http://www.duntonhotsprings.com/about-dunton.html
---SPSmith
Monday, April 30, 2012
Interstate-Guide: Interstate 17
Between Phoenix and the Arizona 69 split (Exit 262), the freeway replaces old Arizona 69. This is significant because the exit numbering scheme still follows the original mileage of that route. According to the Misc.Transport.Road FAQ (Marc Fannin) based on comments from Richard C. Moeur, "Until the mid-1980s Arizona used a special system for its mileage -- any route which did not enter Arizona from another state used the mileage of the route where its southern or western end was for its point of origin rather than zero (e.g.: If Route 2's southern end was at Route 1 and Route 1's mileage at the Route 1/Route 2 intersection is Mile 57, then Route 2's lowest-numbered milemarker would be Mile 57). Interstate 17 is a special case: Its exit numbers are actually those of the former longer routing of Arizona 69, which branched from U.S. 89 at Mile 201, since Interstate 17 and Arizona 69 were paired early. Arizona 69 has been truncated since the exits of Interstate 17 were numbered (see Arizona 69 (Alan Hamilton)). The exit numbers on Interstate 17 are not related to those of Interstate 19."
---SPSmith
Check out: 'Originalist Sin' on Slate
I thought you might find this Slate article interesting:
Originalist Sin
By Eliot Spitzer
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_best_policy/2012/04/affordable_care_act_the_supreme_court_and_the_constitution_harvard_law_professor_einer_elhauge_shows_how_the_founding_fathers_supported_mandates_.html?wpisrc=sl_ipad
---SPSmith
Originalist Sin
By Eliot Spitzer
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_best_policy/2012/04/affordable_care_act_the_supreme_court_and_the_constitution_harvard_law_professor_einer_elhauge_shows_how_the_founding_fathers_supported_mandates_.html?wpisrc=sl_ipad
---SPSmith
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Barry Eichengreen on the Euro | FiveBooks | The Browser
Americans, especially, are inclined to be critical of Europe's long holidays, inflexible labour markets, and so on. The Hall and Soskice book is an articulate statement of the view that there are different ways of cracking the same nut. There are different ways of organising market economies – different constellations of social and economic institutions that, in combination, can be equally efficient. Europe has very significant strengths in precision manufacturing. It has apprenticeship training programmes and employment stability that facilitates the acquisition of skills on the job. It has patient banks to fund the operations of firms investing in their workers. It's not obvious that this constellation of institutions is inferior, from the point of view of growth and competitiveness, to that of the United States. Ten years ago, the so-called experts would have been unanimous that the US had a leg-up on Germany in terms of innovation and export competitiveness. Now, to put an understated gloss on the point, this is no longer obvious.
Well I'm in Holland, after nearly a decade of living in the US, and I think many Americans, with their prejudices about Europe, would just be blown away by how much better things work here on an everyday basis – taking the bus, the train, going to the doctor, getting good childcare. I went to the dentist yesterday, and I watched as a computer and a machine made a new tooth for me in less than two hours. And it was so much cheaper than the US, too.
---SPSmithHow to talk to a Republican
http://jasonstanford.org/2012/04/how-to-talk-to-a-republican/
The list of demonstrable malarkey that Republicans hold to be
unalienable truths is laughably long: Obama is Kenyan; Obamacare has
death panels, increases the deficit, and pays for health care for
illegal immigrants; Abortions give you breast cancer and cause pain in
fetuses as young as 20 weeks; Iraq had WMDs and Saddam Hussein
collaborated with Al Qaeda; Tax cuts increase government revenue;
Obama's stimulus created no jobs, and in fact government spending is
hurting our economic recovery; If we don't raise the debt ceiling, we
can simply prioritize payments and avoid disaster; We are a Christian
nation whose forefathers "warned the British" about our gun rights,
"worked tirelessly" to abolish slavery, debated Creationism before
Charles Darwin even thought of evolution, and never intended to
separate church and state; Evolution is not real, and global warming,
if it's even happening, isn't our fault.
---SPSmith
The list of demonstrable malarkey that Republicans hold to be
unalienable truths is laughably long: Obama is Kenyan; Obamacare has
death panels, increases the deficit, and pays for health care for
illegal immigrants; Abortions give you breast cancer and cause pain in
fetuses as young as 20 weeks; Iraq had WMDs and Saddam Hussein
collaborated with Al Qaeda; Tax cuts increase government revenue;
Obama's stimulus created no jobs, and in fact government spending is
hurting our economic recovery; If we don't raise the debt ceiling, we
can simply prioritize payments and avoid disaster; We are a Christian
nation whose forefathers "warned the British" about our gun rights,
"worked tirelessly" to abolish slavery, debated Creationism before
Charles Darwin even thought of evolution, and never intended to
separate church and state; Evolution is not real, and global warming,
if it's even happening, isn't our fault.
---SPSmith
Friday, April 27, 2012
The Atlantic | September 2002 | Lightness at Midnight | Hitchens
History is more of a tragedy than it is a morality tale. The will to power, the will to use human beings in social experiments, is to be distrusted at all times. The impulse to create, or even to propose, what Amis calls "the perfect society" is likewise to be suspected. At several points he states with near perfect simplicity that ideology is hostile to human nature, and implies that teleological socialism was uniquely or particularly so. I would no longer disagree with him about this. Corruptio optimi pessima: no greater cruelty will be devised than by those who are sure, or are assured, that they are doing good. However, one may come to such a conclusion by a complacent route or by what I would still dare to call a dialectical one. Does anybody believe that had the 1905 Russian Revolution succeeded, it would have led straight to the gulag, and to forced collectivization? Obviously not. Such a revolution might even have forestalled the Balkan wars and World War I. Yet that revolution's moving spirits were Lenin and Trotsky, defeated by the forces of autocracy, Orthodoxy, and militarism. Excuse me, but nobody can be bothered to argue much about whether fascism might have turned out better, given more propitious circumstances. And there were no dissidents in the Nazi Party, risking their lives on the proposition that the Führer had betrayed the true essence of National Socialism. As Amis half recognizes, in his en passant compliment to me, the question just doesn't come up.
---SPSmith
Los Angeles Review of Books - Mr. Amis's Planet
http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?type=&id=562&fulltext=1&media=
with a chick on the premises you just cannot live the old life. You
just cannot live it. I know: I checked. The hungover handjob athwart
the unmade bed-you can't do it. Blowing your nose into a coffee filter
— there isn't the opportunity. Peeing in the basin — they just won't
stand for it. No woman worth the name would let it happen. Women have
pretty ways. Without women, life is a pub, a reptile bar at a quarter
to three...
---SPSmith
with a chick on the premises you just cannot live the old life. You
just cannot live it. I know: I checked. The hungover handjob athwart
the unmade bed-you can't do it. Blowing your nose into a coffee filter
— there isn't the opportunity. Peeing in the basin — they just won't
stand for it. No woman worth the name would let it happen. Women have
pretty ways. Without women, life is a pub, a reptile bar at a quarter
to three...
---SPSmith
Royal Society Calls for Redistribution of Wealth and More Birth Control to Save Planet | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network
Here is the good news: everything the scientists call for is to some extent already happening. Population growth peaked in the 1960s and has been declining ever since.Education of women, whenever and wherever it occurs, boosts incomes, restrains fertility and even increases farming output, among other positives. There is literallyno downside to the empowerment of women that is even remotely detectable. At the same time, the flight of much of the world's population to cities —emerging economies are adding the equivalent of a million-person city every five days—may help reduce the global impacts of the extended family of man. The trick will be ensuring that new cities are built right and old cities get the right retrofits, all whileimproving agriculture (particularly reducing waste).
---SPSmith
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Registrar.
AFR Dynamics LLC
502 E. Ingram St., Mesa 85203.
Apridi, Mohammad Naseem K., qual. member.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/business/abg/articles/2009/06/18/20090618abg-registrar0618.html#ixzz1t6e8nZFr
---SPSmith
Markets Can Be Very, Very Wrong - NYTimes.com
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/markets-can-be-very-very-wrong/
Our free-market advocates aren't actually operating from a model of
how the economy works; they're operating from some combination of
knee-jerk defense of the haves against the rest and mystical faith
that self-interest always leads to the common good.
---SPSmith
Our free-market advocates aren't actually operating from a model of
how the economy works; they're operating from some combination of
knee-jerk defense of the haves against the rest and mystical faith
that self-interest always leads to the common good.
---SPSmith
If I wanted America to fail… | Scholars and Rogues
If I wanted America to fail, I would institute an endless number of foreign wars, pitching all of them as essential to freedom. This will create a massive public expenditure, too massive for any nation to bear, as France in the 1700′s, England in the 1800′s, and Russia in the 1900′s found out.
I would replace science, math and facts with slanted opinions, and teach kids that truth is whatever they or their ministers want it to be. This will, over time, effectively kill off entire sectors of our knowledge industry, leaving us strong in missile technology, but weak in life sciences, just like N. Korea.
I would reverse the trend to secularity which has brought mankind so far so fast, and re-institute religious dominated societies so we can be more like Iran and Afghanistan. I would replace science with superstition.
I would encourage a winner-takes-all economy, so that wealth, power and opportunity accumulate in an increasingly smaller segment of society, so that talent and IQ is wasted, and so that we are led by those bred to lead, not by those who earned the right. I would starve public schools and invest in private schools.
I would relax pollution laws, so we become more like Rio or Mexico City, and our children grow up smaller and not quite as smart.
I would keep commodities, like energy, artificially cheap, so people don't have to fret about things like efficiency, making us more like Venezuala.
I would shut down immigration, because while looting the world for its best and brightest and hardest working has made this country great and pushed us far ahead of other resource rich countries like Canada and Australia, now it threatens to make the lazy and less gifted uncomfortable.
---SPSmithArticle: The hard right is leading Europe into darker times - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
The hard right is leading Europe into darker times - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
http://www.haaretz.com/opinions/the-hard-right-is-leading-europe-into-darker-times-1.426342?localLinksEnabled=false
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Phys Ed: Getting to the Root of Runner's High - NYTimes.com
Phys Ed: Getting to the Root of Runner's High - NYTimes.com: "It turned out that, as expected, the humans had shown significantly increased levels of endocannabinoids after running. So had the dogs, suggesting, for the first time, that they, too, experience a runner’s high.
But neither species had developed increased endocannabinoid levels after walking.
And the ferrets didn’t show higher endocannabinoid levels after either session. They gained, it seems, no neurobiological pleasure from running."
'via Blog this'
But neither species had developed increased endocannabinoid levels after walking.
And the ferrets didn’t show higher endocannabinoid levels after either session. They gained, it seems, no neurobiological pleasure from running."
'via Blog this'
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Article: Mr. Republican lawmaker, have you purchased private health insurance lately? : The Pump Handle
Mr. Republican lawmaker, have you purchased private health insurance lately? : The Pump Handle
http://scienceblogs.com/thepumphandle/2012/04/mr_republican_lawmaker_have_yo.php?utm_source=combinedfeed&utm_medium=rss
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Creationists' Abuse Of Fossils - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast
Creationists' Abuse Of Fossils - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast:
What do you do when people use religion to perpetrate empirical untruth? In a free country not much. But on this kind of issue, it seems to me that Hitchens was right. These people need to be mocked mercilessly for ignorance and stupidity. This isn't faith. It's bullshit. And yet in this advanced country, it's everywhere - and one political party panders to it.
What do you do when people use religion to perpetrate empirical untruth? In a free country not much. But on this kind of issue, it seems to me that Hitchens was right. These people need to be mocked mercilessly for ignorance and stupidity. This isn't faith. It's bullshit. And yet in this advanced country, it's everywhere - and one political party panders to it.
Article: Google Drive vs. the competition: pricing plans and perks, compared
Google Drive vs. the competition: pricing plans and perks, compared
http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/24/google-drive-vs-the-competition-dropbox-skydrive-icloud/
---SPSmith
Article: Hypothetical murder/suicide conundrum
Hypothetical murder/suicide conundrum
http://boingboing.net/2012/04/24/hypothetical-murdersuicide-co.html
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
George Monbiot – Dark Hearts
http://www.monbiot.com/2012/04/23/dark-hearts/
Caroline Elkins, a professor at Harvard, spent nearly ten years
compiling the evidence contained in her book Britain's Gulag: the
Brutal End of Empire in Kenya(5). She started her research with the
belief that the British account of the suppression of the Kikuyu's Mau
Mau revolt in the 1950s was largely accurate.
---SPSmith
George Monbiot – A Manifesto for Psychopaths
It is harder to see what it gives the ordinary teabaggers, who would suffer grievously from a withdrawal of government. But such is the degree of misinformation which saturates this movement and so prevalent in the US is Willy Loman Syndrome (the gulf between reality and expectations(7)) that millions blithely volunteer themselves as billionaires' doormats. I wonder how many would continue to worship at the shrine of Ayn Rand if they knew that towards the end of her life she signed on for both Medicare and Social Security(8). She had railed furiously against both programmes, as they represented everything she despised about the intrusive state. Her belief system was no match for the realities of age and ill-health.
---SPSmith
Cispa
CISPA cyber intelligence sharing coming up for vote in Congress.
Background on opposition
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/open-letter-academics-and-engineers-us-congresshttp://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57419540-281/opposition-grows-to-cispa-big-brother-cybersecurity-bill/
Bill sponsors response
http://intelligence.house.gov/press-release/bill-status-update-hr-3523Bottom line, the bill is still too vague on limits and removes free market rights to sue if the information released on individuals is damaging.
Write your CongressCritters here: https://wfc2.wiredforchange.com/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8444.
---SPSmith
Monday, April 23, 2012
Coyote Blog: Irony Alert!
From the Washington Post President Obama will issue an executive order Monday that will allow U.S. officials for the first time to impose sanctions ag...
Source: http://goo.gl/mag/El24I
Shared via Google Currents
---SPSmith
Where Hannah Arendt went wrong - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
http://www.haaretz.com/where-hannah-arendt-went-wrong-1.264075
Arendt's primary contribution to the understanding of totalitarianism
lies mainly in her contention that the totalitarian movements, both
fascist and communist, provided an answer to the masses facing the
disintegration of traditional European society, with its hierarchies,
norms and accepted modes of behavior. Modernization and
democratization, it emerges, did not in fact elevate "the people" but
often, rather, the "masses" or the "mob" ? an observation already made
by conservative writers like Jose Ortega y Gasset.
---SPSmith
breivik-manifesto-2011.pdf
Here is what Nathan Rosenberg and L.E. Birdzell Jr. say in How The West Grew Rich: The Economic Transformation Of The Industrial World:
"Initially, the West's achievement of autonomy stemmed from a relaxation, or a weakening, of political and religious controls, giving other departments of social life the opportunity to experiment with change. Growth is, of course, a form of change, and growth is impossible when change is not permitted. Any successful change requires a large measure of freedom to experiment. A grant of that kind of freedom costs a society's rulers their feeling of control, as if they were conceding to others the power to determine the society's future. The great majority of societies, past and present, have not allowed it. Nor have they escaped from poverty."
breivik-manifesto-2011.pdf
Some would hope that we could keep the "positive" aspects of the EU and not "throw out the baby with the bath water." I beg to differ.
The EU is all bath water, no baby. There never was a baby, just a truckload of overpaid babysitters.
---SPSmith
Sunday, April 22, 2012
CSIS suspected U.S. would deport Arar to be tortured: documents - Canada - CBC News
The inquiry found that the RCMP wrongly labelled Arar a terrorist and passed the misleading information to U.S. authorities, where it led to Arar being linked to al-Qaeda and deported to Syria.
O'Connor, associate chief justice of Ontario, cleared Arar of any links to terrorist organizations, and the federal government agreed to pay Arar $12.5 million in compensation.
---SPSmithNear death, explained - Salon.com
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/21/near_death_explained/singleton/#comments
when you write for a general audience, you need to discuss many
different aspects, including those not helpful for your case.
Otherwise you are merely hijacking the idea of expertise in the
service of your ideological beliefs, writing hagiographies and passing
them off as history.
-- Michael thurton
when you write for a general audience, you need to discuss many
different aspects, including those not helpful for your case.
Otherwise you are merely hijacking the idea of expertise in the
service of your ideological beliefs, writing hagiographies and passing
them off as history.
-- Michael thurton
---SPSmith
Article: Creationist Wisdom #240: Three in Tennessee
Creationist Wisdom #240: Three in Tennessee
http://sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com/2012/04/22/creationist-wisdom-240-three-in-tennessee/
---SPSmith
BBC E-mail: Germans fete asparagus season
** Germans fete asparagus season **
As the time of year for asparagus comes round again in Germany,
Stephen Evans considers the country's love of seasonal eating.
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17753372 >
As the time of year for asparagus comes round again in Germany,
Stephen Evans considers the country's love of seasonal eating.
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17753372 >
---SPSmith
Personalizing civil liberties abuses - Salon.com
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/16/personalizing_civil_liberties_abuses/singleton/
the authoritarian assumption that the U.S. Government, while not
infallible, is well-motivated and honest
---SPSmith
Saturday, April 21, 2012
The usual demonic attacks from the right
Yet again it is the Right Wingnut Republicans that sling the Hitler epithet. http://www.dailymail.com/News/election12/201204200015?page=1&build=cache
Yep John, a no smoking ordinance is exactly equivalent to the Jewish holocaust.
And those those darn Nazis, would you believe they outlawed abortions, banned gay marriages, and issued national ID cards to prevent state disapproved persons from seeking work?
Oh, wait, John, those are *your* positions too? http://www.raeseforsenate.org/
Nazi!
Yep John, a no smoking ordinance is exactly equivalent to the Jewish holocaust.
And those those darn Nazis, would you believe they outlawed abortions, banned gay marriages, and issued national ID cards to prevent state disapproved persons from seeking work?
Oh, wait, John, those are *your* positions too? http://www.raeseforsenate.org/
Nazi!
Raese blasted for Hitler comment - Election 2012 - Charleston Daily Mail - West Virginia News and Sports -
"Remember Hitler used to put Star of David on everybody's lapel, remember that?" Raese said. "Same thing."
Friday, April 20, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Wednesday, April 18, 2012 « End of Day Report
Increasingly this is how the left wins. It doesn't even bother to debate the merits of its positions. It wins by making conservative values unspeakable, by demonizing its opponents.
If you think showing ID to cast a ballot is a good idea, you can't be concerned about voter fraud. You're a racist. If you think school choice is a good idea, you can't be concerned about minority education. You hate school teachers. If you think abortion on demand is wrong, you can't be concerned about the sanctity of life. You hate women. If you think marriage is the union of one man and one woman, you can't be concerned about religious liberty or the best environment for raising children. You are a bigot.
---SPSmithI, Cringely Intel - I, Cringely - Cringely on technology
http://www.cringely.com/tag/intel/
Intel is a proud company — proud and to a certain extent deluded. They
see an all-Intel fabric solution as being inherently superior and
therefore more valuable even if it isn't quite ready to hit the
market. Intel decided to build rather than buy. But in this instance
Intel probably made the wrong choice, as I think they are beginning to
see.
---SPSmith
Stop Cyber Spying Week – Join EFF in a Week of Action Opposing CISPA | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Congress is currently considering CISPA – the Cyber Intelligence Sharing & Protection Act – a bill that purports to protect the United States from "cyber threats" but would in fact create a gaping loophole in all existing privacy laws. If CISPA passes, companies could vacuum up huge swaths of data on everyday Internet users and share it with the government without a court order. I oppose CISPA, and I'm calling on Congress to reject any legislation that:
* Uses dangerously vague language to define the breadth of data that can be shared with the government.
* Hands the reins of America's cybersecurity defenses to the NSA, an agency with no transparency and little accountability.
* Allows data shared with the government to be used for purposes unrelated to cybersecurity.
Join me in opposing this bill by posting this statement on your own page and using this online form to send a letter to Congress against CISPA:
https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8444
---SPSmithIntel's first smartphone arrives...in India | ZDNet
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/intels-first-smartphone-arrivesin-india/74707
Intel and Lava outlined a partnership in February. The XOLO X900 uses
Intel's Atom Z2460 1.6 GHz processor, supports HSPA+ and 3G and runs
on Android Gingerbread. The device will get the latest Android in an
over the air update. Intel is claiming up to 5 hours of 3G browsing,
45 hours of audio and 8 hours talk time.
---SPSmith
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
I, Cringely » Blog Archive Not your father's IBM - Cringely on technology
http://www.cringely.com/2012/04/not-your-fathers-IBM/
This is my promised column about IBM — The direct impetus for this
column is IBM's internal plan to grow earnings-per-share (EPS) to $20
by 2015. The primary method for accomplishing this feat, according to
the plan, will be by reducing US employee head count by 78 percent in
that time frame.
Reducing employees by more than three quarters in three years is a
bold and difficult task. What will it leave behind? Who, under this
plan, will still be a US IBM employee in 2015? Top management will
remain, the sales organization will endure, as will employees working
on US government contracts that require workers to be US citizens.
Everyone else will be gone. Everyone.
---SPSmith
Norman Cohn, Historian, Dies at 92 - New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/27/world/europe/27cohn.html
"the urge to purify the world through the annihilation of some
category of human beings imagined as agents of corruption and
incarnations of evil."
---SPSmith
Norman Cohn, Historian, Dies at 92 - New York Times
"In situations of mass disorientation and anxiety, traditional beliefs about a future golden age or messianic kingdom came to serve as vehicles for social aspirations and animosities," he wrote.
This vision, he suggested, passed among cultures and languages and from religious to secular discourse without losing its coherence or power to jolt the downtrodden to rise up. Messianic leaders like Stalin and Hitler appealed to the deep, biblically inspired belief that after intense struggle history would end, and an elect of believers would inherit paradise.
"The old religious idiom has been replaced by a secular one, and this tends to obscure what otherwise would be obvious," he wrote. "For it is the simple truth that, stripped of their original supernatural sanction, revolutionary millenarianism and mystical anarchism are with us still."
---SPSmith
Augusto Pinochet
http://www.nndb.com/people/393/000022327/
Within a few years the Chilean economy was in chaos, and the CIA spent
at least $11 million more to plan and fund a coup that would put
Pinochet in power.
---SPSmith
The Pinochet files | World news | guardian.co.uk
Throughout the 1960s, the US secretly spent millions funding political parties of their choosing - usually the moderate Christian Democrats led by Eduardo Frei Montalva. By the early 1970s, Chilean society had become so leftwing that Washington decided to change tactics. First, President Nixon authorised $10m to be spent "to make the economy scream".
He also authorised pro-coup initiatives designed to destroy the traditional reluctance of Chilean military men to take over civilian government.
"Pinochet will not be a stumbling block to coup plans", reads one memo written six months before the coup, in which the American government looks to build a veritable Dream Team of coup plotters. "The navy and air force are ready ... the military is getting ready to move."
---SPSmithGot religion: civil war
Elites who win this contest and establish themselves as the most credible defender of the nation will then gain the support and resources needed either to maintain their tenure as leaders (assuming they are incumbents) or, in a conoict, to be victorious.
In religious outbidding, the process is similar; elites attempt to outbid each other to enhance their religious credentials and thereby gain the support they need to counter an immediate threat. In this process, however, regime type is not as important as it is in nationalist outbidding. I argue that a civil war is likely to become a religious civil war when four conditions hold: (1) govern- ment or rebel leaders are immediately threatened; (2) resources (e.g., small arms, cash, skilled aghters, and logistical support) needed to reduce or elimi- nate the threat may be acquired by framing a conoict in religious terms; (3) the society has preexisting, though not necessarily deep, religious cleavages; and (4) the government controls public access to information.
Cohn: Milleniumism
Cohn's book attempts to develop an interpretive
model for various millenarian movements in northern
Europe from the eleventh to the sixteenth century.
For Cohn, these movements were essentially social
revolutions, with the Jewish and Christian apocalyp-
tic traditions providing a framework within which re-
formers articulated their grievances and goals. At the
heart of the apocalyptic tradition { which by the later
Middle Ages included elements of Biblical prophecy,
the so-called Sibylline Oracles, and the writings of
Joachim of Fiore { was the belief that the world was
in the grip of evil forces and that, at some point, the
holy people of God would rise up, cleanse the earth,
and establish a perfect kingdom for the righteous.
'via Blog this'
model for various millenarian movements in northern
Europe from the eleventh to the sixteenth century.
For Cohn, these movements were essentially social
revolutions, with the Jewish and Christian apocalyp-
tic traditions providing a framework within which re-
formers articulated their grievances and goals. At the
heart of the apocalyptic tradition { which by the later
Middle Ages included elements of Biblical prophecy,
the so-called Sibylline Oracles, and the writings of
Joachim of Fiore { was the belief that the world was
in the grip of evil forces and that, at some point, the
holy people of God would rise up, cleanse the earth,
and establish a perfect kingdom for the righteous.
'via Blog this'
Check out: 'Germ Porn, Hand-Washing, and the Hygiene Hypothesis' on Slate
I thought you might find this Slate article interesting:
Germ Porn, Hand-Washing, and the Hygiene Hypothesis
By A.J. Jacobs
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2012/04/a_j_jacobs_drop_dead_healthy_chapter_germs_germaphobes_and_the_hygiene_hypothesis_.html?wpisrc=sl_ipad
---SPSmith
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Ann Coulter Writes the Same Book Again | Understood Backwards
http://www.understoodbackwards.net/2011/06/11/ann-coulter-writes-the-same-book-again/
suggestion that the Kent State shootings were what one does to a mob
reveals her for an authoritarian. Her one-sided view of history and
antipathy of "mobs" would logically lead her to oppose the revolutions
in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Syria, as well as the failed Iranian
Revolution in 2009. Actually, she would be cheering the soldiers and
uniformed thugs who massacre unarmed demonstrators. That is, she would
if she followed her own logic.
---SPSmith
Intellectual Scatology: Ann Coulter’s New Book Calls Liberals “Demonic” and Possessed of a “Mob Mentality” That Will Destroy America « SpeakEasy
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/06/07/intellectual-scatology-ann-coulters-new-book-calls-liberals-demonic-and-possessed-of-a-mob-mentality-that-will-destroy-america/
Demonic is hot garbage which does not even rise to the level of failed
political satire–but those on the Right who consume such tripe will
take Demonic as authoritative because it confirms their priors.
---SPSmith
Ann Coulter Confuses Liberal and Conservative Psychology | The Intersection | Discover Magazine
More importantly, there is a body of actual research on conservative and liberal psychology that is obviously much more a propos. Such research shows that the first three traits listed by Coulter–"simplistic, extreme black-and-white thinking, fear of novelty"–are more likely to be found in conservatives. So are a number of the others listed above. This is true because the most defining liberal personality trait is "openness to experience," which involves novelty seeking but is also associated with tolerance of ambiguity, abstraction, and uncertainty.
---SPSmith
Ranting of GrumpyOldGuy: Review of: "DEMONIC: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America" by Ann Coulter.
http://rantingsofgrumpyoldguy.blogspot.com/2011/07/review-of-demonic-how-liberal-mob-is.html
If Ms. Coulter had chosen to present a balanced description and
analysis of mass psychology and mob mentality in American political
life in history and today, and the very real danger it presents to
civil society and meaningful democracy, then this might indeed have
been a worthwhile read. However, her demonic obsession with turning
this discussion into a one-sided political harangue makes this book
into exactly what she accuses "liberals" of - an effort to incite
marginally informed masses into a mob movement against any thought or
action which does not conform to her rather myopic view of "correct"
political views. With this book Ms. Coulter has become exactly what
she decries - the Joseph Goebbels of the extreme right-wing.
If Ms. Coulter had chosen to present a balanced description and
analysis of mass psychology and mob mentality in American political
life in history and today, and the very real danger it presents to
civil society and meaningful democracy, then this might indeed have
been a worthwhile read. However, her demonic obsession with turning
this discussion into a one-sided political harangue makes this book
into exactly what she accuses "liberals" of - an effort to incite
marginally informed masses into a mob movement against any thought or
action which does not conform to her rather myopic view of "correct"
political views. With this book Ms. Coulter has become exactly what
she decries - the Joseph Goebbels of the extreme right-wing.
---SPSmith
Monday, April 16, 2012
LKML: Linus Torvalds: Re: [ 00/78] 3.3.2-stable review
On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 2:20 PM, Felipe Contreras
<felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I could argue in favor of exceptions, but I don't think you realize
> the fact that this change does not affect your tree *at all*. Adding
> and removing a patch in the stable tree is a no-op.
You're a fucking moron.
It's not a no-op at all, and you don't seem to understand it.
It's *information*.
It's "that patch didn't work". That's not a no-op. That's actual
useful and worthwhile knowledge.
To quote Thomas Edison: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000
ways that won't work."
So just reverting it from stable, *WITHOUT LEARNING THE LESSON*, is
not a no-op at all, it's a sign of being a f*cking moron.
I'm stupider for just reading your email. Go away.
Linus
---SPSmith
LKML: Linus Torvalds: Re: [ 00/78] 3.3.2-stable review
If you think that "stable" means "bug free", you are fundamentally
confused about software engineering.
If you think you can go back in time and "undo" things, you are even
more fundamentally confused about reality.
And if you cannot understand what tens of people have tried to explain
to you, you are just f*cking stupid.---SPSmithAnn Romney Actually Never Worked a Day in Her Life, Like All Housewives (Hilary Rosen) • ChristWire
And just like Mormonism is the gateway drug to a Muslim lifestyle, letting women say housework is an actual job is the gateway drug to socialism.
The problem with America right now is that women are lazy and proud. There used to be a time in this country, where women would work all day in the home, cooking, cleaning, raising the kids, shopping for food and not spending money. She would wear that nice apron for years and not think she needed to go to Target or Michael's Crafts to buy a whole bunch of nonsense to 'spruce up' the place.
---SPSmithTruth or Consequences :: Texas Monthly
http://www.texasmonthly.com/2012-05-01/feature-4.php
Bush, scared to land.
These shifting explanations only intensified the scrutiny and led to
questions about what else could have caused Bush's loss of flight
status. One possible answer was offered much later, in 2004, by a
woman named Janet Linke. After Bush left for Alabama, her husband, Jan
Peter Linke, was transferred to Houston to replace him on the F-102,
which apparently still needed pilots, despite the phaseout. While the
Linkes were there, Bush's former commanding officer, Lieutenant
Colonel Jerry Killian, allegedly told them that Bush had stopped
flying because he became afraid to land the plane. "He was mucking up
bad, Killian told us," Janet said to a Florida newspaper. (Jan Peter
died in a car accident in 1973.)
But by the time Linke went public with her allegation, the press had
already abandoned the Bush National Guard story for the Dan Rather
controversy. Also ignored was some possible corroborating evidence: an
Associated Press investigation uncovered Bush's original flight logs,
which showed that after flying for hundreds of hours on the F-102,
Bush suddenly began flying a two-seat T-33 training jet and spent more
time in a flight simulator in the months preceding his departure for
Alabama. The logs also showed instances of his having to make multiple
passes at the landing strip.
---SPSmith
Henry Paul Monaghan: A Conservative Law Professor On The Obvious Constitutionality Of Obamacare | The New Republic
Moreover, the market for health care is distinctive (if not entirely unique) in several key respects. Virtually all of us will need and obtain health care at some point, but we often cannot predict when or in what ways we will need it. And for the vast majority of us, direct payment for the health care services we obtain would be prohibitively expensive. Yet not obtaining needed medical care can be the difference between life and death.
These features help explain why, unlike many other markets, insurance is the overwhelmingly dominant means of payment in the health care market. They also explain why Congress has required that individuals be given emergency care without regard to their ability to pay. As a result, and again unlike other markets, uninsured individuals who are unable to pay directly for needed medical services necessarily shift the cost of those services to others—to health care providers, the government, individuals with insurance, and taxpayers.
---SPSmithThe 2012 Lyttle Lytton Contest
Agent Jeffrey's trained eyes rolled carefully around the room, taking in the sights and sounds. |
---SPSmith
Article: Context is Everything
Context is Everything
http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2012/04/context_is_everything.php
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Skin cream began as battlefield aid
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/0127skin27.html
A synthesized version of a human protein that gives skin its elastic
properties may someday help wounds heal faster and without scarring. A
synthetic version of elastin may even help regenerate lost fingers and
perhaps limbs.
But for now, a synthetic elastin called Elastatropin has been
relegated to the $14 billion-a-year beauty industry, where it is the
primary ingredient in a high-end face cream called DermaLastyl.
"It pays the bills," said Burt Ensley, the Sedona scientist who
developed Elastatropin as an agent to help heal battlefield wounds.
---SPSmith
Mitt Romney: Mothers Should Be Required To Work Outside Home Or Lose Benefits
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/15/mitt-romney-mothers-welfare-moms_n_1426113.html
Mitt Romney, however, judging by his January remark, views
stay-at-home moms who are supported by federal assistance much
differently than those backed by hundreds of millions in private
equity income. Poor women, he said, shouldn't be given a choice, but
instead should be required to work outside the home to receive
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits. "[E]ven if you have
a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work," Romney said of moms
on TANF.
---SPSmith
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Right-Wing Religion's War on America | | AlterNet
"People who claim the government is hostile to religion are either insincere or uninformed," said Steven K. Green, director of the Center for Religion, Law and Democracy at Willamette University. "Religious entities enjoy a host of benefits and advantages that their non-religous counterparts lack.
Green, who was legal director at Americans United during the 1990's, added, "At the same time, many religious entities that enjoy exemptions from neutral regulations receive subsidies from the government for their operations. Rather than there being a 'war on religion,' the government surrendered its regulatory forces a long time ago."
---SPSmithMichael "Flathead" Blanchard Obituary: View Michael Blanchard's Obituary by Denver Post
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/denverpost/obituary.aspx?n=michael-blanchard-flathead&pid=156944598
A Celebration of the life of Michael "Flathead" Blanchard will be held
on April 14th, 3 pm 8160 Rosemary St, Commerce City. Weary of reading
obituaries noting someone's courageous battle with death, Mike wanted
it known that he died as a result of being stubborn, refusing to
follow doctors' orders and raising hell for more than six decades. He
enjoyed booze, guns, cars and younger women until the day he died.
Mike was born July 1944 in Colorado to Clyde and Ethel Blanchard. A
community activist, he is noted for saving the Dr. Justina Ford house
from demolition and defending those who could not defend themselves.
He was a Republican delegate, life member of the NRA, founder and
President of the Dead Cats MC. He loved music.
Mike was preceded in death by Clyde and Ethel Blanchard, survived by
his beloved sons Mike and Chopper, former wife Jane Transue, brother
Stephen Blanchard (Susan), Uncle Don and Aunt Cynthia Blanchard(his
favorite); Uncle Dill and Aunt Dot, cousins and nephews, Baba Yaga can
kiss his butt. So many of his childhood friends that weren't killed in
Vietnam went on to become criminals, prostitutes and/or Democrats. He
asks that you stop by and re-tell the stories he can no longer tell.
As the Celebration will contain Adult material we respectfully ask
that no children under 18 attend.
---SPSmith
Friday, April 13, 2012
"Proof" is not what most people think it is : Respectful Insolence
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/04/proof_is_not_what_most_people_think_it_is.php
one major reason we need science in the first place is because we as
humans suck at observation. Scientists know this. That's why science
is a system, a process, that seeks to minimize human bias and human
cognitive quirks that lead them to leap to the wrong conclusions from
observation
---SPSmith
Article: Happy Birthday, Hitch: A Letter of Advice to Young Contrarians
Happy Birthday, Hitch: A Letter of Advice to Young Contrarians
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/13/letters-to-a-young-contrarian-hitchens/
Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for your.
---SPSmith
---SPSmith
Check out: 'Google Rejoins Tech's Governance Race to the Bottom' on Slate
I thought you might find this Slate article interesting:
Google Rejoins Tech's Governance Race to the Bottom
By Robert Cyran
http://www.slate.com/blogs/breakingviews/2012/04/13/google_non_voting_shares_show_new_lapses_in_administrative_judgment_.html?wpisrc=sl_ipad
---SPSmith
Thursday, April 12, 2012
John Gittings on Peace | FiveBooks | The Browser
http://thebrowser.com/interviews/john-gittings-on-peace?page=2
That
is called the chariot theory of history – the idea that the invention
of the chariot transformed early bronze age society, and so on through
the Gatling gun to atomic bombs. To that I would reply that most
significant inventions and discoveries are of a peaceful not a
military kind. Against the chariot theory of history I would propose
the shadoof theory – the shadoof being the discovery in ancient
Mesopotamia, at about the same time as the chariot was being invented,
that if you have a bucket at the end of a pole which is pivoted on a
wooden cradle, you can hoist water from a lower level to an upper
level. That was a huge step forward in irrigation and agriculture. I
would insist that most technological advances and developments of
civilisation have, can and could only take place in conditions of
peace rather than war.
---SPSmith
That
is called the chariot theory of history – the idea that the invention
of the chariot transformed early bronze age society, and so on through
the Gatling gun to atomic bombs. To that I would reply that most
significant inventions and discoveries are of a peaceful not a
military kind. Against the chariot theory of history I would propose
the shadoof theory – the shadoof being the discovery in ancient
Mesopotamia, at about the same time as the chariot was being invented,
that if you have a bucket at the end of a pole which is pivoted on a
wooden cradle, you can hoist water from a lower level to an upper
level. That was a huge step forward in irrigation and agriculture. I
would insist that most technological advances and developments of
civilisation have, can and could only take place in conditions of
peace rather than war.
---SPSmith
Vagabond Scholar: My God Can Beat Up Your God (Defining "Tolerance")
http://vagabondscholar.blogspot.com/2012/04/my-god-can-beat-up-your-god-defining.html
Most of the time, when conservatives say "freedom," they really mean
"privilege." Typically, they do not recognize this, because they view
their preferred power structure as the natural order. Theocrats and
other religious authoritarians will raise a great hue and cry about
their religious freedoms being violated. Most will honestly believe
this, but they do not truly seek freedom of religion, which they
already possess.
---SPSmith
The Toxicity Of Religious Belief Systems | Comradde PhysioProffe
http://freethoughtblogs.com/physioprof/2012/04/12/the-toxicity-of-religious-belief-systems/
When *nothing* is intended as a factual statement–indeed, when there
are no such things as facts–there can be no such things as hypocrisy,
inconsistency, or lying. And this is what makes genuine religious
belief so utterly toxic: it demands rejection at the deepest level of
cognition of the very notion of fact.
---SPSmith
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Intel engineer buys 5BD in Chandler | Phoenix
http://phoenix.blockshopper.com/news/story/1100054382-Intel_engineer_buys_5BD_in_Chandler
Kshitij and Sudha Doshi bought a five-bedroom, three-bath home at 5751
W. Linda Lane in Chandler from Seth and Beth Honeyman for $485,000 on
Nov. 12.
---SPSmith
Article: A Send-Off to God's Favorite
A Send-Off to God's Favorite
http://open.salon.com/blog/isaiahlcarter/2012/04/11/a_send-off_to_gods_favorite
Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, Knight Templar of the Republican Party and standard bearer for angry, sexually repressed rich white men everywhere, finally accepted the inevitable fate that the GOP nomination was no longer in reach for him. With his 3-year-old daughter's illness, and faced with the fact that he was in serious danger of losing his home state, Santorum dropped out, taking the hopes and dreams of the fanatical Far Right with him and placing the Christian Right in a position that could shake every single moral foundation they have set up for themselves: Either vote for the Black Muslim Socialist Alinsky-ite radical Kenyan anti-colonial, or… horror of horrors!!... a MORMON!!!!
---SPSmith
Uncensored John Simon
http://uncensoredsimon.blogspot.com/
My own taste is the exact opposite. I have no interest in music from
before roughly 1840, and can only wonder at the adulation of, say,
Bach and Mozart, when there is Fauré and Debussy and Bartók and Berg
and Prokofiev and Janáček, to name only a few.
---SPSmith
National Review Fires Another Racist Writer | ThinkProgress
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/11/461692/national-review-race-problem/
Conservative Right "surprised" to find its spokesmen are racists.
---SPSmith
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Republican Asses Finally Squeeze Out Some Santorum
Republican Asses Finally Squeeze Out Some Santorum
---SPSmith
The lying, intolerant, ignorant, Taliban-style hardline Dominionist, Rick Santorum, was finally voted off the reality show clown car that is this Year's Republican primary. Good riddance.
Sorry Rick, it seems your god was too busy not existing to keep you in the race. Your desire to stick the rest of us with your sick pseudo morality makes you a greater threat to our freedom than any foreign terrorist. Your homophobic and misogynistic policies remove natural rights from gays and women: American troops should be pissing on you for your threat to our country's ideals of freedom and justice instead of dead Taliban soldiers.
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/february122012/santorum-rgop-ld.php
"...when Santorum says religious values should play a greater role in government policy, he means that there should be lots of laws regulating your personal life, particularly your sex life. This is pretty typical of religious fundamentalists, particularly American Christian ones. They just can't leave other people's bedrooms alone."
---SPSmith
Republican Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum's Plans for America - Salem-News.Com
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/february122012/santorum-rgop-ld.php
"...when Santorum says religious values should play a greater role in
government policy, he means that there should be lots of laws
regulating your personal life, particularly your sex life. This is
pretty typical of religious fundamentalists, particularly American
Christian ones. They just can't leave other people's bedrooms alone."
---SPSmith
Check out: 'The Crisis in American Walking' on Slate
I thought you might find this Slate article interesting:
The Crisis in American Walking
By Tom Vanderbilt
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/walking/2012/04/why_don_t_americans_walk_more_the_crisis_of_pedestrianism_.html?wpisrc=sl_ipad
---SPSmith
USA TODAY: Birthrate for U.S. teens is lowest in history
Birthrate for U.S. teens is lowest in history
http://usat.ly/HEwTJC
http://usat.ly/HEwTJC
Rise is contraception use.
---SPSmith
Monday, April 09, 2012
Unmediated experience by Bob Hicok : Poetry Magazine
She does this thing. Our seventeen-
year-old dog. Our mostly deaf dog.
Our mostly dead dog, statistically
speaking. When I crouch.
When I put my mouth to her ear
and shout her name. She walks away.
Walks toward the nothing of speech.
She even trots down the drive, ears up,
as if my voice is coming home.
It's like watching a child
believe in Christmas, right
before you burn the tree down.
Every time I do it, I think, this time
she'll turn to me. This time
she'll put voice to face. This time,
I'll be absolved of decay.
Which is like being a child
who believes in Christmas
as the tree burns, as the drapes catch,
as Santa lights a smoke
with his blowtorch and asks, want one?
Source: Poetry (October 2010).
Constantine P. Cavafy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
---SPSmith
|
High Windows by Philip Larkin : The Poetry Foundation
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178053
When I see a couple of kids
And guess he's fucking her and she's
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise
Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives—
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide
To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That'll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark
About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately
Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
---SPSmith
Philip Larkin complete by Michael Dirda - The New Criterion
The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.
I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:
Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful
Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.
Sunday, April 08, 2012
Saturday, April 07, 2012
Titanic and the Science of Near-Death Experiences | Cocktail Party Physics, Scientific American Blog Network
There have been some solid scientific studies of what happens to the brain during such events, notably a 2001 Dutch study published in the prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet. The researchers examined 344 patients who were resuscitated after suffering cardiac arrest, and interviewed them within a week afterwards about what — if anything — they remembered. The results were a bit startling: about 18% reported being able to recall some portion of what happened when they were clinically dead, and between 8 and 12 percent said they experienced some form of an NDE.
Neurochemistry offers some convincing alternative explanations. Perhaps NDEs aren't evidence of an afterlife, but illusions created by a dying (oxygen deprived) brain. Cardiac arrest and the anesthesias used in ERs are capable of triggering NDE-like brain states. The Dutch researchers found that "similar experiences can be induced through electrical stimulation of the temporal lobe," for instance, as can neurochemicals such as endorphins and serotonin, and hallucinogenic drugs like LSD and mescaline.
---SPSmithFriday, April 06, 2012
The Secret Science of Memorable Quotes - Technology Review
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27691/
You Had Me at Hello: How Phrasing Affects Memorability
---SPSmith
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