william.scherk

I recommend definitional molasses. Actually, the last post faces us with the operation of knowledge, its workaday world of reality-testing. The skeptical question is handy and useful to all stages of the scientific endeavor, whatever its stripe. Always welcome is How Do You Know, and of great interest are the limits, the edges of our knowledge enterprises. Some areas are still under heavy fog, but like the face of Venus can yet tell of things that stir in darkness. In darkness we need most the probing questions, and the memory of the correct answers. Whether why how or when, we base our lives on the answers. Skeptical operations moved in me the first time I asked, "How do you know?" and the same key question opened further doors to inquiry. Toss out all concepts of skepticism as a thing and a club. Instead think of it in action, questioning. Funniest skeptical story I have to tell is of a heated argument at SOLO where the guy with no hair was telling me that skeptics (pace the ancients) believe in nothing and that no knowledge is possible. I countered that Kiwi skeptics were meeting in congress in Auckland and was he going? He did not get back to me. Sunk away into the molasses, no doubt. As if. +++++++++++++++ Skeptical Inquirer is a publication of the CSI conglomerate, which operates Centers (and Centres) for Inquiry internationally out of its headquarters in upstate New York. All those old CSI stalwarts are in cahoots with other arch-skeptics, from Dawkins to Randi to Hitchens, and via friendly association with the other Skeptic (magazine) run by Michael Shermer and Free Inquiry magazine, and Skeptic's publishing cohort Prometheus Books. A budget and reach far beyond ARI is CSI, but off the radar. In the molasses they sometimes dip, but most are far too busy dealing with the (north) American landscape for rational thought and education. Although the Sasquatch never dies, some of the old stalwarts do, as the (north) American and international skeptical movement turns over the generations, which is why Skeptical Inquirer is still good reading. If a tiresome ghostbusting story, you will also get a rant from Massimo Pigliucci, or a feature from Carol Tavris. Skeptic is also a good read and contains Junior Skeptic, which is superb -- recommended to any Objectivish parent. Together the skeptic cronies keep it all together on the international active rationality front, believing yet in something, despite the guy with no hair and his cove of ignorance in New Zealand. Keeping an eye out for bullshit is the watchword there in the skeptic world today, though said more nicely in SI and Skeptic than at places like Pharyngula or SGU (wildly popular Skeptic's Guide To The Universe, also affiliated with the cronies young and old). Mythbusters! and natural allies of Objectivish currents of thought.

Michael, yes, if it isn't one thing, it's another thing. We have hoed down a few rows together with Glenn Beck, notably some close work on the roots of some of his Soros claims. It is one thing to prophecy and another to check the prophesies. And it came to pass. Yes, but we are not cooking today, we are eating. The work we did together trying to figure out just how wrong Beck was in re George Soros was an example of engagement with the meat in Beck's MENA sandwich. We chewed it and we chewed it and we spat it out. In the large, the Islamic Menace Fire and the Burning Across the Land did not occur as charted. In the small, an example is Egypt today before the run-off. In no stretch of the imagination does today resemble Tomorrow as charted by Beck. Good point. The "line of inquiry" was an allusion to the Fiery Middle East -- as interpreted through The Coming Insurrection and the other touchstones and documents that we both examined. This line of inquiry kept readers, listeners and viewers apprised of the meaning of events of MENA 'disruption,' how they all fit together into The Plan. Yeabut. Firstly, your paraphrase distorts (what was said elsewhere). That Beck has no Fox show is one thing. That this makes him without relevance is another. My claims were delimited, not general. And the example you bring does not pertain to my own line of inquiry here which is also delimited, nor does it pertain to points raised in my video Radio Show (which is worth listening too if only for the fun of Diana screaming). .This seems like an argument with someone no longer in the room, perhaps the departed Mr Jack Straw, former foreign minister of the Crown. This also seems like another sketchy Them assertion, as bald and inviting as any other Them assertion. The argument affirms its consequent by accepting as fact that which is at issue: Michael, 'collusion' is not descriptive, but wrong, and so cannot hold the weight of the rest of your assertion, let alone Beck's monumental operatic fantasy of actors and events. When you recast my arguments, you distort my intent and the fruit of our inquiry. When you try to compress complex events and actors into a summary paragraph it can result in a distortion across the board. Michael, I do not recognize the world I now know better through your descriptive paragraph, nor my cautions. We stand shoulder to shoulder in seeking to understand the enemies of the West. I do not consider Beck a useful tool for my understanding of events in the Middle East. Mileage may vary, but that is pinko-libertarian freedom of opinion for you, freedom I relish even up here in the hellhole. I understand (in part) your alienation and share it profoundly. I am by no means among the mainstream of opinion in my own worlds, despite my socialist-slave colouration. I understand the alienation from sources of information that in the American marketplace range from unbelievably awful to the best on earth. It is a hard garden to weed. We face the rows of rampant news and weeds and lies and crap with our sleeves rolled up and our Roundup at the ready. We understand each other to some measure, I am sure. And so I understand the lure of The Preacher. And I think to some extent your affinity to Beck is both good and natural and not indicative of anything but an appreciation of a Great Showman. Those dang people, huh? They do not LIKE him, so they dislike his framing. Or, they dislike his framing so they dislike him and reframe. Who knows? No matter. Those dang people and their reframing. Ugh. If you have more to take issue with from the comment above, Michael, happy to correct my mistakes. I imagine a conversation between us ... perhaps at the November Festivities ... wherein we discover just how much of our stances and attitudes are similar. If you think we are far apart, I can surprise you and you me. We both reach for Reason as our sharpest tool, and two such folks chipping away at the same subject often reveal facets and wonders to each other. Of great truth and awful beauty. If I thought you had no insights to share, I would not engage. Beware the Black only and the White, the too-Simple and Explains-too-much. Truth is usually messier and muckier and spottier and much harder to predict than anyone's fantasies of order and conspiracy.

I was one of those 'people' who criticized Beck's prophecies in re the Middle East uprisings of 2011. He was wrong in the large and wrong in the small. Within the plot he discerned there were occasionally going to be real data points (George Soros was a Nazi not one of them). My job when examining Beck's multiple claims was to check. The kind of prophecy that Beck performs can be checked. It was, and it was found wanting. His maunderings on a conspiracy of America's enemies (The Leftists, the Islamists, the Shadowy People) were what interested me, his global grasp of essentials. His speculation on how the hundreds of pieces (or dots) fit together in the Grand Conspiracy was -- to me -- sloppy and unconvincing in its broad claims. In any case, one's previous notions and speculations are not necessarily probative in relation to other, separate claims. And each claim can be examined separately. It is sad that Beck abandons a line of inquiry so soon. Beck made causal claims and claims of collusion that were not true. Whether fudging the truth to poke outrage (as with his sleaze on Soros/Nazi) or fudging the math to raise alarm, Beck is good at his craft. His craft is not journalism or even reportage. It is closer to evangelism, from my POV, a mashup of radio mouth with clown/jester/showboat/Preacher. That Islamism and even the sad rump of fanatics who wish a Caliphate exist and are active is not a surprise. The issue is Beck's ability to discern and measure its impact and its ramifications -- if not its historical course and the context that current situations expose. What did Beck tell us of value -- in terms of Warning, Prevention, Exposure, Averting Disaster? As far as I can see, nothing moved in the world because of Beck's views on the Middle East. Not one coherent policy prescription emerged from his desk. Instead, something is 'proved' and the zone of vigilance moves on. This was (to some minds is) the biggest story of (either) Human Yearning to Be Free of our recent past in North Africa and the Middle East -- OR -- it was/is the largest, most effective and most dangerous conspiracy of all at the moment: Terrorists/USA/Big Money/The Left/Alinsky/Revolution all rolled in to one, threatening US interests and the integrity of its institutions of governance. Huge story -- the Biggest Story Evah when it was first cooked, ladled and peddled. Now, not so much, and now the ability of any Beck follower to comment intelligently on current, breaking MENA events and issues drifts back to zero. The 'disruption' of the settled course of dictatorship continues, so. In Egypt, for example, two men are heading into the run-off election for the Presidency. Is Beck on it? Is this issue, or the thousand and one issues of the so-called Arab Spring still in his purview? The hellish return of Ghannouchi to Tunisia which caused Beck's eyes to bulge -- how did that turn out? Remember his big map of conflagrations? The fires burning, all started by the same criminal enterprises combining forces ... ? The fire in Libya, the fire in Jordan, the fire in Lebanon ... etcetera? It all fits together. It was all part of A Plan. And now Beck lets us down by turning to yet another series of dots on his screen, to connect up a fresh horror. Michael I know you are a fan (with reservations). This does not meant that those who mock, counter or oppose items and features of Beck's witless 'reportage' are anti-MSK or anti-MSK shibboleths. I can stand beside you in support as we march off to Truth. I can stand with you when premises are checked, when Bad Guys get their due, when the evidence is collected, tagged and logged. I can march with you a long way on the Road of Reason. Where we differ is not in our equipment or process -- we use the same equipment and process. I disagree with your opinion. Such broad and sweeping claims about 'a few misfires' is the headline. Reading the actual story of Beck and the Dots and how he operates in constructing a Narrative of Terror -- this reveals facts counter to your conclusions. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Here is my take: Beck does his job well. He is an entertainer and Cassandra of the airwaves (internets). He scares his audience. He gets them riled against The Enemies. He points to dots, fires, quotes, scripture, revelation, suspicions and charges ... he pins them together. We (the audience) are scared, riled, and ... misled. The 'timing,' like 'minor details,' like 'claims' -- the timing holds the dots and fear and anger together into The Big Scary Story. If the timing is wrong and the events prophesied do not occur (on schedule) and the sky does not fall in and Tehran does not nuke Tel Aviv and Turkey does not go wild ... well, we the audience can be of two minds. It is like when the Russellites passed the date of The End. When the Rapture passed the Seventh Day Adventists. When the Starship failed to pick up Bo and Peep in San Diego to take them to a level beyond human. When the world did not end, the cults cinched tighter, more fully believing. Those who scoffed, mocked or chortled at the mad apocalyptic dramas ... we are many, but we are not the same person, and we are not the enemy of truth.

http://dailycaller.c...s-e-cupp-image/

William, You mean my post from March 17th? That was my last post on this thread. We're at the end of May if you haven't noticed. But how on earth did that have the relevance to cheer you up? (scratching head...) Michael Yes, quite a reach to think I might re-read you and be cheered. Not up. But cheered. In the video version of the post that made you wonder, Michael, Jonathan's wish or Ninth, the screams of the Good Mrs Doctor made sexy, and the lavish sprawl of my comment made pink and glistening. I use Diana's screams, the Pink Tresses of Jan Crouch, depth charges, and some sleazy Las Vegas show tricks to doll up my words. I even put them in the voice of a calm, drunken Objective-ess. And yet.

Reviewing this thread for new material on the Whoring in Congressional Committees (one of the embedded commonly-hated things raised in this thread) I come across some material evidence of The Left at it again. I am mightily ticked off at The Left, let me tell you. Annoyed would not be too strong a word. Let us look at what The Left has come up with in the context of this thread. I divide the tale into two 'competing narratives.' The caricature of the narratives is Objective: calibrated to achieve the full effect of Political Beer Goggles. Although most of us here are above average, handsome, kind and rational, we need to peer throught the holes into the fires of the furnace. We have to put on the goggles to even grasp what the hell the maniacs see when they peer out at the world. Firstly, the left operatives try to squirm out of an exposure of their ugly tactics before Congress. They trotted out their ready-mix tart to the phoney committee meeting, pressed 'send' on their leftist smart phones and ten minutes later the Mainstream Media (MSNBC, etc) trots out the pre-ordained 'shock' response. Rush did nothing but point out hypocrisy. The sluts and whores and operatives of the left tried to add something to take away the stink of their own shoddy manipulations. Having had their machinations exposed ("Pelosi, bring out the slut. Let's raise irrelevant issues and cry foul at normal politics. Let's milk this. Tweety, Rachel, MSM guys, see the memo from last week. Plan C. Go."), they simply uncapped the "bogus outrage" button and began repeatedly, annoyingly thumbing it hard. Gah. Secondly, the Christian-cult in control of Republicans pushed intrusive laws on women. They stacked a committee hearing on the Blunt Amendment. All committee members were male. All witnesses were men. All those testifying before the committee on Vaginas,Ovaries,Reproduction,Religion were men. Moreover, all the men testifying were cut-outs for the Christian nutters who are jammed nose-first into other people's crotches. Most American catholics want non-discriminatory access to birth control. For everyone. Not on the top-shelf of medical care reserved for Special Cases. Just plain fucking birth control covered by the same fucking policies that cover anti-fucking biotics. Only the nutter-wing of the Republicans gives a shit about your gonads. -- Does anyone need to tell us or give us goggles to see which side of the bread the butter is on, in Objectivish terms? I think not. But. Let me try this out on my friends here: 'Well, the left (I mean The Left) blew it. We saw their soiled knickers as they danced their slutty media dance after the Blunt hearings. They hijacked the hearings with their bullshit stunts. It was all planned in advance. The tired old slogans, the tired old socialist whores -- and the fresh-looking but equally-depraved young slut from Georgetown was rolled out like a pinata in a chair. A clear and present provocation to the Windbag. Rush (whom I greatly admire for turning a drug-dependency into a PR triumph) is a side-issue. Love him or not (I clearly love him, coming to love him late, but loving him nonetheless), Rush does the same thing he has always done. He did nothing 'wrong' or different from any given Wednesday in his long career on Talk Radio. He talks, he rambles, he goes wild. He shows his tits. Like Beck, that is what they pay him for. The rest is sewage trying to escape the lagoon, to outfall, and beyond -- not even fit for a salmon farm. I am sorry for having been briefly stunned by the left's (The Left's) theatrics, sound effects, fireworks and serried masses of robotic claqueurs in attendance. I was fooled, again. Like Pearson fooled everyone on earth. Fooled again, but by my own 'people' so to speak. If you OLers know, with me, just how deformed were my ordinary perceptions before I became aware --with OL benevolence -- of my Brave New World upraising up here in the hellhole, if you know, with me, just how far I have come to seeing without my customary state-issue socialist slave goggles, you would be surprised. Or not. So, there is not much more to say now.** My struggle to understand is over. I have simplified things to aid my understanding, and I have ripped the Canucki Lenses off my face. The Left plays dirty. There is no 'the right.' There are only individual Freedom-loving Americans battling a foul socialist plot to enslave each one before a final planetary doom. The 'right' do not need to coordinate their activities -- unlike the rigid Five Year Plans of the left (sorry), they are free and want to stay that way, of many minds and shades of opinion and preferences and attitudes. The LEFT is the nazi-like goose-stepping horde of Them, unified, breathing from the same tank, wearing the same masks and goggles, the same Little Red Book burned in their brains. Every last one of Them, a Leftist. __________________ So, all my earlier blabbering about independents, women, vaginas, yadda yadda? Inoperative. Under advisement. Recalled for safety examination. Scottish Verdict. Whatever. That was then and this is now. We have a Party to get ready for. Like a good wedding, like a big fat gypsy wedding, this thing takes time and focus and committees and tears to prepare. I must release myself from the Slave Harness as I have freed my sight by removing the goggles. I must totter toward November like a new colt. What fun to ignore the actual politicking of Them and focus on the snacks and drinks. With Carol at my side in the Party Chair, we move forward, calmly, like pinatas. As I said in an earlier comment, the USA is the only game in town for social politics and libertarian issues. We have a front row but no blood spatters up here. We are fans. Fanatics even. And yet. And yet. Somehow our stunned overlords forgot about the Supreme Court and their Yoda-like minions. Along with our Royalist Slavery we now have pinko-libertarian 'rights' that clearly beat out the USA accross the board. To eternal shame or flames of remembrance or whatever. This is a bug, not a feature, our Canadian liberties, and henceforth totally irrelevant to the needs and wants and desires of The Party, whether with vagina or not. I now live for the Party. Not for The Left or the right. I am reborn.' ___________________ PS - this is where the postscript will go. I am re-reading Janet. She might have something about hegemony, discourse, Trog, radical branding, The Other, demonizing and especially The Narratives in one of her annoying blurts. I think not. But. If she did, I will add something more like WSS a little later. The turbines are whining, I think, but I have my earplugs jammed in deep from when I plunged in the outfall pool here at 12:36 pm Vancouver time. For some reason MSK's last post cheered me immensely. If I did not know better I would say he flipped on the party lights and turned on the Fountain Of Goodness. But. **

We live in multiple dimensions both Objective on the X-axis and Other on a few others. Y is why I am here. So, in light of Laura Secord, Lester B Pearson, and the fearsome Zombie Leader LBJ, I suggest we do a few rounds of compare and contrast. I shall be playing compare and contrast until November and the festivities. Carol, Gary is flying to TO in the next week or so. He is going to rendez-vous with you to hand over some contextually-certain party favours from me, all dire and socialist in hue, steeped in Hellhole Ethics, and redolent of Brandenfreude. For the gun-closet pinko-libertarian in you, dear zombie cousin. So, compare and contrast El Lider Supremo Assad with the aforementioned socialist windbag and Nobel Peace non-entity, LBJ's lap-dancing whore Lester Bowles Pearson, he who quietly brought to Canada the relentless deadly parade of pinko-libertarian plans: gay marriage bawdy brothel BSDMedicare pot free supervised heroin injection site swinger abortion gun-closet clubs -- and the dread virus stalking all our nightmares, Bilinguisme. What Paul Mawdsley might take as empathic data from this radio show video of mine I cannot imagine. MSK, if you are reading this, it is time for the Fountain of Goodness and party lights to be turned on, perhaps. As the good missus Doctor says, Like Me, Call Me, Listen to my RADIO SHOW! She who no longer lap dances Leonard now may rue her choices. If she grows coy when asked why she no longer sits in Grandpa's lap, and why she cuts no cheque for his Institute, then whether human flesh is in her Stone Age Objectivist Diet -- this the final, crucial R U Zombie 2? test.

I am busy this afternoon with a friend who last saw me thirty years ago. Today we are giving each other instant facelifts for a new Bill's Morning Makeup Tips (video). Finally. I took her to the Old Folks and introduced her to a couple of third floor cronies, "This is Cindi. She is my friend. I haven't seen her in thirty-seven years. I brought her here because I don't have any other friends." Much hilarity ensued, and the Insta-lift Idea was born again (seen first in a Parade Magazine article in some long-forgotten bathroom, wherein a lady of the certain age had elastics and invisible tape cinched tight against her scalp). Cindi and I today will discuss marketing and a business plan for an extension of this idea, the Popeel Pinch-N-Cinch one-size-fits-all, fits-under-your-wig, 5 Second Facelift. May be available at Canadian Tire and a Monday Morning near you. For those of a certain age, as they say, omitting the danged measurement entirely. Cindi and I met in Drama, with obvious implications for show business in White Rock. I shall return and ignite the turbines later ... watch out for falling fallacies.

Thanks in turn. You are kind to allow me to get away with verbal murder -- taking your rather mild comments and constructing a vast diatribe to counter it. As you know, I write for my own pleasures foremost, but before that I need a goad or a stimulus of some kind. In this case, I must thank you (and invisible others) for the instigation, the incitement and the initial grinding surge in my mental turbines. I do not always know where my words are going after the turbines begin to throb, so ... I appreciate the good humour. Three times this month I have risen to my hind legs, fangs bared, after rather benign 'provocations' on your part. Here in the above, I was also addressing a species of fallacy first, embedded in my attention to the Syrian civil conflict, competing narratives, and blank, staring, odious ignorance. Objectivish things (and you, Adam) are the salt on my jumbled word salad. So for the opportunity to lay some words in a row, thanks again. Here is the latest from the brick works, addressed to someone who mistook me for LBJ: PS -- every once it a while it bears mentioning that we live in multiple dimensions, and remain individual at all times (with the exception of the twins who share some cortex). We measure ourselves left, right, up, down, top, bottom, in, out, past, future, present, dreams and fantasies of revenge and murder, most of us. If we are multidimensional beings, how austere and corrupt is any intellectual regime that forces us between two plates, as a specimen under harsh light and pre-concluded interrogation, with only bad/worst on X and Wrong/Wronger on Y. I am not LBJ, I am not Canada, I am not Socialism, I am individual. If you mock me or my friends in myth, I will uncap the fangs and bite your generalization to death.

I smell false dichotomy and excluded middle sizzling in the lazy spring air. Damn. Missed a meal again. Always cast the bad character as a demon. Always cast the good character as a good man, but no saint. Turn up all the analogy knobs to favour your side of the argument. Spice heavily with cliche and emotive words. Climb the cherry tree and bring back big juicy ripe ones to illustrate the potency of the data. Use anachronisms generously to tilt comparisons against historical weighting. If Stalin, Mike Harcourt, Pol Pot too evul, just compare to W.Wilson the Killer. Zoom back and forth up the timeline. Drag up little known facts (and spin 'em hard) irrelevant to the prior point at dispute. Nipple clamps if necessary, but not necessarily nipple clamps. Look, a plane! Meanwhile, the sad fact of Carol's complete slave-life is revealed. In five years, Pearson's minority government managed the Quiet Revolution aftermath in Quebec, installed Canada's national symbol, sketched wholesale penal and judicial reform and laid it on Trudeau's desk, lost another election, negotiated unified national social program financing that stiffened the Canadian spine and diverted us from another hideous constitutional failure and crisis of federalism. Packaged up all post-war social programmes, added glitter and rhinestones, made them universal to all Canadians, ripped the Crown off our flag, had nap, resigned, collected stamps, wrote trashy memoir of bringing peace and showgirls and blue movies to the Middle East, died. Yawn. His statue on Parliament Hill resembles Jackie Gleason. I kid you not. So dare ye mock Vimy, dare ye mock Pearson. His Nobel acknowledgement grew quietly precious to us Canucks, and sealed our armed forces to their fated blue helmets, gave new meaning to our heavy losses in Korea, turned a corner to a newer more inclusive Third Way Myth, pushed, planned, approved and lavishly underwrote the fabulous centenary that was 1967, Expo, profit, pride, strong dollar, silent Yankees, hand off puck and team to sexy Pierre, write dull memoirs, garden, die. Compare him to Pol Pot and the fiendish LBJ. No matter. He stilled killing in Egypt. He brought pride to our country as peacemakers, putting another brick in our monumental mythic culture. He told LBJ to fuck off in re Vietnam, as he had told Kennedy to fuck right off, and later would instruct Trudeau to continue saying fuck off to the rest of the warriors who wanted to drag Canada into places that would dirty us unduly, and soil us with the stain of Yankee Lackey. Dire socialist windbag in a bowtie? Weak leader? Pushed around by LBJ and the mad circus of raw American interest? Hah. No to US nukes on Canadian soil. No to a number of annoyed requests for this and that. As he was a very thorough admirer of Eisenhower, he suspected the same plots and interest groups in the giant next door ... he never executed power but by committee and moral suasion. He helped us see that mild and obstinate clerks for justice could move a nation far ... dull, plodding Pearson, dire socialist windbag. Here's your fucking airport and statue, let us mock you, O dull Mike. Of course we Zombie Canuckis will have many dire socialist windbag non-entity Ralph Kramdens like Pearson, who loved guns in a case on the wall with the key in his pocket. And we Zombies love them like socialist living dead are trained to do. But when you kick at our Ralph, you kick at the dull plodding beaver within zombie culture. That vengeful, cunning staple of horror movies: the insulted silent swimming zombie beaver, the piranha of the north ... you thought his gang was dead but they have gnawed their way to the fifteenth floor to kill you tonight. Pearson. Pearson is not negotiable. Keep this peaceful and keep Laura Secord where she belongs -- as mythical sponsor of a major chocolate line, not as Heavy Cannon in the War between cousins. Peace, Adam. Peace. Order. Good government. Pearson. Hiss boom bah.

Full disclosure: Loftus and I were named defendents in a 50 million dollar lawsuit filed in California. Fuller disclosure, the suit was filed by Loftus's real-world (and formerly cyber-world) nemesis, Diana Louisa Napolis. If you want criminalistics, you cannot go wrong with Napolis: she started off as an annoying anonymous internet phenomenon infesting Usenet psychology groups; she ended up a jailed psycho. She is off parole and aftercare now, as can be seen at her blog ... but save that for later, when you need a horror story before bedtime. Just in case you thought I didn't get around or something. Michael, Loftus's book above latest edition is I think 2009. Her best book by far (from my POV) was her memory-wars tour-de-force, "The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse" (with Katherine Ketcham). Michael, if you get a Loftus book, get that one -- it might break new ground for you and is -- in a geeky kind of way -- an exciting detective story. A used copy at Amazon will set you back $0.52 Canadian (about three bucks yankee) ...

Here is Loftus ranting on the topic that made her famous, suggested memories, at Chautauqua. [media=]

The good doctor Mrs Doctor H is at herself again, this time answering the age-old question, "Am I Too Ungainly For Heels?" Alas, it is not a matter of beauty, but of health: "[M]y Morton’s neuroma (inflamed nerve in the ball of my right foot) begins to scream and holler after just a few minutes in heels." So, there you go. Philospophy In Action, in slippers, inflamed nerves and all, in DMH's exciting new Radio Show "High Heels and Sex Appeal," filed under Ethics.

Yes. It would take something much stronger than coffee. The brain worms from Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan come to mind. If, as I suspect, some of Diana's non-pasteurized food choices come from brains, could it be that this is how the initial infection is accomplished? Khan says it enters through the ears, and wraps itself around the cerebral cortex. If you also add in the ingredients for Gelatin (Hooves), then I think we have a new Philosophy In Action treat. Brain Worm molded salad. I will try to bring one to the November Party.

I like to see this point re-pointed, that of multiple 'problematics' of eye-witness. This is psychological ground well-turned by Elizabeth Loftus, who has been my required reading since I first caught whiff of the Memory Wars. Elizabeth Loftus wrote one of the books that is likely on your shelves, Criminalo-Obiter Michael -- ye old "Eyewitness Testimony" (1979).

Bandura is one of the many greats. Good catch, MSK. Bob's great slogan and summary and Tony/Paul/Robert/Ellen's pithy critiques have us all ready for launch. We have a league. We need ice time. Say the word, Maestro. I liked teasing Diana on her fall, but I must end that chapter of the festival, and turn to the scholarly deeps, to the delicate and dare we say it, Musing. If Ellen, La Stuttle herself is ready to plunge pencil first into the sparkling waters, I shall linger on the shore and try to imagine a new way for Diana to take the throne. Why not? Shouldn't any American of a certain stripe be able to lead the Objectivish hordes? Could we not tactically support Diana All The Way, to prevent uncle kookiepants's minions from divvying the spoils? Do we not have some hard trades to consider? I say it is time for OL to make a strategic alliance with Diana and her Empire in Waiting. I am willing to sacrifice myself, denounce myself and shun myself, all for the greater good, for the largest O, for the biggest festival. Under one roof, the biggest wrassling match of all. Full-on Mexican Style Objectivish Mixed Arts, natch. Oh, shoot, we still have to get past our party in November. Dang. Guns, cakes, parties, where's my priorities? Still, is there any doubt that with enough cups of coffee any one of us here might become Diana? In a snap of the final elastic holding us back? She has denounced folks we only denounce in our dreams, sure, but she has done it while we have only fantasized. Who are we to mock her style in Mortal Combat? She has conquered (with words) every masked marauder, every slinker, every tag-team, oldies league rat pack, every bug-eyed grandpa, all of them, any formation that ever laid siege upon her, her own game, and her fortresses. That is a kind of triumph, and we may need to pause in awe. MSK is right, gawd damn it. Stand down, William. Prepare for the larger battle. Prepare for November, side by side with the Doctor, striding forward together to Objectivish County. Come back, Ed, come back to objectivish county.

STATS: 1 article. 6 comments. 838 views. The power of Radio!

From now on I exercise the right to use aka ThreadKiller.

Thanks, Cousin Paul for pointing out my misdirected post. Here it is back where it belongs, along with a Radio Show version as lede. [media=] Dialogue stalled just needs oil or gas or water, or to be pushed to the side of the freeway and examined. Starting right on a journey, or starting informed, that is okay, and wrestling over details of an expedition (after knowledge) before setting out seems pragmatic and/or practical. Good spot. Rectitude is a good word to capture the felt emotion of justice or what passes for it in the minds of the primates. It is a sum and intuition game played in our brains, subject to all the tides of humanity, including our new inventions language, literacy and electrical communication. Tony, you allow poetry in your own grasp of the verities, in your 'simple man' guise, so I think you might ought allow poetry in Dawkins. In a pithy statement he sketched what might be the evolutionary advantage to this thing we call variously altruistic behaviour. Behaviour that some feel needs explaining within the framework of evolutionary biology. Paul notes in passing an apparent stall. If we do gathering up of the knowledge that returned with our expedition, then what we know better than at the start of this thread informs the next opinion. Ellen and Robert (and StudioD) indicate that we have trod over definitional ground before, but that this need not impede expedition now: Robert notes the importance of (I/ego) and a shared denotation of 'altruism'. StudioD points out something that we four probably agree upon. An Objectivist definition does not line up with contemporary (and dated Darwinian) engagements with altruism in the biological disciplines. So, rather than a stall, that is the good part of the expeditions engine: we know that in Biology, altruism is a costly endeavour, or at least carries an implied cost without reciprocation (if Vampire Bats did not share with you, you would starve and fall from your perch, as do a few). This in human terms is the Free Rider issue. Robert further cautions that we need not (and most often should not) try to fully operationalize our definitions once agreed. I see the wisdom in this. My final moment before re-joining the next expedition is to correct StudioD's second observation: the biological (evolutionary) definition that is actually used. He has given us reference to Econ-ers, but yet no quotes from EvoBiol-ers. We use these moments to tune our instruments, Paul, examine previous expedition data, consider the implications, air-conduct new operettas. Sometimes we grow bitter in our waiting. But like Phil, this soon dissipates. Courage, cousin Mawdsley! Yeabut. You are holding up the stagecoach, Studio. We still need the EB definition to get this party started old school, as Paul so marvelously intuits. We can wither old Dawkins to a shrunken head size with our scorn for his fatuous poetry on 'altruism/altruistic behaviour' ... he could be down to the size of a walnut and on his way to pea-hood before we figure out exactly what behaviour he and the other evolutionary biologists are talking about. Me I never see stalls, only pauses, breath-gathering, vista-appreciating, and a moment of quiet glory before Reason (and never ever stupefaction, now that Phil is but a ghost).

"Go ahead, my dear old friend, attack away!" quotes some slick gun-toting lawyer type who has no doubt vacationed in Canada. Not on Objectivist business, at any rate, and not in search of Anne of Green Gables, no matter what he says, the traitor.. That sneering note of intellectual moralism accomplished on my part, hats off to PDS for hitting black comedy gold on his first test well. I have Nathanfreude Brandenfreude bad, I think. And I do not want a cure just now. That Diana set her cap to be one of the Alpha chimps of one of the important tribes of Objectivist Hill People, that's one thing, and I admire her her industry and determination. To conquer the Hill Tribe and be the wise old lioness on the throne, who could resist that Golden O of control and domination, once suitably primed by a personality devoid of the human touch? That Diana clawed and scratched her way closer to the centre of her target tribe, well and good. We are primates. We hunt and kill, and there is occasional bycatch. She did her best to take the throne, and felled all manner of allies in her climb. We should salute her her mad ambition, if not her long limb-cracking fall from the upper branches of the HQ. Crack snap snap crack thump and down she goes among the lesser PayPal Philosophers ... So she failed and her own intellectual terror tactics are being used on her in turn. We should be ashamed of our fleeting feelings of empathy and pleasure? This may call for a lengthy advertisement of my Horsey hair at Noodlefood, dammit. Call me, Send Me Money, Like Me, send me a lifeline, I am On The Radio! Fighting for the right to Yellow Margarine! Fighting for My Horse! Fighting for the throne of Colorado!

I have a RADIO SHOW too! With images. Via Youtube (rebroadcast). Favourite line, "YOU would STARVE and fall from your perch (without altruism)": [media=]

Brant hic disapproves, thus we must hobble our efforts, lest he be bored anew. It it does not pertain to Brant, it should not pertain at all. Ought is, Us them, me me me. PS -- I add that Brant does not gossip, so he comes by his Calvinist views honestly. It is not arrogance to think your own opinions should rule forevermore. It is just chauvinism. The point of the thread is hypocrisy, that of the Good Doctor. She made a bed. Now she lies bound in it, sweaty, stalked by horses, criticized and shunned in the same terms she introduced to debate (Hi Chris Sciabarra! telling these old gossipy boring things puts Brant to sleep. Stop). The irony for some is delicious, sharp and festive. That Mayhew turned on her after her repeat lap-dances for him in the 'retouching Rand' wars ... oh foie gras, oh blubber, oh pickled snakes. Delicious for some, repellent for others. That irony is not appreciated by others, like Brant, pffft, a summer squall, a patter in the driveway, back to drought. It is a matter of (historical) taste and sensitivity to Ox Goring, perhaps. Brant has seen all oxes gored and frankly does not care to see more. He is not focussed on the minutia of self-hoisting petards, and so all should also lift their eyes to the horizon along with him. Pffftt. I understand that attitude of resolute boredom (it is very Scottish), and in some ways, him -- but I regret his muttering and his sighs and his one-liner Phil isms. Stop talking on this subject, children. Bigger and better things are to be charted. Hic.

Bob, as a secular Jew, you know that your 'bloodline' runs all the way back to Cain and Abel and the first turtle, undiluted. The Afghans, however do not have the luxury of a single Afghan identity (ethnic/spiritual/historical). As the remaindered Jews of Eritrea (in Israel) are not quite like the Jews of Skokie, though and the Wigged Warrior Women of Ultra-Orthodox stripe are not Barbara Branden, there are Jews and there are Jews .... you know this, or you would not be allowed at Seder. One drop of non-Jewish blood and you would have been one of the final Samaritans, there on your last lonely hill in Israel, and not prospering under the civil rights regime in America. Meanwhile, beyond the fog of our national stereotypes and beer-goggles, people. The history of the peoples who headed for the hills of Afghanistan over millennia (usually escaping some looting marauder or reformer or pillager) is worth reading and considering, if only to keep the fog from condensing and killing. If you, Bob, can hear the Celtic skirl in Mozhdah's marching song, it is for a reason. The Celts too pillaged and conquered and left blonde green-eyed ravishing beauties in the unlikeliest places (sort of like the last Jews of Cochin, but not really). Their fiendish non-racialist warrior culture settled as does rain into blood-drenched pastures, as Canadians settle the lands they conquered, blending and mixing their bloody histories. The Celts forged iron, dug tin, sold silver, hammered gold, pillaged, wed., farmed and wept, and if vanquished, interbred like crypto-Jews everywhere. Sort of like the lost Jews of Uganda, but not really. Sort of like the Cohenite strain of genetic diseases that plagues Yemeni semites, but not really. Think Jews of Kurdistan. Jews of Djerba, Jews of Baghdad, Alawites of Ghajar (Israel-occupied Golan). Think how many of your cousins would die under nuclear justice.. The only ones to escape might be the Jews of Cape Breton. Like the Jews of Ireland or other bog-people, who give up their defective, dreamy sons to the Church, the Terrorist Brown People wish to keep their own kids out of the army, the armed opposition, and the terrorist brigades. If necessary they will pretend to be Objectivists, even. Just think of the last Jewish Premier in Canada. You should try to understand other Hill People, Bob. Like your preferred tribe of Hill People, they can be awful and they can be nasty and they can make shitty television and dominate all the Hollywood hills, but their mothers love them very much. All love hummus and pita and all quietly (or viciously) repress the Other if given half a chance. All remember a holocaust (be they Syriac, Yazidi, Alevi or Other) and wish to either avoid it or to pay it forward upon Them. Repeat after me: Palestinians could be 'people' if they just renounced Terror. Until then, treat them like the British Mandate treated Irgun. Terrorists on the throne. Terror and oppression versus terror. Demanding of hunger strikers in Israeli prisons that they write a vow not to commit any more terror strikes inside detention facilities, obey the jailer, and wait for release from the Mandate. Or you will level their hills and push down their homes and fence them in. ++++++++++++++ Mozhdah packs a gun and gun permit, like any self-respecting Canadian Afghan, and can drop a deer in fog from 50 metres. She tends to mistake deer for intruders, but hey, who doesn't. She has a lot to learn and teach hill people, having been stewed in Canadianicity since the age of 6. We who are the hill people of the world, living together on a new plain. I think a lot about bias and beer goggles and determined hill peoples lately, Bob,. it is encouraging that you now only want to nuke a portion of Them. Encouraging. As long as they dance and clap, they live.

We have contextual certainty, yes, PDS. In this case, my point was that you can as easily and properly say Comme Dit Napoleon. This is the past, simple, and the present tense, fused into one. Since Napoleon is definitely past, everything he had to say has been said. He has no future tense. He no longer says anything, he no longer will say anything, he no longer can say anything. Yet he still speaks! So we say, Napoleon says, but everyone knows what we mean. Same in French. Whatever you say, somebody will know what you really mean. Of course we remember nothing much of what Napoleon did say, just what he did. Re cranky on St Helena, I speculate based on his earlier crankiness to the point of escape and seizing the throne of France, on Elba. Cranky moods can be dangerous, thus the mail boat to St Helena had cannon. But perhaps he had changed. We only have his letters. (Josephine, PISSED today. I think they are poisoning me, and there are no boats to commandeer. I cannot get my hands on any weapons) I think he was the last major world-class monster dictator who did not fear execution. But sadly, I am probably wrong. An executed Bonaparte would still have spawned, and later Victoria Empress would still address Napoleon III, the sensible Emperor, who died when he was told to.