Sunday, January 27, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Moving Napoleonic Lithography
Cool. Taking of the Great Redoubt of Raievski at Borodino in a "moving lithograph" set up the music of Wagner. It just doesn't get any better than that!
Friday, January 25, 2008
The View From The End Of The World
An audio only presentation, from a lecture thattook place in the Conference Center Golden Gate Room, San Francisco.
Quote:
With gentle demeanor and tight argument, Sam Harris carried an overflow audience into the core of one of the crucial issues of our time: What makes some religions lethal? How do they employ aggressive irrationality to justify threatening and controlling non-believers as well as believers? What should be our response?
Harris began with Christianity. In the US, Christians use irrational arguments about a soul in the 150 cells of a 3-day old human embryo to block stem cell research that might alleviate the suffering of millions. In Africa, Catholic doctrine uses tortured logic to actively discourage the use of condoms in countries ravaged by AIDS.
"This is genocidal stupidity," Harris said. Faith trumps rational argument. Common-sense ethical intuition is blinded by religious metaphysics.
In the US, 22% of the population are CERTAIN that Jesus is coming back in the next 50 years, and another 22% think that it's likely.
The good news of Christ's return, though, can only occur following desperately bad news. Mushroom clouds would be welcomed. "End time thinking," Harris said, "is fundamentally hostile to creating a sustainable future."
Harris was particularly critical of religious moderates who give cover to the fundamentalists by not challenging them. The moderates say that all is justified because religion gives people meaning in their life. "But what would they say to a guy who believes there's a diamond the size of a refrigerator buried in his backyard? The guy digs out there every Sunday with his family, cherishing the meaning the quest gives them."
"I've read the books," Harris said. "God is not a moderate." The Bible gives strict instructions to kill various kinds of sinners, and their relatives, and on occasion their entire towns. Yet slavery is challenged nowhere in the New or Old Testaments; slave holders in the old south used the Bible to defend their practice. The religious texts have power because they are old, but they are also hopelessly out of date because they are old.
It's taboo among religious moderates to compare religions, said Harris, but we must. "Where are the Tibetan Buddhist suicide bombers? For that matter, where are the Palestinian Christian suicide bombers--- they're as Arab and aggrieved as anyone." The fundamental beliefs of Islam really are a problem. "Martyrdom in jihad is not a fringe doctrine; it is believed by millions of Muslims." It's not a question of ignorance... two-thirds of al Qaeda operatives are college educated.
"We have no reason to expect to survive our religious differences indefinitely. Faith is intrinsically divisive. We have a choice between conversation and war." It was conversation that ended slavery, not faith. "Faith is a declaration of immunity to conversation. To make religious war unthinkable, we have to undermine the dogma of faith. The continuance of civilization requires not moderation, but reason."
Harris ended by lauding meditation and mysticism as a form of experiential science, and observed, "The wisdom of contemplative life is not evenly distributed. The East has more than the West."
BTs Explained: The Grand Unifying Theory
Yeah, it's one of those "Ah-Ha!" moments that Archimedes is renowned for.
Adventure Up The Info-Stream
Just what sort of a media environment would we have if this cynical douchebag actually got her way? CTV, CanWest Global and… um, well that’s about it. Gee, that would be just super, wouldn’t it?
Update: LOL.
Is Prof. Charlie Nesson Insane?
Possibly. But perhaps in a “good” sort of way. He proposes that the presidential candidates be forced to play poker. This is similar to my own suggestion that they be subjected to a round of “Jeopardy!” to demonstrate their general knowledge. So maybe I too am insane. Or even a “dumbfuck” according to some.
The (Perpetual) Oil Thing…
“On
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue – Part 2
Why they can't join these fucking clips up mystifies me completely.
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue – Part 1
A tad ponderous (typical Bernstein… what can you say?), but an otherwise decent rendition of the quintessential American classic. Is it possible not to think of New York when hearing this?
A Tale of Three Little Pigs
Hey, it’s just “The Three Little Pigs”… I mean it can’t be taken as anything other than a harmless story about pigs in a children’s story, that happen to build houses, right? It’s not like other interpretations could be drawn from it. Heaven forbid!
The Korova Milk Bar
Again, “La Gazza Ladra” is a magnificent overture — but the whole rest of this opera is utterly forgettable tripe. Apparently, Rossini chucked it off in some kind of frenzied dementia, hurling sheets of hastily scribbled music out the window to his copyists. Doubtful, but it makes for a colourful story.
The GOP’s “Whizzo Quality Assortment”
CC reviews the goods presently on offer from the Grand Old Party.
Herbert Von Karajan: Tannhäuser - Part 2
Thank goodness for overtures. Opera is insufferable otherwise.
Herbert Von Karajan: Tannhäuser - Part 1
Ugh. Having skimmed the round-up of daily idiocy, it's time for some refreshment from another Dick.
Lest We Forget….
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Aussie Cool
On the Road With Pamela Wallen – Part 2
How’s that whole “peacekeeping” and “reconstruction” thing going?
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
An Occurrence Of Jethro Tull...
A rebuttal of sorts to that “Darkside of the Rainbow” set of videos. By the way, in case you didn’t know, Ambrose Bierce, the author of the short story on which this curious little film (and a “Twilight Zone” episode!) is based upon and uses as background/subtext to Ian Anderson’s wonderfully flatulent musical diatribe, was the author of the venerable “Devil’s Dictionary” – a highly recommended compilation of cynical aphorisms.
Film Spoiler: Biggles is just writing up his memoirs in Cornwall.
Relapsed Irony
Captain Future: Man of Tomorrow!
Richard Dawkins: Science, Delusion & the Appetite for Wonder - Part 2
The points Dawkins makes here are music to my ears. I’ve been saying this for years… Especially when it comes to maths; something at which I completely hopeless at, but yet find absolutely fascinating.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Dark Side of the Rainbow: Part 1
Well, and so on. There's quite a number of little three minute parts that follow expanding on this idea. Why they all couldn't be strung together into one video is quite beyond me.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Friday, January 18, 2008
Conservative Economics: Fasten Your Seat Belts
Great... Let's throw money at the problem. "Conservatives"? Give me a break.
Bobby Fischer: Checkmate!
Such an awful waste. A deeply flawed man who made chess seem almost romantic. Now, let me tell you about the "Capablanca vs Yates" classic endgame...
D’oh! So Close to Being Right...
But sadly, not. Another tiny shred of decency extirpated by the Conservatives.
Our Lazy, Stupid Media
The unbelievable stupid. In many respects there are similarities between the mainstream press and this 1970 Cadillac Coupe de Ville.Or a dead crab...
Another Scary “House of the Future”...
I don’t know about you, but that whole “Internet kitchen” and the “aware home” thing is more than a little creepy. Oh yeah, “technology with be our friend.” Uh-huh. Yeah, I am so buying that heaping helping of futuristic cyberbollocks.
Monsanto’s “House of the Future” – Part 2
“One last look through the thermo-pane windows with decorative plastic laminated safety glass; functional, beautiful… Another dream of the future in the House of Tomorrow.”
A Very British Coup: The Abdication
Once again, the conventional narrative comes up woefully short in the face of evidence that the patrician elite gamed the established order to eliminate any potential threat that might conceivably challenge or unsettle the comfortable certainties of their presumed supremacy and feudal status quo.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Well, That About Wraps It Up for God
Ironically, "Intelligent Design" results in the non-existence of God.
The Power of Nightmares: Part 3 - The Shadows in the Cave
Can someone possibly dissuade me from the distinct impression that this is a farirly accurate précis of the absurdly hysterical delirium and nonsensical state of imagined "terra" that we’ve been needlessly subjected to for the past seven years by the powers that be…?
Rutland Weekend Television - Talk About
In news of the completely trivial, I replaced my broken TV yesterday. Fabulously uninteresting, I know; but get this… courtesy of the kind Samaritans at the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop, it cost me the grand sum of $6. Six dollars, ladies and gentlemen! How completely insane is our frantically rapacious consumer society wherein I can purchase a perfectly good little, albeit “previously owned” TV (with stereo sound and a really fabulous picture, I might add), for a measly six dollars? Sheesh, I’ve spent more than that on a box of Bran Flakes! Surely this must be indicative of something being profoundly fucked up in the economic order of things. Not that I’m complaining, of course.
