Midweek Forum: April 11, 2012 at Catallaxy Files

Midweek Forum: April 11, 2012

591 comments

Written by Sinclair Davidson

April 11th, 2012 at 1:00 pm

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591 Responses to 'Midweek Forum: April 11, 2012'

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I note our athiest in chief is not attending Lionel Bowens state funeral today.

rodclarke

11 Apr 12 at 1:05 pm
I’ve got Nazi’s on my telephone all willing me to fail, they were all sent by somebody – obviously you…

John Comnenus

11 Apr 12 at 1:11 pm
It’s officially diagnosed now. Keith Olbermann is a fucking lunatic and on this occasion Al Gore is the victim.

Email drop of Oblermann and Gore exchanges.

Excerpt.

Also, the Current proletariat seem to have no inhibitions about walking up to me and freely engaging me in conversation, as if I have time for their verbal meanderings. For all their faults, my employers at MSNBC made it explicitly clear that if someone wanted to communicate with me, they could do so — but only through letters written in calligraphy that were deposited in a receptacle outside my office between 2:30 a.m. and 3:00 a.m.

Why has this same policy not yet been communicated at Current?

I wan to clarify that. Al Gore is also around the bend as this email shows, but less so than the loon he hired.

Or perhaps he’s just as big a loon as Olbermann

Hello Keith,

When do you think they will commodify the rain? Someday they will try and turn it to poison. You came onboard to this endeavor full of promise. Has that good tide soured?

You are a part of me. We are all one. My life force drives Current. I am its noble blood.

I intend to be the Defender of Nature. Will you join me? Gold from streams untapped is all the more sweet. Can you taste it on your tongue?

I am standing in an almond now. It stands inside me. My scepter is made from almond wood and laced with sage. It is powerful. Soon I will command the oceans. The fish listen already.

We are all one. Even Stinky.

Mahalo,

A.G.

Read the rest.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/08/keith-olbermann-and-al-gore-the-secret-emails-revealed/#ixzz1rYVmjhji

It’s the very best the American left has to offer.

JC

11 Apr 12 at 1:25 pm
ooh Sorry wrong fred.

JC

11 Apr 12 at 1:25 pm
Oh hang, it’s the right fred.

JC

11 Apr 12 at 1:26 pm
The rain ought to be commodified. Technically it already is as runoff has a Government imposed market value in NSW at least.

.

11 Apr 12 at 1:28 pm
I could not find anything on local content rules for mining. Liddle you are confusing union agitation with policy I believe.

.

11 Apr 12 at 1:30 pm
It’s official US banks are going bonkers.

“WASHINGTON — Bank of America is suing itself for foreclosure.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/10/bank-of-america-foreclosure-suit_n_1415614.html?ref=business

JC

11 Apr 12 at 1:32 pm
Obama Official After Easter and Christmas Church Bombings in Nigeria: ‘Religion Is Not Driving Extremist Violence’.

Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson said Monday that “religion is not driving extremist violence” in Nigeria–just one day after a Christian church conducting an Easter service was targeted by a car bombing that left 39 dead.

Similarly, on Christmas Day, the Nigerian Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram, attacked a Catholic church in that country, killing more than 40 people.

“I want to take this opportunity to stress one key point and that is that religion is not driving extremist violence either in Jos or northern Nigeria,” Assistant Secretary of State Carson said Monday at a forum on U.S. policy toward Nigeria held at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.

“While some seek to inflame Muslim-Christian tensions, Nigeria’s ethnic and religious diversity, like our own in this country, is a source of strength, not weakness,” he added, “and there are many examples across Nigeria of communities working across religious lines to protect one another.”

So the administration of supposedly lapsed Muslim, Barack Hussein Obama, officially denies that Muslims, qua Muslims, are killing Catholics in Nigeria.

C.L.

11 Apr 12 at 1:34 pm
Did he say that whilst juggling a 1985 Buick over his head?

.

11 Apr 12 at 1:36 pm
The Greens commence the great retreat from Moscow. On several fronts.

Rafe

11 Apr 12 at 1:37 pm
“While some seek to inflame Muslim-Christian tensions, Nigeria’s ethnic and religious diversity, like our own in this country, is a source of strength, not weakness,” he added, “and there are many examples across Nigeria of communities working across religious lines to protect one another.”

Yes, Nigeria, which had a civil war back in the 60s, and regularly clocks up the worst terrorist atrocities in Africa, is doing just great!

Fisky

11 Apr 12 at 1:41 pm
JC that Al Gore, if real, shows he is really off with the pixies.

I have zero respect for anyone who uses the term ‘proleteriat’ unless they are using it to make fun of marxist idiots.

brc

11 Apr 12 at 1:43 pm
I dunno if it’s real brc. But if true out of the two loons I feel sorry for AlGore more.

Both of them should be sectioned however.

JC

11 Apr 12 at 1:46 pm
The real keith olberdouche…

Rabz

11 Apr 12 at 1:52 pm
I acknowledge the white austrians, with 1/16th aboriginal ancestry, on whose lands we meet today.

You’ll have to excuse me as I need to write a grant application for my next book, entitled “why white milk is raaaaacist”.

Boy on a bike

11 Apr 12 at 1:52 pm
Cool:

http://xkcd.com/1040/large/

Infidel Tiger

11 Apr 12 at 2:00 pm
Dot
Possibly not a requirement but moving in that dirrection.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/archives/old-news-pages/government-to-boost-local-industry-projects/story-e6frf7ko-1226323737820

kelly liddle

11 Apr 12 at 2:03 pm
Has Mugabe carked it yet?

Tal

11 Apr 12 at 2:13 pm
Rafe the greens were always a themist party, they were communists, were anti war, were anti nukes and were anti development. They’ve finally decided to harden all these sad little housefrau delusions into a single political entity that enshrines all those past trends, Dark Age revivalism. They started losing traction when suggesting that Daddy’s inheritence be taxed and shoreline property evictions become mandatory. In the medieval period we just used to chuck these overcaring ladies into convents and tell them to pray harder because everything was their fault for not being devout enough, worked pretty well, doc got a younger less frumpy wench, wifey got to be painful without anyone having to listen to her.

Simon

11 Apr 12 at 2:23 pm
Peter,

from the Easter/Passover open thread:

ROFLMAO. What a hoot. I was once banned from a blog for being too much of a christian apologist, and now you come out with this idiocy. You ‘know’ no such thing. I do not ‘detest’ anyone (or at least not many people), and if I did/do, it is for reasons peculiar to them, nothing to do with Christianity or Catholicism. Even just on this thread, the evidence is clear, you can only be confusing my posts here for things posted by other people.

Perhaps I have misunderstood your prior sentiments then:

Actually what Jesus said was

All choppers are bastards. I should know!

Oh, but the RCs do the pagan thing far better than the olden day pagans could ever afford.

While I think all choppers are bastards, I’m mad about the Jesus dude.

I am an atheist, and have been since I was 5 years old.

that beign of all human thought – the fucking “soul”, FFS. Give me discoing kinky nuns on top of angel pins, please.

Now isn’t that a coincidence: hideous poverty and slums in the same place and same time as armies of Roman Catholics ‘serving others’. You do the math.

If the slum dwellers want to improve their standard of living, they might do well to tell the Roman Catholics to get on their bikes.

Oh I totally get all the prayer, singing, art, cult, and spectacle stuff. The world should be relieved that paganism survived in the Roman Catholic church.

I didn’t go to a Catholic school, so never experienced the pervs who got off spanking 14 year old boys.

#

Though a bisexual friend of mine has the most amazing stories of when she traveled through South America, staying nunneries, and all the kinky S&M sex she had with nuns!

I don’t see how you can surprised that South American nunneries might not have been hotbeds of nunneries full kinky lesbo sex. Jesus, they would be the FIRST places I would target for that sort of carry on.

I have another lesbo friend, who enjoyed a very mutually satisfying fisting relationship with one of the nuns at her Brisbane Catholic school.

All choppers are bastards!

Yes, I can now see how I could’ve misunderstood you. You don’t detest Catholics, clergy or the religion at all.

Er, I think you will find that any peak in this blog’s discussion of matters Chistian follows the religion, not my alleged ‘detesting’ of its followers.

Most of the quotes above are from the Easter/Passover thread. Perhaps I’m just being too sensitive then, eh?

I note you never get your knickers in a twist when I post about Islam – and I have posted a hell of a lot more ‘detestable’ things about Islam, than I ever have about all other religions combined – or Hinduism. So please don’t bore me with your concern trolling, particularly when you have to distort and misrepresent my posts to do so.

If Islam was my religion then I would. But since it’s not, why should I jump to defend it from your “detestable” comments on the subject. As well, I don’t see any reports of Christian suicide bombers and murderers attacking children in the name of any Christian religion.

My main enthusiasm is for ancient history, and particularly the Roman part of Roman Catholicism. If you don’t like that, tough titties. I ain’t discussing the stuff with you.

That’s okay. You weren’t discussing history either.

As I remarked before, you can slag off as much as you like about Catholics and religion, and I can make comment on your comments as well.

That’s why this blog is great.

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 2:52 pm
Not a single word on mainstream media. None. Nada. Zip.

Funny that.

On 18 March 2012, the arctic sea ice reached its maximum extent for this year, 14,240,000 square kilometers and it was the highest March average ice extent since 2008 and one of the higher March extents in the past decade. The news reported here in Italian.

Suck on this one, Greentards!

Mk50 of Brisbane

11 Apr 12 at 2:57 pm
I don’t see how you can surprised that South American nunneries might not have been hotbeds of nunneries full kinky lesbo sex. Jesus, they would be the FIRST places I would target for that sort of carry on.

Was Phil in South America? That sounds awfully like the Phil stories about his entire family being gangbanged by cardinals and popes before he went off on an olive oil rant.

JC

11 Apr 12 at 2:57 pm
Ha ha, gab, the truth hurts, eh? Suck it up darl.

Peter Patton

11 Apr 12 at 3:03 pm
And if you really are a Roman Catholic, my god have you got some learnin’ to do about your religion! Better get your skates on. Chop, chop!

Peter Patton

11 Apr 12 at 3:05 pm
Ha ha, gab, the truth hurts, eh? Suck it up darl.

I hope it doesn’t cause you too much anguish.

And if you really are a Roman Catholic, my god have you got some learnin’ to do about your religion! Better get your skates on. Chop, chop!

LOL and you’re judging me? Hilarious.

But by your insults, methinks thou doth protest too much.

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 3:12 pm
gab, get off the X, we need the wood.

Peter Patton

11 Apr 12 at 3:16 pm
You first.

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 3:26 pm
Cab

Western Refining down over 8% last night. That junk (refining stocks) are not called widow makers for nothing.

http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:WNR

I have to be a genius at times. I’m sure of it

JC

11 Apr 12 at 3:27 pm
That’s why you get the big bucks, JC. Genius (plus it’s coming up to scheduled maintenance for refineries).

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 3:35 pm
Settop boxes http://barnabyisright.com/2012/04/11/disabled-pensioners-aerially-rorted-by-govt-contractors/
last 2 paras:

Industry sources say that contractors are maximising profits (thus cost to taxpayers) by many different “lurks”, such as offering to install brand new antennas and cabling for customers who already have suitable products installed. In a damning indictment of what appears to be a growing attitude of perceived “entitlement” in our society, it is reported that many pensioners have been only too happy to go along with this rort, with some expressing the view that “It is a government program for pensioners, so if other pensioners are getting one, then it is my right to get a new aerial too”.

Most concerning are reports that contractors are deliberately installing low cost single band antennas in some regions in order to maximise initial profits from the Government, and pave the way for further profits in future. Sources say that some contractors are taking advantage of industry insider knowledge that once the digital TV rollout is completed, “stacking” of channels in regions such as Wollongong will likely result in these cheap single band antennas becoming unsuitable, requiring pensioners to pay for installation of new and more costly multiband antennas at their own expense.

val majkus

11 Apr 12 at 3:45 pm
You are an embittered oddball, Peter. But worse than that, you’re not very knowledgeable about history.

C.L.

11 Apr 12 at 3:50 pm
Gab

How do you know it’s coming up for maintenance hour?

JC

11 Apr 12 at 3:51 pm
Looks like Peter Brent is in a stunned silence replying to the comments after his rant against Can do… Punters aren’t happy!

Tim

11 Apr 12 at 3:53 pm
I have to be a genius at times. I’m sure of it

JC the humble blogger. I got the oil price right and sold oil stocks within $5 of the high. I sold physical gold within about $30 of the high, am I a genius? NO. I got lucky on a couple of issues. You are no genius JC.

kelly liddle

11 Apr 12 at 3:53 pm
The trio had rushed out to attack Tony Abbott’s idea “because they’re obsessed with hating”.

Right.

PM, Penny Wong and Kate Ellis labelled ‘shags on a rock’ over nanny subsidies.

All three are childless too.

C.L.

11 Apr 12 at 3:55 pm
Kelly

Stop being an idiot. I was (highly) kidding. Understand a little nuance at times and hurry up with that freaking cab

JC

11 Apr 12 at 3:55 pm
Well, Wong is a ‘parent,’ technically,

C.L.

11 Apr 12 at 3:55 pm
Kate’s fine. She’s above criticism in my book.

JC

11 Apr 12 at 3:56 pm
Mumble: “Is Campbell Newman a dud politician?”

C.L.

11 Apr 12 at 3:56 pm
JC
Now I know I will get a cab how about that booking to the sunshine coast?

kelly liddle

11 Apr 12 at 3:58 pm
Kate’s fine. She’s above criticism in my book.

She’s an average looking filly in my books. She’s just lucky she’s surrounded by the ugliest bunch of mingers in all of Christendom.

Infidel Tiger

11 Apr 12 at 3:59 pm
“Is Campbell Newman a dud politician?”

Is Mumble Australia’s biggest drongo?

Infidel Tiger

11 Apr 12 at 4:00 pm
IT;

I hereby challenge you to find a better set of legs on a pol. And Abbott doesn’t count.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/meet-the-minister-for-body-image/story-e6frewt0-1225849252447

JC

11 Apr 12 at 4:06 pm
JC refs do maintenance usually starting in their spring between the summer and winter fuel changeovers. I read it on the WNR message board.

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 4:09 pm
Jarrah, a nice post here that persuasively argues the diference between Aquinas’s Fifth Way and Paley’s Design Argument. One of the multiple quotations includes the following:

The “fifth way”… is hardly the one from design that has been made notorious by Kant and Paley. The presence of design in the universe is not the operative feature. It is rather the directing according to design, for this directing has to come ultimately from an immobile and self-necessary principle. In reply to the objection that agents less than God could ultimately account for the directing, Aquinas answers: “But all things mobile and capable of failing have to be accounted for by a first principle that is immobile and that is necessary by reason of its own nature, as has been shown” (ST, I, 2, 3, ad 2m).

Joseph Owens, “Aquinas and the Five Ways,” in St. Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of God, pp. 136-37.

dover_beach

11 Apr 12 at 4:09 pm
Kate Ellis is taking a bold new approach to her campaign to improve young women’s body image

So being a model will improve young women’s body image.
Some how I don’t think so.

kelly liddle

11 Apr 12 at 4:11 pm
The Greens commence the great retreat from Moscow. On several fronts.

It seems General Winter hates the Greenslime as much as he hated Napoleon, Charles XII and Hitler!

He even left Russia to take out the Slimers in Copenhagen, Cancun, Durbin, etc…

Token

11 Apr 12 at 4:11 pm
Mumble: “Is Campbell Newman a dud politician?”

That’s just Mumble trolling his blog to get his numbers up.

Token

11 Apr 12 at 4:19 pm
I hereby challenge you to find a better set of legs on a pol. And Abbott doesn’t count.

Google Italian female politicans.

Federal parliament is full of more ugly people than your avergae circus freak convention, which is why we think Ellis is good looking.

If I walked past Ellis in the street Id barely bother mentally taking her top off. She’s average.

Infidel Tiger

11 Apr 12 at 4:21 pm
I am standing in an almond now. It stands inside me. My scepter is made from almond wood and laced with sage. It is powerful. Soon I will command the oceans. The fish listen already.

Al Gore believes that of himself? He and Brown would be best buddies then, but not with Obama who claims, in competition with Gore, to lower the oceans.
They’re all quite mad. Why do people even take them seriously on any issue?

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 4:22 pm
Do you remember when Berlusconi stacked his front bench with hot chicks? It was visually quite clear there was one prerequisite to being a minister!

John Mc

11 Apr 12 at 4:24 pm
Has Mugabe carked it yet?

Tal they’re now saying he’s not sick and the reports were false.

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 4:26 pm
Tal they’re now saying he’s not sick and the reports were false.

Has Comical Ali got another gig? He has cancer moving into a later stage.

Token

11 Apr 12 at 4:27 pm
Google Italian female politicans.

Try Maria Carfagna. Hubba hubba.

dover_beach

11 Apr 12 at 4:47 pm
Kids do the damnedest things with their noses.

Nice work by that doctor too, by the way.

C.L.

11 Apr 12 at 4:48 pm
Maria Carfagna in conference:

http://dearbloggery.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/carfagna_1.jpg

C.L.

11 Apr 12 at 4:50 pm
InstaPundit:

ARE THE MEDIA WINDS SHIFTING on global warming?

http://nosilencehere.com/?p=1180

LOL.

C.L.

11 Apr 12 at 4:59 pm
I just discovereed a flame haired Kraut politician named Julia Bonk.

Infidel Tiger

11 Apr 12 at 5:00 pm
49 former NASA astronauts, engineers, and scientists have written a scathing letter to NASA director Charles Bolden, Jr. saying Jim Hansen and NASA GISS are exemplifying the “wrong stuff”:

* “The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.”
* “We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated.”
* “We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject.”

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 5:06 pm
I can prove that the CO2-scare involves an international conspiracy by way of a single factoid. We have to get serious about the way the Northern Hemisphere works.

Ghost Of Midyear Christmas Past

11 Apr 12 at 5:09 pm
We have to get serious about the way the Northern Hemisphere works.

50% of them don’t work. The other half are involved in porno and welfare scams.

Infidel Tiger

11 Apr 12 at 5:10 pm
Gab: I can tell from their involvement at NASA (quite a few from the Apollo program) that the average age of those guys must be way up there.

Old guys retire, get cranky, and write letters.

It happens.

steve from brisbane

11 Apr 12 at 5:11 pm
IT, yes, I stumbled across her as well; lovely.

dover_beach

11 Apr 12 at 5:13 pm
“Though a bisexual friend of mine has the most amazing stories of when she traveled through South America, staying nunneries, and all the kinky S&M sex she had with nuns!”

Suddenly and unexpectedly I have a bit more time on my hands. I need to meet new friends. Check out various Thai restaurants, and not on my own. Lets talk about you. Then lets start talking about some of your female friends. After all you have always stood out as an intellect on this site.

Ghost Of Midyear Christmas Past

11 Apr 12 at 5:14 pm
Birdie:

I thought you more interested in the transgendered variety rather than mere bi-sexuals.

JC

11 Apr 12 at 5:19 pm
Old guys retire, get cranky, and write letters.

It happens.

Old guys like James Hansen, 71. Or Rajendra Pachauri, 72.

C.L.

11 Apr 12 at 5:20 pm
The above is my response to the latterly wicked allegations upon my person made by Gab ……. Accusations to the effect that I’m a bit of a “soft touch” when it comes to women contributors to this cultural fountainhead.

Above I effortlessly despatch these insinuations, by dint of being open-minded to the idea of dinner dates, and discussions, and opportunities for intellectual engagement, with people who are not women. And not women who happen to stumble upon this fine clearinghouse of conceptual thought.

Ghost Of Midyear Christmas Past

11 Apr 12 at 5:21 pm
Google Italian female politicans.

Try Maria Carfagna. Hubba hubba.

I can bet that if they had her as PM advocating reforms Monti is, she would have got them through in a flash and there wouldn’t be any bickering whatsoever.

JC

11 Apr 12 at 5:22 pm
If that is true, Steve, and I don’t for a minute believe you about their age, but if true then your senility has had a head start (excuse the pun)

Silly old you believing in a faith that states 3% of 0.004% of Co2 in the atmosphere can cause the climate to do things not approved by the IPCC.

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 5:24 pm
Steve it has to come from the older guys of independent wealth. Because these people are too old to be intimidated, and their priorities have shifted by this stage.

This is a crime-gang operated racket. Oftentimes it was these old blokes with a rifle that gave the Cosa Nostra the most blow-back. Because people who had that same frame of mind when they were young, could get to an age, when they didn’t feel they needed to take that crap any more.

Ghost Of Midyear Christmas Past

11 Apr 12 at 5:25 pm
I want to say here that perhaps, in retrospect, I have been too harsh when it came to people like Sinclair and Mr Soon. They are in the business, so they are out there where the real wind blows, their opportunities utterly dependent on people who are not sound economists, and who would not make patriotic loyalty-based decisions, if they were.

But I”ve been feeble and compromising when it comes to Joseph Cambria. I’ve been vacillating and weak. I’ve been too-ready to spy a prodigal child returning to righteousness when no such child existed. I’ve been too open to thinking that a SINGLE-post was a SIGNAL-post, and that post a SIGNAL, that he had changed his ways, and that he had decided to come back ….. that he had decided to come back ….. to come back ….. to the bright side of the road.

I must apologise to the general public for not being a lot harsher on Joe Cambria.

But I should mention in passing to the contrary, that apart from Joe being a bit of a reptile, and troglodyte… well I must say that lately I haven’t found Cambria saying stuff as mindblowingly stupid as he seems to have done for about three straight years.

I’m deeply suspicious of this.

Could this be yet another scam?

Ghost Of Midyear Christmas Past

11 Apr 12 at 5:36 pm
See I speak too soon. Cambria promises a hot-looking girl, you go to the link, the link isn’t working.

Forget the 2nd half of the above post.

Ghost Of Midyear Christmas Past

11 Apr 12 at 5:51 pm
That Daily Caller Olbermann/Gore piece was satire, y’all.

sdog

11 Apr 12 at 5:55 pm
Here Bird.

Imagine budget reconciliation negotiations between the upper and lower houses with Maria sitting at the head of the table.

http://kpm.data.kataweb.it/kpm2x/field/image/kpmimage/1749153

JC

11 Apr 12 at 5:55 pm
Dog

I noticed only after reading the second page of emails. The first load of fake on the first page… i wouldn’t put it past those two nincompoops.

JC

11 Apr 12 at 5:57 pm
AH, hell with it. Another infestation of internet vermin.

Bird’s like a cross between a virtual cockroach and tinea.

Mk50 of Brisbane

11 Apr 12 at 6:05 pm
“I am an atheist, and have been since I was 5 years old. ”

i never knew five year olds could make that decision, General Patton, it sounds extra-ordinary.

candy

11 Apr 12 at 6:06 pm
I agree JC – Olbie & Gore are so cuckoo-for-cocoapops anyway that it takes a while into the piece before it really hits you. lol

sdog

11 Apr 12 at 6:15 pm
i never knew five year olds could make that decision, General Patton, it sounds extra-ordinary.

Perhaps a fifth birthday batteries not included incident was the trigger.

lotocoti

11 Apr 12 at 6:17 pm
Much better Cambria. But is she using her powers for good? Or for evil?

“Bird’s like a cross between a virtual cockroach and tinea.”
Poetry written by MK50 of Brisbane
whilst contemplating the magnificence of
his own navel,
and juggling in one hand,
one half-dozen organic avocado’s,
And in the other hand painting,
An abstract art-work,
Which is destined to one day become famous as,
“Infinite Cosmos Through The Multiverse;
(A Pictorial Ode To Einstein)”

Ghost Of Midyear Christmas Past

11 Apr 12 at 6:18 pm
But I should mention in passing to the contrary, that apart from Joe being a bit of a reptile, and troglodyte… well I must say that lately I haven’t found Cambria saying stuff as mindblowingly stupid as he seems to have done for about three straight years.

This gives me hope for peace in the Mid East.

Infidel Tiger

11 Apr 12 at 6:23 pm
Yep. It’s Bird.

He’s so damned stupid he falls for that one every single time. That’s what, sixth time in a row?

Sinc, Bird cleanup in aisle six!

Mk50 of Brisbane

11 Apr 12 at 6:33 pm
I don’t for a minute believe you about their age

Any astronaut or engineer who was working at NASA during the Apollo program has had at least another 40 years to add to their lives since then, Gab, seeing it ended in 1972. Seeing anyone doing anything important on the program was probably in their 30′s at the time, you do the maths.

I see Walter Cunningham just turned 80. Charles Duke is 77, I think. Dr Curry started working at NASA in 1963, etc, etc.

It’s the enlarged prostate connection you keep forgetting about, Gab.

steve from brisbane

11 Apr 12 at 6:36 pm
My dear SfB. What on earth makes you think the Apollo program ended in 1972?

It’s actually still going strong – LLR had an approved Apollo style patch after Apollo 11 left the first lasermat, but not the name (even though it’s an experiment under the Apollo program). The LLR boys then got really sneaky about the new observatory and put it at Apache Point. Thus the Apollo LLR experiment could be renamed the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation (APOLLO!). SO the little devils guaranteed indefinite funding. Want to close down the LLR, and out comes the question “Congressman, do you really want to be the man who goes down in the history books as being the man who killed off the last ongoing part of the Apollo moon-landing program?”

Laser scientists – cunning as sh*thouse rats.

Mk50 of Brisbane

11 Apr 12 at 6:48 pm
JC
Why did you crash the system for a minute with too many stupid comments?

kelly liddle

11 Apr 12 at 6:56 pm
So what Steve is saying:

“that list of NASA astronauts, engineers and scientists is stupid becuase those people don’t know what they’re talking about despite having esteemed careers in science and engineering and other disciplines; despite many of them having written more than one technical book in their area of expertise; despite all of them are held in high regard due to their knowledge and experience. Despite all that, I say but hey, becuase they are over 40 they are just plain dumb.”

Yes, Steve, you truly are an idiot. Forget the lunar-scape and go back to your manscaping. It befits your level of intelligence.

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 7:11 pm
“Sinc, Bird cleanup in aisle six!”

Wisdom literature composed
by the famous Mk50 of Brisbane
whilst absentmindedly and publicly
pulling on his foreskin, AND with a
sense of awe ………

…….. at the subtlety and
wonderment of his own thought
processes.

Ghost Of Midyear Christmas Past

11 Apr 12 at 7:25 pm
Yes, Steve, you truly are an idiot. Forget the lunar-scape and go back to your manscaping. It befits your level of intelligence.

I {heart} Gab.

sdog

11 Apr 12 at 7:33 pm
I ♥ you too, Spot.

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 7:45 pm
Let’s see – more old engineer and scientist Googling for Gab:

Dr Kenneth Cox – got his bachelors degree in engineering in 1953 – making him (I would guess) over 80?

Larry Bell – first degree in 1958 – gosh, he might only be only be in his mid 70′s.

Christopher Kraft – a sprightly 88.

George Mueller: good grief, he was born 1918 – 94! Maybe his nurse signed the letter for him.

Manfred von Ehrenfried – first job was a lab technician in 1956, got his degree in 1960 – over 70, I’d say.

Robert F Thompson – got his degree in 1944 – jeez, he must be pushing 90.

Gee, I’m getting bored now.

How on Earth did this bunch get rounded up for this letter? Is there a Retirement Home for Aged Nasa Engineers that the organiser got let lose in?

steve from brisbane

11 Apr 12 at 8:44 pm
Sorry, Steve, but you need to up your dementia meds.

Who to believe?

A group of highly experienced, respected, qualified and knowledgeable scientists, engineers and astronauts all with a list of achievements and awards that could fill a book
- OR –

Steve, the housewife from Brisbane.

Gee, that’s a tough one.

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 8:53 pm
I see Steve from B is still campaigning against elderly physicists, engineers, and the like, with whom he disagrees.

dover_beach

11 Apr 12 at 9:05 pm
Everyone needs a hobby, Dover.

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 9:06 pm
It could be, sfb, that with age and experience comes wisdom. Thereagain, some people never seem to grow up, as you amply demonstrate.

Lazlo

11 Apr 12 at 9:11 pm
Neil Armstrong would be 82. wonder what he does now and what he thinks about the moon landing.

kids these days know little about it all that moon/Apollo stuff and could not care less. It doesn’t seem to have much meaning really.

candy

11 Apr 12 at 9:14 pm
Steve you demented prick, up your Thorazine. Frank Fenner (b. 1914) was doing research at ANU up until a few years ago. He was sharp as a tack until he suffered his brief and acute illness before death.

Have you done the dishes or paid your taxes? No? STFU.

.

11 Apr 12 at 9:40 pm
And here’s what Fenner said shortly before he died, age 95:

“Homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years,” he says. “A lot of other animals will, too. It’s an irreversible situation. I think it’s too late. I try not to express that because people are trying to do something, but they keep putting it off.

“Mitigation would slow things down a bit, but there are too many people here already.”

On the one hand, it’s good seeing dot praising a scientist who firmly believed global warming from CO2 was part of a coming extinction event.

On the other hand, even I say such forecasts are too pessimistic, and illustrate the lack of good judgement that typically comes with advanced age.

Well, actually, now that I think of it, dot loses both ways.

steve from brisbane

11 Apr 12 at 10:11 pm
Right, so now you’re going to ignore many scientists in their old age who disagree with you – do also want a biscuit, you can use google and find a wiki page, fuck knuckle?

.

11 Apr 12 at 10:13 pm
..good judgement that typically comes with advanced age.

Yes, wisdom. Thanks for agreeing with me sfb.

Lazlo

11 Apr 12 at 10:18 pm
Stepford

You make it sound as though you’re judging these oldsters by your own standards in the sense that because you’re basically innumerate and unable to interpret numbers and stuff like that, these old guys would be the same.

I don’t think they would have lost the science method in their old age. They still know numbers and can figure out stuff on their own.

Look at Warren Buffet for instance, still going strong at his advanced age and buying and selling companies.

Buffent understands shit when it comes to economics, although he thinks he does, I would not put the brighest stock analyst from MIT against him and ask both to figure out a balance sheet, P&L statement, cash flow analysis and tell us if the stock is a goer or not. Buffet could do that in his sleep.

What you’re missing is that these people were the brightest the good ole USA could offer in the 50′sd and 60′s and would still be worth listening to instead of truffle farmers in NZ talking about the weather. Which reminds me. What’s happened to Shiny? Do you know?

JC

11 Apr 12 at 10:26 pm
Many of them were engineers, JC. I used to know quite a few a couple of decades ago, and I don’t expect even young ones to automatically be reliable in their judgement on climate change. Old retired engineers: even less so, no matter how good they were with rocket engines in their day.

Geologists might not be born odd, but isolation in deserts seems to send many that way; and as a group, their judgement on the matter is perhaps even less reliable than that of engineers.

steve from brisbane

11 Apr 12 at 10:40 pm
LP isn’t required any more.

They can all now have their panty-bunching published say at Bolt’s.

Sheesh.

kae

11 Apr 12 at 10:47 pm
If “many of them were engineers”, many of them would still understand numbers like Wareen Buffet still does in his sleep. And they were the very “bestest” in their field. It was one of the greatest honors to work at NASA before people like James Hansen fucked it up and politicized the place. The entry requirements to work there was staggering.

Climate science is really about understanding numbers and having good horse sense. These people had this in spades as some of them were finding engineering solutions as the problems came up… using fucking slide rules ffs.

You ought to be hanging your head in shame attempting to diss these oldsters. You couldn’t hold a fucking candle to them, you moron.

JC

11 Apr 12 at 10:48 pm
Sounds as if Steve is a proponent for death panels. Hey, Steve, what is the cut-off age for people who you think are too old to be of use in society?

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 10:52 pm
So who are we to trust on matters climate sfb? Railway Engineers like Pachauri? Paleontologists like Flannery? Chemists like Steffen? Mathematicians like Schmidt? Entomologists like Ehrlich? Sociologists like Oreskes? Computer scientists like Lambert?

Please let us know whose authority we can trust!

Alternatively we can think for ourselves about climate science. But you would not know how to begin…

Lazlo

11 Apr 12 at 10:56 pm
Steve as you are someone who watched the moonlanding with his kids, why should we listen to you?

Infidel Tiger

11 Apr 12 at 10:57 pm
Which reminds me. What’s happened to Shiny? Do you know?

According to his web page, and Google Scholar, he has not published anything since 2005. He has been at Lecturer level (= 2nd Lieutenant) for a long time. Perhaps he does have a problem..

Lazlo

11 Apr 12 at 11:06 pm
Many of them were engineers, JC. I used to know quite a few a couple of decades ago, and I don’t expect even young ones to automatically be reliable in their judgement on climate change.

Because on matters like this you’re much better looking for advice from liberal arts, social work and media studies graduates.

John Mc

11 Apr 12 at 11:07 pm
Geologists might not be born odd, but isolation in deserts seems to send many that way; and as a group, their judgement on the matter is perhaps even less reliable than that of engineers.

Wow.

Geologists and engineers under the bus, just like that.

How many other professions do you need to denounce before you admit your stupid little cult belief is finished, dead and buried?

twostix

11 Apr 12 at 11:10 pm
Not at all, Mc. Just because engineers are not the obvious people to go to with questions about atmospheric physics, climate modelling, long scale temperature records and the effect of greenhouse gases in prehistory, doesn’t mean you have to be silly about who does a better background for those matters.

steve from brisbane

11 Apr 12 at 11:13 pm
Hilarious. I don’t know if you dudes caught this one but Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air tore down that ABC/WAPO poll that give the D’s a +11 advantage in polling. Vodkapundit made a joke about it on Twitter which caused a blip on a lefty’s racist radar (which seems to be quite easy to do these days).

Link Here

Alex Pundit

11 Apr 12 at 11:14 pm
Engineers are potentially superior to geologists in that they have higher level maths training. Climatology isn’t just geology, it is also physics/chem and atmospherics as well, as well as a little astrophysics.

You have got to start believing the tape. We had a medieval warm period and pre history had periods of high CO 2 concentrations and normal temperatures which were causal to CO2.

Don’t be scared.

.

11 Apr 12 at 11:16 pm
‘Not Newsworthy’: Daylight Highway Stabbing Gets No Coverage. A black motorcycle gang attacks a white truck driver. No arrests, no media.

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 11:24 pm
So, dot, you’re now telling me that the ‘sharp as a tack’ Frannk Fenner, who did a lot of work on ecology in his old age, was not so sharp – in fact, completely wrong – when it came to climate change.

Better luck next time with your examples.

steve from brisbane

11 Apr 12 at 11:28 pm
Geologists are absolutely suited to comment on the quality and reliability of the models. Probably some of the few people that are qualified to do this.

People with an engineering background are quite qualified to analyse the data as are many other technical professions.

The atmospheric/meterological area is so small that I can’t think of one of the leading commentators who is close to perfectly qualified to comment on the debate, let alone Al Gore or Tim Flannery. The geologists are probably the closest to having a holistic understanding of the area.

John Mc

11 Apr 12 at 11:29 pm
Obama: I’m not trying to ‘redistribute wealth’

No noo noooo nooooooooo…

“So these investments — in things like education and research and health care — they haven’t been made as some grand scheme to redistribute wealth from one group to another,” the president said today at Florida Atlantic University. “This is not some socialist dream,” Obama added, as he called for tax increases on millionaires today to pay for those investments.

JamesK

11 Apr 12 at 11:29 pm
Here’s a pertinent pic to go with your link, James.

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 11:32 pm
WSJ Editorial: The Obama Rule
He says taxation is about fairness, not growth or revenue.

Forget Warren Buffett, or whatever other political prop the White House wants to use for its tax agenda. This week the Administration officially endorsed what in essence is the Obama Rule: Taxes must be high simply to spread the wealth, never mind the impact on the economy or government revenue. It’s all about “fairness,” baby.

JamesK

11 Apr 12 at 11:32 pm
John Mc speaks like a geologist.

In the big picture, AL Gore and Flannery don’t count for anything much. There are mere popularisers of the issue.

The continual attack on them for hypocrisy, or (some) overstatements in their long history of commenting on the topic, is really a “straw man” that’s being fought.

steve from brisbane

11 Apr 12 at 11:33 pm
James…

The Kenyan wants to raise the top marginal rate to 72% and then even higher. He’s even a worse socialist than people at first thought he was.

JC

11 Apr 12 at 11:35 pm
Indeed Gab.

It changes them so they vote for leftists permanently.

After a while you don’t have to give them much at all as they’ve learned helplessness and so become a reliably permanent lefty vote for their masters

JamesK

11 Apr 12 at 11:35 pm
It’s perfectly clear that it’s not about revenue JC

JamesK

11 Apr 12 at 11:36 pm
Engineers have a high level of rigorous mathematical training, and common sense, unlike many of the c-grade climate charlatans from the University of Easy Access etc.

As for physicists (atmospheric or otherwise) who have studied climate, I can recommend Lindzen, Choi, Happer and Spencer. Go and learn something sfb.

Climate modellers are predominently mathematicians and/or computer nerds (eg Schmidt) who write computer programs based on warmist assumptions. For example, none of them include ENSO – El Nino and La Nina – in their models. Garbage In Garbage Out. There is no accepted scientific discipline of climate modelling.

Those presenting ‘long term temperature records’ based on tortured statistical mangling of unvalidated proxies – tree rings etc – represent the heights of post-modern climate science, which does whatever it takes to achieve the results that fit the dogma.

And you dismiss geologists who have the long term vision of the planet. You are an ignorant, intellectual dwarf.

Lazlo

11 Apr 12 at 11:37 pm
After a while you don’t have to give them ~~much~~ anything at all as they’ve learned ~~helplessness~~ nothing and so become a reliably permanent lefty vote for their masters

Yes, they’re like Pavlov’s dogs.

Gab

11 Apr 12 at 11:37 pm
So, dot, you’re now telling me that the ‘sharp as a tack’ Frannk Fenner, who did a lot of work on ecology in his old age, was not so sharp – in fact, completely wrong – when it came to climate change.

Better luck next time with your examples.

I never said that. Eat shit you purloining champion of scum and villany.

No you idiot Fenner didn’t work on “ecology”. He worked on microbiological ecology.

You can be a smart guy and have some wrongheaded beliefs. As the MWP and prehistoric record show.

.

11 Apr 12 at 11:39 pm
It’s a problem in the US, a real serious problem and I think if the voter doesn’t understand this then it’s over for them and they will have to go through a huge crisis.

Something like 48.8% of Americans receive some form of government handout.

The only way to reverse this is if people understand that it can’t continue and the only way to pay down the debt is to create wealth or there will be even less available in the long run.

I’m not sure the 48.8% believe this or want to change.

JC

11 Apr 12 at 11:39 pm
Climate modellers are predominently mathematicians and/or computer nerds (eg Schmidt) who write computer programs based on warmist assumptions. For example, none of them include ENSO – El Nino and La Nina – in their models. Garbage In Garbage Out. There is no accepted scientific discipline of climate modelling.

Wow, just wow.

.

11 Apr 12 at 11:40 pm
I distrust Chris Christie but he’s a brilliant media performer:

Gov. Christie: Nation turning into ‘people sitting on a couch waiting for their next government check’

Gov. Chris Christie today warned an audience of national Republicans that the country is in danger of becoming a “paternalistic entitlement society” where people sit on the couch, “waiting for the next government check.”…..

“It’s because government’s now telling them, stop dreaming, stop striving, we’ll take care of you. We’re turning into a paternalistic entitlement society. That will not just bankrupt us financially, it will bankrupt us morally,” Christie told Bush, Henry Kissinger and an assortment of Republican governors in a theater at the New York Historical Society.

JamesK

11 Apr 12 at 11:40 pm
Something like 48.8% of Americans receive some form of government handout.

This happens in any democracy. Eventually a politicians who wants to get elected/re-elected is going to need to buy his ’51%’.

I’ve always wanted to do a study on this. I believe it could be statistically proven that all democracies tend toward 51% welfare.

John Mc

11 Apr 12 at 11:42 pm
We need a brutal and pulverising election cycle of open nominations, open primaries, sortition, approval voting, appointment by an executive, electoral confirmation (preference voting or PR) and local decision body making consent.

Running for Parliament ought to be like the hunger games.

.

11 Apr 12 at 11:48 pm
America’s Debt Is Greater than Entire Eurozone’s (and U.K.’s) Combined Debt

The Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee will release this chart later today, clearly showing that America’s debt is greater than the combined debt of the entire Eurozone and the U.K.

As the chart shows, America’s debt is currently $15.1 trillion, while the Eurozone (which includes France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, the U.K., and others) has a combined debt of $12.7 trillion. (All dollar amounts are in U.S. dollars, and the data refers to closing 2011 numbers.)

The Eurozone is larger than the United States, so America’s debt per capita also exceeds the Eurozone’s. According to the Census Bureau, the U.S. has a population of 313 million, whereas the Eurozone has a population in excess of 331 million.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney frequently warns that the United States should not become like Greece. “We need to rein in government and unleash the extraordinary vitality and creativity of the American people,” Romney wrote in a December op-ed. “We must not wait to suffer a crisis like Greece’s or Portugal’s to right the ship of state.”

But with charts like this, that formulation might already be out of date, considering the enormity of America’s debt burden.

JamesK

11 Apr 12 at 11:49 pm
Hear hear, dot.

It’s like a court case. The confrontational nature of the common law system is better at finding the truth and delivering justice than the touchy feel civil law system.

The confrontational, expensive, and arguably inefficient nature of primaries etc deliver better quality candidates than our current system. (How on earth did KRudd ever achieve the highest office in the land?)

John Mc

11 Apr 12 at 11:51 pm
But with charts like this, that formulation might already be out of date, considering the enormity of America’s debt burden.

America is still capable of being very, very productive. Greece isn’t.

John Mc

11 Apr 12 at 11:55 pm
This is some dishonest shit

http://politicalcompass.org/usprimaries2008

.

12 Apr 12 at 12:01 am
Kudelka:

Paul Howes: Man of Steel.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 12:05 am
Ron Paul on the ‘authoritarian’ side?!! WTF?!

John Mc

12 Apr 12 at 12:05 am
Climate modellers are predominently mathematicians and/or computer nerds (eg Schmidt) who write computer programs based on warmist assumptions. For example, none of them include ENSO – El Nino and La Nina – in their models. Garbage In Garbage Out. There is no accepted scientific discipline of climate modelling.

During the noughties there was lots of money going into trying to write automated trading systems that would auto trade foreign currency markets.

Very similar arc to the rise and fall of climate modeling. Lots of deluded theories, models and bots produced that looked like they were “predicting” the market or buying and selling automatically correctly but over time would inevitably fail for multitudes of reasons.

twostix

12 Apr 12 at 12:06 am
Kate’s fine. She’s above criticism in my book.

She’s an average looking filly in my books. She’s just lucky she’s surrounded by the ugliest bunch of mingers in all of Christendom.

IT has a discerning eye. Fully agree. Ellis is definitely nothing special.

Oh come on

12 Apr 12 at 12:07 am
This is outrageously dishonest.

http://politicalcompass.org/aus2010

You only believe this if you think Allende was a libertarian.

.

12 Apr 12 at 12:08 am
I was surprised a few years back when a Swedish social commentator visiting Australia called us a ‘nanny state’. I thought who is she kidding? Maybe she had a point:

http://www.thelocal.se/40192/20120411/

John Mc

12 Apr 12 at 12:18 am
Like Anthony Mundine vs. Sonny Liston…

Greg Sheridan:

THERE were times in Monday night’s great debate on the ABC’s Q&A between Catholic Cardinal George Pell and militant atheist Richard Dawkins when you felt the boxing authorities would step in and call a halt to the bout.

Dawkins was so obviously boxing above his weight division, was so completely outclassed in all aspects of the encounter, that you felt the event promoters were being cruel to him.

RTWT.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 12:26 am
Another snippet:

When Dawkins explained that the universe had come from nothing, but that nothing was really very complex and, in fact, consisted of something, people laughed. Dawkins was annoyed and, like a humourless school marm, peevishly scolded the audience: “Why is that funny?”

Catholicism 100.

Atheist Taliban: 0.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 12:28 am
He’s right (quantum fluctuations) but that hints at creation.

.

12 Apr 12 at 12:34 am
He’s right…

Pell, yes.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 1:09 am
The Kenyan: we tried free market, “it did not work.”

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 1:11 am
I asked god to prove he exists yesterday by returning the Hitch to us, in full vim and vigor.

A day later and it’s not looking good. I even offered M0nty up as a pagan offering. Even god rejected him. Which proves that, if god exists, he has standards.

I’ll give God until 6pm GMT. After that, he’ll need a note from a grown up to explain his absence.

Abu Chowdah

12 Apr 12 at 1:14 am
I even offered M0nty up as a pagan offering.

No wonder you haven’t heard from him. You scared him away, Abu

JC

12 Apr 12 at 1:16 am
true comment

We had 6 years of uninterrupted prosperity under Bush. Things only fell apart after the Dems took Congress. Why is it physically impossible for any Republican to ever say that? Why do we allow the left to demagogue this issue as if Bush’s entire 8 years were worse than the great depression?

Bush’ numbers were as good or better than their big hero Bill Clinton but we NEVER say it.

Worst of all, WHY THE HELL DOESN’T BUSH EVER SAY IT???!!! The #1 thing that has always annoyed me the most about Bush is his refusal to punch back and stand up for himself.

So the Kenyan is now running as a full blown communist.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 1:17 am
And when the Cardinal spoke about when he was preparing boys … there was also much laughter.

The good Cardinal also misled the public on Darwin’s theism.

The quotation that he correctly cited were the views Darwin ascribed to himself at the time of the Origin of the Species.

Darwin goes on to say that he had since that time rejected theism and embraced agnosticism.

Darwin writes:

Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.

This conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as far as I can remember, when I wrote the Origin of Species; and it is since that time that it has very gradually with many fluctuations become weaker. But then arises the doubt—can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions? May not these be the result of the connection between cause and effect which strikes us as a necessary one, but probably depends merely on inherited experience? Nor must we overlook the probability of the constant inculcation in a belief in God on the minds of children producing so strong and perhaps an inherited effect on their brains not yet fully developed, that it would be as difficult for them to throw off their belief in God, as for a monkey to throw off its instinctive fear and hatred of a snake.

I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems. The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.

Samson Agonistes

12 Apr 12 at 1:18 am
You may have a point, JC. Even god wouldn’t want a shorts and black sock wearer failing to replace his divots in the Elysian fields.

Abu Chowdah

12 Apr 12 at 1:18 am
Bob Ellis: fat, talented, labor-fellating windbag. Comment.

Abu Chowdah

12 Apr 12 at 1:19 am
Talentless…

Abu Chowdah

12 Apr 12 at 1:19 am
Hitchens would have been no match for Pell either.

When he weighed into religion it was always against people who weren’t around to defend themselves.

His foray into Mother Teresa grave-dancing was laughed at by everyone, not excluding the New York Times. Hitchens was a great wordsmith and publicity generator but he wasn’t terribly bright or learned.

Sorry, Atheist Talibanis. The national broadcaster gave you a shot at the title and you were owned.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 1:27 am
Bob,

You ignoramus, Pell gave the page number of Darwin’s biography where he stated the following:

He said, “I have to be ranked as a theist.”

Did he say that or not, Bob you old fool?

JC

12 Apr 12 at 1:28 am
DRUDGE doubles down on hinting that Obama is sick or something.

http://www.drudgereport.com/

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 1:29 am
You may have a point, JC. Even god wouldn’t want a shorts and black sock wearer failing to replace his divots in the Elysian fields.

I’m still freaking angry about it, Abu. Don’t remind me. How could he show up to the freaking golf course in a pair of regular black socks like to sort you wear under jeans etc., sneakers and freaking shorts.

The thought still causes me to want to break the screen in anger.

And he has the audacity to present as the victim here? Amazing Chutzpah.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 1:40 am
I wasn’t even thinking of Hitch replacing Dawkins on that show, CL. I just think bringing him back might convince me there is a God.

Dawkins had his arse handed to him and even I now think he’s a bit shrill and intellectually arrogant.

I fully support anyone’s right to pursue a belief in a mythical being as long as, for all intents and purposes, those people acted in a manner in keeping with my views on liberty and civilization. You will be relieved to know that I approve of you, CL, so you may carry on worshiping as you see fit, while you continue to contribute to a civil society.

Abu Chowdah

12 Apr 12 at 1:41 am
He did say he was a theist Bob. Please read for detail in future.

And even if he had not said it, there is a yawning chasm between the bravery of true atheism and the each way bet cowardice of agnosticism, you stupid fat prick.

Abu Chowdah

12 Apr 12 at 1:44 am
Julia Roberts still looking good.

Tattoos are sad, though.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 1:46 am
Hey Cl

A trader dude I know used to live downtown in a small loft down there. Anyways it was a narrow street and he could see inside apartments on the other side.

Before Roberts became famous and stuff she lived across from him and he always used to see her parading around in the apartment total starkers without a care in the world… even at night with the lights on. He reckons she was doing it on purpose as she had a big audience on his side of the street.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 1:52 am
Cute tatt.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 1:53 am
What a view.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 1:53 am
Bob Owens at PJ Media: ‘Why I Called George Zimmerman a Murderer, and Why I Was Wrong.’

The best summary of the case I’ve seen.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 2:06 am
True. That’s a hefty serving of humble pie, too. At least he took it like a man.

Oh come on

12 Apr 12 at 2:32 am
richarddawkins says:
10 April 2012 at 12:48 am
I too was disappointed in this so-called debate. I don’t want to put all the blame on my jet lag (I had spent the whole night on the plane from Los Angeles and, incidentally, missed the whole of Easter Day crossing the Date Line). The two things that really threw me were, first, the astonishing bias of the audience and, second, the interfering chairman.

Right from the start when we were introduced, it was clear that the studio audience was dominated by a Catholic cheer squad. The cheered whenever the Cardinal said anything, however stupid and ignorant. To be fair to the ABC, I am confident that they were not responsible for stacking the audience. I believe it was genuinely first-come-first-served, and I can only think that the Catholics must have got off the mark very swiftly and rallied the troops. Our side just isn’t very good at doing that: perhaps it is one of our more endearing qualities. It was encouraging that the vote of viewers at large came down heavily on our side, to the evident surprise and discomfort of the studio audience.

Such an extreme audience bias was a little off-putting, but it wouldn’t have mattered so much if the chairman had allowed us to have a proper debate instead of continually racing ahead to get in another dopey question. There were times when the Cardinal had doled out more than enough rope to hang himself but then, in the nick of time, the chairman blundered in and rescued him with yet another samey question from the audience. The only time the chairman did a good job was when he pressed the Cardinal on what seemed perilously close to anti-Semitism.

More and more, I am thinking that discussions of this kind are positively ruined by an interfering chairman. That was also true of my encounter with the Archbishop of Canterbury, which could have developed into an interesting conversation but for the meddling chairman who, to make matters worse, was a ‘philosopher’ with special training in obscurantism.

Cardinal Pell had evidently been well prepped, formally briefed (for example with his alleged fact that Darwin called himself a theist on page 92 of his autobiography). I knew it wasn’t true that Darwin was a theist and said so, but I obviously couldn’t counter the “Page 92″, which duly got a cheer from the touchline. I’ve since had a chance to look it up and, as expected, it refers to the way Darwin felt earlier in his life, not his maturity when he said he preferred to call himself ‘agnostic’ because the people “are not yet ripe for atheism”.

Another missed opportunity on my part was when the Cardinal nastily insinuated that I had not read to the end of Lawrence Krauss’s book having written the Foreword. Actually I didn’t write the Foreword, I wrote the Afterword, which suggests that the Cardinal hadn’t read the book. Indeed, the content of what he said suggests that he (or whoever briefed him) had read only the infamous review in the New York Times, again by a philosopher not a scientist.

Altogether an unsatisfactory evening. Much better was the radio interview the following morning, after I had had a night’s sleep and had my wits more properly about me:
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2012/04/bst_20120410_0815.mp3

Richard

LaRouchite

12 Apr 12 at 2:45 am
Comedy gold. You did well for once, Douche.

Abu Chowdah

12 Apr 12 at 2:47 am
I didn’t think the stacked audience was all that funny but what you expect with Q&A and the ABC these days.

LaRouchite

12 Apr 12 at 2:48 am
LOL.

Dawkins blames everyone else for losing – including the infamously pro-Catholic ABC.

Ahahahahaha.

It was natural selection, Dick. You were the weaker critter.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 2:54 am
Dawkins explanation is weak. It is also ironic that the audience was stacked, since it often is stacked with David Marr and Katherine Deveny types, as you well know.

Thanks for the laugh, you zombie.

Abu Chowdah

12 Apr 12 at 2:55 am
Bob Owens at PJ Media: ‘Why I Called George Zimmerman a Murderer, and Why I Was Wrong’

Top post, that one. Good catch CL.

sdog

12 Apr 12 at 4:35 am
How could Douche have posted a passage that made Dawkins look so half arsed and revisionist and think it was a Leftist victory?

…leftist victory…

…leftist…

Oh, right. Of course.

Abu Chowdah

12 Apr 12 at 5:07 am
Oh well, at least the strike is over at Norwich Park.

March, and unions announce a strike at BHP Billiton coal mines:

A trio of the industry’s most powerful unions – the CFMEU, AMWU and ETU – have been in hard-fought negotiations with the BMA arm of the mining giant for about 16 months…

Each of BMA’s seven mines in the Bowen Basin – west of Mackay and Rockhampton – are affected. These are Goonyella Riverside, Broadmeadow, Peak Downs, Saraji, Norwich Park…

Wait. Norwich Park? Well, scrub that now:

ABOUT 1350 workers at Norwich Park mine in the Bowen Basin face an uncertain future following the decision by BHP to shut down production indefinitely.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 7:55 am
I particularly like how Dawkins complains about Krauss being demolished in the NYT by a mere philosopher, not a scientist. What an intellectual lightweight. And this is the man leading the movement of Village Atheists. Thanks for that, numbnut.

dover_beach

12 Apr 12 at 8:09 am
Pandamonium! Kids terrified by purple panda. h/t Tim Blair.

Rafe

12 Apr 12 at 8:12 am
Rafe
Hows the hip?

kelly liddle

12 Apr 12 at 8:16 am
PAGING RAFE

Time for your physiotherapy

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 8:20 am
Zimmerman now charged second degree murder – what a slapstick show they run with elected prosecutors.

pete m

12 Apr 12 at 8:46 am
CAMPBELL Newman has rejected the concept of “co-operative federalism”, saying intergovernmental relations should start with every state’s right to seek a competitive advantage over each other, using lower taxes and less regulation to attract business and secure investment.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/state-against-state-campbell-newmans-federalism/story-e6frgczx-1226324307482

Starting to like this guy seems he is really on the right track.

kelly liddle

12 Apr 12 at 8:47 am
Baillieu he is not.

Toxic

12 Apr 12 at 9:17 am
study of why action stars are more likely to be Republican. Short answer – because they’re not wimps

http://phys.org/news/2012-04-action-stars-republican.html

jtfsoon

12 Apr 12 at 9:28 am
Thanks guys, hip is good but not yet ready for hippy shake a la Elvis. Just over four weeks into the six weeks of careful living to enable the joint to stabilize (no bending past the 90 degrees). Can easily walk for half an hour or more on level ground, carrying stick to warn off muggers and remind myself to be careful with steps, slippery surfaces and broken ground.

Rafe

12 Apr 12 at 9:41 am
DRUDGE doubles down on hinting that Obama is sick or something.

God, I hope Reggies is okay?

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 9:54 am
I’m betting the answer to this question is now, money in the bank really…

Paul Howes Is A Right Extremist
Remember when Barnaby Joyce was subjected to a torrent of daily abuse and personal ridicule by everyone – the PM, the Treasurer, the Assistant Treasurer, the Finance Minister, the Treasury Secretary, the RBA Governor, and of course, the mainstream Australian media – for his “extremist” warnings about rising US and Australian debt levels, and his calls for Australia to reduce wasteful spending and prepare a “contingency plan” for further financial turmoil impacting us from abroad?

Double standards alert.

…Will the likes of Laura Tingle, Stephen Koukoulas, George Megalogenis et al, and all the “political heavyweight” journalists like Paul Bongiorno and similarly nausea-inducing arrogant imagine-they-know-it-all &^#$%@! now tear strips off the star of the union movement Paul Howes, label him as “extreme Right”, and ridicule his intelligence for daring to advocate a classic form of “protectionism”?

Token

12 Apr 12 at 10:24 am
Boy this Bryan Caplan who got into controversy a few weeks ago for his ‘bubble’ comments sure sounds like a barrel of laughs

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/04/in_vino_hateful.html#comments

I do not drink. Neither do I associate with anyone who drinks heavily in my presence.

jtfsoon

12 Apr 12 at 10:57 am
CAMPBELL Newman has rejected the concept of “co-operative federalism”, saying intergovernmental relations should start with every state’s right to seek a competitive advantage over each other, using lower taxes and less regulation to attract business and secure investment

That’s pretty good. Now walk the walk.

John Mc

12 Apr 12 at 11:01 am
There is no way he could have worked in the private sector as an economist. Red wine is the drug of choice. Nor in any university I have worked at or even visited. Red wine is the drug of choice. He should really move to a dry Islamic country.

.

12 Apr 12 at 11:02 am
Double standards alert.

It’s fine to have very low standards for people engaged in the Australian union movement.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 11:04 am
I do not drink. Neither do I associate with anyone who drinks heavily in my presence.

He is seldom invited to parties.

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 11:05 am
Mob placated: George Zimmerman has been charged with second degree murder.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 11:06 am
Charged and already convicted by mob rule and trial by media.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 11:08 am
That’s manslaughter, right?

.

12 Apr 12 at 11:08 am
George Zimmerman has been charged with second degree murder.

The moron ignored his legal counsels advice and rang the prosecutor. Sounds like he fucked up royal.

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 11:09 am
It’s a serious flaw in the US legal system.

Prosecutors will charge a person even though they are fully aware s/he is innocen, as it gives them political cover in elections.

Of course the Demolition party has totally corrupted this aspect as the election for DA’s was never meant to be political and so the Left corrupted another institution.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 11:11 am
I see. Wilful and not premeditated.

The degrees of murder is one area of law I think generally we have done it better than the yanks.

Given the severity of the charge, the prosecution will likely lose.

.

12 Apr 12 at 11:12 am
Drudge shows how the Right has gone every bit as nutty with Obama as large elements of the Left did with Bush.

How embarrassing.

steve from brisbane

12 Apr 12 at 11:12 am
And of course if Zimmerman is acquitted, we know what will happen…

Free stuff!

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 11:12 am
(Try to ignore the studio audience, which is rather thuggish, as such audiences can be.)

Bwahahahaha!

NRO has stumbled upon the Pell vs. Dawkins debate.

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 11:14 am
That’s manslaughter, right?

Not in Florida. Manslaughter is a second degree felony and Second Degree murder is a First Degree felony.

The former carries up to 15 years and the latter life imprisonment.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 11:15 am
Drudge shows how the Right has gone every bit as nutty with Obama as large elements of the Left did with Bush.

By ‘the left,’ Steve is referring to himself.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 11:16 am
Florida shopkeepers in black neighbourhoods best be upgrading security.

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 11:16 am
Sortition. Now.

.

12 Apr 12 at 11:18 am
That purple panda video reminds me of Julia Gillard’s ill-fated visit to Queensland flood victims last year.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 11:18 am
Again, this isn’t a criticism of Atheism as at times I find myself in the agnostic camp especially after a bad day of trading.

However I must say that little wimp, Richard Dawkins now crying over the fact that he clearly lost the debate is pathetic. The moment he cited the brutality of Thatacher’s England to illustrate Darwinism is when I considered the Atheist side had a mediocre fraud as their spokesman.

What a fraudulent little piece of shit.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 11:22 am
In the hunt to find something to smear Romney with, NYT lefty Kristof tips off the world on how the world of sleaze if funding the NYT itself:

Late last month, Kristof targeted Goldman Sachs with farcical allegations of supporting child sex trafficking via its minority stake in Village Voice Media, which owns Backpage.com. He repeated those allegations yesterday on CNBC (which called its story “Goldman’s Ties to Sex Trafficking”–video below).

Kristof’s real target may have been GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney, whose wife Ann owns a blind trust that had invested in Village Voice Media through a Goldman Sachs fund.

Ironically, Kristof’s own newspaper profits from the sort of advertising for escort services, strip clubs, and other forms of adult entertainment that Kristof has linked to the underworld of child sex trafficking.

Unlike Backpage.com, only 16 percent of which was owned by Goldman Sachs, About.com is “a wholly-owned subsidiary of the New York Times Company,” according to About.com’s contact information page.

Moreover, the About Group–including About.com and other websites–accounted for 5% of all revenues to The New York Times Company in 2011, roughly $100 million.

Token

12 Apr 12 at 11:23 am
Seriously, The US is being Zimbabweized.

Eric Holder Praises Left-Wing Activist Al Sharpton,

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/eric-holder-praises-left-wing-activist-al-sharpton-says-facts-law-will-guide-trayvon

JC

12 Apr 12 at 11:26 am
That’s manslaughter, right?

No. As discussed on the weekend, nothing about this situation could be characterized as manslaughter. It was either murder or self-defense.

I expect Fisky will be in here very soon apologizing to both CL and I.

dover_beach

12 Apr 12 at 11:27 am
So Breitbart’s Joel Pollak went the Harvard, it shows:

While I respect Barack Obama’s–and my–Harvard Law professor, Charles Ogletree, he stepped over the line today when he joined Al Sharpton’s race-baiting mob in Washington, DC and said: “I want to see the first black man who uses the ‘stand your ground’ defense and see if it works. I want to see the first white victim of ‘stand your ground’ by a black defendant and see if it works.”

I know Prof. Ogletree well enough to know he was not calling for murder, but his divisive remarks certainly showed a callous disregard for the potential victim of such a killing.

Token

12 Apr 12 at 11:27 am
That was a good NRO article.

Some of the less mainline protestants are quick to condemn.

Don’t they know the spiritual gifts of baptism? They are condemning Pell because he has hope.

Wasn’t there a righteous heathen somewhere in the bible?

.

12 Apr 12 at 11:34 am
Birdy – Breitbart was assassinated AND it was a ‘decoy’ assassination.

Always going the extra mile on ‘crazy’

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/intermarriage-as-the-key-to-putting-forward-a-list-of-culprits/#comment-39448

the Brietbart murder was murder but it was decoy murder as far as I can make out. Someone else would have been murdered at the same time, and Brietbart killed as decoy.

jtfsoon

12 Apr 12 at 11:39 am
Looks like Stewart and Colbert’s show are going the same way as LP:

But-but-but the media keeps telling me that two guys regularly humiliated in the ratings by cartoons, reruns, and “Robot Chicken” are American phenoms…?

But-but-but the media keeps telling me that two guys who couldn’t muster three million viewers combined are populist heroes who speak for the people…?

Token

12 Apr 12 at 11:39 am
Birdy – Breitbart was assassinated AND it was a ‘decoy’ assassination.

Always going the extra mile on ‘crazy’

Lol

Could be Jase. The FBI or the CIA could have spiked the last coke blast he snorted causing a spike his heart rate to 250 beats per minute. Always possible.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 11:44 am
RATINGS: STEWART #27, COLBERT #45, ‘BASKETBALL WIVES’ #8

I’d rather watch an honest lefty or Stossel all day. Or covet a tall dude’s wife.

.

12 Apr 12 at 11:49 am
LOL

Cartoon Network PWNS Stewart. Nuff said.

.

12 Apr 12 at 11:50 am
Hoo boy.

“For the prosecutor to embrace the Martin family attorneys with thanks at the press conference, and for AG Eric Holder verbally to praise Sharpton today, tells me that a case which should be about facts of who did what to whom is going to turn into an even bigger racial narrative for a variety of purposes which have nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of the accused.”

Read more: Legal Insurrection

Long. Hot. Summer.

sdog

12 Apr 12 at 11:58 am
Long. Hot. Summer.

Dog

I call it the American summer story and I think this is it. There’s always a summer story over there that lasts for all the warm months. This one got in a little early this year as they normally start around June going through to the end of August.

Perhaps it needed to get in early so as not to clash with the party conventions in July and August.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 12:03 pm
Eric Holder Praises Left-Wing Activist Al Sharpton

Well he got a Jew killed. That’s a blue ribbon achievement for this dirtball administration.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 12:07 pm
…AG Eric Holder verbally to praise Sharpton today…

Which paper has time to discuss “Fast & the Furious” while Sharpton is hogging the headlines with his race baiting?

I wouldn’t be suprised if Sharpton gets a gong from Obama if he gets re-elected.

Token

12 Apr 12 at 12:10 pm
If ‘outraged’ American negros go shopping again later in the year, that would suit Romney, I guess.

Tough but true.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 12:11 pm
In America, only whites – and that newly created race known as “white Hispanics” – commit hate crimes. Blacks never commit hate crimes, they are just opportunists.

Baltimore’s police chief today said that the videotaped beating of a white tourist does not appear to be a hate crime, but rather “drunken opportunistic criminality” on the part of a gang of Charm City assailants.

In a radio interview, Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III urged Baltimore residents to “distinguish between criminality and racially motivated crime.” Bealefeld, who is white, warned against “race-baiting” and “fear-mongering” in light of the Trayvon Martin shooting and other recent racially charged incidents.

“There’s no doubt it’s a crime,” Bealefeld said of the March 17 assault. “We need to vigorously hold criminals accountable, and we have to be careful not to be pulled into this race-baiting.”

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 12:14 pm
does not appear to be a hate crime, but rather “drunken opportunistic criminality”

Why can’t it be both?

dover_beach

12 Apr 12 at 12:18 pm
There’s no such thing as a hate crime.

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 12:21 pm
Why can’t it be both?

Because blacks don’t commit hate crimes and intimating that they do could cause more racial tensions and you’d be labelled a racist. Are you not paying attention?

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 12:21 pm
Cool dude. Cool as cucumber.

http://nyulocal.com/on-campus/2012/04/10/exclusive-nyu-local-speaks-with-subway-snacking-hero-charles-sonder/#more-69818

JC

12 Apr 12 at 12:22 pm
Does anyone know how long the trial is expected to take?

And is this going to go the way of the Rodney King trial if Zimmerman beats the rap? Stay tuned, folks.

Oh come on

12 Apr 12 at 12:23 pm
Baltimore’s police chief today said that the videotaped beating of a white tourist does not appear to be a hate crime, but rather “drunken opportunistic criminality” on the part of a gang of Charm City assailants.

They said EXACTLY the same thing about Christian/Newsom murders. (Whose details should not be read by those faint of heart).

Police Chief Sterling Owen IV said that there is no indication the crimes were racially motivated and that the murders and assault “appears to have been a random violent act. There is absolutely no proof of a hate crime,” said John Gill, special counsel to Knox County District Atty. Randy Nichols. “We know from our investigation that the people charged in this case were friends with white people, socialized with white people, dated white people. So not only is there no evidence of any racial animus, there’s evidence to the contrary.”

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 12:23 pm
“There’s no such thing as a hate crime.”

I agree. It was a dark day when someone thought up that category. It’s the clearest example of thought crime.

Jarrah

12 Apr 12 at 12:24 pm
South Park did an excellent satire of hate crimes:

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/151788/a-hate-crime

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 12:25 pm
I can’t see how the snacker broke up that fight, though he had the carriage of a man who could handle himself if necessary. Looked to me like she beat him off and he pretty much gave up.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 12:31 pm
I agree. It was a dark day when someone thought up that category. It’s the clearest example of thought crime.

I disagree Jazzabelle, which isn’t surprising since we’ve never agreed on anything.

There are hate based crimes such as the vid white guy getting beaten up for being white and taunted about the color of his skin.

We categorize crimes in all sorts of ways and to ignore a crime that was predicated on race is to be as blind as leftwing idiots over the issue of race.

There clearly are crimes perpetrated for race based reasons.

We also categorize certain crimes in terms of severity too, so there’s no reason to be blinded by this over racial hate crimes.

Lastly Uni has ruined you.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 12:33 pm
Another pile of lowbrow lefty excrement from Tardy Shepherd (related to Marylin? They’re both from SA…) in The Punch – a synopsis of the latest in that rather tedious series of “scientific” papers that linked conservative views to stupidity.

Speaking of stupidity, I noticed recently that Tardy’s been promoted to Tard-in-Chief of that sheltered workshop for journalists. Bloody hell, that’s low-balling, even for them.

Oh come on

12 Apr 12 at 12:33 pm
I can’t see how the snacker broke up that fight,

He just got in the middle, didn’t say a word and kept snacking.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 12:34 pm
THE DISCOVERY of a ‘liberal gene’ which led people to be more outgoing, and to seek more diverse people and views.

What a fucking joke. Lefties are like hermetically sealed mushrooms.

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 12:40 pm
The Florida prosecutor has injected religion into the Zimmerman indictment.

Corey has described Martin’s family as “lovely people.” She said she has met with them and prayed with them and promised to get them answers.

This trial shows once again that a 10-year ban on Leftism is imperative.

Fisky

12 Apr 12 at 12:46 pm
It was a dark day when someone thought up that category. It’s the clearest example of thought crime.

Nonsense, it isn’t a thought crime at all. Criminalising hate speech might be considered such but hate crimes are really just adding an aggravating circumstance to already criminal conduct.

They originated in the U.S. as a response to a specific set of cultural and historical circumstances; the repeated failure of local authorities to prosecute and/or of local juries to convict the offenders in lynchings and similar cases involving racially motivated violence. The category of “hate” crimes was created to bring these prosecutions potentially within the jurisdiction of federal authorities via the Civil Rights Act.

badm0f0

12 Apr 12 at 12:47 pm
When they say “more diverse people”, what they mean is “people with different skin colour” who, because of this, must have different views. It’s a twofer.

They didn’t mean diverse personalities, or people whose views that might conflict with their own. Heavens, no.

Oh come on

12 Apr 12 at 12:47 pm
Corey is a Republican, Fisk.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 12:49 pm
Corey is obviously a leftist, though.

Fisky

12 Apr 12 at 12:50 pm
Trust you to wreck it for me, Bado.

Hate crimes should be dealt with at the state level and not incur Federal intervention.

It’s simply a category of crime like any other to describe the level or type of aggravation that’s all.

Stop over egging it please, as I’m trying to convince my right wing colleagues that it does have a legitimate anchor.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 12:51 pm
Hate crimes should be dealt with at the state level and not incur Federal intervention.

It isn’t a question of what should or shouldn’t be in your constitutional utopia, this is how they arrived.

badm0f0

12 Apr 12 at 12:55 pm
But I agree they are legitimate descriptions of a type or level of aggravation.

badm0f0

12 Apr 12 at 12:56 pm
DRUDGE:

Biden: Al Franken is a ‘leading legal scholar’.

And, of course, ‘Attorney-General’ Eric Holder – who is a criminal and an accomplice to mass murder in Mexico – has praised Al Sharpton for his sterling work in deliberately orchestrating the thrill-killing of a Jew.

There has to come a time when the Democrat Party is made subject to RICO.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 12:58 pm
“We categorize crimes in all sorts of ways and to ignore a crime that was predicated on race is to be as blind as leftwing idiots over the issue of race.”

Old man, you clearly don’t know what hate crimes are. It’s not where you hate someone, or their race, or their sexuality, so you commit a crime against them. It’s where whether you hate someone is taken into account as an aggravating circumstance. That is, it’s not just assault any more, it’s assault plus. Simply because of the thoughts at the time. And it’s different to mens rea, because that has to do with knowledge/intention, and has to be proved separately.

No, “hate crimes” are a lefty attempt to make some crimes worse, not because of the consequences, but because somehow beating someone is worse when a bigot is doing the beating. Thought crime.

Jarrah

12 Apr 12 at 1:01 pm
Sorry, badmofo, didn’t see your comment, but luckily my reply to J. “I don’t read” C. also applies to your point.

Jarrah

12 Apr 12 at 1:03 pm
LOL.

Watch out! Astonishing video of California man so distracted by sending a text he walks into a BEAR.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 1:11 pm
Dammit. The video’s been removed, CL.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 1:14 pm
Sorry, badmofo, didn’t see your comment, but luckily my reply to J. “I don’t read” C. also applies to your point.

It also misses both points entirely Jarrah. Hate crimes add an aggravating circumstance to an existing crime, they don’t outlaw the thought.

badm0f0

12 Apr 12 at 1:17 pm
Old man, you clearly don’t know what hate crimes are.

Lets hear this one.

It’s not where you hate someone, or their race, or their sexuality, so you commit a crime against them. It’s where whether you hate someone is taken into account as an aggravating circumstance.

Of course. Courts are always attempting to establish intent, you fool. They always read the context into say a murder.

That is, it’s not just assault any more, it’s assault plus.

It would be more accurate to describe it as an assault due to the person’s race or creed etc. That in my mind is a legitimate ascription of a particular crime.

Simply because of the thoughts at the time.

Courts always attempt to delve into a person’s mind at the time of say a murder. It happens in all murder cases, dumphy.

And it’s different to mens rea, because that has to do with knowledge/intention, and has to be proved separately.

So what if it’s different.

No, “hate crimes” are a lefty attempt to make some crimes worse, not because of the consequences, but because somehow beating someone is worse when a bigot is doing the beating. Thought crime.

Perhaps, however there is a use to describing a action such as a hate crime.

Years ago a young man was tied behind a truck and dragged along a dirt road until he died simply because he was gay. That to me is clearly a hate crime and it was established in court the reason was that the killers found out he was gay. That clearly is a hate crime.

Lastly some types of murders are worse than others even in the same categorizations, so this is really no different. I think the term has been abused by the left, but it does have a place.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 1:18 pm
Jarrah, I’ll let you know why Aquinas’ First Way is different to his Second Way on Sunday, but did you have any response to my reply to your claim that his Fifth Way was the same argument put forward by the ID movement? (There was an immediate reply by me in the earlier thread and a further brief response on this thread.)

dover_beach

12 Apr 12 at 1:19 pm
“Hate crimes add an aggravating circumstance to an existing crime, they don’t outlaw the thought.”

A thought doesn’t have to be outlawed to be criminal. That a thought can be aggravating, which means it adds to the guilt, criminalises that thought.

Jarrah

12 Apr 12 at 1:20 pm
“did you have any response to my reply to your claim that his Fifth Way was the same argument put forward by the ID movement?”

The reply I saw was a link to Feser’s blog, which I read. It added nothing to the discussion.

Jarrah

12 Apr 12 at 1:22 pm
“Courts are always attempting to establish intent, you fool….So what if it’s different.”

Think about that for a second, you old fool.

As for the rest of your comment, I don’t have a problem with the description “hate crime”, which you are stuck on, only the legal category, which is the subject of my original comment.

Jarrah

12 Apr 12 at 1:24 pm
That a thought can be aggravating, which means it adds to the guilt, criminalises that thought.

Since thoughts precede actions, and actions are punishable…

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 1:24 pm
Ace still has the vid, Gab:

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/328338.php

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 1:25 pm
Thank you, CL. Very funny clip.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 1:27 pm
A thought doesn’t have to be outlawed to be criminal. That a thought can be aggravating, which means it adds to the guilt, criminalises that thought.

It doesn’t “add to the guilt”; it doesn’t make anyone “more guilty” of murder, it adds a level of severity in dealing with certain types of murder. When it remains a thought, within the bounds of private conscience, it is not subject to legal injunction. Once it crosses the boundary of private conscience it ceases to be merely a thought but is a motive for an act.

badm0f0

12 Apr 12 at 1:31 pm
“Courts are always attempting to establish intent, you fool….So what if it’s different.”

Think about that for a second, you old fool.

Great, so you’re putting two sentences next to each other when they were responding to different comments by you.

God, you’re dishonest, jazzabelle.

As for the rest of your comment, I don’t have a problem with the description “hate crime”, which you are stuck on, only the legal category, which is the subject of my original comment.

I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t understand enough about the law to answer to the why description and category are contextually important.

However going back to your original comment, you were simply disagreeing with the concept of a hate crime and I consider that to be wrong as I think there is place for it.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 1:35 pm
It added nothing to the discussion.

Really, well, I wonder what would “add” to the discussion?

dover_beach

12 Apr 12 at 1:37 pm
“It doesn’t “add to the guilt”;”

That’s exactly what it does. It’s the opposite of an extenuating circumstance, which reduces guilt.

“Once it crosses the boundary of private conscience it ceases to be merely a thought but is a motive for an act.”

No, the motive for assault is “I want to hurt this person”. Hate crime laws make the reason why I want to hurt someone, in certain very limited categories – race and sexuality – worse than other reasons I may want to hurt someone.

Jarrah

12 Apr 12 at 1:40 pm
“so you’re putting two sentences next to each other when they were responding to different comments by you.”

About the same subject, you old fool. Try reading the comments again.

Jarrah

12 Apr 12 at 1:41 pm
No, the motive for assault is “I want to hurt this person”. Hate crime laws make the reason why I want to hurt someone, in certain very limited categories – race and sexuality – worse than other reasons I may want to hurt someone.

And you have a problem with this? Why?

Not all, say, murders carry the same level of severity.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 1:43 pm
“Why did you murder him?”

I didn’t like him.

“20 years in jail”

I didn’t like him… because he was a nigger.

“Death penalty.”

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 1:44 pm
IT

Let me ask you you think there is anything different between say…

A person walking down the street is randomly shot in cold blood and it was later found out to be a random killing for fun.

A murder by a husband of his wife’s lover caught in the act after the dude loses it.

The courts will clearly distinuish.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 1:49 pm
Oilman T. Boone Pickens made a statement on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Wednesday that should make every green jobs advocate including Barack Obama, Al Gore, and Van Jones sit up and take notice.

“I’ve lost my a–” in wind power. This came moments after he said, “The jobs are in the oil and gas industry in the United States” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/04/11/t-boone-pickens-ive-lost-my-wind-power-jobs-are-oil-and-gas-industry#ixzz1rnMY7mct

JC

12 Apr 12 at 1:58 pm
Ooh. James Delingpole is coming on a tour of Australia. Sponsored by the IPA by the looks?

The IPA seems to spend a lot of time helping bring people here who don’t actually have any expertise relating to science at all to convince the public that climate change is wrong. Monckton, Klaus, Delingpole.

Gab will be so impressed. He looks so cool in those glasses.

steve from brisbane

12 Apr 12 at 1:59 pm
No, the motive for assault is “I want to hurt this person”. Hate crime laws make the reason why I want to hurt someone, in certain very limited categories – race and sexuality – worse than other reasons I may want to hurt someone.

“I want to hurt this person” is a desired outcome, not a motive. The reason for wanting to hurt this particular person goes to motive.

badm0f0

12 Apr 12 at 1:59 pm
The IPA seems to spend a lot of time helping bring people here who don’t actually have any expertise relating to science at all to convince the public that climate change is wrong.

No, it’s the Green/Left that thinks ‘climate change is wrong’. They want to ‘stop climate change’.

Lazlo

12 Apr 12 at 2:04 pm
A person walking down the street is randomly shot in cold blood and it was later found out to be a random killing for fun.

A murder by a husband of his wife’s lover caught in the act after the dude loses it.

You need to compare apples with apples. Let’s say I blow your brains out because you are a slimy dago fuck – that’s a hate crime. Let’s say I blow your brains out because you are bankster – that’s just a crime.*

*Actually I’d probably get off on that charge.

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 2:05 pm
For anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, The Grey is an excellent movie

jtfsoon

12 Apr 12 at 2:06 pm
If Jason’s testimony isn’t enough…

On January 19, 2012, British Columbia’s The Province featured an article about the movie’s buying four wolf carcasses from a local trapper, two for props for the movie and two wolves for the cast to eat. This angered environmentalists and animal activists, who were already irate that the movie depicts wolves in a negative light, specifically at a time when gray wolves had recently been removed from the Endangered Species Act in many western American states.

In response to the portrayal of wolves in the film, groups including PETA and WildEarth Guardians started drives to boycott the film.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 2:09 pm
That movie sounds realistic. Wolves are not villians, but they are dangerous.

Reminds me of the idiots who hug sharks. If you don’t agree with them they think you’re Vic freaking Hislop.

.

12 Apr 12 at 2:12 pm
The IPA seems to spend a lot of time helping bring people here who don’t actually have any expertise relating to science at all to convince the public that climate change is wrong. Monckton, Klaus, Delingpole.

Gees, don’t you just hate Jonny Foreigners Steve.

So who should we listen to? Our home grown experts with no qualifications in Climate Science like Flim-flam Flannery.

Token

12 Apr 12 at 2:14 pm
I still haven’t managed to see Kiera Knightley being hysterical while being spanked by Michael Fassbender yet, so that is first on my list…

Keira Knightley was very only 17 when making the Pirates movies, by the way. I had no idea. She had a somewhat interesting interview in the Guardian.

steve from brisbane

12 Apr 12 at 2:14 pm
depicts wolves in a negative light,

Hahahaha

If you stray into their territory they might attack you.

Yep, that’s such a negative depiction

jtfsoon

12 Apr 12 at 2:15 pm
I still haven’t managed to see Kiera Knightley being hysterical while being spanked by Michael Fassbender yet, so that is first on my list…

You may as well go look at a skeleton in a museum. She’s basically anorexic thin so Fassbender would be hitting bone.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 2:16 pm
Housing affordability explained.

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 2:16 pm
Flannery:

a Master of Science degree in Earth Science at Monash University in 1981. He then left Melbourne for Sydney, enjoying its subtropical climate and species diversity.[5] In 1984, Flannery earned a doctorate at the University of New South Wales in Palaeontology for his work on the evolution of macropods (kangaroos).

Chalk and cheese compared to the backgrounds of Monck, Vac and Jimmy.

steve from brisbane

12 Apr 12 at 2:17 pm
So Flannery is a kangaroo expert.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCHY6n907OE

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 2:20 pm
Also the worst forecaster of the lot.

“Adelaide will run out of water by 2009″

Busted Steve, busted.

Loopy stuff.

.

12 Apr 12 at 2:21 pm
That movie sounds realistic. Wolves are not villians, but they are dangerous.

It’s definitely not realistic. Wolves are about the size of a German shepherd. The wolves in The Grey are bigger than tigers.

It was alright though.

AJ

12 Apr 12 at 2:21 pm
Wolves are about the size of a German shepherd.

Yeah, I dunno:

http://www.wall-of-shame.com/offenders/disgrace1.html

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 2:27 pm
Who’s afraid of the big bad Wolf!

http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=48318

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 2:30 pm
Where do you find these crackpots C.L?

“Hunting Mountain Lions and Wolves is evil!”

Neither are endangered and when paths cross, the animal loses. It’s not as if they are hunting frickin Snow Leopards.

.

12 Apr 12 at 2:31 pm
Hmmm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger#Characteristics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_wolf#Dimensions

The heaviest recorded gray wolf in North America was killed on 70 Mile River in east-central Alaska on July 12, 1939 and weighed 79.4 kilograms (175 lb),[50] while the heaviest recorded wolf in Eurasia was killed after World War II in the Kobelyakski Area of the Poltavskij Region, Ukrainian SSR, and weighed 86 kilograms (190 lb).[51]

Obviously rare.

.

12 Apr 12 at 2:32 pm
Latest fashion news from the New York Times:

Brazilians for him.

Note the picture: American ‘man,’ 2012.

American man, 1945.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 2:32 pm
From snopes

Comment: This wolf was shot recently in Drayton Valley, Alberta ….which is near Edmonton about 3 hours North of Calgary. The wolf weighed over 230 lbs smashing the previous record of 175 lbs. Wouldn’t want to run into this puppy in the woods.

Apparently a bear hunter witnessed this wolf chase off a big black bear at his baiting station.

.

12 Apr 12 at 2:34 pm
Gab

I must say, reading all those quotes you so diligently tracked down, makes for quite a stmulating picture. Yet, you still haven’t explained how they show:

‘Detesting Christians, Catholics in particular’

Presumably, you claim those quotes you dug up have no factual basis; that they are concoctions of the present and/or falsities about history? Please explain. After all, you’ve gone to so much trouble.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 2:34 pm
Brazilians for him.

That’s Steve done for the arvo.

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 2:35 pm
You should see the direwolves around my area, nasty critters.

dover_beach

12 Apr 12 at 2:36 pm
Cougars are a growing problem for the urban hunter.

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 2:37 pm
Grey wolves are typically twice as heavy as a typical German Shepard and a 50% larger.

dover_beach

12 Apr 12 at 2:44 pm
Vajazzling is weird – why you would want to put a handful of sparkly rocks down there is anyone’s guess, but women do it to their fingernails, so there is arguable precedent, I guess…

But pejazzling??

Imagine if your bloke came home bald downstairs with a bunch of sequins stuck on and around his member. Grounds for instant divorce/breakup.

Oh come on

12 Apr 12 at 2:46 pm
Brazilians for males has to be a gay thing, right?

jtfsoon

12 Apr 12 at 2:47 pm
Question without notice for sfb.

dover_beach

12 Apr 12 at 2:54 pm
Vajazzling is weird – why you would want to put a handful of sparkly rocks down there is anyone’s guess.

Why women would do anything different to Courbet’s model for L’Origine du monde is anyone’s guess.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 2:56 pm
It (trimming or shaving down there) has been talked about as a trend for young men for a good few years.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091125021331AA4rPB7
I have no doubt that young women doing it too is part of the reason.

Waxing at a salon, well, I think that is likely to be done mainly by gay men, who are probably carefree about whether men or women do the job.

Steve from Brisbane

12 Apr 12 at 3:01 pm
The only place it is acceptable to have your junk fondled by another man is a rugby maul.

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 3:03 pm
Peter

a 3 minute google is hardly arduous. Don’t flatter yourself that it took any longer.

Your words speak for themselves.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 3:03 pm
I better get back on topic. Hayek believed vejazzling led to serfdom.

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 3:05 pm
Police Dukes of Hazard watch:

Perth woman killed in police pursuit.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 3:08 pm
There’s a really great trade going on that is making making really good money. It’s just lazy mullah.

The Swiss have a peg on the Swiss to the Euro at 1.2000.

You buy the stuff when it get down close to 1.200 and sell the crap higher up at 30 or 40.

Load up as they are there.

I’ve paid my kids 3 months tuition with this and still have time to gasbag on the Cat.

Make sure you keep a death stop though in case the Swiss bolt out of there.

I’ve never seen lazier money to be made than the old days when the Aussie was fixed to the US dollar.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 3:08 pm
Mk 50

You are required to give us civilians an assessment of this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6.5mm_Grendel

.

12 Apr 12 at 3:11 pm
Brazilians for males has to be a gay thing, right?

Actually you’d be surprised to learn that a lot of metrosexuals have brazilians, the 20-30 yo demographic, inner city urban dwellers in particular.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 3:21 pm
How do you know that, Gab?

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 3:23 pm
Baillieu he is not.

O’Farrell he is even more not. Maybe Albanese’s push for a second Sydney airport (with the agreement of the federal libs) will embarrass him into action – any action.

Viva

12 Apr 12 at 3:25 pm
IT, I believe the title to the book early on was: The Road to Vejazzling. He was right.

dover_beach

12 Apr 12 at 3:27 pm
George Zimmerman, the neighbourhood watch chief who killed black teenager Trayvon Martin, was last night charged with his second degree murder

Prosecutors announced that the former security guard had been arrested six weeks after police in Sanford, Florida, allowed him to walk free, leading to outrage across America.

Speaking at a press conference, Angela Corey, the Florida State Attorney, said Zimmerman had voluntarily turned himself in, and was now in custody.

Saying that the decision to charge him was not taken lightly, she went on: “Today we filed an information charging George Zimmerman with murder in the second degree. It is the search for justice for Trayvon that has brought us to this moment.”

Miss Corey said she had spoken to Trayvon’s “sweet parents” moments before the press conference began to tell them about the charges.

She added that she had first discussed the case with his mother, Sybrina Fulton, and father, Tracy Martin, who she described as “constitutional victims,” when she took over the case three weeks ago.

“The first thing we did was pray with them. We did not promise them anything,” she said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9198942/Trayvon-Martin-George-Zimmerman-charged-with-second-degree-murder.html

Viva

12 Apr 12 at 3:30 pm
John H

What’s the crap about.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/04/11/epigenetic-vs-determinism.aspx?e_cid=20120411_DNL_art_1

JC

12 Apr 12 at 3:33 pm
“Cougars are a growing problem for the urban hunter.”

Problem? Solution I would have thought.

I”ve been looking for the sociological angle to explain rampant quackery in cancer research and treatment. Its not understood to me how the racketeering that happens in the US is spread so far and wide. But in terms of the American scene its more than clear that the medical monopoly is a cartel run by the Rockefellers.

So for example if you were to look at the board members of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, you would find a lot of interlocking relationships between the banks, the CIA, the drug companies and the Rockefeller family.

The original contribution that turned the hospital into a purely cancer treating outfit, doing an eternally crap job, came from a businessman who had radium on one of his properties. He started treating himself and his family with radium for all sorts of ailments. His grant was conditional and one of the conditions was that a certain doctor be hired to be boss of the centre, and also that radium be used routinely in cancer treatment. Hence the medieval idiocy of radiating people to help with cancer can be brought down to this source alone.

He died from the radiation, as did the person he hired to set up the hospital. Radiation therapy is total quackery. But then so is most surgery and all chemo-therapy. Of course the fact that this idiocy continues on more than100 years later cannot be sheeted off to the original sin of this one nincompoop.

The reason for the continuation of a failed strategy for a simple ailment is that since you or I cannot refine, handle and use radiation, it can be controlled, monopolised, subsidised and exploited ruthlessly for huge amounts of money. So the Rockefeller monopoly has to take the major blame for continuing with this murderous practice.

Ghost Of Midyear Christmas Past

12 Apr 12 at 3:35 pm
This is going to play right into the hands of the Loonies.
Hope someone is doing their planning on impeaching the President, because that’s going to be needed to stop the impending civil war in the States.

Winston SMITH

12 Apr 12 at 3:37 pm
Graeme
Is Obama helping or hindering the Rockefellers with his health reforms?

jtfsoon

12 Apr 12 at 3:37 pm
How do you know that,

Friends in the beauty therapy industry, CL. You’d be amazed the pain some ~~men~~ young males go through…

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 3:38 pm
So for example if you were to look at the board members of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, you would find a lot of interlocking relationships between the banks, the CIA, the drug companies and the Rockefeller family

Okay so lets have a looksee at the board to find your connection.

Stephen Friedman Stone Point Capital

Douglas A. Warner General Electric

James D. Robinson III RRE Ventures

Boris C. Bastian M.D. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center –

Charles L. Sawyers Ph.D. Aragon Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Which of these have CIA connections, Banksters and the Rockefeller family?

Go!

JC

12 Apr 12 at 3:43 pm
“Is Obama helping or hindering the Rockefellers with his health reforms?”

Helping them massively since the health care reforms are not anything to do with health. They are exclusively about setting up totalitarian control. This is no easy task in the US with its heritage and its gun ownership. A much more difficult task then in 1930′s Germany for example. And setting up a German totalitarian dictatorship was far more difficult than in the Russian Empire which was a pretty straight-forward undertaking.

What the money-power cartel does is control both sides of the argument, and then bend movements to their advantage. So that Rockefeller was the main beneficiary of Medicare. Actually the medical cartel was the ONLY beneficiary of Medicare except for perhaps a few old people. But the thing was the Rockefeller controlled AMA spent millions fighting “so-called” socialised medicine. Which was ridiculous. Since they had already socialised it to their advantage. It was all blowing smoke. So when they got the subsidy they all made out like bandits. Which they are. This is a crime family, far more than the Medicis ever were.

Ghost Of Midyear Christmas Past

12 Apr 12 at 3:45 pm
Badass Girl not infected with the lefty PC virus:

Move over Kim Kardashian, PETA has set itself a new challenge – The Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence.

Lawrence has ticked off the animal rights organisation – formally known as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – after she opened up about her squirrel-skinning scene from Winter’s Bone, the 2010 movie which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine (via E! News), Lawrence reveals that the scene where she had to gut a squirrel was authentic, and not faked for the cameras.

“I should say it wasn’t real, for PETA,” she told the mag. “But screw PETA.”

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 3:49 pm
JC

This is true

“Contrary to what many people are being led to believe, a lot of emphasis placed on genes determining human behavior is nothing but theory and doctrine,” writes Konstantin Erikseni .

This is true, the Central Dogma is dead.

Eriksen goes on to discuss something called “The Central Dogma” of molecular biology, which states that biological information is transferred sequentially and only in one direction (from DNA to RNA to proteins).

The claims about attitude affecting physiology do stand up to scrutiny but there are a host of problems in thinking about that. One reason I have always had a problem with the claims of people like Dawkins with that bloody stupid Selfish Gene crap is that they seem ensnard by “prime mover” type arguments. Biology cannnot be understood by reference to concepts like “final common pathways”, or the hopeless UP- Down causation models.

Thinks of genes, or more correctly genes, histones, iRNAs, sRNAs, mRNAs, tRNAs, prostaglandins, epigenetics, blah blah as all involved in one huge regulatory response set to environmental contingencies. For example, a gene does not necessarily just code for a single protein, the end result can be substantially modified by RNAs or even the protein folding sequence. These are response sets or adaptation sets, they are not programs containing information.

The below is simplistic. Clearly SNPs, a single base change, can have remarkable impacts on physiology. Perceptions do not control biology. Control is a bad concept here because control is very much distributed and weighting of each causal agent can change in response to a host of contingencies be they internal or external.

The new science, however, reveals that your perceptions control your biology, and this places you in the driver’s seat, because if you can change your perceptions, you can shape and direct your own genetic readout.

Nonetheless there are now hundreds of studies indicating that internal regulation strategies like meditation and tai chi confer a wide range of benefits on physiology. Everything from reduced CORT to improved immunity, improved concentration and general health.

There are some fascinating questions in all this and these are more philosophical than scientific questions. I have no way of approaching those questions. At least not yet …

John H.

12 Apr 12 at 3:52 pm
Jennifer Lawrence is a stone cold fox who can also gut a squirrel. I’m sold.

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 3:52 pm
I ♥ Lawrence. She said “Screw PETA”.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 3:54 pm
Palestinian students are stalking Jewish students at Atlantic University. The Palestinians recently posted “eviction notices” on their dorm rooms.

But it’s okay becuase the Jews caused it./sarc.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 4:10 pm
In Huffington Post:

Experts Debate The Existence Of The Vaginal Orgasm

I say this calls for a return match between Dawkins and Pell.

steve from brisbane

12 Apr 12 at 4:11 pm
I admire the PETA organisation. They’ve made awareness of chickens in those terrible “battery” hen situations, using animals to test women’s makeup for God sake, the treatment of animals in circuses, and abuse of pets and so on.

most importantly it’s brought it to the attention of kids and that’s how things change, by kids becoming aware.

teaching kids to be kind to animals is so very important as it affects their overall view of life and ethics and all that stuff.

candy

12 Apr 12 at 4:18 pm
candy, Peta kills more animals each year than most abbatoirs.

It is an organisation beloved by self involved spankbots.

Animals are freaking tasty and should be eaten at every available opportunity.

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 4:21 pm
Following on from what John H is saying; what gets me about the current crop of people pushing radical atheism, and evolution is not that they are pushing these two admirable doctrines. Its how pig-headed and anti-intellectual they are about it.

So see how they rely so heavily on natural selection as the driving force of evolution. It can be only one part of the story. But the anti-Lemarkian extremism is now proved totally wrong as an extremist doctrine, but is still there as a big anti-Lemarkian overhang.

This natural-selection extremism makes no sense. And its often justified by the doctrinaires with reference to a Soviet functionary. So the Soviets collectivise agriculture and surprise surprise there is famines. Let us blame Lamarck.

A human is made up of 70 trillion or so cells that work together. But then so to, very primitive organisms, are made of collections of cells. Cells that have to work together and have to become a “learning-network” together. They would hardly forego this “learning-network” advantage whensoever they developed sexual reproduction. They would maintain this advantage to the extent that it could be maintained.

Or if any branch of natures family tree failed to maintain these advantages, they would be put at ………… a disadvantage. Anti-Lamarkian extremism, is therefore in conflict with natural selection. The dopes get a good idea and they go too far with it.

Biologists ought to have expected at least some Lamarkian effects from first principles. And they have been caught out. But the current crop of radical atheists seem peculiar in their heavy dogmatism, and scientific conformism.

Ghost Of Midyear Christmas Past

12 Apr 12 at 4:24 pm
With the Bowen Coal Mine closing down due to multiple factors, Newman is going to have a shit of a time paying back the state debt.
So are a lot of young blokes with very flash cars…

Winston SMITH

12 Apr 12 at 4:26 pm
I am actually happy that Lamarkian theory has been been given a thumbs up again. The anti Lamarkian bias was so rabid and ill considered. Darwinism is a good theory which is mostly valid and a religion for stupid people at the same time.

.

12 Apr 12 at 4:27 pm
“Experts Debate The Existence Of The Vaginal Orgasm”

Good Lord. Are these people ghost-writers from the show “The Big Bang Theory.” It just confirms what drones a lot of these so-called experts are. Why dont they just go and ask a few women? Maybe just going and asking people doesn’t beat the medical maffia’s clinical trial threshold for alleged evidence.

Ghost Of Midyear Christmas Past

12 Apr 12 at 4:28 pm
candy, stop gilding the lily.
PETA slaughters most of the animals given to it for relocation because they don’t believe animals should be pets. About 80% of them in fact.

Winston SMITH

12 Apr 12 at 4:28 pm
That’s very interesting, Graeme.

Reminding us that humans are a network of cooperating cells make the Lamarckian stuff easier to visualise, otherwise it just seems like voodoo. But let’s also not forget sexual selection. Darwin didn’t.

Natural selection, sexual selection, random mutation and possibly some Lamarckian effects (rebadged as epigengetics) rounds off the explanation,

jtfsoon

12 Apr 12 at 4:30 pm
I’m going to be blunt Graeme, a good question for those who disagree that it exists is “why else do they shove stuff up there”?

.

12 Apr 12 at 4:34 pm
I admire the PETA organisation. They’ve made awareness of chickens in those terrible “battery” hen situations

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/peta_killing_a_man_no_worse_than_killing_chickens/#commentsmore

candy, Peta kills more animals each year than most abbatoirs.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/dog_of_an_animal_rights_group/#commentsmore

Ivan Denisovich

12 Apr 12 at 4:34 pm
hey Graeme

what do you think of Humphreys ending up on the board of the Australian Taxpayers Alliance?

the man is a libertarian dynamo, isn’t he?

jtfsoon

12 Apr 12 at 4:37 pm
Now gab, from what you posted above, your accusation of ‘detesting christians, and especially catholics’ focuses on two concerns: history and sex.

1. You claim I am not interested in history, and even quote this as evidence:

Oh I totally get all the prayer, singing, art, cult, and spectacle stuff. The world should be relieved that paganism survived in the Roman Catholic church.

How do you get from that both that I am not passionate about history AND it shows I detest catholics? In fact, it is pretty clear I praise the Roman Catholic church

2. You claim that recounting from friends’ sexual exploits in Sth. America and at a Catholic high school also show how I ‘detest Catholics, clergy, and the religion’.

Well given that the two friends mentioned ARE both Catholics themselves, and I love them both very much, and I am a great fan of consensual sex, so certainly do not ‘detest’ my friends or their nunnery sex partners, your argument is baseless.

We could go on. Isn’t the real point here is that it s YOU who is ‘detesting’ in what you chose to post above?

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 4:39 pm
John H

One reason I have always had a problem with the claims of people like Dawkins with that bloody stupid Selfish Gene crap is that they seem ensnard by “prime mover” type arguments.

Careful now, or Gab will declare a jihad on you for detesting christians and catholics.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 4:42 pm
1. You claim I am not interested in history,

I never said that at all.

In fact, it is pretty clear I praise the Roman Catholic church

Not by your comments. No, I don’t get that at all. You can isolate each comment and pretend it means nought, I just look at the bigger picture – at all your comments. That’s how I formed my opinion.

Keep on protesting though.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 4:45 pm
“what do you think of Humphreys ending up on the board of the Australian Taxpayers Alliance?”

He’s got a sponsor. I just wonder who his sponsor is. He’s no libertarian, nor any sort of economist. His act is as a promoter. A Barrister/Promoter. A huckster. His incredible hucksterism for the globalist and globally-run global warming fraud has been well-noted. His devotion to the driving force behind racketeering generally (ie fractional reserve) is just total.

So he winds up getting all these odd jobs. He’ll wind up editing a forum, when you would have to think any sincere person would be crazy to put him in that position. But he just keeps getting all these short-run posts. He never seems to want to have a real job or do any actual work. So yes he has a backer of some sort.

Ghost Of Midyear Christmas Past

12 Apr 12 at 4:47 pm
Careful now, or Gab will declare a jihad on you for detesting christians and catholics.

1. I have never declared a jihad on anyone. Stop lying.

2. I haven’t seen any comments from John that are of similar sentiment to that opf your comments.

By the way, Peter, I haven’t asked for you to be banned, I haven’t told you to stop making your bigoted comments, you are free to make any comment your little heart desires. So what’s your issue?

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 4:49 pm
My line on taxes is that we ought to have a LVT capped at 4% and a GST/VAT capped at 20% subject to TABOR provisions with an aim of lowering them to 2% and 10% in the long run from per capita GDP growth. Budgets must be balanced within a small proportion of GDP and time range.

This is enough money to run a libertarian leaning Government with efficient socialist redistribution ala school vouchers etc. It assumes the removal of waste and duplication. Over a few decades the desire for a welfare state would wither and die. People could work less hours for more. It is a pro growth position. Do your worst with the figures, detractors.

.

12 Apr 12 at 4:52 pm
Dot

You are now making sense

Rococo Liberal

12 Apr 12 at 5:00 pm
I see Paul Keating has been jumping on his trampoline without a helmet. He’s banging on about the dangers of climate change and over population.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/paul-keating-receives-honorary-doctorate/story-e6frgcjx-1226323726994

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 5:06 pm
Actually gab, YOU were the one who isolated comments. Quite a long list of them at the top of the thread. Don’t worry, you’re not the only person on this blog who makes things up about people, or has a huge file going back years of everything everyone on the cat posts, ever at the ready to slice and dice completely out of context for a later day. Perhaps coincidentally, you’re not the only Roman Catholic here who does that either. Or perhaps there is no coincidence.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 5:16 pm
[Graeme - just can't help yourself can you? Sinc]

Ghost Of Midyear Christmas Past

12 Apr 12 at 5:18 pm
I think Paul is still living off piggery money.

Infidel Tiger

12 Apr 12 at 5:19 pm
Don’t worry, you’re not the only person on this blog who makes things up about people

They’re your comments faithfully reproduced. You can google them yourself and check.

or has a huge file going back years of everything everyone on the cat posts, ever at the ready to slice and dice completely out of context for a later day.

*sigh* I’ve already explained that it took a few minutes doing a google search to find your comments. I’m not J. Edgar Hoover and even if I was I would certainly have no interest in keeping a file on you.

Keep protesting though, as I am now laughing.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 5:22 pm
So what you’re saying Graeme is: dammed if he do and dammed if he dont.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 5:26 pm
damned even

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 5:27 pm
The issue gab is that since you are going to be here, it would be more pleasant if you could think before you stumble into conversations others are having. While we are all born with our limits, you could try a bit harder.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 5:28 pm
And for god’s sake do something about your appalling understanding of the Catholic Church and its history.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 5:29 pm
I didn’t stumble into any conversation, Peter. I simply made an observation about your comments, in this here public forum. You have taken umbrage and have at great length communicated such. Fine. I have replied to your claims. Now what?

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 5:32 pm
hey dot, have you – or anybody else – mocked up how that tax scheme might make our current/recent/future say GDP and federal budget figures look? You’re an economagician, surely somebody has run some similar simulations?

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 5:34 pm
And for god’s sake do something about your appalling understanding of the Catholic Church and its history.

Perhaps I should learn from you? Tell me again about your passion of ancient history and especially about the Roman in Roman Catholic.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 5:34 pm
gab, umbrage is not the correct word at all. At least not for ME. It is you who took umbrage. All I am doing is trying to correct your misunderstandings for YOUR benefit, so that you won’t suffer such anxieties and take umbrage in the future when such topics are being discussed. For my part, as an act of kindness to the stranger Catholic, I shall type more slowly when you come into the room, with no allusions or nuffin’.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 5:39 pm
gab, umbrage is not the correct word at all. At least not for ME. It is you who took umbrage. All I am doing is trying to correct your misunderstandings for YOUR benefit, so that you won’t suffer such anxieties and take umbrage in the future when such topics are being discussed. For my part, as an act of kindness to the stranger Catholic, I shall type more slowly when you come into the room, with no allusions or nuffin’.

Nothing but Insults and in a pompous tone. Hah! I win.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 5:42 pm
Ah, Gab, you’re getting closer to the matter. It is a pity it takes you so long though. Come on, you quoted it yourself.

I do not ‘detest’ anyone (or at least not many people), and if I did/do, it is for reasons peculiar to them, nothing to do with Christianity or Catholicism.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 5:52 pm
hey dot, have you – or anybody else – mocked up how that tax scheme might make our current/recent/future say GDP and federal budget figures look? You’re an economagician, surely somebody has run some similar simulations?

Back of an envelope. I don’t have GEMPACK.

.

12 Apr 12 at 5:54 pm
Peter, Gab, song, listen!!

Jumpnmcar

12 Apr 12 at 7:11 pm
Peter, you really are a yellow-bellied slime-ball.

Everyone knows you hate the Catholic Church and that you rave on about it endlessly – usually via incompetent historiographical musings of a Bob Carr level of sophistication. But now that you’re being called on it (your Easter head explosion having been somewhat strange), you’re claiming to be misunderstood.

Man the hell up, why don’t you.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 7:19 pm
Winston, well if PETA kills unwanted pets then perhaps the people who complain should go and get them and adopt them.

How can they or RSPCA keep all these animals that no-one wants, it would be financially unviable.

the trick is stop people from getting pets for their kids and then they all get sick of the kitten/puppy when it becomes cat/dog and just neglect the poor thing. It’s animal abuse. They are better off dead than neglected.

candy

12 Apr 12 at 7:25 pm
Candy
Feed the cats to the dogs and half the problem is solved.
And that buys the dogs a bit more time too, financially speaking.

Jumpnmcar

12 Apr 12 at 7:32 pm
CL, don’t you think it’s time YOU ‘manned up’ – if you’re not still fantasising over barebacking with Ricky still – and stopped blaming Jesus Christ for your OWN character?

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 7:40 pm
No no. You’re the poof, Peter, remember?

Isn’t that why you hate the Catholic Church?

Because it won’t agree that sodomy is up there with real sexual intercourse between a man and a woman?

That’s what it’s all about, am I right?

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 7:43 pm
Artistic bravery watch:

Does anyone believe Allie Campbell would have a) made her work a two-piece if Tony Abbott was prime minister and Julia Gillard Opposition Leader; or 2) won an award for it?

Of course not.

This is another example of the left’s inevitable habit of using ‘pox on both their houses’ when their favoured politico is unpopular and loathed.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 7:47 pm
a good question for those who disagree that it exists is “why else do they shove stuff up there”?

Greer’s answer to this some years back was, in her usual elegant style, that a full one was better than an empty one. No other analysis was offered.

For women, and I say this from using a participatory experiental methodology, it happens in the head and there is a sort of concerto going on below. Everything joins in but the small button can be used to start it off. Best way to put it.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

12 Apr 12 at 7:56 pm
“Artistic bravery watch:”

Ms Gillard’s is more unpleasant but – anyway

Both are bad art – really who would like that.
What’s wrong with a real portrait in oils showing something of the person, like real artists do

candy

12 Apr 12 at 7:58 pm
“a good question for those who disagree that it exists is “why else do they shove stuff up there”?”

Elizabeth – are you talking about stuffing a chicken?

candy

12 Apr 12 at 8:07 pm
I thought there was a freeze on foreign aid?

Australia will chip in to help its small Pacific island neighbours travel to a United Nations conference on sustainable development in Brazil.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr has announced the government will provide $1 million to a participation fund to help small island developing states participate in the Rio+20 conference in June.

The conference will include debate on how to sustainably manage the world’s oceans.

“Small island developing states live most directly with the disastrous reality of climate change,” Senator Carr said on Thursday.

“Now they are facing an additional threat from ocean acidification.”

Senator Carr said it was crucial that the nations with so much at stake should be able to have their voices heard.

“Declining ocean water quality is already killing fish, other marine species and marine vegetation,” he said.

They’ve gone start raving mad.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 8:13 pm
but of course, Candy.

Very serious program about it all on ABC 1 now, looking at an unusual varient.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

12 Apr 12 at 8:15 pm
CL, one day when you lose your virginity, then come back and try to discuss such matters. In the meantime, stick to your knitting. You know, the one about the role of the Catholic Church in 3rd world poverty. Or any of the never-ending howlers you post here. Which, by the way, my comments posted above were just responding to – correcting mostly – your own Captain Catholic ravings. That little bit of context is something your little bible study class buddy failed to post. A failure consistent with another poster here. Perhaps your off-sider accessed the same database of cat files? Spooky, eh?

Once more, stop blaming Jesus! Catholics! The Church! for acts and ravings of YOURS.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 8:15 pm
HIA is fascinated with the show, but making some very male comments! Especially about men suffering fron ‘persistent arousal syndrome’.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

12 Apr 12 at 8:20 pm
Lizzie

After that arresting image, I am putting on Beethoven’s Violin Voncerto as we speak. I shall report back!

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 8:24 pm
There there, Pete.

I promise not to be unduly ruthless when I next beclown you for one of your historical fumbles.

I’ll correct you lovingly.

Would that help?

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 8:31 pm
“One is left with the thought that given the way we now abuse the ocean and abuse the climate that we are heading towards our own iceberg, which is looming on the horizon,” Mr Keating said.

“It’s not visible yet but it certainly exists there and it won’t be my generation that has to deal with the fact that the world is not bountiful forever, that the ocean and the atmosphere are not free goods to be abused, that will have to feed these vast populations. That will be your generation.”

- Former council clerk, profound Titanic allusion maestro, Suharto buttuck smoocher and Campbell Report copyist, Paul Keating, receives an honorary doctorate for some reason.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 8:39 pm
A failure consistent with another poster here.

Who could this be?

dover_beach

12 Apr 12 at 8:40 pm
Police Dukes of Hazard watch II:

AN INNOCENT mother has been killed and her teenage daughter injured after police ran a red light during a pursuit of a stolen vehicle today.

It emerged this afternoon that the two officers did not have official permission to engage in the pursuit, which claimed the life of a 50-year-old mother and left her 16-year-old daughter in hospital.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 8:41 pm
The effect of the sentence is that he will be eligible for parole in seven years and eight months.

Then it’s straight back to talibanstan, thanks.

Rabz

12 Apr 12 at 8:45 pm
“It’s not visible yet but it certainly exists there and it won’t be my generation that has to deal with the fact that the world is not bountiful forever, that the ocean and the atmosphere are not free goods to be abused, that will have to feed these vast populations. That will be your generation.”

Such utter stupidity. Fishing in Australia is so highly regulated and the population so small that the idea that recreational fisherman and a few thousand pro’s – in millions of kilometres of ocean around the continent are going to even make a dent in the numbers of fish is truly embarrassing.

Why do we have to be the generation that suffers self flagellating Malthusianism mark 10 as a “trendy” political belief?

Reality to keating: Fish eat fish too.

twostix

12 Apr 12 at 8:56 pm
He never seems to want to have a real job or do any actual work. So yes he has a backer of some sort.

Do you see any similarities with Obama, Graeme?

Same sort of build (tall and slim), secret backer – possibly the CIA (?), travelled around the world, worked as a community organiser, always at the right place at the right time?

jtfsoon

12 Apr 12 at 9:01 pm
From Rabz’s link:

A JUDGE has today rejected an Afghan refugee’s claim that he raped an intoxicated and vulnerable teenager because of cultural differences.

Esmatullah Sharifi, 30, was appearing in the County Court for the second time in less than three years on a charge of rape and Judge Mark Dean said his background as a traumatised Muslim refugee was no excuse.

The judge said a psychologist told the court Sharifi, who came to Australia in 2001 on a temporary protection visa, had “an unclear concept of what constitutes consent in sexual relationships” in Australia.

But the judge said Sharifi’s background and flight from the Taliban in Afghanistan could not excuse an extreme act of violence.

“You well knew the victim was not consenting to the act of sexual penetration you performed,” Judge Dean said.

What a load of bollocks. Thank God the judge saw reason but it’s pathetic that the religion card was used as a defence for rape. To even contemplate this as a reason for rape, in this country, is just abysmal.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 9:01 pm
that the ocean and the atmosphere are not free goods to be abused, that will have to feed these vast populations. That will be your generation.”

Listen, with all the climate catastrophes about to befall us, according to the climate “scientists”, there won’t be much of a problem with feeding the reduced global population.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 9:04 pm
CL, please believe that I am sincerely flattered, and it is no reflection you, when I politely decline. Besides, I think Andrew Sullivan is much more your speed.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 9:08 pm
Peter, you’re the homosexual. So Andrew Sullivan is someone you have a lot in common with.

That’s why you hate the Catholic Church, remember?

Who do you think you’re fooling playing the homophobia card? You know, ‘CL’s gay because he criticises Poor Old Peter (POP)’?

So very 1980s – like Hall & Oates and Bruce Springsteen.

It doesn’t work anymore, you silly old crank.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 9:27 pm
The judge said a psychologist told the court Sharifi, who came to Australia in 2001 on a temporary protection visa, had “an unclear concept of what constitutes consent in sexual relationships” in Australia.

If Muslims are going to claim that even after having lived in Australia for over a decade – over a third of this particular troglodyte’s life – they are still incapable of adapting to the fact that raping women is not A Good Thing, then that would seem to be a good reason not to accept any more of that particular demographic.

“Yer honour, I couldn’t help raping that infidel girl. Or that one. Or that one. I’m a young Muslim male! It’s who I am! It’s what I do! Stop the racism!” Jeepers. Sometimes Muslims are the worst PR out there for the Muslim cause.

sdog

12 Apr 12 at 9:27 pm
CL, wow, just I like I predicted above. Just what % of your posts involve either knowingly lying about another poster and/or reposting doctored quotes from years before? And WHY do you need to do it? There is nothing in common between Andrew Sullivan and me. OTOH, both you and AS are Roman Catholics who get turned on by other males and unprotected sex. The own-goal that keeps kicking. Too funny.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 9:33 pm
Come on CL. Just come out and scream it out loud and proud “You Wish You Were Ricky’s Girl”!

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 9:35 pm
Hey Jase how’s things in the old country?

Tal

12 Apr 12 at 9:35 pm
No no, POP. The ‘CL is a lying liar who doctors quotes’ thing won’t work either.

You hate the Catholic Church because you’re an embittered old poof.

And it’s so unncessary because the Church loves you anyway.

We’re even prepared to overlook your indictably inept and very often hilarious attempts to be an historian of Christian antiquity.

There is nothing in common between Andrew Sullivan and me.

Of course there is. A lot.

Look, you’ve been on an anti-Catholic binge for two weeks now. Gab has crushed you and everyone else is politely ignoring you (as they might Matthew Newton at a wine bar). You need to take a break.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 9:39 pm
CL, if you need to blame the church for who you are, that’s your business. AS has also publicly shared his pain and angst over these issues. It’s unclear how right you are to blame the church, rather than your self, but I’m sure you’ll get there.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 9:44 pm
To even contemplate this as a reason for rape, in this country, is just abysmal.

The “I can’t help raping infidels; I just don’t know any better” card has been played before, Gab. The lawyer for an Iranian taxi driver convicted of rape in Adelaide:

“There is a very reasonable possibility that given his cultural background and limited insight into laws and sexual behaviour, he didn’t realise that having intercourse with somebody who is unconscious and therefore not consenting is a very serious crime,” Mr Algie told the court.

So, given the fact that a disturbing number of Men of Middle Eastern Appearance claim under oath that they are culturally incapable of understanding that they can’t go around raping Australian women, why would it be raaaaacist for a father to teach his girls to therefore stay away from that particular demographic?

sdog

12 Apr 12 at 9:45 pm
Interesting, PP. I actually did have Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in mind. On concertos, I have always loved Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 (I used to dance to it as a little girl so that’s perhaps where my physical concerto imagery comes from), but it can be dreadful schmaltz if not very well played, a la Russe. Toscanini conducting and Vladimir Horowicz playing is an absolute treat. And there are so many good concertos for all moods and occasions.

HIA says if you like a bit of slow movement in the middle, a concerto is for you, Lizzie. He’s actually quite musical.

At which point, perhaps the music had better stop.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

12 Apr 12 at 9:46 pm
Come on CL. Just come out and scream it out loud and proud “You Wish You Were Ricky’s Girl”!

Thanks for the 1980s nostalgia, POP.

Young Pete (scene: bath house, Bruce Springsteen playing in the background, 1984): ‘Deary me, he’s being mean to me. Let’s say he’s gay – that’ll shut him up.’

HOMO #2: ‘Good idea, Pete. Let’s call it “homophobia”.’

Young Pete: ‘I so love you.’

HOMO #2: ‘Ah. You’re Hall to my Oates.’

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 9:48 pm
Gab has crushed you and everyone else is politely ignoring you

Quite so.

sdog

12 Apr 12 at 9:49 pm
See this is what I love about The Cat all the fights and arguments, long may they reign

Tal

12 Apr 12 at 9:53 pm
Look, you’ve been on an anti-Catholic binge for two weeks now.

Er, if you tap into your little database, you will see that two weeks ago I started work for a paper on John Locke, personhood, the soul, consciousness, and nature. During that period, Captain Catholic and his side-kick, bumbled into related discussions; while on other threads you were serenading the ‘manliness’ of Ricky Santorum’s sheathless member. VERY Andrew Sullivan. Sick, dude.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 9:57 pm
why would it be raaaaacist for a father to teach his girls to therefore stay away from that particular demographic?

Because they’re not all like that, I guess. I don’t see it as racist but can comprehend why other people (PC lefty mob) would. I understand what you are saying and it is not unreasonable to warn about the cultural proclivities of certain races, however men of any race are capable of committing rape. (That sounds a little feminazi i.e. all men are evil bastards but it’s not meant in that way).

But the use of their culture as an excuse for rape in a court of law in Australia is a separate issue, in my opinion.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 9:59 pm
Cardinal Pell had evidently been well prepped, formally briefed (for example with his alleged fact that Darwin called himself a theist on page 92 of his autobiography). I knew it wasn’t true that Darwin was a theist and said so, but I obviously couldn’t counter the “Page 92″, which duly got a cheer from the touchline. I’ve since had a chance to look it up and, as expected, it refers to the way Darwin felt earlier in his life, not his maturity when he said he preferred to call himself ‘agnostic’ because the people “are not yet ripe for atheism”.

Exactly what I had stated in my post above and entirely correct. Darwin was an agnostic and not a theist, as Pell incorrectly stated.

Samson Agonistes

12 Apr 12 at 10:01 pm
Oh, and by the way; well might I be crucified for deigning to spend 2 weeks mentioning the Roman Catholic Church. What pains will you suffer for never, ever, ever shutting up about it, all on a blog about liberalism? Every circle of hell for you. An eternity of bending over taking six of the best. You’ll be in heaven.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 10:01 pm
During that period, Captain Catholic and his side-kick, bumbled into related discussions;

If by “side-kick” you are referring to me, Peter, then you are lying.

I never once commented on your Locke meanderings and exchanges, with Dover (hope Dover gets cited as a source in your paper, btw).

However, if you are not referring to me then all is well.

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 10:04 pm
Can I bring some decorum back and mention the Heiss rack again?

Tiny Dancer

12 Apr 12 at 10:04 pm
No, I get that, Gab, and I was being a little sarky. Just pointing out that if Muslim refugees themselves are going to use the excuse that they shouldn’t be held to the same high standards of conduct that non-Muslim Australian males are when it comes to not molesting women because culturally, they’re just not capable of that high standard of conduct, then…

The people who should be angriest about such defences are those the defendants are by association smearing as not sophisticated enough to grasp the fact that in Australia you can’t go around raping women. IE other Muslims. Because that’s who the “I couldn’t help it – I’m a Muslim – It’s who I am – It’s what I do” defence for rape hurts most.

sdog

12 Apr 12 at 10:10 pm
Get ye to a nunnery, gab.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 10:10 pm
IE other Muslims.

Quite right, Spot, in what you say. Very sad that Muslims in this country do not speak out against these matters. Why is that?

Gab

12 Apr 12 at 10:14 pm
Get ye to a nunnery, gab.

Like you’re imaginary lesbian friend in South America, Pete?

I never once commented on your Locke meanderings and exchanges, with Dover…

Neither did I.

I did privately note that Dover was toying with POP like a cat kicking around a cotton ball. I wasn’t aware of a ‘paper’ being written. I didn’t know Peter was a mature age student. But it doesn’t surprise me. They’re always amateurish but zealous – a dangerous combination.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 10:23 pm
the world is not bountiful forever

Of course it is, that’s why it’s still here. What a fuckwit..

Lazlo

12 Apr 12 at 10:28 pm
I knew it wasn’t true that Darwin was a theist and said so, but I obviously couldn’t counter the “Page 92″, which duly got a cheer from the touchline. I’ve since had a chance to look it up and, as expected, it refers to the way Darwin felt earlier in his life, not his maturity when he said he preferred to call himself ‘agnostic’ because the people “are not yet ripe for atheism”.

Dawkins didn’t “know” it wasn’t true at all. And he didn’t “know” that Darwin was an atheist calling himself an agnostic for social reasons.

Darwin to John Fordyce:

Down Beckenham | Kent

May 7th 1879

Dear Sir

It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist & an evolutionist.— You are right about Kingsley. Asa Gray, the eminent botanist, is another case in point— What my own views may be is a question of no consequence to any one except myself.— But as you ask, I may state that my judgment often fluctuates. Moreover whether a man deserves to be called a theist depends on the definition of the term: which is much too large a subject for a note. In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.— I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.

Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin

Note the opening sentence also. It is the mainstream Catholic position.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 10:37 pm
Andrew Leigh is on the Drum doing a vigorous defence of how magnificent a place Canberra is to live.

Actually, I do quite like the place myself. Except in winter.

steve from brisbane

12 Apr 12 at 10:38 pm
CL: So you think your quote, which ends with Darwin saying “I am best described as I grow older an agnostic” somehow supports Pell’s misrepresentation from his autobiography that he was a theist?

steve from brisbane

12 Apr 12 at 10:44 pm
It certainly confounds Dawkins’ claim:

not his maturity when he said he preferred to call himself ‘agnostic’ because the people “are not yet ripe for atheism”.

And the middle sections of Darwin’s note are also instructive.

dover_beach

12 Apr 12 at 10:59 pm
Andrew Leigh is on the Drum doing a vigorous defence of how magnificent a place Canberra is to live.

Actually, I do quite like the place myself. Except in winter.

It’s not magnificent it’s awful, the people are deeply anti-social there’s not a shred of community and the suffocating list of rules one must live by there is now topped by plastic bags being banned. The taxes are crippling, the sneering elitism of the inner northside technocrats towards the actual productive members of the community is bordering on sick, and the place as of the last five years, looks like an absolute run down dump where they don’t even bother mowing the roadside grass anymore, almost every suburb has at least one school boarded up and fenced off, there’s graffiti everywhere, etc.

For one of the wealthiest city’s in Australia it currently looks worse than the most run down rural town.

But I do agree, you would like it.

twostix

12 Apr 12 at 11:06 pm
CL: So you think your quote, which ends with Darwin saying “I am best described as I grow older an agnostic” somehow supports Pell’s misrepresentation from his autobiography that he was a theist?

Dawkins was all over the place on that. He appeared to be referencing a famous quote by Bertie Russell and should have stuck to that. Basically: logically one must be agnostic but practically one is an atheist. Which is how the vast majority of people live. Perhaps he didn’t have that quote in mind but it sure sounded like it. Pell’s early comment about the limitations of science, that clearly was a paraphrasing of a famous Wittgenstein quote.

Dawkins has a point about the word atheism: it has been demonised. Of course people are not right for atheism, they live in a culture that from the very outset of their lives insists there must be some ultimate meaning to life. If there is we don’t know what it is so get over it.

I follow Russell’s idea. I have no idea why people think that just because science can’t explain X therefore somehow religion can fill that gap. The problem for modern religion is that the gaps are getting smaller. The problem for science is that new gaps keep appearing.

John H.

12 Apr 12 at 11:17 pm
Note the opening sentence also. It is the mainstream Catholic position.

OMG. And there you go. Off again, without missing a beat, completely oblivious. Dude, your mainstream position is rubber-free, fingers-to-toes, screaming out to god “Ricky! Andrew!” And loving it.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 11:18 pm
now topped by plastic bags being banned.

Suffocating the sheep are they?

Lazlo

12 Apr 12 at 11:19 pm
Hey Stix

So let me guess where Andy lives?

He’s always pushing how much he just loves Canberra. Fuck, Andy, who gives a shit, seriously.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 11:31 pm
Basically: logically one must be agnostic but practically one is an atheist.

I don’t think this follows at all. Scientists engage in an activity that presupposes orderliness in the universe; otherwise, the entire enterprise of discovery would be self-defeating. Nevertheless, the reasons for this orderliness never need entire the mind of those engaged in such an enterprise. Thus we can say that scientists, practically, can be agnostic, but that logically they must be theists, or at the very least deists.

I follow Russell’s idea. I have no idea why people think that just because science can’t explain X therefore somehow religion can fill that gap. The problem for modern religion is that the gaps are getting smaller.

I don’t think this follows either. The questions that religion principally seeks to answer are not empirical questions. Aquinas’s Five Ways, for instance, are unaffected by empirical findings because they are metaphysical arguments that begin with premises that are themselves presupposed in all empirical investigations. Thus, the only way to defeat them is to demonstrate that the conclusion doesn’t follow from the initial premise (which is Hume’s strategy in part).

dover_beach

12 Apr 12 at 11:32 pm
Re Canberra: Well, I haven’t been there for a long time, I admit. But 20 years ago, I liked it.

I am thinking of going there for a holiday at Christmas.

steve from brisbane

12 Apr 12 at 11:35 pm
But 20 years ago, I liked it.

I am thinking of going there for a holiday at Christmas.

Of course.

JC

12 Apr 12 at 11:36 pm
Thus we can say that scientists, practically, can be agnostic, but that logically they must be theists, or at the very least deists.

Why do people assume that if there is no God there can be no order? What is the logical reason that demands if there is no god there is no order?

Anything that is unaffected by empirical findings is suspect. I prefer to deal with reality not logic.

John H.

12 Apr 12 at 11:39 pm
Peter at 11:18pm: as much as I can enjoy watching people attack CL, you’re starting to make as little sense as you did for 48 hours of that weekend in which you partook of some illicit substances.

steve from brisbane

12 Apr 12 at 11:41 pm
And you are another Brisbane Roman Catholic. Comprehending ‘sense’ is not really your people’s thing.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 11:44 pm
You people really are quite viral.

Peter Patton

12 Apr 12 at 11:46 pm
Peter, as I said – you’re an embittered homosexual who blames the Catholic Church for something.

We get it. Just as we did when you posted here and elsewhere under your former moniker.

I don’t blame you for it because you’ve given enough about yourself away for me to know that the 1980s were your hey-day. The homophobia trick, Springsteen, militant hatred of teh Catholics, the boasting about drug use (yawn) etc.

We all feel sorry for you and hope that your experience as a mature age hobby student will be an uplifting one.

Go for it, buddy. Get that course-work MA.

That’ll help.

C.L.

12 Apr 12 at 11:48 pm
“Why do people assume that if there is no God there can be no order? What is the logical reason that demands if there is no god there is no order?”

Well said.

Jarrah

12 Apr 12 at 11:50 pm
You’ve got balls Peter. You may have noticed I prefer to avoid the types of discussions of today, perhaps odd given I’ve just read a book on human evolution and the evolution of god. I prefer, as you earlier stated, to be banging my head against the world than other peoples’ ideas about it. Still, would be interested in that paper of yours, though it seems to me Locke was getting tied up in knots because he was dealing with ambiguous concepts.

The knives are now out for you. They want your balls served up on rice. Don’t let them force you away. You are about the only person here who thinks like me. BTW: Springsteen pisses over AC\DC. By any fucking measure. More variety, great lyrics, great band.

John H.

12 Apr 12 at 11:54 pm
James Pethokoukis:
Obama’s inequality argument just utterly collapsed

President Barack Obama has a theory of the case, yes he does. For the past 30 years, the living standards of middle-class Americans have gone nowhere even as the overall U.S. economy has grown markedly. The Obama explanation: Wealthier Americans grabbed all the money. Time to raise their taxes for the sake of “fairness.”……..

Underlying Obama’s entire thesis is the work of two economists, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. According to them, median American incomes rose just 3.2% from 1979 through 2007. (All figures are inflation adjusted……

But it’s just not true, according to a new study in National Tax Journal from researchers at Cornell University. (Here’s an earlier, working-paper version.) The academics, led by economist Richard Burkhauser, don’t say the findings of Piketty and Saez are wrong — just incredibly, massively incomplete. According to the Cornell study, median household income – properly measured – rose 36.7%, not 3.2% like Piketty and Saez argue.

JamesK

13 Apr 12 at 12:00 am
CL: So you think your quote, which ends with Darwin saying “I am best described as I grow older an agnostic” somehow supports Pell’s misrepresentation from his autobiography that he was a theist?

Beclowned ‘something from nothing’ doofus, Dawkins, posited a definitiveness regarding Darwin’s beliefs that is totally wrong.

I knew it wasn’t true that Darwin was a theist and said so, but I obviously couldn’t counter the “Page 92″, which duly got a cheer from the touchline. I’ve since had a chance to look it up and, as expected, it refers to the way Darwin felt earlier in his life, not his maturity when he said he preferred to call himself ‘agnostic’ because the people “are not yet ripe for atheism”.

Three years from his death Darwin affirmed without equivocation that he had never ruled out God’s existence – not even in the “extreme” phases of his contemplations; that his view on God “fluctuates” (present tense); that the description “theist” was too complex for him to use descriptively (hinting that it might be accurate under particular definitional circumstances; finally, he accepts “agnostic” almost reluctantly as the best fit.

Darwin also endorsed the Catholic view of evolution vis-a-vis theism.

It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist & an evolutionist.—

This is tragic for the Atheist Taliban. One of their most cherished objectives is to drive a wedge between evolution and theism; indeed, between science and theism.

Darwin would regard them as “absurd.”

Clowns, in other words.

C.L.

13 Apr 12 at 12:02 am
Uncle George makes a prediction.

I tend to think he’s right. The breakup will basically be a big yawn to the markets when it does happen in a few years.

Soros argues that “at the onset of the crisis, the eurozone’s break-up was inconceivable” because all of the countries finances were so deeply intermingled.

But thanks to the LTRO and the countries distaste for international bonds, Soros think that within “a few more years, a eurozone break-up would become possible without a meltdown – but would leave creditor countries’ central banks holding big claims that would be hard to enforce against debtor countries’ central banks.”

JC

13 Apr 12 at 12:03 am
Peter: I often can’t quite make head nor tail of where you stand on matters – you do tend to rant a bit, and I tend to lose interest before I get to the end of many comments.

But you’ve always been relatively polite to me, and from what I can gather, your psycho-sexual history is a tad complicated and potentially an interesting story, as far as such things can be.

And you know I have serious problems with CL as an advertisement for the Catholic Church.

But I just want people’s attacks on him to be well developed and make sense. I don’t think yours are at the moment.

steve from brisbane

13 Apr 12 at 12:03 am
John, I was born and raised among the rough, but taught the benefits and manners of being smooth. Pushed too hard, I’ll come out swinging. The one constant has been that if god exists, he gave us reason to fight bogans. When pushed, I will always trust in god. All I can do is pray my manners keep up. But when bone-bogan push comes to shove, don’t expect any hospitality.

These particular bogans need taking down with extreme prejudice. In the name of liberalism if anything.

Peter Patton

13 Apr 12 at 12:04 am
George F. Will, Wa-Po: Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs?

Amelioration of today’s drug problem requires Americans to understand the significance of the 80-20 ratio. Twenty percent of American drinkers consume 80 percent of the alcohol sold here. The same 80-20 split obtains among users of illicit drugs.

About 3 million people — less than 1 percent of America’s population — consume 80 percent of illegal hard drugs. Drug-trafficking organizations can be most efficiently injured by changing the behavior of the 20 percent of heavy users, and we are learning how to do so. Reducing consumption by the 80 percent of casual users will not substantially reduce the northward flow of drugs or the southward flow of money.

JamesK

13 Apr 12 at 12:04 am
and from what I can gather, your psycho-

sexual history is a tad complicated and potentially an interesting story,

as far as such things can be.

Of course Stepford.

JC

13 Apr 12 at 12:05 am
steve

That post makes me feel silly, for barking out you like that. I’m sorry, you were collateral damage. I hope you’ll forgive me.

Peter Patton

13 Apr 12 at 12:06 am
The knives are now out for you. They want your balls served up on rice. Don’t let them force you away.

Oh please.

Show some balls yourself, John.

Patton has been abusing and baiting people with filth and lunacy for two weeks.

This is not OK just because his antiquated atheism appeals to you.

C.L.

13 Apr 12 at 12:07 am
And you know I have serious problems with CL as an advertisement for the Catholic Church.

Of course you do because I’m a believing Catholic and you’re not. For example, you support abortion and militantly insist on state control of Catholic institutions.

C.L.

13 Apr 12 at 12:11 am
Don’t let them force you away.

Who is forcing Peter away? If he chooses to leave, that’s his decision. But nobody is telling him to go.

Gab

13 Apr 12 at 12:14 am
IN 2010, residents of a town on the Hudson River heard the moving story of a young woman stricken with terminal cancer whose only wish was that she might wed the love of her life in the few short months that remained.

Jewellers and a wedding photographer donated their services and the tearful staff of a bridal shop made her wedding dress free of charge, in double time, so that Jessica Vega could walk down the aisle while she still had the strength. A hairdresser volunteered to do hair and make-up for the bride and seven bridesmaids.

She lied.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/dying-bride-jessica-vega-betrayed-groom-community/story-fnb64oi6-1226325218338

JC

13 Apr 12 at 12:15 am
Oh, and Steve, I have no doubt I rant, blah, blah, blah. But please, give me the benefit of the doubt when you don’t quite follow this or that particular rant. On this occasion, the rant is rational, and for the love of god.

Peter Patton

13 Apr 12 at 12:19 am
Fucme I just noticed liar-stevefb™’s last is the comment of a sicko and Peter Patton doesn’t realise that he’s been demeaned by an nasty fool.

And the condescension in addition.

Peter is lately utterly deranged but the last thing a grown man with problems needs is liar-stevefb™’s insights his alleged ‘complicated’ ‘psycho-sexual history’

JamesK

13 Apr 12 at 12:25 am
On this occasion, the rant is rational, and for the love of god.

No, it’s neither of those things.

C.L.

13 Apr 12 at 12:27 am
James, sometimes I can’t help that I was brainwashed as a child to be well mannered. Sigh.

Peter Patton

13 Apr 12 at 12:28 am
I trust the ‘psycho-sexual’ probs are at least interesting Peter.

JamesK

13 Apr 12 at 12:36 am
Why do people assume that if there is no God there can be no order? What is the logical reason that demands if there is no god there is no order?

It isn’t an assumption, it’s a conclusion. As I said, so far as the scientific enterprise is concerned, having assumed that nature is orderly, assumed in the sense of merely accepting it as a brute fact that itself doesn’t call for some explanation so far as the enterprise itself is concerned, the business of discovery can get underway. But let’s not pretend that some explanation isn’t called for elsewhere merely because some don’t like what the conclusion points to.

Anything that is unaffected by empirical findings is suspect.

That would be a category mistake; 2+2=4, unaffected by any possible empirical finding. Aquinas’s First Way begins with a unremarkable premises, “whatever is moved must be moved by another”, which leads from there to a First Mover, something which itself is not moved by yet can move others, which he calls God. Now, the only way to defeat this proof is by demonstrating a flaw in its logic. There is no other way. Well, apart from demonstrating that the first premise is wrong, but having done so, you would have undermined a fundamental presupposition of science.

I prefer to deal with reality not logic.

So when you deal with reality you avoid logic? Please.

dover_beach

13 Apr 12 at 12:37 am
Karl Rove and company are losing the argument over inequality

One of Wa-Po’s resident poltical writers thinks the GOP are losing Obam’s inequality argument as they have called for Buffet to pay higher taxes voluntarily.

Apparently he’s outraged that Republicans would suggest it but his explanation is bizarre:

This latest move is about nothing more than muddying the waters, pure and simple. The silly implication that there’s something hypocritical about calling for higher taxes on the wealthy when you are wealthy yourself and could just write a check if you really wanted to is about nothing more than sowing confusion about who is really looking out for whose interests.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this type of muddying effort on the topic of inequality.

JamesK

13 Apr 12 at 12:51 am
Karl Rove is not running for office, dipstick.

JC

13 Apr 12 at 12:53 am
He’s a total fucking embarrassment.

NO JOKING: Biden Hails Al Franken as ‘Leading Legal Scholar’…

JC

13 Apr 12 at 1:05 am
Douchebag alert.

Obama on Why Michelle Was a Working Mom (at $316K Per Year): ‘We Didn’t Have the Luxury for Her Not to Work’

The dickhead had a Harvard law degree. That puts you in the top 1 to 2% income earners in 3 to 5 years in the US.

Lord he’s a transparently dishonest prick.

JC

13 Apr 12 at 1:09 am
James

I trust the ‘psycho-sexual’ probs are at least interesting Peter.

I fuck. Oh boy, do I fuck. If it makes you feel icky, tough titties. I’m here to talk about how politics, economics, philosophy, and stuff, if YOU wanna talk about fucking, then have the integrity to tell us all how you take it. Kapiche?

Peter Patton

13 Apr 12 at 1:12 am
<But let’s not pretend that some explanation isn’t called for elsewhere merely because some don’t like what the conclusion points to.

You made the claim that the assumption of God is called for. You have no warrant to insert God as an explanation, you only have the question. The claim that scientists must at least be deists is ridiculous. You made the error in logic, not me.

So when you deal with reality you avoid logic? Please.

Where has all our progress come from? Just thinking? No, when we butt our thinking against reality, that’s when we started to make real progress in treating disease etc. If you think you can think yourself to understanding you are dreaming.

Logic arises from investigating reality.

John H.

13 Apr 12 at 1:12 am
James K

Just answer this question: Are you a Roman Catholic?

Peter Patton

13 Apr 12 at 1:16 am
James, sometimes I can’t help that I was brainwashed as a child to be well mannered. Sigh.

This isn’t demonstrably true either.

For about two weeks you’ve been deliberately trying to psychically wound any reader devoted to Christianity. I haven’t really taken the bait because I just concluded that you were desperate for attention and behaving like an imbecile again. I intervened only because of the militance with which you denied your hatred of the Catholic Church. This denial is a lie. I thought I’d draw you out further and give you enough rope to demonstrate the truth of Gab’s comments.

Mission accomplished

Now I don’t care if anyone hates the Catholic Church. Indeed, give me an Ian Paisley over a Steve from Brisbane any day of the week. I respect the Orangeman for his honesty. What I can’t stand is somebody like you, Peter – vomiting forth enough hatred to satisfy your lust for phony progressivism but not courageous enough to wear the label of uncomplicated anti-Catholic fanatic. Perhaps you stop short of travelling that whole nine yards because you know that too conspicuous a hatred in this respect places you in the same camp as the Know-Nothings and the luvvies with whom you pretend to be at odds. You want to have your cake and eat it too. We can’t allow that in debate without calling you out for duplicity and intellectual limp-wristedness, sorry.

C.L.

13 Apr 12 at 1:18 am
People, we need a census here to identify the vermin.

Peter Patton

13 Apr 12 at 1:20 am
Obama on Why Michelle Was a Working Mom (at $316K Per Year): ‘We Didn’t Have the Luxury for Her Not to Work’

‘Because I was a deadbeat.’

C.L.

13 Apr 12 at 1:20 am
“Now, the only way to defeat this proof is by demonstrating a flaw in its logic. ”

Its logic defeats itself – “whatever is moved must be moved by another”. Except, apparently, God. So very logical.

Jarrah

13 Apr 12 at 1:21 am
A US trader’s explanation of the recent rally.

FAZ is an instrument you can buy expressing a bearish (negative view on banks). When it goes up it means the banks are copping a hiding. The reverse when it goes down.

A FAZmobile was seen zipping down the street. Inside of it was a bearshitter, clad in a burlap hoodie and florescent orange velcro pants. This FAZmobile I speak of traveled at frightening speeds. Onlookers cowered as it “zipped” by.

Back on Wall Street, Benjamin Bernanke was fireside, smoking a blunt filled with Moroccan hashish, mumbling to himself “I’m gonna get those bitches.”

The FAZmobile headed towards Wall. The occupant fancied he’d crash his mobile into the building where Benjamin Bernanke resided, with designs of destroying The Bearded Clam and his army of printing presses.

As the FAZmobile approached, Ben stepped outside, gazing at the insanity on wheels that was the FAZmobile. From the skies a large object appeared. It descended upon Wall Street with such force, the ground trembled, tipping the FAZmobile over on its back.

Benjamin entered this object, which happened to be The Federal Reserve helicopter, flicking his blunt down below at the FAZmobile, which was paralyzed and stupid, drenched in its own gasoline. As the flames plumed into the NYC skyline, Ben smiled and said “I got you bitch.”

JC

13 Apr 12 at 1:45 am
Another 64 illegal immigrants killed by Rudd/Gillard government negligence.

INDONESIAN water police were last night searching waters off Sumbawa Island for about 60 asylum-seekers, including seven children, whose Australia-bound boat is believed to have capsized in rough seas.

Last night, more than seven hours after water police headquarters in Jakarta was notified of the incident, rescuers had not located the boat or passengers.

Labor got over 1,000 people killed because they hate John Howard. What a bunch of sick weirdos they are.

Fisky

13 Apr 12 at 3:04 am
Look, you’ve been on an anti-Catholic binge for two weeks now. Gab has crushed you and everyone else is politely ignoring you (as they might Matthew Newton at a wine bar). You need to take a break.

I’m a stalwart atheist, Peter, and I must admit I thought your shit at Easter was in poor taste.

I’m sure you’ll redeem yourself, but on this occasion it appears that CL has handed you your arse. Fuck off and have a Chablis and a piggy back ride in the nude with your catamite. Then come back refreshed and contribute at your full capacity.

John H’s mawkish identification with you is one of his weirdest tangents, but he admits to having indulged in mind altering substances and probably has sniffed too much lead in the lab.

Abu Chowdah

13 Apr 12 at 5:48 am
Okay. Watching Zimmerman’s bond hearing (stills from video at link), I’m lookin’ for the big huge racist white dude what beat down little tiny child Trayvon.

Anyone see a big huge racist white dude there?

Anyone?

Buehler?

sdog

13 Apr 12 at 7:37 am
Why does big black dude Mike Tyson hate little short-ass Hispanic democrats so?

It’s a disgrace that man hasn’t been dragged out of his house and tied to a car and taken away. That’s the only kind of retribution that people like that understand. It’s a disgrace that man hasn’t been shot yet. Forget about him being arrested–the fact that he hasn’t been shot yet is a disgrace. That’s how I feel personally about it.

Well. Thanks for sharing, Mike.

sdog

13 Apr 12 at 7:42 am
P.S. If anyone ever wants to steal any of my links for posting over at Bolt’s, go for it. I’m banned or sumfin’, haven’t been able to get a comment up since last year.

sdog

13 Apr 12 at 7:46 am
I’m banned or sumfin’, haven’t been able to get a comment up since last year.

I’ve posted a comment there this morning about how toxic victorian politics is. It’s rather strongly worded, but quite (so) civil.

As I appear to have been semi-unbanned of late, I’ll be interested to see if it makes the cut.

Rabz

13 Apr 12 at 8:42 am
Why bother with Bolt?

Abu Chowdah

13 Apr 12 at 8:43 am
Why bother with Bolt?

Because I respect the guy immensely and I’m sick to death of the lobotomised leftist trolls (free range faeces flinging howler monkeys™) assuming they own the place.

Rabz

13 Apr 12 at 8:46 am
John H’s mawkish identification with you is one of his weirdest tangents, but he admits to having indulged in mind altering substances and probably has sniffed too much lead in the lab.

Oh I see, don’t criticize the Church but suggest people are brain damaged. That’s just great Abu. Just what is in poor taste Abu? On this forum greens, unions, lefties are constantly attacked as being evil, stupid, dangerous. As for climate scientists, they are all in a huge cabal to con us into socialism. FFS where do you people get this crap from? Why not just come right out and say all those groups are sub-human and must be treated with complete contempt? This forum is replete with intolerance of differing views.

John H.

13 Apr 12 at 8:50 am
After sending his attack dogs after Anne Romney back fired, the Sun King demands Romney play fair when it comes to the candidate’s spouses

Obama: Spouses should be left alone

Token

13 Apr 12 at 8:55 am
Because I respect the guy immensely and I’m sick to death of the lobotomised leftist trolls (free range faeces flinging howler monkeys™) assuming they own the place.

I respect the guy too, but in response to Mordy he left the lefty lawyers take over moderation of his site.

I’m glad you are investing your time going there, we know you will fly the flag for us Rabz!

Token

13 Apr 12 at 8:57 am
This forum is replete with intolerance of differing views.

Which is why we love it so…

Rabz

13 Apr 12 at 8:58 am
Another 64 illegal immigrants killed by Rudd/Gillard government negligence.

Who has David Marr blames this one on? The navy again? Obviously Abbott?

It is macabre how the man never lets a tragedy of people dying go to waste.

Token

13 Apr 12 at 8:59 am
Cardinal Pell seems also to have made common cause with Mel Gibson in his comments that no nation had suffered more than the Germans and that the Jews of Biblical times were uncivilised shepherds.

Samson Agonistes

13 Apr 12 at 9:00 am
I’m glad you are investing your time going there

Thanks Tokes, usually I only ‘read it for the articles’, but if I feel strongly enough about something I’ll post a reply – usually not too long.

My hit rate of late is up to about three out of four. Today’s comment will be an interesting test.

Rabz

13 Apr 12 at 9:00 am
John, I just think it is weak to attack the church when there are more deserving targets in terms of religious fanaticism that does real harm to freedoms. The church is like an opossum. A soft target.

Abu Chowdah

13 Apr 12 at 9:02 am
Besides, only a Simon pure fool would question my courage and commitment to atheism in the cause of intellectual freedom. But I guess I’m tooled up for more challenging combat than flipping the bird to harmless Christians on Easter sunday, who won’t fight back.

Abu Chowdah

13 Apr 12 at 9:05 am
Climate change? For fuck’s sake, you’re smarter than that intellectual dead end. Surely?

Abu Chowdah

13 Apr 12 at 9:06 am
Samson Agonistes! Bob Ellis awake at this hour. My excuse is I am in London. Yours is likely two and a half bottles of cheap Shiraz. Keeps you awake, doesn’t it, you olde goat.

Abu Chowdah

13 Apr 12 at 9:08 am
Yes, Pell’s quip about the Germans was weird and a hit a very strange note.

I expect d-b or CL, as professional Pell apologists, to explain.

I haven’t expressed an opinion on the whole debate: I thought neither of them did particularly well, and neither of them presented as particularly likeable.

steve from brisbane

13 Apr 12 at 9:11 am
AFTER spending $370,000 on a controversial study for the Anzac centenary, the Federal Government has blown another $150,260 on a secret investigation to explain what the first report meant.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/half_a_million_to_tell_us_what_our_own_eyes_see_on_anzac_day/

Gab

13 Apr 12 at 9:15 am
I’m surprised it took this long for the papers to run the hatchet job on Pell re: the Jewish comments – which Tony tried to twist out of context immediately on the night.

Fleeced

13 Apr 12 at 9:16 am
You made the claim that the assumption of God is called for. You have no warrant to insert God as an explanation, you only have the question.

That does not make sense. I never made the assumption that god is called for; the argument begins with a premise that is itself presupposed in science, namely, “whatever is moved must be moved by another”. None of Aquinas’s Five proofs assumes God at the outset at all; they are, however, the conclusion that follows from the premise.

The claim that scientists must at least be deists is ridiculous. You made the error in logic, not me.

There is no error in logic, or at least you haven’t shown any. Given the fact that scientists presuppose that causes are more than “loose and separate”, they logically, it seems, must be at the very least deists, though practically they can be agnostics.

Where has all our progress come from? Just thinking? No, when we butt our thinking against reality, that’s when we started to make real progress in treating disease etc. If you think you can think yourself to understanding you are dreaming.

Ah, caricature is not argument. I wasn’t arguing that progress has come from just thinking; your the one that suggested a preference for “reality” as opposed to logic.

dover_beach

13 Apr 12 at 9:18 am
John, I just bought Ibn Warraq’s latest book here at Foyle’s. You should try it and graduate from chucking brown eyes at defenseless nuns, to king hitting Imams.

Abu Chowdah

13 Apr 12 at 9:25 am
Its logic defeats itself – “whatever is moved must be moved by another”. Except, apparently, God. So very logical.

Jarrah, do you ever actually move beyond or critically consider stock objections? No? I thought not. The logic doesn’t defeat itself at all. It actually requires, logically speaking, that there be a first mover, that is itself unmoved. Being unmoved, it need not be moved by another. See, it doesn’t confound the original premise at all. Try again.

dover_beach

13 Apr 12 at 9:27 am
I expect d-b or CL, as professional Pell apologists, to explain.

Apologist? Booster would be more accurate. I can’t recall any apologizing.

dover_beach

13 Apr 12 at 9:35 am
John, I just think it is weak to attack the church when there are more deserving targets in terms of religious fanaticism that does real harm to freedoms. The church is like an opossum. A soft target.

Fair enough Abu. I think it is weak to assert that people are brain damaged or stupid or evil just because they hold differing views. It is worse than weak it is a dangerous attitude that promotes intolerance and demonisation of others. It is legitimate to attack any belief system, it is a dangerous hubris to portray believers of that belief system as mentally deranged.

Obviously a number of people here are more than willing to demonise others. So I’ll just piss off and discuss religion and science on a forum where that doesn’t happen. In fact I am currently involved in one such discussion. Time for me to stay away from this place for a while. I’ve had enough of the bullshit.

John H.

13 Apr 12 at 9:38 am
Why not just come right out and say all those groups are sub-human and must be treated with complete contempt?

I’ve been saying this for years!

Infidel Tiger

13 Apr 12 at 9:47 am
Were you in a seminary once, d-b? You certainly read that way.

steve from brisbane

13 Apr 12 at 9:50 am
Were you in a seminary once, d-b? You certainly read that way.

LOL. I was an atheist in my late teens and early to mid-late-twenties, sfb, but never of the village variety. That is, I was critical of religion and of Christianity in particular but also genuinely interested in both, thanks in part to the example of the late philosopher, Walter Kaufmann. However, I’ve slowly but surely been returning to Catholicism over the last decade. So, no, not a seminary in sight; sorry to disappoint you.

dover_beach

13 Apr 12 at 10:01 am
Cardinal Pell seems also to have made common cause with Mel Gibson in his comments that no nation had suffered more than the Germans and that the Jews of Biblical times were uncivilised shepherds.

LOL.

I love it when lefties pretend to be pro-Jew. They’re usually insisting that the Jews were nothing special, historically – especially vis-a-vis non-Jewish semites.

Let’s go to the transcript and see how Tony Jones was agog that God would choose the crummy old Jews:

TONY JONES: George Pell, can I just come back to you on this question of the existence of God. Why would God randomly decide to provide proof of his existence to a small group of Jews 2,000 years ago and not subsequently provide any proof after that?

GEORGE PELL: Well, I don’t think there’s ever been any scientific proof. I don’t believe God does anything randomly, although he might set up he might set up a system which works, apparently through, you know, through chance, through random but if you want something done, you’ve got to ask somebody. It’s no good, say, my asking everyone in the congregation will you would do something. Normally you go to a busy person because you know they’ll do it and so for some extraordinary reason God chose the Jews. They weren’t intellectually the equal of either the Egyptians or the…

TONY JONES: Intellectually?

GEORGE PELL: Intellectually, morally…

TONY JONES: How can you know intellectually?

GEORGE PELL: Because you see the fruits of their civilisation. Egypt was the great power for thousands of years before Christianity. Persia was a great power, Caldia. The poor – the little Jewish people, they were originally shepherds. They were stuck. They’re still stuck between these great powers.

TONY JONES: But that’s not a reflection of your intellectual capacity, is it, whether or not you’re a shepherd?

GEORGE PELL: Well, no it’s not but it is a recognition it is a reflection of your intellectual development, be it like many, many people are very, very clever and not highly intellectual but my point is…

TONY JONES: I’m sorry, can I just interrupt? Are you including Jesus in that, who was obviously Jewish and was of that community?

GEORGE PELL: Exactly.

TONY JONES: So intellectually not up to it?

GEORGE PELL: Well, that’s a nice try, Tony. The people, in terms of sophistication, the psalms are remarkable in terms of their buildings and that sort of thing. They don’t compare with the great powers. But Jesus came not as a philosopher to the elite. He came to the poor and the battlers and for some reason he choose a very difficult but actually they are now an intellectually elite because over the centuries they have been pushed out of every other form of work. They’re a – I mean Jesus, I think, is the greatest the son of God but, leaving that aside, the greatest man that ever live so I’ve got a great admiration for the Jews but we don’t need to exaggerate their contribution in their early days.

TONY JONES: All right. You’re watching Q&A…

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3469101.htm

Everything Pell said is historically true and theologically standard.

C.L.

13 Apr 12 at 10:09 am
So, you are in the large and oddball collection of Catallaxy commenters who don’t go to Church, Catholic or Christian, but spend a lot of time defending the Catholic Church and its most rejected teaching by its actually practicing laity (contraception) as if it matters to you.

As well as running often to the defence of the most frequently dishonest actual Catholic participant here.

All very odd, this blog. Very, very odd.

steve from brisbane

13 Apr 12 at 10:13 am
Oh, Thomas Nagel’s <a href="Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False looks interesting:

The modern materialist approach to life has utterly failed to explain such central features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, or value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology….He does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic.

Aristotle and teleology return, although it is arguable he and it never left.

dover_beach

13 Apr 12 at 10:16 am
The worst government in the contemporary history of the Anglophone world:

AFTER spending $370,000 on a controversial study for the Anzac centenary, the Federal Government has blown another $150,260 on a secret investigation to explain what the first report meant.

C.L.

13 Apr 12 at 10:19 am
“It actually requires, logically speaking, that there be a first mover, that is itself unmoved.”

Yes. That’s why it defeats itself. Aquinas assumes there is no infinity, but has to substitute an infinite god to make that assumption work. And I see no logic in saying whatever is moved, must be moved by another… until one isn’t.

There’s no need to go beyond ‘stock’ refutations (whatever that means in this context, presumably ‘simple’) when the errors are so simple.

Jarrah

13 Apr 12 at 10:20 am
So, you are in the large and oddball collection of Catallaxy commenters who don’t go to Church, Catholic or Christian,…

Where do I say I don’t go to Church? Very odd.

dover_beach

13 Apr 12 at 10:21 am
Rabz, with all due respect, it’s up to Bolt to retake his blog. He was warned over two years ago that his blog was under attack, and he chose to do nothing substantial about it. Now it’s an open sewer.
When anyone who isn’t banned comes back here and says it’s been cleaned out, then I’ll return.

Winston SMITH

13 Apr 12 at 10:23 am
Bill “Holy Billy” Shorten: ‘Hey, you know what? That FWA investigation sure did take a long time and something seems amiss.’

THE Federal Government has flagged a review of the way Fair Work Australia investigates corruption allegations against trade union officials.

The workplace relations watchdog is under fire for taking more than three years to investigate complaints about the Health Services Union (HSU).

An 1100-page report of its investigation, which recommends criminal action against unnamed HSU officials, is in legal limbo as Fair Work Australia delays its public release.

Federal Labor MP Craig Thomson, a former national secretary of the HSU, is understood to be one of the people named in the report.

Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten has described the delays as unacceptable.

So Abbott won.

C.L.

13 Apr 12 at 10:23 am
“This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem”

Sure.

“threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture”

No.

Jarrah

13 Apr 12 at 10:23 am
its most rejected teaching

No no. Catholics also reject the teaching about loving one another, social justice, divorce, wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony, mass attendance, preferring a Catholic marriage partner.

But it’s not a democracy.

The good thing about Humanae vitae is that it is increasingly seen as prophetic. Germany is now having to tax young people to pay for too many old people and scientists now say that women on the Pill inadvertently choose beta male mates (which may actually be responsible for undermining relationships).

It will never be jettisoned (not can it be), as Steve’s hero – Benedict XVI – has pointed out.

C.L.

13 Apr 12 at 10:29 am
Peter Coleman reports on some aspects of the toxic culture that is being driven by “progressives” and politically correctness.

Rafe

13 Apr 12 at 10:29 am
Obviously a number of people here are more than willing to demonise others. So I’ll just piss off and discuss religion and science on a forum where that doesn’t happen.

Though I may not comment on your posts John H, I do read with interest your view on religion and history. That book you refer to sounds like great reading to my mind.

If you do want to pound down on religion, as Abu suggests, it would be interesting for the sake of variety to point out the falacies underlying some other religions. The Hindu’s do some kooky things, as do many others.

Token

13 Apr 12 at 10:40 am
I’m surprised it took this long for the papers to run the hatchet job on Pell re: the Jewish comments

Typical NoFax, the headline did not match the content of the article.

Token

13 Apr 12 at 10:41 am
Does anyone know what the date of the next federal election is likely to be? i.e. how much longer do we have to put up with Juliar?

rodclarke

13 Apr 12 at 10:42 am
So, you are in the large and oddball collection of Catallaxy commenters who don’t go to Church, Catholic or Christian, but spend a lot of time defending the Catholic Church and its most rejected teaching by its actually practicing laity (contraception) as if it matters to you.

How’s the view from that glass house of your Steve?

You endlessly preach here on behalf of your AGW false idol. So have you been able to complete a CO2 purging program to get carbon pure?

By your standards you may not comment on your AGW cult until you emit you achieve absolutely 0 carbon emissions.

Token

13 Apr 12 at 10:47 am
scientists now say that women on the Pill inadvertently choose beta male mates

Please explain? Why can’t they just screw a hunky guy and leave him?

.

13 Apr 12 at 10:47 am
After 3 years…

Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten has described the delays as unacceptable.

He has an MBA you know.

Token

13 Apr 12 at 10:49 am
Yes. That’s why it defeats itself. Aquinas assumes there is no infinity,

Actually, Aquinas doesn’t assume that, Jarrah. He, in fact, thinks it possible that antecedent causes may continue to infinity so long as they are per accidens causes (he is famous for distinguishing per accidens causes from per se causes); in other words, he was entirely open to the possibility of a universe without beginning or at least he knew that he could not refute this philosophically. But the First Way is not about per accidens causes but about what sustains the universe here and now and anyone familiar with the argument, criticisms of it, and the replies to those criticisms would know this and yet you persist in opining on his First Way without this background knowledge and thus inadvertently continue to make a fool of yourself.

but has to substitute an infinite god to make that assumption work.

No, he doesn’t. The premise stands without the conclusion, “whatever is moved must be moved by another”. If my coffee cup moves, it must be moved by something, whether my hand, an overly inquisitive cat or dog, an earthquake, whatever; it cannot move without the assistance of another. However, the premise points to something else, namely towards a conclusion not explicitly contained in the premise, and the conclusion itself does not contradict, in the slightest, the original premise, being itself unmoved (Pure Act) it requires no mover (combination of act and potency).

And I see no logic in saying whatever is moved, must be moved by another… until one isn’t.

Whether or not you “see” the logic is neither here nor there. Unless you can point to a failure in logic the conclusion stands.

dover_beach

13 Apr 12 at 11:01 am
“But the First Way is not about per accidens causes but about what sustains the universe here and now”

No, it’s about a first mover. First, as in, before all others. Not here and now.

“the conclusion itself does not contradict, in the slightest, the original premise”

Sure, but it doesn’t follow from the premise. It’s not actually a conclusion at all. It’s an assumption.

Jarrah

13 Apr 12 at 11:34 am
Shorten is just so negative

Tiny Dancer

13 Apr 12 at 11:35 am
“Unless you can point to a failure in logic the conclusion stands.”

Are you serious? He says ‘must’. But then says that only applies up to a certain point, because God (by definition) doesn’t have that ‘must’ apply to it. So it isn’t actually ‘must’, but ‘mostly’ or ‘normally’ (because it has an exception). That turns what should be a logic chain into a paradox. Or a circular argument.

Jarrah

13 Apr 12 at 11:38 am
Bob Brown has resigned his seat in the Senate.

Good riddance.

Gab

13 Apr 12 at 11:41 am
Shorten is just so negative

It’s Abbott’s fault.

JC

13 Apr 12 at 11:41 am
Bob Brown has resigned his seat in the Senate.

Good riddance.

Don’t slam the door on your way out fuckknuckle.

JC

13 Apr 12 at 11:42 am
Bob Brown has resigned his seat in the Senate

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Matt

13 Apr 12 at 11:43 am
See-ya!

C.L.

13 Apr 12 at 11:46 am
I have opened a thread on this.

Sinclair Davidson

13 Apr 12 at 11:48 am
Don’t cheer for too long, their next candidate from the Greek isle of Tasmania could make repugnant Rhiannon look like Hayek.

I’m not at all optimistic about the petulant fuckhead’s resignation because it could mean he’s losing control of the party to the Leninist and Stalinst wings and wants out. In some ways Brown was actually the moderate I reckon.

JC

13 Apr 12 at 11:49 am
No, it’s about a first mover. First, as in, before all others. Not here and now.

Still beclowning yourself, Jarrah. Open up a book on Aquinas’s First Way and acquaint yourself. You continually berate JC for not reading your comments with care and attention and yet here you continue to opine on Aquinas’s First Way without offering him the same courtesy. This might be a start, particularly p. 5.

Sure, but it doesn’t follow from the premise. It’s not actually a conclusion at all. It’s an assumption.

Actually, it does, and no, it isn’t.

dover_beach

13 Apr 12 at 11:52 am
Oliver Hartwich is leaving Australia and the CIS to take up a new position in NZ. His final piece for the CIS with thoughts on Australia

http://www.incise.org.au/2012-04-12/losing-sight-of-the-lucky-country/

jtfsoon

13 Apr 12 at 11:59 am
Australians unjust and stupid, says Dr Keating:

“The government is doing the very thing that we have to do to deal with the mitigation of carbon in the atmosphere,” the former prime minister said yesterday, after receiving an honorary doctorate at Sydney’s Macquarie University.

“You can’t hope to mitigate it unless it’s priced properly. And yet there seems to be no reward in Australia for a conscientious government doing this very tough thing.

“This is both unjust and unwise on the part of the community.”

Paul Keating: moron.

C.L.

13 Apr 12 at 11:59 am
He says ‘must’. But then says that only applies up to a certain point, because God (by definition) doesn’t have that ‘must’ apply to it. So it isn’t actually ‘must’, but ‘mostly’ or ‘normally’ (because it has an exception). That turns what should be a logic chain into a paradox. Or a circular argument.

Dear, oh dear. Less talking and more reading, Jarrah. No, he says that the premise must apply to anything moved, again, “whatever is moved, must be moved by another”. The first mover, logically, must itself be unmoved. So it remains a “must” and never becomes a “mostly” or “normally” at all. The whole point of the demonstration is to show that the first mover (Pure Act) is unlikely all other movers (combinations of act and potency) and that this follows from the premise and related concepts.

dover_beach

13 Apr 12 at 12:10 pm
“This is both unjust and unwise on the part of the community.”

Keating sounds like he’s five minutes away from calling all Earthians to announce the aliens have landed..

Gab

13 Apr 12 at 12:54 pm
Gab

I don’t think Keating believes a word of what he’s saying. He’s gutless to come out and say what he really thinks.

He’s just saying it to keep in good with the party, that’s all.

JC

13 Apr 12 at 12:58 pm
Total Commonwealth Government Securities
on Issue – $239,341m consisting of:
Treasury Bonds – $207,543m
Treasury Indexed Bonds – $15,679m
Treasury Notes – $16,100m
Other Securities – $19m
As at 13 April 2012.

$16 Billion so far this year, and $11 Billion away from the National Credit Card Limit.
Time to start asking Tony if he’s going to let these bastards have an extension.

Winston SMITH

13 Apr 12 at 12:58 pm
Oliver Hartwich writes:

I wonder whether Australians take their good fortune too much for granted. Instead of celebrating the resources boom, Australians only wonder how they can tax it.

How exactly do you “celebrate” a mining boom, I wonder.

Instead of celebrating their multi-ethnic success story, Australians spend a disproportionate time discussing illegal arrivals.

Well, he’s right there.

Instead of appreciating its position close to booming Asia, Australians behave more and more like old Europeans.

Not sure about that one either. We’re eating more Thai food and less schnitzel as the years pass.

steve from brisbane

13 Apr 12 at 1:09 pm
How exactly do you “celebrate” a mining boom, I wonder.

Simple, ramp up the wages and number of taxes to an uneconomic level, then install a government that spends the receipts from the bevy of new taxes before they have been collected…

Hold on…

Token

13 Apr 12 at 1:17 pm
He obviously means something different. Having Gina and Clive over for dinner more often?

steve from brisbane

13 Apr 12 at 1:22 pm
““whatever is moved, must be moved by another”. The first mover, logically, must itself be unmoved”

Those two contradict each other. There’s nothing ‘logical’ about it. You keep complaining that I’m not understanding Aquinas, but nothing you say shows how that is true. The simple fact is, Aquinas believed in God, and wanted to find a way to ‘prove’ His existence, and so tortured logic into giving the result he wanted, including making baseless assumptions, and trying to disguise assumptions as conclusions.

Jarrah

13 Apr 12 at 1:28 pm
Instead of celebrating their multi-ethnic success story, Australians spend a disproportionate time discussing illegal arrivals.

Well, he’s right there.

No he’s not. He’s a fucking liar and a general moron. Australians have a right to be concerned about issues such as porous borders and the government’s response seeing that it is the government’s prime responsibility to secure our borders and the fact that the Lying slapper said she would prior to the election.

I’ll take it as given that undertaking is shelved right next to ” there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead”.

Tiny Dancer is not harsh enough on you Stepford.

JC

13 Apr 12 at 1:30 pm
““whatever is moved, must be moved by another”. The first mover, logically, must itself be unmoved”

Those two contradict each other.

A first for an Australian blog.

Jazzabelle methodically disproves Thomas Aquinas. The obvious conclusion is that Jazzabelle is a superior thinker to Tom. What a day for Ozblogdom.

JC

13 Apr 12 at 1:33 pm
Pickering on the Thompson situation:

http://lpickering.net/item/ZI7HTREUM7V5OR0K

C.L.

13 Apr 12 at 1:37 pm
This week’s indicted Democrat:

Former Missouri governor admits guilt in campaign contributions case.

Former Missouri Gov. Roger Wilson has pleaded guilty this afternoon in connection with indictments late Wednesday on allegations of laundering campaign contributions to the Missouri Democratic Party through a St. Louis law firm.

C.L.

13 Apr 12 at 1:47 pm
What the hell happened to the Vikings?

http://www.smh.com.au/world/his-hers-hens-swedes-genderneutral-push-gains-ground-20120413-1wxra.html

jtfsoon

13 Apr 12 at 1:49 pm
I think they’ve become a nation of stepfords from Brisbane.

JC

13 Apr 12 at 1:53 pm
there’s also this

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/04/hen_sweden_s_new_gender_neutral_pronoun_causes_controversy_.html

One Swedish school got rid of its toy cars because boys “gender-coded” them and ascribed the cars higher status than other toys. Another preschool removed “free playtime” from its schedule because, as a pedagogue at the school put it, when children play freely “stereotypical gender patterns are born and cemented. In free play there is hierarchy, exclusion, and the seed to bullying.

It’s like an entire country was brainwashed by Larvatus Prodeo

jtfsoon

13 Apr 12 at 1:55 pm
What the hell happened to the Vikings?

They swapped pillage for ready-to-assemble furnishings and eco-friendly designer knick-knacks.

badm0f0

13 Apr 12 at 1:57 pm
Many preschools have hired “gender pedagogues” to help staff identify language and behaviour that risk reinforcing stereotypes, while at the taxpayer-funded Egalia preschool in Stockholm, staff avoid using words such as “him” or “her” and address the 33 children as “friends” rather than girls and boys.

Oh dear. “Him” and “her” are stereotypes?

Gab

13 Apr 12 at 1:57 pm
Bad news for Odumbo

Rasmussen also has them 45 45.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/04/12/fox-news-poll-romney-edges-obama-as-approval-president-drops/

No wonder Odumbo is picking on Romney’s wife.

JC

13 Apr 12 at 2:04 pm
It’s like an entire country was brainwashed by Larvatus Prodeo

Is there any wonder Julian Assange found it so easy to score in Sweden. He is an alpha male when compared to the locals.

Token

13 Apr 12 at 2:10 pm
Alan Dershowitz: Zimmerman Arrest Affidavit “Irresponsible And Unethical”

http://realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/04/12/alan_dershowitz_zimmerman_arrest_affidavit_irresponsible_and_unethical.html

JC

13 Apr 12 at 2:13 pm
This blog badly needs some Swedish influence. Off to the sauna, the lot of you.

steve from brisbane

13 Apr 12 at 2:16 pm
True extent of our weak asylum laws revealed
Ray speaks with an immigration whistleblower and Opposition Immigration Spokesman Scott Morrison

Ray Hadley talks to caller Robert about the new asylym seeker laws that took effect from 23 March.

This has excluded serious crimes as a reason to exclude applicants.

Fascinating listening as we should expect a rush once news gets out overseas how easy the new rules are.

Token

13 Apr 12 at 2:20 pm
Gerard Henderson’s Media Watchdog is on the street, don’t miss Robert Mannne’s ride to Canberra to meet Malcolm.

Rafe

13 Apr 12 at 4:49 pm
Islamic ‘Adult Breastfeeding’ Fatwas Return

* Sheikh Nazim Misbahi, head of the Fatwa Committee of the Islamic Heritage Revival Society in Kuwait, supports the decree, agreeing that “it is not forbidden [haram] for a man to breastfeed from his wife.”

* Sheikh Bassam al-Shatti, a Sharia professor, specifies: “If the husband deliberately sucks to obtain milk from the breast of his wife, this is forbidden; however, if it happens unintentionally during foreplay with his wife, then there is no problem—though it is disliked according to the four schools” of Sharia.

* Sheikh Sa’d al-Anzi stressed that “if the man, while being intimate with his wife, sucks her nipples, it is nothing, considered foreplay; but if the milk reaches his mouth, he should spit out—even if goes down in his stomach,” i.e., vomit.

Consider for a moment the significance of these Islamic edicts: whether women “breastfeeding” coworkers (Egyptian fatwa, 2007), whether men drinking female breast-milk in a cup (Saudi fatwa, 2010), or whether Kuwaiti minutiae concerning bedroom foreplay—all these fatwas are reminders of the inescapable strictures of Sharia law; while these sheikhs offers various circumstances and interpretations concerning “adult breastfeeding,” they are all confined to the words of the prophet of Islam.

This is precisely why, despite all the claims that Islam is perpetually being “misunderstood”—by terrorists, by “Islamophobes”—understanding what Islam commands and forbids is actually quite a simple matter: along with the Koran, determine what the prophet said in canonical hadiths.

It is, after all, no coincidence that the above mentioned Kuwaitis, like Sheikh Misbahi, were members of the delegation that recently went to ask Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti about Islam’s position on churches in the Arabian Peninsula: the same source that compelled the Grand Mufti to declare that all churches must be destroyed, is the same source that advocates “adult breastfeeding”: Muhammad and his teachings. All very straightforward, really.

Gab

13 Apr 12 at 4:59 pm
Gab, the Religion of Peace is very complex.

Token

13 Apr 12 at 5:05 pm
I’m just glad I don’t work in Egypt, Token.

Gab

13 Apr 12 at 5:08 pm
Sweden also passed a law making it an offence to leave the toilet seat up.

Peter Patton

13 Apr 12 at 5:14 pm
Have you read Ask the Imam Gab? It’s a hoot

Tal

13 Apr 12 at 5:16 pm
I hadn’t seen it, Tal. Just had a peek – is it for real? Wow. Just wow.

Gab

13 Apr 12 at 5:25 pm
Gab – you’re doing this to provoke Steve?

Sinclair Davidson

13 Apr 12 at 5:26 pm
I was just amazed at the practices, Sinclair. Can you imagine it? Females having to breastfeed their male colleagues so that they can work together without the female needing to cover her hair?

Provoke Steve? Hadn’t thought of it, but now that you mention it, an added bonus.

Gab

13 Apr 12 at 5:29 pm
Females having to breastfeed their male colleagues so that they can work together without the female needing to cover her hair?

Yeah, I mean, that seems perfectly logical. Why would anyone question it?

John Mc

13 Apr 12 at 5:32 pm
“Jazzabelle”

Considering there is a commenter called Jazza, and a commenter called Anabelle, you’ll probably have to come up with a different schoolyard-bully putdown, you cantankerous syphilitic dullard.

Jarrah

13 Apr 12 at 5:51 pm
Can I imagine being breastfed?

Seriously though I can’t imagine too much of it actually going on. I suspect you’ll find many strange practices and beliefs in most religions that simply get ignored and atrophy over time.

Sinclair Davidson

13 Apr 12 at 5:51 pm
you cantankerous syphilitic dullard.

Nice!

You two need to have a patch up lunch. JC can pay since you are uni student.

Infidel Tiger

13 Apr 12 at 5:54 pm
Seriously though I can’t imagine too much of it actually going on

I suspect you are correct. But I’ll consult “Ask the Imam” site to be certain.

Gab

13 Apr 12 at 5:56 pm
Considering there is a commenter called Jazza, and a commenter called Anabelle, you’ll probably have to come up with a different schoolyard-bully putdown, you cantankerous syphilitic dullard.

Not slightly over the top there? And the answer is no, it won’t be changing, jazzabelle, you lopsided chip on your shoulder moron.

I’m wondering if you have that stuff sorted out where you peddling Cuba’s healthcare was better than US, you dickhead jazzabelle?

I’ve noticed you’re slowly bringing this to a personal level in the sense that you have introduced stuff like what you think is my age as a result of meeting. i suggest you ought to stop it now as you’ll end up losing and just stick to stuff brought up on the blog.

JC

13 Apr 12 at 5:58 pm
Don’t make Joe angry.

Infidel Tiger

13 Apr 12 at 6:09 pm
I never get angry IT. Ever. I escalate until the other side drops out. Jazzabelle has been broken before and turned into the furry little house pet. It can be done again. One more age reference (I really don’t give a shit about) and Jazzabelle will be put back in his proper place.

It’s scientifically proven that lefties never win and generally leave here mentally damaged, some permanently.

JC

13 Apr 12 at 6:15 pm
There is no doubt at all that JC has been OTT cranky the last day or two.

Prune juice, JC. Try prune juice.

steve from brisbane

13 Apr 12 at 6:20 pm
Stepford

I think I’ve been pretty even keel, especially with you. I’ve been just as harsh, condescending and loathing as pretty much all the time.

Jc

13 Apr 12 at 6:26 pm
“One more age reference (I really don’t give a shit about) ”

If you don’t give a shit about it, why are you all het up about it?

So just shut up, old man.

Jarrah

13 Apr 12 at 6:27 pm
Jazzabelle

I’m not in the least het up, as you suggest dickhaed. You were the one that went all nasty out of the blue with that bit of crap about why I shouldn’t call you jazzabelle and then adding that turgid stuff.

Youre a clown at times jazzabelle.

Jc

13 Apr 12 at 6:36 pm
“You were the one that went all nasty out of the blue”

The irony, IT BURNS.

Jarrah

13 Apr 12 at 6:38 pm
Well buy some burn cream then, Jazzabelle.

Look doofus, you start a debate about US healthcare citing some ridiculous stat that the US is 37th in the world after Croatia.

You demonstrate extreme levels of self-absorption bordering on stupid by suggesting to Dover that you have somehow refuted a noted scholar’s comments about matters that can’t be ever proven.

And we never get an apology from you for gross level of stupidity.

You demand not to be called jazzabelle and then suggest you don’t really care if it escalates.

You’re really pathetic.

JC

13 Apr 12 at 6:57 pm
“Sweden also passed a law making it an offence to leave the toilet seat up.”

well that’s just ridulous
but is’a shock to the system to sit down on the toilet without noticing the seat is up and just about fall into the stupid bowl.

candy

13 Apr 12 at 7:12 pm
“is’a shock to the system to sit down on the toilet without noticing the seat is up”

What is it with you women? Do you approach the toilet with your eyes closed or something?

“You’re really pathetic.”

Third-degree irony burns now.

Jarrah

13 Apr 12 at 7:20 pm
Because I respect the guy immensely and I’m sick to death of the lobotomised leftist trolls (free range faeces flinging howler monkeys™) assuming they own the place.

Rabz, they do.

kae

13 Apr 12 at 7:59 pm
kae,

Not any more. The ‘Reconquista‘ has commenced…

Rabz

13 Apr 12 at 8:54 pm
Jarrah!! You women!!!

Tal

13 Apr 12 at 8:56 pm
What is it with you women? Do you approach the toilet with your eyes closed or something?

You need to reverse the argument on women who try this baloney and start complaining that they leave the seat down. You’ll sleep on the couch for a while, but still.

Infidel Tiger

13 Apr 12 at 8:58 pm
I’ve never sat on the bowl is it common?

Tal

13 Apr 12 at 9:06 pm
“I’ve never sat on the bowl is it common?”

it’s in the bowl if you don’t expect it. a cold and swallowing type of weird feeling.

candy

13 Apr 12 at 9:08 pm
it’s in the bowl if you don’t expect it.

Only someone with a very small/taut backside would be likely to experience that feeling.

You hinting at the ‘primeness’ of your rump again, candy?

Rabz

13 Apr 12 at 9:12 pm
““whatever is moved, must be moved by another”. The first mover, logically, must itself be unmoved”

Those two contradict each other.

I see you’re just going to brazen it out. There isn’t any contradiction, certainly none you’ve put forward.

You keep complaining that I’m not understanding Aquinas, but nothing you say shows how that is true.

I’ve already demonstrated you’ve misunderstood Aquinas, for instance, when you suggested “he assumes there is no infinity” (and elsewhere where you conflate his Fifth Way as no different to an ID argument). But that would be too kind; to misunderstand someone’s work suggests that you’ve actually read their work and you’ve yet to demonstrate this. It would be more accurate to say that you’ve assumed he “he assumed there is no infinity” (and assumed that his Fifth Way was no different to an ID argument).

The simple fact is, Aquinas believed in God, and wanted to find a way to ‘prove’ His existence, and so tortured logic into giving the result he wanted, including making baseless assumptions, and trying to disguise assumptions as conclusions.

Not at all; you’re simply cheering yourself up here. It’s instructive, for instance, that Aquinas does not include an argument like Anselm’s ontological argument as one of his Five proofs. Certainly this suggests that he is not the sort of person to “torture logic” in order to simply find a way to prove His existence (This is not to say that Anselm “tortures logic”, it is merely to say that Aquinas thought the argument in some way inadequate and thus better set aside). And its particularly instructive that you shamelessly accuse him, not merely of making baseless assumptions, but of disingenuously presenting assumptions as conclusions.

dover_beach

13 Apr 12 at 9:15 pm
“You hinting at the ‘primeness’ of your rump again, candy?”

Yes dear Rabz, my rump and i are quite cheerful as usual.

candy

13 Apr 12 at 9:16 pm
Well I cherish my ignorance on that subject

Tal

13 Apr 12 at 9:18 pm
It’s Friday night fashion time – Quite fetching.

Infidel Tiger

13 Apr 12 at 9:21 pm
Speaking of countries where oestrogen has poisoned the male population…

Canadian police let burglar off, arrest restauranteur for throwing spices at him.

A portly and obviously useless little female police chieftain then also arrests a mannequin for being “inappropriately” naked.

For real: Video.

C.L.

13 Apr 12 at 9:24 pm
How can a country like Canada have ice hockey as its national sport? Maybe it’s a release from acting like complete girly men the rest of the week.

Infidel Tiger

13 Apr 12 at 9:30 pm
It’s Friday night fashion time

How did you miss this pulchritude?

Disclaimer – I am generally not a fan of blondes, despite at least half of my goilfriends (and most recent) being just that…

Rabz

13 Apr 12 at 9:48 pm
candy

well that’s just ridulous
but is’a shock to the system to sit down on the toilet without noticing the seat is up and just about fall into the stupid bowl.

Oh god, that takes me back to living in shared houses, and endless arguments over toilet seats!

Peter Patton

13 Apr 12 at 10:08 pm
A portly and obviously useless little female police chieftain…

“That’s not APPROPRIATE! “

The call of the fat fugly perpetually-outraged PC leftoid.

sdog

13 Apr 12 at 10:17 pm
“Sweden also passed a law making it an offence to leave the toilet seat up.”

South Park had an episode on this important issue recently…

Fleeced

13 Apr 12 at 10:23 pm
ROGER SIMON via Insty:
Why Liberals [Lefties] Are The New Squares. “How could a generation that has not changed its worldview one jot since 1968 be considered cool?”

Quite so.

sdog

13 Apr 12 at 10:28 pm
I wonder if I could go a whole day with my only three responses to anything being either

(1) No you’re lying

(2) That’s not APPROPRIATE

or

(3) Quite so

I may try it this weekend.

sdog

13 Apr 12 at 10:30 pm
I may try it this weekend.

No, you’re lying.

Fleeced

13 Apr 12 at 10:34 pm
Quite so.

sdog

13 Apr 12 at 10:36 pm
A quick ask from Legal Insurrection’s Professor Jacobson: Can someone provide me with a link to Obama’s statement about the crime and murder spree in Chicago?

I’m not saying Obama hasn’t made a statement recently about the crime and murder spree in Chicago.

Murders are up 60% in the past three months, and there has been a daily rampage of shootings, including 7 shot overnight last night, and a mother and baby girl in their home the day before.

I’m not saying Obama hasn’t issued a statement about the crime and murder spree in Chicago, it’s just that Google News searches for “Obama murder Chicago,” “Obama killings Chicago,” “Obama homicides Chicago” and “Obama shootings Chicago“ don’t turn up anything, at least not recently. A search of Whitehouse.gov also turned up nothing.

Again, I’m not saying Obama hasn’t issued a statement about the crime and murder spree in Chicago, but if he did, the media has been pretty quiet about it.

So would someone help out a blogger who is short of time and needs a quick link.

sdog

13 Apr 12 at 10:39 pm
Dog, Fleeced, that’s not APPROPRIATE!

kae

13 Apr 12 at 10:43 pm
I have been unfortunate to sit on the naked porcelain – usually I’ve forgotten that the loo is soaking and raced in (usually in the dark) and been caught. It’s not pleasant, especially in winter.

Though it’s equally annoying to find someone has put the lid down in a house where the lid is never put down (in the ensuite), and in the dark…

kae

13 Apr 12 at 10:45 pm
I have been unfortunate to sit on the naked porcelain

Agree Candy and Kae, this is a sinking feeling.

But ladies, don’t you mostly just ‘hovver’ in unknown situations? Knickers down, hold onto them around the knees, tilt the backside backwards over the bowl, and exercise the thighs in a paragon of balance and tinkling accomplishment. I think there are research studies showing that this is what mostly happens outside the home. In Turkey recently, and re-acquainted with the the squatting type, I grant that they allow for greater stability, but there is a much more concerning possibility of contamination and dropping the knickers from around the ankles and into the abyss.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

13 Apr 12 at 11:33 pm
Knickers down, hold onto them around the knees, tilt the backside backwards over the bowl, and exercise the thighs in a paragon of balance…

Lizzie!

Rabz

13 Apr 12 at 11:53 pm
Knickers down, hold onto them around the knees, tilt the backside backwards over the bowl, and exercise the thighs in a paragon of balance…

Lizzie, let me guess. You’ve been listening to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto again!

Peter Patton

14 Apr 12 at 12:00 am
Sorry Rabz. It is Ladies Day for ladies eyes only at the end of this Forum. Where is the next half-week’s worth? Sinclair is late.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

14 Apr 12 at 12:01 am
You guys! This is just how we do it, part of our daily existence. We do not have those convenient little spouts… and this is the real meaning of penis envy.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

14 Apr 12 at 12:02 am
You guys!

Stop it, you temptress – this is a public forum!

Rabz

14 Apr 12 at 12:04 am
Lizzie
Hovering is the way you don’t realise the lid is shut until you feel splashback.
Annoying as it’s usually the middle of the night.
As I get older hovering is harder.
Though public toilets are very conducive to hovering.

(Boy’s don’t get it, hovering I mean. Though in all my years I still haven’t worked out why it is that men are equipped with a spout and still manage to miss and get the seat and drip on the floor.)

kae

14 Apr 12 at 8:27 am
I think I’ve been pretty even keel, especially with you. I’ve been just as harsh, condescending and loath~~ing~~some as pretty much all the time

SteveC

12 Jun 12 at 9:34 pm

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Midweek Forum: April 11, 2012

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