Tuesday, January 25, 2011

The TSA has criminalized the US citizen









The TSA has criminalized the average US citizen. In their eyes, everyone is a guilty criminal until proven innocent! Under US common law and international law, one is presumed innocent until proven guilty. The TSA has got it backwards.


"...somehow [... the TSA has to provide security ...] without treating everyone from frequent business travelers to the family heading home to visit grandma as a potential terrorist.
 "

"Over time, TSA has settled into a pattern of issuing directives with little explanation and expecting they be followed. But increasingly fed-up travelers don't understand the agency's sense of urgency and aren't buying it."

""They're very expensive and what they (TSA officials) should be able to do is answer if it does reduce the risk, how much does it reduce the risk and is it worth it?"

"The TSA has spent roughly $40 billion dollars. The ability of TSA screeners to stop prohibited items being carried through sterile areas of airports fared no better than the performance of the screeners prior to September 11, 2001"


The TSA has become paranoid and has overstepped its authority and all bounds of decency.

The TSA is flaunting the fourth amendment that guarantees American citizens against unreasonable search and seizure. Other law enforcement agencies need a warrant to invade a person's privacy. Body searches, thus far, have been by the police with reason to believe a person has committed a crime. Yet the TSA sidesteps the fourth amendment whenever a person refuses to submit to intimate body scans. These searches are offensive, touching the most intimate parts of a citizen's body. This is sexual harassment. By what right does the TSA have to do this?

What justifies this intrusion of privacy? What justifies this illegal search? What incidents were there with the metal detectors? A precious few, none leading to any serious incident. The paranoid TSA has perpetrated an enormous boondoggle,  spending hundreds of millions of dollars to allow them to exceed the limits of the bill of rights.

They have not shown than the abrogation of a citizens rights and the expense they have incurred is justified by the facts at hand.

They have become an uncontrollable bureaucracy, unaccountable to anyone, least of all the US citizen.

TTFN 

(Bright)

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Another find day in the Theater of the Absurd

The diner I eat at has the "news" on T.V., so I watch it out of amusement.


- Some person name Jane on Fox was ranting and railing, getting red in the face, about some non-entity name Snookie. HeHeHe.


- They "reported" "new" allegations about Lance Armstrong and doping. Of course, it was from that always reliable news source, Anonymous. News or rumor mongering? Belly laugh!


- Someone was touting a "new" weight loss technique showing a man in his sixties (?) with 6 pack abs. Buy our product and we'll show you how. I'll tell you the secret for free - count calories, exercise, and heavy weight training to lose weight and get 6 pack abs. Thank you, no. I can spend my money at the Y.   Snort!


- Someone else was touting a new walk-in bath tub for the elderly. They were giving $1500 rebate plus $750 manufacturer's rebate -  $2250 in all. How much do they sell this normally to fleece the elderly? Fire sale? Soak the elderly instead! Gasp!


- As I left, another shill was saying, "Buy my book and I'll show you how to get out of debt". What he really meant was, "Buy my book and I can live in luxury!" In the background was a customized motor home with custom painting. The paint job alone with keep a family of four for a few months! P.T. Barnum knew how to get out of debt - "There's a sucker born every minute!"


- The news comments have already turned into another game of "are too, am not" and "my dad's bigger than your dad", libtards vs. dumbcons. LOL!

ROTLLMHO!


So much for the light side of absurdity. Time to dwell on more serious themes of the absurd posed by Chaplain, Stan Laurel, Groucho, and the great absurdist of them all, W.C. Fields. 


My boulder is near to the top. I suppose its time for it to roll down the hill again. 


TTFN
(Bright)

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Lest Christians forget

Matthew: 7:1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

TTFN
(Bright)

Humanism

"I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishments after I am dead." 


-- Kurt Vonnegut


"Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality."


Humainsm:

1. is ethical.
2. is rational.
3. supports democracy and human rights.
4. insists that personal liberty must be combined with social responsibility.
5. is a response to the widespread demand for an alternative to dogmatic religion.
6. values artistic creativity and imagination.
7. a lifestance aiming at the maximum posible fulfillment through cultivation and creative and living.
TTFN 
(Bright)

What is your mind set?

Think "sh** happens" and that is what yo expect and deserve. 


Think "grace happens" and that is what you expect and deserve. 

TTFN
(Bright)

We are the United States

We are the United States, not a group of separate individuals.  We have remained strong through discourse, compromise and cooperation. It is not "us" vs. "them", but "we together"  We are one nation, not an bunch of independent fiefdoms. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." (Abraham Lincoln)

With freedom comes responsibility. We should stand up to the issues and acknowledge our contribution to the growing chasm rending us apart. We need to learn the word "cooperation" and discard the word "contention". We are all guilty of these transgressions against one another, not just "the other side". We should remember how to compromise. The only side is ours together.  Bring this country into unity, not inanity.

Think "sh** happens" and that is what yo expect and deserve. Think "grace happens" and that is what you expect and deserve . 


TTFN
(
Bright)

Palin and Teabags

As Eleanor Roosevelt is purported to have said, "A woman is like a tea bag- you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water." 

Palin's tea bag is leaking from the seams and its about to burst.


TTFN
(Bright)

Best Cariacures of 2010







More at AcidCow.com

TTFN
(Bright)

Libtards and Dumbcons?

Yet another day, another game of "are too, am not" and "my dad's bigger than your dad", libtards vs. dumbcons (rhymes with bumpkin)


TTFN
(Bright)

Monday, January 17, 2011

Life is not all that serious

Two Snoring Bulldogs

TTFN
(Bright)

How much do you suppose they pay these people?

Top Soccer Misses of 2010

TTFN
(Bright)

More Devotional Posters


funny demotivational posters

Thanks to Acidcow.com

TTFN
(Bright)

Real People and Advertising



things-real-people-donvt-say-about-advertising-23

Thanks to acidcow.com

TTFN
(Bright)

Exxon Mobil is the 1st most efficient company,

Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) is the 1st most efficient company in this segment of the market. Its earnings per employee was $347,224 for the last 12 months. Its revenue per employee was $4,558,563 for the same period.

How much of that did the employee?

TTFN
(Bright)

Thoughts on Richard Dawkins

I respect Richard Dawkings and share many of his ideas.  We both are Brights, for instance, and subscribe to many ideas of the IHEU. On his spectrum of theistic probablity, he rates himself as a 6.9 or there abouts, i.e., "[…he…] cannot know for certain but [...he thinks…] God is very improbable, and […he lives his life…] on the assumption that […god…] is not there." "Improbable", not "impossible". Along a similar vein, as a skeptic, until I get incontrovertible, factual proof otherwise, my worldview does not include the supernarual or mystical. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.", Carl Sagan).


Dawkings advocates militant atheism but I think the approach is self defeating. For example, here are two incidents on his tapes that I find jarring.


In one, a woman asked him, "What if you are wrong?" Instead of giving a reasoned answer, such as he requires proof and he will decide when he sees the proof, he plays the rhetorical game of turning the question back on questioner, to avoid the answer or to lead her to decide for herself. Maybe the question is to hard for him to answer? But then he proceeds to brow beat the woman who had the temerity to question him, driving the issue into the ground, possiblity creating enmity and/or humiliation. What did the game and brow beating accomplish but end all discourse and possibly alienating the woman and others like myself who hold to be freethinkers? Of course, his nodding ornament followers smugly sided with him, but did they really think for themselves or just take sides, group think? 


Intellectul mind games are just that, games. Einstein and Bohr had a continous mind game lasting for many years. But they both knew the rules, they were at the same intellectual level, and they respected one another, thus the game sustained itself. 


In the other, a man comes forward during one of Dawkings lectures, and "witnesses for god" and the man's "rebirth". Dawkins angrily replys, "You are delusional" and it turns into the child's school yard argument of "Are too/Am not". Not only is the interchange inane, but it reflects on both Dawking's compassion and knowldege. If one has dealt with the mentally ill, one knows that confrontation often leads to several possible results, such as creating and/or escalating hostility, even leading to physical violence, or pushing the invidual deeper into his shell and delusions and widening the gulf between him and reality.


Yelling at the village idiot only irritates him and is a waste of your time.


Would you treat someone as he did the two? Or would you offer compassion, comfort, and guidance? 


Dawkings has won many awards and accolades, assuaging his ego, but has he persuaded a single individual to leave "theism" and embrace "atheism"? The issue is still contentious, each side throwing stones at the other, each preaching to its own choir, neither gaining new adherents. 


So much for militancy.


TTFN
(Bright)

Sunday, January 16, 2011

IBM touts breakthough in artificial intelligence

Is the quest for Artificial Intelligence like Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece, or Arthur's Knights quest for the Holy Grail, or the quest of the religious for the supernatural and mystical, beset by chimeras, lured by  sirens,  following false idols?


So a computer can quickly answer trivia questions in the form of a question. How is that a break through in intelligence? Computers have always been able to quickly recall random bits of information. I think IBM has confused pedantry and rote, their speciality, with intelligence, something their culture is remarkably free from, as we all do when we confuse test scores and memorizaton with intelligence.


Their computers win chess games not through intelligence, but by brute force. Its pretty much like pitting a man with a theodlite against a steam roller. If the man is not quick and intelligent, the steam roller will crush him.

To quote a dictionary, "intelligence is the capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; 
aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc."

I'll believe that the pedant who wins a Jeopardy prize is intelligent when he can explain quantum mechanics and how it relates to the structure of an orange and create a new something. Alan Turing and John McCarthy may be eminently quotable, truly great minds,  but they and their followers seem to have confused rote with intelligence, mechanics with essence.

I do not pretend to be as intelligent as Alan Turing. He is certainly one of the greatest minds in computing and the theory of computatility. Turing's ideas and theories are the very stuff of computing 101. Every mainframe or  'PC' or laptop is defined to be "Turing complete"* (I might add "Turing complete Van Neumann machines"). A million of the machines are manufacted every day and are in every office and more and more homes all over the world, almost pervasive as coffee pots and tea pots; a single example of a Turing complete machine's application is the animation in our movies! If nothing else, Turing complete machines are amalgamating our world and making it more and more free.


But I have to disagree with him about the measure of computer intelligence. He proposes what he calls the "imitation game" as a measure of the question, "Can computers think". Among other arguments and measures, he rejects the argument from consiousness that Professor Jefferson Lister expresses.  "Not until a machine can write a sonnet or compose a concerto because of thoughts and emotions felt, and not by the chance fall of symbols, could we agree that machine equals brain-that is, not only write it but know that it had written it." And I might add, knows what it means. Turing dimisses such an argument as mere slopisism.  Turing goes on to say, "But I do not think these mysteries necessarily need to be solved before we can answer the question with which we are concerned in this paper." The implications are concerns extend beyond his paper;  his is a mere quibble when he talks about substituting summer for spring; their are differences in both their actual environment and their essence, not mere substitiions from  a list of seasons; the choice of words convey different meanings. I think the scope of his paper is too limited because the philosophical questions and the enigmas they present are the essence of man and his intelligence. Computing Machinery and Intelligence, A.M. Turningebner/Turing Article


I think the Turing Test fails because the definition of intelligence is too narrow. He "forces" the answer he wants, rather than explore the realm of intelligence. Playing a game per se is not a measure of intelligence. It only a simple question/answer game. It is only a measure of the ability to play a game. Turing_test*


My todo is to review the paper and the work of John McCarthy John McCarthy*.


The thread in the various definitions of the part and parcel of  Artificial Intelligence* is artificial. I know minds better than mine are trying to solve theses problems.But I think bypass the notion that intelligence includes the notion of sentience and original thought, not just "creativity". 


I use computers daily, I read the read, I listen to music, and talk with people. I can even, within my limited abilities, understand the ideas of others, synthesize my own ideas, express them orally and by writing them, relate them to other ideas, and discuss them.


Put simply, I am a sentient being, with a modicum of intelligence.


I'll will consider that computers have  made a real breakthrough in intellence when, rather than playing chess and playing games (something computers have always been able to do), the computer can read the linked article about them and tell me what's it about, not just rotely spew it back. Rather than rotely quoting and modifying Shakspeare, or Plato, or Euclid, or Turing, or Christina Anapour, they can understand, look beyond their understanding  and synthesize new ideas.    


IMNSMO, robots are mere bumper cars with less intelligence than the village idiot. At least the village idiot is aware of his surrondings, hunger, thirst, heat and cold, other beings and his relation to them, and can learn from this mistakes (not to put his hand in burning embers?) Robot, write me a love note for my precious? Until they are sensitive to the differnces of gollum's, fine gems, and humans, I would not think them to be intelligent.


Will computers be able to discourse on my rhetorical question I began with?


(Please forgive me my misspellings. The supposedly smart program "Spell Check" seems to have only a 10th grade education, cannot understand context, and gives the most inane alternate spellings. Typically, they can't even recognize that syntesize is a mispelling!).


Before I get off my high horse, though computers are Turing complete, software manufacturers (do I hear the echo, Microsoft) subvert this at every chance.


*Wikipedia


TTFN
(
Bright)

Monday, January 3, 2011

Comments on the 23rd Psalm

Where do you suppose she is leading her flock?
Psalm 23 (NIV)

1 The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,

3 he refreshes my soul.

(Of course he nourishes and tends his flock. A shepherd tends his flock for profit - either harvesting their wool or selling them for slaughter. Which would you prefer, being fleeced or slaughtered?)

He guides me along the right paths
   for his name’s sake.

(How about following the right paths because its the right thing to do, not to satisfy some supernatural being? Be good for goodness sake?)
 

4 Even though I walk
   through the darkest valley,[a]
I will fear no evil,
   for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
   they comfort me.

(Rod and Staff - again, the shepherd image, being comforted as lambs being led to slaughter, their fates realized only at the last moment.)

 5 You prepare a table before me
   in the presence of my enemies.


(Enemies? How about reading Matthew 22:37-40 (hint: the great commandments), the story of the good Samaritan, and other similar passages of the teachings of Christ?)

You anoint my head with oil;
   my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
   all the days of my life,

(well, at least until the good Shepherd sells you for profit)
 

and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
   forever.

(wishful thinking, more likely as a wool coat and turning on a spit)

"Silence of the Lambs" (1991)

Hannibal Lecter: I will listen now. After your father's murder, you were orphaned. You were ten years old. You went to live with cousins on a sheep and horse ranch in Montana. And...?
Clarice Starling: [tears begin forming in her eyes] And one morning, I just ran away. 
Hannibal: No "just", Clarice. What set you off? You started at what time?
Clarice: Early, still dark.
Hannibal: Then something woke you, didn't it? Was it a dream? What was it?
Clarice: I heard a strange noise.
Hannibal: What was it?
Clarice: It was... screaming. Some kind of screaming, like a child's voice.
Hannibal: What did you do?
Clarice: I went downstairs, outside. I crept up into the barn. I was so scared to look inside, but I had to.
Hannibal: And what did you see, Clarice? What did you see?
Clarice: Lambs. The lambs were screaming.
Hannibal: They were slaughtering the spring lambs?
Clarice: And they were screaming.
Hannibal: And you ran away? 
Clarice: No. First I tried to free them. I... I opened the gate to their pen, but they wouldn't run. They just stood there, confused. They wouldn't run.
Hannibal: But you could and you did, didn't you?
Clarice: Yes. I took one lamb, and I ran away as fast as I could.
Hannibal: Where were you going, Clarice?
Clarice: I don't know. I didn't have any food, any water and it was very cold, very cold. I thought, I thought if I could save just one, but... he was so heavy. So heavy. I didn't get more than a few miles when the sheriff's car picked me up. The rancher was so angry he sent me to live at the Lutheran orphanage in Bozeman. I never saw the ranch again.
Hannibal: What became of your lamb, Clarice?
Clarice: They killed him.

Are you a sheep?

TTFN
(Bright)

End of Days in May, 2011?

What will you be doing after May 21, 2011?

"If there had been time, Marie Exley would have liked to start a family. Instead, the 32-year-old Army veteran has less than six months left, which she'll spend spreading a stark warning: Judgment Day is almost here."


"Exley is part of a movement of Christians loosely organized by radio broadcasts and websites, independent of churches and convinced by their reading of the bible that the end of the world will begin May 21, 2011."

End of World, in May 2011

The "Christian" argument - why do so-called Christians quote so much from the old testament? Shouldn't they follow the teachings of Christ!

ROTFLMHO - Dell comics are just as good a source as the Bible.

TTFN
(Bright)