As I mentioned before, I am posting over on the Penn & Teller Bullshit Board. Three days ago I wrote a very long post discussing the shortcomings of some "research" papers hosted on a website by a Chiropractic company called Cox. Page down till you see "Published Research Abstracts by Topic" and you will see the list of papers that was being used to prove that Chiropractic manipulation worked. You will also notice that clicking any of those links takes you, not to the research paper itself, but to copies of abstracts. Being my usual detailed self I copied the abstract and then pointed out what was wrong with them. I mentioned that I wrote this article which the person I was debating ignored (a fellow going by the handle thorshammer7). He came back to the board accusing me of making the post up. To my surprise I could not find the article, so to prove that I did not make it up, I posted it again. Actually I re-wrote it since I don't save posts to my harddrive.
Well yesterday I go back to the board and once again my post is missing. By now I am really curious, none of my other posts had vanished so I wrote the Moderator (apparently an employee of Showtime) asking them what was up. The following is the email they sent me:
Dear Dominion,
Thank you for participating in the SHO.com Penn & Teller: Bullshit! message board community. We look forward to your continued contributions and interaction!
We wish to inform you that we were required to delete your recent post because it contains copyrighted materials that are not allowed on the message boards. A copy of your post is included below.
For more information about the guidelines, please see the Message Board Rules located at the top of each forum and the SHO.com Terms of Service at http://www.sho.com/util/terms.cfm
We highly value and respect your membership and participation at SHO.com. We thank you for participating in the Penn & Teller: Bullshit! community and we welcome you to visit often and share your insights and ideas. We hope to see you again soon!
Sincerely,
The SHO.com Moderators
What? Removed for copyright violations? You have got to be joking with me. So this is the letter I fired back. I am still waiting for clarification from Showtime.
I am not trying to be a butthead here, but did the owners of the Cox website ask you to remove the material? I am at a loss as to how this would not be considered a Fair Use exception to the copyright laws.
I did read your TOS before posting to the board. I just read them a second time. I do not believe that I can be accused of copyright violations for reproducing an abstract of a paper, which is a very, very common practice. Now if I had reproduced the entire paper...
I have been very active in skeptical webboards and skeptical newsgroups for many years. I have _never_ had a post removed for copyright violations on any of the boards I have ever been on. This is a first. And I did nothing more than I have ever done.
So a bit of clarity would be appreciated here. I mean, if you are this paranoid of breaking copyright, a great deal of fun will be lost to this particular board, which will almost certainly call for a lot of reference material. I mean, a skeptical board is quite different from a fan board.
However, I will completely understand if someone from the site mentioned above asked you to remove the material. If that is the case I certainly would like to know...
(edited slightly for clarity)
Understand that I have been accused of copyright violation because I posted an abstract This is a practice so common in the scientific world I did not give it a second thought. For those of you that don't know what an abstract is, it is very simply a summery of the salient points of a paper. I am at a loss as to how anyone, anywhere could consider reproducing an abstract as a violation of the copyright law. Apparently Showtime has never heard of Fair Use. I am really curious if the posts were removed because of complaints by Cox. Thorshammer7 uses that website quite a bit to "prove" the efficiency of Chiropractic manipulation. This would be completely understandable if this is the case that Showtime removed the posts. Still I don't think I broke any law in my posts.
Until I know for sure, I am not going to reproduce those posts here. If it was due to a complaint by the Cox company, then all that would accomplish is getting my ISP a load of bullshit letters and probably getting my site jerked. I have already had one site jerked because of an empty lawsuit threat (by none other than Uri Geller's brother-in-law Shipi Shtrang). I will write more about this tomorrow. For those that think that this contradicts my email above, it does not. I have never had a posting removed from a board for copyright violations. A posting is not a whole damn site. :) The situation is also completely different but more tomorrow, when you will get the full story. It is a good one.
So now I sit on the horns of a dilemma. I usually hate posting to a webboard that practices censorship. However I am not sure if that was the case. If Showtime removed it on their own, then most probably I won't be going back. Being that sensitive to copyright violations will make the board completely unsuitable for any type of debate, especially one devoted to Skepticism, which requires a lot of posting from various sources. I can hear it now, "Why not just link to your references". Two reasons, not all references are on the web, and the worry that people will not bother to click on the link to see just what the hell your talking about, human laziness being somewhat more advance than that of the human desire to learn.
On the other hand, if Showtime is responding to a complaint by Cox, then I don't blame them in jerking the articles at all. Of course, that in and of itself will prove my point (that the papers are proof of nothing more than how a high school student should not write a research paper). Only someone that had something to hide would be worried about the reproduction of the abstract of a paper. Understand that I in no way blame Penn & Teller, who in all likelihood have no idea what is going on.
To show you just how silly this all is, allow me to point out that if I was guilty of copyright violations, then so is the Cox website since every abstract on the page comes from a trade magazine.
Well as you know I had planned to take a close look at the State of the Union address because, no matter how many programs Bush comes up with, the reality is that none of those programs will get funding.
But gosh darn, the Democratic party has already done so and done it better than I could. So please visit the DCCC Update and move down the page till you see "Responding to the State of the Union: Rhetoric vs. Reality". Read it. It is well worth it.
This little ditty appeared in my comment section. I have been meaning to post it here but simply forgot. But in honor of the SOTU address I think I will go ahead and post it now.
To be sung to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it...."
Well I did not get a chance to blog live during the State of the Union address, but I did get to watch it. To tell the truth it made me a bit ill. I heard him once again offering the people of the United States the sun, moon, and stars. Yet what he fails to tell people is that he will refuse to fund the very programs he proposes.
I plan to take the rest of the week looking long and hard at the SOTU address. I am going to show you exactly what we can expect from such programs as AIDS aid to Africa. Education. Homeland Security and anything else that seems important. Next week I hope to look at the "War" portion.
Our first look is at education. This is what Bush said last night:
To lift the standards of our public schools, we achieved historic education reform which must now be carried out in every school and in every classroom so that every child in American can read and learn and succeed in life.
As far as I can tell, the only education "reform" that has gone on in the past year is the Supreme Court's ruling of the consititutionality of vouchers. Am I wrong here? What program does George W. Bush offer to improve reading? To improve learning? In fact, when the president signed his "No Child Left Behind" bill he said he would spend more on education:
We're going to spend more on our schools, and we're going to spend it more wisely. - "Remarks on Signing the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, 1/8/02"
Yet the reality is that Bush's budget cut initiatives in The No Child Left Behind Act by a net total of $90 million. In addition Bush proposed a 2.8 percent increase, roughly $1.4 billion, in education funding, the smallest increase in seven years. So where was the reform? As far as I can tell the only thing that Bush did was cut the legs out from public education by endorsing the voucher program. Way to go George.
Or how about his pledge to raise Pell Grant funding?
"It is a known fact that if Pell Grants - if Pell Grant aid significantly affects the ability of the child to attend college or stay in college. A child eligible for a Pell Grant future will be affected by the size of the Pell Grant [sic]. I am going to ask Congress to bolster the first year aid from thirty-three hundred dollars to five thousand one hundred dollars per recipient of the Pell Grant, to encourage children to not only to attended higher education but to complete the first year of higher education. Increasing the Pell Grants - increasing the first year Pell Grant will make college much more affordable for low and middle income students." - Bush speech, Hampton, New Hampshire. 8/30/00
Yet according to the Los Angeles Times:
Although Bush has talked up his education proposals, the actual funding increases are relatively modest - about $ 2.5 billion, 5.9% overall. Bush would spend $1 billion more on Pell grants for low-income college students, increasing the maximum grant by $100 a year, to $3,850." - Los Angles Times, 4/9/01
Or how about Bush's pledge to make higher education affordable:
"Every year, U.S. colleges attract the best and the brightest students from all over the world. I want to make sure that higher education is affordable and accessible to every American. And therein lie our greatest weaknesses: college tuition and the burden of student indebtedness. I am committed to helping families prepare for the cost of higher education." - Matrix: The Magazine for Leaders in Higher Education, 10/1/00
The reality is a bit different:
The Bush administration proposed a plan to help ease the $100 billion federal budget shortfall by tapping $1.3 billion from a federal student loan program. OMB Director Mitch Daniels and GOP budget negotiators proposed preventing college students and graduates from consolidating their education loans at federally subsidized, fixed interest rates. The GOP plan would allow the consolidated loans to be offered only at variable rates, making the loans less appealing. - New York Times, 4/28/02
President Bush's 2002 budget proposed freezing funding for the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnerships (LEAP). His 2003 budget proposed eliminating the $67 million LEAP program, potentially affecting 1.2 million recipients. LEAP encourages states to establish need-based grant programs by requiring them to match federal funding dollar for dollar. By leveraging state dollars, LEAP provided $171 million to low-income students last year. - Associated Press, 2/11/02
So who else is really really looking forward to the State of the Union address? I had my appetite whetted by the morning news shows. All the pundits assured me that Bush is going to have to really get down and describe just why we should go to war, and how his domestic program really going to help everyone, and not just the richest of his cronies!
I may be doing some live blogging at the time. If anyone is interested.
Well I got my third and final piece for the Toxic Grind remix contest uploaded. It was a fun contest, video game music is something that really interests me. You can break so many conventions (not that I did with the contest). It is called "Extreme Curves" and if you will look to your left you can click "Give a Listen" go to my music page and, well, give a listen. As usual the WMA sounds like crap, you are better off downloading the high quality .mp3. I have no idea why the WMA sounds so crappy (it seems to have started when I upgraded my software) but it sets my teeth on edge. So take the time to download. It's better for you, it's better for me. It's better for the whales!
Just yesterday I once again got an email message telling me that Sen. Hillary Clinton snubbed the charity "Gold Star Mothers". This only proves to me that the right wing of this country is simply incapable of learning!
The email is a hoax. The story in NewsMax is a hoax. It took me about five minutes to discover this. I really have to wonder just how many wingers have attempted to find out the real story about this, and how many happily spread this crap throughout the internet.
In any case, here is a repost of the original article. I want to point out that by writing "Gold Star Mothers" and complaining about the horrible way Hillary treated them actually causes the organization distress. Not that that has ever stopped a winger from making a fool of himself.
Be sure to stop by the "Gold Star Mothers" website. You can see that even today, the notice is still there.
Addendum: By the way. For those of you that are looking for an explanation of how Penn & Teller did their Superbowl Final Score Prediction, forget it. Yes I have a pretty damn good idea of how they did it, but come on. They are professional magicians, they are not trying to claim psychic powers. Being a magician myself, I am not about to "queer their deal" so to speak. Besides, can't you just enjoy the fact that they fooled the hell out of you?
How a Worthy Charity Became a Victim of the Right!
First posted on Sunday 05/26/02
Have you gotten this email message?
This needs to be passed on.....
--- Subject: Fw: Gold Star
Gold Star Mothers is an organization made up of women whose sons were killed in military combat during service in the United States armed forces.
Recently a delegation of New York State Gold Star Mothers made a trip to Washington, DC to discuss various concerns with their elected representatives.
According to www.NewsMax.com there was only one politician in DC who refused to meet with these ladies. Can you guess which politician that might be?
Was it New York Senator Charles Schumer? Nope, he met with them. Try again.
Do you know anyone serving in the Senate who has never showed anything but contempt for our military?
Do you happen to know the name of any politician in Washington who's husband once wrote of his loathing of the military?
Now you're getting warm!
YOU GOT IT!!!
None other than the Queen herself, Hillary Clinton. She refused repeated requests to meet with the Gold Star Mothers.
Now --- please don't tell me you're surprised. This woman wants to be president of the United States --- and there is a huge percentage of the voters who are anxious to help her achieve that.
Sincerely, Cdr Hamilton McWhorter USN(ret)
Please copy this to as many people as you can. We don't want this woman to even think of running for President and tainting this great nation of ours as done by her husband.
Sound horrid doesn't it? Too bad it is not true.
The first thing I noticed was that Crd. McWhorter got this information from NewsMax, not a news site that is known for it's honest reporting. So that is where I decided to go first. Well sure enough there WAS an article on NewsMax. On Saturday, May 26, 2001 Carl Limbacher turned in this little gem "Hillary Snubs Gold Star Mothers" calling it "the story behind the story"! It should read "The Lie I created Behind The Story" Well in this case, there was no story behind this story, In fact there was no story at all. Apparently Mr. Limbacher made it up out of thin air.
The organization "Gold Star Mothers" was so distress by the email it was getting over this non-story that they put this up in the front page of their website.
"With regard to the NewsMax article concerning our organization:
The American Gold Star Mothers, Inc., deeply regret the misunderstanding about Senator Hillary Clinton. The two mothers who visited Washington did not have an appointment with the Senator and she was not in her office on that day. We would appreciate it if the e-mails and negative comments about Senator Clinton would cease."
Georgianna Carter-Krell, National President
I can't imagine what service Mr. Limbacher thought he was doing to this wonderful organization, but apparently they did not appreciate it! In fact, if you go to their website you will see that even now, they still have that special notice on the front page!
Well I got to check out Penn & Teller's Bullshit on Friday night and I have to say, I was impressed. The first subject they decided to call bullshit was modern mediumship, otherwise known as "Talking to the Dead".
They started the show with a small tribute to Harry Houdini, the undisputed father of skeptical debunking. Of course the mediums that Harry was exposing all those many years ago were quite different from the mediums of today. Those of Harry's time used dimly lit rooms, glow-in-the-dark cheese cloth, spirit trumpets, unseen assistants, well the list could go on and on. Rather than bore you to tears let me recommend Houdini's book "The Miracle Mongers, An Expose' " which you can read online.
These days mediums eschew the dark and the props and the trances. Now they just stand around and talk, cocking their heads every once in a while in order to assure you (or convince you) that they are yakking it up with your dead loved ones.
Bah.
P&T call it what it is, bullshit. They take a close look at James Van Praagh, John Edward, Mark Edward (no relation to John) and Rosemary Altea. You can see a clip of Rosemary talking to the dead mother of some vict...er...I mean client at the Bullshit website.
Next Penn went into an extended rave about how disgusting these bastards are. See Penn lost both his mom and pop about the same time a couple of years ago. He also pointed out that Harry Houdini did not start going apeshit on psychics till he lost his own mother. People that suffer that particular loss (and thankfully I have not) have only the memories of those love ones and those memories are precious. People like John Edward and James van Praagh spit on those memories. It was so good that I wish I had a .wav of it.
They then covered the extended length of the actual taping of these shows (some 2 hours for 30 minutes worth of tape) the careful edits that go on, the difference between a "cold" reading (reading a person when you know nothing about them) and "hot" reading (when you have information on the person who you are reading). Then they brought up something that I was not aware of. People who take part in the T. V. show of James Van Praagh and John Edward have to sign contracts not to talk about the show in order to attend! These confidentiality clauses caused Penn to exclaim "Just what is it that they don't want their audience to discuss"? Then goes on to interview several people that had attended a John Edward's symposium or some such, finding out just what it is John and James is trying to hide. "It seemed to me that what he said was pretty general. It could have applied to a whole lot of people" said one women, "I went in a skeptic and I came out a skeptic".
They showed a clip of Mark Edward (the one that is no relations to John) doing a reading where he seems to hit upon a woman's dead father's love of fishing. "I see water in relation to your father". The women agrees. "Did he fish"? "Oh yes, he loved to fish". A hit right? Wrong. Showing the full unedited tape, you find that Mark first guessed that her father worked on a boat, owned a boat, and liked to swim. It was only after all those guesses went down the drain (ahem) that he went for fishing! It is at that point that P&T let you know that Mark is an ex medium who is now working to expose such wonder(less) workers. Mark observed the readings that Rosemary Altea did for the show, and he observed two very interesting things.
As Rosemary worked the crowd she seemed to zero in on who was deceased pretty well. She seemed to "know" that it was a father, or brother, or sister. How could she have known without talking to the dead? Well easy, all she did was ask people who they hoped to contact before the cameras started to roll.
The next thing that Mark noted was when Rosemary was reading two sets of parents who lost children, one set to a suicide. Mark points out that it is unusual to "guess" suicide because that would be something you would want to be damn sure of before announcing it. So how did Rosemary know about the suicide? Well she asked P&T if it was all right to bring some people who were interested in the taping. Sensing a set-up P&T agreed. They found that both set of parents happened to be good friends with Rosemary's literary agent! I think we can all agree that you don't need much in the way of psychic powers when you have such a good agent!
The crowning moment came when Penn read a piece of email from the fellow who's mother Rosemary contacted. The one that you can watch by visiting the website. In the email the guy says that he was really impressed with the reading as it was happening (and you can tell it had a big impact by the tears this guy is crying. If the thought of this fraud emotionally jerking this poor guy around does not make you mad...) but then later when he and his wife were driving home, and they had a chance to discuss the reading, he realized that most of what Rosemary said about his mother was so general it could apply to almost anyone!
All this information in only 30 minutes. If I had any complaint about the show, it was that it was far too short.
So check it out, this coming Friday 1/31/03 11:00pm EST/PST where Bullshit will take a closer look at Alternative Medicine. If you missed this Friday's show, you can catch a rebroadcast on Thursday 1/30/03 at 10:00pm EST/PST.
I think I have fixed the software. Well not completely but I am afraid that only that mad genius Fahim Farook, creator of Blog, the software I use, will be able to help me. I must remember to send him some email soon.
I discovered that I have a link on the blog roll of Eschaton - Middle 'C' on the Mighty Casio. Run by Atrios the king of liberal bloggers, I can only say it is an honor that is certainly deserved and I can only speculate on why it took so damn long!
Ok seriously, something I should tell you about people that link to me. I have never requested a link. Well that is not strictly true, I did request one from Altercations but then they were asking for suggestions. When I found it it would be based in part on votes, I did not bother. I don't think running a blog is a popularity contest. I blog because I like to write and I feel I have something to say. Don't get me wrong, it is very nice to have readers, and I have about a hundred that make this a regular stop. However, I have a feeling that I would write even if I did not have one reader. I really like to write.
So it really is quite an honor to be linked by such heavies as Eschaton, The Rittenhouse Review, and a whole host of others that have found something here that is worthwhile. Thanks.
Hopefully everything will be back to normal and I can get to posting again.
Once again Jim Daly of the Seminole County Republican Executive Committee (SCREC) provides an inside look how high ranking Republican officials view this country, not to mention race relations. I was tempted to write a point by point rebuttal, but hell,I think it speaks for itself!
Headers available upon request. You can find out more about SCREC here. You can find out more about Jim Daly here.
-I like big cars, big boats, big motorcycles, big houses and big campfires.
I believe the money I make belongs to me and my family, not some governmental stooge with a bad comb-over who wants to give it away to crack addicts for squirting out babies.
-Guns do not make you a killer. I think killing makes you a killer. You can kill someone with a baseball bat or a car, but no one is trying to ban you from driving to the ball game.
-I believe they are called the Boy Scouts for a reason, that is why there are no girls allowed. Girls belong in the Girl Scouts!
-I think that if you feel homosexuality is wrong, it is not a phobia, it is an opinion.
- I don't think being a minority makes you a victim of anything except numbers. The only things I can think of that are truly discriminatory are things like the United Negro College Fund, Jet Magazine, Black Entertainment Television, and Miss Black America. Try to have things like the United Caucasian CollegeFund, Cloud Magazine, White Entertainment Television, or Miss White America and see what happens....Jesse Jackson will be knocking down your door.
-I have the right "NOT" to be tolerant of others because they are different, weird, or tick me off.
-When 70% of the people who get arrested are black, in cities where 70% of the population is black, that's not racial profiling, it is the law of statistics.
-I know what sex is, and there are not varying degrees of it. If I received sex from one of my subordinates in my office, it wouldn't be a private matter or my personal business. I would be "FIRED" immediately!
-I believe that if you are selling me a milk shake, a pack of cigarettes, a newspaper or a hotel room, you must do it in English! As a matter of fact, if you want to be an American citizen you should have to speak English!. My father and grandfather shouldn't have to die in vain so you can leave the countries you were born in to come over and disrespect ours.
-I think the police should have every right to shoot your sorry ass if you threaten them after they tell you to stop. If you can't understand the word "freeze" or "stop" in English, see the above lines.
-I feel much safer letting a machine with no political affiliation recount votes when needed. I know what the definition of lying is.
-I don't think just because you were not born in this country, you are qualified for any special loan programs, government sponsored bank loans or tax breaks, etc., so you can open a hotel, coffee shop, trinket store, or any other business. We did not go to the aid of certain foreign countries and risk our lives in wars to defend their freedoms so that decades later they could come over here and tell us our constitution is a living document and open to their interpretations.
-I don't hate the rich. I don't pity the poor. I know wrestling is fake, but so are movies and television, and that doesn't stop me from watching them.
-I believe a self-righteous liberal or conservative with a cause is more dangerous than a Hell's Angel with an attitude.
-I think Bill Gates has every right to keep every penny he made and continue to make more. If it ticks you off, go and invent the next operating system that's better and put your name on the building. Ask your buddy that invented the Internet to help you.
-It doesn't take a whole village to raise a child right, but it does take a parent to stand up to the kid and smack their little ass' when necessary and say "NO".
-"I think tattoos and piercing are fine if you want them, but please don't pretend they are a political statement. And Please stay home until that new lip ring heals, I don't want to look at your ugly infected mouth as you serve me fries!
-I am sick of "Political Correctness" and of all the suck ups that go along with it. I know a lot of black people, and not a single one of them was born in Africa, so how can they be "African-Americans"? Besides, Africa is a continent. I don't go around saying I am a European-American because my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was from Europe. I am proud to be from America and nowhere else.
Have a couple of things up for today that I thought I would let you in on.
First I would like to apologize to those people that have emailed me and have gotten no reply. I have not been able to download my email because I got an email virus from the Paul Revere Society. For those of you not in the know, the Paul Revere Society is run by none other than hate-radio jock Mike Savage. Now usually this would not worry me overmuch, after all, most the time you get a virus the person that sent it was totally unaware that it was sent, since email viruses usually go into your address book and sends a copy of itself to all that lie therein. Two reasons why this is not usual. One, I have written an article about Mr. Savage that got me a link from Savage Stupidity a watchdog website. Second, although I do sign up for email lists of those I would oppose, I have never done so for Mike or the Paul Revere Society. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that even Mike Savage is so stupid as to send me a virus from his own organizations email account, but then it is said that no one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American public. Makes me want to repost that article. It is on slave reparation and seems quite topical at this point...
In any case, and just in case, header information available upon request.
Second I got a lot of really nice mail thanking me for pointing out the Peter McWilliam's website. Pete was one of those rare guys that really did have your best interest at heart, hence the availability of his books for free on the net. That is all his books, not just "Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do" Pete is a hero and all the more tragic for being one of the victims of our "War on Drugs". You can read an account here. And no, as far as I know, Pete was not a Libertarian with a capitol L. If you read the book carefully he says several times that he does not know that much about the Libertarian Party but that they were the only political party to want to do away with consensual crimes. I don't think he had a clue about their nutso economic theories. I know I didn't when I first started looking into Libertarianism myself (after reading Pete's book, strangely enough). It took about one day reading alt.politics.libertarian to make me run screaming...in the other direction!
I have gotten several pieces of e-mail since going on my "break" and I promise I will get to them. In an effort to do so, here is a little ditty I got sent about some clown by the name of Mike Savage, and his take on the issue of reparations.
There is a pervasive racism affecting our nation. It exhibits itself in such stupidity as "reverse discrimination" and it's attempt to end affirmative action. Oh pity the poor, poor white man. We have such a raw deal. In any case here is Mr. Savage's words o' wisdom:
The Third Wave leftist hoaxters are pushing "reparations" for slavery. Now, slavery ended in the U.S. 130 years ago. There is no black person (born in the U.S.) who was ever a slave. There is not a living white person (born in the U.S.) who ever owned a slave. Yet the hoaxters push their newest "Big Lie"?
What lie? Is Mr. Savage saying that because no one living was ever a slave or own a slave this somehow means that slavery never happened in this country? How stupid can one get? It is almost as if those that oppose reparation think that they are going to have to personally pony up the money. In any case, the only lie going on is on the part of Mr. Savage. No one claims that there are slave owners or slaves in this country. Does Mr. Savage deny that there are people living here, right now, that had family members that were slaves or slave owners?
Using their Marxist "Animal Farm" thinking caps, they argue that all blacks suffered as a result of slavery, that they were permanently damaged by the institution of slavery, and that there is no statute of limitations on such a crime against (black) humanity.
Certainly all people that think reparation is fair are Marxist by definition! Bah. Once again Mr. Savage throws strawmen around with abandon. I know of no one that says that blacks were "permanently damaged" by slavery, nor is anyone talking about a statue of limitation. What is claimed is that slavery was an immoral practice sanctioned by the Government. As such those who are victims of slavery deserve reparations.
Putting aside all other considerations for the sake of brevity and accepting such premises, let us reason together.
Well this is funny. Mr. Savage has shown a decided lack of reasoning ability but what the heck. The least we can say is that the results are likely to be funny!
While Jewish people alive today did not directly endure slavery, their ancestors did, building the pyramids of Egypt and such. Since the legalistic hoaxters argue against statutes of limitations for claims going back over one century past, why not go back 50 centuries and have all Jewish people make claim for reparations against all Egyptians?
Well I was right. It is pretty funny. Mr. Savage's first problem is the difficulty of proving that your a descendant of those Jews that were Egyptian slaves. Modern record keeping makes it a lot easier to trace your family tree one century back than it is 50! The government of modern Egypt is very different than the government of the Pharaoh. And this is not even the worse problem, the worse is proving that the Jews were slaves in Egypt and that slaves built the pyramids! In fact, very few modern historians believe that the Pyramids were built by slaves. According to Mark Lehner, Archaeologist for the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, and Harvard Semitic Museum speaking to the television show Nova:
LEHNER: One of the most compelling pieces of evidence we have is graffiti on ancient stone monuments in places that they didn't mean to be shown. Like on foundations when we dig down below the floor level, up in the relieving chambers above the King's chamber, and in many monuments of the Old Kingdom, temples, the Sun temples, other pyramids. Well, the graffiti gives us a picture of organization where crews, where a gang of workmen was organized into two crews. And the crews were subdivided into five phyles...
Were these militaristic kinds of conscripts? Certainly they weren't slaves. Could they actually have been natural communities of the Nile Valley kind of contributing like the way the Inca build their bridges and so on? .....So the phyles then are subdivided into divisions. And the divisions are identified by single hieroglyphs with names that mean things like endurance, perfection, strong. OK, so how do we know this -- you come to a block of stone in the relieving chambers above the Great Pyramid. And first of all you see this cartouche of a King and then some scrawls all in red paint after it. That's the gang name. And in the Old Kingdom in the time of the Pyramids of Giza, the gangs were named after kings. So for example, we have a name, compounded with the name of Menkaure, and it seems to translate 'the drunks or the drunkards of Menkaure.' There's one that's well attested, actually in the relieving chambers above the Great Pyramid, the Friends of Khufu gang, the Drunks of Menkaura gang, and then you have the green phyles and then the powerful ones. None of this sounds like slavery, does it?
So much for Mr. Savage's reasoning power.
And, not to disrespect revisionist black "historians" who claim the great pyramids and other Egyptian discoveries and creations were made by black Africans (not by Semitic Egyptians), we can ask for reparations from the NAACP and other black supremacist organizations.
Well considering the above I think Mr. Savage will have a hard time demanding anything from any body.
So just who is Mike Savage and why should we care what he thinks? First, Savage is not his real name, I suppose he picked as a good description of his style. His real name is Mike Weiner. He has the number one rated talk show in San Francisco, to everyone's surprise. He is syndicated on 350 radio stations and is the fourth most listened to radio host.
To call Mike a jerk is an insult to jerks. During a broadcast on Sept. 21 2000, Mike had this to say about a program to give out food to homeless people run by the Branson High School students in Ross CA.:
"You can get the kids from Marin to go in there with them at night. The girls from Branson can go in and maybe get raped ... because they seem to like the excitement of it. There's always the thrill and possibility they'll be raped in a Dumpster while giving out a turkey sandwich."
Before you go thinking that this was just Mike shooting off his mouth, he was also heard to refer to Branson students as "fresh white nookie"
Here are his views on:
Women - "I'm beginning to think that women should be denied the vote. Their hormones rage; they are too emotional." (as quoted in San Jose Mercury News, Nov. 6, 1998)
Whites no longer being the majority in California - "Now the liberals are celebrating, of course. They will soon find out they will be shoved aside so that the power can be taken by the Asians and the Hispanics."
On how this happened - "With the population that has emerged, since they [Hispanics] breed like rabbits, in many cases the whites will become a minority in their own nation.... the white people don't breed as often for whatever reason. I guess many homosexuals are involved. That is also part of the grand plan, to push homosexuality to cut down on the white race."
On who's taking over - "The nation is being taken over by the freaks, the cripples, the perverts, and the mental defectives."
On Bobby Knight and Wen Ho Lee - "[Coaching is] the last bastion of the white heterosexual male ... and we need men like Bobby Knight that made America great. If we had a Bobby Knight in the Justice Department, we would know where the hard drives are, and instead of Wen Ho Lee going 'ho ho ho,' Wen Ho Lee would be going sizzle, sizzle, sizzle."
On gay parenting - "Fat lesbians are anti-family." (S.F. Examiner, Jan. 8, 1996)
On gays - "Gays bore the hell out of me. They're the least important members of our society."
On the gay-rights movement - "I'm not going to roll over to the pink swastika; I will not bow down to the pink swastika."
With comments like that, I can see why people feel he is the moral voice of the reparation issue!
It is deeply disturbing that someone like Mike Savage can command a large number of listeners. People try to tell me all the time that racism is dead in this country. All I can say to that is as long as people treat clowns like Mike Savage seriously, racism is alive and well.
I really meant to write more last week, but an event happened that kinda put all my careful plans on hold.
I quit smoking.
I am giving up a better than 20 year addiction and let me tell you, it ain't easy. Going from a 2 and a half pack a day smoker to a patch wearer is making me more grumpy than usual, and believe me, that is saying something.
I tried to write but I found myself wishing horrible death on everyone and everything. See one of the little discussed side effects of quitting the tobacco habit is the incredible amount of anger this creates. I mean, raw, vicious anger. This, in turn, makes it hard to write serious political or sociological commentary. I mean, how can one comment on, oh say, the renomination of Judge Pickering when you find such lines as "I wish I could rip his head off and pour lye down his throat pipe" creeping in? It's enough to scare little children.
However, after seeing "The Insider" about whistle blower Jeffrey Wigand, I tell ya, it scared me. Tobacco companies sell death, it is as simple as that...even worse they know it. They've known it for years. One of the biggest ironies in a country stuffed full of them is the outlawing of drugs, "for our own good", yet the two most deadly drugs out there, tobacco and alcohol, remains legal. Of course, we all know it was not really for our own good and if you don't know that I suggest you read "Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country" by Peter McWilliams. You can read it online by clicking on the title above.
In any case posting will be light again this week I am afraid. I still plan to do an article on the Raelian cloning controversy. It is lovely, I have not seem this much misinformation since the "cold fusion" crap.
The Myth of the Separation between Church and State!
Jim Bomford Proves Once Again That Republican's Don't Know U.S. History!
First posted on 07/22/02
This is a very long article, but please read the whole thing. It is time we took a stand against this type of propaganda from the Republican Party!
I love the history of the United States, especially the Revolutionary War period and the formation of our government. My admiration for the Founding Fathers is unmatched in anyone. I truly think they rose above their time to give us both the Declaration of Independence, and The Constitution of the United States. So it really bothers me that people who "claim" to have a grasp of history, in reality, don't have a clue.
Such as the Co-Chairman Precinct Development Committee of the Seminole County Republican Executive Committee-Board of Directors Jim Bomford. After ol' Jim read the following passages:
"Kimboo York writes the "addition of under God was an affront.... a bigoted act," Edward Chapdelaine writes "Under God" was added by a "wimpy Congress groveling for votes" presumably full of "wimpy" leaders...
he became angry! So he fired off this missive to like minded individuals, one of which send a copy to me. (A Note: I did a search on both Kimboo York and Edward Chapdelaine and was not able to find the quotes attributed to them. Considering just how poorly ol' Jim treats other quotes in his letter there is absolutely no reason to believe these quotes are accurate. Methinks that ol' Jim needs to prove he can correctly quote someone before we bother to believe quotes he attributes to anyone).
I don't plan to go over the whole letter, it is just a re-hash of the usual Republican drivel about how this is a "Christian" nation and I have already dealt with just the concept. Where ol' Jim departs from those other yahoos is that he decided to include a list of quotes from some of the founding fathers. Someone should have told ol' Jim that when one creeps out on a limb, there is always the possibility that someone will saw it off behind 'em.
Here is the whole paragraph in all it's glory!
John Adams wrote July 21, 1776, "Statesmen my dear sir, may plan and speculate liberty, but it is Religion and Morality (his caps) alone which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand." July 3, 1776, "The second day of July (the actual date of the Declaration of Independence) ......ought to be commemorated as a Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty." Thomas Jefferson wrote "The only foundation for useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion." "God who gave us life gave us liberty.....can the liberties of a nation be thought to be secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?" James Madison "Father of the Constitution" wrote "Cursed be all learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ" "Religion {is} the basis and Foundation of Government" "We have staked the whole future of American Civilization, not upon the power of government...we have staked the power ... upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves ... according to the Ten Commandments." George Washington wrote "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible"
The list goes on but I think the point is made. An affront by "bigoted" "braying Christians"? "Wimpy [Continental} Congress?" I think not.
Well sorry ol' Jim, but the only point you made is that Republicans, in spite of claiming to be these great patriotic Americans, simply have no understanding of American History. Let's take the quotes one by one shall we?
John Adams:
"The second day of July (the actual date of the Declaration of Independence) ......ought to be commemorated as a Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty."
The first thing I notice is the presence of the ellipsis, which should always be viewed with suspicion. It means that the quote is not complete. So let's complete it shall we?
"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, gun, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore."
Second, it is always a good idea to try to find the source of the quote, so that you get an idea of who the intended audience is. In this case it is a quote from a letter from Adams to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776. Reading over the whole quote it seems that Adams was talking about the importance of celebrating the writing of the Declaration of Independence by all manner of things, solemn acts just being one of them. More importantly he was expressing personal feelings to his wife, not making an official proclamation.
"Statesmen my dear sir, may plan and speculate liberty, but it is Religion and Morality (his caps) alone which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand."
Once again we are looking at a partial quote. The full quote is:
"Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, they may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty. They will only exchange tyrants and tyrannies."
Well once again we find that the full quote is not quite as religiously centered as the partial quote makes it out to be. As far as I can find, the quote is correct, but I could not find it's source. If anyone out there has a clue please feel free to tell me what you think or drop me some email.
While we are on the subject, Adams was also heard to say:
"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved--the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!" --John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson
"But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed.--John Adams in a letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816, _2000_Years_of_Disbelief_, John A. Haught
"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity" (I was not able to source this one so I am tempted to ignore it, along with the Adam's quote "'that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." I did get a source for this one, it is a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Adam. Thomas is quoting Adams in this letter: If by religion we are to understand [i.e., to mean] sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, 'that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.' But if the moral precepts, innate in man, and made a part of his physical constitution, as necessary for a social being, if the sublime doctrines of philanthropism and deism taught us by Jesus of Nazareth, in which all agree, constitute true religion, then, without it, this would be, as you again say, 'something not fit to be named even, indeed, a hell.'" (Ltr. to Adams, May 5, 1817, Writings, A.A.Lipscomb, 15:108-109.)
Of course, the most important Adams' quote is Article 11 in the Treaty of Tripoli November 4, 1776-1996:
"As the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,--as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquillity of Messelmen, --and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mohammedan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever interupt the harmony existing betweenthe two countries"--Treaty of Tripoli in 1797, Article XI, written by Joel Barlow (USA diplomat) and Hassan Bashaw (of Algers), late during George Washington's second term and later ratified by President John Adams. Original and copies preserved in the national Archives in Washington, DC. under Treaty series no.358. Official Senate treaty found in the American State Papers, Foreign Relations, II p. 18-19. "Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America" vol.2, edited by Hunter Miller, US. Government printing office, 1931, p.349-385.
Thomas Jefferson:
"The only foundation for useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion."
Now this is a wrongly attributed quote. The person who really said this was Benjamin Rush (1744-1813) a signer of the Declaration of Independence. But it sounds so much better coming from Jefferson's mouth than Rush's. Ironic since the webpage this links to complains that "Today, for the most part, he is unknown by most Americans". I wonder why...
"God who gave us life gave us liberty.....can the liberties of a nation be thought to be secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?"
Now this one is interesting. This is actually part of the quoted material that is found on the Jefferson Memorial. As you can see, we have to deal with ellipsis again and with good reason. These quotes were pulled from different sources. Here are the full quotes with attributes and the quoted portion in bold:
"But let them [members of the parliament of Great Britain] not think to exclude us from going to other markets to dispose of those commodities which they cannot use, or to supply those wants which they cannot supply. Still less let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own. The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them." -- "A Summary View of the Rights of British America"
"For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever . . . ." -- Notes on the State of Virginia
So do these quotes prove that Jefferson believed this was a nation founded on Christian principals? Hardly and I am always amused when someone use Jefferson (of all people) as proof that this is so. Here are some other Jefferson quotes:
"Preach, my dear sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people." -- to George Wythe, August 13, 1786
"The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, & they [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: & enough too in their opinion, & this is the cause of their printing lying pamphlets against me. . ." --a letter written to Benjamin Rush in 1800 in response to Rush's warning about the Philadelphia clergy attacking Jefferson (Jefferson was seen as an infidel by his enemies during his election for President).
"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites." --"Notes on the State of Virginia 1782
4. Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. In the first place divest yourself of all bias in favour of novelty & singularity of opinion. Indulge them in any other subject rather than that of religion. It is too important, & the consequences of error may be too serious. On the other hand shake off all the fears & servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first the religion of your own country. Read the bible then, as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy & Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature does not weigh against them. But those facts in the bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from god. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature in the case he relates. For example in the book of Joshua we are told the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, &c. But it is said that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine therefore candidly what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. --"The Homage Of Reason" Letter To Peter Carr Paris, Aug. 10, 1787
James Madison "Father of the Constitution"
"Cursed be all learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ"
Another misattribute quote. This was actually said by The Reverend Jonathan Dickinson, who was the first president Princeton University.
"Religion {is} the basis and Foundation of Government"
This is a chopped up quote from The Papers of James Madison, Robert Rutland, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicage Press, 1973), Vol. VIII, pp 299, 304, June 20, 1785.
What Madison really said was: (the chopped quote is in bold)
Section 15, Because finally, 'the equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his religion according to the dictates of conscience' IS held by the same tenure with all his other rights. If we recur to its orgin, it is equally the gift of nature; if we weigh its importance, it cannot be less dear to us; if we consider the 'Declaration of those rights which pertain to the good people of Virginia, as the basis and foundation of government,' it is enumerated with equal solemnity, or rather studied emphasis.
"We have staked the whole future of American Civilization, not upon the power of government...we have staked the power ... upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves ...according to the Ten Commandments"
Here is the whole quote according to David Barton in his book "The Myth of Separation":
"We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments."
and he gives as a reference Harold K. Lane, Liberty! Cry Liberty! (Boston: Lamb and Lamb Tractarian Society, 1939), pp. 32-33. See also Fedrick Nyneyer, First Principles in Morality and Economics: Neighborly Love and Ricardo's Law of Association (South Holland" Libertarian Press, 1958), pp. 31.
The only problem is that the quote is totally made up. No one has ever been able to find it and not for lack of trying.
George Washington:
"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible"
This is another made up quote that no one has been able to find. For example, this page claims that it was during his Farewell Address in 1796 but when you search here, it is no where to be found.
A whole lot of this type of shoddy scholarship rest directly on the shoulders of David Barton, and he deserves more of a mention in this article. So who is David Barton?:
David Barton is the Founder and President of WallBuilders, a national pro-family organization which distributes historical, legal, and statistical information; and helps citizens become active in their local schools and communities. WallBuilders is a name taken from the Bible book of Nehemiah. And just as Nehemiah led a grassroots movement in Jerusalem to rebuild the walls of that city and restore its strength and honor, so, too, WallBuilders seeks to energize the grassroots today to rebuild that which makes America strong - its constitutional, moral, and religious foundations.
He has written a few books, but the book that most interest me is "The Myth of Separation". It is in this book, according to the man's very own website that "David came to believe that historical debates undergirding public policy should be conducted using a standard of evidence that would be accepted by courts: only the "best evidence" should be used (e.g., eyewitness testimony, direct statements and actions by the participants, etc.)". Of course he claims that this means that "instead of quoting what a professor or judge said about Thomas Jefferson’s (or the other 200+ Founding Fathers’) views on the First Amendment, let Jefferson’s (and the other Founders’) own words and actions speak for themselves." Needless to say this is rank nonsense, for example, if you are relying on "eyewitnesses" then you are not depending on the "Founding Father's own words". Apparently this led to some mistakes because when he wrote another book called "Original Intent" he used what he called "a higher standard" not using quotes unless they are documented to a primary source. This caused him some problems with the first book, "he discovered there were about a dozen or so popular and widely-used quotes by historians and others (David had quoted these sources with documentation properly footnoted in "The Myth of Separation") that he could not find in the Founder's own writings. Importantly, some of those quotes had come from works nearly a century-and-a-half old and therefore would seem to have been credible; yet David could not find those quotes in original documents" (all quotes in the above come from his page "Raising The Academic Standard For Quoting The Founding Fathers"
Some of the quotes that he got wrong (without his apologetics) are:
It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ! -- Patrick Henry (unconfirmed)
It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible. -- George Washington (unconfirmed)
Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise. In this sense and to this extent, our civilizations and our institutions are emphatically Christian. --Holy Trinity v. U. S. (Supreme Court) (inaccurate)
We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves. . . according to the Ten Commandments of God. -- James Madison (unconfirmed)
Religion . . . [is] the basis and foundation of government. -- James Madison (inaccurate)
Whosoever shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world. --Benjamin Franklin (unconfirmed)
The principles of all genuine liberty, and of wise laws and administrations are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by its authority. The man therefore who weakens or destroys the divine authority of that book may be assessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer.--Noah Webster (unconfirmed)
There are two powers only which are sufficient to control men, and secure the rights of individuals and a peaceable administration; these are the combined force of religion and law, and the force or fear of the bayonet.--Noah Webster (unconfirmed)
The only assurance of our nation's safety is to lay our foundation in morality and religion.-- Abe Lincoln (unconfirmed)
I have always said and always will say that the studious perusal of the Sacred Volume will make us better citizens. -- Thomas Jefferson (unconfirmed)
America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great. --Alexis de Tocqueville (unconfirmed)
The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. -- John Quincy Adams (unconfirmed?)
Or should I say, those that he would admit too.
David Barton has no legitimate credentials as an historian. His work is shoddy, not just full of misquotes or improperly sourced quotes but astounding lapses of logic and outright errors.
For example in his first book "To Pray Or Not To Pray" Barton decided to check out the connection between the removal of Christian prayer in school and the drop in SAT scores because God ordered him to. To know one but David's surprise he found all sorts of bad things were going on. Teen pregnancy was out of control, SAT scores fell, crime got worse, even per capita alcohol consumption had increased. This is called "mistaking correlation with causation". There is no known link between the removal of prayer and any of these problems, David just asserts there is.
"Barton's biggest whopper concerns Thomas Jefferson, who coined the metaphor "wall of separation between church and state." Jefferson used that phrase in an 1802 letter to the Danbury (Conn.) Baptist Association. According to Barton, Jefferson went on to add that the "wall" was meant to be "one directional," protecting the church from the state but not the other way around, and, furthermore, that it was intended to keep "Christian principles in government"."
"This is a complete fabrication, and if Barton would take the time to actually read Jefferson's letter he would see that he is simply wrong. Jefferson's letter says nothing about the wall being "one directional" and certainly does not assert that it was meant to keep "Christian principles" in government. Such sentiments appear nowhere in the body of Jefferson's writings or speeches. In fact, they conflict sharply with our third president's well known advocacy of church-state separation and religious freedom. You can read the full text of Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists, see The Republic of Reason: The Personal Philosophies of the Founding Fathers by Norman Cousins, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1988."
Whew, I am really sorry for the length of this article (once again) but I think it important to point out this type of outright propaganda from the Republican Party. I hope that I have more than proved my point.
So to ol' Jim I would like to leave this parting thought:
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong." --Thomas Jefferson (Notes on the State of Virginia, 1782)
I am taking a close look at the Railian claim of cloning, and I hope to have something ready later this week. But I just had to share this email with those that read this blog. First a bit of background.
I first wrote "How Uri Does It" in response to a post in the usenet group sci.skeptic. The poster said that of all the phenomenon that was claimed for Uri, the "after bending effect" (where previous bent metal was observed to bend even more, without Uri "touching" it) was the most impressive, basically because he could not explain it. Since I could, I did.
Enter Winston Wu.
Winston Wu is a True Believer(TM). A True Believer(TM) is a believer that will keep on believing no matter the evidence against them. Uri has a lot of True Believers(TM). Winston's ability to reason is typical of those that used to come to sci.skeptic to show us the "error of our skeptical ways". For all I know he still posts there, but I have not followed the newsgroup in almost a year so I can't be certain...
Dear Sir,
Someone showed me the article you wrote on the web about how to do Geller's tricks. So I went to it and read it and was deeply disappointed because what you said was not what I heard Geller did from scientists and magicians. For example: 1. You told us how to bend a key by pressing it onto a hard surface. But Geller doesn't do that. He bends it in midair.
2. You tell us how to bend pretreated spoons. But Geller bends spoons that belong to other people so he had no chance to pretreat it in advance.
3. You tell us how to make the spoon continually move by touching them. But Geller leaves the spoon on the table or in the subject's own hands and then the spoon moves by itself. I have plenty of documented testimonies and reports that back this up.
In essence, you did NOT even show the most simplest trick of Geller's, not even one! Why?!?!?! Why does your page claim to show how Geller does it when you didn't even describe one trick correctly? Explain please. I really want to know.
Winston
First let me make it clear that I have seen Uri Geller perform live, on tv and on video. You, on the other hand, seem not to have seen Uri perform at all, instead you are relying on second hand reports. I am relying on what my eyes have seen. Let's take your points one by one.
1) Geller makes keys bend in mid-air.
Not that I have ever seen. Of course I have no idea what you mean when you say he makes them bend in mid air. I assume you don't mean that the key is floating in mid air, but that Geller is holding on to one end of the key and people see the key bend. This is nothing more than an optical illusion. Geller is hiding the bend in his fingers and in the act of stroking the key he is slowly revealing the bend.
2) Geller does the "melting spoon" bend with spoons that do not belong to him.
As I explained it is a simple thing for Geller to introduce a gaffed spoon into a mix of spoons that other people have brought to the performance. Once he has dropped it among the other spoons who can say for sure who it belonged to? I have done this particular trick for a lot of years, I have never been caught placing the gaffed spoon in the mix. I have never seen Geller do the melting spoon with a spoon that someone just handed him, but even this is not impossible. If you can get the spoon out of sight for a bit you can gaffe the spoon right there. It depends on how good the controls are when Geller performs. When it is a group of people or a show on a stage there are no controls at all.
3) (Sorry I had to quote this one)"You tell us how to make the spoon continually move by touching them. But Geller leaves the spoon on the table or in the subject's own hands and then the spoon moves by itself. I have plenty of documented testimonies and reports that back this up."
Well first off I did not say the spoon moved, I said it continued to bend. I don't believe you have ever read anything that said the spoon "moved" either. It keeps bending.
The "after-bend" takes no time at all. You keep acting as if Geller never touches the metal, but this is simply not true. He handles the stuff constantly. You have no idea how fast I (and Geller for that matter) can put a bend in a key or spoon. In the act of taking the key from someone and putting it on the table I can re-bend the key. I have a video where you can actually see Geller re-bend the spoon, just using his hands. Nothing mystical or mysterious about it..
The reason I describe these as "Geller's tricks" is because with the exception of using an ignition key to bend another key with, I have seen Geller use those techniques with my own two skeptical eyes (see graphic above).
My point about Uri Geller is this. Geller might very well have some sort of psychic powers, I don't know. What I do know is that Uri Geller does magic tricks and I know this because I have seen him do magic tricks. I have never seen him use psychic powers. You talk about the "magicians" and "scientist" that have written reams of papers on Geller. This is true. Do you think scientist can't be fooled by a clever magician? Have you ever heard of "Project Alpha"?
After all the years I have been following the strange career of Uri Geller I am still surprised that there are people that believe that Geller can actually bend keys and spoons with his mind. He has been exposed time and time again, and not only by James Randi. The tests of Uri at S.R.I. have been discredited and Dr. Wilbur Franklin recanted his statement that he could not find stress fractures in the spoons that Uri broke.
Yet it seems that each year brings yet another frantic follower to the fold. I can only recommend that you read "The Truth About Uri Geller" by James Randi.
Yesterday morning John Edwards announced his intention to run for the President of the United States. By the afternoon it became clear that the Republican attack point would be that John Edwards is a trail lawyer and therefore must be scum. For example here is the intro Robert Novak used on Crossfire last night:
A third Democratic hopeful jumped into the 2004 presidential race today, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina. He called himself a champion of regular folks. And that's quite a trick for a multimillionaire trial lawyer.
But for Johnny Edwards to run at all is an exercise in the art of living dangerously. Not only is he a representative of one of the most despised groups in America, trial lawyers, and who have brought so much havoc to the economy, almost all -- almost all his campaign funds come from other trial lawyers.
Got that? It is not the policies of George W. Bush that is causing economic havoc. It is not crooked CEO's lying to their share holders. It is trial lawyers!
There is one thing that Robert got right however, and that is that trial lawyers are one of the most despised groups in America. They have the Republican party and the nonsense of "tort reform" to thank for this.
Ah tort reform. The lie that we somehow protect the American public by making sure that corporations don't have to pay for their malfeasance. The following repost is from the elections, when we had the pleasure of seeing a totally silly commercial put out by the U. S. Chamber of Commerce.
A quick note on reposts. I have had a couple of emails asking me why I am reposting material. There are three reasons why:
1) I am running out of server space - I only have five meg available to me.
2) I have been told many times that my original blog template is very hard to read.
3) I can't get my new template to recognize the archives of the original template, so there is no link to them. I could do it manually but I don't want to screw with the template too much (I have a history of screwing up templates).
I don't plan to repost all of my archives, just some of the better stuff. I plan to do this over a fairly long period of time, so that most of the post stay topical. I would just scrap the whole thing, but I get a lot of search engine hits and I don't want the information to vanish completely.
A funny ad by the U. S. Chamber of Commerce tries to blame Lawyers for the High Price of Life
Here in Houston we have been bombarded lately with an ad by the Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform. It calls for an end to what it calls the "Lawsuit Abuse Tax". This dovetails nicely with Rick Perry's attempt to claim the ability to lower medical cost by ending, yes that's right, lawsuit abuse.
Now everyone can agree that lawsuit abuse is a bad thing. We can all agree that it causes higher prices. However, both Rick Perry and the Chamber of Commerce define lawsuit abuse differently than I would. To me, lawsuit abuse is those people that fake falls in supermarkets or acts like they were hit by a car. But to Rick and the CC it is the very ability to sue that they view as abuse.
Tort reform by any other name. I have always been an opponent of Tort reform because as far as I can see there is nothing that needs to be reformed. It is used as a scare tactic and this commercial (and webpage) is a perfect example of a misinformation campaign. Let's take a closer look shall we?
The ad opens with an young lady buying shoes. "You don't know it but you pay it every day" the voice over says, "The Lawsuit Abuse Tax" as the words "Lawsuit Abuse Tax" flashes across the shoes. "When you bought your new car lawsuit abuse cost you five hundred dollars". An older African American is shown unlocking his car as the price of five hundred and sixteen dollars flashes across the driver side window. "Every day you pay" the voice intones and proceeds to list seventy cents for blue jeans, three dollars and twelve cents for a week's worth of groceries. "Phoney lawsuits cause higher prices" as we are shown various items and the additional cost. "Nearly $1900.00 a year for a family of four". Wow, sounds scary don't it? And just how does the Chamber of Commerce calculate this "lawsuit abuse tax"? Why, by multiplying .02 by the cost of the item, no matter what that item is. From the webpage:
"How We Calculate the Lawsuit Abuse Tax"
"The White House Council of Economic Advisors has released a study that calculates the intermediate cost of excessive litigation to be $136 billion a year."
"This translates into a 2% sales tax on all goods and services purchased by consumers in the United States."
"The lawsuit abuse tax for each item shown in our advertising and on this Web site is calculated by calculating 2% of the cost of each product shown."
"In fact, you can calculate the lawsuit abuse tax you pay for whatever product you buy by multiplying its price by .02. Try it the next time you go shopping."
"Using the White House Council of Economic Advisors figure of $136 billion a year means each individual American pays nearly $475 a year in hidden lawsuit abuse taxes. The average family of four pays four times that amount or nearly $1900 a year."
"If your family is bigger or smaller than four, you can calculate your family's lawsuit abuse tax by multiplying the number of people in your family by $473.69."
It is hard to control laughter at this moment but I am trying. I went to visit the White House Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) to see if I could get a better handle on the methodology. It's hopeless. I downloaded the report (Tort Liability System, April 2002) but it gave me no more information than the website. They claim a yearly "direct" cost of "nearly" $180 billion dollars and count towards that total "Direct costs include awards for economic and non-economic damages, administration, claimants’ attorney fees and the costs of defense." They have lots of lovely charts and graphs. Mucho statistics. And a hell of a lot of assumption. The bottom line is that the problem lies with "excessive" awards. No where in this document could I find a definition of excessive. In fact the paper admits as much:
"An even more difficult issue is deciding how much of this $180 billion is economically "excessive." There is no easy or widely accepted empirical answer to this question. To the extent that awards are largely "random" and fail to provide incentives to firms, most, or even all, of the tort expenses are excessive. Alternatively, to the extent that damages awarded to claimants are a good proxy for the actual damages caused, the fraction of tort costs that go to claimants to compensate for damages, plus reasonable "transactions costs," could be loosely viewed as the "right" level, and costs above this amount as being excessive."
Well I am certainly going to trust that "most or even all" tort expenses are excessive.
This all starts with the infamous case of the McDonald hot coffee. Never has there been a court case so misunderstood, so filled with misinformation as this one case. It is a shame too because McDonald's got exactly what it deserved. Here are a few facts about the Case of the Hot Coffee that you might not know about.
First off the victim (for victim she certainly was) Stella Liebeck was not some greedhead hoping to benefit from stupidity, she did not want to bring a lawsuit at all. She was forced to hire a lawyer when McDonald's refused to pay the reasonable cost of her medical bills $20,000 a paltry amount considering that she would have to reimburse Medicare $10,000. When they got the request McDonald's countered with an offer of $800. After she finally filed suit in state court, a court-appointed mediator recommended that McDonald's settle the case for $225,000. The company refused. Just before trial, Stella's attorney offered to settle for $300,000. McDonald's again refused. Second, she was not driving the car, nor was the car in motion when the coffee spilled. She and her grandson (who was driving the car) stopped at the drive thru window. The grandson pulled forward and stopped the car in order for Stella to add cream and sugar to her coffee. She placed the coffee between her legs in attempting to pull the cover off of the Styrofoam cup. She spilled the coffee which soaked the sweat pants she was wearing, causing the whole works to stick to her skin. The poor woman suffered second and third degree burns over 6% of her body, requiring a seven day hospital stay including such fun things as skin grafts. All things considered $20,000 could no way be considered excessive. Third, McDonald's coffee was served at between 180 and 190 degrees fahrenheit. To give you an idea of just how hot that is most adults will suffer third-degree burns if exposed to 150 degree water for two seconds. Burns will also occur with a six-second exposure to 140 degree water or with a 30 second exposure to 130 degree water. Even if the temperature is 120 degrees, a five minute exposure could result in third-degree burns (click here and go down the page till you see "Scalding Dangers"). Home brewed coffee is generally 135 degrees and the restaurant industry recommends serving temperature be at least 20 degrees lower than what McDonald's chose to use. Fourth, McDonald's was perfectly aware that the coffee was dangerously hot, between 1982 and 1992, McDonald's had 700 court cases regarding serious burns due to the excessive temperature of their coffee including children burned when employee's spilled coffee on them while serving. The problem was so bad that the Shriners Burn Institute in Cincinnati had reported to fast-food chains like McDonald's about serious injuries caused by hot coffee. Five, McDonald's had no intention of changing the temperature of their coffee nor of settling the case. A hired consultant claimed that coffee held at between 180 and 190 degrees fahrenheit maintains it's optimum taste yet he admitted that he had not tested the safety of serving coffee at that temperature. P. Robert Knaff, a safety consultant for McDonald's, testified that there was no cause to turn down the heat. The reason: With billions of cups served annually, less than a thousand burn injuries over a decades was statistically insignificant. McDonald's thought it was worth keeping up the heat allegedly to improve taste and ensure that coffee stayed hot for later consumption. Needless to say the jury reacted to all this with a certain amount of horror. juror Jack Elliot, retired real estate agent, told The Washington Post that he was skeptical of Stella's case until he "heard the callous testimony" of McDonald's witnesses. The claim of McDonald's expert Knaff that the many documented burn cases were statistically insignificant amount the billions of cups McDonald's has sold "did not set well with the jury." They awarded Stella 200,000 in direct damage and a whopping 2.7 million in punitive damage or two days worth of McDonald's coffee sales. Another juror pointed out that "The idea behind the punitive damages was not to enrich the plaintiff, but to get McDonald's attention. They knew their coffee was severed so hot that it could severely hurt people. But McDonald's employees did not care about that people being burned. They knew there was a problem, there had been at least seven hundred cases over many years, and yet they had taken no action to study the matter or adequately warn their customers. Their callous disregard was very upsetting."
And therein lies the rub. Was the award excessive? Well a judge thought so, he reduced the amount of the award to $480,000, something else that was not widely reported. However my feeling is that two days worth of coffee sales was not excessive at all, considering that the jury was trying to punish McDonald's. See, what the U. S. Chamber of Commerce fails to tell you is that they believe that any attempt to hit them with punitive damages is excessive. They don't know what abusive is, check out the odious record of the Church of Scientology. They have brought lawsuit abuse to a fine art.
I agree that it is sad that companies are able to pass the cost of doing lousy business to the consumer, who they are screwing in the first place. If you want real reform I suggest doing something about that. However attempting to limit how much a jury awards a plaintiff in such cases does nothing more than hamstring the justice system. How can we ever expect to teach a company a lesson if we make it so that no matter how bad they behave, they will merely get a slap on the wrist. McDonald's makes millions of dollars each year, two days worth of coffee sales is nothing to them, even less the $480 thousand Stella eventually got.
Tort reform would be meaningful if we punished people that bring frivolous lawsuits to court. We do not. Or if we were worried about fraud. We are not. No the whole of the tort reform movement is to limit how much a company has to pay for acting like a jerk. Here in Texas we also like to blame trial lawyers for the sorry state of affairs, as the lawsuit abuse tax site makes clear. This is nonsense but hey, if we can get people to distrust those that bring such suits to court, well so much the better. Yet it is not lawyers that decided how much a person receives. Nor can you blame them for trying to get as much as possible for their client, that is after all, their job. Lawyer's did not break the system, in a very real way, it is the Chamber of Commerce that is breaking the system. Pity the poor multinational corporation that makes a billion bucks a year. It is so sad that the American public would try to make them pay.
Bah!
Go and read the website and instead ask yourself, is it worth an extra $1900 a year to provide a measure of safety to your family of four. I don't know about you, but I think it is cheap at twice the cost!
I guess it really all stared with Horror Movies. I have had a love affair with Horror movies and Science Fiction movies for as long as I can remember. According to my mom when I was six years old I would stay up at night to watch "Count Sivad" a weekend horror movie fest along the lines of Elvira (you might notice that Sivad is Davis spelled backwards). Frankenstein and the Wolfman were my childhood companions and, to me, the world was full of vampires, ghosts and goblins. Nor did my love of such things pass with time. When I was a teen my mom and her best friend would take all the kids in the neighborhood to the all-night Drive Inn. Here in Houston it was a drive-inn right off of Main St. called the McLarin Triple. I still remember seeing such classics as "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things", "Hands of the Ripper", "Twins of Evil" and of course "Night of the Living Dead" Naturally I developed an interest in the occult, but that is just a bit ahead of my story.
The second important event happened when I was eight years old. On my birthday my mom got me the incredibly cheesy "Marshall Brodine TV Magic Set". You might remember Marshall from his slightly more famous "TV Magic Cards". The tricks were almost impossible to work (horrid plastic cup and ball set, rice bowls with a divider that fell off the bowl, things like that). However there was this one trick that I could do. Basically it was a cube with a different colored spot on each face. You would get someone (in this case my Uncle Roy) to pick a color and put it in a green plastic box with the spot uppermost. Then they would cover it with a lid and hand it back to you. After grunting and groaning with mighty mental effort you would tell what color was chosen. When I showed this to my Uncle he was floored, absolutely could not figure it out. It was that moment that my second love developed, a love of magic.
Fast forward to high school. I had started performing magic professionally when I was 12 so by then I was pretty rabid. I can still remember my friends fleeing down the hall screaming "NO not ANOTHER card trick".At the same time I was also totally obsessed with the paranormal. I read everything I could find on the subject (to this day I can't believe that I read all of Colin Wilson's "The Occult"). I was a believer, oh man was I a believer. I took the Silva Mind Control classes. I joined covens and groups. I even played D&D back when it was still D&D! If it had anything to do with the paranormal or the occult I was into it. It was also at this time (much to my shame) I started to imply that I had special powers. It started with Tarot Reading. The fact is that I was very good at it. I can still remember how stunned the students were at my school when I would tell them things "I could not possibly know". I started practicing Mentalism, a branch of magic that makes it seem you can read minds. I blurred the line between magic tricks and the magical arts. I really do feel a great deal of shame in the way I manipulated my friends and fellow students. You have no idea how seductive it is to be thought of as a person with POWER! There is no telling where this would have ended if not for the most important event in my life. The invasion of America by super psychic Uri Geller.
Of course I had read about the guy, I mean who hadn't in the early '70s. For those of you that don't know who Geller is, well he was a psychic that claimed he could bend metal with his mind along with a host of not-so-amazing mental feats. But the metal bending was something new. In October in 1974 the British science magazine "Nature" published the results of experiments carried out at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) under the direction of Drs. Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ. Finally science was discovering what I had known to be true all along. I took to Uri, following his career with as great an interest as if it were my own. However I had never seen the Uri perform, just read accounts. So when he came to Houston in the mid-late '70s (sorry the exact date is lost to me) I could not wait. Little did I know that I was in for one huge disappointment. You see, all I saw Geller do that night were magic tricks.
Yes, thats right! Magic tricks.
The metal bending horrible. I saw every move he did.
