03.29.07
Posted in The way we live now at 5:18 pm by Robert Hanrott
“They do not go to university to acquire culture , but to get a job (OUCH!!! Isn’t that what college is all about?), and when they have got one, scamp it. They have no manners, and are woefully unable to deal with any predicament. Their idea of a celebration is to go into a public house and drink six beers. They are mean, malicious and envious. They will write anonymous letters to harass a fellow undergraduate and listen into a telephone conversation that is no business of theirs. Charity, kindness, generosity are qualities which they hold in contempt. They are scum.
They will in due course leave the university. Some will doubtless sink back, perhaps with relief, into the modest class from which they emerged; some will take to drink, some to crime, and go to prison. Other will become schoolmasters and form the young, or journalists and mould public opinion. A few will go into Parliament, become Cabinet Ministers and rule the country. Look on myself as fortunate that I shall not live to see it.”
Somerset Maugham
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03.28.07
Posted in The way we live now at 10:50 am by Robert Hanrott
So Mayor Bloomberg of New York is contemplating a run for the Presidency, using half a billion dollars of his own money!
Bloomberg appears to be a good manager, seems to think about the welfare of all his constituents (rather than just those who contribute to election expenses), and is intelligent and hard-working.. Maybe we could find some other people like him? Why not open the race to anyone who can afford the expense out of their own pocket, and sell the job to the highest bidder? This would be (a) quicker and would avoid ridiculously long election run-ups, and (b) it would save all those energy-consuming , time-wasting fundraising preludes to actual elections.
So how about a red-blooded Russian mafioso, complete with hoods with eye-shades and sub-automatics? At the moment they are all either jailed in Russia or languishing in the South of France, drinking vodka and eating caviar off gold plates. Ask yourself, could they do a worse job that the present crowd? Will we be robbed any the more or less? Won’t we feel at home with "assistants" carrying weapons? At least they have traveled and have experience of a form of diplomacy.
Initial applications, please, to The Epicurean Blog, with down-payments of $5 million.
P.S Pliss, zis is, what you call it, a "joke"?
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03.27.07
Posted in Religion at 2:08 pm by Robert Hanrott
Why is it necessary to FEAR God?
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03.23.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:22 pm by Robert Hanrott
You done good, Lamar. Them democrat people in DC don’t deserve the vote. Do you know they can still vote for President? They dont deserve it, seeing
as how most of them oppose the struggle for democracy in I-raq, where our brave soldiers are dying for freedom. Most of them is colored folk , illegal immigrants and liberals. Don’t deserve no vote. In any case votes for DC aint in no Constitution, I’m telling you, Lamar. Look it up.
Meanwhile, you done right getting guns into DC. Go for it, boy!
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Posted in The way we live now at 7:15 am by Robert Hanrott
This is US tax time
I propose a special honor for the Turbotax company. Why? You ask. Well, American tax is arcane, complicated, and more than any other, incomprehensible. Whenever I begin to feel over-confident and self-assured I think of Federal tax and feel once again incompetent and not very bright. For thirteen years we have been using this program, and I still don’t understand the exemptions and regulations. I doubt that accountants do, either (certainly not how to treat foreign tax). For a nation that loathes tax in any form, the US Federal tax system is a standing scandal and a threat to liberty. The Republicans don’t like it because it goes towards education and social programs; the Democrats don’t like it because it goes to wears and corporate welfare. (or, more importantly, to the pocket). Compare this tax regimeb with the relatively simple British tax system, designed for actual human beings. A British tax return can be completed in hours; the American takes days.
Only Turbotax can help ease you through the angst and despair. Were it not for this software, there would be a revolution. Thus the company is more important than the FBI and all the other government agencies currently spying on us.
Epicureans should render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, but should expect a simple set of documents usable by the ordinary Jo. They won’t get them, of course.
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03.21.07
Posted in Science and rationality at 8:44 pm by Robert Hanrott
“What makes immersive 3D virtual worlds the perfect medium for learning basic math skills is not that they are created digitally on computers. Nor is it that they are the medium of highly seductive videogames such as World of Warcraft (over 7 million players worldwide, although already viewed as passé by many gamers). Rather, it is because they provide a means for simulating the real world we live in, and out of which mathematics arises, and of doing so in a way that brings out and confronts the player (i.e., learner) with the underlying mathematical structure of our world. If Euclid were alive today, this is how he would teach mathematics.”
KEITH DEVLIN
Mathematician; Executive Director, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford; Author, The Millennium Problems
Quoted in The Edge, World Question Center 2007
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03.20.07
Posted in Religion at 6:47 am by Robert Hanrott
Rabbi Daniel Lapin, who introduced Jack Abramoff to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, talks of a “persecuted majority of christians".
“ There is no better term than propaganda blitzkrieg to describe what has been unleashed against Christian conservatives recently, " he is quoted as saying. "Consider the long list of anti-Christian books that have been published in recent months. Fervent zealots of secularism are flinging themselves into this anti-Christian war with enormous fanaticism. If they succeed, Christianity will be driven underground, and its benign influence on the character of America will be lost. In its place we shall see a sinister secularism that menaces Bible believers of all faiths. Once the voice of the Bible has been silenced, the war on Western Civilization can begin and we shall see a long night of barbarism descend on the West.”
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03.18.07
Posted in Science and rationality at 3:36 pm by Robert Hanrott
“On the face of things, better conditions should lead to larger families, not smaller ones. However, it is impossible to argue with the facts, and the facts are that the rate of population increase is dropping, and that the drop is correlated with increases in personal economic well-being.”
Geoffrey Carr, Science editor of the Economist, discussing a forecast world population of c. 10billion. He thinks it will be difficult to cope with, but quite possible. “particularly as it is also the case that economic growth in rich countries is less demanding of natural resources for each additional unit of output than is the case for growth in poor countries.”
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Posted in The way we live now at 11:15 am by Robert Hanrott
Saint Patrick was an Englishman who went to Ireland to try to cut down the alcoholic consumption of the Irish, and to put a stop to the ridiculous line dancing that was breaking out there.
He considered himself a failure in life.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 8:29 am by Robert Hanrott
The publication last year of a carefully researched Human Security Report received little attention. Despite the fact that it had concluded that the numbers of armed conflicts in the world had fallen 40% in little over a decade. And that the number of fatalities per conflict had also fallen. Think about that. The entire news agenda for a decade, received as endless tales of wars, massacres and bombings, actually missed the key point. Things are getting better. If you believe Robert Wright and his NonZero hypothesis, this is part of a very long-term and admittedly volatile trend in which cooperation eventually trumps conflict. Percentage of males estimated to have died in violence in hunter gatherer societies? Approximately 30%. Percentage of males who died in violence in the 20th century complete with two world wars and a couple of nukes? Approximately 1%. Trends for violent deaths so far in the 21st century? Falling. Sharply.
Chris Anderson, curator, TED Project Technology, Entertainment, Design), Quoted in The Edge, World Question Center
Full texthttp://edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/andersonc.html
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