My last comment for the day: Please read the Syria Comment post (link above) on the significance of Nahr al-Bared to Lebanese presidential politics, since Landis does a far, far better job than I did of describing the relationship between the two.

Posted by: Bea | Sep 3 2007 14:52 utc | 101

my mother-out-law was just sitting here saying

"I better call my sister before we leave and give her our cell phone number"

within two minutes her sister called

I was wrong psychic ability is valid

Posted by: jcairo | Sep 3 2007 14:58 utc | 102

Parapsychology. I don’t have any references to hand, but some sorta ‘para’ pych expriments can be made to work quite well (done it myself so I should know), that is obtain results that are highly significant, way above chance or random guesses. The trick is to let the *subjects* choose amongst an array (cards, objects, pix, etc.) and then have the second subject, who knows or sees the array, but not the chosen item (with all the proper controls, which can include thick concrete walls if you like!) ‘guess’ what it is.

Humans mentally construct arrays, some items are more interesting and salient, some items seem closer to other items, etc. In short, the probability, for ex. on the first trial of the ‘guesser’ guessing right is much higher than 1/x = no of items. The same applies to chaining or sequence - for. ex. the queen of spades may follow the king of spades, etc. This is actually an interesting paradigm for psychology, outside of proving that telepathy exists.

But the results may seem miraculous to the non initiated, and be reported in the popular press, including the pop science press, in that line. Many para psych experiments have methodological faults, some unwitting. Some even throw up (genuine?) quite unbelievable results, but, ya know, these things happen. By chance. Ignorance and misuse of statistics plays a considerable role. And then, there may be unexplained residue, psychological “science” is a mess, doesn’t have all the answers, and most psych. researchers can’t be bothered with debunking, as it will not take anyway.

What I am saying is that it all depends on what you call ‘para-psychological.’

Pre-cognition, that is gut feelings predictions are part of human functioning. Ppl can reach conclusions and not know how they got there - or rather, they can’t lay it out in the logical, detached, distant, discussion frame we have developed as a standard for ‘rationality’ and ‘science’...

Bea, thanks for yr posts about Palestine. I have come to the point where I can’t read or post about it anymore but do read yours. The EU - what culpable shits. anyway no rant now..
.
annie, I also thought of leaving...but lets have a drink, on the pavement. In the dusky humid dark, a small wind blows.

(I haven’t been able to read everything so if I didn’t answer someone or what not my e mail is there)

--Noirette

Posted by: Tangerine | Sep 3 2007 15:18 utc | 103

Too many interesting stories today...

Top British Military Bash US Strategy in Iraq as Fatally Flawed

Posted by: Bea | Sep 3 2007 15:30 utc | 104

A great man shared a proverb with me during a time like this: "What does an oak care if a pig rubs against it?" Thought I'd share.

Even a pig can find truffles if he searchs carefully beneath the great oak!!!

We can never know when our seemingly nugatory efforts will pay off in this world; ours is simply to persevere.

@Monolycus:

I was not around during the time you have an issue with and so don't know what happened. I have always appreciated your additions, in fact, you are one of my favorite posters -- you always have something perceptive to bring to the table.

@jcairo:

Your point has merit; no one said that it didn't. But this is a forum of ideas which respects all people who agree to argue with respect. There is no reason to sulk. One can't simply convince everyone to change their deepest beliefs with a few posts on a blog. And just because I argue against you doesn't mean that I do not substantially support much of your position -- If I didn't care I would ignore you; engagement is a sign of respect, and is meant to force the other to clarify their thinking and writing.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 3 2007 15:37 utc | 105

Get ready for a blitzkrieg on Gaza.

Twelve children suffered from shock after the strike on the southern town, and were evacuated to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon for treatment.

"We view this attack very gravely," said the prime minister. "The IDF has been instructed to destroy every rocket launcher and to strike all those involved in the fire."

"We will continue to invest in reinforcement of educational institutions along the border with Gaza, and we will do everything necessary in order to create a stronger sense of security for the residents, who are living in an intolerable reality," added Olmert.

Hamas spokesman Taher Nunu called for the international community to prevent Israel from carrying out harsh reprisals. "We are taking this new threat by Olmert seriously," he said. "We are warning of coming massacres against the people in Gaza."

Posted by: Bea | Sep 3 2007 15:40 utc | 106

To clarify: Except for the first line, my #106 was meant to all be in blockquote as it is an excerpt from a piece in Haaretz. The "strike on the southern town" refers to Qassam rockets being fired on the Israeli town of Sderot from Gaza. The rockets are said to be fired in retaliation for the deaths of Palestinian children by Israeli strikes the day before, which was an attempt to hit at the people lobbing the rockets, and on and on and on the cycle goes.

Posted by: Bea | Sep 3 2007 16:07 utc | 107

My last comment for the day:

whenever you write this i think NOOOO, say it isn't true ;). awesome collection of links.

malooga, the first #78 link is a doozie, nothing particularly new, but great reference for keeping them all straight.

Thought I'd share.

always wolfie

tangerine, i'll drink on the pavement w/you any day.

Posted by: annie | Sep 3 2007 16:35 utc | 108

Ignorance and misuse of statistics plays a considerable role.

In parapsychology, and also in the media (our emotional mediators -- boy, I do like that little bit of insight/wordplay!).

Compare the WaPo article linked to above about manufacturing with the post by Craig Murray about the thug buying up his fave football team. Both present data in such misleading ways, and present their material through extremely limiting and manipulative lenses, or world perspectives.

WaPo tries to make you think that purchasing power and security has gone up for the US worker, that people would rather work with toxic chemicals in dainty white lab coats than carve curves into beautiful pieces of wood (a job I once had, which was like getting paid to play all day), that rote lab technicians use more of their brain than sculptors, and have more autonomy and security, that a two-year trade school degree is an "education," and that the world is better off with everyone on miracle drugs to deal with the all-engulfing environmental devastation.

Murray tries to make you think that the thug who openly pays people off to secure his contracts is worse than the thug who hides behind the invasion forces of the USuk Army to secure his contracts and steal another's wealth. He also wants you to believe that the neo-liberal oligarchs who controlled the Russian media -- which Putin shut down -- offered people any more honest information and self-expression than state-controlled media, much as the MSM is claiming about Venezuela today. (When, in the US, NPR has opposed any and all attempts to expand real community radio.)

All of the above are false. Capitalist shock therapy destroyed the people of Russia as violently and swiftly (and was as great a crime against humanity) as what is happening in Iraq -- Jeffey Sacks did not make "unfortunate mistakes" any more than Wolfowitz did. Putin may be a thug, too, but at least he is slowly bettering general conditions for his people. That is more than we can say for any Western leader these days.

From Louis Proyect:

In other words, the Italian city-states were imperialist just as Great Britain was in the 19th century and the US is today. An official of the Dutch East India Company wrote to the board of directors in 1614:

Your Honours should know that trade in Asia must be driven and maintained under the protection and favour of Your Honours own weapons, and that the weapons must be paid for by the profits from the trade, so that we can not carry on trade without war, nor war without trade.

If this differs from Thomas Friedman’s own recommendation in a March 28, 1999 NY Times Magazine article, I fail to see how:

The hidden hand of the market will never work without the hidden fist—McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.

The role of the media is make us think that the fist and the jackboot, both, are "hidden," when in actually they are smashing us in the face, and stomping on our necks.

As Bea makes abundantly clear in her posts about Nahr al-Bared, War is the health of the state, in almost every way imaginable. So where does the problem really lie -- with the war, or with the state?

And which is the bigger thought crime: believing that we have some limited control over our internal lives through parapsychology, or believing in the all-pervasive myth of Western rational progress which is leading all the world's beings to extinction in an evolutionary snap-of-the-finger?

Consider that, my gnostic friends.

And when that gets too painful, you can always retreat to Ambassador Murray's beloved Western "Civilization," where the fan blog for his favorite football team is known as "arseblog."

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 3 2007 16:39 utc | 109

malooga:

While you might only see snow I, a Scots-Irish dickhead, also see many types of snow and can tell what kind will fall when I step outside.

Science also sees many types of snow. Truly.

"We have created a Science that sees Nuclear reactions and laser weapons, not one which sees the intricate connections of the web of life."

If that is so:

- then snow is not frozen H2O (i could draw the molecule - see fluid dynamics for behaviour) that has fallen from the sky after evaporating from an ocean/lake/river/puddle/flora/fauna and having arrived there to evaporate from either the sky/glacier/ingestion.

- any concern for global warming is unfounded

- the periodic table is void and my concern for DU is unfounded

- the outer planets were not discovered because a wobble was observed in the orbit of a known celestial body and the new planets' orbits were then calculated thus allowing the observation of said planets by predicting where the planet would be on a certain evening (it would take far too much precious telescope time to try and just eyeball it)

I could go on. And may later, but my oxycodone

is kick
ing
in

fg
efg
g
jk
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Posted by: jcairo | Sep 3 2007 16:58 utc | 110

jcairo - peace.

Posted by: beq | Sep 3 2007 17:09 utc | 111

la times: Iraq convoy was sent out despite threat

Senior managers for defense contractor KBR overruled calls to halt supply operations in Iraq in the spring of 2004, ordering unarmored trucks into an active combat zone where six civilian drivers died in an ambush, according to newly available documents.

Company e-mails and other internal communications reveal that before KBR dispatched the convoy, a chorus of security advisors predicted an increase in roadside bombings and attacks on Iraq's highways. They recommended suspension of convoys.

...

The decision prompted a raging internal debate that is detailed in private KBR documents, some under court seal, that were reviewed by The Times.

One KBR management official threatened to resign when superiors ordered truckers to continue driving. "I cannot consciously sit back and allow unarmed civilians to get picked apart," wrote Keith Richard, chief of the trucking operation...

"Can anyone explain to me why we put civilians in the middle of known ambush sites?" demanded one security advisor in an e-mail. "Maybe we should put body bags on the packing list for our drivers."

"[I] think we will get people injured or killed tomorrow," warned KBR regional security chief George Seagle, citing "tons of intel." But in an e-mail sent a day before the convoy was dispatched, he also acknowledged: "Big politics and contract issues involved."

Attorneys for KBR reacted angrily to inquiries about the documents. In a letter urging The Times to "refrain from publishing" material under court seal, attorney Michael L. Rice also warned that the paper might be subject to unspecified legal sanctions.

What follows is an account of the Good Friday convoy attack, based on the e-mails, court records and interviews.....

At KBR there was no such confusion. Six KBR convoys already had been attacked around the airport that same morning. Also, Stephen Pulley, KBR's senior security advisor at Camp Anaconda, was in frequent contact with the road monitoring unit and received repeated assurances the routes were closed.

When 13th Coscom suddenly advised that the roads had opened, Pulley was skeptical.

"Something smells," he wrote.

...

Three minutes later, Carroll reversed himself and sent out a second e-mail: "Sorry. It looks like [the route] is closed until further notice."

By mistake, however, Carroll sent the second message to himself, and no one else ever saw it

color me skeptical. those burning bodies hanging off the bridge, if they weren't made to order propaganda they sure as hell could have been. the military wants a huge offensive in fallujah. was that before or after the event? a 'gopd friday' event. nothing like fried carcasses on a christian holiday to rally the patriotic spirit back home.

Posted by: annie | Sep 3 2007 17:19 utc | 112

beq, of course .

jcaico, peace & truce

Posted by: annie | Sep 3 2007 17:24 utc | 113

annie

would love to get hold of that film ' no end in sight' - which also seems to cover the territory written in the 'emerald city'

kbr, clearwater bechtel, halliburton clearly don't give a fuck for people especially their people. their contempt is characteristic

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 3 2007 17:26 utc | 114

it is an excellent movie r'giap

pbs interviews the producer and offers clips

Posted by: annie | Sep 3 2007 17:29 utc | 115

jcairo,

I'm not saying that science does not understand water, anymore than I am saying that Chomsky does not understand war. We live in an open society which allows for the accumulation of knowledge, dissenting views, and, also, randomness.

Again, we have created Science, just as we have created all of our Gods which have preceded Science.

The issue is where the brunt of scientific funding goes, and what the real-world effects of that are, both in the tools and products we create, and in how we view the world and interact with it. (With all the hammers science and engineeering have given us, every problem is a nail. c.f. "War is the health of the state.")

We live in a world driven by our pathological relationship with the external world, whereby we seek to dominate and subdue it for the short-term satisfaction of our endless desires. Science, along with Religion, Politics, and Psychology, is one of the principle foundations of this pathological worldview. The effect is an ever-increasing backload of new man/Science-created problems -- what we commonly refer to as externalities -- which Science, directed and funded by people who are most representative of this dominator psychology, seeks to find newer short-term solutions to, inevitably creating even more problems elsewhere.

Simply put, Western Science is a dog chasing its tail ever more rapidly. Where is the rationality in that? What is the rational basis for any of this progress -- of course there are short-term benefits and advantages for a small percentage of life -- but where is the teleological basis for this? It is no accident that "dog" is "god" spelled backwards -- for Science is our backwards God. What will happen to this already punch-drunk and dizzied dog; what will be its inevitable fate?

Again, simply put, Science is built on a collective, societal, delusional, FAITH, greater than any individual faith involved in personal religious belief, that there is ultimate goodness to its ignorant purblind tinkerings, and that it will always and eternally be able to stay one step ahead of the problems it is creating, ever solving them before they dissolve us.

This is a faith far madder, and more dangerous, than any religious delusion. It is a myth infinitely less believable than Adam and Eve and The Garden of Eden, which explicitly warns against the hubris we so proudly manifest.

Until Science solves five problems, I have no faith in it:

1) The accumulation of non-degradable, life-threatening plastics in the world.
2) The accumulation of heavy metals, dug up from the earth's crust, in our environment, which are also killing us.
3) The accumulation and release of radiation, also from the crust, to the surface.
4) The accumulation of drugs, and other chemicals, which act subtly, and in unknown yet harmfully intrusive ways, upon our bodies own signaling (endocrine) systems.
5) The quest for increasing growth in a finite world.

jcairo, my friend, can't you see that your God will inevitably kill far more life, including human life, than my God, or Allah, or Christ, or any other non-scientifically verifiable God ever can?

~~~~~

"We are, each of us, deep in a hell, every second of which is a miracle"
EM Cioroan
"After The Demiurge"

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 3 2007 18:17 utc | 116

I've written enough in the past twenty-four hours -- I'm written out! There is a part two and three to my argument from last night, but it will have to wait for another day and another thread.

ta ta.

I'm off to root for some truffles in life.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 3 2007 18:26 utc | 117

CNN interview with Nir Rosen ---- stark.

FOREMAN: Nir, based on what you are saying though the problem is there is no credible alternative is there?

ROSEN: There is no government to begin with. It's a collection of militias. And indeed, there is no alternative. The whole focus on the government in Baghdad is the -- problem is that -- in everybody's approach. In Iraq it used to be you could have a coup replace the government and the whole country followed. But now Iraqi is a collection of city states, Baghdad, Tikrit, Kirkuk, Mosul, Basra, Avril (ph), each one with its own warlords. They don't answer to Baghdad. Baghdad has no control over them. When we overthrew Saddam, we imposed one dictator after another. We didn't like Prime Minister (INAUDIBLE) so we got rid of him and we put in his close ally, Maliki. And now the occupier is once again upset that the occupied people are not being sufficiently obedient. But it doesn't matter. We are past that stage. Iraq doesn't exist as a state anymore. The government has never existed. It has never brought in any services. Even the most fundamental service the government can provide, a monopoly over the use of violence, it doesn't provide that because it has never controlled the militias and militias are the ones that control the police and the army.

FOREMAN: As if to underscore what you are saying Nir, look at the map right now and look at the flow of violence, Shiite against Shiite violence as it's broken out lately moving up the country from Basra as more and more people jockey for position. Arwa, to what extent is this localized individual group's fighting for control here and how much of this is controlled by a broader overreaching militia, for example, Muqtada al Sadr's group?

DAMON: Well Tom if we look at the main two militias and there are multiple ones, but if you look at the main two militias that are really competing for power of the south and especially Basra, the oil- rich fields that lie around it and for control of that court down there, you are talking about the butter brigade and the Mehdi militia. That is the militia loyal to Muqtada al Sadr. They have been battling on those grounds for quite some time now. But this is by no means a fight that's contained to southern Iraq. We see it even in the capital Baghdad between neighborhoods that are controlled by one militia or the other. There are tit for tat attacks throughout the entire capital as well as the entire southern portion of the city.

They are also competing at a political level. This is very concerning for all that are involved. It is by no means a new conflict, but it is one that only makes a tough job here even harder and neither militia is going to back down any time soon. Despite the fact that Muqtada al Sadr has temporarily called for his militia to suspend its activities. Each group has its own interests. They do not mesh at many -- in many occasions. But the main difference, these butter organizations, it is now in most parts of southern Iraq. The Iraqi security forces, they manage to legitimize themselves by saying that they no longer were loyal to the butter organizations, that they were loyal to Iraq and now they wear the uniforms of the Iraqi army or the Iraqi police. Sadr's militia is trying to do the same thing but less so and it is still viewed largely as being a renegade out of control militia. But you are going to see these conflicts continuing to intensify in the time ahead.

FOREMAN: So Nir, we keep hearing reports, though, nonetheless out of Baghdad. People saying that give us time, we are trying to get this government worked out. We are going to make some progress. Do you see any way that can happen?

ROSEN: No. This has been the case for the past would two years at least. There is no hope. There is no government. Neither side is interested in compromise and why should they? The Shias control Baghdad. They have removed the Sunnis from Baghdad, from Iraq's political future.

FOREMAN: What's going to change that if anything?

ROSEN: Nothing is going to change that. The Shias have actually expelled most of the Sunnis from Baghdad. It went from being a majority Sunni city. Now it is a majority Shia city. The last few pockets of Sunnis are slowly being purged by the police and the Mehdi army. It's now irrevocably a Shia city and Sunnis are just out. Unfortunately, Iraq has been completely remade and it is time to be honest. It is time for the American leaders to be honest and American military to be honest with their people. There can be no reconciliation. This does - the latest show we had a few days ago where they brought a few leaders together and pretended like they were going to reconcile, the Sunnis are still out of the government and they remain so and why should they be? They have been expelled from Iraq. The majority of the three million refugees that we have from the region, from Iraq are Sunni. The majority being internally displaced are Sunni. Of course, whatever agreement were to be reached, parliament would never ratify it anyway.

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 3 2007 18:55 utc | 118

This was one long (and emotionally charged) thread.

I saw a TV show a couple of nights ago about manic depression. BBC produced, quite good. Anyway one of the persons intervued told about the angels he saw in his manic phases. He considered them real and figured he only saw them in his manic phases because only then was he in the right state of mind to view them. Just because he did not see them otherwise did not mean they were not there. Same for other people not seeing them.

Now, I do not see angels, so I have no particular reason to believe in angels existence. But that does not change the fact that it is scientific of him to trust his observations over what other people say about the world. I think most societies and ages (over own included) has a very strong tendency to discard observations that does not fit into pre existing models of knowledge. In the land of the blind, the one eyed is insane.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Sep 3 2007 18:57 utc | 119

Well Tom if we look at the main two militias and there are multiple ones, but if you look at the main two militias that are really competing for power of the south and especially Basra, the oil- rich fields that lie around it and for control of that court down there, you are talking about the butter brigade and the Mehdi militia.

The butter brigade? We all knew Iraq was about oil, but who knew that other fats were involved too?

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 3 2007 19:10 utc | 120

I caught that to Malooga, seems the (trans)scribes are as ignorant as the administration, maybe they were thinking guns&butter,haha.

You make a good point about science and faith, that might follow what I was trying to say above. That science must remain within and reliant upon "sense" (&faith) in order to progress and not become only self-referent (like mathematics). But nonetheless, as it strives to become more referent driven the greater the odds morality and ethics are purged (as they are from the sense realm).

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 3 2007 19:29 utc | 121

written out - I have no faith in science

slainte

pax annie

Posted by: jcairo | Sep 3 2007 19:30 utc | 122

A point no doubt not lost by the Edward Tellers of the world.

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 3 2007 19:31 utc | 123

LoL not even worth worrying about Malooga it is symptomatic of the lassitude of a culture which attachs to shiny objects then quickly tires so moves on to another. Any attempt to make it focus results in mindless infantile lashing out.

Lookit this thread, lookit the last thread B posted on atrocities in Iraq with about 5 responses. If people can't move on and talk about some new thing like the supposed invasion of Iran they would rather engage in silly personal attacks or waste away their lives in circular discussions about 'science'. Heaven forfend they actually do something about the atrocities their cuntry is committing in their name.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 3 2007 19:32 utc | 124

Heaven forfend they actually do something about the atrocities their cuntry is committing in their name.

Are you intentionally pushing for another piefight? I almost start to suspect that you are part of the cream lobby. Aha, thats what the other fats are up too!

mmm, pie... 3.14159265... * 2.718281828...

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Sep 3 2007 19:51 utc | 125

@anna missed:

Depends on what you mean by alive, personal identity, and consciousness.

Okay, then, give me rigorous definitions.

Suppose that consciousness had a basis outside of matter, which we will call the "soul" for convenience. Then as long as the body was still under the physical control of the soul, the person in question would still behave the same way. So for example we would expect, or at least not be surprised by, a physical system which enabled a person to move some particular part of their body. But on the other hand, mental functions, being under the control of the nonphysical soul, could not possibly have a physical basis. If part of your brain were damaged, you would continue to behave the same way with the exception of whatever limitation caused by the damage, in the same way that when you break your arm, you continue to behave the same way with the exception of operation of that arm. Yes?

That is not, however, what we find. Neurology has established that there are specific parts of your brain which govern your behavior, your morals, your sense of spatial relationships, and your memories. The human brain "does" all that. The only way you could have room left for a "soul" is if it acted as a noncorporeal recording device, taking notes on what you do but not actually involved in the action. But that, in turn, renders the soul meaningless -- it isn't you any more than an accurate biography is you.

Stephen Hawking might disagree. My point is that how to account for mental life, the scientific minded seem to view it as a kind of spontaneous generation given the proper preconditions. Doesn't quite jive from the full accountability perspective.

Stephen Hawking might disgree. So what? Stephen Hawking's specialty is astrophysics, as I recall, not biology. And although it is presumably possible to deduce all of biology from nuclear physics, (a) I have never heard of anyone who claimed to have done so and (b) nuclear physics and astrophysics overlap but are not identical.

Why do you feel full accountability is incompatible with life being strictly physical? I think of it the other way around -- as long as people take a spirit world seriously, you can find an excuse for any sort of behavior: "the devil made me do it", "god told me so", "this is how we used to behave in my past life".

@Malooga:

The temptation to rebut your posts is very strong, because you are so wrong-headed and so willing to swallow so much which is false. (The confirmation bias is strong in this one.) But I'm not sure whether this board would tolerate it, because quite frankly I'm seeing a lot of new age claptrap being championed here. But just as a starting point:

Again, simply put, Science is built on a collective, societal, delusional, FAITH, greater than any individual faith involved in personal religious belief, that there is ultimate goodness to its ignorant purblind tinkerings, and that it will always and eternally be able to stay one step ahead of the problems it is creating, ever solving them before they dissolve us.

Um, no. Science is built on a desire to know how the world works. Your statement is an outright lie, born of the desire to return to a simpler world.

This is a faith far madder, and more dangerous, than any religious delusion. It is a myth infinitely less believable than Adam and Eve and The Garden of Eden, which explicitly warns against the hubris we so proudly manifest.

Bullshit. I think humanity is going to go extinct in about 200 years because of global warming, but it's still more likely that we will straighten things out in time to avoid that fate than that Adam and Eve were created 6000 years ago.

Until Science solves five problems, I have no faith in it:

1) The accumulation of non-degradable, life-threatening plastics in the world.
2) The accumulation of heavy metals, dug up from the earth's crust, in our environment, which are also killing us.
3) The accumulation and release of radiation, also from the crust, to the surface.
4) The accumulation of drugs, and other chemicals, which act subtly, and in unknown yet harmfully intrusive ways, upon our bodies own signaling (endocrine) systems.
5) The quest for increasing growth in a finite world.

All five of those problems are easy to solve:

1) Stop making plastics, and melt the ones already made into larger solid blocks which you then break down deliberately into smaller, relatively harmless, compounds.
2) Stop digging up heavy metals -- heavy metals fall out of circulation given time
3) Stop digging up radioactive material
4) Either stop manufacturing drugs or study them more carefully. (Although really there are enough hazardous purely natural chemicals that it wouldn't actually solve the problem. Caffeine, for example, is generated naturally but takes so long to be broken down that environmental scientists use it to see how far out human sewage travels.)
5) Kill all the economists.

jcairo, my friend, can't you see that your God will inevitably kill far more life, including human life, than my God, or Allah, or Christ, or any other non-scientifically verifiable God ever can?

That's an outright lie. Your god, or allah, or christ, could cause the extinction of the human race much more quickly than any scientific method of doing the same thing. All we need is for one fundamentalist sect to decide to set off a reasonably large bomb in the home of their religious opposition, the most likely (but not only) candidate being Muslims bombing Israel, and you could get World War III out of it.

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Sep 3 2007 19:53 utc | 126

@a.s.k.o.d.:

Now, I do not see angels, so I have no particular reason to believe in angels existence. But that does not change the fact that it is scientific of him to trust his observations over what other people say about the world. I think most societies and ages (over own included) has a very strong tendency to discard observations that does not fit into pre existing models of knowledge. In the land of the blind, the one eyed is insane.

Actually, no, one of the first things you are supposed to do in a proper scientific experiment is test for the possibility of false results through faulty equipment.

@Debs is Dead:

LoL not even worth worrying about Malooga it is symptomatic of the lassitude of a culture which attachs to shiny objects then quickly tires so moves on to another. Any attempt to make it focus results in mindless infantile lashing out.

Lookit this thread, lookit the last thread B posted on atrocities in Iraq with about 5 responses. If people can't move on and talk about some new thing like the supposed invasion of Iran they would rather engage in silly personal attacks or waste away their lives in circular discussions about 'science'. Heaven forfend they actually do something about the atrocities their cuntry is committing in their name.

Why is that so bad? Our discussions of war atrocities always end up going the same way: we all condemn it, somebody points out some way in which one could have seen the latest round of atrocities coming, and we get a few posts about upcoming ones. Oh, and occasionally someone decides they want to wallow in public guilt, and accuse us all of not having done enough to stop it, as though the only reason Bush hasn't called off the war(s) and surrendered to an international war crimes tribunal is because one of us failed to attend a protest, and it's just a coincidence that he was willing to ignore the majority of America to start the war in the first place.

I'm not suggesting that we should stop having war threads, but the surest way to shut down this site is to restrict our topics to only war. The right wing is war-obsessed, do we have to be the same way?

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Sep 3 2007 20:14 utc | 127

anna missed, malooga

butter brigade = badr brigade

jcairo, 122. please don't put words in my mouth. if you want my take on science check out the last post on OT 58.

Posted by: annie | Sep 3 2007 20:40 utc | 128

No one is suggesting that we obsess on the atrocities but how about working on solutions? I can't stand to read more blood and guts horror stories myself, in fact that thread of B.'s wasn't a another kiddy-raping bloodfest report, it was an examionation on the bullying techniques used by amerikan forces in Iraqi people's own homes.
Techniques that would have appeared completely abhorrent a couple of years ago don't even raise a yawn. That is what I am talking about. I prolly shouldn't have posted the last post but hell this whole thread is so self indulgent what is one more typo?

Shrub is poncing about illegally occupied Iraq like King Shit this morning primping his biceps and pretending that he owns the joint, the cameras are somehow 'missing' the thousands of other humans who have been put between him an the bullet he has earned a million times over.

I'm gonna ventilate about Iraq because I am starting to feel the horrors around have become like the proverbial tree in the forest falling which nobody hears.

Ignoring the bad shit and concentrating on the 'good' news, like indications the allies are dropping off the alliance, is the best way of ensuring that more people are made homeless or dead. That is what we have been doing of late and it seems to me that it should be pointed out.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 3 2007 20:50 utc | 129

debs @ 124 and 129 - yep. if people were actually out doing something about this, talking to real live human beings on sidewalks, over clotheslines, in lines at grocery stores, there wouldn't be time to ruminate about god, science, personal attacks. not that wondering about god and science is bad, i just gave up a long time ago and accepted that i'll never know and it didn't make a bit of difference. more important to me is taking a stand and doing something about it.

how about sept 15 in DC folks?

Posted by: | Sep 3 2007 21:05 utc | 130

DID and TGVWYCI

what is happening now is a perfect example of how people striving to control masses use religion to do it.

we have created a state who's government is completely interlocked w/its religion making criticism of them essentially interchangeable so one is considered a racist for objecting. we have striven to give this state more power by thrusting division based on religion thruout the surrounding area that threatens the surrounding states by means of self extinguishing itself via those religious divisions. not that i believe that is the entire circumstances by all means. however that is the myth we are being fed, supported by past myths from the individual religions. the political advances of land grab are directly used (as supporting documents) by the ptb, derived from the holy books. religion is used to divide, science to kill. they go hand in hand, always have.

it is a chicken and egg mentality that tries to determine who has offered us the most danger, science or religion because both of them are defined by mans usage of them. plus the politician will rely on both to bring about the end of the planet. actually, i think science has a one up here. it would be easier for a scientist to create the end of the world without the benefit of the religious, but i think much less likely the religious could bring about the end of the world without science. unless you believe the rapture or power of prayer could be used to extinguish us all.

unless you believe scientists have potentially less 'evil' intent than religious people.

I'm gonna ventilate about Iraq because I am starting to feel the horrors around have become like the proverbial tree in the forest falling which nobody hears.

there is a true eeriness lately, you hear it too. give me the major creeps.

how about working on solutions?

we need secular governments in the region and out best buddies are anything but. they are using religion big time. its getting worse not better. once all the little nation states are divided by sect, it will be one long endless bloodbath. sorry to be so pezmystic.

Posted by: annie | Sep 3 2007 21:15 utc | 131

We got the references to the butter brigade, annie. It just left me churning with laughter. Anyway, it is no surprise that the Butter Brigades often ally with the Kurds, but if they met together with a meatiator it wouldn't be Kosher anymore.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 3 2007 21:38 utc | 132

lol

Posted by: annie | Sep 3 2007 22:00 utc | 133

"unless you believe scientists have potentially less 'evil' intent than religious people."

nope - they and pols all use the same deference to authority to manipulate people for personal gain

saw a guy hawking goji? juice last night. $50 a bottle. claims all kinds of benefits and beneficial ingredients. Has a PhD in philosophy and is a Pharmacist.

Scientists can also just as easily be fooled as anyone by a slick huckster. Although this high priest of science seems to know exactly what he's doing.

goji juice

Posted by: jcairo | Sep 3 2007 22:19 utc | 134

oh and Oliver Stone is making a film aboot My Lai

I wonder if it will show how far up the chain of command that operation (and many like it) were designed - deny the enemy succor

Posted by: jcairo | Sep 3 2007 22:24 utc | 135

@TGV....

No problem with harsh criticism. I obviously wrote such a piece because I wanted feedback. Bring 'em on!

Now, let's be clear: I did write that piece with a certain amount of tongue-in-the-cheekiness to advance certain arguments. And while I'm not completly an "indigenist" social critic like Derrick Jensen, Chellis Glendinning and John Zerzan, and to a lesser extent, Ward Churchill, it's clear that I have some sympathies in that direction, more along the lines of a Vine Deloria.

It should be clear that I am not critiquing the "Scientific Method," per say, and advocating basing all decisions on the fortune teller down the street.

But I really am saying that Science is a cultural construct, just as strongly as any other cultural construct, like Religion or Politics. Science is an element of dominant Hegemonic Culture; it is closely related to warfare, and only tangentally related to a sustainable existence on this planet. (A planet which, by the way, was largely sustainable until the Industrial Revolution.)

Yes, you were able to solve my five problems. We know that perhaps they can be solved in an ideal world, but in the real world these problems, atom bombs and such, would never have been created, much less tested upon ignorant and unwitting populations all over the world.

You can call this the problem of civilization, and absolve Science of all blame if you want, but that is making an arbitrary distinction: There is no Science without real people practicing it in a real world, and this is what I am criticizing.

You state, "Science is built on a desire to know how the world works. Your statement is an outright lie, born of the desire to return to a simpler world."

But that is naive; that is what we tell children; that is an ideal world which has little reality. That is like saying that Politicians help people govern themselves, and policemen protect people, and jailers keep the bad people away from us, and farmers grow food. That may be true for the odd scientist at some stage in his career, but it is hardly the norm.

Historically, practically all science has been funded by the wealthy of the world, with the aim of making themselves wealthier. Wealth is alway made off the impovershment and financial enslavement of others. Bucky Fuller maintains this in "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth," and I too subscribe to this belief. The Manhattan Project wasn't funded for the love of science and humanity, or some sort of crap like that -- it was funded to build bombs to kill and intimidate people with, which, by the way, is exactly how those weapons have been used. We wouldn't have to worry about some Muslim nutcase blowing off the big one, if we didn't ensure that the cat was discovered in the first place and then let selectively out of the bag, until the cats started reproducing by themselves. (Of course, I rarely worry about the weaker using weapons to defend their interests; I mostly worry about the strong using weapons with impunity to steal from others whose humanity they deny.)

I said, "Again, simply put, Science is built on a collective, societal, delusional, FAITH, greater than any individual faith involved in personal religious belief, that there is ultimate goodness to its ignorant purblind tinkerings, and that it will always and eternally be able to stay one step ahead of the problems it is creating, ever solving them before they dissolve us.

Until the "Precautionary Principle" is adopted by all scientific reasearch and development the world over, I stand by this statement. We never use the PP in our society; everything works inversely, using what I have always termed "The Catastrophic Principle." Things are always built and developed by ridiculing the naysayers and moving forward until disaster inevitably hits. This is why I maintain that we do not have a very bright future as a planet.

We have reached the crest of "civilization." The so-called "Third World" has seen diminishing outcomes for two generations, and now we are seeing shorter life-spans and greater poverty here in the US in this generation. Cancer rates are 13 times what they were in 1900, and rising rapidly. Believing that we are going to find the "magic bullet" to combat this is as ludicrous as believing the commonly propagated myth that capitalism will eventually "grow" its way into solving everyone's needs.

For every George Washington Carver sitting in his little shack hybridizing peanuts, there are literally ONE MILLION, dollarwise, Edward Tellers wondering how big the next bang will be.

But Science is never to blame -- it is pure and idyllic, much the way some conceptualize Religion. It is only people who muck things up.

Well, you can't have it both ways. If Science is pure and blameless, and it is only people who misuse it to great harm, then so, too, is Religion. Religious wars, and the weapons devised by Science and Engineering which they employ to kill other people, are one integral unit. Either cast blame on both of them, or lay off both of them. That is only rational.

I say, if Science were not an Hegemonic Cultural Construct, then we would have developed sustainable technology from the get-go, much as many Native peoples did. But we developed technology which, first and foremost, allowed us to assert our dominance through deadly weapons over others -- and we continue to focus the majority of our scientific dollars and efforts in this same direction.

To argue that we needed to develop unsustainably in order to reach the point where we can now develop sustainably is poppycock! It is illogical, and it is part of the religion of Science.

If one is to reject Religion, then let me say right now, categorically, that I reject the notion that we can keep doing things in an unsustainable manner as a prelude to doing things sustainably; I refect the Religion of Science.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 3 2007 22:53 utc | 136

Will be interesting if they show Colin Powell's My Lai cover-up role, too.

Posted by: Ensley | Sep 3 2007 22:58 utc | 137

the talking monkey was well aware how to make things to kill each other before science came along and these weapons were first developed to feed the tribe band and to defend it

Posted by: jcairo | Sep 3 2007 23:17 utc | 138

"I reject the notion that we can keep doing things in an unsustainable manner as a prelude to doing things sustainably"

As do I.

It is science that tells me it is so.

Gaia is only so big

It is full of, and can support, only so much stuff

species that over populate, over use, out grow their environments suffer great die offs if not extinctions - consider that right now the blast wave of radiation from some nearby galactic cataclysm could be on the way to sterilise the solar system; this isn't nuclear power, this is the power that messes with strings

So it goes

And this is why The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It is correct about nukes being the turning point

If we were truly a sentient species and had true leadership, we would have taken a step back

But, talking monkeys rule

Posted by: jcairo | Sep 4 2007 0:27 utc | 139

So we are not that far off then, perhaps.

Thanks for sticking around and arguing this out.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 4 2007 0:31 utc | 140

As a sort of general support of the points Malooga has made about the way in which the construct of science is used against humans by the ruling elites to benefit themselves and at the risk of turning off those readers who have become so indoctrinated by the media they can only regard things that happen outside amerika as real if the happening somehow involves or is perpetrated by amerika, I remember only too well the ructions when the neo-libs targeted publicly owned scientific research in this part of the world.

The destruction privatisation of the big state owned science research owned entities was begun even before the universities were put under attack, so it must have been seen as a major element of enabling the corporatisation of so-called mixed economies.

The neo-lib quislings in the alleged leftist governments were initially caught unawares by the ferocity of the resistance to their fire sale of these nations' intellectual assets. Bureaucracies that had been flogged off first were a doddle in comparison. The senior staff there saw the benefits of an increase in their personal wealth, but the scientists didn't all seem to understand the obvious.
Resistance was fierce in Australia and NZ before the attackers perfected the mechanism of putting in a 'change oriented' boss who would drive likely opponents of the sell-out away from the organisation before any overt sell off began.

The results have been sad and predictable in equal measure. We have already discussed here, ad nauseum, exactly how Donald Rumsfeld managed to grab the idea of how to destroy the flu virus from the formerly Australian state-owned serum division of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, then churn out Tami-flu, create the bird-flu scare and in collaboration with the then Word Bank boss Paul Wolfowitz, force half the governments of the world into borrowing billions to buy the fucker.

But that aint the half of it really. NZ came so close to becoming the major development centre for genetic engineering of agricultural products. The corporations thought that would be great since NZ's inaccurately perceived "greeness" would aid selling this inadequately thought thru science to the rest of the world. Of course the expertise in agricultural research developed in the old DSIR (department of scientific and industrial reasearch) wouldn't hurt either.

Whatever we the people tried, tried we just couldn't seem to stop it. The Greens stayed staunch but an unholy and previously unprecedented collaboration between the major left party and the major right party pushed enabling legislation through Parliament in the face of majority opposition by the public.

If I was ever going to believe in some higher power what happened next would be the kicker. The top dozen scientists (chiefly English imports by that time) from the Ag Research body, had taken to flying around the country to confer at the drop of a hat. Their pilot who wasn't averse to a quiet 57 whiskeys before take-off, flew the plane into the ground killing all the most vociferous advocates of genetic engineering in NZ. The politicians quietly shelved the whole project and NZ remains a GE virgin for a little longer.

Of course the real effects are much less obvious and a lot less benign.

My best mate when I was a four year old was another kid my age who lived a couple of doors down. We used to hang out at each others homes as if they were one and got into a great deal of trouble together. I can just remember my father carrying on during one of his infrequent visits to NZ, about how the bloke sitting next to him on the plane had told him my mate's father was one of the best cardiac surgeons in the world and this bloke was coming to NZ from some big US teaching hospital to learn some stuff from him.

Some years later there was a minor furore in the local fishwraps about how our neighbor had trained Christiaan Barnard before he performed the first heart transplant.

All through the 60's when Barnard, DeBakey and co pissed around with transplants, the kiwi refined the heart by-pass and valve replacement techniques he had pioneered, probably saving a lot more humans than transplants ever can. Occasionally some selfishly ambitious politician would try and get him to begin heart transplants here in NZ but they copped the same sort of short shrift that high paying job offers from the US got. He believed in socialised medicine and saw transplants as a resource wasting ego-trip.

There was nothing unique about where he was born which made him like this, but he could not have done what he did if he had been born into the corporatised health science system which amerika had then and which we have now.

The notion of a scientist staying on here to put back into the society which nutured him/her is laughable now. NZ is in the middle of a chain which has one end in amerika and the other in poverty stricken 'un-developed' nations. Our best scientists including the medicos shoot through to amerika and we replace them with the graduates of poor countries who couldn't get straight into amerika because of language/ability/culture/racism or whatever.

This morning's news ran a story explaining that some expectant mothers likely to have premature or complicated births are being shipped off to Australia where there are sufficient trained specialists to give the babies good neo-natal care. This has been going on with cancer patients for a couple of years now. They get shipped off to Australia to die be treated far away from friends and family.

If we can accept that most religions have a few truths strewn amongst the dross, eg quite a few of the rules set out in the first testament of the bible are universal and need be adhered to in any functional society. eg "Thou shall not kill" But ones such as "Thou shalt not commit adultery" are local determinations thrown in to help the rulers keep everything functioning.

The same can be said about science. At it's best 'the scientific method' assists humans to divine fundamental truths abot the universe we know, but at it's worst it is just another means of control. It is handy to understand the irreducible fact that two chunks of matter have an attraction between each other that is directly proportional to their mass and inversely proportional to the distance between them, but that elegant simplicity of Newtonian physics doesn't/shouldn't allow us to believe that we will inevitably 'solve' what to do with all the mess of poisons and radioactivity we have created playing around with the handful of 'elegant truths'.

Nevertheless I'm not averse to using science the cultural construct as a weapon to beat bible thumpers into submission. My current favourite still under development goes like this:

DiD: "Who is Your doctor?"

Evangelical Xtian who has had the unmitigated gall to bang on my (a complete stranger) door: "Dr BlahBlah. Why how does my doctor effect this?

DiD: "I don't get it. You tell me that everything in the bible is true, that evolution is a crock, yet when you get sick you forsake Benny Hinn or any of the other Xtian healers for a doctor whose remedies are based on research which is predicated on the truth of evolution."

It goes from there usually with a higher grade of rhetoric than anything I could replicate here away from 'the heat of battle'.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 4 2007 1:50 utc | 141

Where is rick lately…-

Well thanks for asking - I have been working on a post in regards to three related items: 1.) My personal religious belief, 2.) Religion and Science [specifically science in its purest form of logic and mathematics], and 3.) My displeasure with a few here who express hate towards those who hold beliefs outside the realm of science.

Unfortunately my response is now an unwieldy nine pages and still unfinished! Also unfortunate, my pace of writing has slowed now while I skirmish the subject of human intelligence and the established “Bell Curve” distribution. (Let me just say that on this subject, Chomsky appears quite comfortable to place science “under a rug”. In our age of equality and political correctness, a discussion of differences in cognitive skills remains taboo.)

Oh well, I make no claim in being a good or fast writer. I envy the posters here who are so able in placing their thoughts to words. Perhaps it is just age, but my thinking seems less structured than when I was young and putting thoughts to words is therefore now a difficult and slow process. Worse still is trying to work two jobs, finish building a log cabin, and so often having to deal with the unexpected. This past week, it was a small emergency with Pearl, one of our dogs of too many. Pearl, a cute little thing who is with me nearly all the time, got really tore up by a bobcat, panther or something else pretty vicious. I think she will be alright, stitches from head to paw and a drain tube that will need to be removed in a couple of days. My wife and I live very remote – nearest neighbor almost a mile away.

I have been turning down jobs regarding my usual computer work for the last few months because I have been just too busy. It is late here now (early am) and I haven’t even skimmed all the posts yet on this thread. Perhaps tomorrow some time can be found to complete the writing task and in the process, condense the content.

Posted by: Rick | Sep 4 2007 6:25 utc | 142

Rick: let me be the first of our group to sympathize; I hope Pearl (Perl?) recovers well, our cats have bounced back from surgeries that would stun a human person.

As for the cabin, as my father told me when I was midsummer raking a stonepile into our yard, "go slow."

As if I could go fast!

It's been one of those dog-day afternoon slow weekends with the usual infighting. It is good to see our group educating and debating each other, even though I look to this as a community and sounding board, with a special few pointing out things I might miss.

So good to see you Rick, please let us know how goes it with the building!

Posted by: jonku | Sep 4 2007 8:26 utc | 143

Love and good health to Pearl.

Posted by: beq | Sep 4 2007 12:19 utc | 144

"Of what value is the knowledge of the chemical composition of water to the drowning sailor?"
Nietzsche

"When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself."
Peter O'Toole

Posted by: Juan Moment | Sep 4 2007 13:10 utc | 145

rick

you take care of yourself & those around you

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 4 2007 18:08 utc | 146

Something hopeful in the news for a change. This is almost unheard of.

TEL AVIV - Israel’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the government to re-route a section of its West Bank barrier at a Palestinian village at the heart of violent protests against the construction.

The court ruled that the current route of the separation barrier in the Bilin area was "highly prejudicial" to the villagers and demanded that the government map out an alternative route "within a reasonable period".

Palestinians have accused Israel of seizing around 200 hectares (500 acres) of land in the farming village for the barrier and said thousands of olive trees have been uprooted owing to construction work.

In the unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel, the court said the villagers had been discriminated against by having land seized to build the barrier and trees cut down to make way for the route.

Posted by: Bea | Sep 4 2007 18:27 utc | 147

Oops that should have been on the other OT thread... Losing track here!

Posted by: Bea | Sep 4 2007 18:28 utc | 148

anatomy of a conversational train wreck

i come here for the information, analysis and free exchange of ideas.

Ideas without the baggage. If one is to discuss a topic, any topic, they must not let their personal experiences colour the data. Can't be done. Oh yes it can. It is not easy. One must at least try. If you can't leave the baggage at the door, you can never discuss anything clearly, openly and honestly.

"Gosh, I missed Rick's Two common themes found at Moon of Alabama: Hate rich people and hate those with religion. Certainly leaves me out - I work hard to have a better life and I try to be more religious.. And to think I usually follow the Open Threads first, too! Tsk!" - TheTruthGetsViciousWhenYouCornerIt

That turned the convo to religion. I think he (may I assume the masculine for simplicity? it is one less letter to type - it is all about the conservation of energy) did a pretty good job and made lots of points to be refuted. While he was quite general in his hate, I don't know why anyone would assume he meant every single last one of 'em.

Then came the thought experiment. These are useful tools when discussing any topic. b is right, this one is a bit too antiseptic, although the basic premise is right - someone on this beautiful blue marble had to decide at some point way, way back, to worship something greater as as means to understand existence. I guarantee you the something greater was the sun. That is for another day.

Immediately followed by:

"but religion is ancient science! - according to a "christian" friend of mine - it isn't born out of ignorance, but is the wisdom we require for a greater understanding of the universe and reading the bible will reveal all to us - but don't you quote any 'old testament' to him, because he knows which passages are relevant and science doesn't have a monopoly on the truth

While I am loathe to use personal data in a discussion, this was a nod to Mr. Vicious to let him know that I understand how so many mistakenly conflate science with religion. It wasn't meant to lend any credence to his argument, but to show that I have heard all this before - even from a friend. You don't have to hate people to disagree. Any we get snarky with each other. I grew up busting chops - if you said or did something idiotic, you were called on it and so were they. Anyhoo, I really wasn't going to say any more on the subject.

"@83 - There is no such thing as a purely internal religion"

sparked by the above phrase, b mentions dragon phantasies

sorry b, all I was after was clarification. I am a bit of pedant where words and their usage are concerned (yay Orwell). I didn't reply cause I soon could smell a storm commin' ;)

annie, of her own volition, replied to the following of mine:

I ignored this as I had no intention of commenting further on religion. This is a common mistaken belief about science as has been repeatedly and eloquently argued by Mr. Vicious.

annie followed up with this as her theory on the origins of religion:

"the idea of god was most likely formed as a result of an experience of a overpowering strong sense of 'knowingness'. conceptualizing that who we are, and all we are is a grain of sand, and that our entire universe in contained inside something the size of a baseball inside our head is inconceivable to many people, much less conceivable than 'knowing' we are a part of something much larger. especially people who have psychic abilities, which is many of us.

I realise this is not annie saying that she believes in religion. This is her theory of its origin. That is quite plain. That isn't what caught my eye.

annie presented the existence of psychic abilities as a fact to bolster her theory. That is all well and good. But as a theory, it's data - all the data - must stand to scrutiny and to criticism and analysis. Snarky or not.

one cannot stand there (and I mean anybody, but annie) and say there are psychics anymore than I can say Iran has nukes right now aimed at you know who

I could not let that pass sans snark (see original for any links - please follow them):

There is 1 MILLION dollars, awaiting you or your fav mountebank here - $$$$$$$$ It has been unclaimed for over a decade and the famou$ p$ychic$ won't go anywhere near it while providing the most pathetic of excuses.

Did you know that Philadelphia recently shut down all the psychics in a single day raid? This is true.

It is also true that not one p$ychic saw it comin. Not one.

Why don't they clean up on the lotteries?

There's a p$ychic up the road from me still charging $10 after all these years. It should be easy for him/her to divine the winning numbers, yet...

Oh and the Philly p$ychics? When I read that story, I predicted that city council would relent in favour of these petty charlatans, er, entrepreneurial small businesses. And lo it came to pass but a few sleeps later.

the venerable r'giap - rhetoric allows for ways of arguing that neither underestimates the other or demeans them

Of course, he is correct. this actually helped me see the error of my ways and here we are.

As I understand rhetoric, someone posits something and presents facts/evidence - arguments - to explain and support this something, this idea.

Another listens and considers this argument and it's salient points and deliberates on their import and meaning. The other then responds with counterpoints to those presented, if any, and adds any new points to show possible flaws in the logic of the argument or to add further credence to it.

Devoid of snarkiness, that is what I've done in discussing psychic ability, not annie's psychic ability.

anyhoo the reply, again of annie's own volition:

there is a lot of unexplained phenomena out there and we don't know how it works. considering we use such a small portion of our brain to think we don't have mental abilities we aren't using is naive. some people translate this as god talking to them or thru them. personally, i think there is an abundance of information available to us we just don't know how to tap into or use to our benefit. during the bicentennial time magazine interviewed 50 of the worlds top scientista and ask them what they thought was going to be the dominent theme of science in the next century. by far, the overwhelming majority said.. the study of the brain.

at the turn of the previous century i wonder how many people, if you described the web, would have said

Utter BS

or how many people would have thought it would have required an act of god.

Note that annie did not attempt to refute any of the points/evidence/facts I've proffered on psychic ability (not annie's ability) and implies I am naive for presenting them as reasons for what I think. She then goes on to make some further points in defense of her position on psychic ability.

So far, this is half-rhetoric on annie's part. She's engaged, of her own volition BTW, but has ignored any presented counterpoints, only considering those that support her. This is all very familiar territory to anyone that has attempted to engage a freeper.

annie then continues on with her quite astute analysis of things socio-geo-political/economic - really a paradox that is quite common imho

I persevere with post 119 which doesn't boil-down to much when snark-free:

annie - I made some points please respond to them and as you are the author of this claim:

especially people who have psychic abilities, which is many of us.

It is down to you to prove this. It is not for me or anyone else to disprove your claim.

A rather polite request to adhere to rhetoric, I think. I then get snarky about brain research and the old use only a small part of our brain/unexplained things canard.

I have heard these tired old saws since I was a child many moons ago. These aren't anyone's arguments. They are endlessly repeated soundbites - just like anything out of the RNC/DNC/AnyGov'tMouthpiece. I expected better. How does one measure the power of the human mind? Sounds good. But doesn't really mean or prove anything. mA & mV is what runs in our heads.

Using real time MRI, it has been found that people that are really good at things use LESS of their brains. b & I are IT folk. When we talk PC, we use a very tightly focused area of our noggin. Most here would be casting about all over their grey matter, scouring memory, while trying to make some kind of cognitive logical connection. To understand.

annie again responds. Up to this point, it would seem we've had a bit of a dialog going. But it was my polite request that she play nice by the rules of rhetoric (as I understand them) that was the only reason she responded at all:

i don't have any answers for you jcairo, my statement came up in a discussion about the origin of how mankind likely chose to think there was a god, becasue of phenomena they either didn't understand or thought they did and some god like presence was the answer.

This is evasion. Psychics and their abilities (not annie's) were said to exist in support of a theory put forth to explain the origin of religion. If the theory is to hold, the support must also. A handful of evidence has been presented that calls into question one of the supports. As per rhetoric, it must be addressed.

This does not mean your theory has no merit, as you provided other arguments in support. As per rhetoric, I chose psychics. But not your ability, nor mine.

To suggest that I've never had this feeling is really quite presumptuous. I've played many hunches in poker, sports & other games of chance. Win some, lose some. The fun is always in the playing.

I once played Yank touch-football in an insurance league (a few women played). Playing middle short zone (quazi-MLB) defense, I saw how the offence lined up for the short yardage play late in the 1st half of championship game. Sensing a motion under-counter, I moved to my left to put myself at the far edge of the opposing QBs vision while still maintaining the integrity of my zone.

My hunch was that the offensive motion would be all to my right with a man running counter underneath, to the left, towards me. How good is this QB's peripheral vision as he will have to look to his left to pick up the receiver as he hits the seam. This should put me even further at the edge of the QB's vision.

At the snap, I saw the play indeed unfold as presaged. I hesitated long enough to see the counter man and ran lickety-split underneath him to take the ball from his out-stretched hands and into the end-zone while outrunning some very surprised melanin-enriched chaps.

In another game, I followed my hunch and got burned to get us knocked out of the playoffs.

I could go on. But personal anecdotes can not matter. They colour the data.

I want p$ychic$ to prove they can do it.

that is making the assumption that some one who experiences something they think of as psycic can reproduce this ability whenever they want, like at a seance or something.

One thing no one has mentioned up to this point is people like sylvia browne, james van praaaaaaaagh, john edwards...n I was not asking annie to prove her ability. I want someone like those frauds mentioned to prove it. Browne's predictions for 2006, when expressed as a percentage are 3% correct. Blind luck is a far better result. One of the predictions was that GWB's popularity will go down (hmmmm). Another may have been an earthquake in Indonesia (which sits on a ring of fire, as do I)...

Is annie suggesting that shams like those I mentioned really are shams because they ARE charging big bucks in some cases (or $10 up the road from me) to perform for the customer on demand? I'm not sure. But those are the people I'm referring too (and snarking about). Not annie or anyone else here that has faith in psychics.

"all i know is that i have had some extemely clear images of things that have happened prior to them happening, some very unlikely things. sometimes very unpleasant. i'm not sure how this works tho it occurs to me it probably has some scientific explanation having to do w/time/space stuff. i am not a scientist nor have my experiences led me to believe there is some all powerful god out there i can pray to to make things happen. i do however believe we can have an effect on our future w/things like visualization.

You're not sure how it works and are no scientist, yet you put forth that there is a scientific explanation involving time-space stuff. Your stating this is hardly an outside authority to refer to any more that my football tale. Again, this is almost verbatim to many arguments presented by many others. Science is so vast and complex that there must be something in there to support what I'm trying to say.

If one re-reads @5, there is 130 and more years of science saying it ain't so, joe... one cannot ignore this

"maybe it was all just a coincidence, but people sometimes have very very strong premonitions. if you had them, repeatedly, perhaps your views would be altered. again, i don't have any answers, but i have studied parapsychology and i do not believe that all of our premonitions are coincidences. i do believe we will have more scientific explanations for phenomena we don't understand, for example doctors tracking the healing effects of people visualizing their well being. the idea that there is a field or fields of energy that exists that we cannot see or experience with our 6 senses is not that far out to many people."

Again, very presumptuous to assume that I haven't experienced this phenomena. and you still don't have answers, but you know these things are true and you still believe we will find scientific proofs.

Unfortunately, double-blind testing is the arbiter of proof and any future science will still utilise it.

At one time, some thought melanin-enriched folk were inferior and worthy of ownership. When genetics came along it was hailed as proof of their faith in this closely held and shameful belief. I bet there are those today that still hold this to be true despite all the evidence to the contrary and they too, are waiting for some future science to bear their belief out.

i am very comfortable w/you not agreeing with me, and very comfortable having some ideas about things i can't prove.

I am dismissed, without my objective data regarding psychics other than annie, ever having been directly addressed beyond - I don't know - while parapsychology has been raised in support of psychics.

I respond with some snark and - "nice non answer and personal anecdotes. I bet you have hundreds and hundreds of similar ones that disprove your ideas, but like all faithful, these are quickly forgotten or rationalised away"

I am not referring to faith in a higher power, but your faith that science will prove your belief in psychics at some point in the future despite the facts that the basic principles and practices of science haven't changed all that much and preponderantly show the premise of psychics (not annie's experiences) to be false and have done so for quite some time and as they do today. One cannot ignore these facts and claim a scientific perspective.

Belief and faith do not have to refer to religion. One can have faith in zoroastrianism and another that GWB shits Au. While they are the same non-thought process, I would never equate one with the other.

Religion is of a much higher order as it has deep roots in the culture of the talking monkey - this has understandable emotional weight. Belief in Chimpoleon is a choice however and like belief in psychics should not carry a similar mass of emotional baggage. That it does to so many is astounding to me.

"Like infrared and xray? Or chi? Right the energy devised by the ancient chinese because they didn't even open-up a frog to see how it works."

All I've ever discussed is psychic ability, but now unseen energies are brought forth as support. I assume chi, as none is specified. This concept develops during a time when dissections were banned by imperial decree - hence the frog ref. Doctors/shaman/healers/witches had to some how explain the fluids and goop gushing from the open wounds onto the battlefields. As the wisest of the wise they are expected to know these things to guide and secure the band. To keep this power and position, they better have an answer. Acu whatever can be discussed another day.

annie said - "people believe all the time in things they can't prove, and they spend years and years trying to prove them."

This is quite correct. But if that person willfully ignores data that disproves the theory by negating a supporting argument or supporting an opposing argument; how honest are they being about seeking knowledge?

faith/belief = the end of thought - This is true. Do you think that those who believe Chimpoleon pisses Ag give any thought to all the data that has passed before them that proves he takes a shit and pisses like anyone else? Is this any different that ignoring the data/facts about people like Uri Geller?

I then posted about a group of psychics that did poorly on a show and one in particular made a very easy prediction which was incorrect. Guaranteed if the guess was successful it would be a staple of the faithful.

anna missed @ 125 - "The problem is that there are no adequate words to describe such experiences" & "a world of apparently infinite density that defies ultimate or finality of description."

Me @ 126 no snark - english has well over 800,000 words. some must fit together to describe this idea which annie seemed to have no trouble descriptively recalling (this too is a common theme). Forbid the apparent hottie is mindless in 60 years, but I bet she remembers that./ & /what does that mean? & /my ability to predict final Jeopardy

The Truth...It chimes in again @127 making eloquent points all his own, sittin way up high

dan of steele @128 sorry no time, but thanks

annie again @129 turning livid over my apparent stalking and filtering of her posts. The genetic thing was another topic and in the end you were not saying what I thought you were saying. I thought I had made that clear. That has nothing to do with psychic ability - the topic that I have so far hewn to. Obfuscation.

You happened to mention this topic of psychic ability as a defacto proof of your theory of the origin of religion. But as I've shown, rhetoric (at least as I understand it) requires one to consider all arguments and to respect or refute them. And science requires the objective examination of all data pro and con:

as in i don't give a flying f about your opinions in that matter or your link about what tv quacks do.

you challenged b basically calling him a liar .obviously this is not the first time you have heard any of this so of course you just knew what anyone was going to say.

english has well over 800,000 words, surely you could find a few (and if you do I'll stop calling you Shirley)

f off you little piece of shit.

vicious:
Nonsense. It's completely explicable. You really, really, really need to read some neurology materials.

yes, i do think it is explicable.

Posted by: jcairo | Sep 4 2007 23:31 utc | 149

ah jeez

Posted by: jcairo | Sep 4 2007 23:32 utc | 150

Good of you to elucidate. But I wonder whether annie in the end would actually endorse the garden variety psychics you (& me) so abhor.

annie#129 is actually my quote annie pasted. And jumped in primarily from the philosophical perspective. TTGVWYCI engaged some of my posts, but didn't seem to hear me, insisting what I said involved a mind/body split, when I meant they were interdependent aspects of the same thing - hence my points that science/"objectivity" cannot escape the realm of sense, and still define and evolve.

I think this is worth going on with and look forward to Ricks post on science and religion.

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 5 2007 0:55 utc | 151

With this detailed run-down of jcairos reading of the conversation, I would assume this is the original point where it starts to go astray:

annie's
"there is a lot of unexplained phenomena out there and we don't know how it works. considering we use such a small portion of our brain to think we don't have mental abilities we aren't using is naive."

is not the necessarily same as those "famou$ p$ychic$" being truthful.

And from there on you are on diverging paths increasingly unable to understand what the other one means at all. Or at least that is what it looks like to me.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Sep 5 2007 1:53 utc | 152

I hate to sound stupid, but I feel positive about this whole incident because everyone was able to work through it and keep posting.

Call me Pollyana for once.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 5 2007 14:47 utc | 153