Obama's Exec Order 13489

Obama Signs Executive Order Barring Release Of His Birth Certificate | The Freedom Medium

The central questions in "The Freedom Medium" post about Obama's exec order 13489 is: "Why was this executive order (EO) Obama's first order? Was it to cover up the fact that he is not a natural born citizen? (hiding his birth certificate)". Well, I have a couple other questions.

Why was it so urgent for George Bush to issue EO 12667 November of 2001... 2 months after we were attacked by terrorists and the president was supposedly preparing for war?

Second, why are you paying attention to Obama when this is actually Ronald Reagan's wording? Obama essentially copied and pasted Reagan's EO 12667... Bush felt it so urgent to revoke 12667 that bush issued EO 13233 while we were preparing for war... What was Bush hiding? 13233 makes it harder to get presidential records... Obama issued 13489 to revoke Bush's EO and re-implement Reagan's order... Obama made it EASIER to get information with 13489... Not harder...

Why the health care reform is not "socialized medicine"

Much of the brouhaha about the health care reform is over whether the reform is socializing medicine. The most obvious response to this concern is a resounding and resolute, "No, it is not socializing medicine". Much of the error in those articulating the antithesis of the reform is that since the government (we) are making the upper 50% of America pay for the health care of those who earn less is socialism.

This error can be broken down into two parts: First, The United States milieu is not wholly capitalistic and thus we (the government) accept a smattering of socialism to balance out our very successful capitalism. Second, the current state of health care in the United States is not governed by capitalist market pressures.

These are integral to understanding exactly what the problem, if any, exists in the health care system and what reform, if any, is needed.

Cheney

"WASHINGTON (AP) - Dick Cheney refuses to be a has-been.

The former vice president's voice appears to carry even more weight than it did in the waning days of the Bush administration.

Some people want him to be quiet and disappear. Others are cheering the public relations tour that Cheney began halfway through President Barack Obama's first 100 days, defending the Bush administration's harsh interrogation tactics and other anti-terrorism policies.

Vice presidents typically fade away quietly.

Not Cheney."

That is because he was not the vice president... he was the president...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090523/D98C1JGO0.html

Hubble?

Will the Hubble actually be steered into the ocean?

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090510/D983HGQ81.html

This is about a subject altogether different, however, I believe that this ought to be asked. For a common communications satellite, sure, whatever, destroy it. For the Hubble? It ought to be recovered and brought back to Earth to be placed in a museum!

More at 11...

Iran hates history!?

Iran can hate many things, western ideology, capitalism, democracy, but I will not accept their disregard for history. Recently, Iran released a statement that they are offended by the movie: "300" for the depiction of the Persians. The first problem I have with this is the fact that the movie was rather accurate. Sure it was a tad misleading by showing that there were only 300 soldiers there and no support (in reality, they had cooks, messengers etc., many more than 300 people) but it is a damned certainty that the Persians were decadent, bestial and cruel. They were conquers compelled to dominate the world one way or another; how was the depiction in the movie skewed in any way?

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090301/D96LA83O0.html

Epic win for truth.

Here is a video where we can watch a 7 year old perform equivalent philosophical and or religious breakthroughs as all of solipsism, gnosticism, existentialism and any other sophist-based idiotic pseudo-philosophical belief systems. Enjoy!

Bush

Goodbye, good riddance and I hope you are as much of a failure after you leave office as you were before and during your presidency.

The Associated Press wrote the following:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090103/D95FORSG0.html


President George W. Bush will leave behind a legacy of Bushisms, the label stamped on the commander in chief's original speaking style. Some of the president's more notable malaprops and mangled statements:

---

- "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." - September 2000, explaining his energy policies at an event in Michigan.

- "Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?" - January 2000, during a campaign event in South Carolina.

- "They misunderestimated the compassion of our country. I think they misunderestimated the will and determination of the commander in chief, too." - Sept. 26, 2001, in Langley, Va. Bush was referring to the terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.

- "There's no doubt in my mind, not one doubt in my mind, that we will fail." - Oct. 4, 2001, in Washington. Bush was remarking on a back-to-work plan after the terrorist attacks.

- "It would be a mistake for the United States Senate to allow any kind of human cloning to come out of that chamber." - April 10, 2002, at the White House, as Bush urged Senate passage of a broad ban on cloning.

- "I want to thank the dozens of welfare-to-work stories, the actual examples of people who made the firm and solemn commitment to work hard to embetter themselves." - April 18, 2002, at the White House.

- "There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again." - Sept. 17, 2002, in Nashville, Tenn.

- "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." - Aug. 5, 2004, at the signing ceremony for a defense spending bill.

- "Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." - Sept. 6, 2004, at a rally in Poplar Bluff, Mo.

- "Our most abundant energy source is coal. We have enough coal to last for 250 years, yet coal also prevents an environmental challenge." - April 20, 2005, in Washington.

- "We look forward to hearing your vision, so we can more better do our job." - Sept. 20, 2005, in Gulfport, Miss.

- "I can't wait to join you in the joy of welcoming neighbors back into neighborhoods, and small businesses up and running, and cutting those ribbons that somebody is creating new jobs." - Sept. 5, 2005, when Bush met with residents of Poplarville, Miss., in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

- "It was not always a given that the United States and America would have a close relationship. After all, 60 years we were at war 60 years ago we were at war." - June 29, 2006, at the White House, where Bush met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

- "Make no mistake about it, I understand how tough it is, sir. I talk to families who die." - Dec. 7, 2006, in a joint appearance with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

- "These are big achievements for this country, and the people of Bulgaria ought to be proud of the achievements that they have achieved." - June 11, 2007, in Sofia, Bulgaria.

- "Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for your introduction. Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit." - September 2007, in Sydney, Australia, where Bush was attending an APEC summit.

- "Thank you, Your Holiness. Awesome speech." April 16, 2008, at a ceremony welcoming Pope Benedict XVI to the White House.

- "The fact that they purchased the machine meant somebody had to make the machine. And when somebody makes a machine, it means there's jobs at the machine-making place." - May 27, 2008, in Mesa, Ariz.

- "And they have no disregard for human life." - July 15, 2008, at the White House. Bush was referring to enemy fighters in Afghanistan.

- "I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office." - June 26, 2008, during a Rose Garden news briefing.

- "Throughout our history, the words of the Declaration have inspired immigrants from around the world to set sail to our shores. These immigrants have helped transform 13 small colonies into a great and growing nation of more than 300 people." - July 4, 2008 in Virginia.

- "The people in Louisiana must know that all across our country there's a lot of prayer - prayer for those whose lives have been turned upside down. And I'm one of them. It's good to come down here." - Sept. 3, 2008, at an emergency operations center in Baton Rouge, La., after Hurricane Gustav hit the Gulf Coast.

- "This thaw - took a while to thaw, it's going to take a while to unthaw." Oct. 20, 2008, in Alexandria, La., as he discussed the economy and frozen credit markets.

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..