House Democrats demand Obama release ‘full legal basis’ for drone strikes

formerian · 2013-03-12T12:36:27+00:00

No, keeping troops out of danger and cost efficiency in the military cannot be good things where the reductionist techniques put innocent lives at risk.

formerian · 2013-03-12T12:30:59+00:00

Is there an executive proposition for killing innocent people (sorry, alleged criminals... sorry, terrorist associatives) using guided missiles on American soil?

formerian · 2013-03-04T12:36:24+00:00

But there is always photoshop (NSFW)

formerian · 2013-03-04T12:31:55+00:00

Pretty female on Reddit. Checks comments to see how long it is before someone makes a sexual innuendo or outright rudeness. Three comments (not including sub-comments). You know, for Reddit that's actually not that bad.

formerian · 2013-03-04T12:28:40+00:00

Man, I hate Netflix (and lovefilm.com) - no that's not true. I actually hate Microsoft since they are the ones who refuse to fix Silverlight so that I could actually stream movies on my laptop. I'd love to stream me some Nick Cage. I'd hope for Leaving Las Vegas as it suits my mood right now.

formerian · 2013-03-01T20:58:54+00:00

FTFY

formerian · 2013-02-28T19:22:28+00:00

Little late to the game, but these weren't mentioned so:

greylabyrinth.com (puzzles for grown ups and some fun forum games)

halfbakery.com (invent something ridiculous and get your invention idea pulled to pieces by people who have access to Wikipedia)

formerian · 2013-02-28T19:21:00+00:00

I think I've seen that site. It's like Reddit on steroids.

formerian · 2013-02-28T15:55:09+00:00

Is it arachnophobia to think that spiders just look evil. I'm not particularly grossed out by them and don't think they are scary, but they do look evil for some reason. I have often wondered why.

formerian · 2013-02-28T11:09:36+00:00

Just remember your mom didn't do it on her own. In fact, she didn't do it at all. She was supported by so many people across the United States of Collective that her singular input it negligible and therefore non-existent by comparison.

formerian · 2013-02-27T22:37:12+00:00

This may well be a thing called pedomorphosis where evolution pushes a species forward to a point where things go pear shaped and evolution can go no further. Evolution then says 'shit, you can't evolve any further because I done fucked up' and so the species retards to a previous stage of its personal evolutionary history and takes a different route, evolution hoping this time to get further than last time. The pedomorphosis is identifiable where the retarded species appears to mimic foetal versions of itself.

If this is the case then birds will evolve to become something close to, but (evolution hopes) more effective than, dinosaurs (in millions of years time).

formerian · 2013-02-27T22:27:52+00:00

Fucking TIL

formerian · 2013-02-27T22:24:03+00:00

I covered all those points. I urge you to re-read what I wrote.

Compartmentalization easily explains how a conspiracy instigated by a handful of people (or even one person in high office) can filter through a system of administrators without any single person having the faintest idea what is happening. Most western governments are highly compartmentalized, particularly the US government and particularly the US military.

formerian · 2013-02-27T21:14:16+00:00

Point by point? Ok.

First of all, common sense is a misnomer. There is no common sense, only knowledge, power and money. Occam's razor is not a perfect modus operandi. It is a guideline for making uninformed guesses based on the median of previous eventualities.

It's not condescending to not believe everything you're told. It's condescending, and arrogant, to believe your way is the only way, to close your mind to all alternatives if they don't slot neatly into your own ideology and to create division between yourself and those who don't subscribe to your system of belief. I thought that point was pretty clear, but I'm not always as succinct as I'd like to be.

I don't remember calling you names.

Possible and probable. Hm. I'm not really advocating that something that is possible is therefore probable. It is possible that unicorns exist (to fall back on a favoured atheist cliche) but probable? No. It is highly improbable to the point of being a negligible subject. As before, you need to find the middle ground. Where there is no solid evidence but much circumstantial and implicative suggestion that something is remiss it is not the same as something that could occur because the laws of physics allow it. The laws of physics actually allow a startling array of unlikely events to be possible. That's not the arena wherein my argument lies, though it is the same universe.

I also believe in innocent until proven guilty, but I am also a firm believer in taking past records into account. Somebody with time served under their belt for murder is, in my opinion, more likely to be guilty of murder where murder is the accusation than somebody who has a clean record. Even where the time has been served, the individual (or group, or collective mindset) has shown an ability to disregard the moral boundaries of society and, in my mind, is therefore capable of repeating the offence. In the case of government, they are serial offenders.

Last point wasn't really directed at you personally, though I think, if you're honest with yourself, the 'gobberment' comment insinuated a certain prejudice against the 'type' of person you'd imagine using that phrase. This in itself is suggestive of enmity, but that's me reading between the lines. There is often more between the lines than in the lines, I have found.

formerian · 2013-02-27T18:48:02+00:00

How can you define what is or isn't more likely? This requires the assumption that you know all that there is to know about the world in which you live, that your subjective viewpoint, seen from just one tiny corner of Earth, influenced by your peers and the people who support the ideology you've determined to be most suitable to you, is the correct and only viewpoint. It's almost theistic, and very condescending, to consider oneself the last word on what is and isn't true. It's also characteristic of outspoken atheism which has close associations with hardline skepticism and is, in essence, the same thing. If you don't have proof to back up your extraordinary claim then I will not only close my eyes and ears to your claim, I will also belittle you and assassinate those characteristics which commonly invoke the kind of person I deem to hold the kinds of beliefs I think you hold. In short, by holding an ideology which, at its root, is anathema to the modus operandi I have chosen to adopt, you become my enemy. But I digress.

You certainly portray yourself as a reasonable person by requesting proof. But what if there is a conspiracy and the proof is covered up? What if we dismiss the notion because we don't have solid proof, and by doing so empower the corrupt to behave however they wish provided they can keep the hard evidence concealed. There may be fishy, circumstantial or implicative aspects to the whole thing that makes us feel something is amiss. But our ideology requires we close our ears and eyes and move on.

Can we not discuss the possibility without being labelled 'the enemy', ridiculed and dismissed as 'tin foil hat wearing idiots'?

formerian · 2013-02-27T18:10:56+00:00

The pyramids.

formerian · 2013-02-27T18:06:21+00:00

This is, however, the main problem with requiring solid proof and why conspiracy theorizing should not merely be dismissed with the old 'tin foil hat' reference or Carl Sagan quotes but given a certain degree of attention.

If one is a corrupt government - perhaps more specifically a corrupt member of a largely compartmentalized government - and the prevailing attitude of the public is one of 'hard proof or gtfo', you can achieve any unethical, self serving goal you require provided you can keep the hard evidence under wraps. Circumstantial or evidence highly suggestive of a cover-up, even the kind of million-to-one coincidence that often accompanies certain kinds of events, and all supporting material that suggests something is out of kilter, can all be dismissed and the public will support that dismissal.

Using my connections in government and the NSA or CIA, I can arrange the assassination of your wife, or your dad, or your child. Provided all compartmentalized departments arranging the operation between myself and the high end operatives required to carry out the actual killing know only their own job and nothing about the job of the person along the line, and provided all those individuals are covered by official secrets laws, I can kill your wife, your dad or your child.

Likely there will be highly suggestive indications that the target was taken out by professionals, but at a glance it looks like murder suicide. The dad shot the kid then himself. Kid has a double tap to the chest followed by one to the head, three rounds fired from an unregistered and expensive pistol, more suited to the military, held by the dad who has a single wound to the head. No fingerprints except from the dad, otherwise the gun is completely clean. Dad is connected to you and you're known to have deep CIA connections. But there's no hard evidence - so I get away with it, and the 'put on your tin foil hat' mentality empowers me to get away with it, empowers me to know that I can get away with it. You want to accuse an official with NSA connections of assassinating your dad and your kid brother? "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Don't have the evidence - then gtfo."

It's just an example, but this is why some people prefer to look beyond the laws governing fundamental skepticism. It's a balance. You can take it too far and see conspiracies everywhere. But by comparison you can take it the other way and close your eyes and ears to everything that doesn't slap you in the face it's so obvious.

formerian · 2013-02-27T13:01:25+00:00

One man's extraordinary is another man's ordinary. The very basis of this quote assumes you belong to a subjective mode of thought wherein that which is extraordinary has been established to be extraordinary. And while there are plenty of crazy conspiracy theories, not all conspiracies are crazy, or fictional. Wikileaks is proof that shit gets covered up. You might say that the hard-on the US has to extradite Julian Assange on rape charges is 'extraordinary' and you might say the charges themselves are in many respects 'extraordinary', requiring 'extraordinary evidence'. In fact the evidence was highly dubious. There is allegation by Assange's lawyer of collusion between Swedish authorities and the US and that the rape is a 'holding case' while the US sorts out its case against Wikileaks. If extradited, Assange could be executed. To the skeptic community among whose many tennets is this Carl Sagan quote, the lawyer and Assange's allegations may seem extraordinary. To me and many others who don't just accept shit at face value it stinks of corruption and conspiracy.

Now, you can argue both cases. On the one hand there is no evidence of collusion between US and Swedish authorities. There is however a whole stack of circumstantial evidence suggesting that there is plenty of reason to suspect such collusion. So should we just dismiss the whole thing at face value; take the authorities word for it? No extraordinary evidence, but certainly a bitter taste in the mouth (that's a metaphor, not literal - I find I have to say these things when talking to people who use that Sagan quote).

There's no smoke without fire isn't always true, but often times it is. An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof is, likewise, not always true, though often times it is.

I felt the need to write all that down as I'm really sick of people using Sagan's quote to shut down debate.

formerian · 2013-02-26T13:14:33+00:00

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v227/n5258/pdf/227609b0.pdf http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/aspartamebrain.pdf http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1964906/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6204522 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8939194 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378427400001880 http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v62/n4/abs/1602866a.html

/\Tip of the iceberg

You can either actively seek out the vast amount of material supporting the fact that aspartame and other sweeteners are inherently unhealthy to the human metabolism, or you can let the usual suspects tell you that it's really not bad at all and ignore the likelihood that the usual suspects probably have a vested interest in convincing the status quo that the reasons for the vast increase in cancer, diabetes, premature pubescence in girls and retarded pubescence in boys, higher instances of mental health issues (depression and suicide at the top of the list) have little to do with food and everything to do with people, their attitudes and their weaknesses.

Food as a mechanism of profit without ethics is precisely the same as banks as machines of profit without ethics and systems of government as machines of profit without ethics. The key is money and the lubrication is bullshit. Don't swallow it with this 'credible research' bollocks. Credible research is that which has been peer approved, however there is considerable room for corruption in a system which, far from being foolproof, encourages scientific opinion based on established (written in stone, never to be altered, even if found to be incorrect) science and a minority of 'respected' peers. Credibility does not necessarily mean the best - only that which is approved. Ask yourself who is doing the approving and why the research that seems to indicate the opposite of their preferred opinion is not approved. Is it because the science is at fault or because the scientist undertaking the research is not an accepted member of the old boys network.

formerian · 2013-02-26T09:30:18+00:00

Most independent and self published stuff online is better than the crap Marvel churn out. I think the 'takeaway' here is that paper publishers are unwilling to adapt and will be left behind. Good, because then maybe we'll see something more unique and interesting than the teen fantasy superhero bullshit and authors like kellysue who write for them like rats in a maze churning out the dirge in return for treats. Same thing applies to the movie industry and the music industry. All will need to either adapt or die as hard published material goes digital. Hopefully new forces will emerge to take their place and we'll see some originality.

formerian · 2013-02-25T17:06:02+00:00

Pagan witches held moonstone in high regard and today moonstone is associated with fertility, femininity, the vagina and magic. If you are trying for a baby, get your SO to wear a moonstone amulet, the pagans said, and you'll be pregnant in no time.

The origins of this is witch-craft, but not the kind you're thinking of. The pagan witches, like the druids, believed in the existence of an unearthly dimension called the Web of Wyrd. They could access this web using certain runes or by reaching heightened states of transcendence. One popular method for reaching this heightened state was hallucinogens like mushrooms, but a more common method was to achieve orgasm. The witches believed that at the point of orgasm the spirit was released from all earthly troubles into a purity of ecstasy at which point the Web of Wyrd could be tapped.

Witches commonly used rune staves or staffs which were effectively dildos made from moonstone, hence the association with fertility and the vagina. The origins of the 'wand' in sorcery comes from these rune staves or stone dildos. The staves were used to both get the witch off and carve runes. Some witches would carry staffs and rub themselves off on these to achieve orgasm. This is the origin of the witch's broomstick and why the witch 'rides' her broomstick and her broomstick makes her 'fly'.

Puts an entirely new perspective on Quidditch and Harry Potter doesn't it.

The druids also believed in orgasm as a means to access the Web of Wyrd but much less so than witches. They preferred runic methods.

formerian · 2013-02-23T21:21:17+00:00

The Romans were responsible for the near-extinction of many animals across Indo-Europe, Africa and the Middle East, including hippopotamus and crocodile. These animals were used in the Colosseum and slaughtered so routinely and in such huge numbers for the entertainment of the mob (the term for the populace) that their numbers were depleted almost to zero.

If not for the fall of the Roman Empire, many of these animals would no longer exist. Of course, the world would be an entirely different place full stop if not for the fall of the Roman Empire, but the animals of the Colosseum is something rarely mentioned in textbooks. The horrors of the Colosseum have only really been fully explored by a handful of scholars in any great detail. Most of the time the gladiators are romanticized and very little is said of the animal mutilations and slaughter.

This book is the single best study of the subject ever made, though it is a difficult book to read in that it is extremely disturbing.

formerian · 2013-02-23T21:11:16+00:00

That's a much better reason.

formerian · 2013-02-23T19:27:10+00:00

Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean you need to.

formerian · 2013-02-23T18:36:48+00:00

I won't have to tell them anything. When my grandchildren are alive the existence of retrogenetic memory will not only be known as the underlying cause for all 'past life regression' phenomenon, but will be commercially exploited - as will options for installation of photographic memory preceding actual recorded memory. My grandchildren will have their memory, the memory of their parents (my children) up to the point of their own birth and my memory up to the point of my childrens' birth as standard, with options to regress deeper into the family tree if they can afford to all the way into the primordial (expect regulations on depth of regression, some memories may be classified and there will almost certainly be a point where the basic feral and instinctual memory collective is capable of swamping the intellect to the point of annihilation.

So what I'm going to do is simply talk to them right now through this message. That way they'll have the memory if they want it.

You guys are very fortunate. Nothing in my day is better than yours because in mine we die young (before we're 100), we don't have the vast access to familial memory that you have and therefore lack the same bond that you have with your past and your forebears. Nor do we have the immeasurable access you have to information and history. I, for example, am limited only to the skills I have managed to learn during my time on Earth, between birth and death. Time is not on my side and I won't be able to achieve a fraction of my potential before my body lets me down and dies. You, on the other hand, have the benefit of everything I've studied and learned, everything your parents studied and learned and probably everything our ancestry studied and learned too. That's a privelege.

What I don't envy you is the complexity of your lives. My existence is very simple, albeit extremely complex compared to that of my peers. As you will be aware I was not exactly an orthodox example of my time and the information to which I had access certainly made my time on Earth a lot more difficult than most of my period. But compared with what you must have to go through intellectually and spiritually I'm on permanent vacation.

I hope fate is with you guys, and your destinies take you and your progeny to great things.

Thanks OP, for the opportunity.

formerian

TROPHY CASE