Protean, elusive, capable of great good and appalling evil, but mostly harmless
click to enlarge — image by jarcob
UPDATE
With thanks to the small but quality bunch of regular visitors/commenters, it’s time to call it a day, for now at least. Here’s Babs to take us out...
Pushdated — originally posted 4/03/2008 02:00:00 PM
Labels: pictures
posted by Jacob A. Stam at 5/13/2008 10:00:00 PM
Father Park at
3/4/08 9:20 PM
at
3/4/08 9:40 PM at
3/4/08 10:43 PM at
3/4/08 11:09 PM Friedham I. Whont at
3/4/08 11:19 PM at
3/4/08 11:46 PM at
3/4/08 11:52 PM at
4/4/08 12:02 AM Father Park at
4/4/08 9:12 AM Father Park at
4/4/08 9:23 AM Caz at
5/4/08 3:43 PM Caz at
5/4/08 3:43 PM Caz at
5/4/08 3:45 PM Friedham I. Whont at
6/4/08 11:09 AM at
7/4/08 10:07 PM Kathy Farrelly at
14/5/08 9:51 AM Caz at
14/5/08 11:00 AM Father Park at
14/5/08 2:17 PM Father Park at
14/5/08 2:18 PM at
14/5/08 9:57 PM
20 Comments:
Well it's alright, even when push comes to shove
Well it's alright, if you got someone to love
Well it's alright, everything'll work out fine
Well it's alright, we're going to the end of the line.
Watch your behaviour on t'other side there Jarcob. Me? I choose to look at the pictures you post. An adult....almost...decision.
One toke over the line, sweet Jesus
One toke over the line
Sittin' downtown in a railway station
One toke over the line
Awaitin' for the train that goes home, sweet Mary
Hopin' that the train is on time
Sittin' downtown in a railway station
One toke over the line
Do you think I might get myself banned?
Do not forsake me O my darlin'
On this our wedding day.
Do not forsake me O my darlin'
Wait, wait along.
The noonday train will bring Frank Miller.
If I'm a man I must be brave
And I must face that deadly killer
Or lie a coward, a craven coward,
Or lie a coward in my grave.
Sometimes I feel so low-down and disgusted
Can't help but wonder what's happenin' to my companions,
Are they lost or are they found, have they counted the cost it'll take to bring down
All their earthly principles they're gonna have to abandon?
There's a slow, slow train comin
up around the bend.
The TW inspired me to revsisit the Dylan catalogue, Father Park.
To: JO.
Re: "God Bless The Child
Submitted by Justin Obodie on April 3, 2008 - 10:13pm."
Msg: Well done.
Q: How do you propose preventing 9yr old Iraqis viewing the carnage delivered by their local F-15s?
I agree it's gotta be stopped: but who's working on that?
How strange that, now Harry's is no more, AppliedH has become a site for WD blowback. (Oh, Phil's too, I guess, and I'm sure there must be one or two others, e.g., Damian's.) Not that I'm complaining, I mean how could I of all people...?
Anyway Jus, I second Phil's "well done".
"I agree it's gotta be stopped: but who's working on that?"
Good question old chap, sadly it's people like me who huff and puff but achieve little.
That's why I usually find comfort in childish stuff - a distraction from cold hard reality.
What say you old chap and how are we as a collection of huffing puffing nobodies going to change the world, change the human condition into a specious that love more than they hate?
God help us for I fear nobody else will.
Suggestions welcome, but somehow I don't think we'll be hearing from god.
We are all alone, so very much alone.
Also thanks Jacob.
Why is there no goat on that track?
Extremely well argued Justin. The images are, well they just are. I'd seen many earlier in the war and - with an eleven and a nine year old - haven't had the bottle to look since.
Know I know why.
What you wrote and much more....
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ah, it's a fatuous question really:
"Q: How do you propose preventing 9yr old Iraqis viewing the carnage delivered by their local F-15s?"
Take away the F-15s and the carnage would continue, just as it has for thousands of years.
More Muslims kill Muslims that our Western military, by a factor of many.
Who will stop them, hey?
Not us, apparently, since we are the bad guys.
Sorry, accidentally posted twice, it wasn't that I thought I needed to say it twice ...
G'day jo,
I will try to answer your Q: "how are we ... going to change the world;" but it's a BIG topic so I'll just do a quick outline here and follow it up on my blog - if thought necessary, and as time permits.
Asimov outlined his 'three laws of robotics,' then had to come back and add his 0th[1]. Following that example (and programmers often begin at zero), here is the outline:
0. Zero. Null. Nothing. Just for the idiots (those whom we do not shrink from insulting), get this: doing nothing is not an option. Also as part of 'null,' yes, jo, we are alone - there is no 'other' to appeal to; we (humans) have to do it all 'alone.' And that implies the next part of 'zero,' dump all religion. Which means, specifically, not telling any lies to the 'littlies,' aka no g*d stories anymore, contrary to the wishes of another idiot, a self-confessed children's-minds-abuser.
1. Get a proper morality. See my attempted formalisation, the chezPhil morality, which is based on reflexive altruism and includes the Golden rule "Do unto others ..." and a corollary, "Do no harm." Contrary to the ravings of yet another idiot, the Golden rule can be traced back at least to around 400BC[2], meaning anyone after that should have attributed the usage, not claiming it for him/her/itself. A 'small' point here, and that is that altruism works in small groups but (usually) breaks down in larger groups - absent proper sanction mechanisms[3,4,5]. This is a doubly fundamental flaw, one: that sanctions are needed at all (cf. police), and two: that sanction mechanisms for our so-called leaders have been ignored or disabled - more the latter, I'd say (cf. UN), and deliberately. Which leads directly to the next item:
2. Make the morality 'scalable,' I do not assess all humans as hopelessly corrupt. The wo/man in the street would probably wholeheartedly agree with my proposed morality (show me a single valid objection); the problem comes when so-called leaders free themselves from normal morality and embark on crime, and here I mean two 'streams,' the business community (strongest example the mining/oil rip-offs), and the political community as linked into the M/I-plex, strongest (actually weakest) examples being the illegal invasion of Iraq (now a 5+ year brutal occupation; murder for oil), and the criminal IDF's deadly 60+ year spree, murdering for land & water.
In our so-called (defective! Dysfunctional!) democracies we have only a single lever (attached to our so-called representatives): these representatives must be called to account, to respect our common morality (see (1)), and to properly represent us, we the people - and not represent any M/I-plex, not the I/J/Z-plex, nor developers, nor any other such sheople®-enemies.
If/when we reform our representatives, they will get to work - honestly - on defeating our number-2 enemy, aka the greedastrophe®. (This assumes that our number-1 enemy is the corruption of our so-called leaders.) To round this off, the normal morality must be scaled; the same rules for all, from the normal sheople all the way to the so-called rulers, aka our leaders.
The 'last word' on democracy is the sheople alone are sovereign, not any putative 'representative.'
3. If we get here - and we must, or perish under the corrupt 'business as usual' scenario leading directly to our currently anticipated greedastrophe demise - we can then at leisure reform our democracies, to replace the current 'representatives rip-off' with a better system, namely fully open debate and a fully engaged electorate operating via single-issue referendums.
A final note on this last, namely single-issue referendums: in 'debate' in the past, opponents - basically, more idiots, aka supporters of the (corrupt!) status quo, have claimed that referendums may be vulnerable to abuse by some minority or other. Note that this is 'special pleading' - just as support for USrael (the combination of the US and its M/I-plex, Israel and its I/J/Z-plex all melded via M-W's Lobby) is 'special pleading,' so get this: supporting corruption is itself corrupt; no more of the same!
Our current world is quite obviously 'off the tracks,' and a major negative influence enabling this dastardly state of affairs is the flood of (lying!) propaganda supporting the above-mentioned corruption, this propaganda delivered via the (venal!) MSM. See (1) again; the peoples' morality I suggest says "No lies, no cheating, no theft and no murder." Jo, you mentioned a species "that love more than they hate," we the sheople are not haters - we (generally) don't hate people, rather what we do hate is some people's criminal acts; it's the criminal psychopaths ripping us off that's the really big problem, and once again: doing nothing is not an option!
-=*end*=-
Ref(s):
[1] the "Zeroth Law", which is:
«a robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.»
Comment: What's valid for robots ort'a be doubly so for allegedly sentient so-called leaders.
[2] The circa 400BC formulation:
«Do not do to others that which angers you when they do it to you.»
[Isocrates, Speeches and Letters]
[3] Fair punishment supports human altruism
19:00 12 March 2003
James Randerson
[NewScientist.com]
[4] Why altruism paid off for our ancestors
19:00 07 December 2006
Richard Fisher
[NewScientist.com]
[5] Dangerous games: selfishness v altruism on climate change
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
«So the ... message is: if it's clear that the risk is high, people will work together to reach a common goal. But if it's in the balance (ie, if there's a perceived 50-50 chance of dangerous climate change), then selfishness takes over.»
[NewScientist.com]
Comment: Who is manipulating perceptions? Why? Cui bono? What's the real chance of a terminal CO2-caused greedastrophe? What's the penalty of getting it wrong, cf. the precautionary principle?
Finally again: doing nothing is not an option!
[cross-posted]
One need hold no brief for the grim, ruthless KGB thug in the Kremlin and the harsh system he has created to see the dangerous lunacy and rapacious greed behind the pointless expansion of NATO deep into Eastern Europe, and the whole Cold War re-run that the American militarists are now staging. The current situation has nothing to do with the well-being of ordinary Russian people -- for which neither Putin nor the NATOniks show any great concern -- or with the "security" of former Soviet states, or the security of the United States, for that matter. It has to do with the rampant lust of our elites for unearned riches and unrestrained power. And unfortunately, that dawg does hunt -- and keeps on hunting, stalking and devouring prey, year after year, decade after decade.
http://chris-floyd.com/content/view/1477/135/
justice_via_truth
Aw Jarcob, gonna miss ya mate!
Here is a beautiful upbeat song from Sally Oldfield(Mike Oldfields sister)especially for you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1sErzyh1Z0
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!
Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Really??????
Are you taking it down Jacob, or just resting for a bit?
*Heaving sigh of sadness*
Just a short blob-holiday one hopes
Err....BLOG- holiday.....
Yeah, time for a bit of a spell from the blogging caper for a while, 'til I'm in better condition. Shall return to it at some stage, but in meantime still reading and may drop the odd comment here & there.
No thoughts of taking it down, Caz, as it belongs to all who've taken the time & trouble to put in their 2c worth.
Apropos that, I see Jack Robertson took down his Butterflies & Guns (bugs'n'slugs) blog a while back -- pity coz he did some interesting posts. I can understand him not wishing to carry it on (he was frustrated by thinness of audience, common affliction), but deleting it was a tad drastic, I thought. Ah well, Jack's a free agent...
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