Profile for Najosz Thjsza Kjras
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| Displayed name | Najosz Thjsza Kjras |
| Member number | 6388 |
| Title | Lifecrafter |
| Postcount | 794 |
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| Registered | Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
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| The Beginning Was The End in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Wednesday, December 13 2006 21:48
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quote:Nobody likes a gimmick. The most you'll ever rate is pity. Food for thought. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| another environmental topic in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Wednesday, December 13 2006 21:10
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quote:No, when you have economic efficiency you have starvation. Economic efficiency dictates you produce as much of the good as the market desires, which results in producing it more expensive than a good number of people can afford it. Allocative efficiency is people getting as much of it as will satisfy their preferences, and it's a horse of a different color from economic efficiency. It's what all developed countries strive for in terms of vital goods. (There's a reason the US heavily subsidizes the agrarian sector.) Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Re: Synergy's Massive Topic in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Wednesday, December 13 2006 20:59
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quote:I was going to editorialize on this, but I came to realize that your monument to militant tepidity was beyond my meager power to add or subtract and abandoned the effort. I'd congratulate you, but you seem to regard any enthusiasm as some kind of an insult, so... Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| 5353: Pseudohistory Phatassathon in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Wednesday, December 13 2006 18:12
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Illig's complaint isn't the lack of records; he believes the written records (which exist in decent abundance) were falsified. His objection is to the lack of non-written evidence of events purported to have occurred in the 300 years mentioned. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| 5353: Pseudohistory Phatassathon in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Wednesday, December 13 2006 16:22
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(The title is bad. The original was worse.) For the next month, I will, as per Thuryl, be posting notable pseudohistories or pseudohistorians for your edification and amusement. The inaugural entry is Heribert Illig. This wacky German researcher - well, a systems analyst, really, but basically the same thing - famously concluded that about 300 years in Middle Ages, from 614 to 911 (NEVER FORGET), never occurred. This speculation is known as the phantom time hypothesis. If this theory were true, minor squabbling about the accuracy of Gregorian dates aside, the current year would be 1709. In spite of the fabrication alleged by Illig requiring an amount of collusion by Christian, Islamic, and Eastern sources unimaginable even in the present day, the fabrication of 300 years of history having no clear motive, and the disagreement of basically every credible German-speaking scientist, several researchers have written in support of his preposterous hypothesis. The sole apparent basis for the phantom time hypothesis? The slim amount of solid evidence from the period outside of written records. (Not to be confused with Anatoly Formenko, on whom more later, whose claims are more spectacular and even less legitimate objects of controversy.) Illig's 1996 hypothesis and following work have not been translated widely out of German due to understandably limited scientific interest, so he is a figure of little renown outside of Krautopia. Outside Field and Bias: Almost every pseudohistory involves the intersection of another field - often a respectable one - with history. While the particular intersection is sometimes pseudohistorical only due to its proponent's personal biases, in some cases the intersection itself is conceptually meritless and the bias mostly lies in the pseudohistorian's willingness to dream it up in the first place. Pseudohistorians are, not coincidentally, often a respectable figure in some other field. Systems analysis, Illig's profession, is a research science focusing on interactions within systems, often at the individual level. While normally it's difficult to wrap one's head around why this would have such a dramatic influence on history, the concept of documentary friction - the falsification of documents, especially within a bureaucracy, without outside evidence to verify them - is much more relevant in systems analysis than history. While this by no means explains the whole of Illig's complex error, it does explain why he is willing to invent a massive global conspiracy to explain non-written evidence for events after the fall of the Roman Empire getting scarce for a while. [ Wednesday, December 13, 2006 17:14: Message edited by: Heribert Illig ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Nothing Plus Nothing Equals Nothing in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Wednesday, December 13 2006 15:41
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quote:But the entire point of this topic is to give a reason why you reject medicine, which you've yet to. The reason I have, and tell me if I'm wrong on this one, is that defrauding vulnerable people out of proper medical care with scientific-sounding falsehoods makes you a pretty comfortable living. Or I guess you'd call it 'counseling', but potAYto potAHto, right? Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Nothing Plus Nothing Equals Nothing in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Wednesday, December 13 2006 14:27
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Once more, your mysticism is not only wrong but insultingly wrong. Cancer can be prevented to some extent by a good diet and regular exercise (studies bear out as much), and its inevitable conclusion can be postponed somewhat by the same, but cancer has nothing to do in and of itself with what you ascribe it to. It is exactly what Alorael says it is: genetically damaged cells which no longer die after reproducing a certain amount of times. However, stating that cancer can be cured by diet and exercise is hogwash. The 'immune system', your cure-all, is less than useless against cancer; in fact, the lymphatic sysem serves as a vector for cancer once it becomes systemic. You're basing your every prescription on broad stereotypes about science and medicine. Yes, proper nutrition is important, and sure, keeping the immune system from getting depressed when you are sick is good. But the immune system can only do so much in and of itself to contain diseases. That's why they're diseases in the first place: if the immune system could handle them on its own you wouldn't get sick in the first place, now would you? Your prescription for cancer is diet and exercise. What objection do you have to chemotherapy and what evidence do you have that diet/exercise are more effective? And if you reject my query on the basis of my being an ass, I'd like to know why you don't ask yourself these questions. Self-criticism is the first step towards wisdom. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Nothing Plus Nothing Equals Nothing in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Wednesday, December 13 2006 11:55
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quote:The interstate highway system was Hitler's idea. But you go ahead and reject what I have to say because other things I have to say make you feel bad about yourself. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| another environmental topic in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Wednesday, December 13 2006 11:31
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Of course it's missing the point of the article. These things, as always, are debates between provincial goody-two-shoes and self-obsessed sociopaths. The global view is never taken into serious consideration by either side of the 'debate'. :P Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| The Beginning Was The End in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Wednesday, December 13 2006 11:28
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quote:Are you kidding? My fiancee is worse than I am. We wouldn't be getting married if she wasn't. :P [ Wednesday, December 13, 2006 11:28: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Nothing Plus Nothing Equals Nothing in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Wednesday, December 13 2006 11:12
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quote:The fact of the matter is that that is neither how medicine works nor, indeed, how physics works. Medicine is a lot more complicated than that. If you want to discuss what medicine does, you really do need to learn what it is it actually does first. It doesn't 'destroy' disease. It might destroy disease cells or suppress certain processes that the disease needs to thrive. Antibiotics kill disease, but they kill it by interacting with molecular components of its cells in a certain way. There are dozens of ways in which it does this. Your description fits chemotherapy more or less perfectly, which does use ionizing energy and which does more or less destroy cells (it doesn't destroy MATTER, but your assertion there was more confusion as to the nature of physics than anything else). There's a reason that physicians never use chemotherapy unless the usefulness of all other options has been exhausted (including surgery!), and that's because it's pretty brutal, biochemically speaking. All medicine is not chemotherapy. The belief that it is is ridiculous, and if that's the assumption on which you prejudice modern medicine you really need to do some homework before you wantlessly injure yourself. quote:You're creating a straw man. I am not 'offended' by this; I have simply stated that unless you can make your case with a degree of intellectual rigor you need to reassess why you're making it. quote:'Geekily skewed'? How patronizing. And unlike you, I believe in what I am talking about enough to take joy in the prospect of proselytization. Science is a beautiful thing and the more people are familiar with it, the better. Just because you don't have the energy to address everything I have to say, which I understand, doesn't mean you can ignore any of it. I've made a lot of forceful points; whether or not you consider this a debate, it'd probably be best to reconsider why you believe what you do in light of them. quote:My father is older than you and he is the direct source for 90% of this. Then again, I suppose his life experience doesn't count because he's a physician. quote:Yes it is! Unless what you believe can weather skepticism, it isn't worth believing, damn it! You might not convince me, but the least you can do is rebut me, or anyone else in this discussion! quote:Once more, I stress that you are not a philosopher, and any student of philosophy would be insulted by your claiming to be. Philosophers offer concrete defintions for terms, which you do not. And when you do, your definitions are contradictory with reality and one another. Just because you maunder like a philosopher doesn't make you one. Like Slarty said, sticking yourself with needles doesn't make you an acupuncturist. quote:I will admit I exercise a degree of faith, but that faith is based on experience, like all reasonable faith. When I am sick, medicine makes me well; the same is true of everyone I know. Whether or not I am up to a higher standard than you is irrelevant: what matters here is that my faith in science is justified and your faith in naturopathy is not. If you ask me to justify my faith, I can do so all day; when I ask you to justify yours, you try to escape in an ink-cloud of misapplied physics jargon, and when that fails start complaining I have faith as well. quote:Because there's no one scientist doing all of what we know. Yes, they're egotistical, limited, fallible, dogmatic, selfish, and fraudulent; they're human. But the entire point of science is a system by which human failures are reduced out of the equation as much as possible. No one man developed the antibiotics or the epinephrine I use, but they were developed by a long, wide committee of flawed human beings doing their best work to study objective data. For that matter, allow me to ask you: you're all of those things too, and unlike a scientist you do not offer a paradigm on which to judge or falsify your work. Why should we treat what you believe on the same level as science, let alone with preference to it? quote:My dear Synergy, were you starving I would be just as enthusiastic about your basic human right to eat as I am about attacking your ridiculous beliefs. This is not only an ad hominem attack, but a dumb one. quote:I am not a Kantian, Synergy. I don't believe in crap like universal maxims; for me, what works works. I am capable of fighting both the cold-hearted and selfish behavior of the pharmaceutical company and the false congeniality and warmth of your cultish babble, both of which have limitless potential for abuse of hapless victims. quote:Hey, if you're gonna believe in one worthless nostrum, how am I supposed to know you don't believe in another? Like I said, Synergy, you don't have a falsification process. How am I supposed to know you're not a homeopath? I'd say that I respect you more because of that, but honestly, it just seems like a matter of random chance you don't believe in like-cures-like and the memory of water. I never specifically called you a homeopath; I just said that naturopaths believe in stuff like that without falsifying it. I didn't claim you believe in trepanning either, I'm just saying that's the kind of nonsense you get in the absence of a scientific process of falsification. quote:And you disrespect me by boiling everything I have to say down to 'disrespect'. I am a bitter, disrespectful little man, Synergy, but that doesn't change the fact that I've torn your absurd belief system a new hole. If you want to ignore that, it's your loss, not mine. quote:Walking is good for you, but not for the reasons you describe. As I said earlier, and as you seem to have ignored, the human immune system under normal circumstances operates at the upper limit of its healthy parameters. 'Strengthening' it will do nobody any good. Walking is good because it is cardiovascular exercise, which strenghthens the heart, burns calories (usually the American diet includes more than we need), and strengthens muscles used in day-to-day life. The immune system has nothing to do with that. quote:I'd prefer to live 80 years with allergies than 40 years without them, thanks. And as for the increase in allergies: allergic reactions are due to the immune system being too strong in respect to certain proteins. What happens when I haplessly consume peanuts or soy is that my immune system kicks into overdrive trying to expel a nonexistent threat and I go into something called anaphylactic shock as a result. Maybe the modern lifestyle has lead to more allergies, but modern technology can fix a lot of them. My father's cat allergy would have been unassuagable two generations ago, but now all it takes is a single injection. And allergies are not something new; they're as old as time. quote:As I have said before, 'immune function' is not an appropriate meterstick for health. As for quantity versus quality: the reason we're dying of heart disease is that we're living to an older age. By all appearances our bodies were adapted to live for a fairly short time, and with modern medicine we've been eking decades beyond our normal limits out. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the developed world, Syn, but not the third world - this is precisely because heart disease is a death for the old and well-fed. And don't make the mistake that they live healthier lives in the third world - it's a harrowing nightmare of disease, pollution, and other toxins and stressors there. The reason they don't live as old as we do and have the chance to suffer from heart disease and cancer is that they don't have the medical care to do so. That's why organizations like Medicins sans Frontieres exist. Contrary to what you seem to believe, physicians are not a single-mindedly avaricious lot; their first interest is saving or improving life. It's a vocation that is VERY difficult to get into, and that difficulty weeds out those interested mostly in the money pretty quickly. (Seriously: if you were in it for the money, why would you even put up with the 8 years of education and half-million dollars of debt?) quote:That's pretty doubtful, especially considering the prior family history. All I know is that at the end of the day, what you recommend doesn't work (peanuts and soy would be healthier for me, in dietary terms, than what I eat to substitute them out, e.g. meat) and what medicine recommends does. By your own paradigm, you know what that means, right? quote:Well, if you want to do good for the world, start doing studies on this. I have no doubt some of what you believe is true, but the only way to make sure is to conduct studies set up in a scientific fashion (double-blind tests, falsifiable hypotheses, etc.). That's what makes it any different from mere belief - the weight of evidence. quote:See, you have a lot of good ideas, but the problem is that you have no idea why you have them. Take soda, for instance. It's bad mostly because most people have too much sugar to begin with; something like diet soda, on the other hand, is basically harmless, but I don't imagine you'd agree with that. Proper nutrition is vital, and so is exercise. But there are other solutions for disease that we must pursue at the same time. A healthy body requires both internal strength and the lack of disease, parasites, or malfunction - each of which can be reached most efficiently by the tools offered to us by modern medicine. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Nothing Plus Nothing Equals Nothing in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Wednesday, December 13 2006 00:56
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Skeptic's Annotated Dictionary quote (from 'natural', which read) illustrating a fundamental distinction naturopathy (and, in this conversation, Synergy) fails to grasp: Just because something is natural does not mean that it is good, safe or healthy. Herbs are natural but they are also drugs when used in the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of a disease. The chemicals which comprise synthetic drugs are natural. St. John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum) is natural, but it is a drug. Why do some people say that they prefer St. John's Wort to drugs for depression? If someone said that he preferred Irish whiskey to alcohol, we'd think he was confused. St. John's Wort contains hypericin, which inhibits monoamine oxidase, a chemical associated with depression. In other words, St. John's Wort (hypericin) is an "MAO inhibitor". MAO inhibitors are commonly prescribed by medical doctors to treat depression. Other types of anti-depressants have become more popular because they have far fewer side effects. MAO inhibitors should not be used when a person eats substances containing the amino acid tyramine or bacteria with enzymes that can convert tyrosine to tyramine, viz., alcoholic beverages, products made with yeast, aged cheese, sour cream, liver, canned meats, salami, sausage, pickled herring, eggplant and soy sauce. Otherwise, convulsions, extremely high fever and death by natural causes may occur. Further, for amusement's sake alone: The present Pope commits an unnatural act every day! [ Wednesday, December 13, 2006 00:57: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Nothing Plus Nothing Equals Nothing in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Wednesday, December 13 2006 00:36
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Yes, we do have the solution in our hands. That solution is science: we need more of it. Some of those bits of 'wisdom' you mention, like acupuncture, do work, and we're working out why. Once we do, we'll be able to develop new treatments based on the same principle. That's science for you: Instead of 'If it works, it works', it's an effort to find out and pursue exactly what works. Medicine is an outgrowth of that, and your irrational contempt for it aside, it embraces every positive thing you prescribe. By your own maxim: if it works, it works, right? If it doesn't work, explain how we managed to get rid of smallpox and (in the developed world) polio, turn what were formerly life-threatening plagues like influenza into minor maladies for healthy people, and extend the human lifespan to close to what appear to be its biological limits. Medicine, whether you like it or not, works. You might do well to read up on how it actually works, because you don't understand it at all. ('Ionizing energy'? You were making that up; it literally means 'electromagnetic radiation' and saying that medicine works by employing it is literally laughable. I mean, I laughed aloud for the better part of a minute.) Instead of standing firm and proud of your ignorance, you should strive to remedy it. Pick up the AMA encyclopedia sometime. For what would, based on your worldview, seem to be a tome of vicious exploitation and lies, it sure is internally consistent and readily applicable in the real world, and it makes for a really interesting read. To wit: Yes, medicine has made mistakes, and so has science, but in the long run it's self-correcting. 'Alternative medicine' is not - demonstratably useless practices like homeopathy and demonstratably dangerous practices like trepanning and supervitamin treatment survive without any particular oversight, whereas few medicines, no matter how effective, last more than a few decades - and if something has severe and adverse side-effects it is usually swiftly recalled. The only cases in which it is not are cases in which the side-effect is less dangerous than leaving the condition untreated, and when that occurs there is no more fervent research than that for an alternative cure to the dangerous one. What you're basing your contempt for medicine on is a mixture of anecdotes and stereotypes. I have deflated those stereotypes and provided countering anecdotes; in effect, I have challenged your system of belief. Whether you respond to that challenge or ignore it is up to you. I will, as always, rigorously approve if you choose to pursue the path of self-improvement on the matter. [ Wednesday, December 13, 2006 00:43: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Nothing Plus Nothing Equals Nothing in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Wednesday, December 13 2006 00:18
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Okay, some of your errors here are so egregrious even I - and I know all too little about biology - can correct them. You're clearly out of practice when you narrow your babble down to specifics. quote:There was a dramatic demonstration of why naturopaths' obsession with "strengthening the immune system" is so hilariously inaccurate: people's immune systems are about as strong as they're gonna get. Strengthening it substantially, as accidentally occurred in clinical testing of TN-1412, leads it to try and reject the body's own organs, which results in horrible injury and possibly horrible death. No physician would argue that you shouldn't modify your diet and exercise to render them more healthful, which you seem to be in the habit of implying. But diet and exercise alone aren't enough to affect a dramatic change in the efficiency of the immune system. If it were, people would die in agony. quote:'Ionizing energy' is radiation. It does not destroy matter, but rather does exactly what it says on the tin: ionizes it, thereby rendering it chemically different and usually destructive to the cellular order. No matter is destroyed, but matter is chemically altered by radiation in a fashion that is destructive to living things. No drug, besides obviously radiation chemotherapy, employs ionizing energy. Either you are an idiot or a liar, because anyone with even a basic knowledge of physics or medicine can understand how hilariously false this claim is. quote:It is one approach/paradigm for how to treat a disease, sure: bombard it with radiation until it's sterile. If medicine did that as a first recourse, boy howdy would I hate on it too. But it doesn't, so your absurd argument falls flat. quote:Our bodies aren't 'designed' to do anything. What are you, some kind of creationist? They do certain things in reaction to certain nutrients, but they're not 'designed' to treat nutrients from one food different from another. Ask any nutritionist (who, based on your interests, you ought to hold in high esteem) and they'll tell you that, say, refined sugar is basically chemically identical to sugar in, say, fruit. It's associated with none of the side nutrients present in fruit, but it's biochemically identical. This business about certain foods being what we're 'designed' to handle is a ridiculous story operating on false assumptions of how human bodies arose and how they operate. And if this is true, by all logic we ought very well be reliant on the flora and fauna of the Horn of Africa to survive - for after all, that is where we developed our ability to survive! quote:Really? Most spiritual people I know have a worrying preoccupation with what will happen to them under certain circumstances. I've never met someone who isn't spiritual and holds a ridiculous and damaging belief like if they masturbate they'll burn forever after they die. But, of course, I suppose for you 'spiritual' is basically 'good'. That's because 'spiritual' is another example of a power-word, something without any meaning besides 'good' in context. If it had any other meaning, the statement would defeat itself. quote:All good, although I stress that the foods themselves are not toxic or distressing to bodily systems. The substances they comprise, yes. The foods, no. Your body doesn't know peach-seed cyanide from cyanide gas. quote:Again, your refusal to define 'energy' is telling here: what 'energy' exactly are you referring to? Clearly some kind of metaphysical force, because no biochemical force is present in 'energy manipulation' as you describe. I will not dispute that some acupuncture works, but not because it manipulates energy, or all of it would work as understood. quote:No it can't. Show me a peer-reviewed study saying it can and we can talk. quote:Wait, sex is an immune system booster? Sex involves exchanging excretory microbes, which depending on your lifestyle (mostly how many partners you have and how long-term) ranges from benign to an annoyance in immunological terms. This isn't even to mention sexual diseases or the 'spiritual' baggage attached to sex. quote:When those 'bits of wisdom' prove viable, they are adopted by science; when they do not, they are rejected. On what process do you accept or reject those 'bits of wisdom'? I happen to like the scientific method myself, and a thorough understanding of it and its produce render a lot of your suggestions inappropriate. quote:Of course not. You don't need to be an aeronautical engineer to fly a plane - but there do need to be aeronautical engineers verifying the damn thing can fly before you step aboard. quote:This is true, but you imply that in some cases we can't understand it. In a lot of cases, the 'benefits' from what you prescribe is either from different sources (a balanced diet will not 'boost your immune system' like you seem to believe, but it's certainly good for you for unrelated reasons) or are outright psychosomatic/placebo-based (how, precisely, is water therapy supposed to accomplish anything except making the skin wet?). Further, 'what works works' is a horrible way to prescribe finding out what else might work. quote:Count the reactionary dog-whistles, win a prize. If I may tenderly suggest you look at statistics, which seem to be anathema to you but a boy can dream, I ask you whether our modern, industrialized world with unprecedented stressors and toxins has a higher life expectancy than times when those 'changes in human lifestyle' had yet to occur. For some bizarre reason, even though those stressors and toxins have just been piling on, our life expectancy mysteriously increases over time with the advance of technology! What gives? How can you possibly explain that people living what you broadly refer to as unnaturally live several times longer than their ancestors who ate raw meat and shat upstream from their wells? After all - the latter has less changes in human lifestyle, and certainly has fewer unprecedented stressors or toxins - the stress of disease and e coli are both as old as time! quote:Uh: I don't get it. Because we don't eat healthily (and we eat better than we have at any period of history, BTW - the diet of the average person in the middle ages or before consisted mostly of a single staple with a few others to prevent serious nutritional diseases), we deserve to get heart disease and cancer? I don't think this'd go over well with a cancer patient. If you deal with them on a regular basis, and I seriously pity them if you do, what do they have to say to this? Do you ever get them to apologize? quote:Most of the practices you list are superstitious hodgepodge which will produce no effect on a reasonable patient and which will do little to stanch the advance of a disease already present. quote:Generally, physicians would agree with you on this one; they prefer the less invasive option if the two are equally effective. It's just that you don't care what they have to say. And given that you seem to believe they cure diseases by bombarding them with ionizing radiation, I'm not surprised you feel that way. quote:I have a peanut allergy. (I was apparently born with it, and there's a history of food allergies in my family.) I guess your solution is to try and guilt the anaphylaxis away when I have a reaction to something, right? Somehow I find the option less attractive than good old-fashioned allopathic epinephrine, which is the result of laboratory research, a synthetic compound, an artificial hormone, pulls a number on your immune system when you use it, and is absolutely effective at preventing my horrible death by respiratory failure. I've heard it suggested so very often that if I adjusted my lifestyle somehow, I could eliminate my allergy to just about every major plant protein (soy, peanuts, peas, you name it). Yet nothing offers any success. Instead of providing vague prescriptions and trying to guilt me for living in a modern society and hold me accountable for, I guess, my digestive system's laziness with respect to certain proteins, medicine prevents whatever accidental exposure I have with foods you'd regard as healthful from killing me, and it does it without moralizing at me. You know what sells all of that? Allergies are the result of immune system overreactions. Holism is hilarious, although I'm really glad it's never going to happen to me. quote:Which is why doctors make a habit of forcing pills down patients' throats instead of giving them full responsibility by doing something like, say, authorizing them to purchase restricted chemicals to treat their problems at will. Those jerks. Those radiation-spewing jerks. quote:Tell that to polio patients in the third world. quote:Health IS in our own hands; modern medicine has put into our hands a power to cure our various physical and mental afflictions undreampt-of by past generations. But your holism rejects that based on a fetishistic attachment to orientalist mysticism and an ascientific obsession with 'energy' and the immune system. For more on the subject of the immune system and naturopathy, this link serves to edify and amuse. We live in an age of progress: the scientific method has proven so fruitful we can classify cranks in advance and accurately describe their absurd beliefs without even encountering them. How much of this fits you to a T, Synergy, and how ashamed should you be of that? [ Wednesday, December 13, 2006 00:28: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| another environmental topic in General | |
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Lifecrafter
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written Tuesday, December 12 2006 23:18
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quote:Conditionally agree. Some industrial farming processes are either cruel or dangerous to human beings. (I am unconcerned about trees' feelings, which I guess disambiguates me from a lot of environmentalists.) quote:Ah, lovely: the old trick of disregarding the point of the exercise. Practices like 'fair trade' do indeed lead to economic inefficiency, which means overproduction and low prices, but they're aiming for allocative efficiency, which means everyone getting what they want. Food being too plentiful or too cheap is the kind of problem that only exists for economists; in the real world it means people don't starve who would otherwise. Economic efficiency ain't pretty. quote:I don't know how strenuous their reasoning is, but I'm not on board with the local produce movement. This is partially because it seems like a ridiculous gesture of imperial arrogance in a world wracked with hunger to declare that the problem is that you're not eating food produced locally. Uh, yeah, tell that to your average Malien and see what they have to say. ---- quote:'13 syllable chemical compounds' aren't basically dangerous. This is what I call the Environmentalist's Naturalist Fallacy: the belief that natural is good and synthetic is bad. As far as the body is concerned, 13-syllable compounds are identical whether they come from 'nature' or the laboratory. DE ox Y ri BO nu CLE ic A cid - only 10, but surely pretty awful for you because of all the syllables, right? Don't form fetishistic attachments to concepts like 'synthetic chemicals'; they often lead you into preposterous fallacies like this one, and that's awful. quote:You realize that there's a reason very little in the way of crops actually grow in Alaska, right? Crops require a longer growing season than a few months, and a long, cold summer is unhealthy for them. quote:My problem is with people starving more than damage to the environment, which sucks but isn't killing people here and now. Producing just what we need would be fine and good, except countries like Mali and Chad can't swing that, what with the advancing inhospitable desert. Your heart's in the right place (oppose fatman, who seems to be little more than a reactionary provocateur), but it'd be a lot better if you actually knew the problems we're facing instead of operating on broad, sweepingly inaccurate generalizations like 'synthetic chemicals are unhealthy', 'we need to be less wasteful', and even 'plants need sunlight to grow'. I don't intend this as an insult, because like I said, your heart's in the right place. But you really might want to read up on environmental issues, and at all costs DO NOT READ UP ON IT WITH ENVIRONMENTALIST LITERATURE. At its best the movement assumes you already know the basics; at its worst the movement doesn't know the basics either and its proponents make ridiculous, mysical claims about the nature of the environment. The scientific literature on agriculture, deforestation, and food ethics is pretty dry, but ultimately very rewarding. Look into it. ---- quote:Won't work. Hydroponic farming (the only way to accomplish a 'skyscraper farm', which could not have soil) is fairly resource-intensive and the technology involved is in its embryonic stages. Further, it's a lot less efficient in terms of cost than just planting crops in the ground, which is less of a problem than you seem to think (on which more later.) quote:Not really. A hermetic, climate-controlled greenhouse on the scale of a major farm would be even more of a hassle than the one I was assuming before; pesticides would still be used on a fairly large scale. (Remember, bugs aren't the only parasites out there.) quote:Wouldn't work too well in an urban environment: water is generally at a premium there (especially in the developing world!), which would make hydroponic skyscraper farming even more economically impractical. If you're talking about something like soil importation, that's just ridiculous; it'd be so expensive as to make the enterprise worthless. quote:Land for homes isn't a problem. Overpopulation is a problem only because human beings consume an inordinate amount of resources and enough of them in one place put a strain on the carrying capacity of a region. The reason people are clustered into homes isn't because farms use a vast amount of land; farms use less land than they ever have, especially due to use of pesticides and intensive industrial-style agriculture. The problem of slums, favelas, projects, and the like is an economic one: real estate is a commodity to be bought and sold rather than a human right necessary for the sustenance of man. You don't have the money to buy or rent, you wind up in one of two shacks stacked on top of each other in a filthy, sprawling ghetto. The human population could live comfortably in Texas, but the social engineering necessary to get the human population to live comfortably on Earth is spectacular enough. [ Tuesday, December 12, 2006 23:37: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| The Beginning Was The End in General | |
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Lifecrafter
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written Tuesday, December 12 2006 23:12
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At the time I was banned, I had held a couple of basically inaccurate assumptions about the state of SW and the direction it was going. First, that any intellectual vigor in the community was basically gone; Second, that it was doomed to become a boring cesspit of old memes. While the final clause of the second holds true, the recent ritual murder of the community homeopath reminded that there are still interesting discussions to be had here and holding myself back would be silly. On the other hand, I'm going to avoid being as inflammatory as is my usual idiom - this is partially because I am too busy to come up with good invective, partially because it's an old schtick and I'm tired of it, and partially because of Stareye being a bloody-minded pawn of the international Zionist conspiracy. (Kidding.) Don't expect me around too often, but remember that I'm watching and that I still have an unstoppable pimp train. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Nothing Plus Nothing Equals Nothing in General | |
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Lifecrafter
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written Tuesday, December 12 2006 23:04
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The reason I object to your absurd nonsense, Synergy, is that you are debasing and misdirecting a legitimate political institution. What is sometimes referred to as 'big pharma' - the interests of established pharmaceutical companies - is indeed dangerous, but on entirely different grounds than you suggest. Pharmaceutical companies are handed research and subsidies by the government, and with those proceed to produce medicines protected by lucrative patents which cost dozens, sometimes hundreds, of times what they ought to. Those medicines are not only effective, which you ridiculously dispute, but necessary, in some cases as vital a commodity as air or water, and are exploited for millions by big corporations whose largest profit margins are earned on the suffering of man. HIV/AIDS drugs are generally too expensive for the majority of sufferers to benefit from them, and yet far from reining in their costs, Big Pharma-influenced governments tend to hand more subsidies, contracts, and research to the abusive producers. Your babble about 'allopathy' is just that - babble. It serves to conceal a legitimate issue: thanks to heavy and inappropriate corporate welfare, the pharmaceutical industry in the United States simply does not serve the mass of people cheaply, effectively, or in a great number of cases at all. Meanwhile, your infuriating diatribes against physicians also serve to conceal a serious social problem: thanks to the pseudo-private nature of American healthcare, prices are inflated by the oligopolistic insurance market and doctors are forced to charge an arm and a leg to maintain decent profit margins. (It costs an American physician the better part of a million dollars and a decade to achieve her degree. Would you ask her to spend her entire life paying that off?) In countries with state or state-subsidized healthcare, doctors make decent salaries without horribly overcharging their patients, and the only losers are predatory insurance companies. Your inane blathering paints an obviously inaccurate picture of a violently ill sector. The most malicious effect you have on the disinterested observer is not the danger you will convert them; I admit that risk is small, on account of it would be difficult for a reasonable person to read your pap and consider it anything more than the rantings of an either delusional or deceptive mystic. On the other hand, someone who seriously takes what you have to say as representative of criticism on the pharmaceutical industry and the state of healthcare in the US will likely come to the conclusion that such criticism is meritless. While yours certainly is, there is a large body of legitimate criticism of American healthcare - a large and quietly reasonable body often drowned out by nonsense about quantum energy and iatrogeny and outmoded paradigms. It is a body of criticism I take very seriously and I strongly resent your efforts to strangle it with your lies. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Nothing Plus Nothing Equals Nothing in General | |
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Lifecrafter
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written Tuesday, December 12 2006 22:32
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Ah, at last, an effort to chase the opposition out of the discourse: the crank's tool just beneath abuse of technical language in esteem. quote:I didn't even address your character; my objection is to your conduct. By all means, I could also object to seriously addressing rhetoric from a maundering hack who regularly hits on women a third his age and well below the age of consent even over their vigorous protests. But I didn't; I only do now because you apparently don't wish to grant me the same luxury. quote:I said it was not worth my effort having words with you. I do not intend to shame you with my own words; if I did there would be much more about you being a pedophile and a crank. I intend to shame you with your own. That takes substantially less time and effort on my part. quote:What it says of them is that they do not necessarily share with me a profound scholarship in and understanding of pseudoscience, rhetoric, and the abuse of language. A casual observer might well be far more intelligent than I am, but without the formal background necessary to detect exactly how it is you are attempting to mislead them - and might be tempted to take your nonsense seriously. Honestly, have you no better defense of your unhinged, irrational pabulum than to try and shoo your detractors away from it? Whether I am consistent in my actions is irrelevant in the matter of whether or not you have anything of value to say. [ Tuesday, December 12, 2006 22:33: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Nothing Plus Nothing Equals Nothing in General | |
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Lifecrafter
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written Tuesday, December 12 2006 22:08
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I have gone to the trouble of highlighting any word or phrase in your latest diatribe which disregards that phrase's usual use, conveys nothing substantial or - worse - appears to be facially absurd if not considered as a power phrase, is a five-dollar turn for a concept too banal to involve otherwise, or is apparently an invention of your own with no explanatory definition. Kel—Sure. I'm in accord with all of what you last stated, essentially. I have far less concern or questioning of theories of physics or chemistry or electricity or astronomy than with the sciences we apply most directly to our own bodies, which are primarily biology, medicine, and genetics. This is an arena that gets more personal for all us, has much more concering implications for the quality of each of our lives, and seems more resistant to shifting paradigms than other sciences. I've seen it described as a Pyramid of Science. Some time back, we had the following structure in science. The top of the list below would be the top of the pyramid and each higher up science rests on and in some way is determined by everything below it in some fashion. Psychology Biology Chemistry Physics Mathematics So, the new and present pyramid is described as: Psychology Biology Electro-Chemistry Quantum Physics Mathetmatics The lower three (Mathematics through Electro-Chemistry) have changed significantly. Biology and Psychology have essentially not changed accordingly with the three sciences upon which they rest and this is worthy of questioning. Well why not, and how could they possibly not? So, I'm not even talking about physicists, astronomers, mathematicians, chemists, etc. I'm looking at the Biology layer of the pyramid only, basically. I could also be looking at the Psychology layer of it just as readily, but that's a very different discussion all over. And perhaps not coincidentally, I can observe a greater resistance to change and new paradigms in the biological/medical/genetic world and an inherent conceit in that resistance. Much of it is no doubt driven by power, instituationalization, and money, but in this too is the simple human factor of ego and other less visible, quantifiable aspects which I think go with the particular nature of this level of the sciences, perhaps more than the others. Biology and Psychology are the most personal of the sciences. It is not to say there are not all kinds of cool and amazing and useful things going on with Biology and Genetics. It is saying that if underlying science has changed and expanded, and/or if {!!!} premises and foundations of Biology are inadequate or flawed, that the whole paradigm is too narrowly limited at best (and rules out possibly more potent and effective approaches,) and detrimental or destructive to our quality of life at worst. I currently work with chronically mentally ill clients, both in group therapeutic environments and individually. Virtually every session involves discussion of very disruptive, unpleasant, and unfortunate side-effects medications are having. And I am not the one bringing up the subject. If the paradigm upon which the chemical/pharmaceutical approach to changing inner biology is simply naturally limited to a narrow range of what it can ever possibly accomplish in the broad spectrum of overall human health, and we have invested the great majority of our funds, research, faith, and practice in this narrow approach, then we sell ourselves short of all the rest, and all the better that lies outside and above it. -S- I hope you find this helpful! [ Tuesday, December 12, 2006 22:10: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
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Lifecrafter
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written Tuesday, December 12 2006 21:53
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Once upon a time, I was a Lincoln-Douglas debater. I was good at it. In one match, I ran into an opponent who randomly inserted bits of Hobbesian jargon into what was supposed to be a debate about the constitution. When I pointed out the absurdity of citing a monarchist philosopher in a debate about the American constitution, she offered no pertinent reason for the jargon's inclusion save its contributing the 'philosophy' of the debate. The judge proceeded to inform me, after she had made her decision, that I didn't understand the philosophical nature of Lincoln-Douglas debate. LD is indeed a philosophical form of debate - oppose Ted Turner/Public Forum, which is largely rhetorical, Policy, which is mostly procedural, and Congress, which is parliamentary. However, adding philosophical jargon to an unreasonable screed no more makes that screed philosophy than adding lipstick to a pig makes it a woman. What I am getting at here, Synergy, is that your efforts to explain away your refusal to define your terms concretely as 'philosophy' does a grave insult to a respectable field you apparently understand no better than you do science. If anything, concrete definitions are more important in philosophy than in science; without a clear understanding of terms, any prescriptive or descriptive work of philosophy is completely useless. There's a reason every serious philosophical document takes pains to define its terms, pains that sometimes include usage of those terms outside of their usual role in language. Philosophy that does not define its terms is rhetoric, nothing more and nothing less, and holds no objective value to a reasonable person. It might hold subjective value, but only if the audience holds the rhetor in esteem. The rhetoric itself is objectively worthless. What you are doing is not an exercise in 'philosophizing' or 'pondering', as you put it. It is an exercise in salesmanship for your absurd contempt for the accepted consensus of science. Your appropriation of the basic language of quantum physics only occurs because quantum physics uses discrete terms and formulas that are easy to turn into power words, and because you feel confident in your ability to abuse your audience's ignorance of the actual dealings of quantum physics with impunity. I would once have had choice and terrible words for you, Synergy, but I am a busy man and you are beneath the effort it takes to produce those words. I hold out no hope that I will convince you of anything, because your role in this discussion is not a reasonable or earnest but fraudulent. Any statistics you produce will be either false or removed from countervailing context, because you have no interest in fact. (I recall you making the ridiculous claim that iatrogenic error was the leading cause of death in America.) The facts periodically disagree with your understanding, and because you are interested neither in philosophy nor in science nor any other form of inquiry that separates man from the beast of the field, you attempt to change the facts rather than your understanding. Anyone reading this is advised to pay nothing you have to say on the subject of science or especially medicine any heed. Your counsel is fundamentally identical to that of those lunatics who claim the Earth is 6,000 years old and flat: counterfactual, disingenuous, and malicious. And facially absurd. [ Tuesday, December 12, 2006 21:56: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Jonathan Pollard's 22nd year of incarceration in General | |
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written Sunday, November 26 2006 02:54
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quote:No it isn't. That's an absurd statement and you're only making it because you think it'll help you make your absurd case. quote:Uh, it's not in a legal vacuum either. If it were, the US would be perfectly justified exercising lex talonis and carpet-bombing Tel Aviv in response to Pollard's valiant espionage. People like you sure like lex talonis a lot until it comes time to take it themselves. Under the realist inter-state theory, which holds a legal vacuum in international relations as a given, you're free to do anything you like as an inter-state actor, so long as you're prepared for the response of other actors. And the fact you complain about the Yom Kippur War (Our army was off duty! Dirty pool!) shows that you either entirely misunderstand the theory you're operating in or are cynically misrepresenting it for rhetorical gain. You know for a fact that Israel has a track record of conducting inflammatory behavior in violation of state sovereignity, then hiding under the aegis of US protection whenever it is threatened with forcible retribution. Your asinine little first strike doctrine wouldn't last two seconds if our hand wasn't up your ass, and you return the favor by spying on us? Real class act your country is, eh? Most people would react to that with a kind of shame. Even if you don't particularly care that the 'preemptive strike' takes hundreds of thousands of lives (and you don't), there's still something basically repugnant about that kind of ingratitude. quote:Disingenuous. The factions represented in anti-Israeli violence are already at war with Israel. What are you supposed to do, declare war on them again? Bomb them twice as hard when you get around to doing so, just to show you mean it?quote:which was my point exactly. Not even when there is violence, do we attack back. Sheesh, the amount of attacks on Israeli civilian targets would make even Sweden call for military action if it wasn't happening to Israel. The reason Israel isn't 'attacking back' when anti-civilian violence occurs is because it's run out of people to attack. Of course, what you want is to lump all foreigners into one category and kill them by the thousands whenever anyone attacks an Israeli, and you feel you're being robbed of some kind of entitlement when cooler heads prevail and Israel doesn't respond to a lone bomber by nuking Iran for some reason. quote:If what you care about is Israel's right to exist, I suppose you'd agree with me that it ought to withdraw from the West Bank then, right? Including Jerusalem, which is outside of legal Israeli territory and which has no bearing on the state's right to exist.quote:It means that even acnowledging that Israel has a right to exist is practically an act of war. After all, that's the only impediment to a lot of the factions that do so denying Israel's right to exist: it continuing to claim as integral territories the Palestinian homeland. If that'd improve the situation, why not do it? quote:[/b] I like how you dropped 'extremist' there. You need to come to terms with the fact you have a serious problem with Muslims, whether or not they've actually done anything wrong - you basically judge them guilty until proven innocent. Your entire worldview seems to be devoted to justifying that problem, including absurd philosophical gymnastics to prove the absurd apartheid state you've got going on can do no wrong. You know Israel is oppressing and killing people based not on what they have done but based on what someone who looked vaguely like them might have done. There are two ways to solve that cognitive dissonance: consider Israel's actions morally repulsive or consider the oppressed people non-human. This isn't some kind of liberal condescension here; I'm not one of those snivelling little asshats who want you to reach deep into your heart and change. I understand that if anything is ever going to effect a change in your horrible, horrible worldview, it isn't gonna be me. But you've gotta acknowledge your bias here, because it's a freaking tremendous intellectual flaw and it's the sort of baggage you need to make clear whenever you start a discussion like this. If you don't, unlike aforementioned asshats, I'm entirely willing to furnish you with contempt. quote:[/qb][/quote]quote:See above. Again with the misrepresenting what I say. I said your behavior is uncivilized; my assertion wasn't cheap or boundless, because to be frank bombing the bejesus out of people because and only because they're darker than you is textbook uncivilized behavior. If you want to turn that around and argue I'm worse off there, go right ahead, but you didn't feel like bothering and then you got the hippy-dippy sag-nuts to agree with you in the name of building consensus or whatever. In short, Infernal, you really need to acknowledge that you are a chauvinist crank. Your sole interest is in defending the actions of Israel, regardless of whether they're morally defensible. If that goes to the extent of refusing to consider innocent Palestinians people, you're apparently willing to make that jump. And if that isn't the case, let's approach this from a different angle, because you've been justifying why Israel can kill civilians all day and I'm tired of it. Tell me why the PLO, or Iraq, or Iran, or whoever, shouldn't kill your civilians. Give me an exact reason; I'm earnestly interested in seeing what it is. [ Sunday, November 26, 2006 02:57: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Jonathan Pollard's 22nd year of incarceration in General | |
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Lifecrafter
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written Friday, November 24 2006 15:07
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That you find Pollard's punishment unacceptable and Vanunu's acceptable tells an impartial observer all they need to know about you: you are a chauvinist crank and expecting to receive any useful information from you is unreasonable. My understanding, by the way, is that Pollard offered information to the Israeli government and Vanunu information to the British press. Similar behavior, different gravity. One reason we're withholding information from Israel, by the way, is that you have a nasty habit of bullying your neighbors and forcing us to bail you out diplomatically. It's destroyed our rapport with the middle east. Further, if the IDF decides to make some kind of misconcieved 'first strike' against Iran - the sort of thing it does ALL THE DAMN TIME - then we face having to bail you out militarily. We don't have the resources to take on Iran, and given how thirsty you people are for Muslim blood, we really don't want to give you any more slack than you absolutely need to function. Even the right wing, which is all in favor of you slaughtering brown people under normal circumstances, recognizes how much of a liability you've become to our foreign and military policy. Maybe if you behaved like civilized human beings we wouldn't be forced to hide our intelligence data from you. And part of that involves not bombing first and asking questions later. [ Friday, November 24, 2006 15:09: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Haakaa p??lle! in General | |
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written Monday, November 20 2006 02:59
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Well, I mean that if everyone behaved like me ... everyone would be behaving like me. I'm not a particularly sociable man. :P Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Haakaa p??lle! in General | |
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written Monday, November 20 2006 02:12
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The Spiderweb administration has taken a lurch into the asinine of late, and for good apparent reason: the locals are a feckless, childish lot, trained up without the fear of God or their betters. Instead of brutal lashings by Canadians or other angst-filled jerks, the most brutal it gets is an effable talking-to by an offensively inoffensive Kraut. There have been a lot of locked topics lately, which I see as a step in the right direction, but to get things rolling it will be necessary to establish a lively regime of tyranny. The new crop of enfants provocateurs need to learn the consequences of playing at fire-starter, the bloviators at fluffy tortoises and asinine cults need to be shamed into silence by main force. Outward friendliness aside, the community is essentially hostile. We should prefer an honest hostility to a country-club gentry ruled by inside references and a veneer of warm contempt; we should accept that the fastest and easiest initiation is a baptism by fire. SO: Hack them down. The response to missteps should not be silent contempt but a swift, merciless, and instructive beating. While normally this sort of thing is outside of my milieu, let's be honest: the Internet is not serious business, and the alternative seems to be a breeding-ground of dumb pederasty. No more of this retarded hug-fest. Haakaa päälle! ---- What does this entail, exactly? A few things: 1) The Unwashed are to be identified by general consensus. The profligate posters of nothing legitimate (c.f. the CoC) in particular may be identified by: a) a deficit of useful posts outside of General; b) a lack of apparent interest in the games themselves; c) apparent consensus by the staff that the party in question is behaving in an irritating manner. Punitive action against them is to be vicious and mean-spirited, pursued by all capable parties - including powerless bystanders - to the best of their abilities, and is to continue until that member is deemed no longer Unwashed. 2) The range of options available to moderators and administrators are to be pursued more actively. If a topic has degenerated into a conversation between two idiots, for instance, it is a perfectly legitimate use of moderatorial power to blank or delete their posts that discussion may continue, or to close the topic if no other discussion seems likely. I would personally like to see the revival of mod edit powers for personal abuse - in the spirit of tutelage, but mean, violent tutelage. In particular, temporary discretionary bannings must be reinstated as standard practice. Permanent bannings are to remain the nuclear option - pursuable only in the most extreme cases - but in the boards' halcyon days temp-banning was an administrative solution to trivial problems and it should remain so. There is a sort of delicious irony, for instance, in punishing someone whose apparent raison d'etre is the propagation of his own shrill, shrill voice with a timed - or temporary but indefinite! - gag. 3) Most importantly, we must not, as members of the community, brook stupidity. I do not hold my own behavior as a model, as I am far too caustic for standard practice and if everyone or even a good number of people behaved like me nothing would get done. On the other hand, I can't be the only person whose first reaction to babbling about cave cows on unrelated topics because someone thinks it is cute is '...were you dropped as a child?'; and I think the community would be better off if those reactions were public and the asinine inside-jokes only surfaced when humorous enough to overcome a regime of shame. ---- Most of all, I'd like to express that this is an opportunity to meet those of you with whom I disagreed with on the playground topic halfway: if you're willing to accept the healing power of a harvest of sorrows, by all means, let's try it out somewhere where it doesn't particularly matter. [ Monday, November 20, 2006 02:54: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| 1994 Backwards Is 2006 in General | |
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written Thursday, November 16 2006 21:32
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quote:Ask any New Yorker how they feel about Giuliani, and they'll tell you he was a worthless, authoritarian assclown. Devoted the gravity of his office to trying to censor a public art institution Marian portrait he didn't like and busting people for squeegying windows. And in his finest hour, he quashed reports on the danger of the air around the WTC - to the detriment of the local residents and emergency response, but to the benefit of local real estate and Wall Street - and attempted to unconstitutionally extend his term well into 2002. Of course, I don't doubt his star is rising among the Republicans, because Peoria understands the spirit of 9/11 so much better than New York and the Republicans don't generally pay so much attention to New York. But Giuliani's concessions to the left have been too few, and his flaws too glaring, for him to catch on with Democrats as the Republicans clearly wish he will. And as he is thrown out more and more, as he is being thrown out now, how unpalatable he is will become increasingly obvious and his star will fall again. The GOP leadership is pretty awful, but they're not stupid, and they'll crush him when the time comes. He's maybe to the left of the Republican party as a whole, but I don't see him escaping the taint of the Bush years. The next Republican candidate for President will be a relative unknown, and one substantially more liberal than the usual run of them. If the Republicans wind up in the woods for four years, who knows? The 2012 candidate could be to the left of Clinton. (Either one.) But at least for now, those bastards will be the ones 'triangulating' for a change. I should feel sorry for them, but I don't. Ha ha! [ Thursday, November 16, 2006 21:39: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |