COLLECTIVE MADNESS
“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
Looks like the pilot forgot some crosswind landing basics. At least he recovered and went around. Time for some remedial training.
ReplyDeleteI think someone needs to have a word with the air controllers as well.
ReplyDeleteDid I see a kangaroo on the tail rudder of the plane. Qantas?
ReplyDeleteCrosswind Heros
ReplyDeleteI did all that crap.
(w/RC Models)
Aubrey de Grey on the psychosis of death:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/39
Why you should listen to him:
ReplyDeleteA true maverick, Aubrey de Grey challenges the most basic assumption underlying the human condition -- that aging is inevitable. He argues instead that aging is a disease -- one that can be cured if it's approached as "an engineering problem." His plan calls for identifying all the components that cause human tissue to age, and designing remedies for each of them — forestalling disease and eventually pushing back death. He calls the approach Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS).
With his astonishingly long beard, wiry frame and penchant for bold and cutting proclamations, de Grey is a magnet for controversy. A computer scientist, self-taught biogerontologist and researcher, he has co-authored journal articles with some of the most respected scientists in the field.
But the scientific community doesn't know what to make of him. In July 2005, the MIT Technology Review challenged scientists to disprove de Grey's claims, offering a $20,000 prize (half the prize money was put up by de Grey's Methuselah Foundation) to any molecular biologist who could demonstrate that "SENS is so wrong that it is unworthy of learned debate." The challenge remains open; the judging panel includes TEDsters Craig Venter and Nathan Myhrvold. It seems that "SENS exists in a middle ground of yet-to-be-tested ideas that some people may find intriguing but which others are free to doubt," MIT's judges wrote. And while they "don't compel the assent of many knowledgeable scientists," they're also "not demonstrably wrong."
"Aubrey de Grey is a man of ideas, and he has set himself toward the goal of transforming the basis of what it means to be human."
MIT Technology Review
It's a good question, if you could stabalize yourself at say thirtytwo, would you do it? Would it be good for you, for the human race? There's an old spiritual rule, if you really want to transcend this condition you're in you got to die. And there's another old spiritual rule, the hero of yesterday becomes the tyrant holdfast today. What about the estate, what about provision for the coming generations? What coming generations? Death is the mother of beauty the poets say. Death solves many worldly problems. The imperfect is our paradize, what about that? Samsara and nirvana are one. Maybe you'd turn into a thirtytwo years old crotchy old fool. Same shit forever, even if you mastered space travel. I do, till death do us part. What death? How tempting to murder one's mate. I can't stand this anymore. Bang, yourself or your offsider. A permanent class society, police guarding property rights from thousands of years ago. hmmm, I'm not sure about all this....would be like stopping the growing rose. What about all those genetic mixings in the future that God had in mind when he started the wheel rolling. The enlightened they say long for death, wait patiently for it to come, not hurrying it, not delaying it. What about the spiritual body? To be fully experienced only after the mortal coils are laid aside? What about that? Who'd want to miss that, to have to eat and shit forever. The dead they say don't eat earthly food. Think of all the dishwashing. Tending to the body forever and ever. The most gracious act of all is to get out of the way they say. This whole proposition is in need of some serious thinking through.
ReplyDeleteDang it, I was half way through typing five pages of Edward Abby just for Trish, and as somehappens the computor jumped to the screen saver and I lost it. Why does that happen? It's too much to try and type it all again. Maybe my daughter can scan it for me one of these days. Was Bonnie's internal monologue, being not that complimentary towards us men, us dingdongs, us necessay accesories.
ReplyDeleteI don't think he can be labeled a fool. A fool would have tried to slap the plane down, forcing the issue. Looks like he did ok. Why not fly a couple hundred miles to an airport where the wind is a little less?
ReplyDeleteNew York does something right. Legislation To Protect Writers From Foreign Courts
ReplyDeleteBob,
ReplyDeleteSome strong arguments. But God gave us choice, and free will and intelligence to exercise it. God obviously made his choice. God is eternal. Why shouldn't we have the same choice? :)
Anyway, the question is still that of prolonged life. A thousand years vs a hundred years.
ReplyDeleteGod gives you the choice to save your documents often, you fool!
ReplyDelete"Cntrl + S"
on a pc, probly easy on a mac too.
Mat can tell you.
Losing Docs like that is a Girl Thing!
I was going to go Nyah ne Nyaha, but I don't know how to spel it.
From the AP:
ReplyDeleteChavez Closes Venezuela's Embassy in Colombia; Orders Troops to Colombia Border
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Big FARC whack in Ecuador Friday. Somebody bagged the #3.
The mother of a young man who had pleaded guilty to aggravated assault appeared in Cobourg's Ontario Court of Justice Monday to plead guilty to counselling him to commit the crime.
ReplyDeleteForty-two-year-old Hamilton Township resident Sherry Shepherd was in Port Hope court Friday to hear her 22-year-old son, Ryan Knapman, and his 23-year-old friend, Matthew Fitzgerald, plead guilty to a prolonged life-threatening assault on his father, John Knapman, which Crown attorney David Thompson characterized as a bloodbath.
It took place last April 1 in Ryan Knapman's Cramahe Township residence. Details of the assault - which hospitalized the older Mr. Knapman for almost three weeks with skull fractures, broken facial bones, five missing teeth, an eye out of its socket, a fractured elbow and a collapsed lung - were given in court last week.
Woman in Jail
Bob,
ReplyDeleteAuto Save should be on by default. Looks like mine was set to 10 min intervals. I now changed that to 2 min.
No judge, not that. Please please please judge, not that! No no nooooo....
ReplyDeleteI sentence you to one thousand years of solitary blogging.
:)
Who said God doesn't have a sense of humor?
ReplyDelete(Never listen to them Chinese!)
Court was also told of the complainant's long and violent criminal history, including assaults on Ms. Shepherd, and how the attack was provoked by his extinguishing a cigarette on Mr. Fitzgerald's face and threatening to kill everyone present, including Ryan Knapman's infant son.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a happy family.
Ceck out where your state stands on the D.C. Gun Ban Case according to the attorney generals in the states around the country.
ReplyDeleteArizona oddly not red.