| Tuesday,
Glad tidings to all, noting that Google finds tidings on
4,390,000
web pages, glad tidings on 1,150,000 pages, good tidings on 1,330,000
pages, and grim tidings on only 248,000 pages.
Perhaps there is some hope.
--
Jeff Hecht, writer of science fact and (a little) fiction
============
AN ESP Experiment. Be sure to read the explanations.
http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/esp.html
=============
On Christmas and Solstice Festivals
Regarding yesterday's note: perhaps my tongue was a bit too far in my cheek?
Having for all my life heard the canard that Christmas was invented to take
the place of the Roman Saturnalia (which it could hardly do, given the
nature of Saturnalia) it was a bit fun to turn the tables around.
The fact is that, as noted in the article, December 25 was selected because
it was nine months after the Annunciation. I make no doubt that some early
believer saw a Sign in having Jesus born on the Solstice (December 25 in
that calendar), but it would have been no more than that. Saturnalia was not
a Solstice festival. It was on December 17, and got popular enough to run
through most of December. Why anyone in his right mind would propose a
Christian religious festival designed to take the place of a drunken revel
and then place it at the end of the revelry is a bit beyond me, but those
who set out to ridicule the church never have any trouble making imbeciles
out of the early church fathers.
The fact is, of course, that until Constantine there was no earthly glory in
being a church father or a bishop or indeed in being a Christian (I forget
which Emperor's Christian mistress negotiated the release of some Christians
enslaved to the mines, but one did, so I suppose sometimes there was
influence). There were periodic persecutions, some at the whim of an
emperor, others by provincial officials who didn't like Christians; and of
course then as now the security forces could always win a bit of favor by
finding a plot and dealing harshly with it. (Think of Elizabethan England,
where there was a bureaucracy whose livings depended on finding popish
plots, or Titus Oates after the Restoration who did well swearing people's
lives away until he went too far; and then there's modern times.) Until
Constantine, being a Christian wasn't something done to get rich and famous.
I doubt that Aurelian instituted his Rebirth of the Sun holiday on 25
December as any reaction to Christian celebration of Christmas because
the Christians of the time paid little attention to holidays to begin with.
Easter would have been the big exception, for the obvious reason stated by
Paul: "If Christ be not risen, then is all our faith in vain." After
Constantine things were different, of course. See Macaulay on the subject of
what happened to the Puritans after Cromwell was victorious. A persecuted
sect holds the faithful; when it becomes successful and then victorious and
official it attracts those who belong in the Sixth Bolgia. (For those
unfamiliar with Dante, that's the place for the priests who do well by doing
good.) But that's another matter.
Anyway for those who wrote to inform me that I have lost my mind, apologies:
my sense of humor takes odd turns.
Incidentally, I am quite aware that Winterset festivals are common among
pagans, the more so the more north you go. My Viking ancestors made a big
thing out of the days getting longer again, as why wouldn't they?
============
I'll have mail after my morning walk. The above took up the time I had
allotted for that.
=======
http://www.suntimes.com/news/steyn/184544,CST-EDT-steyn24.article
THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Biggest story of our time: our
self-extinction
December 24, 2006
BY MARK STEYN Sun-Times Columnist
Suppose for a moment that the birth in
Bethlehem that Christians celebrate this week never happened --that it
is, as the secularists would have it, mere mumbo jumbo, superstition, a
myth. In other words, consider it not as an event but as a narrative.
You want to launch a big new global movement from scratch. So what do
you use?
The birth of a child.
If Christianity is just a myth, then it is,
so to speak, an immaculately conceived one. On the one hand, what could
be more powerless than a newborn babe? On the other, without a newborn
babe, man is ultimately powerless. For, without new life, there can be
no civilization, no society, no nothing.
Of course population decline isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in fact
there is always one group willing to fill any niche. That's as true of races
and populations as it is of species. White European population is declining
but the population of Europe isn't really declining. Some see this as a Good
Thing. It's certainly an important story.
=================
David Em and Richard Doherty both call attention to
Article on property rights in Second Life in today's WaPo:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/25/AR2006122500635.html
washingtonpost. Where Real Money Meets
Virtual Reality, The Jury Is Still Out
By Alan Sipress Washington Post Staff
Writer Tuesday, December 26, 2006; Veronica Brown is a hot fashion
designer, making a living off the virtual lingerie and formalwear she
sells inside the online fantasy world Second Life. She expects to have
earned about $60,000 this year from people who buy her digital garments
to outfit their animated self-images in this fast-growing virtual
community.
But Brown got an unnerving reminder last
month of how tenuous her livelihood is when a rogue software program
that copies animated objects appeared in Second Life. Scared that their
handiwork could be cloned and sold by others, Brown and her fellow
shopkeepers launched a general strike and briefly closed the electronic
storefronts where they peddle digital furniture, automobiles, hairdos
and other virtual wares.
"It was fear, fear of your effort being
stolen,'' said Brown, 44, whose online alter ego, Simone Stern, trades
under the name Simone! Design.
Brown has reopened her boutique but remains
uncomfortably aware that the issue of whether she owns what she makes --
a fundamental right underpinning nearly all businesses -- is unresolved.
As virtual worlds proliferate across the
Web, software designers and lawyers are straining to define property
rights in this emerging digital realm. The debate over these rights
extends far beyond the early computer games that pioneered virtual
reality into the new frontiers of commerce.<snip>
It is very much worth reading all of it.
======
Be afraid.
washingtonpost Size and Scope of the
Interagency Investigative Tool Worry Civil Libertarians
By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 26, 2006;
The Justice Department is building a
massive database that allows state and local police officers around the
country to search millions of case files from the FBI, Drug Enforcement
Administration and other federal law enforcement agencies, according to
Justice officials.
The system, known as "OneDOJ," already
holds approximately 1 million case records and is projected to triple in
size over the next three years, Justice officials said. The files
include investigative reports, criminal-history information, details of
offenses, and the names, addresses and other information of criminal
suspects or targets, officials said.
The database is billed by its supporters as
a much-needed step toward better information-sharing with local law
enforcement agencies, which have long complained about a lack of
cooperation from the federal government.
But civil-liberties and privacy advocates
say the scale and contents of such a database raise immediate privacy
and civil rights concerns, in part because tens of thousands of local
police officers could gain access to personal details about people who
have not been arrested or charged with crimes.
The little-noticed program has been coming
together over the past year and a half. It already is in use in pilot
projects with local police in Seattle, San Diego and a handful of other
areas, officials said. About 150 separate police agencies have access,
officials said.<snip>
Be very afraid.
========
No one seems to think about unintended consequences:
Growth or recession in 2007? Economists
disagree on whether slowing housing market will be albatross
By Barbara Hagenbaugh USA TODAY
WASHINGTON ‹ Housing has been a key engine
of the U.S. economy in recent years. Now that the housing market has
slowed, will the economy sputter to a stop?
That issue is sharply dividing economists,
because no one is sure what impact the slowdown in housing will have on
consumers, and thus the broad economy. The difference of opinion is
leading to an enormous amount of uncertainty heading into the new year,
with some economists predicting a recession and others forecasting
continued growth.
Pessimists, such as Dean Baker, co-director
of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, argue
that spillover from the housing slowdown will be great in 2007 as
consumers pull back spending.
Optimists, such as Carl Tannenbaum, chief
economist at LaSalle Bank in Chicago, say the contagion from the
declining housing market will be minimal as consumers see their
paychecks rise, helping to fuel spending.
The good news is that far more economists
are in the optimist camp than the pessimist camp. Although a handful,
such as Baker, are predicting the economy will slide into a housing-led
recession next year, the majority anticipate the economy will continue
to grow, albeit at the slowest pace in at least four years.
Such a softening in the economy means the
unemployment rate will likely edge higher, and inflation will ease. The
Federal Reserve may be forced to cut interest rates to buoy the economy,
meaning borrowing costs could fall for items such as mortgages and
credit card debt.
A significant slowdown means that for many
Americans, the economy won't feel that great, even if it's not in
recession, says David Rosenberg, North American economist at Merrill
Lynch.<snip>
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were intended to make it easier for people to own
houses. By putting so much money into the system they created an artificial
boom, a bubble. The whole darned thing is fueled with money borrowed from
China. The result is a bubble that has been a big boon to property tax
collectors, but saddles the middle class with enormous debts. More debts
come from college loans. We are a nation of debtors.
Of course one "solution" is to confiscate the foreign investments and debts
and money loaned. That has been done before. Kings and Emperors used to do
it with aplomb.
The housing "boom" has been pure inflation: my house is worth 25 times what
I paid for it 40 years ago. That makes no sense whatever. To think that a
housing boom is fueling an expanding economy, particularly when many of the
construction jobs go to illegal immigrants and unskilled labor, is a form of
insanity only an economist could exhibit. Most of us know better.
The US doesn't MAKE very much. We have a booming economy based on exporting
jobs and importing the stuff the people whose jobs were exported used to
make. And paying for it by borrowing from China. Water always runs downhill.
Eventually it hits bottom.
Or, perhaps:
ACT ONE By EMILY MEEHAN
ABOUT ACT ONE
Act One is a Wall Street Journal Online
column about the financial ups and downs of twentysomethings, written by
Emily Meehan, 26. Ms. Meehan is an editor and columnist at The Wall
Street Journal Online.
When Disillusionment Hits December 26, 2006
The abstract ideals of undergraduate
education often lead young grads into noble-sounding endeavors. What's a
twentysomething supposed to learn when her advanced sculpture professor,
asked for guidance on getting a job after graduation, tells the whole
class only to buy a sturdy pair of sneakers? Armed with esoteric advice
from economics, literature, and geography professors alike, we join the
Peace Corps, try to become actors or write novels. Some twentysomethings
might not last in these pursuits, as they realize that the nitty-gritty
daily operations are less-than-glamorous, and don't pay off as we
expect.
The pay-off need not be fiscal to retain
us. Social justice and creative headway will suffice. But if
goal-oriented people accustomed to success don't see many positive
results from their work, they are likely to come up with a "plan B" for
their career.
Matt Cahill, 23, of Hoboken NJ, graduated
from Columbia University with a degree in math and economics. But he
didn't want to join a bevy of his friends at huge finance firms. "I
didn't want to sell my soul to work 16-hour days, seven days a week and
never have time on the weekends, except to do my dry cleaning and
grocery shopping," he says.
An assertive guy with a booming voice, Mr.
Cahill applied to Teach for America, which places college graduates as
teachers at public schools in low-income communities. He was accepted to
teach high-school math in Newark, N.J., where he says he was paid more
than he had expected as a teacher.
Mr. Cahill had a mission. "People are
ingrained with this belief that you can get by without mathematical
literacy," he says, "and you can show students that, A: It's not as bad
as you think it is; and B: You can be successful in mathematics if you
spend a little bit more time on it and get a little bit more help; and
C: Being good at math is extremely useful. It's going to help you in
college and through the rest of your life."
This well-meaning list proved
less-than-useful in his rowdy classroom: His carefully crafted lesson
plan fell apart in the first fifteen minutes. The extreme difference in
standards and atmosphere between the urban school he was teaching in and
the small high school he had attended in suburban New Jersey was
something he could not get used to.
"Fifty percent of students will fail. There
are attendance problems. There isn't the same innate respect for
teachers," he says. Mr. Cahill took the failures of so many of his
students as a personal defeat.<snip>
Think of that. In debt to your ears... But he can always go into finance.
Moving money around is very productive work.
But fear not, the kids will be protected:
Broadcasting & Cable: FCC Defends Jackson
Smackdown By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 12/23/2006 8:27:00
PM
The FCC Friday said it was reasonable to
conclude that Janet Jackson's "brief" display of nudity during the Super
Bowl halftime show in 2004 violated the FCC's indecency rules. As it did
in its defense of profanity decisions before another appeals court last
week, the commission took aim at the V-chip.
In its brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia in CBS' challenge of the indecency
finding, the commission said that it was also reasonable to find that
CBS' violation was willful and therefore its owned stations deserved to
be fined (a total of $550,000). That's because Jackson and Justin
Timberlake were effectively CBS employees, with CBS liable for their
conduct, said the FCC.
The FCC says CBS "ignored" warnings that
the pair might do something inappropriate,citing a statement from
Jackson's choreographer that the show would have "some shocking
moments."
As to the suggestion that the V-chip is a
more narrowly tailored means of protecting children from indecent
broadcasts, the commission said that the chip is not available on older
sets, is "generally ineffective" because most people don't know they
have it or how to use it if they do have it, and even if it weren't
ineffective, the show had no V-chip rating because it was a sporting
event, which are unrated. And even if it were rated, it said, those
ratings are frequently inaccurate.
Broadcasters have been promoting use of the
v-chip in hopes that it, rather than FCC regulation, will become the
least restrictive means of regulating broadcast speech.
Your tax dollars at work. I feel safer already.
==================
> Jerry, here is an article you may find interesting: a
scathing review
> of Dawkins's THE GOD DELUSION by the Catholic Marxist critic Terry
> Eagleton.
>
>
>
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/eagl01_.html
> Greg
Thanks. Well Done, actually.
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