Bonus Quote

Life cannot be classified in terms of a simple neurological ladder, with human beings at the top; it is more accurate to talk of different forms of intelligence, each with its strengths and weaknesses. This point was well demonstrated in the minutes before last December's tsunami, when tourists grabbed their digital cameras and ran after the ebbing surf, and all the 'dumb' animals made for the hills. -B.R. Myers, author (1963- )

Quote of the Day

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken
for what they are, the signs of our ideas, and not for things themselves.
-John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)

I'm not sure what I think about this quote.

Things to Think About

Public versus Private speech. See Kant's "What is Enlightenment?"

I'm a nerd

Pure Nerd 78 % Nerd, 8% Geek, 17% Dork

For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd. The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the "dork." No-longer. Being smart isn't as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful. Congratulations! Also, you might want to check out some of my other tests if you're interested in either of the following: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Professional Wrestling Love & Sexuality Thanks Again!

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 91% on nerdiness You scored higher than 4% on geekosity You scored higher than 14% on dork points

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on Ok Cupid

Good comment at Brad DeLong's

Jonah Goldberg quoted this in a column the other day, then bitched that the rich liberals of Martha's Vineyard were trying to get special protection for their view out to sea - that Teddy Kennedy et al. were for wind power, unless the windmills were off the coast of the Vineyard.

But Teddy's got a point. There are lots of places to put windmills, and few of them ruin the scenery. Last week, I was in Glacier National Park, and I can tell you that the wind really whistles through the passes in the Continental Divide there. From a utilitarian perspective, those passes might be great places for windmills, but fortunately, we realize that life isn't solely about utility, so we don't put windmills in Logan Pass or in the Grinnell Glacier Overlook.

Besides, keeping a few scenic places free of windmills doesn't undermine the overall supply of wind power in the United States. The hypocrisy of Goldberg and his fan club - supporting the war but being unwilling to fight it - in fact undermines whatever minimal likelihood of 'success' (however one would define it) there might be through 'staying the course' in Iraq. There's a big difference.

Funny Quote

"Btw... it's newage not New Age... and it rhymes with sewage."

It is owing to this long interregnum of science, and to no other cause, that we have now to look back through a vast chasm of many hundred years to the respectable characters we call the Ancients. Had the progression of knowledge gone on proportionably with the stock that before existed, that chasm would have been filled up with characters rising superior in knowledge to each other; and those Ancients we now so much admire would have appeared respectably in the background of the scene. But the christian system laid all waste; and if we take our stand about the beginning of the sixteenth century, we look back through that long chasm, to the times of the Ancients, as over a vast sandy desert, in which not a shrub appears to intercept the vision to the fertile hills beyond.

-Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

How I feel right now after doing a 52 mile circuit race and a 2 hour mountain bike ride.

I was perfectly drunk, perfectly smashed-up, perfectly violent, and my one and only wish was to get back on my bike --- Paul Fournel, Bésoin de Vélo

Local info from Wikipedia

Heroin is manufactured through the chemical processing of opium, and smuggled into the United States and Europe. Purity levels vary greatly by region with, for the most part, Northeastern cities having the most pure heroin in America. According to a recently released report by the DEA, Elizabeth and Newark, New Jersey, have the purest street grade heroin in the country.

I live about 5 miles from Newark and 10 from Elizabeth.

Quote from The Simpsons

"Stop! Those are prescription pants!" - Comic Book Guy

Subcomandante Marcos in His Own Words

Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a gang member in Neza, a rocker in the National University, a Jew in Germany, an ombudsman in the Defense Ministry, a communist in the post-Cold War era, an artist without gallery or portfolio.... A pacifist in Bosnia, a housewife alone on Saturday night in any neighborhood in any city in Mexico, a striker in the CTM, a reporter writing filler stories for the back pages, a single woman on the subway at 10 pm, a peasant without land, an unemployed worker... an unhappy student, a dissident amid free market economics, a writer without books or readers, and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains of southeast Mexico. So Marcos is a human being, any human being, in this world. Marcos is all the exploited, marginalized and oppressed minorities, resisting and saying, 'Enough'!

Pure Genius

We haven’t studied “intelligent design,” and we don’t want to weigh in on the evolution debate. But note the larger process described here. When standard intellectual procedures are undermined, those who have “political muscle” can step in and rule the roost. So it will go if libs become freepers—if we too make up quotes; invent pleasing “facts;” indulge in weird logic; and demonize wildly. When any damn fool can say any damn thing, the damn fools with power will win every time. Over the course of the past several centuries, the traditions known as “fact” and “logic” have served as brakes on desires of the powerful. The king could no longer simply say it. He now had to show it was true.
In our view, standard intellectual rigor will typically serve progressive interests. Libs would be foolish to adopt the gong-show behaviors which have defined the talk-show right all these years. Given the hapless conduct of liberal elites in the dozen years, it’s easy to see why progressives and libs might find themselves drawn to these gong-show behaviors. But this would be a path straight to hell. In our view, accurate facts clearly explained will normally favor progressive interests. We’ve been sad to see some on the liberal web starting to ape the gong-show pseudo-right—and praying for prosecution of the bad men we’re too inept to defeat on our own. (And too lazy; and too undisciplined; and too riddled with conflict of interest.)

This morning, Krugman describes an instructive process. Those who have “political muscle” will typically welcome intellectual chaos. If they can simply spread doubt and confusion—if they can undermine normal intellectual methods—then their muscle will start to take hold. So it will be in the wider discourse if we—like those whom we have long ridiculed—start to take our daily pleasure in the methods of gong-show discussion.

Funny, isn’t it? When we got into this business, we thought it would be a way of expanding and, in some sense, reifying the ephemeral daily conversation that humans engage in. Now, we think we might see something else developing—something less noble, less fine.

Bizarrely Acurate Internet Quiz

You're Loosely Based!

by Storey Clayton

While most people haven't heard of you, you're a really good and
interesting person. Rather clever and witty, you crack a lot of jokes about the world
around you. You do have a serious side, however, where your interest covers the homeless
and the inequalities of society. You're good at bringing people together, but they keep
asking you what your name means.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Quote of the Day

This I heard from a friend of mine. He was in the chair when his dentist asked him what he did. He said "I'm a philosopher". The dentist retorted "Well, I guess we all think about things, so we're all sort of philosophers" to which he immediately replied "I guess we're all sort of dentists too, since we all brush our teeth".

Or how about a joke of the day?

CONSTITUTION

"They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years and we're not using it anymore."

Men overcompensate when their masculinity is threatened, Cornell study shows

I'm anti-SUV. I'm anti-war. I'm anti-homophobia.

Picture of the Day

I like pictures, so I think I will start adding more to my blog. It's also good motivation to update the blog more often, becase, you know, I really need to entertain and enlighten my many thousands of readers.

The Daily Show Quote

"Kids love symbols of oppression." - Stephen Colbert

The Beauty of Science

I see more poetry in a chunk of quartzite than in a make-believe wood nymph, more beauty in the revelations of a verifiable intellectual construction than in whole misty empires of obsolete mythology. - Edward AbbeyI see more poetry in a chunk of quartzite than in a make-believe wood nymph, more beauty in the revelations of a verifiable intellectual construction than in whole misty empires of obsolete mythology. - Edward Abbey