I do feel a little embarrassed that the most active comment thread on all of scienceblogs is often the endless open thread on Pharyngula, which is about nothing at all but what you crazy people want to say…and that’s in spite of the fact that I keep closing the old thread and opening a new one. Anyway, here we go again.
So say something.
I’ve privately e-mailed Laden and PZ.
I have received a laughably cliche tough-guy response from Laden and I feel bad about trying to get PZ involved, since it’s really not his problem.
Fuck the Borg.
It’s down the fucking rabbit hole, and creepy to boot.
*shudder*
Still learning,
Robert
We don’t have proof, that’s true. We do have at least 3 witnesses, however.
BS
This is getting ridiculous. Altering posts and displaying peoples e-mails is…unfathomable. I looked around on SciBlogs site, but I can’t find any way to report account abuse. Does anyone else know how?
I learned about that in a song.
Josh,
I, for one, do not doubt your truthfulness. If it really is Laden who just called me a racist for using an animal’s name as my pseudonym, he’s lost his shit. My original comment about us watching him merely meant that other people are aware of his dishonest behavior and it lowers our opinions of him. I didn’t intend anything more sinister than that.
Greg Laden @484
If that is you, I suggest that you withdraw and have a complete physical workup.
There is nothing wrong with using the word pygmy
Sven, I can’t seem to find any comments made by you on the “private letter” thread ?
And no email addresses are published anymore afaict.
BTW person posting as Greg Laden,
Who the fuck is we? I can find tons of articles published in the last few years that refer to Nycticebus pygmaeus as the pygmy loris. Again, where can I find discussion of this move to no longer use pygmy in animal names?
Sven, I just sent you an email. If you didn’t get it, please write to me at spokesgay at gmail.com. I promise you I won’t pull a Laden and divulge your ID.
Grrr.
RMM Barrie (#494)
Wrong. But it’s a cute story.
Yeah, he’s changed it back now, and I didn’t grab a screencap. Did anyone?
Sven, he did, he changed it back. Fuck I didn’t get a screenshot of it w/your email up. Did you or someone else get one?
@ Pygmy Loris:
I know, I know (hug). No worries at all babe.
Greg, if you’re reading this –
Please stop now. I don’t know how this has spiralled out of control, but I feel responsible for what is happening. Shut down the comments on that thread, post about it again later, never mention it again, whatever. But please don’t keep doing what you’re doing.
Shit, I just closed the window with Sven’s email address published in it. I’m sorry.
Well, I got a screenie of the edited version where he had Sven’s email on display if anyone needs. It’s crap quality, though.
Might just have been a SB software glitch, who would know !
I’d ask him on FB right now, but this mightn’t be a good time LOL.
I did, and I’ve emailed it to Sven.
I saw the window with Sven’s email address published for all the world to see, even if Greg changed it. That’s how I was able to send an email to Sven (which I shouldn’t have been able to do). If he claims he didn’t publish it, he’s a liar, and I’ll say so.
Oooh, I’m fucking furious.
@ SC:
I’m a late-comer to all of this, and even I can tell that this is not your fault.
*hugs* fwiw
Now #169 says “And, and thanks for your understanding” where it used to say “And you are next.” WTF?
But a glitch that published it correctly for a few minutes, then incorrectly for another half-hour or so, then back again? And it only affected that one comment? Not remotely parsimonious; I don’t think he could get away with claiming that. And there’s also the bit about how the last line “Me. And you’re next” was added on later (although I didn’t get a screencap of that either).
Oh, and SC, you are not responsible for any of this. It’s all at Greg’s feet. You were wronged, we stepped in to try to correct that wrong, and he went batshit.
Josh,
Thanks for the hug. Here’s one for you (hug!)
SC,
This is not your fault. Laden accused you of anti-semitism, serious charge without a basis. You have always put yourself out there to challenge bigotry and misogyny, and that kind of accusation hurts.
Holy fuck, now Sven’s already-edited comment has been changed again, and says “Me, but thanks for your understanding.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve been watching this go on all week, going WTF? Something isn’t right.
I finally got my act together and did a screencap of what’s there now for Sven’s comment, and cut the window big enough to include the current date/time from my toolbar if you need it, Sven.
Link, Carlie? Surly minds want to archive:)
Ehm, yeah, indeed it has.Creepy.
Carlie, I’d really appreciate the screencap as well, since I fully intend to flounce to the principal’s office tomorrow and report Laden for Criminal Douchebaggery. Please sent to spokesgay at gmail.com
Thank you.
A. Noyd @511
Will paraphrase John Kenneth Galbraith here, which went something like: when faced that one is wrong or proving one is right, most people get to work on the proof. Will go off and search, as read it somewhere reliable, could be wrong.
Refer often to Snopes but also point out that they originally said bisphenol A (BPA)was safe where now it is hedged. Wrote them several times.
SC OM @ 515:
Oh no, no, you aren’t responsible in the least nor should you feel that way. This is all on Greg Laden.
Josh – is there an email address you’ve published already to send to, or is there some roundabout way to get it to you? I’ve never been savvy at how people contact each other without going HERE’S MY EMAIL SPAMMERS out on the thread.
I also got the screen caps if anyone wants them.
Never mind there it is right there it’s late and I’m tired.
It sure is. As is the fact that he altered my post and put words in my mouth to make readers think I said something I didn’t say.
Sorry to keep harping on that, but I’m as fucking mad as I’ve ever been. That’s about the lowest, most assholish thing I can imagine. And you’re a complete fuckwad for doing it, Laden.
Fuck you.
@ Carlie:
Sure. Email me at spokesgay at gmail.com. Any Pharyngulite can use that, but assholes will be dealt with most severely:)
Sorry Josh – I couldn’t read.
Now if I end up in your google buzz feed because I emailed, I’ll slug you. ;)
Josh @ 537:
You have every right to be fucking furious. That’s a despicable thing to do, especially where words are all and a lot of readers aren’t familiar with you. It doesn’t just cross the line, it stomps on it and erases it entirely. Someone who can’t be bothered with ethics shouldn’t have the power to fuck people around in such a way.
Carlie. . you mean you couldn’t read the email I sent you in Gmail in response to yours?
No, just that I couldn’t read where you put your email RIGHT THERE in that first comment asking for the screencap.
Sorry Carlie, I’m kinda dense. All I can say is that I did receive your email in my inbox, and I did respond. Are we communicating by email?
this clusterfuck has officially jumped the shark :-/
Josh – we’re good. :)
this clusterfuck has officially jumped the shark
Wonder what is going through Sgt. Stephanie’s mind right now. This is going to be tough to defend.
BS
Dr. Laden is playing little games.
I suspect that my “understanding” refers to some private e-mail correspondence, which of course I won’t reveal.
Let’s just say I won’t be interacting with Dr. Laden in any way online in the future.
The disappearance of my e-mail address is probably not independent of that fact. Everybody’s happy.
*shrug*
Thank yinz for your support etc.
RMM Barrie (#532)
Well, the way I heard it, the house was originally green. Being curious, I tried looking up on wikipedia which color it started out as and the article mentioned the story as a legend. A bit more digging got me the Snopes article. Oh, and the majority the info I can find says it was originally unpainted sandstone.
Glad it’s all set for you, Sven. I’m not willing to let bygones be bygones. I think Greg Laden has violated some fundamental ethical boundaries. I’m spending some time thinking about how to respond to those.
btw, Laden’s privacy policy:
This comes into effect if he considers you “annoying”. At least Myers requires physical threats before any info will be shared.
But in other news, following up again on recent Thread themes, I posted a weird train video over on my “weblog”. It’s a diesel though. And computer-animated. Scroll down to the hi-res link if you have the bandwidth.
I was once very familiar with the terrain.
I forgot to note that he doesn’t say he’ll edit your posts to say whatever the fuck he wants without proper attribution. That’s fucking inexcusable, even if he did say he reserves the right though.
Interesting, Paul. I wonder if Laden’s “privacy policy” changed just today, on the spur of the moment.
I don’t give a shit what his privacy policy is. He’s acted like a complete son of a bitch. He’s a liar and a cheat; he alters the comments from posters to make it appear that they’ve said things they didn’t say. Dirty, dirty, dirty.
Keep it up Laden.
Thing is, Sven didn’t really do anything, as far as I could tell. Certainly he wasn’t as strident or argumentative or outright as some other commenters were, so why was he suddenly the one picked on like that? It’s so random.
Paul – that must be his new privacy policy? The one he started using before telling anyone what it was?
Laden,
What you did was unethical. It was also bullying people who have no recourse. Neither of these traits are acceptable for a blogmeister. Have a good rest of your life. I won’t be visiting your blog ever again.
There isn’t a timestamp, Carlie. He specifically cites racists, though, which I know have been a problem for the last month (that said, he’s been baiting people with very vague race related postings, and assuming anyone who disagrees is a racist).
I’m with you Josh. I just wanted to provide the information for those who might be interested. Whatever his policy is, his behavior is inexcusable.
I don’t think there’s any doubt at all about that.
It comes down to the fact that I don’t care about Greg Laden.
I told him what I thought about his behavior.
Not surprisingly, I got the feeling he didn’t care about me either.
I do not need the blogosphere if I want to interact with assholes. Assholes I got IRL. I come (virtually) here for cool smart funny people.
Hey, look, is that a music vid?
Paul,
So it’s disagreeing with him that makes you a racist? ‘Cause my pseudonym apparently makes me one.
Did I mention I’m pissed about that?
Here’s why I love this name
Well, it’s hard to describe without context. Greg likes to equivocate between racist referring to anything implicitly affected by race (as a neutral term) and using it as a derogatory term, though, so obviously a lot of people get confused or offended. I don’t want to talk much abou it though since I’m really not interested in having the discussion at this point. He likely only lashed at you because he’s completely fucking off his rocker right now.
@ Sven, SC, Paul, Carlie, Pygmy, A. Noyd, and anyone else of good will –
Thanks to all of you, and please excuse my tart tone of voice. I’m really fucking angry at Greg Laden, which means I need to back off and cool off. I don’t trust myself to do much more than cuss a blue streak right now.
Another comment mentioning Laden’s editing of Josh’s comment has appeared on his blog. Will it stand?
BS
man, that was the worst Darwin Day ever
Paul,
Thanks for the info.
Well, I’ve generally been avoiding this whole thing. Don’t need the drama. I can get that in real life, thanks…
But I finally cracked, started reading a few threads over at Laden’s, and, umm…
I won’t be doing that again.
I mean ever. Thanks, but that kinda sleaze, it just doesn’t wash off.
Worse, the general volume o’ slime oozing from those still bizarrely trying to find some way to make this SC’s fault is starting to give Gee’s original psycho Godwin bit a run for its money in the reeks-to-high-heaven department. Really, really have to say there’s a few people in that thread amazingly doggedly flinging that shit however many days in it is now (Do their arms not get tired? Have they no more rewarding hobbies?) oughtta be completely fucking ashamed of themselves.
The record of the whole thing looks to me like it might well make the textbooks, someday: ‘Kay, class, now here’s just why you do need to keep that ‘when in a hole, stop digging’ thing you may have heard here and there in mind…
Anyway, that’s it. That’s all. I’m off to the showers to try to wash off anything I might have picked up in those threads. And on the way, I figure I’ll probably burn these clothes, too…
(/Oh. Yeah. I’d make that comment over there ‘n all, but as if. My email and identity aren’t especially sensitive matters, actually, but thanks all the same, I’ll be doing my own editing, see.)
Hm, he also states in his privacy policy that he declares himself free to out email addresses AFTER he notifies the commenter that he will do so if they continue commenting in that way, so if he didn’t send a warning email to Sven, he’s still violating his own policy.
I’m off to bed, having watched the sadly malfunctioned Olympic cauldron lighting.
Pygmy Loris:
I’d never heard of a Pygmy Loris until I saw your user name some time back. I did a search and came on a page of two people who do extensive work with them and was enchanted. Amazing little creatures. So thank you very much.
Thank you to whoever pointed out, on Greg’s blog, that he dishonestly altered my comment. I appreciate that. It’s one thing to disagree with a commenter, and to chastise or mock a commenter. That’s fair game.
It’s entirely another to put words in that commenter’s mouth, then not allow him to post and correct it. What a fucker.
I wrote a really funny post on the Minnesota creationists thread…It is long like a Marjanovic’ post but without intelligence or attention to detail. It may cheer you up? Yes?
I don’t read other blogs than this one, but I checked out the Greg Laden blog…but DIDN’T POST A FUCKING THING. It’s not too interesting, anyway.
OK, this latest Laden insanity is just unspeakable. Weren’t some of his bulldogs getting all huffy about Paul W’s supposed ethics breach a while ago? If adding content to a comment post isn’t a breathtaking breach of ethics, what good is a blogosphere in the first place?
And…I have my own little bit to add; I think he played a little trick like this on me much earlier.
Back when I made my comment upthread here (# 281, 8:15 AM) about posts being held up forever in comment moderation at GLB, it was because a simple little comment of mine hadn’t been posted for over an hour…I don’t know when exactly it finally was posted, but there were well over 50 comments at the “Private letter to SC” site when I noticed it had finally been inserted—as comment #17, timed at 7:11 AM.
Worse, in a post in which I’d complained about the annoying lack of proof-reading in his “letter,”* there was a glaring typo right in my post. (So I thought, good thing the thread’s hurtled past #17 by now—maybe almost no one will notice it…)
BUT—I could have sworn the error wasn’t there in my previews; because I’m pretty anal about checking them, especially when I’m writing a fucking post griping about someone else’s errors.
Me being me, I was going to just figure that’s what I deserved for getting on my high horse…but NOW…now that we know that comments have been tampered with…combined with my pretty confident recollection of previewing with a fine-toothed comb, and with the oddly extreme posting delay…
Suffice it to say that “someone might think” Greg had a hand in that little “typo.” Makes sense to me—I musta struck a nerve or something.
I would never have wasted so many words here on such a stupid little story if I didn’t need to just let off steam somewhere. FWIW, if I ever decide to post on GLB again, I’m sure as hell gonna copy my post and save it somewhere before I hit submit. Maybe we need a notary?
*I mean, come on—I get that blogging is not supposed to be polished or anything, but, esp. when someone claims to be trying to make himself so damned clear, it’s pretty amazing how many errors appear in his writing lately (standing in stark contrast to the often excellent clarity & syntax of so many of the commenters**). I do understand infant-in-the-house-sleep-deprivation and all, but there comes a point when as a reader, I’m just insulted by so many blatant typos, not to mention the fact that they impair comprehension significantly. Don’t bloggers get to be bloggers because they’re supposed to be able to write half-way decently?
**Especially Pharynguloids. :-) (Not including myself, mind you. I don’t even consider myself one of the group here…)
Well, ThreadCop is back. Looks like her tack is to ignore Laden’s ethics and chastise commenters (on matters not directly related).
I wonder if Stephanie (thread cop) knows that Greg is altering commenters’ posts?
@Diane:
Caine,
I’m glad you went for a look about the pygmy loris. They are really cool and we just don’t know that much about them. There are only a handful of people who have done research on them in the wild.
A. Noyd @ 548
Have some notes here about the history of Quebec and is about a Canadian raid on August 19, 1814, where we did not do a very good job of setting anything much on fire, but did blacken the sandstone, hence the paint. The British landed on the same day at the Patuxent River, went on to Washington, and really burned the White House on August 24,1814.
Still do not have a good text reference though. Is pretty obscure.
What I remember most, from many years ago studying the War of 1812, on both sides of the border, there is no doubt in Canada, we won, and in the U.S., the Americans won.
RMM Barrie,
That’s why we built our stuff from stone ;)
Oh o, I ‘m on a list at Laden’s blog.
BS
While we’re on the topic of trains, here’s something to cheer up Sven, SC, and perhaps others (NSFJ). The only video footage I’ve ever seen where Jerry is intoxicated on ethyl alcohol.
.
Consider yourself lucky. My advice would be not to comment on his blog at all. He’s got a demonstrated track record of altering commenters’s posts so that you appear to say things that you didn’t actually write.
I don’t have any stake in this whole Laden thing, but I commented on the recent thread that Josh’s comment had been edited because I felt that any independent observers deserved to know.
Now, admittedly, I should hope that any independent observer would realize that SC didn’t do anything wrong and that Greg Laden is completely nuts, but I’ve overestimated people’s general intelligence before.
Paul @ 571:
Oh holy, I wanted to slap her silly. A. Noyd deserves a gold star for patience and repeatedly spelling things out to ThreadCop.
You know, for all that Prof. Dendy didn’t allow comments on his blog, (except for a very few) he never deleted one after it was posted nor did he ever AFAIK change the wording of one or reveal e mails. At this point he stands as a paragon compared to Greg Laden. And he was an asshole.
BS
Yes, yes, he did. He posted a comment from me about his dishonesty. Replied to it. Then deleted my original comment, leaving his reply as a regular comment. It’s why I never commented on his blog again.
I stand corrected.
He did seem to have it in for you.
BS
Well, all the sound and fury signifying we know not what on Greg Laden’s blog makes me appreciate our Professional Poopyhead PZ all the more.
Parts of the Olympic Opening Ceremony were boring, but K.D. Lang singing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” was awe-inspiring. Odd that K.D. now looks kinda like Johnny Cash.
Addendums to my #578
Old fuckface had it in for a few of us here.
BS,
He had problems with a few of us. Oh well. Troll is gone, so I’m unconcerned.
–Josh,OSG
I remember. That’s partly what emboldened me.
Interestingly PZ himself chimed in more than once on the Firing Squad thread to ask Greg WTF he was talking about (more or less…)
Josh, you have no need to explain. I still can’t believe he did what he did to you and Sven (and possibly Diane G.). Tart it up.
I do. :)
@ SC:
At the risk of sounding like I’m playing a game of Rank Oppressions (TM), I have to say the biggest wrong has been done to you, SC. This entire affair was an obscene hit job on you. And I’m not going to forget it.
The absolute worst part of it imo is that the initial statement was likely only poorly phrased with no offensive intent. But all this is the fallout from a jackass professor doing anything to keep from honestly apologizing and analyzing his behavior and way of expression (the latter of which he constantly berates everyone else to do).
It’s painful to watch.
SC OM | February 12, 2010 10:56 PM:
No. Greg could have stopped at any time. He started the manipulation, he made every significant escalation. The only error made by you, or Paul, or Pygmy Loris, etc, is that you have all continued to feed a troll. That’s a mistake, but it doesn’t make you responsible; you all had good intentions.
Dang! I knew I’d dozed off for a few minutes, but I guess I missed more than I thought. I’m very sorry to have missed this performance.
This seems a fitting link for the Thread at this point :
Billy Connolly–Colonoscopy
Couple more :
Connolly on Religion
Connolly–Old woman on bus
–SC
Aw, thanks, Salty!
–Paul
That’s exactly it, especially the “way of expression” part, IMO. I was maybe halfway through the “Letter” thread when I think I finally understood what “Firing Squad” had ostensibly been supposed to be about. And if I understood right it might have made for an interesting discussion if the well hadn’t already been poisoned by the damning-by-association of Salty and the metaphor of the mythical “Blastula” which of course was NOT to be taken to represent any actual blog…
I don’t think I’m an anti-metaphorist, but there’s ways and then there’s ways…PZ’s “science filling the silos” recently was brilliant.
Come to think of it, is there really any profitable way to go if you start out with the premise of an atheist firing squad?
I thought an atheist firing squad is what the “Intelligent” “Design” people want to start up for the education system.
Is Greg hallucinating? It can be disturbing, but there are techniques to cope.
RMM Barrie (#575)
How about a non profit org for White House history which says it was painted white starting in 1798? And here’s someone who claims to have gotten their info from a guided tour of the place.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Caine (#581)
I dunno, do people get gold stars for talking to walls? But thanks. I hope I at least helped expose her a bit to any third parties. Maybe I’ll check to see if any of the others take up the challenge I set, but I’m done with the irrational, sycophantic, rabid attack-chihuahua herself. I don’t know how someone that dumb doesn’t electrocute herself to death making toast.
It’s interesting that Greg has declared a moratorium on anyone dissing Salty or him, but has left Steph Z hung out to dry…
Awesome job over there mate.I hope that your and Paul W’s efforts can help a bit to sway the folks reading this wrt the perception of the debating culture on Pharyngula.
I’ve been lurking for a while and seldom comment. I stopped following Laden’s blog some time back. He seems to be a mixed bag. His Congo series are some of the most interesting blog posts that I’ve read. Yet at other points he seems to wander off the deep-end. And recnetly not wander so much as jump on the fastest vehicle he could find and drive full throttle off the pier. I only noticed this Charlie foxtrot when one of his posts appeared in the top five most active. I took the time to read and since then have had a hard time pulling myself away from the train wreck. Usually when people hit bedrock they stop digging, instead he’s pulled out the explosives and heavy equipment (how long before he reaches China?).
Laden always seems to have thought of himself as a clever writer. Unfortunately in practice he seems to fall far short of that. At the end of the day he’s sloppy and you can see that in posts themselves and in the comments that he makes. How many comments he needs to spend clarifying his posts and explaining what he actually meant?
At this point I won’t be paying attention to any more of his posts. Any goodwill or benefit of the doubt that I had towards him is gone. He may or may not have other stuff going on in his life but unless he comes up with a substantial mea culpa, he’s just a wanker.
Cheesecake!
Pygmy Loris, et al:
I love both The Star-Spangled Banner and O Canada, and know all the words to both (along with numerous other national anthems, since I’m a massive anthem-geek).
I do like God Save the Queen, but, in terms of both musical and poetic value, I will be the first to admit that it’s not in the same class.
Pygmy Loris #559
Oh no, Pygmy Loris is a fan of Margaret Keane.
You’re welcome !
Ugh, Rorschach. Not that one. That’s revolting.
I wrote the following argument, which I’d like to get ripped apart if possible. It’s about the impossibility of omniscience, much in the same line of the “can God create a rock even he can’t lift?”
Anything wrong with this argument?
The Spanish national anthem, the Marcha Real, is rather stirring:
*grin*
God damn it Walton, you somehow like the most boring national anthem ever written but reject one of the most important songs of the 1970s as revolting?
I would probably argue that the premise “But to hold knowledge about everything creates a new fact, that there is a set of knowledge that contains everything” is dodgy, in an affirming the consequent kinda way.
:-)
you’ve got absolutely no taste in music. the Sex Pistols are fucking awesome.
I was going for the whole Godel incompleteness theorem argument.
Other good national anthems
Monaco – one of the few remaining texts in the dying Monégasque language:
Andorra
The South African one is also very interesting, since it’s a combination of two anthems, the Xhosa and Zulu Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika and the Afrikaans Die Stem van Suid-Afrika (the two were combined to create a “uniting” anthem after the end of the apartheid era). It’s the only national anthem in the world which has lyrics in five different languages, and which finishes in a different key from the one in which it started.
I don’t think my taste in music is that bad. I don’t listen exclusively to national anthems from around the world, though I do love them; I also like some classic country and western music, as well as some jazz (particularly Dixieland) and gospel songs.
This is awesome, for instance:
Kel, OM #608
What you’re giving is a form of Achilles and the Tortoise. Logically Achilles will never pass the Tortoise but, given real distances and speeds, it can be calculated when Achilles will pass the Tortoise. Similarly, the omniscient being will be able to hold all data including the data that it knows all data.
How about this:
@ 608
One possible objection is that omniscience doesn’t consist of knowing a set of facts, but of knowing general rules for generating facts. With these rules you could see that the ‘problem’ you specify is recursive and doesn’t end. It’s the same thing as saying that an omniscient being would need to know all the digits of pi, rather than just a rule for calculating them.
Paul@392,
The reposts were an odd interaction between my broadband, which was running slow, and Laden’s site: when I tried to post a new comment, I got timed out, then when I went back to the thread and refreshed, the old comment was reposted. I’ve had the same happen on one other side. I did preface my next (and last) comment with an apology there, as you may have seen.
see, I told you you have no taste in music :-/
this is real music.
and this is so bad, it’s awesome. :-D
Oh !! That is hilarious !!
Is Greg hallucinating? It can be disturbing, but there are techniques to cope. – Miki Z.
Well I’ve never followed his blog, but according to a number of commenters both here and there, there’s been a fairly sharp deterioration in both tone and coherence over quite a short period. IANANeurologist, but these could be symptoms of either early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, or a brain tumour. I’m not saying I think they are, of course, but other people might advice him to consult his medical adviser.
Walton listens to both kinds of music, country and western.
I like some Muddy Waters:
But what I’m arguing for here is not the real-world application of knowing (whether one can know everything I would allege is impossible given our universe) but the ontological application of omniscience. Arguing a priori, pure and simple. Not to dismiss your objections, I’m just trying to see whether the argument holds water or not.
Where’s truth machine when you need him? :P
Kel,
The axiom of choice is problematic for your suggestion. You’re essentially asserting that there is a chain of facts with no choice function. Unless you are willing to accept that only a finite number of facts can exist, it’s not a compelling argument.
The British may have burned Washington, but we beat ’em – Pygmy Loris
Nonsense! It was a draw! :-p
There are two types of omniscience: Inherent omniscience – the ability to know anything that one chooses to know and can be known; and total omniscience – actually knowing everything that can be known. Some theologians argue that god’s omniscience is inherent rather than total. God chooses to limit his omniscience to allow freewill. Other theologians use total omniscience as a justification for predestination.
I realize 626 may be a little sparse for those not familiar with this type of mathematics, so I’ll expand and pontificate.
Assume that we have some basic set of “facts” which are not fact-referential. This means that the facts won’t reference knowledge about facts, only about non-fact things. Let these be x1, x2, etc.
Let a set be knowledge that the members of the set are known. E.g. { x1, x2 } is the statement “It is known that it is a fact that x1 and x2 together are a fact.”
Begin with the set of basic facts. Call this F0. Then P(F0), the power set of F0, contains knowledge that any particular subset of F (including the whole thing) is a fact. P(P(F0)) is knowledge about knowledge about, etc.
This lets us construct a chain:
F1 = P(F0)
F2 = P(F1)
and so on.
If God cannot be omniscient even by assumption, then there is a set in the chain for which no choice function will pick out a particular fact. If the axiom of choice is assumed, this is a contradiction, because the axiom of choice guarantees us a choice function.
‘The British may have burned Washington, but we beat ’em – Pygmy Loris
Nonsense! It was a draw! :-p’
Nonesense! As the primary aim of the US was to annex Canada, WE won!
*loser, loser*
Missed most of this thread what with work and sleep, but do I understand that GL is accused of altering other peoples posts?
Deleting for reassons of taste or tediousness I can understand, banning I can understand but altering is so far beneath comtempt as to demand another word (if such exists).
It falls into the same catagory as falsifing data FFSM sake!
It’s Bearing False Witness.
I’m speechless.
Walton:
But do you knwo ALL the words, including the “Rebellious Scots to crush,” bit?
Anyone else see this – finally a good use for star wars technology?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123680870885500701.html
But do you knwo ALL the words, including the “Rebellious Scots to crush,” bit?
Incidentally, Field Marshal George Wade failed to crush the Scots. He was Commander in Chief of the Forces in England. When the Jacobites rose in 1745 the speed of their advance from Scotland left Wade in the lurch. He failed to counter their march into England and was dismissed. Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland replaced Wade and headed the army to the decisive Battle of Culloden in 1746.
Anybody familiar with nephrolithiasis (acute kidney stones attack) ?
Been suffering for the last 5 days. Difficult to follow Pharyngula.
Azimov wrote about this in his memoirs.
Yea, he altered posts and deleted innocuous posts to avoid questions. He is also holding posts in moderation now and refusing to let them go through. It is difficult to express the degree of contempt I feel. I don’t know how his reputation can ever recover.
BS
The font of all knowledge, wikipedia, has led me to understand that the last Jacobite pretender to the thrones of Scotland, England and Ireland is Franz, Duke of Bavaria (Herzog von Bayern), although he does not make any claim to the crown.
nejishiki, #619:
I was going to write exactly the essence of what you did, only my version was a much more long-winded, awkward one. Nicely done.
boy g, thanks for the Great North Special clips. I love it at the end when Garcia declares his love for Janis.
“Never had such a good time in my life before…One good ride from start to end.”
Dr. Teeth is covering Pops on that one.
Then neither do I. The Pistols were a important cultural phenomenon (more Monkees than Beatles, IMO) but as music it’s purest crap. Yes, I understand that was part of the point.
Are you suggesting the Monkees didn’t produce great music? How can anyone hear
and not be moved?
Aaannd they’re back in action. Laden and the Sargent are defending their behavior. Apparently Josh was warned and that makes it OK. Yech.
BS
(Holds up hand shyly, guiltily…)
I must confess, speaking even as someone who kinda does like some music which as music is pretty much purest crap, I’ve never really got the fawning over the Beatles.
They were… okay. Fun, even, sometimes. Twist and Shout was a great, fun tune at the high school dance when it came back around the time I was at those. Some of their more introspective bits were nice in that they do have some real soul, are listenable, and pushed back the borders of what you could do on a pop album.
And… Umm… That’s about all I got. A good band, sure, and I absolutely respect that. But the various essays ya find about how they’re fucking supergenius magical music men, umm… Sorry. Never quite saw that.
(/Cringes, writing that, realizing he’s probably inviting someone to write some more such bumpf to try to convince him anyway. Seriously. Anyone considering this, please. Spare us. I’m pretty sure by now it’s all been said.)
Kel and Miki Z.,
The argument Kel is positing seems to me to be related to some of Kolmogorov’s later thinking about probability and random processes. It would seem that as long as there are no truly random processes, one could summarize knowledge in terms of a finite number of facts (e.g. position and momentum of every particle in the Universe) and a finite number of rules (e.g. classical mechanics) relating to those facts from which we could derive other facts. When you throw in totally random processes, though, then by definition there is no rule that precisely predicts a priori the random variable. Thus, even a posteriori, the only way the knowledge of the random sequence can be summarized is by the random sequence itself. If the random sequence is infinite, then it takes an infinite amount of information to specify. If it is finite, then how do we know it is in fact random and, for instance, doesn’t begin to repeat on the next trial?
Now if you throw in quantum mechanics, things get even more interesting. One could then argue that everything is random, and so cannot be predicted a priori. One could also argue that an atom decaying at time t and at time t+e (e~planck time) are in fact indistinguishable states. So in fact, one could argue that knowledge in a quantum Universe is more tractable than knowledge in a classical universe (at least one that admits random processes).
In any case, speculations of this sort probably explain why if there is a God we haven’t heard from him. He’s probably gone crazy thinking about it and is resting in a quiet place somewhere (and somewhen?).
Wow, take a gander at the epic thread of sleazeball behavior now. Not only did GL admit to changing Josh’s post, he’s proud of it. (Yes, I screencapped that one right away.)
NO, of course not*! I merely suggest that they were initially put together as a concept novelty act by a controlling manager-type rather than foming more organically as one might wish a true band-as-cultural-phenomenon to do.
*And I hereby present my best argument to the contrary:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2856490/the_monkees_porpoise_song_from_head/
SteveV @630
War of 1812, revisited
As early preparations for the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 get underway in Canada and the United States, organizers in Canada have run into an unexpected hitch: Their American counterparts seem to think they won.
National Post September 28, 2007
For lovers of trains and poetry and genuine period pieces. All of this and a slice of one of the great documentaries about life in the 30s.
I give you:
NIGHT MAIL
Notes: You will need to turn up the sound. Follow the links to the full documentary if you want to see how the BBC did things in the early days.
Approaching the number of the beast. Time to get in one last post before running off to the grocery store, and upon return, finding PZ has opened a new eternal thread. May the thread keep chugging along…
Awww. Almost too feckin’ cute to live.
Sven, you anticipated me. I was waiting for you or someone else to rip into the Monkees and I was going to bring The Porpoise Song out.
‘Tis @624: great Muddy Waters link. Yet another of my brothers, this one named Robert (lives in Alaska, all too close to Palin’s home town for his comfort), is a great blues guitarist, and a fair, if eccentric singer. My love of Muddy Waters began when Robert was learning those licks.
Sven, you anticipated me. I was waiting for you or someone else to rip into the Monkees and I was going to bring The Porpoise Song out.
<shock>
Jadehawk, are you already awake or still awake? Both possibilities are rather scary.
Has been called the Reverse Midas Touch: everything he touches turns to shit…
The French text is completely different and has lot of Catholicism ( = Québec patriotism) in it.
…Maybe it’s because I’m a scientist, but I’m really taken aback.
If I’m wrong, I want to be corrected as quickly as possible and in such a way that everyone who has seen my error will see the correction –
You want to keep being wrong in your reader’s eyes???
I don’t get it.
Emphasis added. Who is this “we” you speak of? :-) You didn’t participate in the battle, did you?
So you openly admit to being this type of asshole. Good to know.
It’s got big eyes, you know…
<voice mode=”Last Action Hero”>Mighty big mistake.</voice>
:-) I need to check it out :-)
So I finally put “cheesecake” into images.google.com. Turns out my suspicion is most likely right: the most commonly available dessert in the canteen here is indeed several kinds of cheesecake.
Doesn’t the argument require that it’s not possible to know that one knows everything? If so, it fails on these grounds, I’d say.
In the “related videos” list there’s a version where you can actually hear (and read…) the text. Himno de la fe :-/ – but still better than the Austrian one! Don’t get me started. :^)
The version you linked to starts with the Chinese characters for “country”, “king” and “walk”. I don’t know the last two.
Well, duh. Of course! The 1970s are revolting in their entirety! I’m not being sarcastic.
Then where is the text!?! You linked to an orchestra-only version! :-)
The tune isn’t bad, but the text would be the interesting thing!
The best that can be expected for a country with this kind of bizarre history. :-) Not bad, all in all. Well, a bit kitschy, but I already mentioned the Austrian one.
:-o
Genius. Pure genius. Nerdy outright!
I froze in shock and horror so I couldn’t stop.
My eyes have glazed over…
My heartbeat…
I feel all weak. Good that it ended, otherwise I’d have started trembling.
The text is fairly funny, but the tune… forget about it.
(Of course, that’s on purpose, it’s supposed to be a parody and all. But that doesn’t make it any more beautiful.)
Surprisingly, I can stand the tune, but the rest, like most modern music, is just a couple of guys shouting. :- Of course, I don’t understand the text beyond “I have two left hands”, so maybe all the fun passes me by…
That’s a way to put it. The text is largely funny…
The best part is the flamethrower X-D
B-D
I double posted. Oh well, it all counts towards the 666th post.
a_ray_in_dilbert_space @643: loved that entire post, but especially this:
That’s pretty much the conclusion that I came to in high school, though not near so eloquently. God was defeated as soon as he put on the cloak of infallibility. I mean, think of the scope of his responsibilities just for a starter. He said to Himself, “Self, you have fucked up royally.” And off he went to whimper and blow his ruddy great nose. He now makes appearances as Mr. Deity because he read somewhere that self-depreciation is good for the soul.
This revelation is somehow connected to my first exposure to topology in a geometry class. I forget the exact chain of thought, but I remember making mobius strips for several days. Some things just don’t get old.
‘Tis Himself: Yes, I know most of the words, including the Marshal Wade verse (which was never in official use, but is occasionally sung for comedy value and to annoy the Scots). In full, there are five verses of which I’m aware, though only the first one is usually sung.
From memory:
There is a fourth verse which starts “From every latent foe / From the assassin’s blow…”, but I can’t remember all the words right now.
David,
I quite like Land der Berge; the lyrics may not be fantastic, but the tune is by Mozart.
The Swiss anthem (the Swiss Psalm) is better, though.
The text of the Marcha Real doesn’t actually have any official status, IIRC; it’s one of the few national anthems without official lyrics. (There are two sets of lyrics in common use, one from the Franco era and one more commonly used today.)
Great minds and such. Nice cover.
I love Head, the movie btw. What can you say about a flick with Jack Nicholson, Frank Zappa, Annette Funicello, Teri Garr, Victor Mature, Carol Doda, Sonny Liston, and Peter Tork?
(plus Dennis Hopper in an uncredited nonspeaking cameo)
This business of anthems reminds me of another point to be made about the idea that the Sex Pistols were in any way all that. Behold the National Anthem of the Yippie Nation:
PZ: I was in the audience for your Sierra College talk. I was impressed with the aplomb and grace you showed handling the aggressive and vitriolic attacks of the deluded young man who came to the debate unprepared to debate. It was like watching an intellectual Jedi warrior school a Paduwan kindergarten. And then you invited him into the the inner sanctum of true believers (BJ’s) and continued to treat him with respect. Thank you for the work you are doing. Like a true master you make it look easy when it is not and you seem to be having a lot of fun. Happy monkey, and may a crocaduck bite your enemies on the ass!
Thanks for the links, boygenius!
***
That they’re now trying to justify this is mindboggling. Few times in the history of blogging have people been so unaware of how they’re making themselves look and the lines they’re crossing.
And in truly the most ridiculous, grasping ploy, people who have called me what they have and now been openly apologetic for misogyny are trying to make an argument about “Steph” and “sidekick.” Seriously.
Willie Garvin. Yes, had to look it up, but I can’t think of a single female sidekick to a male, either. Every such pair I can think of is male-male or female-female. The emblematic sidekick to me is Captain Hastings. FTR, the two I was thinking of there were Smithers, but I didn’t want to steal it and was too sick/lazy to look back to see who mentioned it (I’m also not familiar enough with the show not to be open to arguments that Smithers had more redeeming qualities), and Marcie from Peanuts, but as I recall she was more of a voice of reason and tried to prevent Pattie from acting rashly, which is obviously not the case here. So I went with the generic.
I thought A. Noyd was a woman.
***
At this point, it looks like a pathological tendency toward self-destruction. Greg, you’ve basically acknowledged that in your actions online you hold yourself to no ethical standards.
As most of you know by now, some of my mormon friends keep me on their email list, and I receive lots of emails that are sent out by mormons to mormons in mass quantities. The one I received today is a scare tactic. It’s meant to defeat health care reform.
For a more objective view of the rumor mill and the truth or truthiness actually contained in the bill, see
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/h/health-plan.htm
Here are some choice excerpts from the scare-you-silly email:
The entire screed can be read here:
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/c/michae-connelly-hr3200.htm
dia dhuit
Amhrán na bhFiann
Sinne Fianna Fáil,
atá faoi gheall ag Éirinn,
Buíon dár slua
thar toinn do ráinig chughainn,
Faoi mhóid bheith saor
Seantír ár sinsear feasta,
Ní fhágfar faoin tíorán ná faoin tráill.
Anocht a théam sa bhearna baoil,
Le gean ar Ghaeil, chun báis nó saoil,
Le gunna scréach faoi lámhach na bpiléar,
Seo libh canaig amhrán na bhFiann
ROTFLMAO!
:-D :-D :-D And it’s still in the anthem! :-D :-D :-D
They should apply the German solution: only the 3rd stanza of this here is the anthem, all the rest has been quietly dropped.
Though, actually, I still wonder if they should actually restore part of the previous text…
Und wer weiß schon, dass die Urfassung eigentlich ein WM-Song war: “Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser!”
LOL in meatspace.
(…Note how cleverly I wrote “previous” instead of “original“. I guess everything has to start as a love song.)
ROTFLMAO!
This is (yet) a(nother) Molly nomination.
I’m laughing a lot today, aren’t I.
The other mormon mass mailing I received today repeated rumors about Social Security, and came in the form of a petition (already bearing almost a thousand names of mormon worthies).
This one is all fiction, with no depends-upon-interpretation, nor mixture of truth and fiction about it. See http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/p/petition-illegals.htm
Well, someone has to do it:
It’s also pretty funny. “Correct me on the blog that gets thousands more hits than mine.” Brilliant.
Yes, I was talking about the :-S lyrics.
Oops. <blush>
Re Alan B’s “Night Mail” link @647:
In the farm she passes no one wakes,
But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes.
Dawn freshens, the climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends
Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes,
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All Scotland waits for her:
In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs
Men long for news.
[excerpt from Auden’s poem, which is recited in the Night Mail documentary film]
Nation Of Andorra Not In Africa, Shocked U.S. State Dept. Reports
All this talk of anthems reminds of an air show sometime in the early-mid ’60s they had out at the local airport (this is Battle Creek, so guess who the airport is named after). They had a bunch of WWI planes (and some others) flying around. Took about a half hour of standing in the bright hot sun to play all the anthems of the planes being flown.
Slowly I’m accumulating a classical education. :-)
Tried to find the famous old parody (jour de boire, “day of drinking”) on YouTube, but can’t.
Lynna says “This revelation is somehow connected to my first exposure to topology in a geometry class. I forget the exact chain of thought, but I remember making mobius strips for several days. Some things just don’t get old.”
Yup! And some people claim philosophy will screw you up. Topology, Set theory and Non-Euclidean geoetry will F*CK WITH YOUR MIND. Back in physics grad school, the guys who did general relativity and cosmology were all uniformly nuts.
So what do I do? I go and find an application of non-Euclidean geometry to statistics and probablity: Information Geometry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_geometry
It’s a pretty interesting way of looking at the subject and seems to formalize some of the approaches I’ve been taking in spacecraft reliability calculations. I expect to be stark raving mad in a week or two.
NASA Scientists Plan To Approach Girl By 2018
Please retain one tiny corner of sanity, and from that corner send me a missive that tells me where you and god are hanging out … and what you are drinking.
Lynna@665:
It’s enough to make me want to move back and claim to be an illegal. The benefits are great!
I’m not a lawyer, but if my understanding is correct a “citizens only” test for social security would violate several treaties on reciprocal treatment for foreign social security programs. I know that our family pays into the Japanese social security system, but that if we moved back to the U.S. we would be credited with enrollment during this time in the U.S. social security scheme. I don’t remember the exact details of how this works.
David Marjanović (#653)
国王行進曲 = kokuou koushin-kyoku
kokuou = king
koushin-kyoku = march [as in the type of music]
行 itself means “go” or “move” in Japanese
進 means “progress” [the theory of evolution is 進化論 (shinkaron) – progress change theory]
曲 means “song”
~*~*~*~*~*~
SC (#661)
Indeed I am. I take it that I’ve been granted yet another honorary penis over there or something? (Talk about unwanted gifts.) I’ll go see what’s up when I’m more awake.
a_ray_in_dilbert_space sent us to a wiki page that read, in part:
We should modify this plan for Walton.
If you come across Japanese more than infrequently, you might find rikaichan to be helpful. It’s a firefox add-on that will give pop-ups of kanji with their meaning (including multi-character words).
David M., the link @673 (Feynmaniac), contains info on socks lost in dryers. Just didn’t want you to miss it. :-)
Join the club. I have been granted, more than once, an honorary adolescent penis that apparently is part of the equipment I have in my basement. And this is despite the “a” on the end of my name, which in most languages is a feminine signifier.
Excuse me, I have to go pop my zits.
Interesting. I didn’t know that, but it makes sense. However, you must realize that conservative mormons do not like pesky, subtle details. Therefore, I think we should just conveniently forget that reciprocal agreements exist. And we should forget this as well:
Hmmmm. $60 BILLION — wonder what we can do with that?
Leave it there. I’m down to single digits for retirement…
I hate computers. Flashplayer’s just started going choppy, so I can neither use Youtube, nor listen to the BBC Iplayer. Annoyingsome. (And, yes, I’ve tried the obvious – reïnstalling and rebooting.)
Damn. Someone needs to stage an intervention in the Laden home.
Tom Lehrer’s “Lobachevsky”:
I posted this Greg’s at 10:19 AM. Given the recent censorship and silent mangling of what some people post, I thought I’d post it here too, for the record, verbatim and character-for-character, typos and all.
————–
Stephanie,
My impression has been that Greg generally made reference to her comments or “her commentary” without being clear which particular comments were objectionable, or what particular ideas expressed in them were the objectionable ones.
That is why we were pleasantly surprised—and sincerely glad, contra your protestations—when Greg posted the current post. Finally we had some specifics to look at, to try to make sense of his claims. That really is something we’ve been asking for, over and over, for days, and we got it. Cool.
The fact that we don’t see those specific quotes as damning doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate having the specifics to judge for ourselves.
The fact that we disagree with you doesn’t mean that we are insincere, as you seem to think.
You and sometimes Greg keep bringing up the issue of whether you trust us, enough that it’s worth explaining or justifying yourself to us.
For us, that is no the issue. The issue is whether we should take your word for it that you’re seeing something that’s actually there, and making reasonable accusations rather than unreasonable ones.
In our world, the burden of proof is on the person making the claim, most especially if that claim is an unflattering accusation, such as antisemitism—or even a supposed appearance of antisemitism by someone who strives not be or appear antisemitic.
Through all of these threads you have tried to make it sound like people from Pharyngula kept dragging things back to the subject of Henry Gee, and specific events at Pharyngula, when that’s not what this is about.
I think there’s a little truth to that, but not much. One reason we’ve been unable to get off that subject is that you and Greg keep confirming to us that you do think particular things about that event, which we disagree with, and that you do take them as examples of what you’re currently talking about.
You also appear to be using what Greg is overtly saying as a justification for what he and you said earlier, which we disagreed with, and still do.
In the thread titled “Should Just Anyone be Allowed to Piss on Henry Gee’s Rug?”, I brought up what I considered an important issue, which has still mostly gone unaddressed.
Greg conveniently talked about civility as though the issue was whether commenters stayed within blogger-stated and blogger-enforced rules, which I and others thought was simply wrong. What constitutes civility is largely a matter of social norms over and above the ground rules enforced by a blogger stating policies, censoring comments, and booting people. Even at Pharyngula.
Greg persisted in this framing, which we persisted in disagree with.
That had a big effect on the ensuing mess, to this day.
One convenient consequence of Greg’s convenient framing is that Henry Gee apparently did not violate any relevant norms of civility at Pharyngula. He didn’t piss on the rug, or it doesn’t count, because people regularly piss on the rug and each other at Pharyngula, and PZ lets it happen. That framing allows you and Greg to say that Henry’s irrelevant, and is not an interesting example of the civility issues we’ve been talking about throughout.
More importantly, that framing allowed Greg and you to freely dis SC. You could portray her as a whiner groundlessly claiming that Henry violated norms of civility that, supposedly, do not exist. You could ridicule her and other people at (or from) Pharyngula as people who can dish it out but can’t take it.
We thought, and still do, that that framing is wrong, obtuse, misleading, and rather sleazy. There are important norms of civility at Pharyngula, and whether those norms are valid is central to all the major arguments we’ve been having through these three trainwreck threads. Not just about the specifics of what Henry did or didn’t say, or what SC did or didn’t advertently imply that might be construed as antisemitic, but about
1) what constitues actual civility,
2) whether there are basic principles of civility that apply across blogs, including Pharyngula and Greg Laden’s blog, and
3) who has or hasn’t been violating those norms of civility
One problem that you’ve had getting the conversation away from Henry and SC is that you keep appealing to your convenient framing when you dis and try to dismiss SC, and we don’t go along, on principle.
Another problem is that you keep saying things that we think are simply false. We won’t let those things pass, even if they’re off topic, especially if they are unflattering to us or specifically SC.
Once you make false claims about people, you can’t say that their responses are off-topic; you made them the topic. Deal with it.
One of the persistent falsehoods, as we see it, is that you’ve claimed that Greg made things clear, and gave examples, when to the best of our knowledge, he hadn’t until the current post. You kept appealing to a certain view of events that we did not think was a consensus view, and still don’t. You used that as an excuse to dis SC, which we thought was sleazy, and still do.
As I said, that’s why we are truly glad to have something concrete to evaluate.
Another persistent falsehood that you kept asserting—in support of your convenient framing, and in the specific context of trying to marginalize and ridicule SC—was that we were making a straw man claim about Henry having called us Nazi-like.
In this thread and the previous one, you’ve said things to the effect that SC’s an assclam for making something out of nothing, and derailing perfectly good threads to dwell on her petty old grievances.
If you wanted to get off the subject of Henry Gee, or SC, you couldn’t have picked a worse way of going about it.
Once you accuse somebody of being unreasonable, you have made that the topic.
Once you accuse someone of falsely representing things, you have made the validity of their claims the topic.
You made sure that SC had very good reason to discuss what Henry Gee actually said, and whether her grievances were real, and whether they were petty.
If you don’t want people to defend themselves, stop accusing them. If you don’t want them to discuss their grievances, stop saying that their grievances are nonexistent or just petty.
In your comment 21, you said to me:
As I briefly said before, you are quite right that one of my goals was to get people to judge Henry.
I want to make it explicit that I was doing so because you made it the topic. SC’s petty old off-topic grievances are not that petty, are not that old, and are certainly not off-topic.
The underlying themes of these three threads have been what constitutes civility on blogs, and on specific blogs, and now what constitutes intentional or inadvertent antisemitism or racism, or appearances of same.
Notice that the only concrete instances of any of that have been around Henry Gee, Pharyngula, and SC.
Like a lot of other people, I find a lot of what Greg says appealing at a certain high level and in a certain metaphorical way.
But many of us have concerns about how the rubber meets the road. We have questions, and we need to work through examples, so that we can try to get clear on crucial issues like:
1) when, exactly, are you being uncivil for focusing on a “rational argument,” and ignoring people’s strong feelings, vs. giving away the store by tiptoeing around loaded subjects
2) what, exactly, constitutes antisemitism, or an appearance of antisemitism, or an inadvertent but negligent use of a dog whistle that sounds like antisemitism and might be reinforce antisemitism.
We are not uninterested in what Greg is talking about. We just don’t know how the rubber meets the road, and we are wary because it often seems that he’s taking a circuitous route to justifying things he’s already said, which we disagree with, and doubt that he will ever address squarely enough to change our minds.
I think that’s a reasonable suspicion, given his and your style of argument lately.
We don’t think it’s any coincidence that Greg’s spectacularly loaded metaphor about firing squads is explicitly about Pharyngula (but not only Pharyngula) and about antisemitism or appearances of same at Pharyngula.
It is utterly inevitable that we’d think the post was about Henry Gee and SC, because
1) that is clearly the elephant in the room, and everybody who’s been paying attention knows it, and
2) it is the only specific example of that sort of thing that we’ve been given, and it’s natural that we’d try to map the supposedly useful analogy onto that specific case to see if we can make the rubber usefully meet the road.
3) you keep making specific, concrete claims about those people and those events, e.g., that Greg had already given specifics, and that SC was beating a straw man w.r.t. Henry.
If you want to change the subject, change the subject.
You can’t let go of what we consider to be some very convenient straw men. If you want us to agree with you, you have to make your case.
It does not help to condescend to us, and tell us that you don’t care about our opinion. You evidently do, or at least you care about the subject of our opinion enough to keep trying to get the last word and frame things to your liking, and to get us to shut up.
It doesn’t work, and isn’t going to work. That is not how we roll, and for us, it’s a matter of principle, as well as a matter of self-defense. We do have certain strong social norms at Pharyngula, and we think they’re valid in ways that apply here, too.
We are not going to let it go before you do.
Quick stop through to send good wishes for health and recovery to negentropyeater!
Also commiserations to SC, Sven, Josh, Blind Squirrel, and others for the recent maelstrom at an elsewhere blog. The craziness of all that has left me fairly gobsmacked.
As an addition to the musical selections on this particular section of the endless thread, I humbly submit the only Miracles I believe in.
Still learning,
Robert
Suitable retaliatiion, ‘Tis. Thanks. Now I’m wondering if Ray Comfort watched that video and took as a How-To-Look-Smart manual — the advice regarding plagarism, for example.
The emblematic sidekick to me is Captain Hastings.
Sidekicks seem to be a feature of detective/police stories, from Holmes and Watson onward – there, of course, it had the advantage of enabling the stories to be told from Watson’s point of view, thus concealing Holmes’s chain of deductions until the end. In British TV police procedurals two of the best known pairings are Barlow and Watt (Z-Cars and Softly, Softly – I’m showing my age here), and Morse and Lewis in Morse – all male – but in Prime Suspect 2 by Linda La Plante, D.I. Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) had a (black) male sidekick, Sgt. Robert Oswald (Colin Salmon). The original Prime Suspect had a strong feminist theme, with Tennison struggling against sexism in the force as well as catching a serial killer of women, but this theme was downplayed in subsequent series.
I am like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know…
This Greg Laden guy (if I’m not mistaken) disapproves of the word “pygmy” in Pygmy Loris…am I wrong?
In the “About” tab on his blog I found this:
Maybe the word pygmy is only offensive when it refers to entities that are not humans. Like lorises, hippos and hamsters.
#638 co
Well, thanks. It was written at 3 in the morning, so I was just surprised when I woke up and found that it was even semi-coherent.
One should not discuss theology at an ungodly hour.
Wow, Paul W. More power to you. You made a good effort to clarify the issues.
David Marjanović @653
Not sure which official version you are referring to, as there is the French direct translation version from English or the French version:
« O Canada! Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!
Car ton bras sait porter l’épée,
Il sait porter la croix!
Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploits.
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits. »
English Translation of the French Version:
O Canada! Land of our forefathers
Thy brow is wreathed with a glorious garland of flowers.
As in thy arm ready to wield the sword,
So also is it ready to carry the cross.
Thy history is an epic of the most brilliant exploits.
Ch.
Thy valour steeped in faith
Will protect our homes and our rights
Will protect our homes and our rights.
To save referring back, this is the English version:
O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
Then there is the bilingual version, which has the words changed depending on the region and artist.
Anyone know of any country that has 4 versions of a national anthem, and then multiple bilingual versions?
What gets me is that Greg’s being so “Yeah, so?” about the comment changes and email exposures. His reply was that he’s an asshole, deal with it. Well, there’s a big difference between being an asshole and being unethical. There can be honor even among assholes.
Today he’s at the homeschool science fair exhibition, so he probably won’t do much with the blogging during the day. Interestingly, he’s blown up on his homeschool science thread too, over someone saying that it was kind of jerky to just go make fun of the displays, then him saying that’s not what he said he was going to do, and then the person saying that he wasn’t very clear about it in his post. Is “Greg can’t write clearly and then gets mad about it” going to be replayed on every post he makes from now on?
The emblematic sidekick to me is Captain Hastings.
Sidekicks seem to be a feature of detective/police stories, from Holmes and Watson onward – there, of course, it had the advantage of enabling the stories to be told from Watson’s point of view, thus concealing Holmes’s chain of deductions until the end. In British TV police procedurals two of the best known pairings are Barlow and Watt (Z-Cars and Softly, Softly – I’m showing my age here), and Morse and Lewis in Morse – all male – but in Prime Suspect 2 by Linda La Plante, D.I. Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) had a (black) male sidekick, Sgt. Robert Oswald (Colin Salmon). The original Prime Suspect had a strong feminist theme, with Tennison struggling against sexism in the force as well as catching a serial killer of women, but this theme was downplayed in subsequent series.
Chief Superintendent Foyle has a female sorta sidekick in his chauffeuse.
By the way, Walton. If a duke (or his heir apparent) joins the catholic clergy, does he get to keep his title, or does it transfer to his younger brother immediately upon ordination?
I’ve been wracking my brain and I finally thought of a male-female pair with a female sidekick.
I can’t remember their names.
They’re on a British mystery series with an tall, dark-haired upper-class police inspector and a working-class female sidekick.
Anybody know the name of the show or characters I’m thinking of?
Before I forget, Paul W., if you somehow do not receive the next Molly, I’m giving you mine.
I’m washing my pixel-stained hands of the whole Laden Affair.
I put together a chronological collection of who said what when featuring a key screencap (thanks SC!) and Laden’s admission of altering Josh’s post, should it ever become useful or interesting.
While doing so it occurred to me that I may have given the impression, via my veiled reference to e-mail correspondence, that Laden and I had negotiated some sort of quid pro quo, and I’d like to go on the record (of the Thread!) to say that’s not what happened. Without breaching my own online ethics, my perpective at the time was that he sent me a terse internet tough-guy cliche, and I responded with a four-word blow-off of the ‘whatever you say, dude’ variety. Subsequent events revealed that Laden interpreted our exchange differently than I had (quelle surprise!).
That said, I shall not darken his servers again.
I would also like to point out that the Hammond circus train wreck did not occur on the Nickel Plate road, and in any case my grandfather was only 15 at the time.
Finally, this:
watch the portcullis, now
The Inspector Lynnley mysteries, based on books by Elizabeth George. Barbara Havers is the sidekick/partner. As happens with fiction, Ms George lives in southern California.
The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.
The original sidekick?
Argh, Nerd beat me to it. There I was hoping to look clever. :-)
Up at 530 am to watch the german soccer, in case anyone wonders…
Rule of thumb, if under 5mm the stone should pass within 2-3 days max, if >5mm might have to be retrieved.Standard care would be a CT scan to determine stone size and degree of kidney and ureter swelling, sometimes needs a stent or stone smashing to clear the pipe.
I should start charging for this…:-)
Get better soon Neg !
A. Noyd @599
Thanks, saw those, and am not making much progress. There is mention but is not a good source for the standards here. Am looking at the Canadian Forces College library and there is the Library and Archives Canada None of my texts that I have here have a reference as I thought.
Close to conceding to a combination of unprovable fact and legend.
Male and female sidekicks in popular culture:
Well, there’s The Avengers, Dr. Who, Get Smart…
Sven,
Thanks for the Fleck/Sangare link! I’d never heard that before – so cool!
Still learning,
Robert
But you the link. I call it a tie.
I see it’s been answered, but my first thought was “Inspector Gadget?”
No.
The original female sidekick?
Sorry – another double post. I blame the Illuminati.
Maybe the word pygmy is only offensive when it refers to entities that are not humans. Like lorises, hippos and hamsters. – Antiochus Epiphanes
Exactly! And of course, he’s quite right. Just like “dwarf” is only offensive when applied to mongooses (as in “d***f mongoose” – sorry to have to even hint at that offensive term simply to reinforce Greg’s point), “giant” only offensive when applied to fish (“g***t manta ray”), etc.
RMM Barrie (#704)
Odd that it’s not more accessible a fact, whatever the reality.
My wife thought of Get Smart, but I was too slow, and I don’t recall how sidekicky 99 was.
Anyway I think a_ray wins. It doesn’t get much better or definitively sidekicky than Dr. Who and his whole series of female sidekicks.
He’s got two amazing records out now of his travels in west Africa in search of the roots of the banjo, and apparently there’s a documentary film out too.
You have a tiny thumb, my friend.
The popular CSI shows have made use of the lead and main assistant/sidekick of the other sex. The original had Gus Grissom and Katherine Willows for many years, and now it is Katherine and Nick Stokes. Similar patterns with the other shows, Caine/Duquesne and Taylor/Bonasera.
When I think ‘sidekick’, I always think of western movies – the baddies always have various toothless sidekicks. Wikipedia says :
I think Stephanie as ‘Smithers Z’ works fine for me.
I’m probably one of the few here that have also visited the Ituri pygmies, albeit only on holiday. They’d gather around your tent at 7am, sitting in a circle, already smashed out of their heads on weed (available for 15 cents a handful). Their exposure to westerners hasn’t done them any favours in the dignity stakes, even if it has in financial terms. After a while one got fed up of their antics trying to extract money off you. There;s only so long that you can watch a guy pretending to shiver in 30C heat, because he wants your T-shirt. The ones who weren’t healthy were a wretched bunch indeed. I don’t think their life expectation exceeds 30 years.
Hmmm, no portcullis?
Latest projections (whole-Thread data fit to a 5th-order polynomial model) predict just about exactly 27K comments on the anniversary.
24539
I wouldn’t call the role played by Honeysuckle Weeks (Samantha Stewart) in Foyle’s War a sidekick. Seems to me that a sidekick is usually someone who has no other role than that of friend and confidant. Sam was Foyle’s “official driver”. Foyle never confided in her anyhting about the cases he was working on nor his personal life. Foyle was “typically British” and reticent when it came to anything personal and very professional when it came to a case under investigation. This, to my mind, was in stark contrast to the typical role of sidekicks in this genre.
I really enjoyed Foyle’s War and watched the whole series again last summer (my local library has it on DVD.) I liked it because it was different. I liked it because it was semi-historical. Many of the episodes are based on true stories that actually happened during the war, though nowhere near Hastings. I liked it because the chemistry between the principal actors worked so well.
I think it could even be cloned (like so many British TV shows) and re-done in a US setting. Even a different period (Cold War, Vietnam, Global War on Terrorism.) Some really interesting stuff could be tried using the Foyle’s War formula.
-DU-
I’m not sure in which universe you think I’m capable of being already up at 6am :-p
No, I was promised tamales for dinner and insisted on staying up until I actually got some. they were tasty, and worth staying up for. Besides, it’s not like this is the latest I’ve ever stayed up.
your cafeteria serves cheesecake? And it didn’t occur to you to mention that back when you were trying to convince me to study at your university?!
just be glad I didn’t link to another of their songs, entitled “kibel”.
Also, at least as far as the metal-version of roaring into the mike is concerned, women sound identical to men. Which I discovered a couple weeks back when I went to a show* with a couple of metal bands playing; and after getting past the tall, scrawny teenagers, I realized that the guy screaming was actually a woman :-p
ah, yes. because citizens and illegal immigrants are the only two options. I guess I don’t exist in the mormon-verse.
*giggle*
——
*like a concert, except in the basement of another business, with crooked and sticky floors and space heaters to keep us from freezing
I can’t belive anybody would call themselves something as offensive as “greg laden”.
Commiserations, but I’m afraid no useful advicve, to negentropyeater. Damned painful, so I understand.
Nerd,
I’m not so sure that the CSI examples fit well. I don’t have the sense that most of those are clear duos, which seems important. It’s different if it’s a team, which happens to have a boss, without a clear Dynamic Duo-style duo dynamic.
oh, and on the subject on national anthems: I have to admit that the Polish national anthem does make me feel sentimental. Mostly because I’ve always had a thing for historical underdogs, and the Polish national anthem (and its historical context) expresses that sentiment perfectly.
:-D
And Enkidu as the original sidekick is a great idea, too!
Damn, that’s catchy. Gobble, gobble.
(Anyone for beefcake?)
Kong Christian stod ved højen mast
I rø-øg o-og da-amp.
Han ha-avde i-ingen bukser på,
Og det ku dronningen ik forstå.
Jadehawk, I will never understand why you love punk so much. I listened to a punk song once when I was doing A-Level music (it wasn’t on the curriculum, but I was working in the same room as the class doing the separate A-Level in “music technology”). It didn’t sound like music, just someone shouting incoherent profanities over the top of some loud electronic noise.
Then again, de gustibus non est disputandum. And I suppose a lot of people would consider it weird that I actually sit and listen to national anthems from around the world (so much so that I know the words by heart to anthems of countries I’ve never visited). :-)
because punk sounds the way I feel.
Plus, a lot (though not the examples I posted yesterday) of it is acrid and necessary political criticism of the sort you just don’t see anywhere else.
Paul W. I guess it all depends on how one defines the genre. My CSI pairings might be stretching it a bit.
I look at my mystery book pile, and Jonathon Kellerman’s (there are three of the Kellerman family publishing now) Alex Delaware/Milo Sturgis is definitely a pair, but I would have a hard time saying who is the sidekick.
Female detective, male sidekick.
I’m sorta digging the punk. I must have mellowed out in old age. (Zum Glüch bin ich ein alter Mann?) I wonder what Jappus is up to these days.
Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła, kiedy my żyjemy – “So far, Poland is still not lost*, as long as we live [anyway]”! Can’t but love it.
* Or is “has disappeared” closer? Would fit the fact that Poland disappeared from the map several times.
I’ve never bothered to find the rest of the text. I think I’ll do that now. … Of course, here it is.
You’re tough.
You make it sound like I had ever stopped trying to convince you to study over here. :-) The university year starts in October; you still have time to make up your mind…
(However, it’s not yet clear whether I’ll still be here. Currently looking for financing for a postdoc. If I can’t find any, I’ll have to try elsewhere – Stuttgart, Berlin, London, Bristol, Chicago, Beijing, Cape Town, who knows.)
I didn’t mention it earlier because I wasn’t sure what cheesecake was, and because cheesecake came up a month or two later, didn’t it?
HANDS OF MAH BUKKIT!!1
What’s up with it? Do they puke in it?
:-D
I can imagine. My little sister once gave me a parody of black metal to listen.
KRIIIIIIEG!!! BLACK METAL IST KRIIIIIIIEG!!! IHR WICHSER! BLACK METAL IST KRḬḬḬḬḬḬḬḬḬḬḬḬḬḬḬḬḬḬḚG!!!1!!!eleventy!!!!
(“War, black metal is war, you wankers, black metal is war.”)
@David,
I’m curious about the pronunciation of your surname. My guess (to spell it phonetically) is:
Mar-yon-oe-vich
Did I get it right or wrong?
not bucket; toilet.
I’ll reconsider it if/when I get unfavorable responses from NDSU and the FAFSA people. I have to admit that I simply like the structure of American universities better than that of European ones, though.
Chicago would be awesum ;-)
I do not concern myself with such mundane details as chronological consistency.
I’m wth jadehawk on the punk.
This one is a favourite, I’d wish it wasn’t still relevant, but it sadly is:
Please explain the joke…
Of course, anything with at gotens hjelm og hjerne brast cries for being parodied. That’s even less subtle than The Star-Spangled Banner or the Marseillaise.
Glück.
Horrible emergency… sudden craving to see a sunrise in the snow… Or it could have been temporary: you needed to go to the toilet and got a sudden craving for the endless thread… what do I know :-)
Full disclosure: when I was digging in Crayssac (the place with the pterosaur footprints, including the recently published track of a landing pterosaur), we dug in the evening and then again till 4 at night; we went to bed at sunrise (6 am) and slept till 2 pm. The idea was to have very low light for not overlooking the footprints.
Glargh, now I’m in a SIWOTI-fueled flamewar with some asshole on the Huntsville thread.
You know what? This isn’t that fun recently. I’m going to try to stay off the blogosphere for a while. If I’m not around, that’s why. (If I am, I’m sicker than I’d hoped and you-all should, like, intervene or something).
I’ll be back before Thread-Everlasting Day (2/24/10), I’m sure. Hold shit down.
Shubin and Sereno. AWESOME!
About as close as you can get in English terms. The stress is on the second syllable (not the third as it would be in Polish), and the o is closer to “aw” than to “oh”.
I see…
I get the sudden urge to post the lyrics of a song I learned in elementary school, most definitely not from the teachers. So far I can still restrain myself. :-)
OK, I’ll write to this guy first. … Hey, lots and lots of famous people there… would be awesome indeed… and one of them is a Postdoctoral Fellow, so it’s possible to do postdocs there “even though” it’s a museum! Hmmmm.
:-)
Bugger. That’s what I get for not going with my gut.
When did you get the degree? I’m soooooo out of the loop. Congo rats! though. (Bristol would be nice – I’d come visit if I ever go back to Bath.)
Commonly made up words by kids to the tune:
He wasn’t wearing any trousers
And that puzzled the queen.
Sili #696
My recent intensive research¹ into Jacobite pretenders revealed HRH Duke Henry Benedict Cardinal Stuart. His Grace and Eminence was the Duke of York in the Jacobite peerage. The Papacy did not recognise Henry as the lawful ruler of England, Scotland and Ireland, but referred to him as the Cardinal Duke of York.
¹Reading a couple of wikipedia articles.
You have to be kidding. I wouldn’t wish living in Chicago on my worst enemy. I live in the upper Midwest and I plan my trips to avoid Chicago.
I can only assume you would find it awesum to have Dave around.
BS
I like chicago. it’s one of the cities i’d love to move to (if only because it would solve the problem of having to travel for days to get my passport renewed :-p ), but can’t. what’s your issue with it?
Last!
Word, Jadehawk and TheBear. I like all kinds of punk-rock myself. I have always been a guts over technique type. This might explain the revocation of my drivers license.
SLAM! I AM OFFENDED!