Glenn Greenwald, Arianna Huffington discuss Iran
Posted on October 2, 2009 by Boulderdash
http://salonesoterica.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/glenn-greenwald-arianna-huffington-discuss-iran
The heroic Glenn Greenwald smashes warmongers Arianna Huffington and Jonathan Capehart, and speaks a profound truth virtually never heard in the American media, that the US and Israel are threats to Iran, and not vice versa. (And good for host Dylan Ratigan for inviting Glenn.) Oh, and don’t miss Glenn’s commentary on his appearance. (Comment from Lew Rockwell).
A Blog With No Name
It's good to be back in the game
http://my.opera.com/Quinnuendo/blog
Tapping into your keyboard
Monday, 13. July 2009, 12:51:15
Different Opera, different IMDb?
Monday, 13. July 2009, 04:18:56
For a while now I have been testing the new Opera 10 (quite pleased with it by the way 
). Somewhere along the way I have noticed that IMDb has changed the layout of the movies page a bit. It didn't look to bad, maybe it is better this way. But now running in Opera 9.62, I found that the old layout is back. Then I thought that maybe just some page have new layouts, or they are experimenting. So I opened the same page at the same time in Opera 10 and Opera 9.62, and behold they are different:Gmail out of beta
Tuesday, 7. July 2009, 17:29:00
Interesting news, after five years of development Gmail is finally out of beta status, as well as Docs, Calendar and Talk.Hurt
Tuesday, 7. July 2009, 06:36:14
"Hurt" is a song written by Trent Reznor (of the band Nine Inch Nails), first released in 1994. Later it was covered by a number of bands. The most famous cover, that this entry focuses on, was by Johnny Cash in 2002. Trent Reznor later said, that at first the idea of Cash covering the song was flattering, but also a bit worrying, being that he is a country artist. But when he heard the version, and saw the video, he said "that song isn't mine anymore", because Johnny has made into something different, "but every bit as pure".
The lyrics are the same, the main music motives are the same, yet Johnny now tells about his life, himself being at the end of his own. The video and the song were the last that were released before Johnny died.
Geekness, vol 2
Monday, 6. July 2009, 04:54:04
Being that my description as MOTW highlighted the geekness test I took a year and a half ago, I decided to take it again, and see if things are worsening. It seems they have, but not by much. I got a "40.8284% - Major Geek" result which is about 1 % more than the last time I took it. I would note that a lot of these questions are a bit USA oriented, since some of those stuff are quite rare outside the states, but still the concept is interesting 
Common Sense often lies
Sunday, 5. July 2009, 13:43:07
'Common Sense' don't always make sense. On cracked.com there is a good article about the 5 most common ways it lies to us everyday. It starts with reminding us that Albert Einstein defined common sense as a collection of prejudices acquired by the age of 18.
I'm going to list these five major logic fallacies in thinking in short here, and you can go and read in more detail at the original article.
* The Historian's Fallacy
This is when we look at past errors and think how people were stupid when making them, not trying to see it from their point of view, and forgetting they didn't know what we know now. Like thinking how totally and obviously stupid it was to sail the Titanic north and causing the sinking.
* The Nirvana Fallacy
Thinking how something is not worth doing if you can't do it perfect. Like why would you feed a homeless person when it won't fix poverty.
* The Appeal to Probability
Misinterpreting probability theories in a fuzzy way, like "if something can happen, it probably will". For example buying lottery tickets and justifying it with "somebody's got to win, why wouldn't it be me?".
* The Regression Fallacy
Seeing patterns where there are none. Thinking that A is cause of B, just because it happened at the same time. This is the reason for most of the superstitious beliefs.
* Special Pleading
Making an exception out a general rule without any justification except that it suits our needs at the moment. The interesting thing about this one is that we apply it to itself. We may allow ourselves to do it, but when other people do it we say it's wrong.
---
I picked up this article a few months ago from Ze's blog, and I thought it was interesting enough to share, so I finaly did
I'm going to list these five major logic fallacies in thinking in short here, and you can go and read in more detail at the original article.
* The Historian's Fallacy
This is when we look at past errors and think how people were stupid when making them, not trying to see it from their point of view, and forgetting they didn't know what we know now. Like thinking how totally and obviously stupid it was to sail the Titanic north and causing the sinking.
* The Nirvana Fallacy
Thinking how something is not worth doing if you can't do it perfect. Like why would you feed a homeless person when it won't fix poverty.
* The Appeal to Probability
Misinterpreting probability theories in a fuzzy way, like "if something can happen, it probably will". For example buying lottery tickets and justifying it with "somebody's got to win, why wouldn't it be me?".
* The Regression Fallacy
Seeing patterns where there are none. Thinking that A is cause of B, just because it happened at the same time. This is the reason for most of the superstitious beliefs.
* Special Pleading
Making an exception out a general rule without any justification except that it suits our needs at the moment. The interesting thing about this one is that we apply it to itself. We may allow ourselves to do it, but when other people do it we say it's wrong.
---
I picked up this article a few months ago from Ze's blog, and I thought it was interesting enough to share, so I finaly did
Linux needs critics
Thursday, 2. April 2009, 12:29:00
I've just read the article with that title, I found it interesting and wanted to share
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/162457/Linux_needs_critics.HTML
In short the article is, as the title says, an observation how in the Linux world most of the time everybody just says how they have better stuff than on windows and other operating systems, but there is very little talk about things that need to be improved. Most of such talks are met with a bit of hostility, and often with excuses such as "it's free, don't complain". The author then explains, that there is a big difference between criticism and complaints, in the sense that criticism usually hints at solutions and/or causes.
This made me think, and here are some thought, though they maybe a bit garbled.
Indeed it is true that we need to be able to accept criticism, so that we have a realistic view of things. There are some issues which really are related to the inherent properties of free software, but sometimes those excuses are really overused. The idea with Linux (and open source in general) is that it can replace a commercial system. I believe that it is possible for many uses, and as time goes by, I believe that there will be more and more of those areas where there is high quality free software.
I was also thinking about why the Linux community is sometimes a bit touchy about some things. I remembered when we had some lin/win discussions on our faculty board, and than later on there were talks about how there are some different cultural views between the groups, that Linux people can get a little snappy and such.
Maybe it is true, but I think the reason for that is that you need to invest some effort to get onto Linux, to make some things work. When things do work, you have additional satisfaction of a well done job. You need even more effort to make new software. So when you go thru all that, and you do know why you did it, you have more reason to defend you choices. Because in todays world, on desktop PCs, windows is more-or-less a standard thing, and Linux is a choice. Things change in this department too, but it's not a fast process.
There are more talks about the topic, there is a good article here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Biculturalism.html which also explains some of the main reasons for different cultural views of lin and win users. It is a bit older, so some arguments are probably irelevant by now, and maybe not everything is true, but there are some good points in there.
On another note, it is interesting that most people who use Windows most of the time talk about problems. I would also note that most of the talk are complaints, not criticism
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/162457/Linux_needs_critics.HTML
In short the article is, as the title says, an observation how in the Linux world most of the time everybody just says how they have better stuff than on windows and other operating systems, but there is very little talk about things that need to be improved. Most of such talks are met with a bit of hostility, and often with excuses such as "it's free, don't complain". The author then explains, that there is a big difference between criticism and complaints, in the sense that criticism usually hints at solutions and/or causes.
This made me think, and here are some thought, though they maybe a bit garbled.
Indeed it is true that we need to be able to accept criticism, so that we have a realistic view of things. There are some issues which really are related to the inherent properties of free software, but sometimes those excuses are really overused. The idea with Linux (and open source in general) is that it can replace a commercial system. I believe that it is possible for many uses, and as time goes by, I believe that there will be more and more of those areas where there is high quality free software.
I was also thinking about why the Linux community is sometimes a bit touchy about some things. I remembered when we had some lin/win discussions on our faculty board, and than later on there were talks about how there are some different cultural views between the groups, that Linux people can get a little snappy and such.
Maybe it is true, but I think the reason for that is that you need to invest some effort to get onto Linux, to make some things work. When things do work, you have additional satisfaction of a well done job. You need even more effort to make new software. So when you go thru all that, and you do know why you did it, you have more reason to defend you choices. Because in todays world, on desktop PCs, windows is more-or-less a standard thing, and Linux is a choice. Things change in this department too, but it's not a fast process.
There are more talks about the topic, there is a good article here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Biculturalism.html which also explains some of the main reasons for different cultural views of lin and win users. It is a bit older, so some arguments are probably irelevant by now, and maybe not everything is true, but there are some good points in there.
On another note, it is interesting that most people who use Windows most of the time talk about problems. I would also note that most of the talk are complaints, not criticism
Ask Me Anything
Well, I've been bloviating for the better part of two weeks now. I hope you've found my posts interesting and thought-provoking. I've gotten some very thoughtful comments on some of my posts, and I want to extend my appreciation to those of you that have have joined me here on the ground floor, while I'm still a wobbly newbie to the world of blogging.
So I'd like to open it up and get a better idea of who you are, the Crimson Conservative visitor. I invite you to ask me anything, or make any suggestions for what you'd like to see.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Is Capitalism Evil?
I have not seen the film, nor any of Moore's past works, for that matter. For that matter, Michael Moore is tangential to the subject of this blog aside from his assertion that capitalism is evil. Scott Cendrowski, reporter for Money magazine, interviewed the controversial liberal filmmaker about the background of the film, and how for the first time publicly, Moore brought up his personal faith as a significant factor in his personal philosophy.
Interestingly, according to Moore, this film was not a reaction to the financial meltdown of 2008, but was in the planning stages well before the crisis. If you want to read the entire interview, please click on the link above.
Overall, in reading the interview I didn't find a great deal of surprises about Moore's philosophy, politics or agenda. He remains at his core a reactionary, knee-jerk, bleeding-heart liberal standing up for the little guy, and wanting to stick it to "the Man."
More...
I'd like to focus on the concept that capitalism as an economic system is evil. I do not believe that assertion, for the simple fact that by and large, I see capitalism itself as a machine, much like a computer. Using the well-worn programmer's axiom "Garbage In, Garbage Out" as an example, I believe the system will yield results relatively consistent with the manner in which it's used. Now, I'm not saying that the results of economic policies and practices are always predictable and reliable. There are thousands of economic departments, doctoral candidates and professors that have been studying economics for centuries, and each of them has a unique view and philosophy on the nature of markets.
To put my personal belief about the nature of markets simply, I believe that excessive leverage and deficit spending, over an extended period, is a recipe for disaster. Knowing full well that our nation has been on this course in regard to federal spending for many decades, I'm bracing myself for what I feel is an inevitable day of reckoning.
I also believe lack of accountability, whether at the level of corporate governance or personal finance, breeds corruption and irresponsibility. An excellent example of which was the subprime mortgage meltdown in which people believed they could perpetually use their home's seemingly ever-rising equity as an ATM machine. Even though historical trends showed the trajectory to be unsustainable.
Not that I want to uphold myself as a great sage of financial markets, but I saw the mortgage market meltdown coming a long ways off. For no other reason that as an average working Joe, making an average working salary, there was no way I could ever hope to afford a home at the inflated prices that were the norm in the middle of this decade. Now, there were plenty of lenders willing to apply exotic, convoluted metrics to make a loan available, none of which I was comfortable with.
Were there a lot of characters involved in some way with the current crisis that consciously and willingly participated in questionable or even overtly illegal activities? Absolutely. But the point I want to end with is that it was fallible human actions and motivations that caused the outcome of the current crisis, for the most part. Did some of these people believe they were doing the right thing?
Certainly in the case of the relaxation of lending standards by congressman Barney Frank and the Clinton administration, the noble intentions of expanding the dream of home ownership to less privileged means had some unintended consequences. So what in the end was more evil? Loosening lending standards to allow those with less money and less sophisticated knowledge and understanding of finance to be approved for loans they likely could not afford? Or denying them that "right" to protect the interests of their investors, shareholders, and responsible homeowners who scrimped, saved and toiled to be able to afford a house the conventional way?
(There we go. Am I correct in calling that a 'reactionary, knee-jerk criticism' ? I'm referring to Moore, of course.
As for the other : In a system based on paying loans back, defusing the criteria of granting those loans is the recipe for disaster ; an irredeemable crisis of confidence. )
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Liberal Guilt - Doing Good by Feeling Bad
I follow developments in environmental technologies, and keep an open mind to all emerging trends. I am critical of some that I believe are inefficient or ineffective, such as corn ethanol, and supportive of others that I believe could help our national security through energy independence, such as coal gasification and liquefaction, and increased use of natural gas as a transportation fuel.
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Ad Hominem Fallacies of Relevance
Fallacy Name:
Poisoning the Well
Poisoning the Well
Alternative Names:
Smear Tactics
Smear Campaign
Smear Tactics
Smear Campaign
Category:
Fallacies of Relevance > Ad Hominem Arguments
Fallacies of Relevance > Ad Hominem Arguments
Explanation:
Another type of ad hominem fallacy is called Poisoning the Well. This is a little bit unusual in that it involves a preemptive attack on a person. Instead of responding to their arguments by questioning their character, a person committing this fallacy "poisons the well" by making them appear bad before they even have a chance to say anything.
Another type of ad hominem fallacy is called Poisoning the Well. This is a little bit unusual in that it involves a preemptive attack on a person. Instead of responding to their arguments by questioning their character, a person committing this fallacy "poisons the well" by making them appear bad before they even have a chance to say anything.
In fact, almost any of the other ad hominem fallacies can be changed into an example of Poisoning the Well, for example:
1. You have been proven to be a liar numerous times, so I don't believe what you are saying now.
2. He has been proven to be a liar numerous times, so don't believe anything he tells you.
The origin of this label comes from the medieval myth of Jews poisoning the wells used by Christians in towns and villages across Europe. Charges of such actions, for example when a plague struck an area, often resulted in expulsion or death for many, many Jews.
Examples and Discussion:
Here are some examples of this fallacy which are similar to those you might encounter:
Here are some examples of this fallacy which are similar to those you might encounter:
3. When reading posts by atheists, remember that because they deny God, they also have no morals, so they simply can't be trusted.
4. If Christians can believe all the nonsense in the Bible, how can I trust any of the other things they say, like in politics?
5. When listening to what my opponents have to say, keep in mind that they don't really have safety of this country as their first priority.
In all of the above, we can see the arguer attempting to influence how people evaluate arguments which they have not yet seen by attacking some allegedly negative characteristic held by those who will be making those arguments. Note that example #5 is only implicitly an argument - there is no explicit conclusion given. But, it is implied that what the "opponents" have to say can't be trusted.
A key characteristic of this fallacy is that the attack being made is almost impossible to respond to. For example, in #3 above an atheist can't really offer a response: because the arguer is assuming that atheists cannot be trusted, nothing an atheist says to disprove that will be trusted.
One common way you can find this fallacy being used is in the context of a "smear campaign." If there is an attempt to discredit a person or an organization before they have a chance to explain or defend themselves publicly, the purpose is to influence what people will think before they ever hear what is going on. The desired result is that people will prejudge the arguments made or evidence provided because they have developed a negative view of the person offering those arguments or evidence.
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We are not helpless (+)
by: Blue Girl
 I know first hand the exact location of the loneliest place on earth. It is the hallway between mammography and sonography, where the minutes crawl by with interminable slowness as you wait to be worked in because the technician saw something on your films and went right then to fetch the radiologist to have a look, and he has ordered a stat sonogram of the breast. I also know how it gets even scarier and lonelier when the sonography tech gets a concerned look because he can't pick up the mass, just the blood supply to it, and his jaw muscle grows tenser and tenser as he maneuvers the wand, hoping that if he hits it just right he will see what he wants to see, instead of what he is seeing. The slowest week of my life was spent waiting for a stereotactic needle biopsy of the tiny but highly suspicious spot on my chest wall. The normal wait for a stereotactic biopsy in that facility is less than 48 hours, but the machine was down and the part to fix it was ordered but had not arrived. My doctor sent me for bloodwork. "Let's get your antigen levels. If nothing is elevated you can relax in two days instead of two weeks. Besides, if it isn't the news we want it to be, we will need baseline levels anyway." I went to the lab and had a coworker draw some blood and another friend personally ran the two that we could do in-house. Both of those, the CA 19-9 which is a tumor marker that is not indicative of cancer type and the CA 27.29, which is indicative of breast cancer, were elevated, but not dramatically. When the CA 15-3, a test that indicates a more aggressive and advanced disease came back two days later, it was normal. I felt like my life was a coin toss and the quarter was just hanging in the air, as if gravity were suspended. I was scared to death - there are too many instances of the disease in my family. I cried for a day, then I was numb for one more. Then I got defiant, or what passes for defiant when you are a 40-something urbanite who has led a pretty staid existence. I went shopping. With a vengeance. I went to the Plaza and bought things for my granddaughter that she was far too young for, and I bought a Kate Spade handbag on credit. It was my way of saying "I will be here for a while. I will be here long enough to see Zoe play with that dollhouse and wear that diamond necklace - and to actually own that purse." In my case, it turned out that I was about as lucky as I could be. The cluster of cells in question was extremely tiny, less than 2mm in size, and the lymph node that was removed at the same time showed no cancer cells. The diagnosis was ductal carcinoma in situ - literally a stage 0 cancer that was confined to a single mammary gland. It was so minor that some researchers exclude cases like mine from their statistics. My treatment was so uneventful that I never threw up once or lost a single hair off my head. My experience was not at all dramatic. I went into the hospital one fine fall morning at 6:00, was in the OR by 7:15 and in recovery by 8:00 with a tiny (three stitches) incision on the side of my right breast, near the chest wall, where they removed the mass and the lymph node. I was home before lunch with a couple of prescriptions and was talking my husband down, telling him to please relax, there was nothing wrong with me. I'm a medical professional. If there was I would be the one overreacting, and after over 20 years of marriage he should know that about me. He thought about this for a minute, realized the veracity of what I said, and calmed down. Because my healthcare comes from the government, I don't have to fight with an insurance company that insists one mammogram a year is adequate, and if it isn't, I am too great a risk to insure. Because my doctor is free to treat and test me as he sees fit with no insurance company employee standing between him and his patient, he took one look at my family history and ordered an annual bilateral MRI of the breasts and a mammogram every six months. A tiny spot that had not been there six months before was picked up almost as soon as the first onco cell underwent mitosis, and long before it had a chance to permeated my chest wall and get to bone, or spread to my lymph system. Because my doctor, who works for a salary rather than fee-for-service, is allowed to make decisions that are in my best interest and not that of an insurance company, I had a very non-eventful experience with a very traumatic disease. I missed a grand total of two days of work and my treatment consisted of taking one pill a day for 36 months. I still get mammograms and antigen levels every six months, and will for the rest of my life. As of today I remain cancer free. Because of my job - I was a supervisor working in a clinical lab that received a few million dollars in cancer research grants every year - I was aware of ongoing research into the effects of lifestyle on both prevention and recurrence. I knew that the preliminary results were encouraging because I had crunched some of the numbers myself. Besides that, who has ever seen their health deteriorate because they quit smoking, stopped drinking, started exercising and eating better and reduced their stress? Now the data has been analyzed and the peer-reviewed studies on lifestyle changes and breast cancer are making their way into professional journals and the results are encouraging, especially for survivors who make lifestyle changes in an effort to prevent a recurrence of a second primary invasive contralateral breast cancer. Breast cancer survivors might be able to reduce their risk for contralateral breast cancer by making lifestyle modifications. A new study published online September 8 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology has found that obesity, alcohol use, and smoking all significantly increase the risk for second primary invasive contralateral breast cancer among breast cancer survivors. Researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, found that obese women had a 50% increased risk for contralateral breast cancer, and those who consumed 7 or more alcoholic drinks per week had a 90% increased risk. Survivors who currently smoked had a 120% increased risk of developing a second breast cancer.I have always lived a pretty healthy lifestyle. I don't smoke, and I rarely drink (Netroots Nation doesn't count!) I have always gotten adequate exercise and being able to stand to lose about twenty pounds that I had gained gradually as I went through a series of five knee surgeries in the four previous years didn't exactly qualify me as obese. In other words, outside of reducing stress, there just wasn't a lot for me to change...in my own life. But I could certainly make myself insufferable to friends, relatives, acquaintances and people stuck in an elevator or checkout line with me who dropped their guard and made eye contact or let their eyes linger on a pink ribbon for more than two seconds. My mantra has always been "we aren't helpless" because there are things we can do to be proactive and reduce our risk of both initial occurrence and secondary recurrence by making some lifestyle changes. If you smoke, stop. If you drink more than one alcoholic beverage per day, cut way back on that, too. If you aren't getting enough exercise, make an honest effort to increase your activity levels. Eat a healthy diet that is low in fat, high in fiber and rich in fruits and vegetables - and if you do the last two things, weight issues tend to resolve themselves. October is breast cancer awareness month. Make a vow to educate yourself and practice good breast health. Get regular screening mammograms, and do regular self exams. (If you don't have a regular menstrual cycle to remind you to do your self exam, pick another monthly event to serve as your reminder. My usual suggestion to women who don't have a period is to do it the day the phone bill comes in the mail.) Adjust your lifestyle to lower your risks. If you have a friend or a loved one who gets a diagnosis, be supportive and loving and positive and encouraging, because I can tell you this as a healthcare practitioner for over two decades: people with good, positive social networks always have the best outcomes. And the fact that we now have clinical proof that we aren't helpless, well, there is something to be positive about - and that is as good a place to start as any. This post originally appeared at Fire Dog Lake |
| Blue Girl :: We are not helpless |
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