Just a quick overview:
- Ukraine to Pull All Its Military From Crimea, Conceding Loss (NYT) — I was in a meeting with someone who, on a work-related subject, said, “The heavy-handed approach never works.” I pointed out that it has worked quite amazingly well for Putin.
- Boeing 787 Dreamliner Is Safe, FAA Team Concludes (NPR) — Which is good news for SC, since we want to keep on making ’em.
- Lourie, Sheheen want DSS chief to go (thestate.com) — This comes “after hearing testimony alleging fear and intimidation at the state agency and concerns from coroners overseeing child-death investigations.”
- FBI ‘aids search for missing plane’ (BBC) — The BBC is funny about putting quotation marks around things they have every reason to believe are true. They trust no one, and therefore attribute everything.
- Scientists find freakish, 11-foot birdlike dinosaur (WashPost) — It’s been dubbed the “chicken from hell.” Somebody really screwed up not getting that into the headline.
- Lots of tea party candidates are running. But, they’re not winning. (The Fix) — Interesting. A poll shows the Tea Party having lower approval ratings than everyone but Vladimir Putin. But you know, it’s not about charming a minority — it’s just about being able to raise hell in GOP primaries. So it seems soon to count out these fringe folk yet.
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DSS on the state level has been a sinecure for well-connected incompetents for far too long– a great place for those who aren’t qualified enough for the Board of Elections!
I’ve always thought “sinecure” was a cool word…
A cool word but also a truth. BTW — they are called ‘Amazons’ in LCSD vernacular. Most of them have no children, but are large in size, and therein useful bullying figures. What they do is annex others’ children to state USE.
LCSD?
I puzzled over that, too. Lexington County Sheriff’s Department?
1. Thank you both for acknowledging my comment. xoxo’s.
2. Yes, Lexington County Sheriff Department — there are some [emphasis on some] good folks there.
___
I worked only a brief stint with DSS, my being neither large nor bullying.
Whatever became of the CIA spying on the senate? That seemed like a huge story a week ago. Now nothing.
Oh, I think that’s still a pretty big story; there will be significant repercussions. Angering Feinstein, who has always been such a booster, was a big mistake for the spooks.
There just weren’t any new developments on that today…
Well, Malaysian airliner…
“The heavy-handed approach never works.” I pointed out that it has worked quite amazingly well for Putin.
-Brad
Just be patient. It appears that most of the people in Crimea are quite happy with becoming part of Russia. If it stops there then I see a win-win all the way around. The Crimean people get the nationality they want. The rest of Ukraine can now elect the pro-western government they’ve always wanted. And all is right with the world.
If on the other hand the Russians overplay their hand then they become bogged down in one of those Vietnam/Afghanistan/Lebanon/Iraq type of events that does nothing but get people killed and money wasted. How that is a “win” for Putin is a mystery to me.
Ukraine now wants the US to pony up military aid, because Ukraine disarmed their nukes in reliance…
Think the folks in Kiev are regretting signing the 1994 Budapest Memo now?
Bud, do you really believe that Putin is going to sit idly by and allow the remaining part of Ukraine to become a strong pro-Western country?
Do you think Putin has massed Russian troops on the Russian/Ukrainian border for fun?
I’m not 100% sure of anything, but right now, I would bet some serious money with Nick the Greek that Russia takes some portion of eastern Ukraine before the end of 2015. If that happens, what do you propose?
I didn’t say that Putin wouldn’t do that. I’m suggesting that if he does it will ultimately backfire badly for him and his country. I propose we continue with the largely meaningless sanctions, make a lot of noise but ultimately do nothing.
One thing we could do that would get there attention is force Exxon-Mobil to abandon it’s agreement with the largest Russian energy company. They need that expertise to drill in the Arctic. Of course that wouldn’t set well with the oil branch of the Plutocracy but it would actually have some teeth.
Re: The Chicken from Hell
If we ever achieve the ability to travel in time, I hope nobody’s clueless enough to go back and bring dinosaurs back to us. They ruled the planet for 150 million years, and it took a worldwide catastrophe to wipe them out. We’ve been around for a couple hundred thousand, tops. This Chicken from Hell looks like she might have a nasty disposition.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is doing a good job with the revamped Cosmos. This week’s episode spent enough time explaining natural selection at a lay person’s level to make it understandable (even if still unacceptable to some). He introduced us to the Halls of Extinction which contains 5 halls featuring the 5 great mass extinctions in the past, with one ominously unnamed hall. He’s very unapologetic about science.
I like the Cosmos series as well, though a few things grate on me. I love the science, but it seems to me he is actively trying to substitute science for religion, by using religious language for things where it is not necessary. For instance, last week he kept saying that the story of evolution was “the greatest story ever told”, and about the “ancient scripture of our DNA”. And numerous times making religious people seem anti-science, and scientific people the epitome of reason, which is just enforcing stereotypes that are true only in the way that all stereotypes are true — and not helpful at all. I know that he is an atheist himself, which is fine, but I wish he’d not try and goad those that don’t believe as he does where it’s not necessary.
For me, I’m enjoying it, but it glosses over some things in ways that nettle me, and while I know that’s necessary for a popular show, it takes away a little of the enjoyment for me. On the other hand, the graphics are beautiful, and my 13-year-old is loving it.
Atheists are becoming more bold in their ridicule of people of faith. Making fun of organized religion is fine but the tone behind the Bill Maher/Tyson/etc. is so “unholier than thou” that they just come off as jerks. Personally, I think the time people spend trying to understand “the big bang” is about as useful as time spent digging and refilling a hole. But that’s just me.
Bill Maher, anti-vaxxer, has no right to ridicule anyone.
Lumping Tyson with Maher is unfair to Tyson. He hasn’t, as far as I know, ever ridiculed faith in any way. His strongest comments on the matter have been along the lines ofYou can’t teach religion as if it were science. It’s not.
I’ve seen him on the Bill Maher show a couple times. I think he considers people of faith ignorant. Very condescending in my view.
Maybe if so many religious people would stop trying to ban teaching science accurately…
I know that many religious people respect scientific knowledge, but a vocal and politically active segment exists.
“religious people would stop trying to ban teaching science accurately…”
Change that to “fundamentalist” “religious people in the United States” and I would totally agree, if evolutionary science were being objectively taught here.
The theory of evolution is as shallow in its fundamental scientific assumptions as fundamentalist religion is vacuous in its denials.
Both interpretationsrequire blind acceptance and deny inconvenient truths. in the case of fundamentalism, the age of the earth is usually denied. Both evolutionists and fundamentalists deny the profound interventions of the Nephilim chronicled by scholars like Z. Sitchin.
“The theory of evolution is as shallow in its fundamental scientific assumptions…”
Will you elaborate? Fossil records provide some pretty solid evidence for natural selection. Certainly more evidence than exists for ancient astronauts.
“Fossil records provide some pretty solid evidence for natural selection.” – Norm Ivey
Yes, and I personally agree that a natural selection process is always operative.
The major flaw in today’s evolution theory is absence of continuity between proto-humanoids and primitive sapiens. What medical science is begining to do now with gene manipulation, Sitchin’s translations indicate may have been done with a few proto’s around 400,000 years ago.
What modern DNA findings have indicated lately is greater discontinuity and speciation rather than uninterrupted evolutionary development.
Even in entymology, ornithology, and ichthyology new species with older precedents are being identified. it would seem rather arrogant to draw conclusions from incomplete data knowing meaningful results cannot be replicated in a laboratory experiment.
That is not to say Sitchin’s theory ever will be, but his translations have been and modern DNA manipulation tends to support the concept on which his translation rests.
By the way, I Sitchin’s 12th planet stuff leaves me incredulous, like you.
The theory of evolution is as shallow in its fundamental scientific assumptions as fundamentalist religion is vacuous in its denials.
– Juan
Dude you really don’t understand how science works. Evolution has been fleshed out by serious scientist for over a century now and all the major findings have been firmly established. And when some new piece of evidence casts doubt on some point it is given proper attention in the scientific community. Fundamentalist religious zealots on the other hand merely work around anything that casts doubt on their belief system. No changes are ever allowed.
“Evolution has been fleshed out by serious scientist for over a century now and all the major findings have been firmly established.” – Bud (who else?)
Sounds as if you do not acknowloedge what has always trumped real science to perpetuate politically correct science. Established science once had the Earth center of the known universe despite ample real (but unpopular) scientific evidence to the contrary. Your “established science” has it that climate change is a reality (modern political correctness) despite comments by William Friedman, beachfront property purchase (exceeding $1 million) by the Clintons and a host of credible real science deniers who have evidence to the contrary.
Beware of “established science, Bud. In his 2011 piece in Psychiatric Times, Dr. Ronald Pies, the editor-in-chief emeritus of the Psychiatric Times, laid the theory to rest in the July 11, 2011, issue of the Times with this staggering admission:
“In truth, the ‘chemical imbalance’ notion was always a kind of urban legend — never a theory seriously propounded by well-informed psychiatrists. ..
In the past 30 years, I don’t believe I have ever heard a knowledgeable, well-trained psychiatrist make such a preposterous claim [about chemical imbalance in the brain], except perhaps to mock it…the ‘chemical imbalance’ image has been vigorously promoted by some pharmaceutical companies, often to the detriment of our patients’ understanding.”
True science require peer review and accepts valid rebuttal. My criticisms of evolution theory have never been successfully rebutted. The good news for sufferers of ADHD (nothing personal intended) is that “chemical imbalance” is a meaningless myth.
Tyson himself rejects the title of atheist; he prefers agnostic, if there’s to be a label at all. He explains it clearly here. His reasoning for rejecting the label echo Brad’s reasons for rejecting labels like liberal and conservative.
That said, I’ve noticed the use of religious phrasing as well, but I like it. It jibes with the way I like to think about God–as the ultimate Scientist. I don’t see as it goading them as much as it sounds like he’s inviting them to see that there’s a more complex explanation for things. I suppose the way it’s perceived is going to be heavily influenced by the beliefs one holds already.
I haven’t seen the show. Surely he couldn’t be as bad as Carl Sagan. Sagan seemingly couldn’t go 30 seconds on air without mentioning his favorite historical example of the ignorance and philistinism of religious people — the burning of the Alexandria library. He went on and on about it, repeatedly. It seemed to be, to him, the pivotal moment in human history. He would go on and on and on about it, with that par-ti-cu-lar-ly eccentric diction of his.
If you had tried to discuss the NCAA basketball tournament with him, he would have come up with a way to mention the burning of the Alexandria library…
I noticed the language too and it bothered me a bit. I don’t know if it would have occurred to me otherwise but my husband had already wondered aloud something like “I wonder how many people are watching this who think this is heresy.” My response was something like, “You really think those people are watching?” But having been put in mind of the controversy by his comment, the reference to DNA as “scripture” jumped out at me, and caused me to say something like “well those people are probably really hot now.” I have always liked Tyson and do like the show. I would like to think that the intentions for using such language would be something more like what Norm says (“I don’t see as it goading them as much as it sounds like he’s inviting them to see that there’s a more complex explanation for things.”) but in reality, I sincerely doubt that phrasing is going to build any bridges. It’s unfortunate because it seems like bridges should be possible. I like bridges. Francis Collins could maybe build such a bridge. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins)
Kudos for Bob Ariail’s cartoon. Unilateral dismantlement of our defenses is continuing, and Bob had not even heard the latest news when he created it.
The Navy has changed rules by which it counts its ships, adding 10 coastal patrol craft, two hospital ships, and 11 defunct cruisers cruisers in its combatant lineup.
The unprecented additions were denounced by the chairman of the House seapower subcommittee, as a gimmick to hide the sequestration’s impact. The new system confuses year-to-year comparability of combatant vessels making public awareness of cuts even more difficult.
We spend more money on military crap than the next 10 nations combined. Disarming? Seriously?
Yes, because of the unique role we have played in the world since 1945, it is disarming. Those other nations in many cases don’t need much in the way of a military because of the U.S. security umbrella.
And it’s not “crap.” Most of the materiel we spend on is top-drawer stuff. Although a strong argument can be made that the AK-47 is still superior to the M-16… 🙂
I, too, enjoyed the first episode of Cosmos, although I was somewhat dismayed by the dichotomy between faith and science. But I guess I can’t expect him to see otherwise when it’s the most vocal fundamentalists who get all the media attention. I’d like to see a discussion of faith and science given by one of us who sees no necessary conflict between the two. Of course, that sort of discussion doesn’t work well as a sound byte.
As I say, haven’t seen it, but it sounds distressing.
In my world view, faith and science are not an either/or proposition.
I think the partisans on both sides of the far-too-celebrated battles over evolution to be very confused, and limited in their thinking. To me, evolution is exactly the way God would make the world — through the majestic roll of eons, beyond our ken. Only God could conceive of such an enterprise, much less execute it. The magnificent complexity and subtlety in the process, which people like Richard Dawkins wax enthusiastic about, is for me the expression of a Mind far beyond our own.
The Adam and Eve creation story is so obviously allegorical, it’s astonishing to me that anyone could see it as anything else. It’s not a description of particular events involving particular people; it’s meant to describe the developing relationship between God and humanity. It’s very profound, particularly the thing about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the fruit of which we think will make us like God. But it’s about us, not about two people named Adam and Eve…
It’s only distressing if you take Tyson’s comments to be denigrating towards faith. I don’t. I see it exactly as you do, though you express it much better than I could. Faith and science are not the same thing, and should never be treated as equivalencies.
equivalents?
Brad, where have you been. Polls show huge numbers of people believe in the absolute literal sense the story of Adam and Eve. And that’s the problem. These people are kooks.
Yes, a lot of people do, which doesn’t change the fact that it’s “astonishing to me that anyone could see it as anything” other than allegory.
But if Adam and Eve is an allegory, next you’re going to tell me Jonah wasn’t swallowed by a fish, and Noah didn’t save the animal genome on an ark! Where does it end?!?
I think you can tell by reading these things. The Garden of Eden story READS like an allegory. I mean, you know — Tree of Life; Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil…
By contrast, the Gospels read like first or second-hand accounts of people who knew Jesus. They have a literal feel about them. Take, for instance, the case of Peter denying Jesus three times. It has a sort of modern, almost cinematic feel to it. The flow of his interactions with people waiting outside the high priest’s house is rather naturalistic. And you sense that this was a story Peter often told on himself.
Then there’s the in-between stuff. The stories of Joseph, and of Moses much later, were oral histories handed down for centuries before being written. But I think by the time of the Maccabees, you have a much more historical account.
None of it is written by a modern person with our clear definitions of history vs. fiction. But then, even modern histories are written in the service of editorial points the author wishes to make. Someone with a different point to make tells the story differently.
People want to separate fiction and nonfiction in ways that ignore the way literature works. It’s not a black-and-white thing.
For instance, the Garden of Eden story is true, in a sense that is much higher than the simplistic question of whether Adam and Eve were real people. It says true things about our nature, and the nature of our relationship with God. That’s what matters, not whether you could go back and shoot video of Adam and Eve if only you had a time machine…
And if you think these old literary forms that make a hash of simple, conventional distinctions between fact and fiction are relics of the ancient world, you need to go read some of Carlos Castaneda’s books…
As a literature lover, I believe there is often far more truth in fiction than it what purports to be factual.
Oh, absolutely. If you want to say something with any depth about the human condition, fiction is the way to go.
You can’t get into other people’s heads except in fiction. Unless you’re Tom Wolfe or another practitioner of what was long ago called New Journalism, in which case you write nonfiction like fiction — freely ascribing thoughts to other, real people. Takes a lot of nerve to do that, and who’s to say you ever get it right? Sure, people can SAY those were their thoughts, but are they telling the truth? And do they really accurately remember their thoughts?
Whereas with fiction, characters only have the thoughts you give them…
Can we just say it is a wonderful thing that in this day and age, when so much of TV is permeated by the stuff highlights of which we can see on The Soup, that time, effort, and money has gone into creating a show about our universe and the wonder of it all? For those who believe in a God, surely trying to get more people to contemplate the mystery and wonder of “all that is” is a step towards making the spiritual a more constant presence in their lives. Thinking about some of what Tyson is talking about, or trying to wrap my head around the latest news this week regarding the Big Bang, certainly makes me feel that way. The closer we get to comprehending the origins of the universe, the greater we realize the mystery to be.
And as for basic scientific literacy…never mind evolution, or whether Adam and Eve is literally true or allegory, I just saw a poll that said <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/14/277058739/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-survey-saysone-fourth of Americans think the sun revolves around the Earth.
Phillip – in this “selfie” driven world, those same people think the earth revolves around them…
Nice reference, PB
All that is, seen and unseen.