Despite the reality that my rights to keep and bear arms shouldn't be infringed, well, they are. And right now the anti-gun crowd is gearing up for another round of 'having a conversation,' which is sort of code. Until recently, we were 'having a conversation' in Syria- i.e. a constant attempt to legitimize the idea of overthrowing Assad, until they went with creating ISIS, and then it was a pretend war against ISIS in Syria, with an eye towards making sure any targets hit hurt Assad at least as much as they hurt ISIS, assuming they hurt ISIS at all.
Then, thankfully, Putin sent Russian soldiers in, to fight ISIS, protect Assad, and the Russian interests. Europe ought to be glad; they might have a chance to ship everybody back. In any case, Putin ended this damnable 'conversation' the West was having. I hope the folks in D.C. aren't stupid, and they understand their plans have been masterfully dashed.
But, anyway, over here, they are going to try and have this conversation while there are already all sort of hoops to jump through to be able to keep and bear arms. The normal, almost autistic libertarian way to argue this is to argue principle, and we lose.
I want to argue damages. If you are anti-gun, you owe me a gun. You owe me the training that would have almost certainly been a part of my education had people like you not been in charge of part of it. You should recompense me, for paperwork and perhaps even emotional damages. You owe me ability to keep and bear arms, whether I want to conceal or not, sans any sort of documentation, unless of course, you just want to give me a nice shiny badge.
To be clear, it isn't the government I seek damages from. It is the person trying to engage me in this 'conversation.' It is not a conversation but an usurpation of my rights, rights that exist regardless of the fact that I can't currently find a court in this country sane enough to find for me.
And to those pro-gun folks who like to say enforce the existing laws- stop! The second amendment is very clear that they should not exist.
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Correcting Gizmodo
John McAfee says the Ashley Madison hack was an inside job, and the folks at have to play social justice warrior:
No, idiot, this is what sane investigators do. As an investigator you have limited funds, and a particular amount of time in which to get the job done. It is imminently reasonable to try to guess the gender of the insider and go after them, rather than set up a gender-blind operation and figure out who the insider is after she's on the beach in a country that won't extradite her.
Not only that, but Estes should have done a little bit of googling:
I did a little googling. I found the GenderGuesser:
So, in about two seconds, I found out McAfee is backed by science.
Gizmodo can't bring research, journalism, nor can they bring themselves to think like an investigator, but instead they bring the insults, the snark, the sarcasm, and dog whistles.
If we take McAfee and his experience at his word, the inside job case seems more than a little plausible. The idea that a woman did this, on the other had, because “only women call men scumbags and men hate Valentine’s Day,” is bonkers—not to mention downright offensive. Welcome to the mind of John McAfee.- Adam Clark Estes
No, idiot, this is what sane investigators do. As an investigator you have limited funds, and a particular amount of time in which to get the job done. It is imminently reasonable to try to guess the gender of the insider and go after them, rather than set up a gender-blind operation and figure out who the insider is after she's on the beach in a country that won't extradite her.
Not only that, but Estes should have done a little bit of googling:
McAfee is saying he can discern someone’s gender just by the way they write?
I did a little googling. I found the GenderGuesser:
In 2003, a team of researchers from the Illinois Institute of Technology and Bar-Ilan University in Israel (Shlomo Argamon, Moshe Koppel, Jonathan Fine, and Anat Rachel Shimoni) developed a method to estimate gender from word usage. Their paper described a Bayesian network where weighted word frequencies and parts of speech could be used to estimate the gender of an author. Their approach made a distinction between fiction and non-fiction writing styles.
So, in about two seconds, I found out McAfee is backed by science.
Gizmodo can't bring research, journalism, nor can they bring themselves to think like an investigator, but instead they bring the insults, the snark, the sarcasm, and dog whistles.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
The Need For A Meta-Theology
In contradistinction to the more progressive ecumenism, which is always and forever shall be, tinged with revolution. Ecumenism is also about bureaucrats from different religions getting together and commiserating about what hard work it is herding their laity around. It is the perverse unity of bureaucrats, and their nice little plans- versus us and the messy little world that makes a mockery of their plans.
So, let me delineate my use of the term- I mean a conceptual framework within which various people- whether atheist, Christian, pagan, etc...- can agree so as to work together, hopefully to defeat the current gestalt.
As we notice now, in our very own denomination or belief systems, there are people who will put the shiv in to serve the progressive cause regardless of what they claim to believe.
The nature of a concept like perfection is such that it behaves as a known unknown. We know of it, but when we think about it, we usually think of it as an adjective- taking what really is better, or perhaps the best that we can conceive, and applying it to a noun. But when we think of perfection itself, well we are aware, or at least should be, that the nature of the concept means it is unknown, and unknowable. What we know of is much more obviously what it is not rather than what it actually is since we never see perfection.
This should fit even with atheists. Basically, it should fit with anyone sane enough to know they probably should get into better shape, or if they are in good shape they ought to stay in shape. It ought to resonate with anyone trying to get better at something.
We can move forward with a sort of parameter, a language that allows us to cut through the garbage, rather than what happens now, when the grand concept most appealed to is love. God is love, and somehow that means we need to accept all sorts of retardedness in the name of love.
In reality, the concept of love can be approached in a similar manner. You can reason abstractly that love, needing objects, requires living beings, thus any law of love would require the sort of behaviors conducive to the existence of more beings. Now, this reasoning dovetails rather well with God in the old testament saying He was the God of the living, as well as Christ saying that He came so that we might have more life and have it more abundantly.
It is very easy to follow this logic if you are an atheist interested in a halfway decent life- at least that is what I think I see when I see people try to eat paleo, exercise, and constrain themselves from things like hookers and blow in favor of a family life centered around providing their children with a decent environment for humans to grow up in.
Notes: I don't like 'meta' but it seems appropriate here despite it's over use elsewhere. Additionally, I am quite sure some leftist academics are using this term in a less than satisfactory way, much like those who talk about structural issues in institutions, who often end up talking about racism rather than the actual limitations of institutions and how maybe we shouldn't have them be massive and try to babysit ten thousand students when that was never going to work- period- no matter how utterly non-racist everybody may or may not be.
So, let me delineate my use of the term- I mean a conceptual framework within which various people- whether atheist, Christian, pagan, etc...- can agree so as to work together, hopefully to defeat the current gestalt.
As we notice now, in our very own denomination or belief systems, there are people who will put the shiv in to serve the progressive cause regardless of what they claim to believe.
The nature of a concept like perfection is such that it behaves as a known unknown. We know of it, but when we think about it, we usually think of it as an adjective- taking what really is better, or perhaps the best that we can conceive, and applying it to a noun. But when we think of perfection itself, well we are aware, or at least should be, that the nature of the concept means it is unknown, and unknowable. What we know of is much more obviously what it is not rather than what it actually is since we never see perfection.
This should fit even with atheists. Basically, it should fit with anyone sane enough to know they probably should get into better shape, or if they are in good shape they ought to stay in shape. It ought to resonate with anyone trying to get better at something.
We can move forward with a sort of parameter, a language that allows us to cut through the garbage, rather than what happens now, when the grand concept most appealed to is love. God is love, and somehow that means we need to accept all sorts of retardedness in the name of love.
In reality, the concept of love can be approached in a similar manner. You can reason abstractly that love, needing objects, requires living beings, thus any law of love would require the sort of behaviors conducive to the existence of more beings. Now, this reasoning dovetails rather well with God in the old testament saying He was the God of the living, as well as Christ saying that He came so that we might have more life and have it more abundantly.
It is very easy to follow this logic if you are an atheist interested in a halfway decent life- at least that is what I think I see when I see people try to eat paleo, exercise, and constrain themselves from things like hookers and blow in favor of a family life centered around providing their children with a decent environment for humans to grow up in.
Notes: I don't like 'meta' but it seems appropriate here despite it's over use elsewhere. Additionally, I am quite sure some leftist academics are using this term in a less than satisfactory way, much like those who talk about structural issues in institutions, who often end up talking about racism rather than the actual limitations of institutions and how maybe we shouldn't have them be massive and try to babysit ten thousand students when that was never going to work- period- no matter how utterly non-racist everybody may or may not be.
Monday, August 17, 2015
Conspiracies: The simultaneity of intelligence and stupidity disrupts credulity
The trouble with certain conspiracies is that one has to, on the one hand, believe that certain folk are smart enough to conspire, and then on the other hand, dumb enough to want the deluge that ensued.
Most obvious to me is all conspiracies with Free Masonry at it's core. Sedevacantists seem to be all in on this one, but the Freemasons don't get many devotees these days, now do they? As church attendance goes down, so does their membership. The whole mass of civic society, all those old clubs, and whatnot- dying in this awful age that they were supposedly helping usher in.
I don't know. It isn't like I am saying they are force for good, or anything. I'm just saying the simultaneity of being impossibly clever and yet so short sighted so as to create a society so dysgenic as to not only end your very own institution, but to rot out your own kind, by inverting all the rules of decent breeding, allowing way too much mutation accumulation, etc...- it just seems a bit far fetched.
Most obvious to me is all conspiracies with Free Masonry at it's core. Sedevacantists seem to be all in on this one, but the Freemasons don't get many devotees these days, now do they? As church attendance goes down, so does their membership. The whole mass of civic society, all those old clubs, and whatnot- dying in this awful age that they were supposedly helping usher in.
I don't know. It isn't like I am saying they are force for good, or anything. I'm just saying the simultaneity of being impossibly clever and yet so short sighted so as to create a society so dysgenic as to not only end your very own institution, but to rot out your own kind, by inverting all the rules of decent breeding, allowing way too much mutation accumulation, etc...- it just seems a bit far fetched.
Shall Hilary Go, As Traficant Once Went?
Pity James Traficant isn't around to explain to Hilary what is being done to her. My guess is she seriously pissed off a lot of people back when she was first lady, and they aren't going to let her back into the White House. Sure, Republicans are making hay out of these emails, but the machinations of the state come from the Democrats.
I have a few, probably weird viewpoint on this. First, despite not being a Hilary fan, I don't like this idea that all these emails must be available to the government and/or to the people. I think the desire to leave a door open so that things can be subpoenaed by courts tends to keep various systems unsecured while not actually providing us with much in the way of protection. Hilary did what she did. The emails may establish what she did, but mostly they are currently just acting as one of the billions of laws- we all violate something, and as Traficant could have attested, when you lose your political capital, they'll pick whatever is convenient and hang you with it.
But on the mere email level, everybody should be using encryption and the fact that the government doesn't seem to be doing so is, in my opinion, more illuminating than Hilary's decision to have her own server. Her security was bad, but little proof can be given that it was any worse than the government's. The government has also reported several hacks recently in which taxpayer and employee data was stolen.
Additionally, when I consider good governance, I generally consider it to be a very simple affair. It is precisely the sort of thing most people shouldn't be paying attention to- good governance ought not to be noticed, whereas as bad governance ought to be outrageously obvious and, therefore, no one would be in need of extra documentary evidence in order to mount a legal case. This seems odd in our world mostly because horribly bad governance is championed, and it's practitioners are rewarded rather than jailed. In fact, much like Al Capone went down for tax evasion, rather than, say, the murders, or his laundry list of other crimes, Hilary shall likely have to bow out of the race (at the very least) for none of her meaningful crimes, but only this particularly dull one about emails- and probably that gossipy one about making all the Secret Service people really, really, mad at her when she was first lady.
So, just to recap, I would think, for instance, that it would be far more preferable to have a good Secretary of State capable of having completely private and encrypted chats throughout his or her career- completely untraceable and unverifiable even by a court. This, of course, would be in a sort of world where we could actually punish the idiots who thought invading Libya, not to mention a slew of other countries, was actually a good idea.
The emails are not the crime. The crimes are the crimes. We are taught to think we somehow need the emails, but we don't. What we need is to somehow pierce the veil of the state, by which I mean they should no longer be able to perform their magical incantations and validate their crimes as government actions and therefore somehow legitimate.
I have a few, probably weird viewpoint on this. First, despite not being a Hilary fan, I don't like this idea that all these emails must be available to the government and/or to the people. I think the desire to leave a door open so that things can be subpoenaed by courts tends to keep various systems unsecured while not actually providing us with much in the way of protection. Hilary did what she did. The emails may establish what she did, but mostly they are currently just acting as one of the billions of laws- we all violate something, and as Traficant could have attested, when you lose your political capital, they'll pick whatever is convenient and hang you with it.
But on the mere email level, everybody should be using encryption and the fact that the government doesn't seem to be doing so is, in my opinion, more illuminating than Hilary's decision to have her own server. Her security was bad, but little proof can be given that it was any worse than the government's. The government has also reported several hacks recently in which taxpayer and employee data was stolen.
Additionally, when I consider good governance, I generally consider it to be a very simple affair. It is precisely the sort of thing most people shouldn't be paying attention to- good governance ought not to be noticed, whereas as bad governance ought to be outrageously obvious and, therefore, no one would be in need of extra documentary evidence in order to mount a legal case. This seems odd in our world mostly because horribly bad governance is championed, and it's practitioners are rewarded rather than jailed. In fact, much like Al Capone went down for tax evasion, rather than, say, the murders, or his laundry list of other crimes, Hilary shall likely have to bow out of the race (at the very least) for none of her meaningful crimes, but only this particularly dull one about emails- and probably that gossipy one about making all the Secret Service people really, really, mad at her when she was first lady.
So, just to recap, I would think, for instance, that it would be far more preferable to have a good Secretary of State capable of having completely private and encrypted chats throughout his or her career- completely untraceable and unverifiable even by a court. This, of course, would be in a sort of world where we could actually punish the idiots who thought invading Libya, not to mention a slew of other countries, was actually a good idea.
The emails are not the crime. The crimes are the crimes. We are taught to think we somehow need the emails, but we don't. What we need is to somehow pierce the veil of the state, by which I mean they should no longer be able to perform their magical incantations and validate their crimes as government actions and therefore somehow legitimate.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Election Manipulation
Coyote linked to Senator Claire McCaskill's article about how she helped an uber-conservative win so she could beat him later.
She's that much more proof the scammers win, and anyone conservative enough to make a difference is also usually too clueless to win. Makes me sick really.
But anyway, it also suggests to me my ideas for ads could work. Target potential Jeb voters with commercials about Terri Schiavo & Elian Gonzales. You don't have to agree with the conservatives on this issue to do it- you just point out how Jeb is a wimp, and he did nothing. Every Republican governor who, to a man, rolled on gay marriage and went right into 'protecting religous freedom' mode ought to be ask how, exactly, they should be trusted to defend anything if they cave every time the Supreme Court does something unconstitutional. Wouldn't it be better for them to stand up now, when no one's life is at stake, rather than promise to protect us when they come to throw us to the lions? Hyperbole, I'm sure, but it gets the point across.
Again, much like this sick little woman doesn't believe anything Akin believes in, the person putting up such ads don't have to believe it either.
It also works on the left, especially with environmentalists and some of the progressives- some of whom are upset with Obama for being a modern American president, rather than the magical unicorn they were hoping for.
These aren't really meant to be ads to get people to vote; they are ads to get people not to vote. Of course, they could sway an election in favor of one person or the other, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is more people knowing they shouldn't vote because the candidates they are provided with just don't deserve it. Maybe, as a side effect, we might see a few people (probably Republicans) get scared enough to enact real change- but they really have to feel the situation is desperate.
In any case, the wheels are coming off. It has been like a reality TV show for a while, largely driven by the media's need for all those campaign advertising dollars, and I must say there's I feeling the schadenfreude from watching Trump, who is a pro at reality TV, not to mention back room deals, destroy these losers. Serves them right for giving up on our principles.
I told my team we needed to put Akin’s uber-conservative bona fides in an ad—and then, using reverse psychology, tell voters not to vote for him.
She's that much more proof the scammers win, and anyone conservative enough to make a difference is also usually too clueless to win. Makes me sick really.
But anyway, it also suggests to me my ideas for ads could work. Target potential Jeb voters with commercials about Terri Schiavo & Elian Gonzales. You don't have to agree with the conservatives on this issue to do it- you just point out how Jeb is a wimp, and he did nothing. Every Republican governor who, to a man, rolled on gay marriage and went right into 'protecting religous freedom' mode ought to be ask how, exactly, they should be trusted to defend anything if they cave every time the Supreme Court does something unconstitutional. Wouldn't it be better for them to stand up now, when no one's life is at stake, rather than promise to protect us when they come to throw us to the lions? Hyperbole, I'm sure, but it gets the point across.
Again, much like this sick little woman doesn't believe anything Akin believes in, the person putting up such ads don't have to believe it either.
It also works on the left, especially with environmentalists and some of the progressives- some of whom are upset with Obama for being a modern American president, rather than the magical unicorn they were hoping for.
These aren't really meant to be ads to get people to vote; they are ads to get people not to vote. Of course, they could sway an election in favor of one person or the other, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is more people knowing they shouldn't vote because the candidates they are provided with just don't deserve it. Maybe, as a side effect, we might see a few people (probably Republicans) get scared enough to enact real change- but they really have to feel the situation is desperate.
In any case, the wheels are coming off. It has been like a reality TV show for a while, largely driven by the media's need for all those campaign advertising dollars, and I must say there's I feeling the schadenfreude from watching Trump, who is a pro at reality TV, not to mention back room deals, destroy these losers. Serves them right for giving up on our principles.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
A Meaning Of One
It seems logical to me that the perfect must be one, and consequently, Jesus' prayer that we may all be one strikes my differently from me erstwhile pseudo-progressive compatriots.John 17 KJV:
Oneness being an internal quality, indicative of a coherent and integrated will within, as it is in the Trinity.
Trying to achieve oneness at a group level is a set up for non-oneness, because this group 'oneness' means subverting the will. Working on the will and getting yourself coherent may provide you with a by product at the end- a group that is essentially of 'one-mind,' but don't hold your breath. Will has been attenuated to the point where many seem more driven by television than reality. And then there is this sense of submission or even apathy that is encouraged in Churchian circles- any real development of will is seen as rebellious to God.
If this passiveness were appropriate, God's will would be being done already. It is simply not appropriate. I know because I tried it and it didn't work and it allowed a lot of foolish people to high jack my time, energy, and resources for foolish stuff rather than for anything God wants.
One aspect to this is pay attention. Unfortunately, this often means paying attention to unenjoyable things, which I don't do very well. But, presumably, I have to pay attention, because actions, derived from will, must take place in reality, and not daydreams. But, due to circumstances noticeable to many, this often means wait, too.
We are often of two minds about things, sometimes more, within ourselves. And then there are those confused people who do things while sleepwalking or while in other supposed states of non-consciousness. Often the thinking is that they were not themselves, as if the removal of consciousness means removal of person.
What if that isn't true at all? Firstly, as a practical matter they did do the act. Secondly, if you want to do something badly enough, you can easily reduce your conscious control if you think that buys you permission- isn't this why people binge drink and have drunken sex? Or turn on the TV to keep something, anything, running through their heads instead of whatever it they are afraid of.
Perhaps the sleepwalkers are merely particularly adept at turning their consciousness off.
Whatever the mechanism, they certainly can't be said to be one.
21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
Oneness being an internal quality, indicative of a coherent and integrated will within, as it is in the Trinity.
Trying to achieve oneness at a group level is a set up for non-oneness, because this group 'oneness' means subverting the will. Working on the will and getting yourself coherent may provide you with a by product at the end- a group that is essentially of 'one-mind,' but don't hold your breath. Will has been attenuated to the point where many seem more driven by television than reality. And then there is this sense of submission or even apathy that is encouraged in Churchian circles- any real development of will is seen as rebellious to God.
If this passiveness were appropriate, God's will would be being done already. It is simply not appropriate. I know because I tried it and it didn't work and it allowed a lot of foolish people to high jack my time, energy, and resources for foolish stuff rather than for anything God wants.
One aspect to this is pay attention. Unfortunately, this often means paying attention to unenjoyable things, which I don't do very well. But, presumably, I have to pay attention, because actions, derived from will, must take place in reality, and not daydreams. But, due to circumstances noticeable to many, this often means wait, too.
We are often of two minds about things, sometimes more, within ourselves. And then there are those confused people who do things while sleepwalking or while in other supposed states of non-consciousness. Often the thinking is that they were not themselves, as if the removal of consciousness means removal of person.
What if that isn't true at all? Firstly, as a practical matter they did do the act. Secondly, if you want to do something badly enough, you can easily reduce your conscious control if you think that buys you permission- isn't this why people binge drink and have drunken sex? Or turn on the TV to keep something, anything, running through their heads instead of whatever it they are afraid of.
Perhaps the sleepwalkers are merely particularly adept at turning their consciousness off.
Whatever the mechanism, they certainly can't be said to be one.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)