From a Former Jihadist

Jihad, or what we define as Terrorism, comes in three forms – Jihad by the pen, Jihad by the sword and Jihad by finance. When one is not in a position of military strength he uses the pen, or propaganda. If one has military strength, he uses violence, including acts of terror. Jihad by finance comes in the form of money to fund both the propaganda and the terror.  (Source)

Artificial "Intelligence" My Foot

I've written about Google's failings before, but it never ceases to amuse me anew when that search engine lets its imagination run wild.  So today, I was trying to find out where this image came from (it was "quoted" at a different site than where it originally appeared).  So what does Google come up with?  This.  ROTFL! 

I think maybe Google needs to just FACE its lack of smarts and CLOCK out.  (Edit many months later:  the original google link showed clock faces.  Now, it shows "images to color."  Not sure why it changed in the meantime.   But who can fathom the "mind" of A.I., eh? {snort})

Avoiding Solipsism

A recent email conversation about things spiritual prompted me to try to clarify some things for anybody who's interested.

Just because something makes no sense to me, doesn't mean it isn't valid.  It makes no sense to me that my rabbit eats his own excretions, yet the caecotropes---different than the normal downscaled-hay cannon balls rabbits produce---actually contain vital nutrients.  So, in my human world, where a whole different set of dietary and hygiene laws rule, caecotrope consumption is repulsive and noxious, but in the rabbit domain, it's perfectly normal and beneficial.

Or think about the paradox of water:  it can be ice, or snowflakes, or vapor, or liquid, yet it's always water, regardless.  Or how about light being a wave and a particle?  None of this makes "sense" to me on the surface, yet it IS a plain fact.  (As a footnote:  I have to trust scientists that light is in actuality a wave and a particle.  I have not myself ascertained this.  I have to assume they know what they're talking about when it comes to their domain.)

Or consider the first reactions, back in the days when someone first proposed the concept of microbes:  people thought the guys holding those ideas were off their rockers.  Yet, the microscope eventually proved them right. 

My favorite example, though, is bases in math:  in our everyday, Joe Blow world, 2 + 2 = 4.  But only because we work with base 10.  Had we for centuries worked with another base, then that simple equation would not "make sense" to us. 

Or while we're dealing with math, how about that stumper "E=mc²"?  To me, that makes zero sense (heh).  But that's because I (a) have zero ability in math (even algebra was torture), and because I thus have (b) never taken all the types of courses that would PREPARE me for understanding that equation.  I am basically an outsider, whereas Einstein and Co.---all the physics "initiated"---have a vast frame of reference within which that equation makes heaps of sense.

There's another way to approach this question:  take someone who's color blind.  If you rave about the beauty of a sunset to him, it won't make sense to him.  (Now, if he gets ANGRY at you for your rapture, you really have to ask yourself WHY he does that.  Is he jealous of your intact faculty and your concomitant broader base for joy and pleasure?) 

Ditto for someone who's tone deaf:  he will not be able to relate at all to my enjoyment of, say, this delicious piece.  The sounds will make no "sense" to him at all.  Which is perfectly understandable, given his truncated hearing.  If he is rational, he will simply humbly acknowledge that his shortcoming in this area in no way negates the objective beauty of the music, or the reasonableness of my reveling in it.  He will perhaps even wish for the day that science can rectify such tone deafness.

I think, too, of poetry:  up until I was about 16, abstract poems made no sense to me.  But after I read a certain one, which as it were served as the "key" to deciphering puzzling poems, I started understanding progressively more of the previously vexing texts.

So, whether or not something makes "sense" to me has a WHOLE lot to do with (1) how extensive my knowledge base is, (2) how intact my faculties are, and (3) my willingness (a) to have my brain cells exercised out of their usual paths, and (b) to believe those who are more qualified in a given field/topic than I am. 

He'll End Up A Trillionnaire

I despise tattoos and need megadoses of anti-emetics every time I see one.  Too bad I couldn't have turned that revulsion into profit the way this guy has done.

Lunacy Squared

"As cube-holders, we identify with the cause of what is right and just. We are intrinsically motivated with [sic] the cause represented by our friendship cube movement. Many of us believe in humanism, globalism, and collectivism. [So much for "what is right and just" {snort}] As activists, we create a positive, meaningful, and deeply motivational [? do it or die?] culture… a culture that is productive, encouraging, and enlightened [Uh huh, "enlightened," right:  that's why you believe in humanism, globalism & collectivism]. We are known for our friendship cube code…also called our “code of light”. We create cube habits, cube rituals, and cube rites of passage."  [Sounds like a religion to me...] (Read the whole thing.)

Why did this give me the creeps before I even researched it further?  It sounds like fascism in a Santa costume.  Then, after I did a bit of digging, my revulsion was exonerated:  it is indeed a "subset" of the Masonic version.

Theremin for the poor man, LOL!

Ever since I found out what the amazing instrument is that the Beach Boys used in their music, I've been fascinated by it.  Little did I know that my new-found fascination with water glass music would also end up acquainting me with a cheapo version of the theremin (tho I hear say that one should not try it except on saws that are at least 20 years old).

Guess this is whatcha call...cutting edge music?

CPS: the Leftists' Trump Card

The Cloward-Piven Strategy was inspired by the August 1965 riots in the black district of Watts in Los Angeles (which erupted after police had used batons to subdue a black man suspected of drunk driving). In their 1966 article, "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty," Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when "the rest of society is afraid of them," Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would "the rest of society" accept their demands.

The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven's early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. "Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules," Alinsky wrote in his 1972 book, "Rules for Radicals." When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system's failure to "live up" to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist "rule book" with a socialist one.   (source)