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Dissenters' CornerSecond Opinions May 04 Why EinsteinI know why Einstein was able to dream up the theory of relativity. He didn't have 2 computers, 2 printers, and 2 scanners to fight with all day long. I could have thought of the theory of relativity today if it hadn't been for these demons. May 03 Proof of GodMy son in law says he has proof of God:
(1) God, if you exist, please give me absolutely no sign. (2) (3) Therefore, God exists. The doctor could be in (?)There's an old doctor joke: He works the second Tuesday of the week from 11 to 12. The other joke is to tell everybody to come in at 2 pm so he doesn't have to talk to them. I knew a guy like that. Played a lot of golf. He's dead now. They strangled him. April 16 Right to Carry Law could be the answerVermont has a genuine right to carry law (i.e., requires no permits) and yet boasts one of the lowest crime rates in the nation
A. Vermont enjoys the 49th lowest crime rate in the nation, according to the FBI: B. The FBI statistics also show that Vermont boasts the 47th lowest murder rate among the 50 states: C. Anti-gunners like Sarah Brady want people to think that "access to firearms" is one of the greatest social ills facing this nation. If this is so, then why are guns not a problem in Vermont where anyone can strap a .45 under their jacket and go about their business? Why hasn't Vermont turned into the popular notion of the Wild West? Few states ever come close to earning the title of the "state with the lowest crime rate." Vermont has.(9)http://www.gunowners.org/vtcarry.htm April 14 The Meaning of Life? I’m half way through the book "Chronicles of the World", which is a 1,200 page book of history in Newspaper format. In reading of all the genocides, murders, wars, plagues, and famines, I agree with the author who wrote this about the recently deceased Kurt Vonnegut: "He also shared with Twain a profound pessimism." "Mark Twain," Mr. Vonnegut wrote in his 1991 book, "Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage," "finally stopped laughing at his own agony and that of those around him. He denounced life on this planet as a crock. He died." March 05 Keep LearningJust for the record, you can say I kept learning to the end. Today I
learned what happens when you hold a cup of coffee in one hand and a cordless phone in the other hand and you fall asleep in your chair and then the phone rings. Health Care too expensiveI heard the director of the budget speak about the coming crash due
to deficits, the government prescription program, and baby boomers with Medicare. The sky is falling. Someone ought to look into the overpricing of MRI'S, CT scans, and everything else in the hospital. The middle class and pre-existing conditions are squeezed out along with the poor. Julie's Embrel shots cost the insurance company, if retail, $1,300 per month. Capitalism is not fun anymore. The equation is: free enterprise=>welfare state=>socialism=>benevolent dictator=>revolution=>free enterprise. It's a Law. February 24 Rename itThey used to have a 30 year War and a Hundred Year War. Look it up. Nobody argues about those anymore. I have the solution, therefore, for the current Iraq war. Call it the 30 Year Iraq War and stop talking about it. February 13 The Passing ParadeDan, thanks for the note about Pauline. I had been musing and grieving
over the unreasonableness of this parade. If I think of all those I knew
before, lined up and passing me by on parade, I wonder is there is any meaning
to it. Becky says not to fret about meaning because we can't know. And I
thought of the famous line in Shakespeare's As You Like It: He didn't know
either.
>> All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely
players;
They have their exits and their entrances,<<< etc etc.etc etc etc February 09 Global FreezingEureka! I figured out why it's so cold around here (it was 16 below night
before last). It's God. He is saving us from Al Gore and his Global Warming
Junk Science propaganda ever running again for any public office.
January 26 What Bush didn't say but Gingrich did This is what is behind all the news...... http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3356103,00.html "Israel is in the greatest danger it has been in since 1967. Prior to '67, many wondered if Israel would survive. After '67, Israel seemed military dominant, despite the '73 war. I would say we are (now) back to question of survival," Gingrich said. He added that the United States could "lose two or three cities to nuclear weapons, or more than a million to biological weapons." Gingrich added that in such a scenario, "freedom as we know it will disappear, and we will become a much grimmer, much more militarized, dictatorial society." "Three nuclear weapons are a second Holocaust," Gingrich declared, adding: "People are greatly underestimating how dangerous the world is becoming. I'll repeat it, three nuclear weapons are a second Holocaust. Our enemies are quite explicit in their desire to destroy us. They say it publicly? We are sleepwalking through this process as though it's only a problem of communication," Gingrich said. The former House speaker expressed concern that the Israeli and American political establishments were not fully equipped to take stock of the current threat level. "Our enemies are fully as determined as Nazi Germany, and more determined that the Soviets. Our enemies will kill us the first chance they get. There is no rational ability to deny that fact. It's very clear that the problems are larger and more immediate than the political systems in Israel or the US are currently capable of dealing with," said Gingrich. 'Time to come to grips with threat' "We don't have right language, goals, structure, or operating speed, to defeat our enemies. My hope is that being this candid and direct, I could open a dialogue that will force people to come to grips with how serious this is, how real it is, how much we are threatened. If that fails, at least we will be intellectually prepared for the correct results once we have lost one or more cities," Gingrich added. He also said "citizens who do not wake up every morning and think about the possible catastrophic civilian casualties are deluding themselves." January 08 Pure LibertyI thought you might like to see how pure Libertarianism apparently works: (This morning's dispatch from Somalia.) "In Kismayo, no weapons have been turned in. Many elders agreed that everyone would be better off once all guns were gone, but no one seems to want to volunteer theirs first. "It's a custom for Somalis to attack someone who doesn't have weapons," said Sultan Abdi Rashid Dure, a leader of the Galjel subclan. "When I was young, we used knives." With long, wrinkled fingers, Mr. Dure, 56, traced the web between disarmament, clans, revenge and anarchy. "During these years, every clan killed," he said. "A lot. Now there are so many feuds, so many scores to settle. We are all afraid that if we give up our weapons, other clans will take their revenge." January 07 Answer to a Libertarian friend This syllogism is wrong because it is linear:
1.. Bad people like to use force to prey on good people. 2.. Good people require a government to protect them from bad people. 3.. This government, in order to be the final arbiter, must possess overwhelming force. Answer: The founding fathers knew that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, so they devised an infinite regression that went in a circle called checks and balances. Notice the exceptions clause to Supreme Court jurisdiction and the amendments in the constitution. The old solution is to throw the government out as frequently as possible. Thus, if you have a mouse get a cat. Then get a dog. Then starve the dog every 2 years and get another dog. Make it a small dog. Neuter the dog. Beware of more mice. But beware of rats. December 06 Dr. William Osler said it 100 years ago"The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes
man from animals". Of one thing I must complain — that when we have gradually
emancipated ourselves from a routine administration of nauseous mixtures on
every possible occasion, and when we are able to say, without fear of dismissal,
that a little more exercise, a little less food, and a little less tobacco and
alcohol, may possibly meet the indications of the case — I say it is a just
cause for complaint that when we, the priests, have left the worship of Baal,
and have deserted the groves and high places, and have sworn allegiance to the
true god of science, that you, the people, should wander off after all manner of
idols, and delight more than ever in the hands of advertising quacks. But for a
time it must be so. This is yet the childhood of the world, and a supine
credulity is still the most charming characteristic of man. " November 26 Alice's Restaurant ThanksgivingProtest by singing: here is the famous Thanksgiving song by Arlo Guthrie which celebrated his beating the draft by having been arrested for littering. I heard Arlo sing parts of this once but I wanted to see the whole fuss and here it is in case you missed hearing all 25 minutes of it. I suppose draft evasion by satire might become a felony some day. Those were the days when music was really good. Alice is still alive at 65. http://www.arlo.net/resources/lyrics/alices.shtml Alice's Restaurant By Arlo Guthrie This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice, and the restaurant, but Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, that's just the name of the song, and that's why I called the song Alice's Restaurant. You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant Walk right in it's around the back Just a half a mile from the railroad track You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin' all that room, seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time. November 17 The Promised LandThis I believe: we live in The Promised Land. And ALL of us lucky enough to be here are the Chosen ones, not just some of us, but all of us. Let us give thanks this Thanksgiving to all those who made it possible for us to live in a country where we can peacefully strive to live up to the Declaration that all are created equal and have unalienable rights. Amen. September 02 Try LogicThe universe and all creation seem miraculous to me, but I have reservations: I have eliminated from my dialogues all analogies, similies, metaphors, and
parables as logical fallacies. I eliminate the words Belief and Faith as
circular reasoning. That is, the subject and the predicate are the same. (I
believe in a thing because I believe it.) I will however accept a falsifiable
proposition. By falsifiable is meant a statement or hypothesis capable of being
proven false by testing. This is to be distinguished from verifiability or
verification. If I say I think all swans are white my statement is a logical
theory because it can be tested as false by finding a black swan even if I never
see one. This I recognize to be an unfair challenge to religion, since it
is testable, which means falsifiable, not verifiable. Now what say you about what you believe to be true. August 26 Open Letter to The Wall Street JournalTo Daniel Henninger:
I hereby elect you as the world's greatest writer.
Previously, I had awarded Paul Gigot this honor for his unparalleled turn of felicitous phrases, but alas, he was elevated to the attic of your page, never to be bylined again.
I was so taken with your continuous elegant metaphors and choice of subject in today's essay on celebretydom and idiotville, that I not only read it slowly to savor each sentence, but I also was compelled to read it aloud to my wife. She was polite enough to chuckle at the correct intervals. I especially marveled at the vision of a cliff wherein misconduct finally is un-reinforced.
It is especially rewarding to me as one who briefly was celebretized for helping introduce stress to western civilization. I have witnessed to all since then that fame and glory fleet even faster than money and are worth much less. Nothing, however, is worth as much as a good essay.
July 15 AAAD Explained contributed by a patientThis is how Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder
manifests itself: I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing. As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mailbox earlier. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car. I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full. So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first. But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first. I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only one check left. My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking. I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over I see that the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold. As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need to be watered. I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers. I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table. I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won't remember t hat it's on the kitchen table so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers. I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor. So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill. Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do. At the end of the day: the car isn't washed, the bills aren't paid, there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter, the flowers don't have enough water, there is still only one check in my check book, I can't find the remote, I can't find my glasses, I don't remember what I did with the car keys. Then when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired. I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail. Do me a favor, will you? Forward this message to everyone you know, because I don't remember who I sent it to. did I even hit the send button? Don't laugh -- if this isn't you yet, your day is coming! GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY. GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL. LAUGHING AT YOURSELF IS THERAPEUTIC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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