Pres. Trump's SCOTUS nominee -- Usually in cases like this, the classic HE said/SHE said I'll either side with the man (e.g. Clarence Thomas) or not have an opinion for the time being (existentially neutral or only God knows the deal). When the # of accusers increases then it becomes problematic. If you're dealing with say four or five different female accusers you can sit there and say it's a travesty against God and Justice and Country but average folk like me begin to ponder. Sure it can be some evil leftist conspiracy but......So can the FBI conduct a decent investigation in a week? Was Judge Kavanaugh even properly vetted? My own preliminary opinion: maybe go with somebody else?
Z-man... "Maybe go with someone else?"
ReplyDeleteI think that ship sailed in Nov 2016. Pres Trump is not the type of president who will whack a nominee for the sake of comity or to get along. He believes he's got the man he wants, probably for his view of the power of the presidency, and that view trumps all.
Did Kav do it? Who knows. How do we know? How can we know?
What I think we can know is this this... he was pretty weaselly on some answers and outright untruthful on others. Normally that alone would cause a pres to dump the guy and choose someone else.
But we're not living in normal, are we?
I don't view these things through the hyperventilating feminism of a Maureen Dowd say. Looked at simply from a math angle the more accusers you have the more likely there is something in your background that needs looking at. Poor vetting imo. On the other hand I'm hearing the most stupid sweeping statements from some liberal commentators to wit ALWAYS believe the woman in these type cases i.e. the Me Too movement. There's always a person's credibility to consider, the internal consistency in their stories so when did that all go out the window? All told though probably not the wisest choice.
DeleteHe will join SCOTUS: a packed court. It's moot...and increases the polarized divisions in the country.
ReplyDeleteExample- I was rejected from a RW blog which posted a wonderful summary of the Knights Templar in
winning the Holy Land back in the Crusade era. I had posted that the very Christian Templars were destroyed (excuted, jailed, dispersed, eliminated) some years later by the very Christian King of France, Phillip IV. A simple historical fact illustrating the ever changing views of people over time.
I was rejected for 'spreading hatred'. We live in interesting times...and we got serious problems, Z-Man.
Re your point about the SCOTUS many point out that liberal courts have also increased the divisions in this country. For instance gays were making some progress across the states re gay marriage but the more liberal justices don't seem too fond of the regular democratic and legislative processes.
DeleteBB... I remember a time years ago when I was asked to talk at a So Cal high School on part of the history of Christianity as it related to the Reformation.
ReplyDeleteOf course I brought up the indulgences.
I heard later that the teacher was mad at me because by bringing up the indulgences, I offended a few Catholic kids in the class.
I guess I was an early spreader of hatred.
I'm not sure what we do when people are offended, or hurt by historical facts.
It is hard to study the Reformation without the practice of selling indulgences: in some villages, the
Deleteclerics went door to door, terrifying the peasants with unimagionable hellfire. It was very lucrative
The early medieval people were very credulous. Many still had earlier pagan superstition in their
genes and little or no education- they believed they were getting a good deal; others thought they
were being played for fools. In the context of those times, that is just honest history. I think, Dave,
that we now seem to have our own versions of history and our own imoveable facts...in a way a TV News network sells the 'indulgences' of attractive simple loud opinions. These are patently baseless:
the beginning of 'fake news' which has now become their description of factual news. We note the
phenomenon, ponder the observations of Orwell and Kafka in that regard, sigh hopelessly and wait
for an end to the stupidity.
Re hell I've come to the conclusion that it exists. It's logical that it would but I see it more along the lines of a place or level of existence involving spiritual desolation much in keeping with John Paul's thinking. The Church though still pushes the most childish and simplistic versions of hell, you know I guess if you were a gossip monger a devil puts a hook through your tongue or something.
DeleteFrom the eschatological standpoint it makes sense that living a good life would be rewarded and
ReplyDeletea bad life punished. The more complex question is how. The literature on Hell speaks to a variety
of rewards and punishments among religions. The Jehovah Witness think there is no hell. Probably
because they are old testament oriented. The Hebrew religion was unconcerned with an afterlife (some suggesting when they were in Egypt, they grew sick of the Egyptian religion intense focus on life after death and all its gold trimmings). But the Jews feel that living a good life at least avoids a hell on earth. Since no one can know with certainty the fate of the soul, they tend to address Heaven for example with typical Jewish humor; eg. In heaven, one story teaches, Moses sits and teaches Torah all day long. For the righteous people, this is heaven; for the evil people, it is hell. For Muslims, it is the many virgins, for Vikings it was guzzling beer: primitves join their ancestors, the eastern religions it was recycling: turn in your soul for reencarnation someplace. Philosophically speaking, we lack hard data. There seems to be no known place, the soul is not physical, so your belief in an eternal state would make sense. Along those lines, my wife and I recenly purchased cemetery plots. Kind of nice, being a vet, we get in the honor section by the military monument and flags. I'll find out in about 20 years if I watch my cholesterol...but listening to Moses preach all day would be hell for sure.
I'd advise staying out of Saudi embassies, Z-Man.
ReplyDeleteBB... it wasn't a fair fight. Apparently it was 18 against 1. The deck was stacked from the beginning. He never had a chance.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why he went.
Just filled up my tank. Price of gas definitely gone up.
ReplyDeleteThought you maybe just filled up once a year...
DeleteZ Man... I've got a buddy who buys his gas on the reservation to avoid taxes... it keeps his cost down. What's a gallon of petrol in your area these days?
ReplyDeleteIn Las Vegas its about $3.30 a gallon here...
BB... your area?
I'm always intrigued by the wide variety of prices around the country. How is that even possible? We'd never accept such wide latitude in other commodities would we?
$3.15 a gallon. Odd, US oil production set a record high
Deletethis year.
About maybe $3.29/gallon now Dave and that's for Regular.
DeleteBB... maybe usage is up decreasing supply?
ReplyDeleteThere is the supply/demand economics. We export 10.4 million barrels a day (Mexico, Brazil, China etc) and import 6.8 million a day; mostly crude in and refined out. Our refinery
ReplyDeletecapacity seems to be a major factor. Crude alone has been fairly
cheap, but refining, transport and retailing add quite a bit.
Historically, the 1951 Ford coupe I bought for $100 in college,
1962 cost me $0.31/gal (and I complained then)
We gotta watch the Halloween costumes now. When did Halloween become so pc?
ReplyDeleteZ... that's an interesting question. If you go into a lot of costume stores, there are still many Un PC costumes. Perhaps we moved to a more PC costume culture as it relates to business. But, at least here in Vegas, people are not really PC in that regard outside of work.
ReplyDeleteFWIW
Apparently Halloween is still a free range holiday.
DeleteEvery time I bring this up I get ten different answers but does anyone know why we still change the clocks? It seems to go against Nature for it to be pitch black outside at 5 in the afternoon when I'm smoking a cigar.
ReplyDeletePolls consistantly show that people don't like DST: about 70-75% saying it is a lot more trouble than
Deleteit is worth. Me- I'm for “falling back” to 1952.
Z-man... jobs? more daylight? to save energy? who knows... here's an interesting link...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/c.html
I was surprised Bob Menendez Democratic Senator from NJ got in. I thought the ads against him were very effective.
ReplyDeleteOh Z-man... I figured he was toast. Burnt toast.
ReplyDeleteThe town in California, Paradise, that burned up a couple days back was where Lista lived. You may recall she blogged here frequently some years a go. Somehow they got 27.000 residents our through the flames, a lot of them on foot for miles. I lost rrack of her a few years back, but assume she, her husband and their Samoyed dog are safe in a shelter somewhere.
ReplyDeleteBB... I do remember Lista and then she just dropped off the radar.
ReplyDeleteI've been in SF the last couple of days and it's a hazy mess. Reminds me of growing up in the smogville of the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles back in the 60's. Flights have been delayed, people are walking around with masks on, etc.
I saw one story of a nurse from there, her car was on fire, she got out ran, got in a friends car, it caught on fire and in the dark of smoke and haze, they just ran with eyes closed until they hit a fire truck, also on fire. They got in, but the truck was trapped by burnt vehicles until a dozer showed up and cut a path through the dead cars.
Must have been horrible.
I truly miss Lista. I will always remember her and her unique perspective and unique way of making points. Always in my prayers.
ReplyDeleteYa think the quantum computer is dead on arrival ?
ReplyDeleteWhat's your view? I of course don't have the credentials to argue against his pessimistic view. I've browsed through the IBM Q Experience and got to the point where you can actually use their cloud to run experiments on their quantum computer in Yorktown and haven't the foggiest clue. Can you search Anthony Weiner or cronuts in Westchester?
DeleteDigital computing is based on either/or, yes/no and on/off paradigms, as are most Newtonian
Deletemathematics and physics. Digital computing is based on the first and analog computing is based on the second. Modern theoretical physics through the math of statistical mechanics, introduced the concept
of either/or + probability. Schrodinger's Box is a game of two knowns vs a probability, for example:
or plus/minus electron spin problems. The quantum bit introduces probablity to the yes/no system, most simply as yes/no/maybe. Serial interation estimates the probability somewhere between 1-99%.
We might term that an educated guess. We do that in our heads more often than you think. For example, in making decisions if there is no clearcut option, we 'guesstimate': I guess I will wait until that is on sale, etc. Biological brains are natural parallel processors, still superior to the blinking machines. So, quantum cubit computers offer interesting analyses of Chaos Theory problems like
weather (did that raindrop start a hurricane someplace or not?) or in what space-time quadrant is that
electron in the Plutonium atom located? You can “ search Anthony Weiner or cronuts in Westchester”
by i-net, asking friends, yellow pages or google probably successfully. A quantum cubit computer
would state “possibly” at a cost of $500,000. Color me skeptical, Z-Man.
You left out perhaps the most important part. Even the inventors of quantum computers don't really know how they work. You don't have that specificity offered by Classical Physics. Einstein called the quantum world "spooky". They're might be some surprises in store but maybe you might give it a whirl.
DeleteIs a visit to CERN on your bucket list? Their anti-matter snack bar is unique.
ReplyDeleteMust be an interesting place to work but would probably give me nightmares. What do they talk about in the breakroom?
DeleteJust guessing, but breakroom talk is probably about European soccer, the problem of the accidental
Deleteblack hole in the second floor toilet, the new hot young woman theoretical physicist from Eurasia,
the positron fog that blew down the valley, the old black matter sample that is turning gray, Dr.Pettiman's twin grand kids, how to remove the technician with the metal hip replacement that
has been stuck to mega-magnet 18, Dr. Schwartz's tinnitus and whether the black matter experiment
caused it, and the latest cronut shipment from Yonkers. You know, sort of like chefs on break....
Hey guys... not sure what your plans are but I hope you both have a great Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteDespite the glamour and glitz, theoretical physics seems to be just treading water. Is this
ReplyDeletea case for us to be conCERNed? Has the Higgs Bosun any wonderful practical spin-offs? Does black matter matter? Do all those theoretical multiple dimensions that remain unproven provide value to
anyone except Reddit? Will quantum-bit computing disprove Global Warming? How many theoretical
physicists does it take to light an e-cigarette? Questions for chef breaks Z-man...dunno.
You're being a curmudgeon.
DeleteWill Trump pardon Ted Bundy?
ReplyDeleteDown to 15 degrees this morning. Being a native Midwesterner, I
ReplyDeletestill put coat and gloves in the car in case I have to be out in
the wind more than a minute or two. Went to McDonalds for breakfast at 6AM and they were quite busy. There was a young guy
in shorts and a hoody, which I figured was hardly dressed for the weather. A couple of guys came in well bundled up. The
clerk says "You gotta work outside today?" "No, we got the day
off-we're going fishing. Its what guys do." Went home and stayed indoors. Not complaining; over on the border with Wyoming it was 23 below...probably where the kid with shorts was headed...
Yeah those stylish young'ens freezing their ass off in the cold. Don't seem to carry umbrellas either.
DeleteCould their smartphones have a handwarmer app?
DeleteOk so not that long ago I went to this religious place in Rockland County. Bought some Padre Pio and St. Jude "holy oil". Looking at the label last night - "This is not blessed or holy oil. Please have a priest or deacon bless it". Is everything a con or a hoax? Is nothing real anymore?
ReplyDeleteWere they pushing PenzOil?
DeleteWhat happens in Vegas is peculiar .
ReplyDeleteCome on BB... us folks in Vegas get slammed because of a couple of dirty nuns from Los Angeles?
DeleteFor shame...
But it is a great story.
I'm gonna look for something terrible that happened in Idaho perpetrated by some sap from Wyoming.
Peace...
Well, Dave, I heard my wife laughing when she read that in the local paper this morning. I'm familiar with teaching nuns, singing nuns and even the Flying Nun, but embezzling a cool half million to hit
ReplyDeletethe Vegas tables is just, ….well, nunsense!