2/22/12

My Take on The GOP Debates

Politics is mostly entertainment
About the push and pull for a piece of pie that shrinks when the GOP wins
The debates were cast as entertainment
At first the object was to rid the stage of all who made this too obvious
Sic transit Bachmann, Perry, Huntsman, Cain


By now the piece of  putative pie had been shrunk so much that
Were the nostrums of the survivors heeded
The nation would descend into a depression that would make
The Thirties look like a walk in the park

In short extended absurdity was not that entertaining after a while

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Are Banks and GOP Paving Way to Another Recession?

The Volcker Rule, Made Bloated and Weak - NYTimes.com: "Last week, it finally became clear that the Volcker Rule was as good as dead.

The Volcker Rule, named after Paul A. Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, is meant to bar financial institutions that are protected and subsidized by the federal government from trading for their own accounts. That is, it’s pretty simple: Traders shouldn’t speculate for their own personal gain using the money you and I pay in taxes.

Yet bank lobbyists with complicit regulators and legislators took a simple concept and bloated it into a 530-page monstrosity of hopeless complexity and vagueness."

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Praise the unloved colonoscopy

Study Offers Evidence That Colonoscopy Reduces Deaths - NYTimes.com: "A new study provides what independent researchers call the best evidence yet that colonoscopy — perhaps the most unloved cancer screening test — prevents deaths. Although many people have assumed colonoscopy must save lives because it is so often recommended, strong evidence has been lacking until now.

In patients tracked for as long as 20 years, the death rate from colorectal cancer was cut by 53 percent in those who had the test and whose doctors removed precancerous growths, known as adenomatous polyps, researchers reported on Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. The test examines the inside of the intestine with a camera-tipped tube."

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When my mom survived a cancer operation in her seventies, I was "condemned" to a colonoscopy at five year intervals. That was over 25 years ago. Having not loved these invasive procedures, as one might surmise, I can at least be happy that the occasional polyp removals performed were timely and efficacious. Today's research is hampered by an unseemly concentration on publishing and competition. It is nice when a study like this gets accomplished.


Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

A Most Interesting Quora Thread

(1) What are some systems we live with today that were designed for a world of the past? - Quora:

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Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

How about no war in Iran

In Din Over Iran, Echoes of Iraq War - News Analysis - NYTimes.com:

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How about no war in Iran
How about some other plan
Hatched in a new century
Sick to death of recent memory
Knowing only the futility
Of the fatal binary
That has never reached a third
Never watched a wounded bird
Fall futile over battle fields
Where nothing was resolved
How about no war in Iran
Because thought its entire circuit ran



There would be no mortgages in my cyber-communities

Romney Details Tax Overhaul - NYTimes.com:

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Since nobody has taken my bait - oh, some have done things with phrases I came up with like beyond green - I can elaborate my ideas in peace and full confidence that they will come to manifestation at some point. My big idea is the cyber-community of up to 10K living in an area a mile walk from side to side and end to end. Or a mile diameter. Four levels max, few or no stairs. And, no mortgages. Why? Because the community would be made up of spaces that could indeed be customized to the needs of the individual but which would be like lego bcocks in the sense that they would be interchangeable, literally shells. Occupancy would be the only ownership and for that one would pay a subscription. A cyber-community is a giant - mile wide - matrix skeleton that does the work of transporting energy, water and waste, an eco-matrix that would recycle and reprocess everything on a scale that no home could afford, with an effectiveness we have not yet dreamed of. The cyber-community would have no private property to speak, Its surfaces and spaces would have features (somewhat like apps) to which one might subscribe. A young couple might have two spaces in order to have some privacy - what we call space. A space or spaces could be added for children. The basic idea would be that everyone has their own room or space. Since spaces are modular within a matrix, dwellings and other establishments could expand and contract according to needs. Because a cyber-community would enhance today's neglected public space, the need for various rooms that we build into today's houses would recede. Social would be outside of one's private space. Mortgages would be a thing of the past. We would have cyberfied residence, work, play and education. Everything could happen from cyber-community to cyber community. You don't believe this will happen. Just watch.




Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Mildred Purse Calls Boehner Non Compos Mentis



That would be "not of right mind", John. PS: It is unacceptable that Republicans would deny televising testimony from Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student that Republicans refused to let testify last week on women's issues.

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Jesus did away with the devil (aka Satan) in Mark

Time for me to put on my theological threads so idiots like Santorum 
will have to deal with the actual Biblical text
I don't have any theological threads
But I am familiar with the gospel of Mark
The earliest and most authoritative text when it comes to Satan

Jesus explains in Mark the circumstances in which Satan is at an end
It is so contrary to Santorum and the stance of the GOP that it almost seems  written to show them up
Jesus says a house divided cannot stand
When the division ends Satan is done

Jesus was in the business of defeating Satan
Whether you, wrongly, take this literally
Or, rightly, take it as truth that has to do with the psyche of humankind
The verdict is that 
long ago the excuse of blaming Satan for human fallibility was removed from the table
It was removed by Jesus
Jesus brought responsibility to the table and we have rejected it ever since

It takes an ignorant public and a woefully theologically-deprived church
to give credence to the notion of Satan today

Do I hear an Amen .... anywhere? 

THE TEXT IN MARK

[23] And he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan?
[24] And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
[25] And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
[26] And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Could nonviolence free Palestine?

Peaceful Protest Can Free Palestine - NYTimes.com: "Mr. Adnan has certainly achieved an individual victory. But it was also a broader triumph — unifying Palestinians and highlighting the power of nonviolent protest. Indeed, all Palestinians who seek an independent state and an end to the Israeli occupation would be wise to avoid violence and embrace the example of peaceful resistance."

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Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Requiem for a victim of dictatorial homicide

American Reporter Marie Colvin's Final Dispatches From Homs - NYTimes.com:

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As my headline implies, this is a time for speechlessness. Nothing appears able to unearth a shred of conscience in the Syrian inner guard.

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Charles Sanders Peirce on Ignorance and Error

Ouch❢ | Inquiry Into Inquiry:

"A child hears it said that the stove is hot. But it is not, he says; and, indeed, that central body is not touching it, and only what that touches is hot or cold. But he touches it, and finds the testimony confirmed in a striking way. Thus, he becomes aware of ignorance, and it is necessary to suppose a self in which this ignorance can inhere. …

"In short, error appears, and it can be explained only by supposing a self which is fallible.

"Ignorance and error are all that distinguish our private selves from the absolute ego of pure apperception."

— Charles S. Peirce • “Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed For Man”"

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Obama will swap no loopholes for a lower corporate rate

Obama Offers to Cut Corporate Tax Rate to 28% - NYTimes.com: "WASHINGTON — President Obama will ask Congress to scrub the corporate tax code of dozens of loopholes and subsidies to reduce the top rate to 28 percent, down from 35 percent, while giving preferences to manufacturers that would set their maximum effective rate at 25 percent, a senior administration official said on Tuesday."

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Let the GOP put that in their pipe and smoke it. What's a poor Mitt to do?


Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Dear Justice Kennedy Do The Right Thing

Justice Kennedy Unlikely To Budge On 'Citizens United' | National Memo | Breaking News, Smart Politics: "The swing vote, as usual, is Justice Anthony Kennedy, the relative moderate appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1988. He authored the original sweeping opinion that paved the way for a new era of unlimited money in politics, and court watchers are skeptical the satire and public scrutiny of Super PAC activity are enough to sway him, even if he is uncomfortable with such a legacy.

"He's not going to overturn what he said, but he may want to revisit the way he said it so as to try to take some of the heat off him," said Harvard Law Professor and legal scholar Noah Feldman. "Does he like the fact that the world is walking around saying he created Super PACs? No. Kennedy is a politically aware person.""

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Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Have you now or ever been a Girl Scout?

Indiana Rep. Warns Against 'Radicalized' Girl Scouts | National Memo | Breaking News, Smart Politics: "The far right's attempts to start a culture war just keep getting weirder and weirder.

On Monday the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette obtained a letter from Indiana state Rep. Bob Morris (R-Fort Wayne,) in which he warns his Republican colleagues about a "radicalized organization" that promotes homosexuality and abortions: the Girl Scouts of America."

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Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Walmart: Going Toxic?

Tell Walmart: Don't sell Monsanto's potentially toxic GMO sweet corn: "This spring, Monsanto's GMO sweet corn -- their first product for direct human consumption -- will be getting planted for the first time.

Then it will be sold, unlabeled, in a grocery store near you.

What would it take to stop it? It would take the largest food retailer in the country rejecting Monsanto's untested, potentially toxic corn.

Tell Walmart: Don't carry Monsanto's GMO Sweet Corn!"

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Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

China and Russia have blood on their hands

Two Western Journalists Killed in Syria Shelling - NYTimes.com: "CAIRO — Two Western journalists, one American and one French, were killed early Wednesday as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad pursued a deadly bombardment of the central city of Homs, according to activists and officials."

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And again I say China and Russia have blood on their hands.It is their veto of a UN resolution that enables this continuing serial genocide to continue.



Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

GOP has very few bread and butter donors

In Republican Race, a New Breed of Superdonor - NYTimes.com: "Collectively, their contributions have totaled more than $50 million this cycle, making them easily the most influential and powerful political donors in politics today. They have relatively few Democratic counterparts so far, with most of the leading liberal donors from past years giving relatively small amounts — or not at all — to the Democratic super PACs."

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The corporate way, friends. What else is new. The next time it takes you a broken fingernail to open a package think about the friendly corporations that control your life and ask whether it is government that is the intrusive one.

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

RECCMENDATION Richard Gordon Quantum Touch

The Slow as Molasses Press