeting wherein Saddam Hussein got to finger (and kill) those who were opposed to his rule. Of course Peikoff does not have a security force to escort dissidents to the wall, but the impression remains of a peeved dictator ... Keep at it, Ninth. The frustration will subside while the desire for perfection will not.

Michael, thank you. I too have stepped in shit before, barefoot, giant cow flaps, and I too liked it. It seems likely to me that we share essential doubts and skepticism about similar aspects of the larger NLP world, about what you called "snake oil." Certainly there is a difference in our styles of analysis, how we approach ideas in psychology, but it doesn't mean that we do not share core values in reason. I believe we do share a wide intellectual territory, but we tend to forage in different patterns. That is good. I think I made a rather slurry metaphor earlier, likening us to guys with hammers and chisels, chipping away at a block of stone to uncover -- a la Michelango -- the sculpture within. Discussion, argument, rhetoric, all tools to get at the thing within. You are right that Novella (and Carroll) have an agenda. But I think they themselves are better placed to tell us explicitly what their agenda is, from their own statements. In simplistic terms, each hews to what we could call "the Skeptical agenda." This is not the dead Greek know-nothing philosophy staggering through the modern world like an avenging Mummy that freaks Tony out, but the modern Skeptical movement`s central orientation. In a nutshell, a rather flinty anti-Sasquatch show-me attitude towards all comers ... In sum, I do not find NLP to be dangerous, not dangerous in the same measure that I found in the terrible excesses of psychotherapy during the height of the Memory Wars. The recovered memory practitioners dealt with much more vulnerable clients than I think NLP does, and NLP simply does not have the wagonload of untrue and unproven precepts that RMT imposed on clients (with the risk of false memory). There is no equivalent to Bennett Braun or Judith Peterson or Renee Frederickson in the NLP movement. In many ways NLP offers a kind of therapy-light, with generalized outcomes promised -- better cognition, more success, greater self-actualization. This does not resemble the goals and targets of RMT. No one has sued an NLP practitioner for destroying their lives through bad therapy. Moreover, the RMT bullshit was fully incorporated into coercive institutions like (fully-insured in-patient) Trauma (MPD/Dissociative) Wards and led by otherwise professionally-regulated and fully-credentialled clinicians. So, on balance, in comparison, NLP is relatively benign, to my eyes. It promises a better life in the future, but does not impose any horrifying alternate reality (such as Satanic Cults) in the present on those who fall under care. RMT was strong, with a very strong (and wrong) mandate. NLP is weak -- in the sense of no central Politburo (as the RMTers had in collectives like the ISSD), no dogmas that were encapsulated and honed in dire professional standards and procedures. RMTers were very influential with cadres of otherwise 'mainstream' professionals, and developed its own central (bogus) verities that ruled in certain clinical settings. This is very much different from the smoggy buffet of choices in the NLP-ish marketplace. NLP is much more diffuse in its precepts. As for the hucksterism and over-reaching of the varied 'brain-wave entrainment' software tools, you might be interested in Novella's attention to this file. He has had a number of sober, rational exchanges with adherents, and publishes the exchanges. Here, again, there is a 'lite-ness' to the therapeutic factor, a more modest claim than in the adverts I posted above. If there is some real hoodoo in there, some real `good hex' NLP`-only ingredient that 'works' reliably, that reliability will emerge from research. There is a rational edge to inquiries. See the modest sums arrived at by both Novella and his interlocutor Tina Huang, Ph.D. Director of Research at Transparent Corporation here - then contrast that to the rather exhuberant marketing performed by its sales force. This is the Transparent Corp product first critiqued by Novella. Huang agrees with Novella that the frickin' marketing is out of control and not supported by her own research. http://www.youtube.c...h?v=cJB2wy_wrL8 Seriously, if there is some real hoodoo in NLP or entrainment, we could put a useful hex on discussion here, solve the ratio of snake oil/real hoodoo, and wrap this up without any rampaging elephant knock-on damages, "monkey-hear, monkey say zombie" notwithstanding. Maybe some other less aggressive elephants could come back into the clearing we have left. Cordially,

I never said anything about the site. I talked about the article. Yet here you are stating this fact as if you were correcting an error I made. Yes. You said "Novella's article in The Skeptic's Dictionary" and you pulled a quote. But Novella did not write that quote, Michael. ____________________________________ You first raised the issue of NLP in post #5: "there is some NLP stuff with Obama's speeches." Jerry Biggers noted that NLP is subject to criticism in post #10, and gave two links. One was to a portion of Wikipedia's article on NLP, specificially the section on validity under 'scientfic evaluation.' The second link was to Robert Todd Carrol's site The Skeptic Dictionary, specifically the entry on NLP. You responded to Jerry in post #12: So, yeah, you made a mistake. In other words, Novella did write the damn article and no correction was needed. Nope. I wrote that Robert Todd Carroll was the actual author of your mistaken 'Novella quote'.above. I wrote that Novella's actual article, linked at the bottom of Carrol's SkepDic entry, the article at his Neurologica blog, is worth reading. But, whatever what? You misread the SkepDic entry as having been written by Steve Novella. It was not written by Novella. I pointed that out. What is the big deal? Using the principle of Linguistic Charity, I assume that you mean that I, me, WSS, William is indulging in 'spin' because I want to point my finger at and spit on something. Certainly I will point to criticisms of NLP, and I may even harshly criticize NLP features (particularly its crass hucksterism and its disengagement from criticism). I might even express my contempt for ('spit on') statements and claims I find grossly irresponsible. But in this case, Michael, I meant to correct your misreading and fold it into my concerns. If you think correcting you is spin and spit, not too much more I can say. An early examiner of NLP is clinical and forensic psychologist Michael Heap. In his 2008 article on NLP he says better than I can say what is so important about the (therapeutic) claims: The kind of claims he meant are the specific claims made by Bandler and Grinder, cited in his article -- claims of efficacy, observational claims, solid generalizations, claims about the workings of the mind. Another reading of Heap's remark makes even clearer what accountability means. This is a paraphrase of Heaps from the article Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Cargo-Cult Psychology? These reflect my concerns, and have been part of my concerns and research into bad therapy and bad psychology. This was my beat during the Memory Wars. Now, I may return to your arguments, such as they are, but I really do not know how best to respond to such items as "pet intellectual clique gossip," "armchair academics who like to bash NLP", "monkey-hear, monkey say zombie," or directives to use my own mind -- not "parrot those of agenda-driven pundits." Who is the agenda-driven pundit(s)? Novella? (if you "have a lot of issues with Novella's Carroll's criticism" or have a bone to pick with his presumably bad 'agenda,', well, maybe one day you will get around to spelling them out in relation to the actual argument he, Novella, lays out) As for "the memers" and their dratted "memes" about evidence for claims ... what can I say? It seems you cover over your ignorance of these arguments with extemporaneous insult, you wave them away in annoyance and flabby generalities. That is not useful to figuring out where the snake oil ends and a putative active agent begins, where anecdote ends and where rigorous testing begins. To my eyes, to my understanding Novella is an ally of reason, of sober examination, and he has reason on his side if and when he recommends tossing out shoddy and unsupported claims. If you class him (along with Carroll) as an agenda-driven pundit, I am troubled at your prejudice. I do not think you have yet read Novella's article at Neurologica, or know who he is, what his profession is, or much about him and his work or "agenda" is at all. I think you do not reallly take seriously the congent and logical criticism of NLP that Novella puts forward in his article. It seems to me that you may 'like' something about NLP, and that you may have some entrenched notion that a murky part of it 'works.' As with your non-attention to the details of the earlier discussion of the Five Minute Phobia Cure, I just do not yet see any close and informed engagement with the issues as stated by critics. Instead, to paraphrase Stephen Leacock, you go charging off in all directions. Edit: I inserted a link to Heap's 2008 paper.

The Skeptic Dictionary (book and website) is written by Robert Todd Carrol, not Steve Novella. Steve Novella's blog entry (at Neurologica) is cited at the bottom of the Carrol's NLP page at SkepDic linked above, as 'new' ... Neurolinguistic Programming and other Nonsense. Novella's article is a good place to start sifting the actual research on NLP. In my opinion, NLP may have been mis-classified as 'New Age Large Group Awareness Training.' Yet it started in group seminars, it is hustled to groups, and it depends on group attendance to make the big money for its hustlers.** It is easy to dismiss criticisms of NLP as 'bashing,' or to assume, snidely, that tests of its claims are without substance. This leads to giving NLP a benefit of the doubt which it does not deserve. After 30 years(!) of hustling NLP, there is no evidence that it does what it says it does. In the words of one of those quoted at SkepDic: "...after three decades, there is still no credible theoretical basis for NLP, researchers having failed to establish any evidence for its efficacy that is not anecdotal." Personally, I find it odd in the extreme that rational folks (or self-labeled rational folk) have a hard time reasoning through all the craptastic 'new paradigms' that promise much and deliver little but unsubstantiated claims. NLP is just another example (like TFT) of something that is promoted and marketed without the least attempt to prove its efficacies. It troubles me that Randians -- ostensibly fans of reason, critical thinking and sober evaluation of premises -- can be so easily gulled by pseudo-scientific grifters. And that is the bottom line. NLP makes claims, a lot of claims, sweeping claims, exceptional claims. But it does not deliver the supporting evidence that any of its claims are true. Added to the unsavoury hucksterism, fissions, lawsuits, power-grabs and the whole murky tableau of NLP derivatives, what is it that attracts the gullible? I would say, in a word, magic. A rather un-Objective thing, I would think. _________ **

He can't live in the USA because the USA does not want him, maybe? Who said I want to live in the USA? I didn't say that. The question might be better directed to william.scherk who lives in Canada and calls Canada a hellhole. I have been referring, ironically, to Canada as a socialist hellhole to put in relief the wackiness of claims that Obama is a Marxist, who wants to enslave the USA to the scarey Canadian model: one-payer health-care, socialized up the wazoo, multicultural, French, yadda yadda. I have said that as Marxists go, if Obama is a Marxist, I become a Hardial Bains. You know what I mean, Jerry -- the sense of proportion is lacking. As Ba'al seems to say, of all the major industrialized democracies, the USA too has a panoply of socialism, often of the same stripe as Canada, from pensions to Medicare, without perhaps the universality of Canada, but in some places (Massachusetts, DC, Oregon) the vile Marxism of Canada largely looks familar. So, Jerry, I underline again, irony. If Obama wants to take American to the dead-end cul-de-sac of socialized yeehaw, it might get to be as bad as Vancouver. And what is Vancouver but a sexier, younger, dope-smoking-er, free-er Seattle? Nope. If you want to wait tables or do yardwork or construction, maybe, in the UK open to the rest of the European hordes. A cash economy can have margins for work like this. But contrast to Architect or Doctor Veejay or Engineer / Scholar McCorkey or Teacher VanDusen or Chemist Choi: how many US schools/labs/factories have Canadian teachers recruited by or welcomed by generous provisions of NAFTA, in which states? One way, the legal way, is much more than convenience. If you really wanted to emigrate to Canada, of course, you could claim refugee status ...like Randy Quaid. As for Switzerland, they are anal to the maximum in regard to citizenship. In at least one canton, prospective immigrants are voted up or down in a public meeting. Me or you are not even on the dance card, Michael, unless zillionaires. I have a feeling you would do fine in Mexico, where you can build your own house, grown your own beans, roll your own tortillas and sell grandma's handicrafts in the market. You can also dig your own grave, and although the Mexican bureaucracy is not as smooth for a business owner as Canada's, many Norteamericanos of either stripe do plentiful south-of-the-border business, whether export/import, foodstuffs, mining, industrial development, transportation, real estate, what have you. In my forays to the Spanish lands, I find Mexicans most like Canadians next to Costa Ricans -- friendly, sober, family-oriented, fixed on survival and getting ahead and prospering in the southern version of El Dorado. Puerto Ricans are blessed by full citizenship and civil peace and inter-migration to America. No ties to the island need ever be entirely broken. Like Quebec but further from the main highway of things. In any case, Americans, 'real Americans,' are a varied lot, yes. And Puerto Rico (and Canada) are both foreign and home at the same time, though not in the same proportion, and not in every corner. The borders, despite Jerry's looney suggestions, are real between our three north American regimes, still stand tall and strong and keep us from being mutual citizens.Meanwhite: INSEAD's Global Innovation Index 2012: Switzerland retains first-place position in innovation Switzerland, Sweden, and Singapore lead in overall innovation performance according to the Global Innovation Index 2012 Top 10 Leaders in the Global Innovation Index Switzerland Sweden Singapore Finland United Kingdom Netherlands Denmark Hong Kong (China) Ireland United States of America The list of overall GII top 10 performers has changed little from last year. Switzerland, Sweden, and Singapore are followed in the top ten by Finland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, Hong Kong (China), Ireland, and the United States of America. Canada is the only country leaving the top 10 this year, mirroring weakening positions on all main GII innovation input and output pillars. The report shows that the U.S.A. continues to be an innovation leader but also cites relative shortfalls in areas such as education, human resources and innovation outputs as causing a drop in its innovation ranking. Regional leaders and the BRIC countries The leaders in their regions are: Switzerland in Europe, the US in Northern America, Singapore in South East Asia and Oceania, Israel in Northern Africa and Western Asia, Chile in Latin America and the Caribbean, India in Central and Southern Asia, and Mauritius in Sub-Saharan Africa. Among low-income economies the leader is Kenya.

I should add a link to a parallel thread started by Michael Marotta, who asked the question, "Canada, Puerto Rico, Foreign or American."

He can't live in the USA because the USA does not want him, maybe? Can't get a green card, is in the wrong profession for ease of border-crossing under NAFTA? If he is a successful teacher, nurse, engineer, doctor, or professional of other sort (save lawyer or jurist), it becomes easier, but is still no cakewalk. Maybe Jerry likes where he lives except for the hellhole-isness. As for your forays across the border figuring out how like the two entities are, were you able to participate in Canadian life as you would participate in American life? Did you bank, get a check-up, take your kid to French School, enroll in a Masters Programme, take out a student loan, have a spell of homelessness, walk a beat on campus, meet with non-numismatics? A little bit further east is a land called Quebec. You would be unable to distinquish it from New England states until you opened your eyes and ears and picked up a newspaper. The Flags you see in Tulsa/Calgary usually mark some agency or symbol of the state, such as post office. In Quebec the blue flags mark manifestations of the Quebec nation. Is it foreign or is it American? When you stand in Quebec's national assembly, do you feel 'at home' following the legislative debate? Is it kinda like a blend of New Orleans and Boston? As for Mexico, its many points of light compressed into a smear in the global image, what we also can compare is what is in the pocket. Little Mexico in America (illegals and Americans or landed immigrants) often operates through two pockets. In one is Mexican money, and runs on the Mexican economy, where cigarettes start at a dollar a pack and a dozen tortillas can be had for 30 pesos. The other pocket pays Yankee prices. Ask your nearest Mexican-American how much their dollar buys Auntie Teresa back in San Isidro de Pongo ... You mentioned Puerto Rico in your header but did not carry your comparison. Puerto Rico, is it foreign or American? Is Alaska with its Palin more American than Hawaii with its Lingle? You can go live in Puerto Rico tomorrow, Michael, with no legal impediments, unlike the regime that would or would not welcome you to Canada. Frankly, to accept you as an immigrant, we would need to assess you on a point system, from age to health to language to profession. If you have a job in Tulsa/Calgary that only you can fill (except in the listed professions), and you otherwise fit the profile of a decent would-be immigrant (money in the bank, investment plan for Canadian jobs), you never can tell, you might be successful. Who knows, maybe we need a numismatist/security professsional. Worth a try, if you even get tired of Texan charms. Unlike Canadians, Puerto Ricans are USA citizens, so I invite you to figure out those implications for 'foreigness.' All the talk about the differences and similarities in winner-take-all categories of thought can obscure simple and telling facts. Our impressions of our neighbours can be incomplete, and comparisons between Canada, USA and Mexico can be smudged into irrelevance only when you are 500 miles above the surface of the continent at night. That vague eye-in-the-sky comparison serves no useful purpose if it only serves to confirm vague notions. Worse, it is like telling us The Mexicans Ate My Homework. If you want to answer the question without getting off the couch, you are doing great so far, but haven't yet considered and enumerated possible objections to the smudge. Even from the couch in the sky, I think you can come up with a few, beyond what I have noted here. +++++++++++++++ I do think Jerry has some interesting things to tell us about the differences between the USA and Canada. But at the moment he exists in some transnational coma, and may think he really lives in Objectivist County. I forgot to answer the question, Michael, sorry. Yes, both.

I am stumped. I refused to Google and just sat there and tried to think it out, and it didn't work. I am not going to peek, either. So, can you give us a historical sketch/parallel without making anyone unduly uncomfortable? Canada knew slavery, Ba'al, but as part of Empire abolished it earlier than America. We have the kinds of freedoms enumerated in lists of economic and social liberties, ease of business, rule of law, blah blah blah, a lot like America, cousinly. We are in Canada an extension of American values, too. Our attitude to immigration is made possible by the buffer of America itself. Our multiracial society in construction would be different if our southern border were the Rio Grande. We took heart at American cries for social liberties, for social reconciliation, for integration, for a Great Society. We were constantly forced to deal with The Other (if in Quebec, the English, if in the rest of Canada, the French). We had a Trudeau, Ba'al who wrote laws for 17 years total, and who stick-handled the first 'native' constitution. We were many years behind you in so many ways until the mid-sixties of the last century. Now we are a first-rank industrial nation, at the pinnacle of the riches of the earth, material and cultural. Our concept of justice is very much informed by American ideals, but because we could not vanquish The Other, we have only slowly built unity and national purpose. Our revolutions were political and social, not military. 1960 in Quebec was the start of modern history in Canada, the building of the nation was to the blueprints drafted by 1967. I live in Vancouver, one of the greatest hellholes on earth, socialist to its fanny. You live in, I believe, Edmonton, only marginally less socialist than Finland. So, shouldn't you tell us something about life in your version of said hellhole, Jerry? Look it up, report back, please. Don't get me wrong, I think of Americans as close cousins. Our societies are so very similar, and yet distinct. If you haven't been to both places, it can be hard to grasp. Your own inter-state differences give a clue of what contrasts our 'states' can contain. Our distinct lack of crazed belligerence over socialized health care delivered by the provinces is something you might have to get used to, though, Brant (Jerry notwithstanding. I find it quite curious that Jerry rants about the USA but never tells us how awful it is in the hellhole of Alberta). That fight was done by 1965 up here. Whatever hideous past we have lived through, we generally really do believe our own bullshit** in a way that the USA no longer does. We have no horrible and persistent right-left cleavage or massive racialized underclass. We are dull in that way. We are glad to be your ally, but happy enough to have a border between us and our systems. ___ ** by our own bullshit I mean the partially-true confections of history and propaganda that make up varied National Myths. I think we Canadians have incorporated USA values into our myths, the historical New World individual freedoms championed latterly by Trudeau. We are a reflection, maybe, a refinement of the historical demands of North America. Having never slipped out from under the Crown, we have yet made it a mere symbol of state. Although much blood was shed to establish that crown over Canada, we stopped doing that after the conquest of the French. And we never raised enough of an army until 1914 to be a great nasty (independent) power. We never got to sit on another nation's face in quite the same way America got to sit on the faces of nations and peoples. Because we shelter with you, we have warred alongside you. We have warred with you and will be warriors alongside you again, but we choose when and where. This gives Canada its enduring lustre to the unfree, abused, and stateless of the world. Canada is every human being's second home, its refuge. From your proud (north) American cousin, ally and distinctly different friend in the Hellhole. I love your country and the ideals it represents to me and my people. Soldier on under your burdens. Be yon beacon to the world. And may you show unity and purpose on your birthday! Today you stand astride the world.

Um, my point was that it is Crazy Talk to say "the constitution should be enforced with the death penalty," Jerry. You are Canadian. Canada has a Constitution. Should that constitution be enforced with the death penalty, too? I am not squeamish about death. I am squeamish about the death penalty being imposed by talking chimps from Edmonton. What gives that you never talk about your last visit to America, huh? Wasn't it you ranting mysteriously that there is no border between the two nations, in some other deranged entry in another thread? Your whole schtick mystifies me, man. I imagine you are in a state facility, somehow. Maybe visting a relative on a locked ward, maybe peeing in a cup. Seriously, do you talk like this to civilians? Do you get a conversation going with cronies at Tim Horton's when you try out the old Death and the Salesman Constitution rant? Yikes. I just want to know if you only wear the kookiepants when posting here ... More seriously, do you have anything intelligent to say about your faceoff with State Medicine, or generalized life in the Socialist Hellhole? From what I know about you and your travails in the matter of health, you are taken care of in Canada, whereas you in the US of A would be shit out of luck. What on earth makes you, with your circumstances, want to join the thirty million uninsured south of the border? Will that help you or your children survive?

JTS, Jerry Story, talking chimp, what have you ... is there some reason you in Canada are so passionate about Death and the Constitution of the USA? Do you have the same feeling about the Constitution of Canada (or even the Bill of Rights)? Are you perhaps an American errant, a USA citizen trapped behind enemy lines, longing to go home? Maybe in thrall to the phony Alberta 'health care' system that is slowly destroying you with aspartame, taxes and poison drugs? Or what? Because although you often sound crackers, this one sounds like you urgently need to turn a knob up on your oxygen tank, brother chimp. Nuts does not do it justice, what you said. And Milosevic was not taken by force from office. He resigned under enormous popular pressure after attempting to cling to power. Later he was extradited to face war crimes charges in the Hague, where he died in his cell during his trial. Back to your abnormal programming, Jerry. Bzzzzzz. Click, Whirr. Clink. Dribble. Do you ever check for the looks on people's faces when you say these things out on the patio at the group home, by the way?

Emphases added. I invite those who are kind of not looking at Egypt (let alone Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen or ugh Libya) for fear of finding out that everything you feared about the Islamist Boogeyman is true, give the article a read. It is meaningful in an Objective-ish way. It is not exactly reassuring, but IDs some actors and lets us better plot the future on our charts. -- this article by Robert Wright appeared in The Atlantic today.

Michael, besides all that, check out the real-time commenting on the timeline ... the little red symbols under the waveform. The waters of wrath could churn. It could bring snark to a whole new level if we pitched in.

Then I do go on, via Soundcloud ... with my first 'real voice' OL Radio Show. ____________________________________Bonus question at the ten minute markReferences Susan Haack's SI article "Science, Scientism, and Anti-Science in the Age of Preposterism | Haack's Defending Science, Within Reason | Review by Sophist-in-Training Defining skeptic | [skep-tik] noun 1. a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual. 2. a person who maintains a doubting attitude, as toward values, plans, statements, or the character of others. 3. a person who doubts the truth of a religion, especially Christianity, or of important elements of it. 4. ( initial capital letter ) Philosophy . a. a member of a philosophical school of ancient Greece, the earliest group of which consisted of Pyrrho and his followers, who maintained that real knowledge of things is impossible. b. any later thinker who doubts or questions the possibility of real knowledge of any kind. adjective 5. pertaining to skeptics or skepticism; skeptical. 6. initial capital letter ) pertaining to the Skeptics. Origin: 1565–75; Can be confused: cynic, optimist, pessimist, skeptic . Synonym ... Doubter. See atheist. Antonym ... Believer. From the cutting room floor My favourite writer of late: no one can match Amal Hanano's brilliant prose. She invokes 'A Tale of Two Cities' in "One Year of Hope" ... "What I learned hardened and softened me ... I learned how to talk about death without cringing ... I began with hope." And for the Maestro MSK ... Aqueles sistemas formais que são conhecidos como a lógica ‘pa- drão’ ou ‘clássica’ (e que se ensinam emcursos de lógica formal ele- mentar) devemseguramente ser considerados lógicas, se algo deve assimser considerado. Parece, pois, apropriadoadmitir tambémco- mo lógicas aqueles sistemas formais que são análogos aos primeiros. Entre tais sistemas ‘análogos’ incluo: extensões da lógica clássica, is- toé, sistemas que acrescentamnovo vocabulário lógico(‘necessaria- mente’ e ‘possivelmente’ nas lógicas modais, ‘era o casoque’ e ‘será o casoque’ nas lógicas temporais, ‘deve’ e ‘pode’ nas lógicas deônticas, ‘sabe’ e ‘acredita’ nas lógicas epistêmicas, ‘prefere’ nas lógicas da pre- ferência) ao lado de novos axiomas ou regras para o novo vocabulá- rio, ouque aplicam operações lógicas conhecidas a novos itens (sen-tenças imperativas ou interrogativas); divergências da lógica clássica, i.e., sistemas com o mesmo vocabulário, mas com axiomas ou regras diferentes (emgeral, mais restritos); e lógicas indutivas, que procu- ramformalizar uma noção de suporte análoga, porémmais fraca que a de conseqüência lógica. Sua similaridade à lógica clássica – não apenas similaridade formal, mas ainda similaridade de propósitoe de interpretação pretendida –faz que seja natural ver esses sistemas co- mo lógicas. (De maneira alternativa, eu poderia ter começado com a lógica tradicional aristotélica, da qual a lógica ‘clássica’ moderna é uma extensão, e dali ter prosseguido por um processo similar de analogia.)

This could be true, that 'everybody knows' how successful the so-called 'social democracies' have been, but we don't know which countries you indicate by your term, and which criteria of success you use. I would argue that the 'social democracies' in the European world today include the following countries, from the far north to the edges of the Mediterranean. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia), Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Netherlands, UK, Ireland, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Slovenia, Croatia, Cyprus, (Greece) ... and Israel. Further afield, but tied to Europe through the English language and British-derived governance, Australia and new Zealand. To the north of you, too, another 'European' social democracy, the confederation we call Canada. What criteria do I use? Universal mandates for heath care, the notion (often rigidly inscribed in law/constitutional documents) that citizens cannot be excluded from services of the government because of individual ability to pay, in the areas that we call (in Canada) 'social programmes.' These include the oldest (State old age pensions and State-mandated Worker's Compensation schemes, unemployment insurance) to the 'newest' mandates (marriage without reference to gender), with the middle comprising all the things that disgust on principle an Objectivist: mother's allowances, Welfare, State Orphanages, State Parks, State Mental Hospitals, Public Education, Public Health Services, Legal Aid ... Now to the criteria for 'success.' Shall we use criteria like economic freedom, tax levels, difficulties in starting and operating a business, a relatively accessible non-corrupt public system of justice, a relatively light burden of so-called environmental regulation? How about the level of social mobility (can a poor man get rich by his own individual efforts), or the level of income/poverty itself? Or health indicators, or levels of education or industrial might or even the level of happiness. If what you say is true, Jerry, we should be able to demonstrate a lack of success in all these places relative to their non social-democratic peers.

Jerry, are you the same Jerry Story who posts at Objectivism Online? I ask because I want to be sure of Jerry Story's location before I accuse you of being a Canadian.

William, Sure I am. If someone is over the top and bigoted, but pro-USA, you are all over him. If he is over the top and bigoted and anti-USA, you are very, very tolerant if not apologetic (but not apologetic on this thread, just tolerant). I will try to figure out who is this "someone" you may or may not be referring to. Let us call him Walid Shoebat. Is he over-the-top (whatever that means)? Is he over-the-top, but pro-USA? No, he is not what I would call over-the-top (which does not carry any meaning about the truth or untruth of his charges and claims). Is Shoebat pro-USA? If so, what the hell does that mean? What does "pro-USA" signify? Here is an example of my confusion, Michael, my remarks on Amal Saad-Ghoyareb.** She is a Lebanese resident, and hardline leftist anti-imperialist. She is not Pro-USA, but Pro-"Resistance." She is an ally or friend of my compatriot Camille Alexandre Otrakji, who tends to think of me as an unblinking USA-first captive of the Neo-cons. Ghorayeb cites Lenin in her outrageous and sloppy article at Lebanon's daily Al-Akhbar English. She may be described as 'over the top' in her comments, but you will need a sample to experience it for real; here are a couple of quotes from a couple of her articles: The third-way campaign against Assad only serves the strategy and interests of the US and Israel, who have made no secret of the fact that his fall would help them achieve their wider strategic ambitions of weakening Iran and resistance forces in Lebanon and Palestine. Moreover, agitation against the regime on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations of war crimes further incites sectarian oppositionists who identify the regime with Alawis, thereby indirectly fanning the flames of Sunni-Shia tension in Syria and the region at large. As Lenin observed regarding third-way politics: “The only choice is – either bourgeois or socialist ideology. There is no middle course (for mankind has not created a ‘third’ ideology, and, moreover, in a society torn by class antagonisms, there can never be a non-class or an above class ideology). Hence to belittle the socialist ideology in any way, to turn aside from it in the slightest degree means to strengthen bourgeois ideology. There is much talk of spontaneity. But spontaneous development of the working class movement leads to its subordination to bourgeois ideology.” Now to Sharmine Narwani ... who is an Iranian-American, product of top USA schools (Columbia) and a fervent 'anti-USA' person in terms of foreign policy. She is a firm "Resistance" ideologue, who ascribes to the murky USA plot all the problems in Syria. More. My compatriot Otrakji 'outed' me as the anonymous moderator of the online magazine Syria Comment. He revealed my name for a reason he would not disclose. I resigned. At or around the same time, I criticized Narwani for her outrageous rhetoric about American (and UK) journalists. She badmouthed (without giving specifics) a writer whose opinions and reporting I respect. Sharmine labelled this writer as being a "House Arab," and a presumed lackey of the USA, and railed against 'white men' ... So, a lackey of the Imperial USA hegemony, as Camille, Sharmine and Amal believe, or an anti-USA troll, Michael? What does the scope of your knowledge suggest? Which pile should I be sorted into. Which is easiest? Which is true? +++++++++++++ So, Michael, if you are missing scope, and if you are not engaging with what I actually say or do in this thread on the issues raised, what do I think, what can I think of your comments? From a vantage point far above events it seems you sort me into a pile, and occasionally indulge in mild and pointless insult -- rather than take issue with facts, observations, explanations and opinions I put forward for discussion. For example, do you recall the verbiage about 'troll,' 'weird,' 'leftist mind-set' yadda yadda blah blah? This does not trouble me for the insult, but for its vantage in the sky, far above, all-seeing, all-knowing, all labelling. Socialist mindset weird troll with a feud. I do not expect you to engage with my points about say, Morsi and shitty Chicken-Little reporting. Why? Because I believe you agree with me. When you looked closer at the cough reporting of the Morsi Wife + Shock/Horror aide to Clinton mother Sisterhood, you said to yourself, "WSS is right on this. Shoebat is not credible." When you thought about the Clear and Present Danger, you said, "I want facts, not speculation and fear-mongering. The Clear and Present Danger is more from the Islamist/s who take/s power, less from their Ladies Auxiliary. William is right, let us keep a close eye on Morsi and events, and let us establish clear benchmarks to watch for." Is that right, partially right, or utterly wrong? At least in my imaginings. I frankly doubt you did any independent investigations, any sorting into True, Untrue, Speculation, Unwarranted, Wrong, Right, etcetera. You are not so interested in these details as they pertain to Egypt, I think. So, any arch disengagement and name-calling does not make an impression on me, Michael, in the sense of a corrective or constructive criticism of my remarks in this thread. This present naming and shaming is pretty feeble on the whole, in my opinion, whether by misjudging Infidel, or misjudging Martin, or misjudging a concern with truth for a concern with partisan tropes. All this sorting and lumping does not move discussion forward one millimetre. By the elasticity of the margins of your trope, "Over the Top and Anti-USA," you too can be judged badly, Michael. You do your own understanding a disservice by too swiftly deciding on Bad or Good from your vantage above it all. I do not think you have earned a laissez-passer yet. I can be, have been and will be wrong -- on these issues, in details, in interpretation, in analysis, perhaps often, perhaps more rarely. A robust discussion can reveal my errors in interpretation and analysis. Instead ... we get your view from 10,000 feet. Now, maybe you have correctly pigeon-holed me as some mindset-socialist anti-USA weird troll, but what does that tell us about your opinion of specifics in my argument as presented? Not much yet. I have no idea what you think about Morsi, his wife, Weiner's wife's mom ... nor what a proper vigilant stance should be, since mine is ostensibly wrong by implication, by my presumed anti-USA bias. Not one word from you yet on Morsi, FJP, SCAF, the constitutional court, the new President's inaugural speech, his promises, the expectations, and the criticism and the hope and fears from his opposition. Not a quote from the news, not a commentary on actual historic events. Not one word, Michael. Are these things important, or is it more important to try to put WSS in his (leftist mindset weirdo troll) place? ________________ ** I was unable to post my comments to the newspaper site.

You are not paying attention, Michael, to what I am saying. If I sound partisan as all hell, for whom, please? For reason, for not taking the easy way out, for doing one's homework, yes, partisan as all hell. If there was a particular thing you disagree/d with, I would expect it to be quoted and picked apart. But it has been some months since you have discussed with me. Instance above, the finger-wagging. Look back at my Argument, Michael, not some Pigeonhole you think I inhabit. I am an individual with strong opinions, and so if you do not like one or several of my opinions, weigh in, correct me, engage with what I say. I like that, and we are both good at it.

What the ignorant and hateful (like Richard) do not understand is that Islam has already interpenetrated the USA. The fear of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon's Terrorist Mother does not engage with or confront reality -- the real agents of dangerous change, the clear and present Men Of Action. It is as if you the One-Eyed Warrier were worried about the Ladies Auxiliary of the Muslim Brotherhood more than you were the Muslim Hitlerhood itself -- and its new President HitlerStalinMorsi. The niquab-wearing woman who is his wife is not a player, no matter how you slice it. The Man is, and the Man is a partial product of the USA itself. Just like the HitlerMuslimSpy in Hillary Clinton's office. The Muslim Brotherhood is not only legal (ie., not a terrorist organization) but its associated party, the Freedom and Justice Party, just installed its choice in Heliopolis. That is the thing to freak out about and think about, not some terrorist mother-in-law bullshit from the zaniest of the zany fearmongers. In these matters, ignorance and Robert Spencer are not the friends of reason. Clinton says a Fuck You to those who urge us to Fear Ladies Auxiliary, I imagine. If you got Hillary drunk and angry, she might fix her ugly stare on you and say, "Listen, fuckface, the Man is the one to watch out for in Egypt, not the scarfed sandwich-maker. I meet with all these fucks, you do not. And we got their balls in our hands -- because we lapdance with SCAF, not the FJP -- because we have billions of dollars to haul out of their budget. Put your eye on the ball, gentlemen. Drink up. Fear, but fear wisely. That idiot Bush figured it out, but not you nitwits, not yet. Pour." I only ask of the fearmonger to put the Abedin muck in proportion to real events, and to use a critical eye with reports from the likes of Shoebat. Do not retail rumour without your own critique. Sharpen your eyes to the events that matter, and set benchmarks by which to rate the years of Morsi's tenure. The USA is not seeing Egypt turn from ally to enemy overnight, and the ladies auxiliaries are at best sideshows to the Main Tent. Get informed, add real flavour to your fears, and bring them forth to discuss. I never read Richard anymore unless he is quoted. I have contempt for his evasions of reality, for an ugly refusal to consider opposing views, for the direst generalizations about Islam or The Muslims. I cannot communicate with him on a factual exchange level, and he has difficulty communicating anything but fear and loathing. I would sob and sob and sob if he joined Janet in The Permanent Woodshed, wouldn't I? Why does he get allowed to snipe at our Muslim friend here, as if he could see into LM's and every heart, into the very heart of things? What arrogant nonsense. What use are you to discussion, Richard, with the dark prescriptions and your ugly visions, and your heartlessness?

Geraldo Rivera has had a wonderful career as a lightweight 'journalist'/entertainer, with a long record of being stupid and uninformed. He was part of the moral panic over Satanic Ritual Abuse conspiracies. Here is him at his worst: His highest rated "Geraldo" show was devoted to Satanic Ritual Abuse, in a prime-time two hour special in October 1988. The Religious Tolerance site describes the show: He later (after the damage was done) apologized for this program. From the same page at the RT site: