It is international talk like a pirate day.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
But I Channel Ramtha Too!
In case you don't have your ear to the ground when it comes to new age bullshit circles you probably wouldn't have heard of Ramtha and the associated business. Well Ramtha is the creation of JZ Knight who has made a multi-million dollar industry out of her "channeling" of "Ramtha", the 25,000 year old Atlantian warrior! Well, a former student of Ms. Knight Whitewind Weaver stole those teachings and tried to make some money with them on her own. Knight sued of course. And recently won her case.
The lawyer for the defense argued in vain that Knight was a giant corporation bent on crushing the little guy. That argument is certainly a stinker. And he constantly shot off ad hominems of no concern whatsoever.
Spellman used the wrong defense. You don't argue that you didn't steal it and they are a big evil corporation. You claim that your client was told very similar information by Ramtha and given permission to use those teachings. If they actual come from Ramtha they are the intellectual property of Ramtha. If they are made-up bullshit from Knight herself, then they are the intellectual property of Knight. The contract signed forbids her from teaching the school's teaching. Ms. Weaver however received her information from Ramtha himself then the argument can be made that they are independent teachings and only similar because Ramtha is the same.
All Knight has to do is admit that she's lying through her lying teeth to win. And since that is far fetched it just might work. Then the whole crazy beliefs are working for you rather than for her. Any dislike the jury has for the crazy works in your favor because if both sides say it's real then they get to let Weaver off the hook. On the sheer merits of the case you clearly lose. You need to let the jury channel their dislike of hokum into letting your client go. The jury can't say it's fake because that's not their job, they can only decide the facts in contention as to whether or not independent teaching counts as a violation of a contract.
The lawyer for the defense argued in vain that Knight was a giant corporation bent on crushing the little guy. That argument is certainly a stinker. And he constantly shot off ad hominems of no concern whatsoever.
"So there are people willing to believe that there's a 35,000-year-old man here to teach you?" he told the jury, itemizing hypothetical multimillion-dollar revenue streams at the Ramtha school. "It's a sales gimmick."
Co-counsel David Spellman of Seattle, in closing arguments, tried to discredit Knight's case by alleging that the lawsuit was filed by "Ramtha, the arrogant one," evoking an old science fiction TV show.
"You have now entered the Fourth Dimension," Spellman told the jury. "You're in the Twilight Zone in Thurston County."
Spellman said Weaver didn't channel Ramtha at her seminar, but focused on her own work called "Spherical Reality."
But Creatura said the jury was swayed by a series of side-by-side videotape clips comparing Knight teaching Ramtha school seminars with Weaver leading similar processes at her August 2006 event.
Spellman used the wrong defense. You don't argue that you didn't steal it and they are a big evil corporation. You claim that your client was told very similar information by Ramtha and given permission to use those teachings. If they actual come from Ramtha they are the intellectual property of Ramtha. If they are made-up bullshit from Knight herself, then they are the intellectual property of Knight. The contract signed forbids her from teaching the school's teaching. Ms. Weaver however received her information from Ramtha himself then the argument can be made that they are independent teachings and only similar because Ramtha is the same.
All Knight has to do is admit that she's lying through her lying teeth to win. And since that is far fetched it just might work. Then the whole crazy beliefs are working for you rather than for her. Any dislike the jury has for the crazy works in your favor because if both sides say it's real then they get to let Weaver off the hook. On the sheer merits of the case you clearly lose. You need to let the jury channel their dislike of hokum into letting your client go. The jury can't say it's fake because that's not their job, they can only decide the facts in contention as to whether or not independent teaching counts as a violation of a contract.
There's as many Thursdays as there are days.
Both the set of Thursdays and the set of days are infinite integer sets. As the infinite sets share the same cardinality. That's assume they are infinite sets ofcourse, so I'm wrong if the universe ends. Although, if the universe ends my failures will be the least of our worries.
You can show the equality by counting them one to one.
You say the next day, I say the next week...
The one value will never outpace the other.
You can show the equality by counting them one to one.
You say the next day, I say the next week...
The one value will never outpace the other.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
John McCain polling well, economy plummets... McCain says economy is doing well.
It could be a good and nuanced argument to suggest that the government could have perhaps stopped the damage at the housing market by making some steps in the right direction when the first bits started to trickle like the Danish boy who put his finger in a dike (that's not how dikes work and its a myth and only an American myth at that). However, I'd like to make another argument...
The economy hates John McCain. It wants regulation and somebody to stop the losses and when it became possible that there would be more hands-off and deregulation (to solve the problems caused by deregulation), which reminds me of Enron claiming that the California brownouts were caused by too much regulation rather than Enron manipulating the market to steal lots of money, being able to because there was deregulation, just as Bush took office to remove the protections against price gouging Clinton put in before he left.
Deregulation causes a problem, the solution is clearly more deregulation. I think the market is suffering heart attacks and wants more red meat but really wants a nurse to regulate its diet and make sure it doesn't die. When red meat gets potentially back on the menu, it becomes obvious that you're going to die and it causes depression. There might be hope under a Democratic administration. Under a Republican administration lead by lobbyists and self-admitted economic novices it's pretty much game over.
The economy hates John McCain. It wants regulation and somebody to stop the losses and when it became possible that there would be more hands-off and deregulation (to solve the problems caused by deregulation), which reminds me of Enron claiming that the California brownouts were caused by too much regulation rather than Enron manipulating the market to steal lots of money, being able to because there was deregulation, just as Bush took office to remove the protections against price gouging Clinton put in before he left.
Deregulation causes a problem, the solution is clearly more deregulation. I think the market is suffering heart attacks and wants more red meat but really wants a nurse to regulate its diet and make sure it doesn't die. When red meat gets potentially back on the menu, it becomes obvious that you're going to die and it causes depression. There might be hope under a Democratic administration. Under a Republican administration lead by lobbyists and self-admitted economic novices it's pretty much game over.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
SNL politics.
I thought the parodies of the 2000 election debates were classic by SNL. The latest intro is also quite good.
Tina Fay absolutely nails the Palin impersonation.
Tina Fay absolutely nails the Palin impersonation.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
I give up. John McCain is a scientologists.
I have this on good authority. How do we start sending this around as an email? He's an OCII which is before you learn about Xenu. He'd probably deny it knowing that's it's probably politically costly.
Lipstick on a pig...
All the nuanced explanations of context for the statement seems remarkably like throwing your pearls before swine...
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Rofl: propaganda
Ah, the good old days. I'm astounded that lying works. All you need to do is get a large group of well funded people to lie a lot and have those lies broadcast and you're instantly a winner. Seriously the truth never stands a chance.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Don't homeschool your kids...
A friend's kid.
He's pretty smart. Listening to him I was going to chide him for calling Pluto and Eris planets. However, he corrects himself later. Jupiter has more moons than Saturn.
My nephew knows pi to 50 digits. That's about as useful.
* I don't actually think he's homeschooled, just added knowledge from other sources.
I support the legalization of marijuana, but come on...
Cures bacterial resistant staph infections? Really. It's bad enough that it makes people drive better (they drive slower and that overwhelms any other factors) but really? I think they are just making this crap up now.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
A one technology solution to energy.
If we developed robust cheap room temperature (or higher) superconductors it would change the world overnight.
Seriously SMES technology, an entire grid of superconductive power lines, we'd pretty much be able to switch from oil to electricity overnight and increase the range cars can drive during the switch (more if we created maglev cars). The need for baseline power would be a thing of the past because we could loop the power grid and turn the entire thing into a massive battery (a virtually lossless battery). It would also allow us to account for the ebb and flow of fairly random renewable sources of power but working as a virtual UPS and power stabilization unit.
We could build massive arrays of nuclear power plants off in the boonies where nobody would go NIMBY on their ass and conduct the power to everywhere else in the US. It wouldn't instantly destroy our need for fossil fuels but it would completely and utterly remove our need for oil.
We'd still need to green up the power grid, but this one invention would completely demolish oil as we know it.
* .27 kW/h for average electric car, 10 MW/h coil = 37,037 miles per coil charge. Current electric cars like the Tesla Roadster have about 50kW/h max charge.
** Might be better to run a much lower current properly insulted. It occurs to me that this kind of force would turn the car into a massive superconductive magnet to the extent of being able to fly (with a proper track).
Seriously SMES technology, an entire grid of superconductive power lines, we'd pretty much be able to switch from oil to electricity overnight and increase the range cars can drive during the switch (more if we created maglev cars). The need for baseline power would be a thing of the past because we could loop the power grid and turn the entire thing into a massive battery (a virtually lossless battery). It would also allow us to account for the ebb and flow of fairly random renewable sources of power but working as a virtual UPS and power stabilization unit.
We could build massive arrays of nuclear power plants off in the boonies where nobody would go NIMBY on their ass and conduct the power to everywhere else in the US. It wouldn't instantly destroy our need for fossil fuels but it would completely and utterly remove our need for oil.
"You drive that old oil sucker? But can only drive like 500 miles on a refill. My car has a 10 MWh SMES coil. I've never recharged it. Got it from the dealer precharged with a special deal they were running, "The first 30k miles are on us!"* Hell I could run my house on this thing."
We'd still need to green up the power grid, but this one invention would completely demolish oil as we know it.
* .27 kW/h for average electric car, 10 MW/h coil = 37,037 miles per coil charge. Current electric cars like the Tesla Roadster have about 50kW/h max charge.
** Might be better to run a much lower current properly insulted. It occurs to me that this kind of force would turn the car into a massive superconductive magnet to the extent of being able to fly (with a proper track).
I'm not sure what to root for...
Sarah Palin is a train wreck.
Palin says the Iraq war is a task from God.
As a mayor she canned the police chief for caring about public safety.
She's a long time supporter of a Alaska secessionist party.
Dr. Laura thinks she's a bad mother for working.
She threatened to fire a librarian for failure to ban books.
She claimed to have fought pork when she was first to the trough.
She fired a guy for not firing her ex-brother-in-law in a personal dispute. She's now refusing to testify unless the investigation is turned over to her cronies.
She goes to a church run by a leader of Jews for Jesus*.
Now, should I root for change or more of the same? This train wreck seems to be giving Obama a boost and the media seems scurrying to find out more and more dirt because there's so much dirt to find. However, I kind of want more Obama laying some smack down. I suppose it's a wealth of riches. I mean, suppose they yank her nomination within the next couple days and put up somebody else? Is that good or bad? I mean this is one gnarly looking slow-motion train wreck... but would I prefer to watch this or have a good narrative about how bad McCain's judgment is? Ofcourse, maybe she stays on the ticket and McCain wins... drops dead... and we have Super-Bush in office?
I'm at a loss as to what I should want.
*Jews for Jesus is not confused, it's a Christian evangelical group which proselytizes primarily to Jews under the auspices of being Jewish themselves.
Palin says the Iraq war is a task from God.
As a mayor she canned the police chief for caring about public safety.
She's a long time supporter of a Alaska secessionist party.
Dr. Laura thinks she's a bad mother for working.
She threatened to fire a librarian for failure to ban books.
She claimed to have fought pork when she was first to the trough.
She fired a guy for not firing her ex-brother-in-law in a personal dispute. She's now refusing to testify unless the investigation is turned over to her cronies.
She goes to a church run by a leader of Jews for Jesus*.
Now, should I root for change or more of the same? This train wreck seems to be giving Obama a boost and the media seems scurrying to find out more and more dirt because there's so much dirt to find. However, I kind of want more Obama laying some smack down. I suppose it's a wealth of riches. I mean, suppose they yank her nomination within the next couple days and put up somebody else? Is that good or bad? I mean this is one gnarly looking slow-motion train wreck... but would I prefer to watch this or have a good narrative about how bad McCain's judgment is? Ofcourse, maybe she stays on the ticket and McCain wins... drops dead... and we have Super-Bush in office?
I'm at a loss as to what I should want.
*Jews for Jesus is not confused, it's a Christian evangelical group which proselytizes primarily to Jews under the auspices of being Jewish themselves.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
Understanding Palin.
* -- Please note nothing about this post is meant to be pejorative. I actually really like that song. Redneck pride has actually been coming up a lot in recent years. I don't like Palin, and figure this might put her in better light than she deserves. I'm pissed that all my politics talk about policy debates and national conventions got turned into the Jerry Springer show upon the unvetted whim of somebody who crassly thinks that women really wanted to vote for just some woman on a presidential ticket (if it was that simple Kathleen Sebelius might have got the Dem's nod, but they actually wanted Clinton herself).
You know they are digging when they pad the resume.
Sarah Palin lived really close to Russia.
Sarah Palin stopped in Ireland for half an hour last year.
Sarah Palin has executive experience in the PTA.
Even with that gone I think Obama should just stick to the message he outlined in the convention because this plays into his hand so well. John McCain doesn't have the judgment or temerity to be president. He agrees with George W. Bush 90% of the time. On Iraq he was wrong. On timetables he was wrong. On energy he was wrong. On healthcare he was wrong. On veterans issues he was wrong. Contrast with correct choices made by Obama on those issues. Then bring up the first presidential decisions each of them made. Obama picked Joe Biden as VP who has more foreign policy experience than anybody in Washington and who nobody would doubt for a second could be president at a moments notice (even though Obama is perfectly healthy) whereas McCain picks the most inexperienced person possible while his health and age isn't that great. Really?
The republicans still aren't done with the convention stuff. They could still say "Psyche! It's Romney!"
Sarah Palin stopped in Ireland for half an hour last year.
Sarah Palin has executive experience in the PTA.
Even with that gone I think Obama should just stick to the message he outlined in the convention because this plays into his hand so well. John McCain doesn't have the judgment or temerity to be president. He agrees with George W. Bush 90% of the time. On Iraq he was wrong. On timetables he was wrong. On energy he was wrong. On healthcare he was wrong. On veterans issues he was wrong. Contrast with correct choices made by Obama on those issues. Then bring up the first presidential decisions each of them made. Obama picked Joe Biden as VP who has more foreign policy experience than anybody in Washington and who nobody would doubt for a second could be president at a moments notice (even though Obama is perfectly healthy) whereas McCain picks the most inexperienced person possible while his health and age isn't that great. Really?
The republicans still aren't done with the convention stuff. They could still say "Psyche! It's Romney!"
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