Quotations #050

"The absolute pacifist is a bad citizen: times come when force must be used to uphold right, justice and ideals." -- Alfred North Whitehead

"Always forgive your enemies -- nothing annoys them so much." -- Oscar Wilde

"The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be." -- Paul Valéry

"What's more, it never was." -- Lee Hays

"The one thing which even God cannot do is to make undone what has been done." -- Agathon, cited in Aristotle, Nichomachaean Ethics

"It has been said that though God cannot alter the past, historians can; it is perhaps because they are useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence." -- Samuel Butler, Erewhon Revisited

Sexuality, Religion: Nature, Nurture?

As Neiwert points out, it doesn't really matter whether you believe sexuality is chosen or inborn, with regard to anti-discrimination law. Laws as currently written protect both. So excluding homosexuals from anti-discrimination laws is a matter not of principle, but of choice.

Arthur Clarke (And George Carlin)

"Above all we need better schools and teachers. I hope it will not be too late for the US to undo the damage wrought upon it by fundamentalist fanatics, Creationist crazies, and New Age nitwits. Such people are a greater menace to open society than the paper bear of communism ever was." - Sir Arthur C. Clarke - "Scenario for a Civilised Planet"

"Unfortunately, most people do not understand even the basic elements of statistics and probability, which is why astrologers and advertising agencies flourish. If you want to start an interesting fight, say in a loud voice at your next cocktail party; 'Fifty percent of Americans (or whatever) are mentally subnormal.' Then watch all those annoyed by this mathematical tautology instantly pigeonhole themselves." - Clarke - Credo

Of course, advertising agencies flourish, in part, because people want to obscure the statistical and mathematical realities which would normally be a component of "rational choice" decisions. Of which we are more capable than we give ourselves credit, I think.

As C. Pettit points out, George Carlin said the same thing, in his own inimitable fashion:

"Take a look around you and figure out how stupid the average person is...then realise that half the country is even stupider than that person...in other words, there are a hell of a lot of f***ing stupid people!!" - the immortal George Carlin - Complaints and Grievances

Bonus from Harlan Ellison: "The great art critic and philanthropist Bernard Berenson once said 'Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.'"

Is it Treason? Let's Indict and Find Out....

[via Sideshow, NPR]

US President George W. Bush, on Tuesday, April 5th, 2005, did publicly and with malice aforethought threaten the financial stability of the government of the United States. He did this by denigrating as "worthless IOUs" the US Treasury bonds used to finance both Social Security and ongoing US government operations, without which the US government would be unable to meet its financial obligations, which would cause both local, national and international financial panic. Further, by revealing the location of the Social Security Administration's archive of Treasury Bonds, he revealed to hostile elements a potentially devastating fiscal vulnerability of the US government.

Further, President Bush did abuse the power of his office to gain this information, which is irrelevant to the pursuit of his duties, and revealed this information.

Subverting the Canadian Paradigm

If you follow the link above you will get to a post which offers you the chance to violate Canadian law (if you're Canadian), by reading about a major political/financial scandal (something about advertising contract kickbacks and the Liberal Party). I have some mixed feelings about this, actually. Our own relationship between the press and the courts is such that "trying the case in the press" is a cliche for trying to subvert the judicial process, and finding a reasonably good jury that hasn't formed strong opinions about widely known cases is a great challenge (and we can discuss the abuse of the jury selection process another time, but I actually think it works more often than not at this point). The Canadian "gag rule" is an attempt to preserve the jury pool, to keep "opinion makers" away from the topic until they can't do any harm. It seems like this might be a case in which the closure is going too far and the topic is too important, but it doesn't seem like a terrible idea in principle.

Let's face it, the information is going to come out: nobody who's guilty is going to be spared public humiliation, criminal charges, etc. And, as this whole blogging thing demonstrates, the information is not even close to actually secret. Unless there's an urgent need -- an upcoming election, for example -- a bit of patience might pay off dividends in an improved process. The "need to know" isn't necessarily a "need to know now." There are legitimate uses for anonymity, secrecy, etc....

How much circumstantial evidence does it take to turn on a light bulb?

Seriously. Paper ballots, hand counted. Non-partisan election officials. International observers.

No matter how many rhetorical or political points we score on DeLay and his cronies, how much of a quagmire we get ourselves into (or leave for someone else to clean up), how rotten the economic and social news gets, we won't see a change of regime in this country without honest elections.

Newsletter Gospel

In a discussion of some of the current Catholic positions on gender, my spouse pointed out that Paul's letters were directed at specific communities, and that some of the strictures in them might have been intended as local, not universal prescriptions.

To take a contemporary analogy, four thousand years from now a religious community will still divide by surname their offering duties into the "Salads," "Desserts," and "Main Dish" tribes, with place of pride going to the semi-priestly "Setup Committee"....

Don't believe me? Look at the Talmud. We've been trying to make universal laws out of marching and building and cooking instructions for millenia now.

The Tangled Bank XXV: Dear Journal Editor, It's Me Again

Orac is the Master. All who dare to dream of hosting a roundup or Carnival, make pilgrimage.

Public Intimidation, Private Law

[via Sideshow, Orcinus, etc.]

What kind of party manipulates the rules to close off public debate on almost everything, but does not rebuke its members for advocating murder and terrorism?

Shameless, vicious and yes, un-American.

I know, "The various admirable movements in which I have been engaged have always developed among their members a large lunatic fringe." -- Theodore Roosevelt

This isn't the "fringe": this is some of the highest elected officials of the party which holds national leadership responsibilities. Unacceptable, to say the least.

Let the impeachments begin!

Quotations #049

"There are two kinds of egotists: those who admit it, and the rest of us." -- Laurence J. Peter

"Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious." -- Brendan Gill

"The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously." -- Samuel Butler

"What ever you may be sure of, be sure of this, that you are dreadfully like other people." -- James Russell Lowell

"All paid employments absorb and degrade the mind." -- Aristotle