New works in the public domain since 1987.
All-Star Pattern Seeker Trading Cards pay tribute to 23 giants of pattern recognition — pathfinders and ideanauts whose shadows loom large across three millennia of discovery. This set of 23 cards comes in a collectable embossed box.
Human-powered hovercraft. Yes way.
West Midlands Police is reviewing the case after admitting it failed to investigate when a complaint was made about Father James Robinson in 2003. Father Robinson, who denies the claims, worked in Sutton Coldfield, Cradley Heath and Newcastle-under-Lyme, but moved to California in 1985.
Police allege they posed as a 13-year-old girl on the internet to catch Robert Fuller, a priest of three decades standing and the parish priest of All Saints at Liverpool for six years. Prior to that he was the parish priest at a Punchbowl parish.
Prayed for receeding of glacier, now praying for its return. As if prayer worked, ever, in all of human history, even once.
Swiss want permission to reverse an ancient deal they did with the Almighty
By successively acquiring culture in the form of values, ideas, and actions throughout their lives, humans influence future learning and the capacity for cultural evolution. The number of learning opportunities a person is exposed to is of great importance to that individual’s cultural evolution during his/her lifetime
Cultural Evolution Continues Throughout Life, Mathematical Models Suggest
British release Scientology investigation
I’m a cyber-terrorist –
Just how cool is that?
I’m gonna take on the World Bank
And knock the bastard flat.
The broadband is my minefield
The command prompt is my gun.
The fact is I’m a dickwad
And so very young.
Number nine – your meal is ready.
Rebellion’s not been tried before,
Not that I’m aware.
We’re the first in history!
If not, I wasn’t there.
There was some sort of thing in France,
My teacher once did speak.
It can’t have ever come to much
And I skipped school that week.
Number nine – your meal is ready.
No one’s ever thought before
The thoughts inside my head.
Before us cyber-terror-kids
No one sliced their bread.
[lyrics from Cerebral Knievel by TISM from The White Albun.]
“when it came between that and blood on my hands, there was no question.” Thus the West dies and the Muslim world wins.
Tetelestai Church exists for the purpose of the dissemination of the accurate (2 Timothy 2:15), dispensationally-specific (Ephesians 3:1-6; Colossians 1:24-29) teaching of Bible doctrine with the confident assurance that the results of this will be the magnification of Christ (Philippians 1:20) and the glorification of God the father (Ephesians 3:21), the edification of the Church which is Christ’s body (Ephesians 4:11-16), and the advancing of the faith of the Gospel (Philippians 1:27) to those who are without God in this world and without hope (Ephesians 2:12).
Tetelestai Church must be aware of Deuteronomy 13:6-10, in which God commands His faithful to kill members of other religions. They must also know about Number 31:1-54, in which God commanded His faithful to kill women who were not virgins. And they must know about Hebrews 12:6, in which God reveals that those whom He loves best, he punishes most. What sort of impression might a member of this church have regarding moral behavior? A member like George Sodini…
Yahoo: Church records suggest Sodini last attended services about five years ago. He signed an enrollment card in March 2004 but was removed form the congregation sometime later for harassing a woman, Matone said. Sodini’s misery was apparent in his rambling, hate-filled blog, in which he complained of a nonexistent sex life, years of rejection by women and social isolation. Among those he blamed for his perceived troubles were his family and Tetelestai’s longtime pastor, Alan “Rick” Knapp, whose teachings he interpreted as assurance he would go to heaven even after committing murder. “This guy teaches (and convinced me) you can commit mass murder, then still go to heaven,” he wrote.
On 4 August 2009 Sodini shot four women and himself to death. Sodini said his church taught him he would still go to heaven, but don’t take a murderous madman’s word for it. Here’s what a representative of Tetelestai Church has to say about the issue…
Yahoo: “We believe in permanent security — once saved, always saved,” [Deacon Jack] Rickard said. “He will be judged, but he will be in heaven. … He’ll be in heaven, but he won’t have any rewards because he did evil.”
It is outrageous that anyone preaches or that anyone believes in God-sanctioned murder. There’s little any of us can do but wait for such stupid, evil thoughts to bleed out of society. But what makes such stupid, evil thoughts possible is that Tetelestai Church won’t be held responsible for them. Sodini did what he was told to do. But because it was done in the name of an invisible monster that lives in the sky, his mentors will get away with it. What if instead of blogging about his religion, Sodini had blogged about his involvement with a fantasy role playing game group, or a heavy metal band, or anything in the world other than a religous group? The feds and the press would be all over them. Religion does not deserve a free pass from criticism, a guarantee of “respect” (their code word for “silence”) or exemption from legal accountability for murder.
In the 90s, the advent of the Internet age, many people, including myself, thought the Internet’s democratization of media would be vehicle for social progress. R.U. Sirius was correct that “consensus reality” would be demolished. But instead of a new enlightenment, we have a new dark age in which disinformation flows at will and even educated people can’t be bothered to check Snopes before hitting forward on the latest right wing chain e-mail. The thinking seemed to go: access to information outside the mainstream media would in itself cause the media establishment’s authority to crumble and foster a new age of critical thinking. “The people” would get a better sense of what was really going on in the world, and demand change. People, awash in unverified sources, would also become more critical thinkers. By 2002, in the wake of 9/11, and the rise of the “Warbloggers” it should have been clear that this simply wasn’t happening. [...]
There seems to be no point in speaking truth to power. Power does not care what is spoken to it. This should not be read as a reactionary rant. The yearning for a “golden age” of investigative journalism is a case of rosy retrospection. What to do then when the watchmen are evil, and the populace is mad? I have no answers. My only solace at this point is that every outbreak of insanity seems to die down eventually, even if society writ large learns nothing from them.
[Article continues. Highest recommendation for the works of Klint Finley. - Trevor Blake]
Teaching children how to be more resilient along with regular classroom instruction can improve children’s outlook on life, curb depression and boost grades
Infants who excel at processing new information at 6- and 12-months-old, typically excel in intelligence and academic achievements as young adults in their 20′s [behavior and biology]
Ability To Process Information As A Baby Continues Into Adulthood
A major Danish study shows a clear connection between the ability to reproduce and longevity.
counting money — just handling the bills — can make things less painful.
The Guardian quotes the Wall Street Journal quoting the founder of the Whole Foods chain of grocery stores:
“Basically, we used to think it was enough just to sell healthy food, but we know it is not enough. We sell all kinds of candy. We sell a bunch of junk.” [John Mackey] said the store would now attempt to educate in the ways of healthy eating: “There will be someone in a kiosk to answer questions, they’ll have cookbooks and health books, there will be some cooking classes. It will be about how to select food, because people don’t know.”
Mr. Mackey is claiming that people would eat healthy if they knew how to, or knew the benefits of doing so. He is bringing in books and teachers to combat akrasia, or acting against one’s own best interests (in this case by eating a bunch of junk). But will he succeed? We know more about nutrition than we used to, but it is likely that there is much to learn. Even acting on the best knowledge available at present might be going against our best interests in light of future discoveries. We may eat as healthily as possible and still fall sick, or be killed in an accident that eating well could not have prevented. This is not an argument against attempting to act in one’s best interests but it is a warning that we may not always succeed.
There are a number of explanations for akrasia. Each has its limitations. In stating “No one goes willingly toward the bad,” Socrates claimed that akrasia simply does not exist. If you can think of a single instance in your life when you’ve willingly gone toward the bad, you’ve demonstrated that Socrates was mistaken. The ethical school called enlightened self-interest claims we always act in our own self-interest even when we appear to or intend to do otherwise. But if we always and only act in our self-interests, we have to ask what other sort of interests there might be – thus enlightened self-interest doesn’t really explain anything. Akrasia is explained as being weak willed when we judge it harshly and deferment to a greater good when we judge it favorably. Stated in this way, our interests are more like our preferences. If there is a conflict of interests we may engage in akrasia, such as when it is equally in a person’s best interests to stay in the city they love and to move to another city for a good-paying job. Where we cannot determine which conflicting self-interest is lesser, there is no way to identify akrasia. An explanation for akrasia found especially among the politically left is that people act against their self-interests through lack of knowledge only, and that being exposed to knowledge will spontaneously and always result in self-interest choices. Mr. Mackey of Whole Foods is banking on exposure to information as the key to lessening akrasia. But every day experience shows that people will believe what they want in spite of the information they are exposed to. Knowledge is not hidden in objects and experiences like a gift in a box, waiting for us to unwrap it. And exposure to information does not equal acceptance or agreement or action. Perhaps by having books and teachers on-hand Mr. Mackey hopes to be ‘forgiven’ for selling a bunch of junk. Me, I like books and teachers and junk.
I claim the political left tends to use the lack of knowledge explanation for akrasia for two reasons. First, at present the left is where intellectuals are valued, and this is an intellectual sort of explanation. Intellectuals consider options and make nuanced choices. Intellectuals also forget considering options and making nuanced choices is not always in one’s self interest – for future reference, go ahead and fight an attacker to the death, don’t debate them. Second, the political left is deeply invested in the claim that there is an equality and sameness found in all people. The political left thinks that being an intellectual will come to people and be their preference if they are exposed to the idea of being an intellectual, and that having become an intellectual they will consider options and make nuanced choices. Part of why I’ve found less to agree with in the political left is my claim that there are a great deal of people (some of them quite smart) who are not intellectuals and who don’t value or prefer intellectual perspectives; there are a great many people who are not capable of being intellectuals even if they might value or prefer to be; and there are a great many people who use violence to get what they want and not the intellect. Bluntly stated, I claim that akrasia exists in part because some people at some times are stupid and evil. Fortunately for most people, my claims are next to ineffectual in the world. I make no public policy, I control no one and influence very few, and eventually I won’t be around at all. If I’m wrong, just be patient and I’ll go away.
Why do you think akrasia exists? What do others think? What is to be done?
For thirty-six years, Warren Hern has been one of the few doctors in America to specialize in late abortions. George Tiller was another. And when Dr. Tiller was murdered that Sunday in church, Warren Hern became the only one left. [...] In the kitchen of the Boulder Abortion Clinic, the abortionist bolts down two microwave tamales. He talks fast and doesn’t smile. It is my view that we are dealing with a fascist movement. It’s a terrorist, violent terrorist movement, and they have a fascist ideology… He goes on like that for some time. Long before the first doctor got shot back in 1993, he was warning that it would happen. He was getting hate mail and death threats way back in 1970, just for working in family planning. They started up again in 1973, two weeks after he helped start the first nonprofit abortion clinic in Boulder. I started sleeping with a rifle by my bed. I expected to get shot. In 1985, someone threw a brick through his window during a protest by the quote unquote Pro-Life Action League. He put up a sign that said THIS WINDOW WAS BROKEN BY THOSE WHO HATE FREEDOM. In 1988, somebody fired five bullets through his window. In 1995, the American Coalition of quote unquote Life Activists put out a hit list with his name (and Tiller’s name) on it. The feds gave them protection for about six months, then left them on their own. People don’t get it, he says. After eight murders, seventeen attempted murders, 406 death threats, 179 assaults, and four kidnappings, people are still in denial. They say, Well, this was just some wingnut guy who just decided to go blow up somebody. Wrong. This was a cold-blooded, brutal, political assassination that is the logical consequence of thirty-five years of hate speech and incitement to violence by people from the highest levels of American society, including but in no way limited to George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jesse Helms, Bill O’Reilly, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson. Reagan may not have been a fascist, but he was a tool of the fascists. George W. Bush was most certainly a tool of the fascists. They use this issue to get power. They seem civilized but underneath you have this seething mass of angry, rabid anger and hatred of freedom that is really frightening, and they support people like the guy who shot George — they’re all pretending to be upset, issuing statements about how much they deplore violence, but it’s just bullshit. This is exactly what they wanted to happen.
when Dr. Tiller was murdered that Sunday in church, Warren Hern became the only one left.
Quiet, Please aired from June 8th of 1947 through June 20th of 1949.
eTec, a subsidiary of ECOtality, Inc., is working with Nissan North America to deploy approximately 5,000 electric vehicles and 12,750 charging stations in five U.S. markets, including Oregon.
Portland Lands Major Upgrade to Electric Vehicle Infrastructure : Gas 2.0
