11-11-2009 = 15
2-15-2010 = 11
On 11-15-09, Kurt Nimmo covered Borghezio’s comments on PrisonPlanet.
You can see 317 to Borghezio’s right for most of the video, and 371 behind him in the final shot, for another 11-11 (or 1111 [15, as I mentioned elsewhere, in binary]).
It’s all true, yo!
Have fun and cuídate.
Office supplies, airport scanners, bailouts, bombs, black ops – all regrettable (esp. the office supplies) but necessary expenditures. Still, you gotta draw the line somewhere.
The Obama administration stunned New York’s delegation yesterday, dropping the bombshell news that it does not support funding the 9/11 health bill.
The state’s two senators and 14 House members met with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius just hours before President Obama implored in his speech to the nation for Congress to come together and deliver a government that delivers on its promises to the American people.
So the legislators were floored to learn the Democratic administration does not want to deliver for the tens of thousands of people who sacrificed after 9/11, and the untold numbers now getting sick.
“I was stunned — and very disappointed,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who like most of the other legislators had expected more of a discussion on how to more forward.
“To say the least, I was flabbergasted,” said Staten Island Rep. Mike McMahon.
The 9/11 bill would spend about $11 billion over 30 years to care for the growing numbers of people getting sick from their service at Ground Zero, and to compensate families for their losses.
“Obama Admin. Opposes 9/11 Health Funding” by Michael McAuliff, NY Daily News 1-28-10
Happy Lincoln’s birthday and cuídate.
UPDATE, 2-20-10
Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future ; practise these acts. As to diseases, make a habit of two things–to help, or at least to do no harm.
Hippocrates, Epidemics I, Part XI, W.H.S. Jones trans.
“There’s no conspiracy.”
Jonathan Wilde in Ken MacLeod’s conspiracy-filled Fall Revolution series
Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th – malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists themselves, away from the guilty.
George W. Bush to UN General Assembly, 11-10-01
This can of worms has really made the rounds since Marc Estrin opened it (I caught it over at Cryptogon). Basically, for the thoroughly modern malady of conspiracy theoryitis, OIRA’s Sunstein and co-author Vermeule prescribe… wait for it… conspiracy!
I have to admit, the dudes occasionally raise some interesting points. For instance, I can recall (wonder how many of my fellow conspiracy geeks can say the same?) the transformative fury I felt upon learning of the Santa conspiracy. I didn’t know to call it that at the time, but learning I’d been systematically lied to by my parents, and that such deception was no big deal to them, nor to any of the other adults with whom I raised the issue, led me to question for the first time the religion in which I’d been raised – a path leading to the jovial cynicism I’ve enjoyed (with but the infrequent hiccup of outrage/indignation) for the past decade. Thanks, Mom & Dad!
Not all false conspiracy theories are harmful; consider the false conspiracy theory, held by many of the younger members of our society, that a secret group of elves, working in a remote location under the leadership of the mysterious “Santa Claus,” make and distribute presents on Christmas Eve. This theory is false, but is itself instilled through a widespread conspiracy of the powerful – parents – who conceal their role in the whole affair. (Consider too the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.) It is an open question whether most conspiracy theories are equally benign; we will suggest that some are not benign at all.
Sunstein & Vermeule, “Conspiracy Theories” 1-15-08, pg. 5
Cass and Adrian want you to know that they know that, like, not all conspiracy theories are wrong or harmful, just the wrong or harmful ones, going so far as to selectively quote Robert Anton Wilson on Holocaust denial leading to solipsism (pg. 7; I’m sure Wilson would’ve been honored) and going on about informational cascades and group polarization before dropping their delightful policy recommendations.
Here we suggest two concrete ideas for government officials attempting to fashion a response to such theories. First, responding to more rather than fewer conspiracy theories has a kind of synergy benefit: it reduces the legitimating effect of responding to any one of them, because it dilutes the contrast with unrebutted theories. Second, we suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies (acting either virtually or in real space, and either openly or anonymously) will undermine the crippled epistemology of those who subscribe to such theories. They do so by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity.
Sunstein & Vermeule, “Conspiracy Theories” 1-15-08, pg. 15
Not neurodiverstiy, yo, cognitive diversity. And stylized facts!
If you believe what you read on the internet, the Senate voted to confirm Sunstein’s nomination to the post of OIRA Administrator on 9-10-09; and, as of this writing, “CC: C and C” has been downloaded from SSRN’s site 9,119 times.
Have fun and cuídate.
It got crowded in Heaven, so Saint Peter decided to accept only people who’d had a really bad day on the day they died. On the first morning of the new policy, Saint Peter said to the first man in line, “Tell me about the day you died.”
The man said, “Oh, it was awful. I was sure my wife was having an affair, so I came home early from work to catch her in the act. I searched all over the apartment and couldn’t find her lover anywhere. So finally I went out on the balcony, where I found this man hanging over the edge by his fingertips. So I went inside, got a hammer, and started hitting his hands. He fell, but landed in some bushes and survived. So I went inside, picked up the refrigerator, and pushed it out over the balcony. It crushed him, but the strain of hefting the fridge gave me a heart attack and I died.”
Saint Peter couldn’t deny this was an awful day and that it was a crime of passion, so he let the man enter Heaven. He then asked the next man in line about the day he died.
“Well, sir, it was terrible. I was doing aerobics on the balcony of my apartment when I slipped over the edge. I managed to grab the balcony of the apartment below me but then some maniac came out and started pounding my fingers with a hammer! I fell, but I landed in some bushes and lived! But then this guy came out again and dropped a refrigerator on me! That did it!”
Saint Peter chuckled a bit, and let him into Heaven. “Tell me about the day you died,” he said to the third man.
“Okay, picture this. I’m naked, hiding in a refrigerator…”
No, not that Hippo.
4/5 stars
Cathcart and Klein’s Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates begins with Ernest Becker (while I still haven’t read The Denial of Death, I did enjoy this Becker doc) and goes from there, treating various philosophical takes on the Big D in the context of “immortality systems” and elucidating them using jokes and one-panels.
Here’s another sample joke (which, beyond just being rad, equates 3^2 with 15 [2+8+5]), from the chapter “Plato, the Godfather of Soul”:
Three elderly men visit a doctor for a memory test. The doctor asks the first one, “What’s three times three?”
“285!” the man replies.
Worried, the doctor turns to the second man. “How about you? What’s three times three?”
“Uh, Monday!” the second man shouts.
Even more concerned, the doctor motions to the third man.
“Well, what do you say? What’s three times three?”
“Nine!” the third man replies.
“Excellent!” the doctor exclaims. “How did you get that?”
“Oh, easy,” the man says. “You just subtract the 285 from Monday!”
While decidedly skewed towards western philosophy, Heidegger and a Hippo does touch briefly on the subtle body and reincarnation, the history of Heaven (from Bosch onward) and even, towards the end, cloning, stasis/reanimation, Manfred Clynes‘ overclocked time-consciousness and our old transhumanist amigo, uploading. Though the connections they draw are mostly obvious (using Capek’s The Makropulos Affair to illustrate ennui ["that's Existentialist French for extreme boredom with life accompanied by lots of weary shrugs and sighs"] and Koreeda’s After Life [premiered on 9-11-98 and unrelated to Simon Funk's fine novella] to illustrate Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence) the duo’s delivery renders what are ultimately light overviews of heavy shit highly entertaining. Colored text is also used effectively: scattered throughout are bits of italicized dialogue between Daryl, the authors’ everyman interlocutor, and the authors, with their lines in red, like this:
Philosopher W. Allen points out that “the soul embraces the nobler aspirations, like poetry and philosophy, while the body has all the fun.” But Plato counters that while the Appetites do have all the fun, they’re actually part of the soul. This is one of the key differences in the philosophies of Plato and Allen.
For Plato, the ultimate goal of the soul is to strip off its sensuous nature and move toward knowledge of the Forms; immortality is reserved for the rational part only. In other words, contemplating the triangle trumps sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
He prefers a triangle to sex? This guy sounds a few Doric columns short of a Parthenon.
We urge you to withhold judgment until you’ve seen this triangle, Daryl. It isn’t any old triangle, it’s the Ideal Triangle.
Like sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and triangle-contemplation, Heidegger and a Hippo may not lead to any form of enlightenment or immortality, but is at least an amusing way to kill a few hours en route to your ineluctable assignation with Thanatos.
Happy reading, feliz Navidad, happy Malkh and cuídate.
You read that right on the crawl: Bernanke’s person of the year, yo!
As the sun sets on the summit, the capitalization crisis remains unaddressed:
119 world leaders attended the Un summit in Copenhagen, the largest gathering of heads of state and government in the history of the UN.
“US secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon: An essential beginning” by Rie Jerichow and Nanet Poulsen 12/19/09, official COP15 PR
COP15’s 15 gazillion cops seemed like they had fun, though.
Stay cool and cuídate.