Logic Times

Vide.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 12/17/04 10:13:35 PM
Categorized as WorldWideWeb Stuff.

Holiday Cards Not Created Equal

Thanks to Margaret for notice of this Catholic League press release yesterday.

Not All Holiday Cards Are Created Equal

The following is a comparative analysis of current holiday greeting cards:

Hallmark

Of the 104 Christmas cards, nine are religious; one mentions Jesus and none features a nativity scene. In its “Humor” category, three have mild scatological references and one has sexual overtones. Of the 5 Hanukkah cards, four feature menorahs; even the one “Humor” card has a menorah. Of the 6 Kwanzaa cards, all are respectful and none is humorous.

Yahoo

There are 31 categories of Christmas cards, one of which is “Religious.” There are 7 e-cards dubbed “Risque” that are replete with sexual gags. In the “Rude” category, there are 17 scatologically oriented cards. All of the 12 Hanukkah cards are respectful, most of which have a menorah or Star of David. All of the 24 Kwanzaa cards are respectful.

American Greetings

Among its e-cards, there are over 200 Christmas cards listed among several categories. There are 119 “Merry Christmas” cards, 39 “Religious” cards and 18 “Rude” cards (most feature flatulence and urine jokes). The 35 “Happy Hanukkah” cards and the 9 “Family” Hanukkah cards are evenly split between secular and religious. Of the 14 “Funny” Hanukkah cards, all are respectful. There were no disrespectful Kwanzaa cards among the 24 listed. Among American Greetings’ Create and Print cards, there is no “Rude” section for Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, just for Christmas (some of which include oral sex jokes).

Catholic League president William Donohue concludes: “Not to include any disrespectful holiday cards for Jews and African Americans does violence to the multicultural virtue of inclusion. How did this happen?”

P.S. Confer.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 12/17/04 10:04:08 PM
Categorized as Religious.

Re: Holiday Party Tips

A reader writes:

I think you did your readers a very valuable service. I am already beginning to take the advice and have the hips to prove it.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 12/17/04 07:19:49 PM
Categorized as Other.

"Aliens Cause Global Warming"

I apologize for not blogging this a long time ago. It was recalled to my attention by Wretchard; it's the Caltec Michelin Lecture, Jan. 17, 2003, by Michael Crichton:

My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming. Or to speak more precisely, I will argue that a belief in extraterrestrials has paved the way, in a progression of steps, to a belief in global warming. Charting this progression of belief will be my task today....

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period....

Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible. In one context, maybe you will get some mobilization against nuclear war. But in another context, you get Lysenkoism. In another, you get Nazi euthanasia. The danger is always there, if you subvert science to political ends.

That is why it is so important for the future of science that the line between what science can say with certainty, and what it cannot, be drawn clearly — and defended....

To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer model." But now large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs.

This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only if you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at the complex point where the global warming debate now stands.

Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?

Stepping back, I have to say the arrogance of the modelmakers is breathtaking. There have been, in every century, scientists who say they know it all. Since climate may be a chaotic system — no one is sure — these predictions are inherently doubtful, to be polite. But more to the point, even if the models get the science spot-on, they can never get the sociology. To predict anything about the world a hundred years from now is simply absurd.

Look: If I was selling stock in a company that I told you would be profitable in 2100, would you buy it? Or would you think the idea was so crazy that it must be a scam?...

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 12/17/04 07:07:38 PM
Categorized as Political & Social/Cultural & Speeches and Suchlike.

"Paul's New Morality in 1st Corinthians"

By Oswald Sobrino.

Over at Catholic Analysis:

The following is a paper previously submitted by me to a graduate moral theology class at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Detroit....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 12/17/04 06:35:11 PM
Categorized as Religious.

Robert Jensen: Traitor

This psychotic, America-hating Marxoid is "a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin".

This load of crap ran in the Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dec. 9.

The United States has lost the war in Iraq, and that's a good thing.

I don't mean that the loss of American and Iraqi lives is to be celebrated. The death and destruction are numbingly tragic, and the suffering in Iraq is hard for most of us in the United States to comprehend. The tragedy is compounded because these deaths haven't protected Americans or brought freedom to Iraqis. They have come in the quest to extend the American empire in this "new American century."

So, as a U.S. citizen, I welcome the U.S. defeat for a simple reason: It isn't the defeat of the United States — its people or their ideals — but of that empire. And it's essential that the American empire be defeated and dismantled. The fact that the Bush administration says we are fighting for freedom and democracy (having long ago abandoned fictions about weapons of mass destruction and terrorist ties) does not make it so.

We must look at the reality, no matter how painful. The people of Iraq are better off without Saddam Hussein's despised regime, but that does not prove our benevolent intentions or guarantee that the United States will work to bring meaningful democracy to Iraq. In Iraq, the Bush administration invaded not to liberate but to extend and deepen U.S. domination. When Bush said, "We have no territorial ambitions; we don't seek an empire," on Nov. 11, 2002, he told a half-truth. The United States doesn't want to absorb Iraq or take direct possession of its oil. That's not the way of empire today; it's about control over the flow of oil and oil profits, not ownership.

In a world that runs on oil, the nation that controls the flow of oil has great strategic power. U.S. policy-makers want leverage over the economies of competitors — Western Europe, Japan and China — that are more dependent on Middle Eastern oil. The Bush administration has invested money and lives in making Iraq a platform from which the United States can project power. That requires not the liberation of Iraq but its subordination. But most Iraqis don't want to be subordinated, which is why the United States in some sense lost the war on the day it invaded. One lesson of contemporary history is that occupying armies generate resistance that, inevitably, prevails over imperial power.

When we admit defeat and pull out — not if, but when — the fate of Iraqis will depend in part on whether the United States makes good on legal and moral obligations to pay reparations and allows international institutions to aid in creating a truly sovereign Iraq. We shouldn't expect politicians to do either without pressure. An anti-empire movement — the joining of anti-war forces with the movement to reject corporate globalization — must create that pressure. We should all carry a profound sense of sadness at where decisions made by U.S. policy-makers — not just the gang in power today but a string of Republican and Democratic administrations — have left us and the Iraqis. But that sadness should not keep us from pursuing the most courageous act of citizenship in the United States today: pledging to dismantle the American empire.

The planet's resources do not belong to the United States. The century is not America's. We own neither the world nor time. And if we don't give up the quest — if we don't find our place in the world instead of on top of the world — there is little hope for a safe, sane and sustainable future.

About the Author: Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity.

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

(Source.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 12/17/04 06:27:49 PM
Categorized as Political.

Holiday Party Tips

Thanks to Margaret for forwarding these very important reminders.

1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they're serving rum balls.
2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. Like fine single-malt scotch, it's rare. In fact, it's even rarer than single-malt scotch. You can't find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to turn into an eggnog-aholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It's later than you think. It's Christmas!
3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.
4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk or whole milk. If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.
5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas party is to eat other people's food for free. Lots of it. Hello?
6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year's. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you'll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.
7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind, you're never going to see them again.
8. Same for pies. Apple. Pumpkin. Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or, if you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?
9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it's loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards.
10. One final tip: If you don't feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven't been paying attention. Reread tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 12/17/04 07:49:18 AM
Categorized as Other.