tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-194906172024-03-07T11:19:21.058-08:00Memoirs of a sometimes witchjackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-6653743716169318972023-12-28T11:58:00.000-08:002023-12-28T11:58:53.723-08:00Currents and eddiesChange.<br /><br />From conception to death, change is the one and only constant in our short lives. Most of us try to compensate for this by clinging to the familiar, like a victim of shipwreck clinging to a peice of driftwood. We form customs, habits, rituals that we perform every day to give us some illusion of stability, but like that driftwood, these things are rather small and insignificant compared to the rolling waves and powerful currents flowing around us. A select few embrace change, throwing caution to the wind and leaping through the water like a dolphin --or sometimes drowning like the shipwrecked person who lets go of the driftwood-- but these adventurers are rare among people, rarer still because few of us can easily withstand change without a stable reference point. Despite my fantasies to the contrary, I am no adventurer. I resist change with every fibre of my being. I cling to nostalgia, to the comfortable, to the familiar. Yet change is irresistable. It marches on inexorably. There is no way to stop it, or even slow it down. <em>It will happen.</em><br /><br />I'm growing old. I am not old yet, I'm not even "middle-aged." I'm thirty-four. I start a new job next week, my son starts his second year of school on Tuesday. My daughter just turned two. And yet it seems only yesterday I was starting school. My parents were the age I am now. My grandmother, now a ninety-four year old invalid, was in her sixties and baby-sat us regularly. I watch my parents not without a touch of horror, when my children are grown, that will be them, if they are even alive. I have the uncertainty of a new job, and I watch my children get more mature every day, and it scares me. It all happens so quickly, and it passes us by, and is gone except in our memories. What sadistic twist of nature gave us this yearning for stability in a universe where nothing is stable? While I am a hedonist who enjoys every pleasure life has to offer and wouldn't trade them for anything, I can understand, at least somewhat, why some poor souls choose to end it all, for death is the final change for all of us, after which we finally have an eternity of stable oblivion.<br /><br />And yet, change is not an evil. If my children were infants forever I certainly would not be happy about it. It gives me great happiness to see their every accomplishment, to teach them. My pride at seeing them grow is unmatched. How could I set that aside? My love for my husband, my girlfriend, they both grow with each year. Romance in infancy may be exciting, but if allowed to mature rather than withering, it becomes more satisfying. Change is who we are. We can thrive in it, if we allow ourselves to do so. How can I help myself do this? How do I set aside this dark dread of change and instead embrace the possibilities that change can bring?<br /><br />If I can figure that out, I know I'll lower my stress levels considerably.
ORIGINALLY POSTED IN 2012jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-20140678697485003262017-03-22T07:12:00.003-07:002017-03-22T08:43:04.330-07:00Jackie's Nether Depilatory<span style="font-family: inherit;">Critical thinking skills are so badly needed by so many people, especially now. While it may be asking too much for the average person to display them at every opportunity, I don't think I'm asking too much for our politicians and other policy decision-makers to do this. (Of course, they're elected by the average person, so maybe I'm wrong here.) Regardless, the state of our culture today, with nationalism, populism, "fake-news" and "alternative facts" has made critical thinking more important than ever before.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course, <i>none of us</i> can actually verify every fact we hold as true. We simply do not have the time, and even if we did, we do not have the expertise. At some point, one must resort to <i>argumentum ad verecundiam</i>, at least in our own minds. Of course, the argument from authority primarily deals with citing an "expert" for something outside their area of expertise. Still, two physicists may disagree on a matter of physics. <i>Argumentum ad populum</i> is commonly used to resolve this, but that is also fallacious. But what choice do you have? Even if you happen to <i>be </i>a physicist, there are countless other areas of expertise you have no qualifications to judge. We are social beings, and our incredible advancement means none of us know everything: we must resort to trust, at some point.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sometimes it is not obvious to us whom to trust when looking at competing hypotheses. It is at this point, the liberal use of certain philosophical razors can help us. A philosophical razor helps us quickly eliminate unlikely scenarios. It's of note that no such razor is universally correct - but in the absence of personal expertise and time to investigate, they will steer you away from bad choices in facts, most of the time. The most common of these is <span style="font-size: 14px; font-weight: 600; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Occam's Razor</span><span style="font-size: 14px;">: C</span><i style="font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;">hoose the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions</i><span style="font-size: 14px;">. There are many others, though. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My personal favorites:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: 600; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Alder's Razor</span>: <i style="font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;">If something cannot be settled by experiment or observation, then it is not worthy of debate.</i> (Also known as "Newton's Flaming Laser Sword" - this gets rid of so many discussions that are simply not worth having or considering.)</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin-bottom: 0.357143em; margin-top: 0.357143em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: 600; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Hanlon's Razor</span>: <i style="font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;">Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.</i> (This gets rid of most hypotheses that require conspiracy. There is some difficulty in sourcing this commonly cited razor, it may actually be <b>Heinlein's Razor: </b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Do not attribute villainy to conditions <span style="font-family: inherit;">simply resulting from stupidity.</span></span></i>)</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin-bottom: 0.357143em; margin-top: 0.357143em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: 600; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Hitchens' Razor</span>: <i style="font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;">That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.</i> (I hope this one catches on. Hitchens was a visionary.)</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin-top: 0.357143em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: 600; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Popper's Principle</span>: <i style="font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;">For a theory to be considered, it must be falsifiable.</i> (This is the best way of dealing with superstition. "What would, in your estimation, prove your idea wrong?" If your answer is "nothing," then you're almost certainly wrong.)</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin-top: 0.357143em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin-top: 0.357143em; padding: 0px;">
Run every idea everyone ever presents you through these razors. If an idea conflicts with one, well, consider if it's worth investigating further. Maybe you can find proof of the assumptions and Occam's Razor no longer applies. Maybe you can think of an experiment or observation to help prove it. Occasionally there actually is malice. Find evidence of it. Maybe the person making the assertion hasn't looked hard enough to find evidence yet. But <i>probably</i> - you can simply move on to another idea that has been better thought out.</div>
jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-38617441952778676002017-03-14T10:39:00.000-07:002017-03-14T10:39:14.673-07:00BEWARE OF GOD<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGlqCB3ZIkF42FF2ZI4EnAwhEb6Z6NWv-IqydI21A92_77wN6CeR5SzjvEDDKlsR4u_wLmOK1KuFaQZ_ZKJqmTVsYIUzpCtz_pMu3pY7XWUV_wPDzHYDFb8f02zy03XeOKqxcm/s1600/beware+of+god.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGlqCB3ZIkF42FF2ZI4EnAwhEb6Z6NWv-IqydI21A92_77wN6CeR5SzjvEDDKlsR4u_wLmOK1KuFaQZ_ZKJqmTVsYIUzpCtz_pMu3pY7XWUV_wPDzHYDFb8f02zy03XeOKqxcm/s320/beware+of+god.jpg" width="259" /></a></div>
<br />jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-3022239458164071332016-07-12T11:04:00.000-07:002016-07-12T11:19:28.110-07:00A Liberal Helping of SanityAs a Canadian, I am always surprised by the fact that despite having four viable federal parties across Canada, I am always still picking the least offensive to me when I vote, rather than feeling like there is a party that truly embodies my values. In the USA, with only two parties, I imagine most voters feel trapped in a choice between "Dumb and Dumber" - or worse. I've always felt like both Democrat and Republican platforms are both utterly unacceptable. Maybe I am a <i>centrist</i> and America has no place for anyone not at the extreme polar ends of the scale? No, that couldn't be it. After all, neither Republican nor Democrat really represent extremes in anything other than fiscal irresponsibility and pandering to corporate special interests. Besides, my views are hardly centrist on many things. Many of them are rather polarizing. They just don't fit into a package where they polarize the same group of people the same way.<br />
<br />
So then a friend of mine recently suggested that certain dominant elements in
the American "Political Left" are no longer "Liberals," but instead are
simply "Left-Wing Conservatives." This gave me something of a political epiphany. You might be confused as to the meaning of his statement, but one only needs to look at the definition of Liberal to understand:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Liberal <span class="lr_dct_ph">ˈlib(ə)rəl, <i>adj</i></span>: 1. open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values.</blockquote>
<br />
Liberalism is absolutely required in politics. It is the mechanism for pushing for necessary change. It is the motivator for progress. This doesn't make it superior to Conservatism -- which is the opposite force. Not all change is good, not all new behaviors or opinions are worth looking at, and not all values should be discarded. These two political forces in balance lead to a healthy dialogue where advantageous changes are implemented, but poorly thought out ones are placed on the shelf. These tendencies have nothing to do with the "right" or "left" side of politics. A hardline communist (leftist) in Soviet Russia would have been conservative, while Gorbachev's <span class="st" data-hveid="34">glasnost and perestroika were extremely liberal - despite leading Russia further toward the right side of the political spectrum. </span><br />
<span class="st" data-hveid="34"><br /></span>
<span class="st" data-hveid="34">My friend is absolutely right - Liberalism is what's missing in modern political discourse. The entrenched ideologue is about as extreme a Conservative position as one can take. Increasingly, people identify with a particular party or ideology as part of <i>who they are. </i>This means they can't be open minded toward alternative ideas or views without compromising their very identity - and so society moves toward more and more conservative attitudes. You just have competing conservatives, left vs. right, unable to come to any sort of agreement.</span><br />
<span class="st" data-hveid="34"><br /></span>
<span class="st" data-hveid="34">And suddenly I know why I feel so disillusioned with political parties across the board. </span><br />
<span class="st" data-hveid="34"><br /></span>
<span class="st" data-hveid="34"><i>I am liberal.</i> </span><br />
<span class="st" data-hveid="34"><br /></span>
<span class="st" data-hveid="34">This is not a political view. This is my personal tendency to want to try new ideas, discard old values. My near anarchist-distrust for authority and tradition certainly feeds into this, and suddenly I can't find many people of any political persuasion that I feel look at the world the same way I do. We need more liberal forces within politics; forces that do not demonize ideas simply for being different than their platform, forces that do not try to silence dissent or criticism of other idealogies that they feel are somehow protected from criticism. Give me back open and rational discourse, and let us set aside inflexible and unassailable party doctrines.</span>jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-81861781439335763852016-05-16T06:37:00.002-07:002016-05-16T09:22:06.525-07:00Intoxicating Vanity<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating
vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is
four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that
long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life,
then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the
great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the
mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of
creatures rising, flourishing, dying away -- all this against a background of
continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away,
cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole
continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to
make mountains over millions of years. Earth has survived everything in its
time. It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world
went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was
sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under
the soil, frozen in Arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer
inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin
again. It might take a few billion years for life to regain its present
variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the
earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets
thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears the earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation
is good for life. It's powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many
forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. Do
you think this is the first time that's happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary
for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive gas,
like fluorine. When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain
plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other
life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal
gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless,
life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred
years is a long time. A hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes,
computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a
hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and
breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful
rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for
the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.”</i></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
~ Dr. Ian Malcolm, <i>Jurassic Park (by Dr. Michael Crichton)</i><o:p></o:p></div>
jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-43952645204309524962015-12-23T10:19:00.001-08:002015-12-23T10:19:44.696-08:00The Venn Diagram of Irrational Nonsense<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
This is obviously not mine, but it's oh-so-amazing. Whoever you are, <a href="http://www.crispian-jago.blogspot.com/">Crispian_Jago</a>, you've made me a fan.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAkqi1xyil3S_wfPLPCT_cH4enJqiXioZulcQqzFzqd6FNJfFjJa5GB3Sr5yTTtrUFiERiTD54dGtlDt4gjuLGbKGx0L8vpsP1VgiObDD2rhBejzYX-e0cazV4S6sk79Ilwsxe/s1600/the-venn-diagram-of-irrational-nonsense2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAkqi1xyil3S_wfPLPCT_cH4enJqiXioZulcQqzFzqd6FNJfFjJa5GB3Sr5yTTtrUFiERiTD54dGtlDt4gjuLGbKGx0L8vpsP1VgiObDD2rhBejzYX-e0cazV4S6sk79Ilwsxe/s640/the-venn-diagram-of-irrational-nonsense2.png" width="584" /></a></div>
<br />jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-80161277482954186922015-09-10T06:50:00.001-07:002015-09-10T08:08:04.670-07:00Strutting and fretting my hour upon the stage...<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><i>Time is not a flow. The past is not gone, the future is not yet to come. Science has proven that time is just another coordinate, like lattitude and longitude. "Space-time" is a thing, time and space are not separate. This means that death is not an end. Death is a boundary. Birth and death are two coordinates that determine when a person exists. They exist -- we all exist -- where and when we live. Nothing is ever lost.</i></span></blockquote>
<br />
I wrote those words nine months ago. Nine months of perceived time squandered; exactly two hundred and seventy days -- are they lost to the ravages of time?<br />
<br />
I don't believe so. When writing the words above, I envisioned time as like the boundary of the surface of a table; just because the table has edges, does not mean it no longer exists.<br />
<br />
This begs the question, however, <i>why do we perceive time the way we do?</i> Does it matter if everything exists, excuse the term -- language is so limited by our temporal experience -- "simultaneously," if all we perceive is one moment after another? If time is just another definition to our existence, a boundary limitation, how is it that the seconds flow into hours into days and all our yesterdays fade, while the future is never clear?<br />
<br />
Logic can answer this question, so simply, and so elegantly, in one word:<br />
<br />
<i>Causality.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Causality is the relationship between two events, known simply as cause and effect. I described a table, above, but as far as our memory is concerned, time is a slightly different flat surface. Time may not be a flow, but causality is, and it only flows in one direction, turning this from a boundary on a table to a boundary on a river. Oh, the entire river exists between two points, but causality flows between those two points nonetheless. In fact, perhaps a better analogy than a river or a table is an ocean. The entire ocean exists between its shores, no matter where in the ocean you are. And yet causality moves through the ocean - like waves, but moving only in one direction. If the universe were an electronic circuit, causality is the great diode.<br />
<br />
That's enough simplistic analogies. Let's apply them.<br />
<br />
Events in the now imprint on our neurons, causing synaptic patterns we know colloquially as memories. As you look at your memories at a different point in time, new memory patterns have formed caused by subsequent events. Likewise, older memories have faded, caused by the actions of biological functions on the imperfect record-keeping of our gray matter. At no point have future events already inscribed themselves on our memories. And so, like a script in a play, at whichever point you begin reading, it reads the same. Mercutio will always invoke Queen Mab if you start in act 1, scene 4, but if you start in act 3, scene 1, he will always suffer Tybalt's blade the same way. And yet, at whichever point of the play you begin reading, Romeo & Juliet still exists in its entirety. If you go back and read act 1, scene 4 again, Mercutio's monologue does not change to reflect his impending demise, the play remains whole and intact.<br />
<br />
Causality preserves the illusion of time flow. All points in our existence simply exist, but some consequence yet hanging in the stars remains a mystery to us -- at no point do you remember the future, and what's past is prologue, eventually fading like an ember in our ever shifting present. We do not, in our limited perception, have the option of being the reader and turning back the page. The play's the thing, and we are just the poor players, dramatis personæ, always reading the same lines depending which scene is being read. Perhaps the Bard was a bit more of a visionary than he knew.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.</i></span></blockquote>
<br />jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-36914060291858207932015-09-02T08:29:00.000-07:002015-09-02T09:49:09.290-07:00The Trap of ReligionCamille Paglia, a woman I respect for her sex-positive approach to feminism, recently said something stupid. We all say stupid things, every one of us, so I'm not going to villify Paglia for this. However, I'm going to freely criticize the content of what she said, because she's a public figure with a widely read soapbox (unlike myself), and her words need to be scrutinized for truth if you're considering using them for the basis of an opinion.<br />
<br />
Camille, an atheist, herself, in an interview with Salon.com, said of great thinkers like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;">I regard them as adolescents.</span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;"> I say in the introduction to my last book, “Glittering Images”, that </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;">“Sneering at religion is juvenile, symptomatic of a stunted imagination."</span></i></blockquote>
<br />
Oh, my. Camille, Camille. Where do I start? Are you going to argue that sneering at political philosophies is juvenile and symptomatic of a stunted imagination, too?<br />
<br />
The simple fact is - some ideas are <i>wrong.</i> Some ideas are <i>harmful.</i> I know there are people who opine that everyone's beliefs and ideals are valid, of equal merit, deserving of respect, but that's horeshit. At the risk of invoking Godwin's law, remember, National Socialism was a set of beliefs and ideals - practically a religion of its own. You can argue about the great works of art inspired by religion, certainly. (I'd love to, actually, but not here, that's another topic.) You can argue about the works of charity religions have performed, and make the occasional good point, but you cannot argue against the harm religion has caused throughout all of human history. <i>All</i> religion. We're not talking about a few extremists that don't represent religion as a whole. We <i>know </i>that people shooting up cartoonists or blowing up children at bus stops are a problem. But if we say "exposure to some forms of radiation is unhealthy for humans," we're not just talking about nuclear weapons. Religion as a whole is altogether poisonous to modern human society and freedoms.<br />
<br />
At their core, all religions - whether you're talking about those based on Judaeo-Christian backgrounds, or eastern religions like Buddhism, teach that we are fundamentally flawed, imperfect... that our flesh, our emotions, are somehow an obstacle we must overcome to reach some kind of enlightenment/salvation/forgiveness. They teach us shame in our humanity, they teach us that we as a species need some kind of outside help.<br />
<br />
The reality is, life is a struggle. More than 99% of all species that have ever lived on this rock have been extinct longer than humans have even existed. Life on earth has survived many mass-extinctions - asteroid strikes (one of which was big enough to have formed our moon), supervolcanoes, climate change, tectonic shifts, gamma ray bursts... and yet you and I are here, reading this. Savage, naked apes who crawled down from the trees taught ourselves language, art, engineering, medicine, altruism - surviving all manner of disasters and ending up at the very top of the evolutionary ladder of this planet, and we have only ourselves to credit for this. God didn't help us. Religion certainly didn't - it hindered us every step of the way, and it still does. Religion has taught us to be ashamed of our humanity - that we need saving. The Christian bible derides human wisdom and teaches us to not rely on ourselves - to not trust ourselves - that we are evil and flawed and only God can help direct us in the right way. <a href="http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/boosting-self-worth-can-counteract-cognitive-effects-of-poverty.html">Science has found that these teachings have a real, detrimental effect on people's intelligence and ability to function in society.</a> And yet somehow, parents think indoctrinating our children in these horrible myths is the duty of any good parent.<br />
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No, Camille. It is not juvenile to try to steer society away from religion. It is not juvenile to try to help our species escape this trap that has enslaved us for all of recorded history. Finally, humanity is on the cusp of escaping slavery to superstition. You have escaped it yourself. Please do not, by your words, discourage any other part of humanity from doing the same. If you want imagination, imagine a species that takes pride in who and what we are, celebrate our humanity and discard all those arrogant imaginary gods and the artificial limitations they have imposed on us.<br />
<br />jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-32043319928006702552015-04-15T12:32:00.000-07:002015-04-15T12:32:52.489-07:00The Conservative Atheist<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>For the purpose of this post, "Atheist" will be defined as "Person who does not profess a belief in the divine." I tend to identify as Agnostic, but people don't get the point, and while Atheist connotes more than I prefer as well, it is functionally closer to my worldview than what most people call Agnostic.</i></span><br />
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All the world seems to be in a false dichotomy - a choice between "dumb" and "dumber," and I'm not sure which is which.</div>
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One the one hand you have the bleeding heart liberal types - the idiots who believe in spending money governments don't have and taxing the hell out of people later. These are the same morons who think that you can correct bigotry with institutionalized bigotry (see "Affirmative Action"); who push politically correct language; who are turning dating into a series of legal contracts and video to ensure that consent was had at all stages; who falsely present that every minority and woman is disadvantaged and needs protecting at all times. I find these people intolerable - even offensive. As a woman, I do not need protecting because I'm a woman. To suggest this is sexist. I'm as capable and strong as any man, and I don't need my capability for consent validated by blood alcohol content. These are also the same people who cut funding to essential government institutions like NASA, which have provided more benefit to humankind than every social program put together ever has. They treat the slightest environmental concern as if it were a looming catastrophe, and don't trust anything humans change, as if nature is somehow sacrosanct and we're not part of it and shouldn't meddle in it.</div>
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On the other hand you have the so-called "conservative" types. These include idiots that actually are racist, sexist pricks that think women and minorities need to be put in their subservient place. They want to protect superstitious primitive beliefs about morality and family. They oppose science and knowledge because it conflicts with dogma. They oppose some scientific progress because their imaginary invisible friend in the sky tells them that they shouldn't do that. They resist legitimate changes needed to avoid environmental problems because they don't believe we can ever really do anything detrimental to our environment that their "God" does not will to take place, anyway.</div>
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Honestly, religion needs to disappear. Then the remains of conservatism will finally be salvageable. I'm not sure there's anything that can save liberalism.</div>
jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-29223316627069786182015-03-05T19:28:00.001-08:002023-12-28T11:57:32.624-08:00Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp -- or what's a heaven for?There's a repeated theme in fiction - that of the evils of technology and advancement. There are concepts that humans shouldn't "Play God" with certain things (always with ambiguous criteria,) that there are things we are "not meant to know," and that we "shouldn't meddle with nature."<br />
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These ideas are all <i>idiotic</i>. Knowledge is everything. Our brains are our adaptability. Humans are alive and dominant today because our ancestors -- tropical hairless primates adapted to life in jungles and coastal Africa -- decided to spread beyond our comfortable habitat zones, and found ways to do it. At every step throughout history, people have hit the limits of their understanding and knowledge and decided to invoke intelligent design, as if the universe were mysterious and humans could never figure it out. And at every one of those steps, someone figured it out and found a way to move us forward. If anyone had ever listened to those suggesting we "Shouldn't meddle with nature," we'd still be hunter-gatherers living in caves.<br />
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There's no such thing as going too far in science and technology. We are the masters of our own destiny, our own future. We can take charge of our own evolution, and engineer our own apotheosis. We can become the gods we invented. There are no limits for us, and unlike the fable of Nimrod at Babel, there's no malevolent divine to confuse our languages and halt our progress. So resist those who suggest we should hobble our own advancement. Tell those who fear science and technology all it's done for us. Be proud of what you are, and strive to make us all better. We are the pinnacle of natural selection on Earth, but we can't stop moving, we can't become stagnant. We can't stop evolving or we will die.<br />
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The Bard wrote it best in Hamlet (even if Hamlet intended it in irony):
"What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!"<br />
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Don't set limitations for us based on some false perception of our limited potential. jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-54367955096876146402015-02-02T07:45:00.001-08:002015-02-02T07:45:12.191-08:00Groundhog Day Lies!According to this asinine legend, if the Groundhog doesn't see its shadow, winter weather will be gone in 2 weeks. If it sees its shadow, it will scare underground and winter weather will continue for another 6 weeks.
This year, the Vernal Equinox is at 3:45PM, March 20th (slightly earlier than usual.) That's 46 days, 8 hours, and 19 minutes after after Punxsutawney Phil cowered back into cover this morning. Note that 6 weeks is 42 days. That means that spring actually arrives approximately closer to 7 weeks from today. The break-even point would be just under 7 more weeks of winter. Anything less than that (Phil's 6 more weeks, for instance), is a prediction of warmer than usual weather, as winter weather can last well into spring for anyone north of Tennessee.
I submit Phil and other groundhogs engaged in meteorological prognostication (such as the more local Wiarton Willie, who even more egregiously predicted an early spring today) are frauds, overpromising and underdelivering, even on their most pessimistic predictions.jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-11546242155663324632014-12-12T13:42:00.001-08:002014-12-12T13:48:03.007-08:00Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted.Time is not a flow. The past is not gone, the future is not yet to come. Science has proven that time is just another coordinate, like lattitude and longitude. "Space-time" is a thing, time and space are not separate. This means that death is not an end. Death is a boundary. Birth and death are two coordinates that determine when a person exists. They exist -- we all exist -- where and when we live. Nothing is ever lost.
jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-85198837100909596892014-05-20T10:44:00.002-07:002014-05-20T10:53:39.909-07:00One small step (backwards) for man...It's no secret how I'm rather anti-copyright in my views. Intellectual property laws are hailed by big business as essential to the economy and progress, but in reality, they hamper human creativity and curtail new IP from being created. The same is true with current patent law. Just think if Isaac Newton had patented Calculus when he invented it... science would have been set back decades. Likewise, creative works are all derivative - there's no such thing as a truly original work. Yet corporations continually find loopholes or lobby to create loopholes if none exist that allow them to extend their copyright indefinitely.
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A recent travesty brought this to my attention once again. Retired Canadian astronaut, Commander Chris Hadfield, may be the most popular space traveler to live since Armstrong, despite only getting 1/1000ths the distance from Earth that the Apollo crews did. How did he become so popular? Through savvy Internet/social media use, Hadfield showed the world what life about the ISS was like. His time on the ISS went viral in a big way, with his wonderful recording of David Bowie's Space Oddity in May 2013. Now, Hadfield negotiated this with Bowie, and got permission to show this video for one year. 22.5 million hits later, nobody will ever see it again (except for us enterprising pirates, anyway.) Hadfield has done more to reintroduce kids to the dream of being an astronaut than anyone in 40 years, and now his little piece of culture is gone. Now, I'm not entirely blaming Bowie (although if he had an ounce of nobility in himself, he'd realize that the world was a better place with that piece of art in it than it is now and arrange to have it put back again -- which maybe he plans to do, so I'm not judging him), but the copyright system in general, which makes it imperative to guard your IP if you ever want to make money off of it again.
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The system is flawed in an irreparable way. The system has to die. The Earth's too small for us to compartmentalize every little bit of data and guard it with grasping fingers. I want to say copyright is doomed; that this desperate measure of the big corporate monsters to control every last aspect of our lives with their outdated business models can only fail, but I lack the faith I had when I was younger, faith that things would eventually work out in the way most beneficial for all.
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So here am I floating round my tin can
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<em>Far above the Moon</em><br />
<em>Planet Earth is blue </em><br />
<em>And there's nothing I can do...</em>
jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-54097424755778826192014-03-10T09:18:00.002-07:002014-03-10T09:18:54.775-07:00All that is, was, or ever will be...Consider again that pale blue dot we've been talking about. Imagine that you take a good long look at it. Imagine that you're staring at the dot for any length of time, and then try to convince yourself that God created the whole universe for one of the ten million or so species of life that inhabit that speck of dust. Now take it a step further: imagine that everything was made just for a single shade of that species; or gender; or ethnic or religious subdivision. We can recognize here a shortcoming -- in some circumstances serious -- in our ability to understand the world. Characteristically, we seem compelled to project our <i>own</i> nature onto <i>nature</i>. "<i>Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work, worthy of the interposition of a deity</i>," Darwin wrote telegraphically in his notebook, "<i>more humble, and I think truer to consider him created from animals</i>." We're Johnny-come-latelies. We live in the cosmic boondocks. We emerged from microbes in muck. Apes are our cousins. Our thoughts and feelings are not fully under our own control. And on top of all this, we're making a mess of our planet and becoming a danger to ourselves. The trapdoor beneath our feet swings open. We find ourselves in bottomless freefall. If it takes a little myth and ritual to get us through a night that seems endless, who among us cannot sympathize and understand? We long to be here for a purpose, even though despite much self deception, none is evident. The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Our common sense intuitions can be mistaken. Our preferences don't count. We do not live in a privileged reference frame. If we crave some cosmic purpose then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.
~ Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-21275272563978096212011-06-08T06:17:00.000-07:002011-06-08T08:22:11.127-07:00Into the WestI'm not going to be overly eloquent or profound today. A friend of mine died last night. She was my mother's best friend. She was a frequent babysitter when I was young, and more than a small part of my childhood. We've kept in touch. Some time ago she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She fought it like a woman possessed, but there was no way to beat it.<br />
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This is becoming all-too-common a theme for me lately. Prominent figures from my childhood are passing on. Just over a year ago it was my grandmother. She was a woman of great faith, and I envied her the peace she felt as she passed. Does it matter whether she's in God's arms or oblivion, now? Her faith brought her peace and hope. My grandmother was born in Oslo, Norway. She had the strength of a viking, and lived a productive ninety-eight years. Now she's gone. This is natural, not a tragedy. <br />
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So if it's so natural, why did nature give us grief? What evolutionary purpose does mourning serve? Because, fuck you, natural selection. Fuck you for putting eternity in our hearts and then giving us only a few short decades. It's a good thing I don't believe in a God, because were She responsible for such things, I'd have similar words for Her.jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-54297711645502657672011-01-12T09:10:00.000-08:002011-01-12T09:26:58.713-08:00The Deevolution of ManAnother gem from Coro, whom I've quoted once before here...<br />
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<blockquote>My research on Greek mythology has led me to a rather striking realization: We have devolved since the age of antiquity. The ancient Greeks were more civilized and enlightened than we are today, despite our greater knowledge base. The majority of the world, including the "civilized western world," has explicitly not embraced any of our scientific achievements and are still mired in the mythology of the ancient world.However, while the majority of the western world kneels and prays to an obscene and violent image of a bloody half-naked man nailed to a hunk of wood, the ancient Greeks worshipped and prayed to iconic statues of women who looked like real women and men who looked like real men (if idealized, still "real") in graceful and dignified poses. Even the overtly sexualized images were proud and self-confident. The popular religions of the present day degrade Man, and tell us that we are filthy and wicked all the while telling us we are created in our God's image. (If we are filthy and wicked, requiring his salvation, what does that tell us about our God?) Greek spiritual imagery showed things such as the gods and titans (very human-looking) holding up the Earth. The statues of greek goddesses that featured bare breasts, or bare thighs, or even Aphrodite's bare ass, presented the actual shape and figure of a woman as something to be revered. The very human-like forms of all of the gods and titans depicted the very best of humanity. The male deities all look wise and noble, even Hades carries out his unsavory task of ruling the underworld with poise.</blockquote><br />
Very astute, I think. The Greeks had our apotheosis in mind with their religion. The qualities of the divine were wonderfully human, whether the Gods were acting as heroic champions or decadent deviants. The Greeks elevated Man, while Judaeo-Christian-based faiths (including Islam) denigrate us. Given a choice, I prefer a religion that celebrates what it is to be human, rather than one that claims human society as it exists today is a result of evil and sin.<br />
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Or, as Khross replied:<br />
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<blockquote>You keep tellin' a man he's no good for long enough, and he starts believin' it. The same thing happens with countries and cultures. And best I can reckon, that's what the Church has been doin' for the last 2000 years. Man may not have been fallen when the Church started, but the Church sure as shit has made sure man is fallen now.</blockquote>jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-29460282895407006172010-05-07T11:34:00.000-07:002010-05-07T13:51:18.060-07:00People are generally idiots (...and I am glad about it.)Call me a misanthropist. My general opinion of humanity is somewhat low. I'm convinced the average person is an idiot--and half of them are worse than that. This leads to some strange political views, but i've come to the conclusion that I'm happy that the average person is an idiot.<br /><br />I suppose it's not uncommon for a person in my field of employment: Information Technology. The moment you know anything about computers, is the moment the stupidity of the world around you becomes so blatantly obvious. However, most people in IT departments are employed, from the lowest level to the highest levels, primarily because the users are less competent than developmentally challenged baboons.<br /><br />The less computer literate among you may suggest, "You aren't being fair. We're not technical. That's why you get paid for your job." You are partly correct. You are not technical. And yes, I would probably be unemployed if you were all technically proficient with computers. But I'm not discussing technical proficiency in the same sense you are.<br /><br />Let's take the lowly telephone helpdesk agent, and the people that support them (like myself.) We are technical. (Or at least, we should be, in a perfect world. I've encountered more than the occasional idiot on a helpdesk, too.) Let's make an analogy I love, and compare computers to automobiles. We are your mechanics. When you have a problem with your car, you go to your mechanic. When you have a problem with your computer, you call your helpdesk. If that's all you came to us with, I would have less disdain for you. But the vast majority of user calls to the helpdesk are not problems with your computer at all. They are problems <em><strong>with you.</strong></em> Allow me to illustrate.<br /><br />The mechanic gets a call from a driver.<br />DRIVER: My car won't turn left!<br />MECHANIC: Ah, are you turning the wheel counterclockwise?<br />DRIVER: What wheel?<br />MECHANIC: The steering wheel.<br />DRIVER: Hold on, let me check. Wait...it won't turn. Damn, now my hands are dirty.<br />MECHANIC: Do I hear birds? Are you outside your car?<br />DRIVER: I had to get out to try to turn the wheel.<br />MECHANIC: No, that's one of your tires...the steering wheel is <em>inside the car.</em><br />DRIVER: Why didn't you tell me? Let me get back in the car. Okay, where is it?<br />MECHANIC: In front of you.<br />DRIVER: There's another seat in front of me.<br />MECHANIC: You're in the back seat. You need to be in the front seat to drive. On the left side of the car.<br />DRIVER: Okay, nobody told me this. I'm getting in the front. Okay, there's no wheel here. <br />MECHANIC: Your other left side.<br />DRIVER: Oh! There. Got it. Okay. Now clockwise?<br />MECHANIC: Counter-clockwise.<br />DRIVER: The wheel won't turn.<br />MECHANIC: Have you started the car?<br />DRIVER: I don't know. How can I tell.<br />MECHANIC: Do you know how to drive?<br />DRIVER: Of course I know how to drive! I'm just not technical!<br /><br />You see, this is where you idiots pay for my kids meals. <em>Knowing how to use your computer is not an area of technical expertise, you intellectual gnats</em>. It's a minimum competence level required for doing a job that requires using a computer. I should blame the people that hired you for being idiots, I suppose, for not ensuring you knew how to use a computer, but they don't know how either. Neither do their bosses. Nor their bosses, and on and on up the food chain, all the way to the CEO, who's lucky if he knows what the fuck a computer is other than that glowing box his son masturbates in front of every night. And for this, I suppose I should thank you. Your ineptitude makes my standard of living possible. So go right on watching your American Idol and Survivor and Dr. Phil. Continue buying expensive four wheel drive vehicles that never go off the road. And for God's sake, don't ever buy a Mac. I'm not saying Macs are better than PCs, but near as I can tell, the idiots who buy Apple products are actually able to use their devices somewhat easier. I think the OSX GUI is closed-captioned for the thinking impaired. If more of you switched to Macs, I might be out of work. <br /><br />All cheer for idiocy! Huzzah!jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-78497324620624226412010-03-12T19:07:00.000-08:002010-03-13T12:55:20.153-08:00I am woman, hear me moan...<span style="font-family:arial;">I have never been much of a fan of classical "Feminism." Too many activist women have tried to tell me what I should be, what I should do, or more importantly, what I shouldn't do. They tell us what's appropriate and what degrades us; they tell us what to think, what to feel. Frankly, I have no use for them. Early on I decided that part of liberating women is empowering us to use our own bodies the way we wish to do so.<br /><br />But MacKinnon and Dworkin and their ilk don't represent all feminists. When I became aware of Sex-Positive Feminism (and read a bit of Camille Paglia) my dislike for the word "Feminism" softened a great deal. So when my friend Coro told me about the rabid anti-pornographic girls in his university class complaining about the objectifying of women in pornography, I gladly told him:<br /><br />"Have they ever even <em>watched</em> any porn? A woman in a porn film remains a woman. We're not objectified in the slightest. You want to see the victims in a porn film? Where are the men? You know, men: the faceless frameworks on which the rigid erect cum fountains are mounted? They're nothing more than living dildos for her pleasure! Objectifying women, my ass...figuratively speaking, of course. Men should be the ones complaining, except men <em>like</em> being sex objects."<br /><br />Therein lies the difference. The very things so many of us women complain about, men have no problems with at all. If I were to smack a guy's ass at work, I guarantee you he's going to appreciate it, rather than report me for harassment. And it is because of these differences in how men and women think, that our push for sexual equality has overshot the goal. Oh, we've done great things for women. But what about men? There's a new double standard at work, and we haven't even noticed. The most obvious place for the standard is in our sexuality. Female same-sex relationships are far more accepted than male same-sex relationships. In general, even open-minded people are repulsed by male-on-male intimacy. Intellectually, they have no problems with it; to each their own, if you're not hurting anyone else, do what you will! But they don't want to see it! But women? Well, lesbians are hot, right? <br /><br />This double standard continues through less explicit categories, though. Today, thanks to the wonderful progress we've made culturally, a woman can be a CEO, a soldier, a police officer, a firefighter, an action hero, whatever she desires, and be no less a woman for it. In fact, men <em>like</em> the female action hero--she's sexy! But what of the man who is a homemaker, or a dancer, or a hairdresser? Why is it that those things make him somehow less manly? How is it that in our push for equality, men are still culturally denied the right to cross gender rolls, while women can do so with impunity? Of course, the truth of the matter is that men, themselves have perpetuated this. While men have chivalrously accepted us as equals, they are still brutally sexist to themselves. And when you're your own worst enemy, who is there to stand up for you?</span></p>jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-38267151054029387262009-11-11T06:49:00.000-08:002009-11-11T06:53:45.054-08:00VigilanceOn Tuesday, June 6th, 1944, at 0630, Allied forces began what would hold up as the largest amphibious military assault in history. Over the next several days, 175,000 Allied soldiers (approximately 89,000 American, 61,000 British, and 25,000 Canadian soldiers) stormed entrenched German coastal defenses held by 380,000 german defenders, during wind and high seas that made air support and naval landings problematic. The casualties among the first waves of landings were horrific, and the battles long and protracted, but by the end of D-Day, allied forces had captured their objectives at Juno Beach. The other landing sites would take longer, but were also ultimately successful. Not to be overlooked (as we tend to do), are the efforts of the French Resistance, whose intelligence helped make D-Day possible, and heroic acts of sabotage made German counter-attacks far weaker than they would otherwise have been.<br /><br />One day has become symbolic in our minds for the sacrifices of so many over the last century. The soldiers that have given their lives for freedom in those conflicts were products of a society that I doubt would show the same mettle if pressed to do so today. We make the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq sound like great conflicts and our losses there devastating, but that one day in World War 2 cost almost as many allied lives as 7 years in those places. We don't know what it is to sacrifice or fight anymore.I leave you with a poem from a WWI Canadian soldier that nearly every Canadian can recite parts of by rote.<br /><br /><em>In Flanders fields the poppies blow</em><br /><em>Between the crosses, row on row,</em><br /><em>That mark our place; and in the sky</em><br /><em>The larks, still bravely singing, fly</em><br /><em>Scarce heard amid the guns below.</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>We are the dead. Short days ago</em><br /><em>We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,</em><br /><em>Loved, and were loved, and now we lie</em><br /><em>In Flanders fields.</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>Take up our quarrel with the foe:</em><br /><em>To you from failing hands we throw</em><br /><em>The torch; be yours to hold it high.</em><br /><em>If ye break faith with us who die</em><br /><em>We shall not sleep, though poppies grow</em><br /><em>In Flanders fields.</em><br /><br />— Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 - 1918)<br /><br />On November 11th every year, you will see nearly every Canadian wearing a little poppy pin on in rememberance of those who gave everything to make the world safer for the rest of us. Before you ever consider trading away even one of our individual freedoms, even the seemingly least significant of them, for any reason at all, think on how many died for us to have them.jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-80902845879244797892009-02-07T15:39:00.000-08:002009-02-07T16:00:04.469-08:00Arrr, mateys...we'll just be takin' yer thoughts for freeThe title sound sinister? Strange, it does, doesn't it. But you really can't be taking people's thoughts from them. Thing is, ideas are free. Anybody can think about anything they want, even if other people have already had those ideas. No matter how hard the RIAA and MPAA want to do so, they'll never be able to charge you for what you think.<br /><br />They sure try, though.<br /><br />The term "Intellectual Property" is a joke (and a very bad one, at that.) I refuse to recognize it. Copyright law as it currently stands is also ridiculous (as is patent law, but that's outside the scope of this blog.) It has gone way beyond its original purpose of protecting recent creative works from being exploited for profit by those who had no part of its making.<br /><br />Let me say this outright: I applaud casual piracy. I would be a card-carrying member of the Pirate Party of Canada if it had formed yet. Bittorrent is the best thing that the Internet has offered us yet. I am entitled to take whatever other people want to give me. You cannot own thoughts and ideas and thereby prevent others from sharing them. The law has to end. I'd thank God (if I believed in one) that Canadian attempts to introduce DMCA equivalents have all met bad ends, and with the minority government still in place, we won't see one soon, either. I just hope the Information is Free movement gains enough traction to permanently kill it.<br /><br />So, looking for fun stuff to pirate?<br /><br />Music is stale. Not only is there very little good commercial music to listen to, but those rare times I find it, it's usually an independant publisher and I don't mind giving them a few dollars for a CD. So how about movies? The MPAA is making you pay full price for new blu-ray copies of movies you already bought on DVD, might as well download a few of those. Hard Drive space is cheap, but damn does it eat up your bandwidth. But dollar-for-dollar, if you're a geekgrrl like me (or more likely, geek guy), the most lucrative form of piracy (and by that I mean, the amount it would have cost you per megabyte downloaded if you bought the items in question) are roleplaying game books. Hasbro's Wizards of the Coast bought TSR's D&D license years ago and has run it into the ground with their "4th edition." They want everyone to forget 3rd edition ever existed. But it's free! $40 hardcover books in PDF format only cost 10MB of your drive space. There is nothing you can't get online if you want it. Hell, why give billionaire Rowling money? I never read Potter until I downloaded the entire series.<br /><br />I'm unapologetic about this. Piracy is not anything like stealing, legally or morally. As the US supreme court once said, copyright infringement does not deprive the owner of copyright access to their "property." It's nothing like theft at all. And regardless of what the law says, governments don't get to make our morality for us--right and wrong are always in the eye of the beholder. Everything is relative. So whether you wanna "stick it to the man," or just want to free up your entertainment budget, if you've never used Bittorrent, go to <a href="http://www.utorrent.com/">http://www.utorrent.com/</a> and download their wonderfully safe and slim client, then visit a few sites like <a href="http://piratebay.org/">http://piratebay.org/</a>, <a href="http://www.mininova.org/">http://www.mininova.org/</a>, or maybe luck out and get a membership to <a href="http://www.demonoid.com/">http://www.demonoid.com/</a>. There are dozens of others. Don't forget to keep sharing after you download for as long as you can. Help make the world a more fun place to live...for free!<br /><br />Or in the immortal words of Jack Sparrow,<br /><br />"Take what ye can, give nothin' back!"<br /><br />Arrr.jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-5497618029465868102008-03-17T10:30:00.000-07:002008-03-17T11:19:22.742-07:00Peace Initiative: St. Patty's Day Solution to IraqIt has occurred to me that we Irish were never really all that pro-active at the insurgency thing. I mean, look at the history of Northern Ireland. If the USA had invaded Ireland instead of Iraq, you'd have had maybe, two bombings by now. Three, tops. It's generally because we were too busy planning to kill prods and limeys over a pint, than actually killing them. Actually, we were usually too busy with the next pint to do much planning. Sure, there were some fairly horrific incidents over thirty years, but you can count them on both hands. That is approximately one day’s trip to the marketplace in Baghdad. Now, I realize correlation does not automatically imply causation, but I believe I've found a correlation that shows what it is that is wrong with Muslim extremists that makes them more violent than Irish Catholic extremists.<br /><br />The poor bastards don't drink enough.<br /><br />Let's do some simple math here. We'll use a few assumptions. (Actually, we'll use only assumptions, as I don't feel like looking them up, and while I haven't had time to get to a pub yet, I want to approximate a serious discussion after getting mostly drunk.)<br /><br />Let's say over the last 5 years, there have been 2378 terrorist bombings<sup>1</sup> in Iraq, while during 32 years of unrest in Northern Ireland, we bombed a factory, 2 pubs, and some old british bastard's car.<sup>2</sup> Let's corellate that to average intake of alcohol.<br /><br />The average Irish person drinks approximately 1 pint per hour.<sup>3 </sup>The average Muslim drinks approximately one ounce of alchohol per 6000 public executions.<sup>4</sup><br /><br />If we take a look at those staggering<sup>5</sup> figures, we'll see that the number of terrorist bombings is inversely proportional<sup>6</sup> to the amount of alcohol ingested. Obviously, the solution to bringing peace to the Middleast is to drown the whole region in Bushmills.<br /><br />I'll now open the floor to questions.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">1 - rough completely made up estimate I pulled from my ass.</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">2 - innaccurate supposition based primarily on ingestion of Guinness by IrishJackie.</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">3 - this is only if including time spent sleeping. Otherwise, double the amount per hour.</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">4 - based on the entirely fabricated statistic of 1 in 6000 executions in the middle east being for the charge of drinking alchohol, and completely ignoring how that doesn't in any way relate to how many Muslims there are.</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">5 - technically, only the Irish figures are staggering, and then only when we get off our stools at the pub.</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">6 - or something like that.</span>jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490617.post-71794497675679256432006-11-30T19:22:00.000-08:002006-11-30T19:23:38.632-08:00Wisdom of a foolWell, he's not really a fool. He's just a funny son of a bitch.<br /><br />Here's what Coro had to say about Atheism:<br /><br /><blockquote><br /> If God created Heaven and Earth, and all of the people in it, then he must have also created atheists. After all, there's no other way they could have possibly gotten here. This brings up the question of why. Why would God have created people who reject him?<br /> Religious folk, when asked difficult questions, always like to say that God has a plan. Unfortunately, getting an idea of the nature of said plan out of them is like pulling teeth. The favorite answer is along the lines that we are unfit to attempt to comprehend the mind of God - as if that stops humans from contemplating it anyway. Contemplating the nature of God is what led to groups of us discovering his existence in the first place. It was a very important notion to explore under Judaism. It's not until Christianity and Islam that pondering the nature of God's thoughts seems to have become a serious taboo.<br /> So God has a plan. This means he has a plan for atheists. God is omnipotent and omniscient, so therefore he not only has a plan, but everything is proceeding according to that plan. Puzzling, then, that atheism continues to persist. Why?<br /> Christians want to see God everywhere they look. It's a popular theme among contemporary Christian thought to see God in everything. This is logical. Since God created the world, he therefore must be present in everything. Saying that you see God in everything is an accurate statement. God is an artist and an inventor - this much is clear from any study of Judeo-Christian theology. As an artist, God likes to paint pictures. What use is art if it is not shared? Furthermore, does God not already have an audience with which to share his art? So, having painted a new picture, and having an audience with which to share, God proceeds to show his new painting to his creations, and then asks them what they see.<br /> The Christian, thinking himself very clever, responds that he sees God. This is akin to a lost airplane pilot flying over Seattle, asking the control tower where he is, and hearing over the radio, "You're in a plane." While technically correct, it is completely useless.<br /> God knows very well that the Christian can see him. After all, he created the Christian's eyes, and being flawless, the eyes must work. Having working eyes, there is no possible way the Christian could fail to see God. Growing impatient, God proceeds to inform the Christian of this detail, and repeat his original questions. What do you see? How does it make you feel? What thoughts does it evoke in your mind?<br /> The Christian, now very pleased with his marvelous epiphany that God is in everything, repeats that he can see God.<br /> God, now, has a dilemma. God represents infinite life and love. God is also eternal. He has all of the time in the world, and yet he has neither the time nor the patience to continue dealing with this Christian. It is at this point that God goes elsewhere (not difficult, since God is everywhere). God seeks out an atheist, for while the atheist will refuse to acknowledge that he sees God, the atheist will invariably speak his mind about what he sees. Having created the atheist, God understands perfectly well that this is the case. God can not ask the atheist questions, because the atheist refuses to acknowledge, and thus hear, God, but this is irrelevent for the atheist need not be asked his opinion of God's work. He will offer it anyway. God likewise knows this. God must therefore merely place the painting where the atheist is sure to see it, and wait for one to walk by.</blockquote>jackie the displaced irish lasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14314533134435103351noreply@blogger.com0