"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
The warmistas seem to begin with “It’s all George Bush’s fault” and end with the heat death of the universe.
Oh, yeh. Makes sense. When heard by folks who’ve stabbed their own frontal lobes with a screwdriver enough times.
Just sayin’.
Continue reading ““Reasoning” from The Church of Anthropogenic Global Climate Fright”
About 15 or 16 years ago, I attended a concert by a wonderful choral group from a moderately large high school, directed by a former classmate of mine. It was my first exposure to the group, and I was amused to see they called themselves, “A Capella” for two reasons:
While the director obviously meant the term to mean “unaccompanied voices” (yes, I checked and that was what had originally been intended, and, indeed, the group had been a voices only group for its first few years), most of their performance was of music accompanied by their director or a student playing piano. And…
“Capella” refers to either a female goat or a first-magnitude star in the constellation Auriga, NOT a cappella (“in the manner of the Roman chapel”) singing. The second “p” really does make a difference for anyone who’s literate.
But nowadays, meaning takes the back seat in nearly every interaction, while feeling has attained ascendancy in all, it seems. Distinctions in meaning are dismissed as “just semantics” or “silly syntax/grammar/orthography rules” (assuming “syntax” and “orthography” are in the vocabulary of the illiterate boob objecting to clear communication).
But back to my lil vignette. I approached my former classmate after the concert and offered my sincere congratulations on having built so fine a musical performance group in a public school system. I also noted the interesting name. Appalled director much? *heh* Name was changed to protect the innocent singers.
Well, here it is first thing Saturday a.m. and locusts have already eaten the day. I may be back tomorrow, if the locusts don’t eat me too.
Today, I finally got my desk cleaned off. Well, almost. Four times today I’ve had my keyboard drawer cleaned off down to the keyboard and mouse.
Four times.
It’s not cleaned off now.
I swear–seriously!–my desk abhors a vacuum. Clean it off? “Stuff” creeps out from some space in some interstice between universes and plops itself on my desk. Really. Today, I found some pictures–just sitting out in the open on my desk–that I HAVE NOT SEEN FOR 12 YEARS. Pictures of me that I had been SURE I’d thrown out (because, like every picture I ever had taken for a yearbook–these as a teacher–they were ugly as sin, that is, looked exactly like me. *heh*). My Wonder Woman asked me to give her one of them, because she’d never seen them before (and has the typical perceptual problem of Good Women: she is unable to see just how ugly I am :-)).
Cue Rod Serling.
Schrödinger’s cat is a famous thought experiment summed up this way,
A cat is placed in a box, together with a radioactive atom. If the atom decays, and the geiger-counter detects an alpha particle, the hammer hits a flask of prussic acid (HCN), killing the cat. The paradox lies in the clever coupling of quantum and classical domains. Before the observer opens the box, the cat’s fate is tied to the wave function of the atom, which is itself in a superposition of decayed and undecayed states. Thus, said Schroedinger, the cat must itself be in a superposition of dead and alive states before the observer opens the box, “observes” the cat, and “collapses” it’s wave function.
Of course, the problem with thought experiments like this when used to analogize scientific issues is obvious. Let me pop the bubble around this one: how long is the cat in a “superposition of dead and alive states” while closed in this sealed box?
Just long enough for its air to run out so that it suffocates.
Geniuses just don’t seem to think these things out. Einstein discussed Schrödinger’s hypothetical cat with the guy for at least 15 years without ever noting this simple problem with the thought experiment, as far as I can tell. That’s just one of many reasons why I don’t trust the smart people in government to decide what’s best for me. They just don’t seem to look at (or care about) any of the options outside their own paradigm.
Besides, they might just be the kind of person who doesn’t like cats and will put ’em in boxes to suffocate to death.
While I was reading, Thoughts on Worship Music, from the resources at Christ Church, Moscow Idaho, I thought about the time a pastor objected to a particular song on the basis that it was “melancholy”. Now, this was either an idiosyncratic reaction to the song itself, which was an upbeat, joyous expression of personal religious experience or a highly unusual use of the word, “melancholy”. Since he went on to elaborate that it was a “downer” I believe it was the former, since the common usage of “melancholy” indicates
“–a gloomy state of mind, esp. when habitual or prolonged; depression.”
or when used as an adjective, as he used it,
“-causing melancholy or sadness; saddening: a melancholy occasion.”
NO ONE (and I mean a BIG zero with the rim kicked off) else I have asked about this song has EVER agreed that it, is “saddening”, gloomy or depressing.
That leaves a much, much less common usage of the word to mean,
“-soberly thoughtful; pensive.”
Ah, perhaps he did mean it in this manner and objected because it led people to be thoughtful, contemplative. Knowing both his sermonizing and his temperament, it’d not surprise me that he’d not want people actually THINKING about what was going on…
*heh*
Back to more of the thoughtful (and thought-povoking) articles at Christ Church.
Folks over at the Win7 Forums are making a big deal out of the Windows Experience Index. My Win7 Pro box that’s cobbled together from a base of a 3-year-old HP Media Center PC is a kinda low-middle-of-the-road PC. Not so much a powerhouse (although by changing out the memory and primary hard drive, it could be a lot hotter), but Good Enough for most purposes, including running several VMs on top of the host Win7 OS.
FWIW,
I don’t know what the deal is with the Aero score. 1GB of discrete video RAM on the nVidia vidcard; Aero never bobbles or hesitates; smooth as silk. Something arcane I don’t care about. Son&Heir’s monster Asus gaming notebook scores higher on gaming, memory and hard drive marks but about the same on Aero scoring, so I’m not at all sure that the Aero score matters at all to my own experience.
Especially since I do much of my computing in Linux Mint in a VM. *heh*
Dennis Prager, in excessively kind and gentle fashion, takes Charles Johnson, of Little Green Nutballs (which I will not link) to the woodshed (kindly, gently) with, An Open Letter to Charles Johnson.
For those of y’all who may have missed the blogospheric kerfuffle, Charles Johnson once ran Little Green Footballs (still not linking it), which, once upon a time, long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, used to be a place where he fought against the evils he today defends. No, not just defends; virulently, slanderously–in many folks’ opinions–attacks those with whom he once allied himself.
Prager reiterates Johnson’s list of “justifications” for his switch and rebuts them all. Here’s #9, a typical example,
9. Anti-Islamic bigotry that goes far beyond simply criticizing radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide (see: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, etc.). [Johnson]
I saw Pamela Geller’s site (The New York Times Magazine article about you cited it — Atlas Shrugs — and mentioned nothing remotely approaching your charges against her or her site) and I’ve interviewed Robert Spencer. Your charges against them only cheapen the words “fascism,” violence” and “genocide.” [Prager]
As I said, Prager takes Johnson to the woodshed most convincingly (read it for yourself) and, IMO, all too gently, especially given the fact that I have read the positions and assertions of all the parties Johnson condemns and have a good idea of their place in “the right”. Johnson’s place? IMO, Little Green Nutballs is juuuust the place for him… until someone can get commitment papers in order, for his own good. Then, of course, if a physical etiology for his psychological issues can be diagnosed, perhaps medical treatment could return him to sanity.
Of course, if there’s no one in his family who cares enough about him to begin commitment proceedings, he’ll likely spend the rest of his life frothing at the mouth and baying at the moon.
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.“–Inigo Montoya
With appreciation for the language adopted by the King James translators of the New Testament, I offer this use of the structure of I Corinthians 13:13,
“Now there abide these three: phonemes, syntax and semantics; and the greatest of these is semantics.”
I’m a fan of Wolfgang Puck’s kitchen wares. It started around seven years ago when I found a nice set of Puck-ish mixing bowls with lids. Mixing bowls are always an issue around here–having enough, appropriate sizes, etc. No more. That the set included some whisks and such and was at a “fell-off-the-truck” price was just lagniappe I couldn’t pass up.
Since then, various Puck-ish wares, such as his 10-cup rice cooker (ours is actually an older model, same essential features, though), have found their way into our kitchen and proved themselves useful, durable and versatile. The most recent addition came because of the ongoing deterioration of our once top o’ the line “waterless” cookware. Oh, the pots n pans are still in fine shape, but, over the past 30 years, the Bakelite handles have slowly gone the way of the dodo. Yes, I have tracked down a source for replacement handles (and lid knobs), but the total cost would’ve been around what it cost to buy this:
No, the set’s not “waterless” and only the bottoms of the pots n pans are multi-clad, but with very little adaptation of my cooking habits, the past six months’ use of them has been positive, without exception.
I saw a FB comment a while back panning *heh* the set because the user said the handles got too hot and the pans were not “no-stick”–even hard to clean. Bushwah. Someone didn’t RTM (“read the manual”–bowdlerized for those folks who’re too prissy for “RTFM” :-)). Instructions for the set say explicitly to use them on NO HIGHER than medium high heat. That and the old rule that any cook worth his salt knows for keeping pans “unsticky”–“hot pan, cold oil: food won’t stick”–has meant I have experienced neither of the issues the person who DIDN’T “READ THE MANUAL” had with the pans.
To be fair, after 30 years of using “waterless” cookware that was also designed for the same heat range as this set, that wasn’t an adjustment for me. But, no. Paying $100 for a bunch of pots n pans and then not even reading the little one-page instruction card that came with ’em is just stupid.
So, in a very, very (very) inexpensive set of pots n pans (with some nice lil tools as well–minimalist spats n spoons, useful meat fork, another nice whisk), I have found some surprisingly advanced features and decent build quality, and so I’m pleased. Heck, my cheapo set of six stock pots (found at another “fell-off-the-truck-pricing” store–six, admittedly cheap stock pots in graduated sizes for $25? Yeh, even for cheap stock pots, that’s really cheap) even has lids that can double up on some of the pots n pans when I do not want to use the glass lids, for whatever reason.
I have my eye out for more Puck-ish wares…