"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."
I frequently rail against stupid people who can’t–or don’t– count who nevertheless listen to even stupider (though often clever in their stupidity) Mass Media Podpeople, politicians *spit* and Academia Nut Fruitcakes who wittingly or not misuse statistics or other fudge numbers to make a phony point. But. I realized the other day when looking at some numbers that I’d forgotten–through long disuse–the reasons why the statistical formulae I mentally referred to in order to argue with the numbers worked the way they did. After all, understanding the “why” of such things rests on some calculus I’ve not used much, if at all, for about 40 years.
So, in my spare time (ha!) methought myself to drag out an old calculus text and have at it. But. *sigh* I am considerably stupider than I was 40 years ago, and so I tracked down Calculus Made Easy, by Silvanus P. Thompson. While I’ll order and read the revised version from Amazon.com, the 1914 version is the one I recall browsing through briefly more than 40 years ago, and reading it on Scribus isn’t terribly limiting. Perhaps, in conjunction with a beer or two a day, a little exercise for what Hercule Poirot called “the little grey cells” will stave off my growing mental decay a wee tad.
Anywho, it ought to be fun.
THIS is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂
If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.
So, North Korea has a popgun… sorta. But that’s not what disturbs me so. Subliterate dumbasses rule the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind:
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea’s rocket may have fallen into the sea, but military experts cautioned Monday against calling it a complete failure, noting that it traveled twice as far as any missile the country has launched.
What disturbs me is that I estimate that approaching 100% of politicians *spit*, Mass Media Podpeople and Academia Nut Fruitcakes, and at least 90% of the American public wouldn’t see anything wrong with the sentence above. *sigh* Expand “In a democracy (”rule by mob”), those who refuse to learn from history are in the majority… ” to include people who can’t count or even think.
Obama Wants to Control the Banks
There’s a reason he refuses to accept repayment of TARP money…
…The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He’s been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with “adverse” consequences if its chairman persists. That’s politics talking, not economics.
Think about it: If Rick Wagoner can be fired and compact cars can be mandated, why can’t a bank with a vault full of TARP money be told where to lend? And since politics drives this administration, why can’t special loans and terms be offered to favored constituents, favored industries, or even favored regions? Our prosperity has never been based on the political allocation of credit — until now.
Meanwhile, The O! wants to put everything but hopenchange back into Pandora’s Box. (And stop the tide from coming in and turn everything he touches into gold and all other manner of mythical accomplishments.) Will the Republic survive The O!? Will the planet? Film at eleven (of The Beast in another ugly dress, posing as Jackie O.)
I don’t know which is worse, President “Fifi” Bush holding hands with a Saudi “Prince” (read “Thug” for “Prince”) or The O! bowing to a foreign potentate (thug). You make the call”
The odious Senator Ted Stevens was apparently another easy target for federal persecutors’ implementation of the central principal of modern governance: anarcho-tyranny or, “going after a ‘safe criminal'”. Until–this time, finally–federal persecutors got caught cooking the evidence. What republic can long survive when its people rightly view its law enforcement as capricious at best, normally corrupt.
Hmmm… notalotta encouragement from what passes as news nowadays, eh? Some, but not much. And what there is of encouragement doesn’t seem to find its way into Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind “reportage”.
THIS is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂
If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.
Notalotta posting going on this week @twc. R&R (Rest and Reflection) time.
THIS is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂
If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.
(Hint, dudes: DDT is easier, cheaper and as safe. Yes, safe, despite Rachel Carson’s lies, as entomologist (that’s “bug scientist”) and mountaineer J. Gordon Edwards demonstrated by eating a teaspoon full–a truly massive amount for one “animal” of human size to ingest at one time–of the stuff weekly for about 30 years with no apparent ill effects. Yeh, he’s dead. Died at age 84… while mountain climbing. You should die so healthy.)
THIS is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂
If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.
No, not just the inability to mumble through painfully puzzling out what printed words say, much more (or less *heh*) than that. What is even worse than the inability to painfully decrypt the squiggles written onto a page into sounds is the fact that more and more people have no idea what those painfully decrypted sounds actually mean. We see this every day in illiterate folks’ pejoration of words’ meanings and misuse of words (like those who think “everyday” means the same thing as “every day”).
Example (taken from multitudes proffered daily by Mass MEdia Podpeople, politicians *spit*, Academia Nut Fruitcakes and others): decimate. Mass Media Podpeople have so long used the word to mean something more akin to “annihilate” that we’ve lost the very useful meaning, “to execute one-tenth” of a population–whatever that may be–given us from the Roman practice of decimating a military unit which had members who refused to fight or who fled (NOT retreated under orders) battle. No, that perfectly useful distinction is now lost to almost the entire population of English speakers because some illiterate boobs misused it so often to mean “annihilate” (or something barely short of that), when they had other perfectly useful words… words that they apparently didn’t have access to because of the woeful paucity of their vocabularies.
*feh*
“Free speech” in the mouth of a leftard has become an oxymoron, because of the inability of our population of illiterates to distinguish word usage.
And the list could go on almost endlessly.
Words are tools of thought, and the fact that most people in our society have a very small bag of very dull tools means that thinking is half murdered in our public discourse.
What am I saying?!? “Half murdered” by dull tools wielded by dull tools?” Nah. Completely murdered by dull tools wielded by dull tools…
A written IQ and general knowledge test requirement for voting wouldn’t be enough to salvage the republic, but it could be a decent start… And don’t even start in with me about it being anti-democratic or violating people’s rights. *feh* Voting is a privilege with enormous responsibilities, and the ability to think, know what the words on a ballot mean and vote accordingly are base level skills the electorate should have… and does not.
THIS is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂
If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.
Polling data show that Mr. Obama’s approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama’s net presidential approval rating — which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve — is just six, his lowest rating to date.
Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president’s performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.
(More at the link.)
Well, about time the sheeple woke up and smelled the cyanide tea. One can only hope that when The One’s polling numbers actually hit dirtside, they keep going down to the very depths of hell. Seriously. Because, while I wish him success as president, I most certainly do NOT see success in the office entailing the success of his agenda. Only if his agenda fails will history judge him to be a success as president.
THIS is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂
If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.
“If you don’t have something to say, you may be tempted to just say something, because if you don’t, people will forget you are there.”–Jerry Pournelle
THIS is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂
If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.
OK, I’ll confess. Rush Limbaugh gives me a rash. But as shallow and pompous (yes, pompous, Rush) and irritating as I find him to be, he does find an acorn every now and then. If you’re interested at all in the occasional acorn, the CNN videos (posted as ten segments) are here. Yeh, that’s another thing. Long-winded (over an hour and twenty minutes!) blowhard. Oh. Well. And heck, when he attributed words that are central to the opening statement of the Declaration of Independence to the Preamble of the Constitution, he darned near lost me with his (typically) subliterate proclamation. Blowhard.
The Android Known as Romney (not my fav politician for many reasons–among them my concern over how and when and where his battery pack is recharged) apparently “won” the “straw poll”… by showing up. Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin and Ron Paul made respectable showings in the meaningless poll by NOT showing up. Heck, I enjoyed The Angry Chipmunk’s speech from last year rather more than Limbaugh’s peripatetic peroration this year. And Paul’s opening comments last year were more on point, and, for that matter, prophetic. (“If we continue to do what we’re doing, we’re going to have a financial crisis.”) This year, his speech: better than Rush, still an irritating chipmunk voice (yeh, yeh, I know that’s a minor quibble, except for the fact that his voice actually causes me pain–that piercing, whining tone exacerbates my tinnitus--*arrgghhh!*). His words read far, far better than they sound.
But there were some genuine high points at CPAC or me, such as this typical Newt Gingrich speech, coming in with bushels of acorns at about half the length of Rush’s bloated yak where the acorns are hard to notice amid all the bloviation.
Go to American Solutions for more information on positive steps YOU can take to avert flushing your children’s future down the toilet. The Twelve Step program suggested there isn’t as strong as simply passing The FairTax, but it’s certainly better than anything else proposed in the last quarter century.
THIS is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂
If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.
Running virtual machines in a Win7 host is easier than dual booting, though. Barely. If I could run Win7 in a VM hosted on Ubuntu 8.10, I’d be happier, but I’ve had no luck with that, yet. Still, the things that it is easier to do in Win7 are generally in the realms where I’ve bitched about Ubuntu (and Linux distros in general) being frustrating: media apps, particularly midi related. Sure, one can get midi working in Linux fairly easily, even if it does require a bunch of jumping through hoops initially and much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth to keep it working. In all Windows past v.3.1, midi Just Works. Notsomuch Linux, yet.
But then, Me$$y$oft has to throw a spanner in the works with DRM crap. *feh* Up theirs and the horse they rode in on. I will NOT use WMP to play media files. Heck, playing media files in a properly-configured Linux client on a Win7 host is a more pleasant experience than using WMP. And *feh*2 on using the crappy built-in media burning offered by M$. But at least simple (and free) solutions abound for that issue. Still, the OOTB experience attempting to burn CDs/DVDs in Windows is execreble, while in Ubuntu, it’s virtually transparent.
Still, warts and all, I’m growing to very nearly like Win7, and that’s going some, since I’ve not thought very highly of any M$ OS since Windows 2000 (well, except for a taste of Windows Home Server in a trial and another sip of Server 2003–each of which seemed to be pretty good at what they do, just not worth the $$ for me).
YMMV, but Win7 looks like it could be a solid hit for M$–maybe a two-bagger that M$ can stretch to a three-bagger with intelligent marketing.
Ah, but there’s the rub.
HIS is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂
If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.
The guy who will start–tomorrow!–as “Corporate Vice President of Retail Stores” for Microsoft spent 25 years in Wal-Mart management, the last big bunch in upper levels. Is this a signal that Me$$y$oft is getting serious about retail sales or will this be a cross between Microsoft Bob and low-end WallyWorld?
Again, who know? But it will be instructive to watch as this unfolds.
“There are tremendous opportunities ahead for Microsoft to create a world-class shopping experience for our customers,” Porter [the former Wal-Mart guy] said. “I am excited about helping consumers make more informed decisions about their PC and software purchases, and we’ll share learnings from our stores with our existing retail and OEM partners that are critical to our success.”
*huh* “[M]ore informed choices”=”brainwash with hogwash”? Maybe, maybe not. Too soon to tell. If a Me$$y$oft store opens up within driving distance of America’s Third World County, I’ll report back in on my experience “shopping” in one (“shopping” because I’ll likely not be buying)
Anywho, Welcome, David Porter, to the wonderful world of Me$$y$oft retail!
THIS is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂
If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.
