What are they talking about???

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Vox Apologia IX

Will be hosted here - and, if all goes well…

It’ll have a surprise thrown in.

The subject is: “Glory to Man in the Highest: Humanism’s Dangerous Claim".

This is my “pet subject” - so gimme something good

I have no idea what "Humanism's Dangerous Claim" is.... so, I went to dictionary.com....

1. A system of thought that centers on humans and their values, capacities, and worth.


2. Concern with the interests, needs, and welfare of humans: "the newest flower on the vine of corporate humanism" (Savvy).


3. Medicine The concept that concern for human interests, values, and dignity is of the utmost importance to the care of the sick.


4. The study of the humanities; learning in the liberal arts.


5. Humanism A cultural and intellectual movement of the Renaissance that emphasized secular concerns as a result of the rediscovery and study of the literature, art, and civilization of ancient Greece and Rome.

None of this looks particularly dangerous to me; maybe, the Renaissance had something to do with it...

The Renaissance actually consists in Neo-Platonic pantheism, which was more or less consciously present during the entire period -- it was indeed the sole font of thought. It is in the spirit of Neo-Platonism that Humanism divinizes man as a free and independent entity, and seeks the explanation of all reality. It is in the Neo-Platonic spirit that the state was to be considered as above all morality, that cunning was to be called a virtue, and that the Protestant Reform was to seek justification for individual interpretation of Sacred Scripture. Neo-Platonism was the heritage which the Renaissance passed on to the following ages; these in turn developed the germs of immanentism contained in it.

How was it possible that the Renaissance philosophers, the majority of whom were Christians, could think and live like pagans? The answer is to be found in what has been said of the principle of the double truth; the falsity of the principle was not fully realized at the time of the Renaissance.

It would be a grave error to believe that the exaltation of man and of nature could be attained in no other way than through Neo-Platonism. For this exaltation can be achieved, and on a much higher level, through the doctrine of Christianity. The Christian concept of the exaltation of man and of nature is profoundly different from that of Neo-Platonism and the Renaissance, because of the radical antithesis which exists between transcendentalism and immanentism. For the Renaissance, man and nature are the Divine (God); for Christianity, they are the image of God and hence have divine value. In man this divine value consists in the supernatural (grace). It does not destroy nature but unites it to the Divinity. In this order of transcendence, man and nature find their real value; and the problem of evil, inexplicable in any Neo-Platonic system of thought, finds it justification. The humanists of the fifteenth century could have risen to the truly Christian motives for man's nobility. Instead, they bound themselves to paganism and Neo-Platonism, and plunged, unknowingly, into pantheism and immanentism.

Look, the fact that you can be declared an enemy combatant and stripped of your citizenship is dangerous. The fact that the government could pass a draft law and ship your butt to Iraq is dangerous. The fact that white supremacists are committing acts of terrorism on American soil this year seems dangerous. Heck, by comparison, Mossback's concern over child support issues highlights an issue more dangerous to Americans than "humanism."

But to claim that a 400+ year old philosophy has "dangerous" claims in the world of drive-by shootings, oil depletion, global warming, pestillence, starvation, religious strife, etc. is simply absurd.

書道 13日 3月

会社の武道

Sickness and medicine heal each other. All the world is medicine.

Where do you find yourself?

To truly get a solution to problems that requires an action that may be seen as hurting others, in order to stop a greater hurt from being perpetrated, it is necessary that the action be without rancor, without resentment, without fear.

Just pure action.

So mindfulness is very important...when the mindfulness is all there is, there can be no expression of greed, hatred, ignorance, nor fear, nor attachment.

That can achieve good results...

More evidence of persecution of conservative thought in academia

If Harvard, one of the most "left-wing institutions on the face of the earth", keeps hiring people like Greg Mankiw to parody right-wing thought, maybe even the freepers will start voting democratic. The ability of the left wing to conspire in this way is unbounded...and if you believe that, I have a bridge I've been trying to sell...

Boarding and Deplaning Practice...

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TOULOUSE, France A quirky issue arose at major airports across several continents when engineers began planning for the giant new Airbus A380: Will runway lights be damaged on takeoff by the blast from its huge new engines?

Good question, Airbus said. So it rolled a four-engine A340 onto the runway here, spotted an engine over the lights, locked the brakes and spooled the engines up to a blast greater than the A380 will ever give it. The lights did nothing more than enjoy the breeze. No damage.

"It did not swallow the lights," said Charles Champion, executive vice president for the A380 program.

This was merely one of many thousands of questions that airports around the world have asked as Airbus prepares to put into service the world's largest passenger plane. Some of these questions are major, like whether terminals will have to be redesigned to allow the big plane to park at the gate. Some involve potential annoyances for passengers, like whether the layout inside the terminal will allow them to walk smoothly to luggage areas and parking lots - or cause human traffic jams...

Airport research goes far beyond gate and jetway construction. Airbus has been doing time-and-motion studies of how passengers act when loading and unloading planes, concentrating on Boeing 747-400s that are designed to pack in the passengers, either in vacation charter service or on short flights within Japan.

The 568 all-coach passengers packed aboard a Japanese 747 are about the number that can be more comfortably seated aboard a three-class A380. The results have been somewhat surprising.

Japanese business fliers packed aboard a 747 can load in about 15 minutes, and can unload in an astounding seven minutes. They seem to have developed similar habits that are surprisingly efficient, he said. The same number of American or French vacationers on charter flights take five times longer to load and unload.

Anyone who's been on a plane knows this; people may decry the boarding of high status frequent flyers, but the reality is, there's people who do this all the time, and people who are more-or-less amateurs at it. Getting off the plane quickly is importan to make sure everyone gets to their destination.

A bizarre article from FOTF....

From their "collegians" articles called "boundless," apparently because they censor them less than other articles on their site...(think about that for a minute or two)...

Dorinda Bordlee of the legal group Americans United for Life says [Chris Rock is] using satire “to show that abortion on demand has made women more into sex objects than we’ve ever been.” And an article in the online magazine Slate backs up Bordlee’s assessment:

Far from an encomium to fetus killing, Rock’s abortion bit is an attack on women for the frivolous manner in which they decide whether or not to keep a child. “When a woman gets pregnant, it’s a choice between the woman” — here Rock pauses, a mischievous grin barely restrained — “and her girlfriends.” From there: “One girlfriend goes, ‘Child, you should have that baby — that man got some good hair…’ And the other girlfriend says, ‘Child, why we even talking about this — ain’t we supposed to go to Cancun next week? Get rid of that baby!’ ” And that, Rock says, “is how life is decided in America.”

Wow. “Life,” “baby,” and unconcealed contempt for people who approach the issue casually or selfishly. From Chris Rock. Who would’ve expected it? If nothing else, it’s sure refreshing.

I've seen this bit by Rock on HBO. First of all, I would have expected it from Chris Rock; he's a family man who cherishes his family and acidly indicts those among us who abdicate responsibility. It's incredibly arrogant of FOTF to think that because one uses the language of the 'hood (or sailor language or any other language that offends the ears of those who choose to be offended) that therfore that guy is morally reprehensible in other ways. There's another term for it: religious bigotry.

There are Zen teachers- both historic and current- express the Dharma laced with such words that Rock regularly uses. "What is Buddha" in one koan is answered by "Dried shit on a stick," with all that sentence implies.

Finally, it's odd of FOTF and their pro-life friends to think that people actually originate pregnancies with the thought of "It's OK, I'll just abort." It's about the same degree of ignorance and hatred that is expressed as that towards poor people who "have children just to get another welfare check."

However, that said, in their backhanded way, I actually, for once, agree with some of what this article says; Rock is doing a great service by reminding people to take care of their kids.

Also that said, FOTF is wrong to use this as an excuse to rail against abortion rights. Freedom of conscience is an important thing.

成田空港 blogging...

United gets it: Wi-Fi in the Premier Executive Departure Lounge of Narita Airport is a wonderful thing.

If only the whole country was unwired like this...

Another instance of what we suspected turns out to be true, it seems

Atrios has the story here.

I thought this was sort of tin-foil hat stuff about "keeping Saddam on ice" until it was politically expedient, but I'm not that surprised.

I only wonder why they didn't give "Jeff Gannon" the scoop.

Kristof gets one right...

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Before the "Rev. Dr." Matt Hale, the white racist leader, was arrested for seeking the murder of a federal judge, and long before the judge returned home last week to find her husband and mother murdered, I had lunch with him.

Mr. Hale, who is smart, articulate and malignant, ranted about "race betrayers" as he picked at his fruit salad: "Interracial marriage is against nature. It's a form of bestiality."

"Oh?" I replied. "Incidentally, my wife is Chinese-American."

There was an awkward silence.

Mr. Hale was convicted last year of soliciting the murder of Federal District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow. Now the police are investigating whether there is any link between Mr. Hale or his followers and the murders. Some white supremacists celebrated the killings, but Mr. Hale has strongly denied any involvement.

The possibility that extremists carried out the murders for revenge or intimidation sends a chill through our judicial system, because it would then constitute an assault on our judiciary itself. Throughout U.S. history, only three federal judges have been murdered, but all three murders occurred after 1978 and all at their homes.

If one subscribes to the idea that that these are "terrorist acts," acts of violence aimed at intimidation, then one must conclude that

• There have been multiple acts of terrorism on American soil since 9/11, (what about the anthrax letter writer, too?)
  
  
• Bush's response to 9/11 has not been effective in preventing terrorist acts.
  
  

My wife's Chinese, too; there's Republicans that have Asian-ancestry/European ancestry marriages too, although some of Bush's supporters (search around for "Alabama" as recently as the last election) clearly are racists who oppose such marriages.

So until we see some strong action from on this front, we'll have to continue to speak out.

靖国椅子 or, "Yasukini Isu" or, "Yasukuni chair"...

Next time you're in Chiba city, go to Aozora, the electronics store there; their easy-chairs put those in the Sharper Image to shame.

Nobody seems to care if you try them out for 20 minutes or so... and it's free...

I'd buy one, but they go for around $4,000... too bad...I didn't buy any $400.00 suits for my 3 year old at Sogo either.

But I found out something: there exist sales people in Mitsukoshi, one of Japan's really high end department stores, that do their own shopping at Costco.

Very strange conservative loathing...

As another example of conservative hatred, I have to go over to this post by Mossback here, bashing this post on Media Matters here, which notes- without editorial comment, that there has been an ongoing pattern of harrassment and firing of reporters who wrote opinons critical of the Bush junta. The post links to this post at BuzzMachine, which although far more sober (I guess it's because Jarvis is more reasonable than most critics) Jarvis lets go a couple of misconceptions...which also needs a response...

After calling George Soros a bunch of names ("destroyer of currencies?" who did Mossback vote for President?) Mossback wrote (claiming it's an "attack on free speech",) "Doncha know that when you go to work for a paper they own you?"

Now the simple answer is, "No, they own whatever content they're entitled to as a result of the IPR agreement the reporters signed, because the reporters get consideration for their services- they're paid." I think Mossback basically agrees with this point, although- again- I suspect all of the above depends on agreements signed. I believe that as long as litigation will be legal there will always be porous areas in this region.

The slightly longer answer is: how is reporting facts - which is all Media Matters does here- an attack on free speech?

When reality threatens the false security of one's delusions, it is. And then fear and denial and anger are the responses. By Mossback's logic, he is attacking the free speech of Media Mattters, and I'm attacking Mossback's free speech.

This is true, only, I think in the sense of "my right to say whatever I please, and lie about it, whether it's true or false." But that's not free speech; what Mossback (and those like him who use this reasoning) want to do is to allow for the selective use of slander, libel, and simple lying.

I suppose Mossback could argue (but he'd have to tone down the vitriol), "But content owners own their content, which includes the 'personality' of a given reporter, and their content." And I say, "I bet their agreement covers all content, but I doubt if it can truly cover all - all expression. That's quite a higher standard, but I think the standard that Jarvis reasonably considers are opinions that may be relevant to the image of a paper's perceived "objectivity."


Jarvis writes:

The other danger is that if you go after Bray for his anti-Kerry opinions, do you have to go after other journalists for their anti-Bush opinions? By this logic, shouldn't MediaMatters also be going after Frank Rich because, after all, he's letting political opinions seep -- no, flood -- into the arts section? Of course, not...

So let's take this out of the realm of politics -- loaded as it is -- and ask instead: Is it OK for a reporter to have an opinion? Well, guess what, they all do and short of hypnosis or a lobotomy there's not much you can do about it. So is it OK for a reporter to express that opinion in other areas?...

But I disagree with their conclusion: None should be fired for having opinions per se. Anybody can be fired for being a dolt or incompetent or unprofessional. But having an opinion is not, in itself, a capital offense and should not be. I hope we get to the point where not revealing that opinion is seen as a misdemeanor.

Here's where Jarvis goes astray:

• Look, what about the editors?
  
  
• Re Frank Rich: Rich is a media critic, and criticism about art has been considered opinion for 2,000 years. Jarvis knows that doesn't he?
  
  
• Finally, look papers have a brand name image to protect. Those images cost money. Papers and media enforce these rules to make money.
  
  
• So at the end of the day, that's why media makes their reporters sign agreements.
  
  

Mossback might agree with some of those bullet items there, but unfortunately, it's hard to take that away from his post. It's even harder to see why one would attack Media Matters over this...

Up, up, and away...

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March 8 (Bloomberg) -- Commodity prices surged to a 24-year high, led by gains in copper and crude oil, on concern that global economic growth is eroding inventories of raw materials faster than supplies can be replenished.

Copper reached a 16-year high, and oil rose near an all-time high in New York, extending the rally in the Reuters-CRB Index of 17 commodities to the highest since January 1981. The index gained 7.1 percent in February, the most in any month since August 1983.

``Everybody wants to be long of commodities,'' said Stephen Briggs, an analyst at Societe Generale in London. Hedge fund managers ``think that the potential returns in commodities are still very high,'' Briggs said...

Hedge funds and other large speculators have increased their net holdings of 20 physical commodities in the U.S. to their highest in nine months, government figures show.

So-called net-long positions rose to 430,153 futures contracts as of March 1, the highest since June 4, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said. A futures contract is an obligation to buy or sell a commodity at a set price by a specific date.

Energy and metals prices ``are moving higher today on the continued concerns regarding the pace of global consumption and the ability of supply to keep up,'' said Michael Guido, director of hedge-fund marketing and commodity strategy in New York at Paris-based Societe Generale SA.

At this point, my equities portfolio has substantially more than shaken off the last vestiges of the "dot com boom," thanks to higher commodities prices, emerging markets, and the disastrous Bush fiscal policies.

At this rate, at some point, to get a further advantage in the market, the Chinese may be willing to let their currency appreciate against the dollar if only to ease their domestic inflation, provided, of course, it doesn't choke off exports.

It's funny when people accuse progressives and centrists of having some kind of vested interest in opposing Bush's policies (or the flip side: hypocrisy, since folks like me are smart enough to profit from Bush's disasters).

So, I'll publicly declare: yes, I have a pecuniary interest at the moment in Bush continuing his disastrous policies. That's simply business. When Bush can create some more rational policies, my money will move around in a heartbeat to accomodate the return of rationality and reason.

Until then me and Warren and George will continue to warn about the "sharecropper" society.

But really folks, you should have seen this a mile away; it's the Repub playbook:

• Nixon: high oil prices, inflation, removal of the dollar convertability of Bretton Woods leading to a devaluation of the dollar.
  
  
• Carter: As a conservative democrat, Carter's policies resulted in the same high oil prices and further devaluation of the dollar. At least Carter wanted to get America into energy independence, and passed conservation measures and economic incentives that were, in fact, highly successful in curbing America's appetite for oil, which led to declines in prices during the Reagan years..
  
  
• Reagan: Removed many of Carter's economic incentives for energy conservation as prices for oil had dropped in response to them as well as the Reagan recesssion. But the dollar went from over 200 yen to around 120 yen; it tooks threats of a worldwide currency collapse - a response to Reagan's fiscal profligacy- for the folks in Washington to do Graham Rudman (screwing the middle class in the process) which eventually resulted in the "controlled" devaluation of the dollar.
  
  
• Bush: high oil prices from the Iraq war...
  
  
• Clinton: restoration of fiscal responsiblity led to the strongest dollar in years. The only countervailing trend against dollar yen convertability was the deflation in Japan. The political posturing of Greenspan keeps interest rates unnaturally high for much of Clinton's first term.
  
  

So, Republicans and conservatives in power mean that in general, the dollar takes a beating, and without fiscal responsiblity, there's the threat of inflation (or high interest rates).

That means commodities, commodity producers, and foreign exchange plays make money, and it means that other industries (with exceptions like defense, or politically connected industries such as big pharma) generally don't.

It's not rocket science. It's merely betting that Bush's cronies will act like Bush's cronies.

Fear and loathing in the rightie blogosphere over N. Korea...

Speaking of Hugh Hewitt, apparently he was in a snit over a LA Times column on N. Korea not being sufficiently rabid.

As I've noted, the N. Koreans leaders are loony. They've much blood on their hands too; too, no doubt about that. But what's the point of criticizing someone over their lack of vitriol?

The author of the article answered some questions for Hewitt on his blog. Clearly the author knows that N. Korea's leaders have committed monstrosities; her article never implied otherwise.


I too found the N. Korean guy in that article to be well, just like your typical Stalinist diplomat; what do you expect them to say?

What Hewitt wants apparently is more bias in the news, and less journalism.


Hewitt's got some fans baying about it, (I liked this blogger's obligatory swipe at the Clenis ^TM). One blogger said, "The left has no force or fervor in the war against communism. Why?"

The center and left do opppose North Koreans' horrors; such red-baiting notwithstanding. But we don't bay like dogs over the horrors of Kim Il Sung, because it does nothing substantitve to actually oppose him.




Notice as you read Hewitt's post, and his replies, the degree of fear, the degree of hatred and the degree of anger present in those posts.

And why?

Because the author of an article herself did not display enough fear, hatred, and anger for their tastes...

Strange, isn't it?

No, not really: hatred and fear inhibit the ability to think clearly...the right needs to demonize enemies (much like fascists demonized theirs) precisely to keep people from independent thought...

Usually less than 6 degrees....

Ah, those family values conservatives...they support the porn industry everytime they buy a t-shirt "commemorating" 9/11 over at Blogs for Bush...which presumably give the site owners money for clicking through and buying something from these porn merchants...

Who links to Blogs for Bush?

David "Christians are persecuted" Limbaugh...

Hugh Hewitt (but not Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf)...

But they don't link to Jeff Gannon. Yet...

Good post on Kos...

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It's about using cognitive dissonance and a mastery of facts- facts that a conservative can't readily dismiss- to get past the visceral reactions of conservatives.

You can see an example of sucha visceral reaction below with Richard/Mossback's comments on my post on terrorism.

It is clear to me that the responses the we often see from conservatives: the anger, the resentment, the attempts to shut down debate- are really at their core based on fear.

One additional "source" of information - that the conservative can't really readily dismiss- is their own feelings and emotions. Call attention to their behavior. Although there will be massive denial and outrage, this is itself symptomatic that the message is getting through.

One really certain of their position does not reflexively, always go for the anger, outrage, and resentment. It is a defensive reaction to something. And so it raises the question: why is there the need for the defensive reaction? Just as someone who acts guilty acknowledges their culpability, this is a "tell" that the conservative's world view is threatened.

And it's at that time it's up to us to keep up the good work; not to get the conservative pissed off, but to help the conservative come to an understanding of the origin and cause of the conservative's anger so as to transcend it.

And that, friends is nothing other than engaged Buddhism.

Fun with ideologues

I just saw this piece from Michelle Malkin about an amusing North Korean Flash movie.

Of course, it's obvious that their 3rd World servers were quite whelmed by all the attention, but hey it's their fault for being so isolated.


Speaking of strange ideologues Focus on the Family has a new president and CEO named James Daly, who was appointed "with an investiture service held at the ministry."

I'm confused: is this a ministry or a corporation or both or neither?

But questions abound. How did Daly get into this position, hired to be working public relations, but apparently no backgrond in public relations?

Why (see lower right hand part of the page) would I want to download a print-quality photo of Daly? Is this some kind of cult of personality thing?

Those Powerline guys are lawyers...

Can we get them disbarred for incompetence?

But does the Declaration have any legal status such that these words can be truly deemed to state the American creed? It does, although virtually no one seems to know it. In 1878 Congress enacted a revised version of the United States Code that included a new first section entitled "The Organic Laws of the United States." The story behind the 1878 revision of the Code is told in the introduction to political scientist Richard Cox's valuable book Four Pillars of Constitutionalism: The Organic Laws of the United States. (Cox credits the idea for the book to Professor Harry Jaffa, Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute.)

The Code is Congress's official compilation of federal law; the organic laws of the United States are the country's foundational laws. First and foremost of the four organic laws of the United States is the Declaration of Independence. Following the Declaration among the organic laws are the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Why was the Northwest Ordinance included among the organic laws of the United State? That, gentle readers, is the subject for another day.

Anybody who's read the Constitution of the United States knows that this has exactly zero legal force, for the Constitution itself is the highest law of the land, and it would take procedures outlined in the Constitution, not some act of Congress by itself to change that fact.

If the lawyers at Powerline don't know this, I would say they have fools for clients.

"Not only are the IRA 'terrorists', but..."

They actually stoop so low as to engage in intellectual property theft!

With seven stage filtration!


Look, call it organized crime (unlike the US, where our Founding Fathers committed acts of vandalism, violence, and worse...) or call it a military action but don't pretend that this is somehow any worse than, oh, I don't know, setting up an economic system that exploits an entire people, ethnically cleansing them, letting many of them die of famine...

Conservatives either don't get it or really are closet fascists

Here is what you see in the rest of the world about the United States.

It is clear that these techniques are the techniques of terrorists.

Their latest attempt at quashing dissent is here.

Need we say more?

Is it really "terrorism?"

ter·ror·ism
n.

The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

I was thinking about this in response to Mossback's post here, where he rails against Irish "terrorist scum."

The reality is the word "terrorism" indicates usually an aspect of intimidation. The word "unlawful" is indicative of the assumption of some lawful order.

Most groups characterized as "terrorist" are usually from groups that deny the existence of this lawful authority; and so the use of the word "terrorist" cannot really be objective.

They may be properly termed criminals or paramilitary groups; but I do not know if anyone reacted to Sept. 11 with intimidation: I saw rage I saw sorrow, I saw shock, I saw revulsion, but I did not see fear.

Sept. 11 was not an event that invoked fear. It was a military attack- on economic and military facilities. It was a military action.

On the other hand, the response by the Bush regime towards Sept. 11 did involve the use of intimidation, it did involve unlawful actions (denied, though, by the Bush regime, just as Hamas would deny the unlawful nature of their actions against Israelis) and it did involve the use of force. Is the Bush administration a terrorist regime? Naturally such an assertion would inflame supporters of the Bush regime, but the words the Bush regime and its supporters use against "terrorists" can, if one wants, be used to describe the actions of the Bush regime itself.

I do not think it clarifies matters to describe Sept. 11 as terrorism, nor the intifada as terrorism, nor the actions in Iraq today by whatever paramilitary groups are out there. They are as "terrorist" as the actions of any military; in some cases they are criminal actions; what distinguishes those, ultimately, it seems is the extent to which a countervailing side against these paramilitary groups can establish a "lawful authority" that is recognized.

Moreover, it is curious to me that the very people that use this term support people rely on intimidation and unlawful means themselves. That alone is telling: we cannot counter "terrorism" by unlawful actions that are designed to intimidate. That, instead is called creating terrorism, or doing terrorism, or performing terrorism.

So I'll offer a deal with righties: you drop the use of terms like "terrorist scum" for "military opponents" when talking about the aforementioned groups, and we can discuss what the best political and military response is.