8/5/11

Syria's Assad IS An International Pariah

Syria's Assad should be an international pariah - CNN.com

Someday I will try to prove that ontological values are within each living being to be discovered and accepted as a basis for action for living rejected, leaving one locked in a struggle with oneself and one's conscience.

By any measure a head of state that kills with impunity is high on the list of international pariahs. Taking a human life is the equivalent of directly attacking the ground of all being who is the one Jesus called Abba.

Abba is within everyone. Abba is in Assad. Were Assad to recognize this, he would turn from his murderous course by default.


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Millennials have every right to be disinterested

Are millennials cut out for this job market? - CNN.com

It's a good sign not to be interested in this job market
Work itself as a commuter nine to five reality is an absurd way to achieve aims that are not in themselves a form of make work
Supercomputers could do what a thousand folk in cubicles do if they were properly mandated
We have tried to fit cyberspace to reality when we should be doing the reverse
The wave of the future should be living and integrating what people do with the way they want to live
People should be able to contribute to a job what they will to contribute
The rules of jobs should be made more specific and more a matter of individual agreement about hours and such
The notion that one size of anything fits more than one ignores the will to personalization that is at the center of consciousness
I would not want to work to sustain a world of sprawl big oil and overpriced education and construction
I would not want to do infrastructure unless it tended toward the car free
We are at the beginning of a time when all our attention to the micro will inevitably start to affect the macro
When that happens nothing will remain the same and jobs might just be fun
Not to mention productive and helpful to others

Popper and Peirce are on the same page

Popper says:
The empirical bases of objective science has thus nothing 'absolute' about it. 
Science does not rest on solid bedrock. 
The bold structure of its theories rises, as it were, above a swamp. 
It is like a building erected on piles. 
The piles are driven down from above into the swamp, but not down to any natural or ‘given’ base; and if we stop driving the piles deeper, it is not because we have reached firm ground. 
We simply stop when we are satisfied that the piles are firm enough to carry the structure, at least for the time being. 
(Logic of Scientific Discovery., pp. 11)
Cap tip Peter

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Recovery depends on creating something people want

Ezra Klein: We've Stabilized Into Crisis - The Daily Beast

Let's see what could that be
A cheaper way to live as in less expensive housing
A cheaper way to learn and get accreditation as in less expensive education
A cheaper way to travel as in better mass transportation and less fuel gobbling modes
More face to face community but in a more secure environment than now exists
Less obfuscation generally in all areas
There's a starting list
And all of these can be addressed by thinking cyber instead of the culture we insist can recover which is oil sprawl
And ultimately cyber will be the basis for new face to face secure cyber communities that cut the cost of living in half and increase the meaning and enjoyment of living by at least that much

On not knowing what we are talking about

Balanced Budget Amendment Next Goal for Republicans - NYTimes.com

It is perplexing not to know what one is opining about
I would not pretend to know if it is right to say that all states must borrow more than they take in to grow
If it is right the GOP is wrong
But I think the GOP is wrong in another way
Its trust in private enterprise requires a Reinhold Niebuhr realism I think
With little or no regulation the impulse to profit and the willingness to cut corners is what we might oil-spill intensive or meltdown-intensive
Russia demonstrates that these sins are not confined to private enterprise
Niebuhr would say these lapses reflect immoral society and agree with me that democracy is the best of options available
In order for the GOP to convince me that required budget balancing is not a formula for national suicide it would have to prove to me that
Private enterprise is inherently moral - that it practices tolerance, helpfulness and democracy and has no idols including profit
And that private enterprise is better than government at things like security, food and health safety and other things requiring the services of people who are operating, one might assume, from a position of some altruism
What is remarkable is the assurance with which we draw conclusions
If I don't know something I assume that at least 200 million other Americans share my ignorance




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You will note that obscurantism is my MO

I am disgusted with myself and the Web generally whenever I find myself acting as though my life depended on Matt Cutts
Matt is Google's chief of algorithm or something like that
My response is to be intentionally obscure
For example my most recent post talks about raising a statute of limitations
Without indicating on what or whether there was actually a crime committed 
Which there was not in a technical sense
Or which search-worthy person the piece is about
I choose my titles from the ether where all signs have their origin
The only way anyone will actually find a post  here is if someone tells them about it
That is obviously a recipe for failure
But I have learned over time to wear failure as a badge of honor
It is in fact the only honor I would claim without reservation
But I do want readers to know that I am aware of this
And that I have to discipline myself constantly to ensure that there are no exceptions 

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In which I lift the statute of limitations

I know I do things in a weird way
We all have such ways
In my case when I see the NYT lining up to mash Tiger, I know it is time to shelve any regret I have and come out four square on his side
Go get 'em Tiger with your new management your new swing coach and your new caddie
Even if you don't play your way out I pronounce you free and clear of your past
Such a pronouncement is worth exactly nothing in the scheme of things
Save what can be reaped by the power of words
Go Get 'em Tiger
Just to prove the NYT wrong
(no link, sorry)

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‪Rick Perry's Valhalla

‪Reclaim 7 Mountains of Culture‬‏ - YouTube

The hip starting point of underpinning of what we are getting from the Right
It is all for our own good.
It is all dressed in binary good evil simplicity
It is so simple it codes right in to
No Islam
No faggots
No infidels in business
Christian jihad
The reason why we see the sensible churches who do not buy fundamentalist binary thinking closing up shop
And mega fundie enterprise revving up
The only problem is that cross hairs culture is inimical to our health
And has no relationship to the Jesus who can be perceived in the Gospel of Mark
Besides that the fruits by which it is known are strange in every sense of that loaded word
From Alabama to Somalia
Ouch
Anyway if you are curious about how this all was etherized watch the video
Alt: Sheer power can work wonders Koches in your pocket save Perry unleashed continues Bush evil

If you want to dig deeper be my guest

Market Crash: Why Developing Countries Will Save the Old World - The Daily Beast: "Markets crashed Thursday because Europe looks sick and the U.S. looks feeble. Money manager Zachary Karabell on why it’s developing countries that will carry us out of this mess."

And a little child shall lead us. Right on. But the Developing Countries had best be done with fossil fuels, sprawl and tacky consumer economies and cotton to teaching children well with basic values we have ignored for thousands of years. Leap to walkable cyber cities that retain the village yet have enough in the community to enable vibrant local economies. Then all will indeed be well. Or at least better than now. Set an example to us.


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So what is new about disapproving of Congress

Poll: Disapproval of Congress hits all-time high - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

This is the most stupid distortion I have ever seen
Congress exists to win disapproval
They have been consistent over time
Disapproval is exaggerated now only because the Republicans have a massive internal sickness that is messing up the system
The system is intentionally binary two sided confrontational
What tells is the health of either party and how we the people establish that
Our glorious system works
When it screws up, the people need to make corrections according  to our system of checks and balances
If we don't like Congress as it is we can vote for Democrats who are generally nicer and more tolerant than Republicans and who care more for justice
If we think the Democrats are flaccid we can rectify that by voting for the criminal right as people did in 2010
Obama understands checks and balances
Dis-elect the GOP and get it into rehab and all will be well


Bill Shirer remembered

Book Review: The Long Night - WSJ.com: "Shirer would achieve fame all over the English-speaking world as a historian of the Third Reich, but he was at his best as a reporter. His greatest talent lay, as Mr. Wick shows, in simply being there when big things happened."

And I remember Bill too
Frequent luncheon conversations in our Berkshire County haunts
He had retired to the Pelton house in Lenox
I was in Stockbridge
We had a push pull relationship as he was always at me to work harder
I was always bobbing and weaving
It was copacetic
It was what it was
What we did share mainly was a hatred of totalitarianism
And a sense of its ominous presence even in the late 1960s as it was attaining its shape and style
In these parts
This biography looks to be a good work if I may use that term

A salient squib from C. S. Peirce

You hear a new slang word: you never ask for a definition of it; 
and you never get one. 
 You do not get even any simple example of its use; 
you only hear it in ironical, twisted, humorous, sentences whose meaning is turned
inside out and tied in a hard knot; 
yet you know what that word means much
better than any abstract definition could have informed you. 
 In riding a horse; rider and ridden understand one another [in] a way of which the
former can no more give an account than the latter. 
(Collected Papers, 7.447)
Cap tip Neal

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Why the poor in spirit are blessed

Because they are happy to spend no time worrying about their spiritual state
Because they are unconcerned about all the things that worry the rich and powerful
Because they live in the realm of Abba or close to it
Because in that realm everything is aimed at making earth a bit more heavenly
Because they are in touch with the active values that make for a more heavenly world
That is to say they are keen on democracy and on tolerance and on helping others
But they put on no airs and do not fancy being martyrs
They just do it more or less
And mainly because they have no idols
They have been blessed with a saving iconoclasm
All these things are theirs
So
Blessed are the poor in spirit

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J. P Morgan owns Kentucky what's next

How JP Morgan Took Over All Kentucky's Financial Services, And Why You Should Be Scared | | AlterNet

Well how about abolishing banks
Banks exist because we have not discovered (yet) a more happy means of existing
We now are thankful if the place we stash our money is nice to us
We are subject to telephone calls we cannot identify from banks we do not know
The banks are no longer made of marble
They simply acquire on a screen
Money grows in bytes
Is it human
I don't think so
Do I have a solution
As Amy Winehouse may have said

Funniest headline of the morning

Obama Turns 50 Despite Republican Opposition - Digg:

"Obama Turns 50 Despite Republican Opposition"

Somalia tears will do nothing

Somalia - The Daily Beast

Tears will do nothing to save still more thousands from banal death due to values that are acting to produce them
The answer lies in freedom of movement as a basic human right that is consistent with the value democracy
The world has not fully widened its comprehension of democracy to enable this
The answer lies in genuine helpfulness which is helpfulness consistent with democracy
The answer lies in tolerance but the absence of tolerance is rife within the insurgency and our tolerance has erroneously accepted the famine-humanitarian model rather than dealing with the value problem which is fundamental
When a famine is permitted the core active values of Abba's way have failed 
Abba is administered a mortal wound as each child bloats and dies before our tearful eyes

RECCMENDATION Richard Gordon Quantum Touch

The Slow as Molasses Press