And with that, I'm outta here. If you're in Houston, batten down the hatches.

It's coming. 74mph gust at Hobby airport.

Good luck to anyone in Houston.

Very clever movie on the Democratic Party War Room

{lounge}

re: #4 CoolShades

Very clever movie on the Democratic Party War Room

I watched that earlier. Freakin' hilarious. Bob Shrum.

"Grasp the universe as it really is..."

I'm reminded of the counterpoint from Kelvin Throop III:

"Celestial navigation is based on the premise that the Earth is the center of the universe. The premise is wrong, but the navigation works. An incorrect model can be a useful tool."

Which leads me to ponder:

How do we know that Carl Sagan's approach is more correct than any other?

The witching hour is upon us and Ike is upon Houston....so naturally time for an open thread.

Man - to grasp the universe as it really is ... I'm up for that!

Got pretty quiet all of a sudden....is this the proverbial calm before the storm?

Also, how many lizards are living along Ike's projected path?

My way or the Milky Way.

— Carl Sagan

Great video :)

Although I normally stay away from Daily Kos its great reading their little poll threads they have set up and just how shocked and apalled they are at how stupid the American public can be for voting for McCain.

Its like they are so jaded that they don't understand why on person, probably not even McCain himself would not vote for the Messiah.

I just ran into the link and thought I'd pass it along. Democratic Party War Room

I feel so sorry for Gov. Palin. If she was Democratic, the press would put a crown on her. Now, we have to battle the press and the Obama Campaign.

I posted this really late in the Palin thread with the Youtube interview excerpts, but it deserves to be seen.

The most barking mad "I'm smarter than you are" response I've seen to the Palin interview, from some rabid moonbat at HuffPo named Michael Seitzman.

Now, I want to be clear and speak directly to those of you who LOVED that Palin interview. You're an idiot. I mean that. This is not one of those cases where we're going to agree to disagree. This isn't one of those situations where we debate it passionately and then walk away thinking that the other guy is wrong but argued well. I'm not going to think of you as a thoughtful but misguided person with different ideas who still really cares about the country and the world. No, sorry, not this time. This time, if you watched those interview excerpts and weren't scared out of your freakin' mind, then you're mentally ill, mentally disabled, or mentally disturbed. What you are NOT is responsible, informed, curious, thoughtful, mature, educated, empathetic, or remotely serious. I mean it.

re: #11 Cognito

My way or the Milky Way.

— Carl Sagan

I almost gave you an up-ding for that.

re: #14 SteveBrandon

You're an idiot. I mean that. This is not one of those cases where we're going to agree to disagree. This isn't one of those situations where we debate it passionately and then walk away thinking that the other guy is wrong but argued well. I'm not going to think of you as a thoughtful but misguided person with different ideas who still really cares about the country and the world.

I wonder....how is that different from any other time anybody's thinking is contrary to vapid leftist dogma.

YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU. BE SAFE!

re: #17 phoenixgirl

YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU. BE SAFE!

Sweetie. Remember about boundaries.

(No. Not really)

re: #19 Cognito

(No. Not really)

re: #19 Cognito

(No. Not really)

You have RARE moments ...

re: #14 SteveBrandon

Oh my. The guy better lay off the meds. I Googled his name and came up with ths:

The Huffington Post’s Michael Seitzman has it TOTALLY right…

“I realized three things tonight. For one, if you are a McCain/Palin/Bush voter, you and I do not have a difference of opinion. We have a difference in brain power. Two, she really is as ignorant as I feared. And, three, she really is kinda hot. Basically, I want to have sex with her on my Barack Obama sheets while my wife reads aloud from the Constitution. (My wife is cool with this if I promise to “first wipe off Palin’s tranny makeup.” I married well.)”

re: #12 middlecon

Although I normally stay away from Daily Kos its great reading their little poll threads they have set up and just how shocked and apalled they are at how stupid the American public can be for voting for McCain.

Its like they are so jaded that they don't understand why on person, probably not even McCain himself would not vote for the Messiah.

What I find hilarious is that Kos is spending his Soros Dollars to fund his own personal daily tracking poll of the election, in conjunction with an actual polling firm -- and somehow, inexplicably, the results are always 5 percentage points tilted toward Obama, compared to every other poll in the country. On the threads about the laughable Kos poll results, every now and then a Kossack will peek out into the Real World, see that actual polls numbers posted on other sites, and say, "I' sick to my stomach! What is happening? This can't be real!"

re: #18 Cognito

Sweetie. Remember about boundaries.

sweetie? you effin' Obama now?

re: #22 zombie

What I find hilarious is that Kos is spending his Soros Dollars to fund his own personal daily tracking poll of the election, in conjunction with an actual polling firm -- and somehow, inexplicably, the results are always 5 percentage points tilted toward Obama, compared to every other poll in the country. On the threads about the laughable Kos poll results, every now and then a Kossack will peek out into the Real World, see that actual polls numbers posted on other sites, and say, "I' sick to my stomach! What is happening? This can't be real!"

Zom .. you the [person]

http://kkbq.com/

Houston radio station at the link is providing ongoing local coverage of Ike, live audiostream can be listened to at that site.

They play a country song or two, plus occasional commercials, but most of the time they're taking calls from people all over the greater Houston area reporting what they're going through, plus occasional meteorologist reports.

Everyone who calls appears to be out of power and they are all getting socked hard right now (2:15 a.m. Central time 9/13/08)

The guys announcing are the regular morning crew, drafted for storm coverage duty. Their broadcast studio is near the top of a 26 story building in Houston and it is apparently swaying all the time.

re: #22 zombie

nothing to get from that site. well, an infection maybe.

oh cognito, i love you as well, but that was for the one i love and he knows who he is.......and he better be safe

And in case anyone missed it (I posted it way OT on an earlier thread):

Fast-a-thon — the new Ramadan

The Berkeley chapter of the Muslim Students Association seems to have hit upon a fresh idea for luring in naive new students: They’ve re-branded Ramadan as an apparently secular event called “Fast-a-thon.” Here’s their flyer advertising Fast-a-thon, which was posted in various locations on the U.C. Berkeley campus where students from the general population could see it:
[pic]
Ramadan is the holiest month of the Islamic calendar, and entails fasting from sunrise to sundown. The dates for Ramadan vary from year to year, but in 2008 Ramadan lasts from September 2 to October 1, putting Fast-a-thon right in the middle of the Islamic fasting period.

Notice how nowhere on the calendar are the words “Ramadan,” “Islam,” or “Muslim” mentioned, nor anything indicating this event is connected to a religious holiday. The only clues are the stylized crescent-and-star symbol and the word “Iftar” — neither of which are necessarily giveaways to someone unfamiliar with Islamic terminology. It seems the purpose of Fast-a-thon is to strip away any obvious religious aspect of the event, to make it seem like nothing more than a fundraiser for the nonprofit group Doctors Without Borders.

I suppose their one explanation might be that the event is intended only for Muslim students, but the fact that the flyer was posted in public hallways and outdoor kiosks where the entire student body could see it, and that all mention of religion has been removed, suggests that the goal of Fast-a-thon is to introduce non-Muslim students to Islamic customs — without their knowing it.

re: #7 victor_yugo

"Grasp the universe as it really is..."

I'm reminded of the counterpoint from Kelvin Throop III:

"Celestial navigation is based on the premise that the Earth is the center of the universe. The premise is wrong, but the navigation works. An incorrect model can be a useful tool."

Which leads me to ponder:

How do we know that Carl Sagan's approach is more correct than any other?

Well, here's an awesome space science bit:
Black Hole's 'Birth Scream' Heard Across Universe

Witnessed 6 months ago, it took the light of GRB 080319B about 7.4 billion years to reach Earth, placing the explosion "more than halfway back to the Big Bang and the origin of our universe," Grindlay wrote in an editorial accompanying a new study of the burst in the Sept. 10 issue of the journal Nature.

This means that the explosion happened 3 billion years before the sun or Earth even formed, Grindlay added.

one day years and years from now, Koslings in whatever forum they have; will be talking about they oppressive right wing democrats who ruined America. Somebody will argue that the democrats had leftist policies ('pol-eh-Says' in Obamanese) and they will retort, "but they were funded by George Soros!"

re: #28 zombie

What? Seethe-a-palooza was taken?

re: #30 spidly

I guess the response was not quick enough on the last thread. You durty MFO!
/

The liberal diatribe right now is that McCain is leading in so-called 'low information' voters...as if every Democrat voter studies every issue completely and doesn't do so because of skin color or union affiliation.

After all Democrats are vastly intellectually superior.

Net-talking toaster to burn news onto bread

The Scan Toaster - heh.

re: #1 Ward Cleaver

And with that, I'm outta here. If you're in Houston, batten down the hatches.

Just got off the phone with a friend near Houston, so far they are hanging in there.

re: #32 Bobibutu

I guess the response was not quick enough on the last thread. You durty MFO!
/

wha' eveh, you butt hair.

re: #33 middlecon

The liberal diatribe right now is that McCain is leading in so-called 'low information' voters...as if every Democrat voter studies every issue completely and doesn't do so because of skin color or union affiliation.

After all Democrats are vastly intellectually superior.

The 'low-info voters' are fact checking and debunking every slime attempt that the 'emotion-based, shrieking headcase votes' hurl in our direction.

Conservatives are used to dealing in facts. Lefties aren't.

re: #34 RTLM

Net-talking toaster to burn news onto bread

The Scan Toaster - heh.

can it burn this?

Ooooo, may thisssss

re: #7 victor_yugo

"Grasp the universe as it really is..."

I'm reminded of the counterpoint from Kelvin Throop III:

"Celestial navigation is based on the premise that the Earth is the center of the universe. The premise is wrong, but the navigation works. An incorrect model can be a useful tool."

Which leads me to ponder:

How do we know that Carl Sagan's approach is more correct than any other?

Because that's not the way celestial navigation works; it works not due to the earth being the center of the universe, but due to the positions of various stars relative to different earth positions (the difference is in the curvature). This mutual relativity has nothing to do with geocentrism. If one can equally well navigate on land and sea while holding the correct idea about the reason that it works or an incorrect idea, then there is no problem so far as the practice of terrestrial navigation goes. But just once fly out into space, and it does not work any more. For instance, it would be spectacularly inefficient in calculating flight paths between planets. For this purpose, heliocentrism works far better, and relativity works best of all. Special cases fail on the general level, which is why they are special cases, and why Newtonian physics, as a special case of Einsteinian relativity, was superseded by it as understanding advanced. Generally speaking, more knowledge is better than less, and less ignorance is better than more, because you can do more with it - that is, more that actually works in the world. With rare and very limited exceptions, truth is highly correlated with what works.

re: #33 middlecon

The liberal diatribe right now is that McCain is leading in so-called 'low information' voters...as if every Democrat voter studies every issue completely and doesn't do so because of skin color or union affiliation.

After all Democrats are vastly intellectually superior.

Obama would appeal to the misinformation voter then?

re: #38 spidly

can it burn this?

Ooooo, may thisssss

/Just add food coloring and its real.

Dude/Dudette - we know where we are coming from .. let's get our faux stuff on another time - fun!

re: ah hell, you're supposed to argue or something. let's pretend. I'll be sharmuta and you be cognito.... you pompous sonofabitch!

It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

...indeed, there's definitely a problem with people who confuse the ideal with reality and how to get back and forth from one to the other...not to mention people who confuse wild improbabilities with reality...

Obama Can't Win Against Palin
Karl Rove
The Wall Street Journal Online
11 September 2008

Of all the advantages Gov. Sarah Palin has brought to the GOP ticket, the most important may be that she has gotten into Barack Obama's head. How else to explain Sen. Obama's decision to go one-on-one against "Sarah Barracuda," captain of the Wasilla High state basketball champs?

It's a matchup he'll lose. If Mr. Obama wants to win, he needs to remember he's running against John McCain for president, not Mrs. Palin for vice president.

Michael Dukakis spent the last months of the 1988 campaign calling his opponent's running mate, Dan Quayle, a risky choice and even ran a TV ad blasting Mr. Quayle. The Bush/Quayle ticket carried 40 states.

Adlai Stevenson spent the fall of 1952 bashing Dwight Eisenhower's running mate, Richard Nixon, calling him "the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, and then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation." The Republican ticket carried 39 of 48 states.

If Mr. Obama keeps attacking Mrs. Palin, he could suffer the fate of his Democratic predecessors. These assaults highlight his own tissue-thin résumé, waste precious time better spent reassuring voters he is up for the job, and diminish him -- not her.

Consider Mr. Obama's response to CNN's Anderson Cooper, who asked him about Republican claims that Mrs. Palin beats him on executive experience. Mr. Obama responded by comparing Wasilla's 50 city workers with his campaign's 2,500 employees and dismissed its budget of about $12 million a year by saying "we have a budget of about three times that just for the month." He claimed his campaign "made clear" his "ability to manage large systems and to execute."

Of course, this ignores the fact that Mrs. Palin is now governor. She manages an $11 billion operating budget, a $1.7 billion capital expenditure budget, and nearly 29,000 full- and part-time state employees. In two years as governor, she's vetoed over $499 million from Alaska's capital budget -- more money than Mr. Obama is likely to spend on his entire campaign.

And Mr. Obama is not running his campaign's day-to-day operation. His manager, David Plouffe, assisted by others, makes the decisions about the $335 million the campaign has spent. Even if Mr. Obama is his own campaign manager, does that qualify him for president?

A debate between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Palin over executive experience also isn't smart politics for Democrats. As Mr. Obama talks down Mrs. Palin's record, voters may start comparing backgrounds. He won't come off well.

Then there was Mr. Obama's blast Saturday about Mrs. Palin's record on earmarks. He went at her personally, saying, "you been taking all these earmarks when it is convenient and then suddenly you are the champion anti-earmark person."

It's true. Mrs. Palin did seek earmarks as Wasilla's mayor. But as governor, she ratcheted down the state's requests for federal dollars, telling the legislature last year Alaska "cannot and must not rely so heavily on federal government earmarks." Her budget chief directed state agencies to reduce earmark requests to only "the most compelling needs" with "a strong national purpose," explaining to reporters "we really want to skinny it down."

Mr. Obama has again started a debate he can't win. As senator, he has requested nearly $936 million in earmarks, ratcheting up his requests each year he's been in the Senate. If voters dislike earmarks -- and they do -- they may conclude Mrs. Palin cut them, while Mr. Obama grabs for more each year.

Mr. Obama may also pay a price for his "lipstick on a pig" comment. The last time the word "lipstick" showed up in this campaign was during Mrs. Palin's memorable ad-lib in her acceptance speech. Mr. Obama says he didn't mean to aim the comment at Mrs. Palin, but he deserves all the negative flashback he gets from the snarky aside.

(continued)

(continued from above)
Sen. Joe Biden has now joined the attack on Mrs. Palin, saying this week that her views on issues show she's "obviously a backwards step for women." This is a mistake. Mr. Obama is already finding it difficult to win over independent women and Hillary Clinton voters. If it looks like he's going out of his way to attack Mrs. Palin, these voters may conclude it's because he has a problem with strong women.

In Denver two weeks ago, Mr. Obama said, "If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from." That's what he's trying to do, only the object of his painting is Sarah Palin, not John McCain.

In Mrs. Palin, Mr. Obama faces a political phenomenon who has altered the election's dynamics. Americans have rarely seen someone who immediately connects with large numbers of voters at such a visceral level. Mrs. Palin may be the first vice presidential candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson to change an election's outcome. If Mr. Obama keeps attacking her, the odds of Gov. Palin becoming Vice President Palin increase significantly.

Listening to the KKBQ feed right now. Totally random, not-Ike-related question.....are the majority of female country musicians smoking hot? I remember the whole Danielle Peck brou-ha-ha during the ALCS last year (the Indians invited her to sing the National Anthem at Jacobs Field, supposedly as an innocent co-incidence but some speculate it was a futile attempt to try and rattle Peck's ex-boyfriend, Red Sox starting pitcher Josh Beckett that night).

Seriously...I think the most frumpy and dowdy of these girls are probably a million times more prefereable to the drug-addled, tattoed skanky trainwrecks of singers who are more mainstream.

In all honestly, the closest I usually come to regularly listening to country music is rockabilly (unless Johnny Cash counts) so I'm in the dark regarding the hotness of country singers outside of a Danielle Peck or Faith Hill...

I've got to wonder who do moonbats hate more right now...Bush or Palin? If McCain wins it will be a very smooth transition from BDS to PDS lol

re: #41 RTLM

/Just add food coloring and its real.

racist!
somehow, anyway.....you seen how unkempt McCain's hair is? Whatta slob! you think he could comb it once in a while!

/americansforobama.org

re: #44 Tamron

Anyone with a brain and cognitive capability - ah there are so many that are brain dead and vote.

We have work to do.

re: #43 Orbit Rain

...indeed, there's definitely a problem with people who confuse the ideal with reality and how to get back and forth from one to the other...not to mention people who confuse wild improbabilities with reality...

Yep. Like to people who push creationism because they consider it to be simpler, and avoiding statistically improbable complexities, while completely failing to grasp that any creator that could perform the tasks that are thus set for it - that is, to calculate in advance all of the attributes of millions of species, each comprised of large numbers of member organisms, and the ecological interactions and interrelations between them, would of necessity have to be the most improbably complex of all. Mutation and environmental selection is a much simpler solution, and indeed, lacks any evidence-supported competition whatsoever as an explanation for this vast complex interwoven profusion that is terrestrial life.

re: #37 RTLM

I mentioned this the other night over dinner with some family members.....I'm thinking that even if there is some legit, bona-fide scandal regarding the Palin family between now and election day, there's been so much disinformation about her (the bogus banned book list, the supposed membership in a sepratist party, the photoshopped bikini pic etc) that's been debunked, that this hypothetical bombshell would probably be greeted with skepticism or a collective shrug once reported by the MSM.

re: #50 Salamantis

Yep. Like to people who push creationism because they consider it to be simpler, and avoiding statistically improbable complexities, while completely failing to grasp that any creator that could perform the tasks that are thus set for it - that is, to calculate in advance all of the attributes of millions of species, each comprised of large numbers of member organisms, and the ecological interactions and interrelations between them, would of necessity have to be the most improbably complex of all. Mutation and environmental selection is a much simpler solution, and indeed, lacks any evidence-supported competition whatsoever as an explanation for this vast complex interwoven profusion that is terrestrial life.

holy hell, that sentence is an argument for creationism

re: #52 spidly

holy hell, that sentence is an argument for creationism

Actually, it is an ironclad refutation of it.

re: #46 Fenway_Nation

Yes.

Amy Winehouse

Faith Hill

re: #51 Fenway_Nation

I mentioned this the other night over dinner with some family members.....I'm thinking that even if there is some legit, bona-fide scandal regarding the Palin family between now and election day, there's been so much disinformation about her (the bogus banned book list, the supposed membership in a sepratist party, the photoshopped bikini pic etc) that's been debunked, that this hypothetical bombshell would probably be greeted with skepticism or a collective shrug once reported by the MSM.

Hell, right now she could probably shoot Obama and leave him on the hood of her pickup and nobody would believe it

Sen. Joe Biden has now joined the attack on Mrs. Palin, saying this week that her views on issues show she's "obviously a backwards step for women."

Well Sen Joe ought too know, the son of a bitch is as ballless as a neutered tom cat!

re: #51 Fenway_Nation

WOLF!

re: #33 middlecon

The liberal diatribe right now is that McCain is leading in so-called 'low information halucinogen' voters...as if every Democrat voter studies ignores every issue completely and doesn't do so because of skin color or union affiliation.

After all Democrats are vastly intellectually superior functionally dumb.

Just some suggestions.

By the way, whats this I hear about an anonymous tipline the Dems set up in Alaska to gather dirt on Palin?

Would it be wrong for me to call that tipline and- using my best Rocket J. Squirrel voice- tearfully report that Sarah Palin shot my best friend in cold blood?

re: #57 littleoldlady

WOLF!

fetching stick, running back to little old lady, wagging tail, drops stick, paws the air and waits for fruit cup...:)

Oh no, Natasha.

Is moose and squirrel.

re: #59 Fenway_Nation

By the way, whats this I hear about an anonymous tipline the Dems set up in Alaska to gather dirt on Palin?

Would it be wrong for me to call that tipline and- using my best Rocket J. Squirrel voice- tearfully report that Sarah Palin shot my best friend in cold blood?

Yes, but it would be funny as Hell.

re: #54 RTLM

Nice picture and all, but I was curious what country starlets aside from Faith Hill or Danielle Peck looked like....

Dustyvet! :-)

At least I have somebody trained properly... ;-)

re: #61 Spirit93

Oh no, Natasha.

Is moose and squirrel.

Natasha: Boris, how are we going to steal car from moose and squirrel?
Boris: Easy, we are going into the used car business.
Natasha: On purpose?

re: #53 Salamantis

Actually, it is an ironclad refutation of it.

ironclad? it may be a good argument for natural selection but go back, back, back, in time to 1E-1000 femtoseconds befor the big bang and work forward...

anyway, that was two sentences excluding the "yep" which shoulda had a comma or colon after it

re: #59 Fenway_Nation

I'll contribute the Bullwinkle J. Moose bit. I have it on good authority that I do a good Bullwinkle impersonation.

Call up and explain that you're one of those 50 islanders, and that mean old Sarah killed your bridge. Or say that you're an oil company exec and she Robin-Hooded your company's windfall profits and handed them out to undeserving Alaskan citizens.

re: #54 RTLM

Had to ding you down for the Amy Winehouse pic....

But I dinged you back up for the Faith Hill pic.

re: #59 Fenway_Nation

ROFLMAO!

NWS enhanced radar image loop - live

[Link: radar.weather.gov...]

re: #67 victor_yugo

Ha ha! You could be in the background saying 'I'm still alive, Rocky!'

So anyone willing to take stabs if there will be/what the 'October surprises' are going to be? McCain's affair stuff? Palin's National Enquirer affair rumors going more mainstream?

Anything out there lurking on Obama that the MSM would actually cover? I don't think outside of the O'Reilly interview they've even mentioned the Ayers thing?

Its also hilarious to watch the Leno/Letterman/Conan shred McCain/Palin/ Biden every night while not saying a word about Obama lol

re: #66 spidly

ironclad? it may be a good argument for natural selection but go back, back, back, in time to 1E-1000 femtoseconds befor the big bang and work forward...

anyway, that was two sentences excluding the "yep" which shoulda had a comma or colon after it

Since, according to Albert Einstein, spacetime is created by the curving action of matter/energy-generated gravity, it makes about as much empirical sense to ask what happened 'before' the quantum fluctuation origin of the Big Bang as it does to ask what is 'outside' the boundaries of the Universe. That is, none whatsoever.

re: #59 Fenway_Nation

By the way, whats this I hear about an anonymous tipline the Dems set up in Alaska to gather dirt on Palin?

Would it be wrong for me to call that tipline and- using my best Rocket J. Squirrel voice- tearfully report that Sarah Palin shot my best friend in cold blood?

jerky boys voice - oy, Sayrahh Payyylinnn trew rocks against me and pewt saaand in my paaants

re: #67 victor_yugo

I'll contribute the Bullwinkle J. Moose bit. I have it on good authority that I do a good Bullwinkle impersonation.

Bullwinkle: I'd like to apply for a job as an usher?
Boris: What experience have you had?
Bullwinkle: I've been in the dark for most of my life.

re: #74 Salamantis

Since, according to Albert Einstein, spacetime is created by the curving action of matter/energy-generated gravity, it makes about as much empirical sense to ask what happened 'before' the quantum fluctuation origin of the Big Bang as it does to ask what is 'outside' the boundaries of the Universe. That is, none whatsoever.

relativity buddy. it makes little sense to ask an outside observer to describe what happens as an object passes through the event horizon of a black hole but ask the guy going through in proper time. whatever came out experienced it in proper time and it came from something somehow

re: #77 spidly

relativity buddy. it makes little sense to ask an outside observer to describe what happens as an object passes through the event horizon of a black hole but ask the guy going through in proper time. whatever came out experienced it in proper time and it came from something somehow

Very funny things happen in an event horizon. Gravitation is so strong that what passes through it is elongated and shredded into constituent energy, and flows inwards at near lightspeed. Of course, at lightspeed, time stops, so if this crushed beam could possess sentience, it would perceive itself as almost eternally falling. But, of course, this is as much of an illusion as is Zeno's Paradox; eventually, the hare does pass the tortoise with the headstart, and eventually, part of the guy would radiate back out through the event horizon, as Stephen Hawking showed.

[Link: en.wikipedia.org...]

re: #47 middlecon

I've got to wonder who do moonbats hate more right now...Bush or Palin? If McCain wins it will be a very smooth transition from BDS to PDS lol

From what I've seen during my occasional reconnoiters into Kozistan, it appears that their most feverishly hated list is currently topped by, in order, Palin, McCain, Bush. Hardly mentioned anymore: Cheney, and Rove (that magnificent bastard.)

re: #78 Salamantis

I like Temple Grandin's thoughts:
She explains how she envisioned this as she is always, "thinking in pictures."There are two rooms. One is very cold and one is very hot. If you open a window between them, eventually the two temperatures will even out destroying what was in each room. However, if a little man operated the window so that cold atoms could go into one room and not into the other, order would be restored. She called this ordering force that prevents entropy in a closed thermodynamic system: G-d.

as for Einstein, she covers a bit of his religious evolution:"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

http://www.maroonspoon.com/wx/ike.html

This link has live streaming video from 4 Houston TV stations showing current news, all about Ike, of course. Pick your favorite and turn down the volume bar on the other three. Scary stuff is underway and yet to come as well, as of 3:20 Central Time.

re: #72 Fenway_Nation

Ha ha! You could be in the background saying 'I'm still alive, Rocky!'

Better: "I'm not dead yet!" (as Bullwinkle)

Multiple humorous references combined into four words.

re: #78 Salamantis

Of course, at lightspeed, time stops

not for the guy going through the event horizon at light speed. his watch ticks away properly like Bill Bennett's Bulova

re: #80 spidly

This is commonly refered to as "Maxwell's Demon".

I forget the names of the people who proved it isn't possible...Brouillon? Sziyard?

Simply explanation: you have to exert energy to measure energy. The energy it cost to determine which atoms you should let through and which you should keep in is always greater than the energy you gain from the separation of hot and cold.

Regardless, there was something 1E-1000 femtoseconds before the big bang and something initiated the big bang. Don't give me 'quantum fluctuation' as that is just something that falls out of the hermitian polynomials or other math use to describe stable energy states. nothing really to do with what caused existence.

yeah, I took P-Chem mutha

re: #59 Fenway_Nation No

Thank you my dear, you know I do will call when I can

re: #80 spidly

I like Temple Grandin's thoughts:
She explains how she envisioned this as she is always, "thinking in pictures."There are two rooms. One is very cold and one is very hot. If you open a window between them, eventually the two temperatures will even out destroying what was in each room. However, if a little man operated the window so that cold atoms could go into one room and not into the other, order would be restored. She called this ordering force that prevents entropy in a closed thermodynamic system: G-d.

It is now thought that, with not enough matter-energy to cause gravity to counteract expansion, that the Universe will indeed eventually suffer an entropic heat death, in which even the connecting bonds between adjacent atoms release, and the atoms themselves dissolve, as Mach's Principle fades. If course, locally (terrestrially) speaking, we have an external energy source: the Sun.

as for Einstein, she covers a bit of his religious evolution:"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

Actually, that's a paraphrase of Immanual Kant's statement that concepts without percepts are empty, and percepts without concepts are blind.

What Einstein meant by religion was a sense of awe and humility in the face of the vast wonder of the universe. As he said:

"I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it."

He also said:

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

And again:

"I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new religion."

And again:

"I have never imputed to Nature a purpose and a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuine religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism."

And yet again:

"The idea of a person God is quite alien to me and seems even naive."

re: #85 spidly

Regardless, there was something 1E-1000 femtoseconds before the big bang and something initiated the big bang. Don't give me 'quantum fluctuation' as that is just something that falls out of the hermitian polynomials or other math use to describe stable energy states. nothing really to do with what caused existence.

yeah, I took P-Chem mutha

A quantum fluctualtion is inherently an INstability. Just like the quantum foam from which matter-antimatter particle pairs incessantly pop into and out of existence. In fact, it was by means of contemplating such a popping where the two were separated by the event horizon of a black hole that Hawking was led to his understanding that black holes could radiate, and eventually evaporate.

Spacetime cannot exist in the absence of matter-energy and its generated gravitational field. The only theory that even systematically attempts to speak of a 'before' the Big Bang is String Theory, which conjectures that it is caused by colliding branes, and String Theory itself lacks any supporting evidence, and may soon be disproven in favor of Garrett Lisi's GUTOE by the Large Hadron Collider, if it can kick out a Higgs Boson. I actually think of it not as a theory, but as a String Conjecture or String Hypothesis.

re: #83 spidly

not for the guy going through the event horizon at light speed. his watch ticks away properly like Bill Bennett's Bulova

Kinda hard for something to have its electron-nucleus bonds crushed out of existence, and even to have the nuclear forces that bind protons and neutrons together in nuclei squeezed out of existence, and still keep on ticking, even if it IS a Timex.

re: #84 thelongblogger

This is commonly refered to as "Maxwell's Demon".

I forget the names of the people who proved it isn't possible...Brouillon? Sziyard?

Simply explanation: you have to exert energy to measure energy. The energy it cost to determine which atoms you should let through and which you should keep in is always greater than the energy you gain from the separation of hot and cold.

yep, so G_d is the doorkeeper.

Ahhhh, but we have energy from the sun to power the systems that act against entropy, so there is no god.

But the energy of the sun came from somewhere and that is G_d.

Matter spewed forth in a big bang from a 'quantum fluctuation' in space-time...

well where the hell did space time come from? G_d maybe?

re: #88 Salamantis

see above

back.... in a.... few... must...go to....minimart

Good morning, afternoon, evening *everyone*!™

Fruitcup is on the buffet ------------------------->
Help yourselves!

An anticipated hush falls upon the thread as the gathered lizards await the fruitcup....

The anticipated hush has now become a free-for-all...

re: #92 littleoldlady

Hey! How did it get to be 2 in the morning?

I'm supposed to be getting to bed at a reasonable hour these days!

Grrrrrrr.......

Why, yes... Thank you very much. I'd be glad to have a nice fruitcup before going to bed. So nice of you to offer.

re: #23 spidly

sweetie? you effin' Obama now?

I believe that was Mrs Obama.

re: #94 Fenway_Nation

As long as you don't bring up the word pig (out).

Fenway! :-)

thelongblogger! :-)

Bon appetit!

Just in time for fruitcakecup. Is it Christmas yet?

The picture currently topping Drudge (of the guy horizontal in the winds of Hurricane Ike) is a trick.

The elbow of his lower arm is the fulcrum upon which the guy is balancing. I learned this trick from a fellow geek, and there was a time I could do it myself, back when I weighed less than 180 lbs.

The image is not a fauxtograph (no Photoshop involved), but the winds are not pulling the guy off the ground.

re: #91 spidly

yep, so G_d is the doorkeeper.

Ahhhh, but we have energy from the sun to power the systems that act against entropy, so there is no god.

But the energy of the sun came from somewhere and that is G_d.

Matter spewed forth in a big bang from a 'quantum fluctuation' in space-time...

well where the hell did space time come from? G_d maybe?

re: #88 Salamantis

see above

back.... in a.... few... must...go to....minimart

Typical: GodDidIt is a synonym for IHaveNoClueAndDon'tWantOne.

The energy of stars comes from nuclear fusion of simpler elements into more complex ones. When those stars go supernova, they release those elements, which collect into dust clouds, and eventually into planets, around other stars.

The quantum fluctuation wasn't in spacetime, unless it created its own spacetime by creating the matter/energy that causes spacetime to manifest. Spacetime comes from (is caused by) matter/energy, via the gravitational field that matter/energy generates. Quantum fluctuations just happen; they are random events. But the Big Bang quantum fluctuation is the source of the matter/energy that is the source of the spacetime.

Mel! :-)

It's always Christmas on the Dead Thread... ;-)

Charlie Gibson v. Gov. Palin...

Krauthammer's view on the Bush Doctrine question. Also, a quick refresher course.

re: #99 victor_yugo

The picture currently topping Drudge (of the guy horizontal in the winds of Hurricane Ike) is a trick.

The elbow of his lower arm is the fulcrum upon which the guy is balancing. I learned this trick from a fellow geek, and there was a time I could do it myself, back when I weighed less than 180 lbs.

The image is not a fauxtograph (no Photoshop involved), but the winds are not pulling the guy off the ground.

I was a pole vaulter and spotted that trick straightaway. Used to do it on a rope. Aah, those were the days.

re: #100 Salamantis

Your off-hand "typical" swipe is not acceptable.

I do believe, on par with C. S. Lewis' explanation in "Mere Christianity," that God did it. But that hardly means I don't want a clue as to how He did it.

If He simply spoke the words, "Let there be light", fine. If He first put the equations later formulated by Maxwell into a spreadsheet, that's OK too. Or if He struck a match, lit the lamp, and then adjusted the wick so that the laws of thermodynamics would be just right to cause our existence...

You get the picture. My curiosity does not end when I recite the Nicene Creed.

re: #101 littleoldlady

Mel! :-)

It's always Christmas on the Dead Thread... ;-)

Morning , maam.

re: #97 littleoldlady

Hmmm.. Looks like I'm going to be here for at least another 1/2 hour.

Can I have another fruitcup?

/don't want to be greedy....

re: #92 littleoldlady

I'll pass my fruitcup to someone who needs it more. I already have plenty in reserve...

re: #104 victor_yugo

Your off-hand "typical" swipe is not acceptable.

I do believe, on par with C. S. Lewis' explanation in "Mere Christianity," that God did it. But that hardly means I don't want a clue as to how He did it.

If He simply spoke the words, "Let there be light", fine. If He first put the equations later formulated by Maxwell into a spreadsheet, that's OK too. Or if He struck a match, lit the lamp, and then adjusted the wick so that the laws of thermodynamics would be just right to cause our existence...

You get the picture. My curiosity does not end when I recite the Nicene Creed.

And could you accept it if it was conclusively shown that nobody did it, and that it just happened? Or does your curiosity (and integrity) indeed extend so far that it would compel you to follow wherever the evidence led, even if it led you to a place that you would prefer not to go?

The empirical universe is, in principle, a testable place. Contentions concerning it can be falsified by contradictory evidence. Faith should remain transcendent with respect to it if it does not wish to risk a refutational fate.

What do you call an Aussie lizard?

The MSM in Australia are just as anti-McCain/Palin as in the US. It's a global infection I'm sorry to say.

Thoughts for Texas at this moment. Australia has Cyclones (equivalent of Hurricanes) but because tropical Australia is so sparsely populated damage is very limited.

re: #92 littleoldlady

Good morning, afternoon, evening *everyone*!™

Fruitcup is on the buffet ------------------------->
Help yourselves!

Paws still in the air and discovers it's over there>------------------------------->

For all you lizard sportsfans:

NCAA Football

-Arkansas vs Texas has been postponed until Sept 27th.
-Mizzou vs Oklahoma State will now start at 1:05 ET
-Stanford vs Texas Christian will now start at 1:05 ET
-CalPoly vs McNeese State has been Cancelled
-Washington State vs Baylor was played earlier tonight instead of Sat.
-Air Force vs Houston has been moved to the Southern Methodist Univ. campus in Dallas

MLB Baseball

-Astros vs Cubs The first two games will tenatively be made up as doubleheader on Sunday @ Minute Maid Park with game 3 taking place on Monday

NFL Football

-Ravens vs Texans is slated to be played on Monday Night instead of Sunday Afternoon.

No word on the Double A Texas League yet, as they're in the finals between the Arkansas Travelers (Angels affiliate) and Frisco Rough Riders (Rangers affiliate)

re: #101 littleoldlady

Mel! :-)

It's always Christmas on the Dead Thread... ;-)

Do I get my pony?

re: #100 Salamantis

Typical: GodDidIt is a synonym for IHaveNoClueAndDon'tWantOne.

The energy of stars comes from nuclear fusion of simpler elements into more complex ones. When those stars go supernova, they release those elements, which collect into dust clouds, and eventually into planets, around other stars.

The quantum fluctuation wasn't in spacetime, unless it created its own spacetime by creating the matter/energy that causes spacetime to manifest. Spacetime comes from (is caused by) matter/energy, via the gravitational field that matter/energy generates. Quantum fluctuations just happen; they are random events. But the Big Bang quantum fluctuation is the source of the matter/energy that is the source of the spacetime.

"Quantum Fluctuation" in what then? fluctuation in nothingness? Going back to P-chem there is no such thing as "quantum fluctuations" but energy is released in quanta though there are an infinite number of energy states. Give me a gyroscope and I could show you what quantum states are - I might have my Mathcad models around here somewhere and I could send them to you.

But the Big Bang quantum fluctuation is the source of the matter/energy that is the source of the spacetime.

matter energy is dependent on the medium of space time.
that's a tautology
So you're a democrat....something for nothing?

re: #106 thelongblogger

You can have victor's ;-)

Dustyvet! :-)

*pat*pat*pat*

joe! :-)

Where've you been?!

re: #108 Salamantis

The truth is the truth, no matter my reaction to it.

And your reliance on refutability takes you into Karl Popper's territory, which has its own problems.

re: #114 littleoldlady

Thank you, I'll do that.

And then I'll go to bed. It may be early for you, but it's late for me.

/very late

re: #115 ploome hineni

The left-most tree has thinner leaves on the right than on the left. The wind is coming from the right.

Also, the man's hair is not hanging down, despite being wet and heavy.

re: #109 Crux Australis

What do you call an Aussie lizard?

The MSM in Australia are just as anti-McCain/Palin as in the US. It's a global infection I'm sorry to say.

Thoughts for Texas at this moment. Australia has Cyclones (equivalent of Hurricanes) but because tropical Australia is so sparsely populated damage is very limited.

Good morning/fternoon/evening/night, Lizard Nation!

And a special greeting to you Aussie Lizards down under!
Its not as if you lot don't have to deal with severe conditions: dryness, fires, flash floods ...

Hopefully, all Texas Lizards are keeping safe today and tomorrow - storm surges and flash floods are very hazardous. Water may be soft and gentle in a little stream, or in a drizzle - but enver underestimate its power ...

re: #114 littleoldlady

You can have victor's ;-)

Dustyvet! :-)

*pat*pat*pat*

joe! :-)

Where've you been?!

Hiya LOL! I decided to go to work for an EEEvil corporation that keeps me busy all day. (I do outside orthopedic medical device sales and can't be at a computer). I check in on my Blackberry daily though, but don't post. I have a job at night that I do Fri and Sat and so I am just coming home....

re: #119 yma o hyd

Good morning/fternoon/evening/night, Lizard Nation!

And a special greeting to you Aussie Lizards down under!
Its not as if you lot don't have to deal with severe conditions: dryness, fires, flash floods ...

Hopefully, all Texas Lizards are keeping safe today and tomorrow - storm surges and flash floods are very hazardous. Water may be soft and gentle in a little stream, or in a drizzle - but enver underestimate its power ...

Good to see you made it through the rain OK!

re: #120 coquimbojoe

I'm glad you are gainfully employed!

/but miss you here :-(

re: #113 spidly

re: #100 Salamantis

Sal: Typical: GodDidIt is a synonym for IHaveNoClueAndDon'tWantOne.

The energy of stars comes from nuclear fusion of simpler elements into more complex ones. When those stars go supernova, they release those elements, which collect into dust clouds, and eventually into planets, around other stars.

The quantum fluctuation wasn't in spacetime, unless it created its own spacetime by creating the matter/energy that causes spacetime to manifest. Spacetime comes from (is caused by) matter/energy, via the gravitational field that matter/energy generates. Quantum fluctuations just happen; they are random events. But the Big Bang quantum fluctuation is the source of the matter/energy that is the source of the spacetime.

spidly: "Quantum Fluctuation" in what then? fluctuation in nothingness? Going back to P-chem there is no such thing as "quantum fluctuations" but energy is released in quanta though there are an infinite number of energy states. Give me a gyroscope and I could show you what quantum states are - I might have my Mathcad models around here somewhere and I could send them to you.

Sal2: [Link: en.wikipedia.org...]

[Link: en.wikipedia.org...]

[Link: en.wikipedia.org...]

Sal: But the Big Bang quantum fluctuation is the source of the matter/energy that is the source of the spacetime.

spidly: matter energy is dependent on the medium of space time.
that's a tautology
So you're a democrat....something for nothing?

Sal2: The 'nothing' to which you refer is intrinsically and inherently unstable.

And you got it backwards; spacetime is physically dependent upon the gravitational field generated by matter-energy. But in their quantum fluctuation manifestation, they would be co-primordial.

re: #121 coquimbojoe

Good to see you made it through the rain OK!

Yep - we found out, quite a long time ago, that humans actually don't melt in the rain ...

Right now its sunshine and blue skies here, a bit crisp, lovely!

Oh - and our club won last night (by one point, but who cares ...), so we're all smiling!

Are you ok and safe?

re: #122 littleoldlady

I'm glad you are gainfully employed!

/but miss you here :-(

Thanks, I miss being here, but hey, I needed the money!

re: #124 yma o hyd

Yep - we found out, quite a long time ago, that humans actually don't melt in the rain ...

Right now its sunshine and blue skies here, a bit crisp, lovely!

Oh - and our club won last night (by one point, but who cares ...), so we're all smiling!

Are you ok and safe?

I am in Vegas. So OK and safe is completely relative!

re: #100 Salamantis

back to your original beefy sentence that was an airtight refutation: if you want to life in the universe as a matter statistical improbabilities then you leave open the probability that a creator was created that designed all the almost impossible things we know as reality. this would be less improbable than all of them just occuring as a matter of chance, right?

or is this "quantum fluctuation" in the medium of nothingness just a fluctuation between something and anti-something with nothingness being the steady state?

what was that about stars and supernovas? where the hell do those come from? I don't care about a red dwarf (that show rocks) collapsing or supernovas exploding. where did it all come from?

say "quantum fluctuation" nonsense one more time and I Keeeeel you

re: #104 victor_yugo

Dinged you up for that - especially that last sentence, which I heartily agree with!

re: #123 Salamantis

holy shit.
you don't understand.

re: #126 coquimbojoe

I am in Vegas. So OK and safe is completely relative!

Heh - I meant to say 'dry' - but that also can have several meanings, especially in Las Vegas ...

As the sun is shining, I'm getting this urge to do some rescue work in the mud patch behind the house, which commonly gets called 'back garden' ...

See you later, Lizards - keep safe, and keep laughing!

re: #131 ploome hineni

the tree is not bending, the shape of the tree is not changed, still a nice round canopy

Hiya Ploomie! Goodnight dear friends. I have to get up for my girls soccer games in a few hours. Time here at any hour, is time well spent.

re: #116 victor_yugo

The truth is the truth, no matter my reaction to it.

And your reliance on refutability takes you into Karl Popper's territory, which has its own problems.

While theories cannot be demonstrated to be absolutely true, they CAN be demonstrated to be absolutely false. This is why the verification principle is a probabale and statistical induction from a body of observed data, but falsification is absolute.

When you take two apples, add another two apples to them, and count a total of four, you have conclusively proven that two apples plus teo apples do not equal either three or five apples. Contentions may indeed be falsified by counterfectual data - that is, data that is reliably observable, or the effects of which are reliably observable (like the wobbling of stars close to black holes), which cannot inhere if the contention in question (that there are no black holes) is true. As far as Kuhn goes, it is a postmodernist critique that appempts to reduce scientific investigation to one Wittgensteinian language game among others, and does not take into account its correspondence with observable phenomena.

This is what happens when postmodernism confronts science; it can be taken in by the most ludicrous contentions:

[Link: en.wikipedia.org...]

re: #118 victor_yugo

The left-most tree has thinner leaves on the right than on the left. The wind is coming from the right.

Also, the man's hair is not hanging down, despite being wet and heavy.

on the walk to the pantry of plaid
lad snogs with lass, she's 5'2" and a deuce and a half
hand up the jumper exposes fairy on belly

my pseudo Haiku inspired by my walk to the minimart
maybe Salamantis is right there is no god

Good morning lizards

Ouf, what a mess in Texas

re: #137 godfrey

Good morning lizards

Ouf, what a mess in Texas

Tejas, you racist scum

/obamaforamerica.org

lol

Should be "Texss," anyway.

re: #139 ploome hineni

Hiya ploome. Yep, heard the wind.

ploome! :-)

godfrey! :-)

I am really sorry Texas is getting so beat up.

/but I have to tell you, seeing Geraldo rolling in the surf was worth my entire month's cable bill ...

re: #127 spidly

back to your original beefy sentence that was an airtight refutation: if you want to life in the universe as a matter statistical improbabilities then you leave open the probability that a creator was created that designed all the almost impossible things we know as reality. this would be less improbable than all of them just occuring as a matter of chance, right?

No, it would be much MORE improbable, for you would have to explain the existence of a being of such amazing complexity that it would be capable of willfully doing such a thing; such a being would have to be much more complex than the Universe itself. And any willful creator of such a being would of necessity have to be more complex still, and so on, in infinite complexification regress.

or is this "quantum fluctuation" in the medium of nothingness just a fluctuation between something and anti-something with nothingness being the steady state?

Nothingness may indeed be the default state; its quantum perturbation may just have a periodicity of many billions of years.

what was that about stars and supernovas? where the hell do those come from? I don't care about a red dwarf (that show rocks) collapsing or supernovas exploding. where did it all come from?

From the cooling and coalescing of the initially incredibly hot plasma into hydrogen (the simplest element), which was drawn into massive clumps via gravitational attraction, which compacted it enough to provoke nuclar fusion.

say "quantum fluctuation" nonsense one more time and I Keeeeel you

You'd have to gun down the vast majority of the world's physicists.

Hey littleoldlady, good morning. Geraldo is pretty comical, but it's been a long time since I've seen him on TV. Why isn't he doing game shows?

re: #144 Salamantis

Umm...attempts, not appempts. PIMF

re: #146 Salamantis

Actually, PIMF on #135, not #144.

re: #135 Salamantis

When you take two apples, add another two apples to them, and count a total of four, you have conclusively proven that two apples plus two apples do not equal either three or five apples.

I can take one pile of hay, add two piles of hay, and the result is one pile of hay.

Even falsifiability can be falsified. And the Sokal affair is why I look back on my college years and laugh in derision.

With that, I'm off to bed.

Ah, finally: a nuclear battery.

re: #116 victor_yugo

The truth is the truth, no matter my reaction to it.

And your reliance on refutability takes you into Karl Popper's territory, which has its own problems.

that reminds me, I had the incredibly expensive 'open society and its enemies' on my Chanukah wish list. My mom gets it for me........volume two only. Balls! she won't remember what she got me so I will specifically request vol 1 this year.

re: #144 Salamantis

You'd have to gun down the vast majority of the world's physicists.

you dont understand what you are reading

re: #145 godfrey

I guess you missed him yesterday (?)

quit wikipedia-ing and take some classes

re: #152 littleoldlady

WTF where's the fruitcup

re: #148 victor_yugo

I can take one pile of hay, add two piles of hay, and the result is one pile of hay.

Even falsifiability can be falsified. And the Sokal affair is why I look back on my college years and laugh in derision.

With that, I'm off to bed.

That reminds me of the old joke that when you break a crumb in two, you don't have two half-crumbs, you have two crumbs.

Can you take one ton of hay, add two tons of hay, and still have just one ton of hay, without the Bovine Intervention of a grazing herd of cows, or some other ungulate? (Heard of cows?)

Just remember; there is no such thing as an empty bottle of pepper sauce.

re: #154 spidly

Here.

re: #156 littleoldlady

Ah, yer too gude to us scruffy dogs, granny.

re: #149 godfrey

Ah, finally: a nuclear battery.

In fact, our first sales commitments have come from companies building mixed-use developments in Europe

of course;
and the oregon state reactors proliferate across Europe,
and GM high efficiency diesel 60mpg vehicles sell like hotcakes across the world,
but we have none of that...develop it in the US and then let the Dems ban it for the domestic market

re: #153 spidly

quit wikipedia-ing and take some classes

I have. I got an A in my graduate level philosophy of science class. My BA is in philosophy, and my MA is in humanities interdisciplinary, with its major track in philosophy. I also took genetics and evolutionary theory and cognitive science and cosmology and anthropology and a whole bunch of other grad courses, because to be a good philosopher, you have to know what's happening in those fields.

re: #156 littleoldlady

Here.

ain't no fruitcup there sistah - just a little green football.

re: #159 Salamantis

I have. I got an A in my graduate level philosophy of science class. My BA is in philosophy, and my MA is in humanities interdisciplinary, with its major track in philosophy. I also took genetics and evolutionary theory and cognitive science and cosmology and anthropology and a whole bunch of other grad courses, because to be a good philosopher, you have to know what's happening in those fields.

ethnomusicology and dance ethnology are not going to help you with quantum mechanics. work your way through p-chem and get back to me

re: #159 Salamantis

But, can you change a tire?

re: #162 BignJames

But, can you change a tire?

no, but he can opine on the navel gazing aspects of doing it

So Tom Friedman says it's time to reclaim our manifest destiny as Americans and get the Green Revolution underway. Only then can we know the true power of the Green side! etc.

re: #161 spidly

ethnomusicology and dance ethnology are not going to help you with quantum mechanics. work your way through p-chem and get back to me

I didn't take any fluff courses. In fact, I took so many grad level courses as an undergrad that they had to transfer some of them to my grad program so I would have enough left to take to get my degree. And my GPA in those core theory courses was a 3.63, which is why I won the outstanding student award in the college of arts and sciences in my senior year. I scored a 780 math and 780 verbal out of a possible 800 each on my Graduate Records Exam; it's still the highest score ever scored at my university.

p-chem does not give you some sort of universal aura of authority on these matters, which are far removed from its purview. But these matters are precisely the kinds of things that I DID study.

See? I can commit the argument from authority fallacy just as easily as you can, and with far more justification.

Sarkozy attacked for welcoming the Pope

ploome

Did you see the news about the Italian comedienne hauled into the dock for insulting the Pope? The Pope should meet with her and call for that law not to be enforced.

re: #162 BignJames

But, can you change a tire?

I can even change the oil, and the shocks, and the brake shoes.

re: #168 Salamantis

Brake shoes? You still got drum brakes?

re: #165 Salamantis

torquing a lug to 80 ft/lbs is a matter of relativity completely dependent on the system you are in and the quantum fluctuation of the wrench...

all impressive. go do the math and tell me how adequate it is and fully describe quantum energy states in whatever notation you choose.

re: #169 BignJames

Brake shoes? You still got drum brakes?

I have, among other vehicles, a vintage 1967 Buick Skylark.

UK bobby speaks out about bureaucratic PC stupidity

re: #171 Salamantis

okey-dokey.

re: #167 godfrey

Sarkozy attacked for welcoming the Pope

ploome

Did you see the news about the Italian comedienne hauled into the dock for insulting the Pope? The Pope should meet with her and call for that law not to be enforced.

dollars for doughnuts he does... well, that would depend on the exchange rate and the quantum fluctuation in the black doughnut hole....

sarkozy should take Ratzinger to euro-disney and really piss them off

re: #170 spidly

torquing a lug to 80 ft/lbs is a matter of relativity completely dependent on the system you are in and the quantum fluctuation of the wrench...

all impressive. go do the math and tell me how adequate it is and fully describe quantum energy states in whatever notation you choose.

A torque wrench, unless it is designed for only one setting, has a dial on it (some on the side of the internal gear, others wrapping around it), by means of which you set the ft/lbs of torque. Then it matters not the diameter of the bolt or the length of the handle; when you apply the proper amount of elbow grease to it, it clicks when you have reached the amount of force required to torque the bolt in question to its dialled setting. Unless some idjid calibrated it wrong.

re: #175 Salamantis

BWAH!

you have proved yourself an interdimentional astroMcPhysister!

I defer to your expertism, sir.

sorry,
that's Benedict XVI for any of you polytheist idolators out there.

/sarc

The Big Bang is our modern, scientific creation myth.

-- Carl Sagan

re: #178 TradeBait

The Big Bang is our modern, scientific creation myth.

-- Carl Sagan

"How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant'? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion, old or new, that stresssed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths."

Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

re: #179 Salamantis

I would take it because they want to believe that there is such a thing as value in human life...

re: #180 laZardo

I would take it because they want to believe that there is such a thing as value in human life...

Value is something that we create for ourselves. Or we adopt it from others who created it before us, and who ascribed their creation to some deity or other, to lend it celestial cosmic force.

re: #181 Salamantis

Which may open up the possibility that there is really no universal value of human life, especially since that, like morality, is a human invention.

A necessity for societal survival, yes. But still an invention.

I don't suppose you guys could save all this for one of the nasty ID threads so the rest of us can get back to important stuff like the fruitcup . . .

re: #175 Salamantis

by the way, for all my schooling I now am a fabricator currently specializing in custom industrial kitchen equip. and a bagged out with a general science degree a couple classes short of my chem degree. I was not going to finish before my catalogue requirements changed and I would have to do a "capstone project" which is one year of stupid bullshit busywork.

my work
1
2
3
4
5
6

30' long refer cabinet for shari's in Idaho. good use of a bachelors. well pays a lot more anyway

re: #183 galloping granny

FRRRUUUUUIIIITCUUUUUUP!

/live for pleasure's what I say... 6:

re: #182 laZardo

Which may open up the possibility that there is really no universal value of human life, especially since that, like morality, is a human invention.

A necessity for societal survival, yes. But still an invention.

Since we value our own lives, and view others as beings like ourselves, insofar as we apprehend them to be other selves, we also value the lives of others in the same manner (although perhaps not to the same degree) that we value our own.

This apprehension of others as other selves begins in childhood, when we first become aware of ourselves AS selves, inside bodies, acting intentionally and responsively, and see other bodies like our own (primordially, our own parents) also acting intentionally and responsively. So we come to consider these other bodies as also inhabited by selves, as our own bodies are.

re: #184 spidly

Nice work; here's some of mine:

[Link: blog.myspace.com...]

You'll have to hit the 'older' button on the left twice to read it all.

re: #186 Salamantis

Since we value our own lives, and view others as beings like ourselves, insofar as we apprehend them to be other selves, we also value the lives of others in the same manner (although perhaps not to the same degree) that we value our own.

This apprehension of others as other selves begins in childhood, when we first become aware of ourselves AS selves, inside bodies, acting intentionally and responsively, and see other bodies like our own (primordially, our own parents) also acting intentionally and responsively. So we come to consider these other bodies as also inhabited by selves, as our own bodies are.

so "I hate myself" is a valid justification for murder

re: #187 Salamantis

Ahh, but can it keep lettuce crisp?

re: #186 Salamantis

Yes, as other sentient forms that are close to us in the group fashion. Just because there is no "universal" value to human life does not mean we are biologically, physiologically, and/or psychologically "trained" to keep those whose company we are used to - particularly biological relatives - close to us...unless of course someone does something that is detrimental to the group ethic as a whole e.g. a "black sheep" relative.

In that case, it's both the familial group as well as outer societal law making two distinct decisions. A family may forgive a relative who gets deported for drug pushing, for instance. Or they may agree with the law and also disown said relative.

re: #188 spidly

so "I hate myself" is a valid justification for murder

Nope, but it has been used a lot as a justification for suicide. I didn't say that other selves were IDENTICAL to my own self, just that they were SIMILAR in the respect of also possessing their own (not my) selves.

re: #188 spidly

It can be in that person's own mind. Unfortunately or unbeknownst to that person, there are societal consequences for that person if one decides to do so...

re: #189 spidly

Ahh, but can it keep lettuce crisp?

Nope; there ya got me.

re: #191 Salamantis

Nope, but it has been used a lot as a justification for suicide. I didn't say that other selves were IDENTICAL to my own self, just that they were SIMILAR in the respect of also possessing their own (not my) selves.

we also value the lives of others in the same manner (although perhaps not to the same degree)

then you misspoke.

re: #190 laZardo

...Just because there is no "universal" value to human life does not mean we are not biologically, physiologically, and/or psychologically "trained" to keep those whose company...

PIMF

/needs to re-indoctrinate himself with Grammar Nazism...

Am I too late for fruitcup?

we also value the lives of others in the same manner (although perhaps not to the same degree)
then you misspoke.

re: #190 laZardo

Yes, as other sentient forms that are close to us in the group fashion. Just because there is no "universal" value to human life does not mean we are biologically, physiologically, and/or psychologically "trained" to keep those whose company we are used to - particularly biological relatives - close to us...unless of course someone does something that is detrimental to the group ethic as a whole e.g. a "black sheep" relative.

In that case, it's both the familial group as well as outer societal law making two distinct decisions. A family may forgive a relative who gets deported for drug pushing, for instance. Or they may agree with the law and also disown said relative.

And because we are capable of self-conscious awareness, and the recursively, abstract reflection that it implies, we can choose to take that familial affinity urge and apply it, for better or for worse, to other social entities such as tribe, race, religion, or political ideology.

re: #196 scottishbuzzsaw

Am I too late for fruitcup?

just a kool-aid thing came by. the pseudo-fruitcup

re: #197 spidly

we also value the lives of others in the same manner (although perhaps not to the same degree)
then you misspoke.

No, I didn't. We can value other selves in the same manner that we value our own selves, because they are other selves like ourselves, and at the same time not value those others selves to the same degree that we value our own selves, because they are other selves, and not our own selves.

The universe is my fruitcup.

-- TradeBait

We are interesting beings. We can choose to risk losing our own lives in order try to to save the endangered life of the same other whom we would choose to kill in order to preserve our own life if his attack was endangering it.

re: #198 Salamantis

And because we are capable of self-conscious awareness, and the recursively, abstract reflection that it implies, we can choose to take that familial affinity urge and apply it, for better or for worse, to other social entities such as tribe, race, religion, or political ideology.

That all depends, of course, a lot on how we are "indoctrinated" from our younger, more (to pick a word) naive days and how that indoctrination stands up to later "tests." Our genetic predispositions may have something to do with it...but that's really the nurture in the "nature vs. nurture" debate.

um...in order to try to save...PIMF

re: #200 Salamantis

No, I didn't. We can value other selves in the same manner that we value our own selves, because they are other selves like ourselves, and at the same time not value those others selves to the same degree that we value our own selves, because they are other selves, and not our own selves.

so murder is OK if we do not value ourselves and see others as negative reflections of ouselves.

but then there's this

the original houghton weavers if you want to know

re: #196 scottishbuzzsaw

Am I too late for fruitcup?

No, but spidly and salamantis have hijacked the DT so the fruitcup seems to have disappeared in a flood of BS over who used to be the better student.

explain that song with quantum fluctuations and philosophy

re: #203 laZardo

That all depends, of course, a lot on how we are "indoctrinated" from our younger, more (to pick a word) naive days and how that indoctrination stands up to later "tests." Our genetic predispositions may have something to do with it...but that's really the nurture in the "nature vs. nurture" debate.

yep. Something within us has been evolutionarily selected to tell us, when we are children, to accept what our parents and other elders tell us without much question, for they have been around longer and better know the dangers and opportunities, and those children who failed to do so have more often died before they could reproduce. But it also means that we tend to accept and believe superstitious nonsense when they tell it to us.

re: #207 galloping granny

No, but spidly and salamantis have hijacked the DT so the fruitcup seems to have disappeared in a flood of BS over who used to be the better student.

note: I did not claim to be a good student, and I don't care if yer a granny

i KEEEL you

re: #205 spidly

so murder is OK if we do not value ourselves and see others as negative reflections of ouselves.

but then there's this

One who does not value oneself would be much more likely to kill the reflected than the reflection (suicide).

But in fact, when one commits suicide, one is metaphorically killing all the people in the world, for one is irrevocably separating oneself from their presence.

re: #207 galloping granny

No, but spidly and salamantis have hijacked the DT so the fruitcup seems to have disappeared in a flood of BS over who used to be the better student.

Well, I'll settle for another cup of coffee then. How did the start of schooling go for you? Found the rhythm again?

re: #209 Salamantis

Apparently said "superstitious nonsense" also gives some people the urge to keep on going, again perhaps because it helps them to see some value to work for or defend.

Not that it'll amount to much AFTER their death, hence the reason for a belief in the afterlife.

re: #211 Salamantis

why do people who hate themselves punch the mirror then? you strike out at the less valued, and if that is others.... if you see the worst of yourself reflected in others, Murder is justified.

re: #213 laZardo

Apparently said "superstitious nonsense" also gives some people the urge to keep on going, again perhaps because it helps them to see some value to work for or defend.

Not that it'll amount to much AFTER their death, hence the reason for a belief in the afterlife.

It also gives others the urge to kill those who do not agree that one should open a boiled egg on the small end. Or on the large end. Or on the side. Or that they should be poached instead. Or fried. And within frying itself, there is the scrambled/sunny side up schism.

re: #211 Salamantis

Metaphorically. But the world still goes on, and whatever's left of their body after all the electrical pulses and minute-yet-nigh-infinitely-complex chemical reactions stop decomposes to the elements.

What's up knuckleheads?

Speaking of knuckleheads....

GALVESTON, Texas - A massive Hurricane Ike ravaged southeast Texas early Saturday, battering the coast with driving rain and ferocious wind gusts as residents who decided too late they should have heeded calls to evacuate made futile calls for rescue.

Of course, my prayers are with them.

re: #214 spidly

why do people who hate themselves punch the mirror then? you strike out at the less valued, and if that is others.... if you see the worst of yourself reflected in others, Murder is justified.

Maybe because it doesn't hurt as much to hit the mirror (unless it breaks), and it's physically easier than managing a good swing at oneself. Or maybe one is truly ugly, and cursed with a sensitive aesthetic sense.

But if you value the other less than you value yourself, that means that you value yourself to some degree. If the worst of yourself is only reflected in others, it originates with oneself.

But yes, psychological projection exists. And just as there are animists who invest every tree, rock or cloud with a spirit or self, and treat these things as if they were people, with beliefs, desires, awareness and intentionality, there are people who are exactly the reverse: sociopaths who refuse to acknowledge others as possessing selves like their own selves, and treat other people as if they were things to be used at will in order to achieve their own purposes and desires.

If you were to accept things as they are and you were in a dark room you would never find your way out. Nor would you attempt to.You would not know if there was a door into the light of a new day or to the end of all existing days.

re: #216 laZardo

Metaphorically. But the world still goes on, and whatever's left of their body after all the electrical pulses and minute-yet-nigh-infinitely-complex chemical reactions stop decomposes to the elements.

Yep. The suicide dies; the world does not. Regardless of the suicide's delusional beliefs and misanthropic intentions. Symbol is not substance.

re: #218 Fat Bastard Vegetarian

except for geraldo

That stormpulse website is cool!

What's with the crack in the ocean floor, and why did God make it that way?

So why is the LHC like a werewolf?!

[Link: www.neatorama.com...]

re: #220 mac6443

If you were to accept things as they are and you were in a dark room you would never find your way out. Nor would you attempt to.You would not know if there was a door into the light of a new day or to the end of all existing days.

Yep. I turn 53 this month, and I'm proud to say that I haven't grown up yet. Nor do I ever want to, if it means that I have to stop growing and become complacent and incurious. I want to continue to learn and grow for the balance of my days.

re: #225 Salamantis

Which begs the question - after you die...what then?

re: #226 laZardo

For one, no more fruitcup.

Wasn't that a mighty storm
Galveston 1900 redux. Except this time the city had plenty of warning.

Morning all!

It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

Well if that isn't a slap in the face to every Progressive Left Wing Useful Idiot out there...

First Ontario contracts for a nuke plant, now Sasketchewan! Anybody want one?

/selling oil NOW

re: #227 Panhandler

Zing!

/and upding

stupid drm

here's that song

re: #226 laZardo

Which begs the question - after you die...what then?

YOU QUANTUM UN-FLUCTUATE

re: #226 laZardo

Which begs the question - after you die...what then?

Then nothing. I'll be dead. But I wasn't living for the billions of years before I was born, and it didn't seem to bother me much, so once I get through the dying thingie, I don't think being dead will cause me much distress. So I'm going to enjoy my relatively short, finite life while I have it, because when it's over, I'll be dead for a long, long time. My idea of enjoying it just turns out to be learning things. It doesn't matter to me if dying means I lose all of it; the learning itself makes me happy.

re: #221 Salamantis
I've not read the whole thread, just up to your comment, but must respond.
The great southern novelist Walker Percy writes about the non- suicide and the ex- suicide. You can consider suicide. What would happen? Your creditors would be ticked off. Your family would miss you, for a while. But like a stone tossed in a pond, the ripples dissipate.
On the other hand- you can live!
A non suicide is serving a life sentence. An ex suicide can wake up, walk out of the house, sit down on the front step and laugh at how wonderful life is.

re: #234 Salamantis

Point made. I just live for pleasure, though I do reserve the right not to just "do as I please" as that would be detrimental to my own self as a whole.

It's also why I admire America so much - no other nation has or will ever put it so succintly as "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

re: #234 Salamantis

to no end.

Good morning everyone.

BTW: I almost died a couple of months ago. A pocket in my colon closed off from the rest of it, got inflamed and infected, and festered. The pressure blew a hole in the side wall, and infected my entire lower GI tract. The pain was tremendous; I stumbled into the ER screaming. It felt like being gutshot, or having a white-hot python going into grand mal seizuresd in my gut, or having an alien eating its way out. After my emergency operation, in which they sucked three cups of septic pus out of my abdomen and closed up the hole in my colon, I was on a morphine drip for 4 days, and in the hospital and on three rotating IV antibiotics for 12, and before they removed my abdominal suction drain, more cups of sepsis were vacuumed out of me. I was on demerol for a month after that. The docs told me I had dodged a major bullet.

I told the doctor before he put me under that if he couldn't fix me, not to wake me up, because I didn't want to live with pain like that. But they did anyway, and because I wasn't out of the woods for a while, they had me fill out a living will, in which I checked the no resuscitation and no feeding tube boxes. But at no time during that experiences did I ask for spiritual comfort. Nor did I even think of it. My personal sense of spirituality doesn't require it. I comforted myself with the fact that I got to live in the first place.

Morning. I got a present!

re: #240 Wyatt Earp

Morning. I got a present!

prostate cancer?

re: #237 spidly

to no end.

We create the reasons for our own existences. I have chosen understanding. That is end enough for me.

re: #240 Wyatt Earp

Morning. I got a present!

dick. I've been tryin for a while and nothin's happening

re: #240 Wyatt Earp

Morning. I got a present!

Congratulations!

re: #242 Salamantis

We create the reasons for our own existences. I have chosen understanding. That is end enough for me.

you've chosen to understand that anything you might understand ends when your life ends. no point. have a few pints and quit thinking then.

re: #239 Salamantis

SCIENCE. (:

re: #244 scottishbuzzsaw

Congratulations!

you can blow me too, you insensitive prick. if it's not happening for me then nobody's happy, see?

re: #235 jim in virginia

I've not read the whole thread, just up to your comment, but must respond.
The great southern novelist Walker Percy writes about the non- suicide and the ex- suicide. You can consider suicide. What would happen? Your creditors would be ticked off. Your family would miss you, for a while. But like a stone tossed in a pond, the ripples dissipate.
On the other hand- you can live!
A non suicide is serving a life sentence. An ex suicide can wake up, walk out of the house, sit down on the front step and laugh at how wonderful life is.

No matter how bad things get - and they get bad now and then for us all - anything is better than nothing. I still get to experience, even though it may be a hard experience to endure.

I once wrote a phenomenology of the will to self-destruction - that emotion that leads one to attempt to end one's own life. I found it to be a false and ungenuine thing to even contemplate. And I have never attempted suicide, nor would I. I view it to be inauthentic in principle.

[Link: blog.myspace.com...]

re: #240 Wyatt Earp

Morning. I got a present!

Wonderful news ! Congratulations.

Charles, where do you get these quotes? You always post them, but what's your source?

re: #245 spidly

you've chosen to understand that anything you might understand ends when your life ends. no point. have a few pints and quit thinking then.

The point is in the living of it.

re: #212 scottishbuzzsaw

Well, I'll settle for another cup of coffee then. How did the start of schooling go for you? Found the rhythm again?

The kiddo has found the summer a bit long and boring - both her camp sessions were early on - so she was raring to go. How're things with you?

re: #240 Wyatt Earp

Morning. I got a present!

Good morning and congratulations Wyatt.

Thanks folks!

Spidly - Sorry chief. Keep at it. If nothing else, you'll have fun trying. :)

re: #240 Wyatt Earp

Morning. I got a present!

Congratulations, or as Obama might say: I guess you got punished with a baby?

re: #249 Salamantis

No matter how bad things get - and they get bad now and then for us all - anything is better than nothing. I still get to experience, even though it may be a hard experience to endure.

I once wrote a phenomenology of the will to self-destruction - that emotion that leads one to attempt to end one's own life. I found it to be a false and ungenuine thing to even contemplate. And I have never attempted suicide, nor would I. I view it to be .

[Link: blog.myspace.com...]

no, just returning to a steady state. by your description there is no principal which to be un-genuine and no basis to assert that something is better than nothing.

re: #249 Salamantis

The fact that people actually consider it does not make it fake though. I don't consider it mainly because if I do commit suicide, I might miss out on something. Regardless of whether I know what that "something" is, of course.

/late dinner, bbl

The universe is my fruitcup.

-- TradeBait

One for the ages.