Prop 8 of California

California's recent proposal 8 has been stirring up some controversy, I think a strictly legal view of it reveals some interesting outcomes. Those who are arguing that homosexuals ought to have the right to marry say the following:

"Both Brown and gay rights groups maintain that the gay marriage ban [proposal 8] may not be applied retroactively."

They are, in this respect, correct. However, they are not saying what they think they are saying. They are acknowledging the self-evident truth that proposal 8 cannot be applied... period. It is not a matter of retroactive justice, or putting someone in jail for a crime committed while the act was legal; instead, proposition 8 outlines what is recognized as marriage. Recognition is not something that can be applied retroactively or otherwise. If the state no longer recognizes that two men can be married, then the legal union they had performed is null and void in the eyes of the state. There really isn't much more to this part of the matter

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081220/D9566TM87.html

One further thing I would note, the claim is that homosexuals are being denied the "right" to marry, I really have been trying hard, but I cannot find a right for anyone, be they gay or straight, to marry. I have yet to understand how anyone can say that heterosexuals have the "right" to marry. Just because each state government legally recognizes the validity of a heterosexual union does not mean heterosexuals have a right to marry. This is a violation of the concept "right".

If there is a good reason to codify a recognition of homosexual unions, I have yet to hear it.

Existentialism the non-philosophy

So, existentialism... is bunk

Walter Kaufmann: "The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and remote from life."

This is merely an appropriate microcosm for the idiocy that is existentialism.

Is it a crime?

I am not quite sure I can see an analogue for the behavior explicated in the linked article below that would depict it as a crime... Hoaxes have been going on since the beginning of man... is there really a difference? If I made a fake lottery ticket so that a friend of mine thinks he wins 200 million dollars, and then when I tell him it was a joke, he blows his brains out because he does not want to go back to the despair of living paycheck to paycheck, is it really my fault?

Was this woman and her associates truly human scum that should be ostracized socially? Absolutely, have they contravened law? I think not.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081125/D94M60QG1.html

Will machines ever have souls?

Inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil takes on several questions about the advance of machines in our society. Proviso: I disagree with the word "futurist" but I will use it where others do. In this article Kurzweil takes on a few questions about machines and their progress in history and how they may evolve over the next few decades. Specifically, I wish to address his response to the question:
"Will super intelligent machines ever have souls?"

Kurzweil's response:

Will super intelligent machines ever have souls?
The soul is a synonym for consciousness… and if we were to consider where consciousness comes from we would have to consider it an emerging property. Brain science is instructive there as we look inside the brain, and we've now looked at it in exquisite detail, you don't see anything that can be identified as a soul - there's just a lot of neurons and they're complicated but there's no consciousness to be seen. Therefore it's an emerging property of a very complex system that can reflect on itself. And if you were to create a system that had similar properties, similar level of complexity it would therefore have the same emerging property and this would be more than an abstraction because these future entities… will be convincing.

It also won't be clear - you won't be able to walk into a room and say, 'OK, humans on the left, machines on the right', because it's going to be all mixed up. You'll have biological humans but they'll have machine processes in their brain, there may be a lot more complexity in the machine intelligence in their brain than the biological portion of their brain. It's not going to be a clear distinction of where humans or biological intelligence stops and machine intelligence starts… [So] we will attribute consciousness to entities even if they have no biology, even if they're fully machine entities: they will seem human, they will seem consciousness, we will attribute souls to them but that's not a scientific statement.

First I question the assertion that the soul is a synonym for consciousness. At the very least this is not unanimously held yet it is stated by Kurzweil as if it were. I understand the inductive logic he applies to attain this conclusion, however, it has several assumptions which are too weak to be relied upon in the fashion he does.

Consciousness as an emerging property.
If this is a description to fill in the obvious blanks we have run into, then it is passable; if this is suggested to be a "how to" as in how to create a consciousness, it is severely lackluster.

An inductive argument with one evidential case is very weak.

Another one of my inventions... Made before I could make it...

http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/19/video-rise-and-shine-alarm-hack-is-sheers-genius/

I had this idea about a year ago... I'm pissed off I was unable to make it quickly enough. Good idea Anupam Patahak, may it bring you riches.

My Favorite Sheriff

A couple days ago, a group of people in Louisiana attempted to put together a KKK rite and ended up killing and disposing the body of a woman they lured to a campsite. This is not what I want to talk about. What I found absolutely priceless was the Sheriff's remarks about these members.

"'The IQ level of this group is not impressive, to be kind," St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain said Tuesday."

This guy is my hero, it is not every day that you get a Sheriff to say something so true and so blunt.

Bradley or Wilder effect

I made a post a while ago in which I expressed my misanthropically generated theory that there was just no way that American's would elect a black president and furthermore, that the Bradley effect would indeed be demonstrated as true and would be augmented by the nature of a presidential election. Gleefully, I was wrong.

This effect goes by various names, Bradley effect, Wilder effect, Shy Tory Factor and Spiral of Silence. Under any name, it demonstrates that for some reason or another, pre-election pollsters will get inaccurate data because a percentage of those polled will either lie or will not admit a certain affiliation. In my misanthropy, I thought for sure this would show itself greatly in this election. I happily admit that I misjudged Americans.

Here is an article reviewing the '08 presidential election.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081107/D94A2F300.html

President-Elect Obama, my response

I first want to quote and respond to an elderly gentleman. He posted the following: (note, I have no contact with this man, nor do I know what his name is, I just wanted to respond to it)

I know that what I have to say won't make many readers happy but......I am appalled by the outcome of this election. I am 76 years old and I have watched this nation grow. I was born during the Big Depression and lived through World War II when the Greatest Generation sacrificed themselves for our safety and freedom.

I myself served in the Korean War and was proud and honored to do so. I have been called a war monger by idiots who have no idea what war is all about. Veterans don't love war.

I watched a great man lose an election to a nobody who promised the Horn of Plenty to them and like hungry fish they took the bait. When a man like John McCain can't be elected this country is lost.

Here were the problems. The people did not vote FOR someone - they voted AGAINST Bush. Not very sound reasoning. The childrens vote carried the day for Obama. Young people who know little or nothing about this nations history or the perils we will face in the future. It was mob mentality that ruled over reason.

Blacks and whites who wanted to be part of a movement to elect a black man President. How noble. It didn't matter who he was or what he stood for. Just that he was black and sounded good. Date rape?

Where is John F. Kennedy today? He said, "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country". The economy played a major role among the "me first" attitudes of many voters.

I have lived too long it seems. Patriotism is dead. Country First is dead. The selfish and uninformed led by the inept rule. It is true and I wish it wasn't. - If you feel like a winner you aren't

I warned you that what I had to say wouldn't make you happy and it doesn't make me happy either. The TRUTH often hurts.

Good Luck to all of you - you will need it until you grow up.

To this Korean War Veteran, preface: I don't completely disagree with everything you said, however, I am taken aback when people use the phrase: "Greatest Generation" and actually mean it. If you are simply referring to people born within 20 years after the dawn of the twentieth century, and it is a reference divorced from the implications, then it is fine; however, if you do mean that those 20 years bore the greatest men and women this country has ever or will ever see, then I take a great objection to everything you said. If you use bigotry as a lens through which you view anyone or anything, you will never see clearly.

Despite the fact that I voted for McCain, as a political scientist, I can look at the results of the election and say that even if we had a normal turnout of youth voters, Obama still would have won. Even as a republican, you must acknowledge that the last 8 years have been a time of unprecedented unilateral action, locally, nationally and internationally. The determined divisiveness of Bush led to the defeat of McCain as much as the promises of the "Horn of Plenty".

When you split a people through various fiats, and you then ignore the disempowered majority, you must face the consequences; now the Republicans must sit back and watch as the Democrats use the system that their rivals have warped over the last 8 years; a diminute legislature, a hyper-active, hyper-influential Executive who can make laws, a Vice Presidential office who is more powerful than the legislature and the future officials that will be born from the 20-year-old men and women that spontaneously marched around their towns and cities throughout the country in celebration of Obama's victory.

Oh and any Republican senator who attempts to filibuster should be laughed off his or her pulpit, remember when the democrats wanted to filibuster and the Republicans basically said it was un-American to do so?

I'm glad I'm a centrist with no party ties as the next 8 years are going to be tumultuous.

Hexapodmeisterschaft

So, is it bad of me to say that this little guy is adorable and I want one? so badly I'm considering shelling out the 150 for the base kit and the 500 plus for the servos? This is Hexapodmeisterschaft, adorably cute 6 footed (hence hexapod) little guy dancing to Mambo Number 5

Media?

People must stop saying the phrase: "The Liberal Media". I agree some or perhaps the majority of the media are liberally biased, it is obvious in many cases, but by no means is the corpus of newspapers, television and internet news media all liberal. It is absurd to state it.

Obama?

I've heard a new sentiment recently: "Black or White, Change we can believe in or same old story, Obama is just another rich guy buying his way into the white house".

Interesting sentiment.

VP Debate

Biden said: "We have 3% of the world's oil supply, and 25% of the world's usage."

This is a completely misleading statement.

"Global warming is completely man made" This cannot be true

Palin kicked Biden in the nuts...

oh dammit... Palin cant speak "Nu - clear" its not difficult... Come on...

LOL Joe Biden speaking in the third person makes Matt Crist laugh.

So saying McCain and Bush over and over and over and over and over again is Biden's plan... Gotcha

BIDEN CAN PRONOUNCE NUCLEAR!!!

Oh jeez... Palin agrees with Cheney, at least with the misrepresentation of Cheney... The moderator totally misrepresented Cheney, she made him sound good! Cheney is wrong on the VP and evil...

I hate the phrase: "This is the most important election of your life" it is said every 4 years and it is idiotic.

Dur...

"Just because God created the world in seven days doesn't mean we have to pass this bill in seven days," said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas.

You, sir, are correct; however, the current state of the market and the fact that this bill is a necessary evil means you should pass it in less than 7... You fucking moron..

My next car

Behold, my next car:

Rape victims, Sarah Palin and Barack Obama

So I am curious, all those people out there who are attacking Palin on this Rape Kit issue, do they know that Obama is in the same boat as Palin?

"Knecht says she's recently heard from caseworkers in Illinois, Georgia, and Arkansas reporting that rape victims continue to be charged for their forensic exams."

Well... I suppose Obama wants Rape Victims to pay for their Rape Kits too...

Please research before you form an opinion.

"When Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, the city billed sexual assault victims and their insurance companies for the cost of rape kits and forensic examinations.

Palin had been in office for four years when the practice of charging rape victims got the attention of state lawmakers in 2000, who passed a bill to stop the practice.

The bill passed the Legislature over the objections of Wasilla police chief Charlie Fannon, who said it would require the city to come up with more money to cover the costs of buying the rape kits and doing the exams."

So Sarah Palin inherited a problem of the police department having such a low budget that they were forced to charge for rape kits, and some how this makes her in support of charging for rape kits? Lets review how this practice got stopped... The state legislature had to pass a bill to stop it... The police department started this practice long before Palin came into the office of Mayor, and the state legislature's request for the police to stop this practice didn't stop it... Only a state law protecting rape victims stopped it.

Oh and everyone should know that there are many police departments throughout the country who STILL practice this, as stated above, some of those departments are in Illinois, Obama's old stomping ground.

Think, research, learn.

Who will win this election and why it will not matter.

I've been talking with people who are Pro-McCain or Pro-Obama and it has been nebulous, but I have seen the portention from the political milieu that McCain will win, but it won’t matter. The portention from the current state of U.S. politics comes from various avenues, the most notable being the historical tendencies of the public.

Ostensibly, voting to spark change is the habit of the younger generation; I think this will turn around on this particular generation as it seems from various interactions, polls and televised hype that people are seeing McCain as different from Bush/Cheney. Thus, the tendency of some to stick with what is comfortable will meld with other people's tendency to bring about change and McCain will receive a great deal of voters who are under the radar.

Furthermore, I think McCain has succeeded in his campaign to make people believe that Obama is unfit due to inexperience. No one will argue that we are in a dangerous time, and although Obama has made an excellent choice of a running mate, he has not completely thwarted the McCain plan to paint him as inexperienced. Even though I completely disagree with the assertion that one could possibly be prepared for being the president, it appears to have been a great concern of voters throughout U.S. History.

Finally, although I am proud of this country for proving me wrong in a respect, race is going to be an issue. When I saw that a woman and a black man were running for the democratic nomination, I, as the tendentious misanthrope, thought nothing was going to come of their bids. I had a discussion with someone about 6 years ago about what would happen if a minority or a woman ran for president. I posited that if such an event took place in ‘08 or ‘12 that he or she would invariably lose but it would pave the way for prying the U.S. out of the dark age of spoiled W.A.S.P. men from holding the office of the presidency. I then predicted that within 3-5 elections, we would eventually, and thankfully, lose a great portion of the habitual racist/sexist voter population and would elect a minority or a woman.

While I think there will be many people who will vote for Obama because he is black, irrespective of his credentials simply for the fact that having a minority take office would be a great event for this country, I think this number will be squelched by the habitual racists who just couldn’t pull that lever and vote for a black person. I would love to be proved wrong in this respect, but my misanthropy commands me at this moment in history.

In the end I think that none the preceding will matter because I think that neither candidate will be able to carry out his stated goals. Without going into a protracted discussion of each candidates stated aims and why most are unrealizable, I think it will suffice to say that in this odd juncture in history, energy policies, foreign policies, domestic policies each have only one eventual avenue and derivation of each avenue can only come after the election as they are unrealizable in the current state of affairs (a lame duck president, policies and resolutions end term coming up after the election and other currently evolving issues).

It is going to be an interesting election and subsequent four years.

Nietzsche

There are such wildly different positions on Nietzsche's theories... I've read Christians who defend him as positing in his books that a world devoid of God and Christianity is a bad world and we must realize that we must adhere to Christianity. This position states that anywhere in Nietzsche's works where he is saying that God is dead, he is saying that because of our current level of corruption, we are pursuing a world wherein God does not exist and that is indeed a bad world.

My understanding, however, is that Nietzsche did indeed state that he feels that God does not exist and the traditional idea of God is dead; additionally, the church, as the embodiment of God, is no longer necessary in an age of reason...

I am always puzzled when such dichotomous positions can be soundly formulated from one idea or expression.

Kdice

1% skill
4% alliances
15% noob factor
80% pure, unmitigated, blind, restacking, place-starting, freaking luck...

thats it...

Akrasia

- I'm a freakin expert in this...

Aids...

So, do the individual viruses that make up the AIDS virus live and subsist exclusively in the immune cells of a human? If a human had no such cells, how long would the viral cells be able to survive (irrespective of how long the human could survive)? Interesting questions...

hrm...

When you clip the bristles of the painter's brush, blunt the sculptor's chisel, break the poet's pencil, fog the photographer's lens, burn the sommelier's tongue, extinguish the cook's fire, you damage the world a bit...

Natural vis a vis unnatural

At what point does the natural world end and the unnatural world being? Is at your front doorstep? Your driveway? Your fenceline?

One possible distinction between natural and unnatural is that what is nature is what would exist if man had not, and what is unnatural is what exists because man does. Thus, the doorstep is an unnatural object, it is manmade, of course. What of the bird's nest then? Why should the same distinction not apply? What is natural is what would have existed if the bird had not, what is unnatural is what exists because the bird does. Thus a bird's nest is a "birdmade object". But the common perception, I think, is that the bird's nest is natural whereas the skyscraper and the B-52 bomber are all unnatural.

What say you who believe the B-52 is unnatural to the fact that birds drop coconuts upon rocks in order to extract the innerds? Does the evil of a B-52 taint its distinction as manmade and thus unnatural? You who believe such are truly misanthropic.

What of the skyscraper? How is a skyscraper any different from a birds nest (other than the irrelevant size difference)? A set of materials, tendentiously moved from their natural place and from their natural shape into a new form with new purpose. Is this a good definition of both a skyscraper and a bird's nest? If not then why?

Does conscience and conscious choice make the difference? How egotisictical must we be to say that we, mankind, are the only entities on this planet who do not exist merely in a state of responding to stimuli and nothing else. Conceeded: an ant responds to stimuli and nothing else; but what of dolphins? They blow airbubble circles and then float through them. They exert energy to do things which have a purpose other than pure survival and these actions cannot be explained simply by stating that they are responses to stimuli.

Thus, what makes one thing a natural object and another an unnatural object. All manmade objects are made by a reorganization of natural objects, there is no possible way to make anything else, thus all things are natural objects and the destinction between natural and unnatural is fleeting.

Mathematics

Mathematics... does math govern the operant universe? or does it describe it? Wherever there are two acorns on the ground, is that the sum of one and one? When a panda needs four bamboo shoots and pulls three with his right paw and one with his left, did he do the sum of three and one equal four?

Is it possible that when humans utilized the first devices and had to count and store food for the winter season that mathematics was born similarly to when mathematicians needed to do something with the pesky square roots of negative one that kept cropping up so they engendered imaginary numbers.

Thus I commit myself to what some view as the ultimate mortal sin, mathematics is dependant upon the human intellect, numbers are not transcendant objects or objects whatsoever, we have created mathematics and all patterns therein are systemic and irrelevant.

i <3 huckabees...

an exposé of what happens when people with a modicum of knowledge and an absence of understanding attempt to take on enigmatic questions.

Oil...

"Our earnings, although high in absolute terms, need to be viewed in the context of the scale and cyclical, long-term nature of our industry as well as the huge investment requirements," said J.S. Simon, senior vice president of Exxon Mobil Corp. "We depend on high earnings during the up cycle to sustain ... investment over the long-term, including the down cycles,"

The up cycle has been going on too long, suggested Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo. "The anger level is rising significantly."

This is truly hilarious...

The Large Hadron Collider

There have been fanatic claims that the Large Hadron Collider that is to go online soon is going to damage earth somehow or perhaps create some sort rip in the time continuum... These nonsensical claims have, paradoxically, stirred up from some very influential physicists and other scientists around the world. The only connection between some of these claimants and CERN, is that the claimants could be jealous that they aren't able to work on the LHC and therefore want to scare the public against the LHC... Other than that, anyone who is afraid of the LHC is a quack and ought to be completely ostracized.

Anyone who knows the basics of astrophysics knows that the reactions of the LHC will fall vastly short of the very harmless cosmic interactions which occur in our atmosphere every day. Furthermore, those who think the LHC will harm anything or anyone miss the fact that the black hole creation in the LHC will be so minuscule that it will not be able to react with anything and will dissipate almost instantly... Honestly, I think that the people who are filing these claims against the LHC ought to have their statements recorded, and then after the LHC goes online, they should be publicly humiliated for attempting to hurt the progress of real science because of their own petty personal concerns.

While I'm ranting:

Anyone who supports the confederacy, the "Great Nation of Texas" or flies a rebel flag ought to be tried for treason... Just saying... they are separatists, secessionists and seditious...

China

So, China... What, pray tell, was the deciding factor for the Olympics Committee to make the decision to hold the Olympics in China? Perhaps the deleterious air quality? Perhaps the current violent and oppressive stance on Taiwanese Independence? Perhaps the fact that just about the entire western third of China wants to be an independant state and has a several century claim to Independence? Perhaps the fact that entire villages are dying from cancer due entirely, and indubitably, to water pollution... please can someone tell me why the Olympics are being held there?

Public Officials cont...

"If I wanted to be loved, I ought to be a TV correspondent, not a politician,"
- Cheney

This is why the congress is supposed to be equal in power if not more powerful than the executive, and defiantly more powerful than the VP. It is not a simple matter to get rid of the executive nor the VP, however, the congress is much more susceptible to the will of the people than the executive.

If Cheney thinks that he ought not fret over whether or not he is respected by the populus, he needs remedial education in the Constitution and the structure of our government.

Subterfuge

It completely eludes me how a person could run for public office, of any distinction, perform some of the requisite duties whilst simultaneously abandoning the principles upon which the office is founded. Furthermore, abandoning the trust of the public, who espoused trust in the elected individual via the electoral process, in such a manner accrues particular disdain in my eyes. The hubris required to pull off such a blatant disregard for the public is far beyond my comprehension and thus I am motivated to think that instead of some sort of arrogance, one who can do such a thing either suffers from a mental deficiency or is evil beyond mere pride.

The desiderata of a person who could act in such a way ought to be of particular inspection as it may elucidate the motivations which lead to such betrayal and thus may allow us to identify scoundrels earlier. With all this said, I am not naive, i know this betrayal will occur from time to time, this fact does not, however, remove the desire to eliminate such potential betryal from our political officers.

Revivification

Ostensibly, blogs are to be a repository of thought, this blog has been a bit of that though it got rather untidy while at the same time being neglected. Since, as one of my profs put it, my essays and term papers for class have been a tool by which I have been entertaining myself through superfluously ostentatious diction, I will move such works to this blog while leaving my school work clean, concise and perhaps even trite.