Yesterday's New York Times Magazine had a great article on Freeman Dyson, one of the most brilliant people who have lived, at least in the 20th Century. As one piece of evidence was the idea that his college mentor told him that a Ph.D. would be totally useless for him. He knew more than anyone else already.
Among Dyson’s gifts is interpretive clarity, a penetrating ability to grasp the method and significance of what many kinds of scientists do. His thoughts about how science works appear in a series of lucid, elegant books for nonspecialists that have made him a trusted arbiter of ideas ranging far beyond physics. Dyson has written more than a dozen books, including “Origins of Life” (1999), which synthesizes recent discoveries by biologists and geologists into an evaluation of the double-origin hypothesis, the possibility that life began twice; “Disturbing the Universe” (1979) tries among other things to reconcile science and humanity. “Weapons and Hope” (1984) is his meditation on the meaning and danger of nuclear weapons that won a National Book Critics Circle Award. Dyson’s books display such masterly control of complex matters that smart young people read him and want to be scientists; older citizens finish his books and feel smart.
The title of the article refers to Dyson being a heretic because he just doesn't see global warming as a real threat. In a nutshell, he says that people like Al Gore and James Hansen, the major proponents of the crisis, are merely believing their own hype. Dyson, on the other hand, says it is not really a crisis of the magnitude they say - yet - nor will it necessarily become one. It's nature doing what it does.
One of the things he cites is that cooler places may be getting a little warmer but hot places are not, and it is really limited to specific areas where there is a CO2 problem.
Personally, I've not liked the term global warming. Instead, I have preferred climate change because it more accurately describes what is happening in different parts of the world. It also is not as frightening. The earth has recorded many climate changes over the millenia. Maybe we are quickening this one, but who is to say that it is not just a normal process that is supposed to happen?
The article on Dyson is fascinating for many other reasons and I really recommend spending the time reading it. He is a subversive as he calls himself and truly brilliant in many areas. He has spent his life obfuscating obfuscations...
This was an article from the St. Petersburg Times Newspaper on Sunday. The Business Section asked readers for ideas on "How Would You Fix the Economy?" I thought this was the BEST idea. I think this guy nailed it!
Dear Mr.President,
Patriotic retirement:
There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force; pay them $1 million a piece severance with stipulations:
1) They leave their jobs. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed. 2) They buy NEW American cars. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed. 3) They either buy a house or pay off their mortgage- Housing Crisis fixed.
All this and it's still cheaper than the "bailout".
This is for real. You can find information here and here
this sounds too simple. Well, maybe simple is what is needed. All of the experts, like Krugman, have their talking points that I bet are there just so they don't lose their jobs. However, they really haven't been doing their jobs, have they?
back home, finally, but still need to take it very slow and easy. the energy level is low and the recovery from the back surgery is going to take a while, but the numbness is almost completely gone in my leg.
so let's start the week off right...
this week's memo from the HR Department...
please read carefully:
Dear Employees:
It has been brought to management's attention that some individuals throughout the company have been using foul language during the course of normal conversation with their co-workers.
Due to complaints received from some employees who may be easily offended, this type of language will no longer be tolerated.
We do, however, realize the critical importance of being able to accurately express your feelings when communicating with co-workers.
Therefore, a list of 18 New and Innovative 'TRY SAYING' phrases have been provided so that proper exchange of ideas and information can continue in an effective manner.
Number 1 TRY SAYING: I think you could use more training. INSTEAD OF: You don't know what the f*** you're doing.
Number 2 TRY SAYING: She's an aggressive go-getter. INSTEAD OF: She's a f***ing b****.
Number 3 TRY SAYING: Perhaps I can work late. INSTEAD OF: And when the f*** do you expect me to do this?
Number 4 TRY SAYING: I'm certain that isn't feasible. INSTEAD OF: No f***ing way.
Number 5 TRY SAYING: Really? INSTEAD OF: You've got to be sh**ing me!
Number 6 TRY SAYING: Perhaps you should check with... INSTEAD OF: Tell some one who gives a sh**.
Number 7 TRY SAYING: I wasn't involved in the project. INSTEAD OF: It's not my f***ing problem.
Number 8 TRY SAYING: That's interesting. INSTEAD OF: What the f***?
Number 9 TRY SAYING: I'm not sure this can be implemented. INSTEAD OF: This sh** won't work.
Number 10 TRY SAYING: I'll try to schedule that. INSTEAD OF: Why the f*** didn't you tell me sooner?
Number 11 TRY SAYING: He's not familiar with the issues.... INSTEAD OF: He's got his head up his a**.
Number 12 TRY SAYING: Excuse me, sir? INSTEAD OF: Eat sh** and die.
Number 13 TRY SAYING: So you weren't happy with it? INSTEAD OF: Kiss my a**.
Number 14 TRY SAYING: I'm a bit overloaded at the moment. INSTEAD OF: F*** it, I'm on salary.
Number 15 TRY SAYING: I don't think you understand. INSTEAD OF: Shove it up your a**.
Number 16 TRY SAYING: I love a challenge. INSTEAD O F: This f***ing job sucks.
Number 17 TRY SAYING: You want me to take care of that? INSTEAD OF: Who the f*** died and made you boss?
Number 18 TRY SAYING: He's somewhat insensitive. INSTEAD OF: He's a pr***.
Thank You,
Human Resources
isn't HR wonderful?
best pool shot by naked white chick...
hope you're not Andre...
the week will not go by any faster than last week. time always moves at the same rate.
having just been through this with my recent surgery, i think that i am immediately changing the one i gave to the hospital. this one makes a lot more sense to me...
I,__________________, being of sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means.
Under no circumstances should my fate be put in the hands of pinhead politicians who couldn't pass ninth grade biology if their lives depended on it, or lawyers/doctors interested in simply running up the bills.
If a reasonable amount of time passes and I fail to ask for at least one of the following:
Glass of Bombay Sapphire Chocolate Margarita Martini A glass of Lafitte-Rothschild Chocolate Filet Mignon with Crab Creme Anglais Italian food Chocolate French fries Chocolate Pizza Ice cream An Americano Chocolate Sex Chocolate,
It should be presumed that I won't ever get better.
When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my appointed person and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes, let the 'fat lady sing,' and call it a day!
Have a Drink! IT'S 5 O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE!
as an aside, i see the neurosurgeon tomorrow and i'm hoping he takes me off the restrictions i'm under. i am starting to go a little stir crazy being limited to the Family Room and guest room at my friends'. if he lets me drive, i might even be able to go home. as far as the surgery, i believe it worked. my left leg is no longer numb and my left foot doesn't feel like a brick. i'm also walking in an almost normal way - no more limping or swishing. well..., maybe a little swish. how butch!
Pope Benedict XVI today added to the controversy over the Catholic church's stance on condoms when he argued that they were not the answer to Africa's fight against HIV and Aids and could even make the problem worse.
pinknews.uk
in the New York Times editorial today:
Pope Benedict XVI has every right to express his opposition to the use of condoms on moral grounds, in accordance with the official stance of the Roman Catholic Church. But he deserves no credence when he distorts scientific findings about the value of condoms in slowing the spread of the AIDS virus.
the main tool that the church in the Middle Ages used to keep people under control was ignorance. he's in a third world country with a population that has a very low literacy rate. he must feel like he's in his heaven...
he's actually an idiot - someone who is too stupid to know he's ignorant.
okay... so this is being posted at 7:30 am this morning - the exact time i'm supposed to be in surgery.
this will be the second back surgery in less than a year. i certainly hope this fixes everything. the problem is all of the injuries to the five discs are new; only one is a re-injury at S1 from the first time.
so... as a result today's mayhem is all about surgery, because if you can't laugh about it, it becomes too serious. besides, laughter helps the medicine go down. oh, wait. maybe that's honey...
Four-Letter Surgery
Jerry is recovering from surgery when a nurse asks him how he is feeling.
"I'm OK but I didn't like the four-letter-word the doctor used in surgery," he answered.
"What did he say," asked the nurse.
"OOPS!"
A List of Things You Don't Want to Hear During Surgery:
1. What do you mean "You want a divorce"? 2. Has anyone seen my watch?
3. Come back with that! Bad Dog!
4. Wait a minute, if this is his spleen, then what's that?
5. Hand me that...uh...that uh.....thingy
6. What do you mean he wasn't in for a sex change!
7. Damn, there go the lights again...
8. Everybody stand back! I lost my contact lens!
9. Well folks, this will be an experiment for all of us.
10. What do you mean, he's not insured?
11. Let's hurry, I don't want to miss "Idol"
oh, wait. that's 11!
After Surgery
A nurse had to take a patient back to his room after surgery. The man was still feeling the effects of the anesthetic and was rather confused.
After the nurse had made him comfortable, she was confronted with four of the man's friends who asked, "How is he?"
The nurse replied, "Oh, he's quite dopey."
One of the friends said, "We know that! How is he healthwise?"
my friends would say the same thing...
Comparing Childhood Surgeries
Two little kids are in a hospital, lying on stretchers next to each other, outside the operating room. The first kid leans over and asks, "What are you in here for?"
The second kid says, "I'm in here to get my tonsils out and I'm a little nervous."
The first kid says, "You've got nothing to worry about. I had that done when I was four. They put you to sleep, and when you wake up they give you lots of Jell-O and ice cream. It's a breeze!"
The second kid then asks, "What are you here for?"
The first kid says, "A circumcision."
The second kid says, "Whoa! I had that done when I was born. I couldn't walk for a year!"
Here is a little something someone sent me that is indisputable mathematical logic.
(It also made me Laugh Out Loud.)
Remember, this is a strictly mathematical viewpoint. It goes like this:
What Makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%.
How about achieving 103%? What makes up 100 % in life?
Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:
If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z is represented as: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.
Then:
H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K would be 8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%
and
K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E would be 11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%
But,
A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E would be 1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%
And,
B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T would be 2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%
AND
A-S-S-K-I-S-S-I-N-G would be 1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%
So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty, that while Hard work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, its the Bullshit and Ass kissing that will put you over the top.
just look how far ass kissing will take you...
'REMEMBER: SOME PEOPLE ARE ALIVE SIMPLY BECAUSE IT IS ILLEGAL TO SHOOT THEM.'
“There are two legal justifications for abortion envisioned by the law, which are rape and risk to life. She [the girl] falls within the two and, as a doctor, I could not let a girl of nine years be submitted to this suffering and even pay with her own life.”
But Archbishop Cardoso Sobrinho has dismissed the fact that the abortion was legal under Brazilian law as irrelevant to the question of excommunication. “God’s law is above whatever human law. So when a human law is contrary to God’s law, this human law has no value,” he said.
check out the amount of cholesterol that is circled on the right. i think the ancient Hebrews just may have had the right idea but for the wrong reasons...
i'd say "don't overindulge this weekend" but you probably deserve to.
“Feminists have a death grip on the top level of the Democratic party,” insisted Phyllis Schlafly during an interview last month. “The feminists are a disaster … It’s so unfortunate what they do to young women.” Funny, some say the same thing about Schlafly.
“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”
CRESAPTOWN, Md. (Map, News) - You've heard of kosher salt? Now there's a Christian variety. Retired barber Joe Godlewski says he was inspired by television chefs who repeatedly recommended kosher salt in recipes."I said, 'What the heck's the matter with Christian salt?'" Godlewski said, sipping a beer in the living room of his home in unincorporated Cresaptown, a western Maryland mountain community.
This bill will legalize civil unions in the state of Illinois, and will treat such civil unions with the same legal obligations, responsibilities, protections and benefits as are afforded within marriage. In other words, civil unions will be different in name only from marriage. As has already been seen in Massachusetts, this will empower the public schools to begin teaching this lifestyle to our young children regardless of parental requests otherwise. It will also create grounds for rewriting all social mores; the current push in Massachusetts is to recognize and legalize all transgender rights (An individual in Massachusetts can now change their drivers license to the gender they believe themselves to be, regardless of actual gender, which means that confused men and women are now legally entering one another’s bathrooms and locker rooms. What kind of a safety issue is this for our children?). Furthermore, while the bill legalizes civil unions, it will be used in the courts to show discrimination and will ultimately lead to court mandated same-sex marriages.
when they took the US Airways plane out of the Hudson River?
Well, they had to move it. When they took the plane out of the Hudson they ended up having to detour through East Rutherford NJ. These roads were not made for planes.
check this out!
wonder what people thought if they looked out their window and didn't know what was going on.
if you are familiar with the history of the play and if you have been keeping up with the news for the last couple of weeks, you will know that it has been consistently targeted by Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church with hateful and unchristian taunts and protests at a lot of performances. Phelps and his daughter were barred from entering England last week and prevented from leading a protest at Queen Mary's College in Basingstoke, Hampshire. though England has free speech laws, it also has laws that forbid inciting violence with hate speech.
"Both these individuals have engaged in unacceptable behaviour by inciting hatred against a number of communities.
"The Government has made it clear it opposes extremism in all its forms.
"We will continue to stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country.
in the United States we allow all groups to use their free speech right no matter how inciteful or hate-filled it is. that is a debate for another time.
a little over a month ago Dominican University discovered via the Westboro website [i will not provide a link] that the group is planning a protest the hour before today's performance. the latest communication i had from one of the manager's is that the daughter is scheduled to be part of the protest.
students at the University found out about the protest and have organized a counter-protest. they have, with great humility and conscience, decided to make it a silent counter-protest. it is the right thing to do. [IMHO]
below is a video of the song American Triangle that Elton John and Bernie Taupin wrote about the murder of Matthew Shepard. the piece is powerful in itself. this version was put together with scenes from the film version of The Laramie Project. you will see some of the scenes that include the Phelps' group. the man playing Phelps eerily looks like the original. the signs they carry are exact replicas of the ones the group always carry.
besides productions of the play, for quite some time now Phelps and his crew have been doing these protests at the funerals of servicemembers killed in the line of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq - with the exact same signs! one of the saddest things about the protesters is that they have always included their children, some as young as 5 or 6. the children use the same language as the adults.
i am going to post about what happens either when i get home this evening or tomorrow. i will also try to provide some photos, if possible. the University and the River Forest Police Department have prepared for this. they have set aside two areas - one for the students and one for them. i know all will go well. i will help, if need be. i may have to pull all of the Vietnam War protest techniques and experiences out of the back of my head. somehow i think it's going to be like riding a bicycle - once you've learned, you never forget.
and i did learn from some of the best...
please watch the video below. i have also included the lyric afterward.
and, please, send your good thoughts, feelings, prayers, vibes, novenas, or whatever your belief is to support the students of Dominican University.
American Triangle
Music by Elton John Lyrics by Bernie Taupin
Seen him playing in his backyard Young boy just starting out So much history in this landscape So much confusion, so much doubt
Been there drinking on that front porch Angry kids, mean and dumb Looks like a painting, that blue skyline God hates fags where we come from
"Western skies" don't make it right "Home of the brave" don't make no sense I've seen a scarecrow wrapped in wire Left to die on a high ridge fence It's a cold, cold wind It's a cold, cold wind It's a cold wind blowing, Wyoming
See two coyotes run down a deer Hate what we don't understand You pioneers give us your children But it's your blood that stains their hands
"Western skies" don't make it right "Home of the brave" don't make no sense I've seen a scarecrow wrapped in wire Left to die on a high ridge fence It's a cold, cold wind It's a cold, cold wind It's a cold wind blowing, Wyoming
Somewhere that road forks up ahead To ignorance and innocence Three lives drift on different winds Two lives ruined, one life spent
"Western skies" don't make it right "Home of the brave" don't make no sense I've seen a scarecrow wrapped in wire Left to die on a high ridge fence It's a cold, cold wind It's a cold, cold wind It's a cold wind blowing, Wyoming
