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   Author  Topic: En Passant  (Read 24940 times)
Fritz
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #15 on: 2008-09-09 11:37:39 »
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[Blunderov] I think that it is actually "The Long DARK Teatime of the Soul"*. Let me hasten to add that this seeming pedantry on my part is only because this is possibly my favourite book title of all time. "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency"** runs it a close second though. (Third place goes to Carson McCullers "The Member of the Wedding".)***

[Fritz]I stand corrected on the title, thx ... it is one of my favorite as well ... both of them. Many a time I've been lost and just followed anyone and got somewhere.

Quote:
[Bl.] The Hermit's salutation intrigues me. He seems to have a plan of escape. Do you suppose he has been building an inter-galactic star cruiser in his backyard? He's been pretty quiet lately.

[Fritz]Maybe he has made friends with the 'Reptilian Overlords' in the parallel universe; at the cost of oil a starship would be to expensive to fuel though; I have considered that Herimit has discovered anti-gravity but pissed at mankind won't share it.. But, he may have forgotten that Amphibious Tigers are from Gallifrey and he is F--k'd anyway ... he can hide but 'the ears have walls'....
« Last Edit: 2008-09-09 22:20:36 by Fritz » Report to moderator   Logged

Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
Fritz
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #16 on: 2008-09-14 17:06:56 »
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Every now and then the journey highlights the trip. Clear skies plus High turbulence put our flight over the Rockies much lower then usual. It was wonderful to note mankind hasn't completely decimated this planet; leaving me endless breath taking views.

It was good for the soul.

Cheers

Fritz

Mt. Baker on the horizon 30 minutes from Vancouver
 small_PICT0016.jpg
« Last Edit: 2008-09-14 18:02:29 by Fritz »
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #17 on: 2008-09-15 17:35:29 »
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Quote from: Fritz on 2008-09-14 17:06:56   

....It was good for the soul....

[Blunderov] Ah the magic of backlighting! Yet more proof of the absurdity of the notion of "intelligent" design - in an intelligent universe everything would always be backlit, no matter what angle it was viewed from. (Maybe with a little fill light al dente.)

Best Regards.
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #18 on: 2008-09-15 19:31:41 »
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Quote from: Blunderov on 2008-09-08 02:19:50   

...The case of an Ohio rapist/murderer who claimed, unsuccessfully, that he is too obese to be executed humanely has invoked considerable incredulity...

[Blunderov] Now here is a word game of note! Shades of Achilles and the (now discredited ) tortoise.

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080906/OPINION03/809069897/-1/OPINION

Law requires executions be painless


I want to clarify issues reported in recent stories about Richard Cooey’s impending execution. While “Inmate claims he is too fat to die” may make a good headline, the facts behind the story are much different. As his lawyers in this matter, we are not arguing that Cooey, under the right methods, cannot be executed.

Ohio law requires that executions be “painless.” While individuals may debate whether an execution should be painless, surely everyone can agree that government officials should be required to follow the law.

Ohio’s execution protocol allows for only one set of procedures and dosages; it does not take into account individual variations — such as weight, medical history, and vein access — that impact the effects of intravenous drugs.

And that is the point of this litigation: despite Cooey’s obesity, poor vein access, and prescribed medication, the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has made no modification to its protocol to ensure that the execution of Cooey will follow Ohio law.

There are methods to successfully deliver drugs (lethal or otherwise) into persons who are obese, have poor peripheral veins, or use certain prescription medications. The state could choose to have trained staff available to place an alternate IV, and could adjust the amount of drugs administered.

But it seems those responsible for executions in Ohio do not care to follow the law and make adjustments for individual variations.

Medical professionals, including a board-certified anesthesiologist affiliated with Columbia University, have advised that executing Cooey in accordance with Ohio’s current protocol will likely run afoul of Ohio law.

The state legislators who wrote Ohio’s execution law mandated that executions be painless. When Ohio executes those condemned to death, is it too much to ask that it follow its own laws?

Timothy Young
Ohio Public DefenderOffice of the OhioPublic DefenderColumbus

[Bl.] A most strange and lozenge shaped affair. <tips hat to the incomparable Lawrence Durrell> Even the faintest prick of a needle could be construed as pain. Against the death penalty though I most emphatically am, this is absurd. Clearly what is intended is that the procedure be as painless as possible.

Which still doesn't really solve the problem !- Achilles will still never catch the tortoise. It will always be theoretically possible to imagine a more painless procedure.

C'mon America. Abolish the death penalty. Problem solved. (Why are you so merciful anyway...?)



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Re:En Passant
« Reply #19 on: 2008-09-15 20:20:47 »
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I too am staunchly opposed to the death penalty (except perhaps for Bush and Co due to their "judicial murder".of Saddam Hussein).

Nonetheless, the obliteration of the frontal lobes and cortex by means of a *fast* (a small primary charge accelerated with aluminum perhaps) explosive could absolutely be guaranteed to be painless. The brain could provably never see it coming as nerves (and thus the brain)are very laggardly compared even with shock-cord.

Such an execution method could leave the brain stem untouched to ensure a cadavar suitable for harvesting. Medical staff would hae no trouble keeping the tissues functioning long enough to prepare the recipients and dealing with the remnants as they deal with similar effects all too regularly due to people who don't wear seatbelts, cyclists and motorcyclists who elect not to wear helmets.

The ideal method of implementing this would be as a detonation web printed on the interior of a fiber reinforced crash helmet like device designed to contain the blast

Of course, adopting such a means of execution would be very much more likely to result in a the legal eradication of the death penalty, proving once again that rationality is far to rare in this world.

Kind Regards

Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #20 on: 2008-09-16 23:17:57 »
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[Fritz]The death penalty stat was the context, but kinda interesting stats all round

PS: I'm in the middle of no where in BC with 1000% better hi-speed internet then 70 km from the Nations Capital ... only in Canada you say



Source: Vladivostok News Online
Author: n/a
Date: 08, 2008

Moral trends in Russia, America

84 percent of Russians recently interviewed by Levada polling agency consider smoking pot a morally wrong action, an immense number compared to 50 percent of Americans who think the same according to the Pew Research Center. Those numbers were identical to the percentages of people in Russia and America who disapprove of homosexual relations - 84 percent of Russians and 50 percent of Americans consider it immoral.

Russia’s Levada center surveyed 1,600 people across Russia on December 25, 2007. The margin of error is 3 percent, the agency said. The Pew Research Center polled people in the United States in March of 2006 and the Gallup Service did a survey in June of 2007.

The Pew Research Center is an organization that collects information to help enlighten the American public as well as the world on the subjects, opinions and trends that affect modern-day society. The Gallup Organization is an international institution, headquartered in Washington D.C. that conducts polling regarding political, economic and social issues.

According to the poll results, gambling addiction is out of the question for 73 percent of Russians while Americans are not strongly opposed to it - only 35 percent of people polled by the Pew Research Center in 2006 and 32 percent of those surveyed by Gallup in 2007 found it unacceptable.

The attitude towards alcohol is almost the same in Russia and America – 73 percent of Russians and 61 percent of Americans do not approve of it. How to explain the two nations’ love for consumption of vodka, beer and whisky is a question for another survey. At least people confessed their understanding that the habit is evil.

Having several wives or husbands is not approved by 74 percent of Russians while Americans show even stricter morals on the subject – 90 percent of those interviewed by Gallup in 2007 opposed the idea.

The question of tax evasion demonstrates a surprising revelation that 63 percent of Russians consider it inappropriate. In reality Russians are known to be an inventive nation on how to evade the burden of taxes. Americans are more cautious with the bills – 79 percent according to the 2006 survey find tax evasion a dishonest thing to do.

Infidelity in marriage raises a moral objection from 62 percent of Russians, while Americans show even higher intolerance to a spouse’s betrayal – 88 percent of people in a 2006 poll and 91 percent in the survey of 2007 said unfaithfulness in marriage was immoral. Never mind the condemnation; both nations seem to be fairly love-adventurous.

Only 29 percent of Russians do not approve of sexual relations between people who are not married, compared to 35 percent of people in America –a society that has lived and survived the sexual revolution.

22 percent of Russians still believe that divorce is an immoral thing, and 26 percent of Americans in the 2007 survey said the same.

Lies to save feelings of other people are not approved by 23 percent of Russians, while Americans are more direct and ruthless – 43 percent of Americans would not lie in such a situation because they find it inappropriate.

Russians are less careful about abortions – only 30 percent of the interviewed people said it is not acceptable for them, while in America 52 percent of the polled people in 2006 said abortion was an immoral practice.

Americans are also more cautious about cloning a human being -86 percent of people surveyed by Gallup in 2007 said it is immoral, compared to 50 percent of Russians who think it is morally wrong.

Russians, though, are more soft-hearted toward death sentences – 36 percent of those sampled think it is not acceptable, while in America only 27 percent of those interviewed by Gallup in 2007 said they do not approve of execution.

Overeating is not supported by 37 percent of Russians while Americans are easier on the subject – 32 percent of the people polled in 2006 said they found it unacceptable.
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Blunderov
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #21 on: 2008-09-19 17:39:08 »
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Huge tribute to Lenin visible on Google Earth


A giant tribute to the former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin made from thousands of trees has been spotted on Google Earth.

by Matthew Moore

The message, which translates as "Lenin is 100", was cut into a forest in a remote region of Siberia. Each letter is around 80 metres high, and the entire message stretches for 600 metres.

It was created by Russian woodcutters in 1970 to mark the centenary of the Communist leader’s birth, according to EnglishRussia, the blog which spotted the image.

Despite the passing of 38 years it has kept its coherent shape, and is now clearly visible on Google Maps and Earth, the internet giant’s satellite mapping services.

The blog says that the reasons for the large scale topiary are unclear, but that it could have been intended as a tongue-in-cheek message of national pride to be picked up by American spy satellites.

The first ever Earth Day, a celebration to raise awareness of environmental issues, was held on Lenin’s birthday April 22 in 1970, which could be another clue towards the message’s origins.

The tribute was cut into a forest close to the town of Zverinogolovskoye in the south west of Siberia, near the border with Kazakhstan.

Lenin was the main leader of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, and headed the Soviet state until his death in 1924.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...


[Blunderov] Methinks somewhat too visible. 38 years ought probably to have blurred these lines somewhat more than this. It seems hard to credit that this tree line can have been so lovingly tended for so long. Photoshop I theenk...





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Re:En Passant
« Reply #22 on: 2008-09-23 00:40:11 »
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[Blunderov] Methinks somewhat too visible. 38 years ought probably to have blurred these lines somewhat more than this. It seems hard to credit that this tree line can have been so lovingly tended for so long. Photoshop I theenk...
[Fritz]Didn't see anyone trimming trees in these photo locations .... and didn't have anyluck with google earth either; but
Quote:
[Blunderov] Ah the magic of backlighting! Yet more proof of the absurdity of the notion of "intelligent" design - in an intelligent universe everything would always be backlit, no matter what angle it was viewed from. (Maybe with a little fill light al dente.)
begot these backlite gems .... anywhere ya pointed the camera it sung ....





The Slocan Valley, head waters to the Columbia River, born of silver and lead mining and now home to really good weed and aging hippies.
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #23 on: 2008-09-23 01:06:28 »
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[Blunderov]    Re:En Passant
« Reply #21 on: 2008-09-19 17:39:08 »    Reply with quote
Huge tribute to Lenin visible on Google Earth

[Fritz]Ya never know what lurks in the woods 



Source: Wiki

Forest swastika

The forest swastika was a patch of carefully arranged larch trees covering a 3,600 m2 (4,300 sq yd) area of pine forest near Zernikow, Uckermark district, Brandenburg, in northeastern Germany. The reason behind the planting of the trees is unclear, but it has been suggested that it was laid out in 1937 by locals to prove their loyalty after a businessman in the area was denounced and sent to a concentration camp by the Nazi Party for listening to the BBC, or that a zealous forester convinced local Hitler Youth members to plant the trees in commemoration of Adolf Hitler's birthday.

For a few weeks every year in the autumn and in the spring, the colour of the larch leaves would change, contrasting with the deep green of the pine forest. The short duration of the effect combined with the fact that the image could only be discerned from the air and the relative scarcity of privately owned aeroplanes in the area meant that the swastika went largely unnoticed after the fall of the Nazi Party and during the subsequent Communist rule. However, in 1992, the reunified German government ordered aerial surveys of the state-owned land. The photographs were examined by forestry students, who immediately noticed the design.

The Brandenburg state authorities, concerned about damage to the region's image and about the possibility that the area would become a pilgrimage site for Nazi supporters, attempted to destroy the design by removing 43 of the 100 larch trees in 1995. The figure remained discernible with the remaining 57 trees, though, and in 2000 German tabloids published further aerial photographs showing the prominence of the swastika. By this time, ownership of around half the land on which the trees sat had been sold into private hands, but permission was gained to fell a further 25 trees on the government-owned area on December 1, 2000, and the image was largely obscured.

In September 2006 the International Herald Tribune reported on another forest swastika in Eki Naryn, Kyrgyzstan, on the edge of the Himalayas. It is about 600 feet across, but does not resemble the swastika symbol as much as the Zernikow forest swastika does.[1]
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #24 on: 2008-09-26 15:18:09 »
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[Blunderov] Correlation is not causation. But it might be. Inference is seldom truly justified. But sometimes it is. It is a very wicked world.

freakonomics

September 25, 2008,  9:45 am
What Do U.S. Oil Production and Mick Jagger Have in Common?
By Freakonomics

They both peaked in the late 1960’s.



You can infer that, anyway, from this handy chart at the blog OverthinkingIt.

They found a correlation between the decline in U.S. oil production and the decline in the quality of pop music, as measured by Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

It should go without saying that correlation does not prove causation, and there are many caveats to OverthinkingIt’s analysis. But this slightly whimsical correlation raises at least two interesting questions.

First: Is the declining quality of pop music primarily a problem of limited reserves, or of inefficient extraction? In other words, is pop music — particularly rock — simply exhausted as a form, leaving today’s musicians with little room for innovation; or have the systems used by popular culture to discover and extract good songs from good musicians just broken down?

Second: What other spurious claims of causation through correlation come to mind?
We don’t mean to pick on Mick Jagger, whose contributions to American music will resonate for some time to come.

And after all, as Dubner pointed out, Mick is a would-be fellow economist.
(Hat tip: Mark Lee)

*[Bl.] The Rolling Stones frontman. The Best goddamn band that has ever existed in this or any other universe. Discuss.
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #25 on: 2008-09-28 21:51:38 »
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[Bl.] The Rolling Stones frontman. The Best goddamn band that has ever existed in this or any other universe. Discuss.

[Fritz]"I can't get no ... sa..tis..faction", would seem to further correlate, especially in the soup kitchens and unemployment lines to come, with end of oil.

If I'm in my Pollyanna mode it would be the Beatles, but reading the CoV, Stones hands down .... Exile on Main Street ... 'Sympathy for the Devil'; but ya don't have to 'get offa my cloud'. 
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #26 on: 2008-11-03 12:26:59 »
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[Blunderov] My Virian inactivity of late has been due to the fact that I have emigrated to Cape Town where I am now installed. Happily my ADSL line has now been installed too. I'm sure many of the congregation will sympathise with my recent plight. Moving house is a cataclysm of the 1st order! But also salutary. In the face of the overwhelming tyranny of accumulated objects one must simplify perforce. Some sad facts have to be faced. Those books that haven't been read by now? They are not likely to be read at all. They have to go. Those DIY projects that are still undone? They are going to remain that way forever. Time to set them free. And moving city has the added poignancy of forcing some friendships to also be added to the casualty toll of a "lifetime piling up". *

So here I am. A resident of the Cape of storms. Last Winter there was such a savage storm that it threw out a large section of the deck of some ancient wreck onto Milnerton Beach. This is a very big chunk of ship. The nails holding it together are as thick as my index finger and are at least 60 cm long. Interesting place, this.

I'll keep y'all posted.

Best Regards.

* http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/LIFETIME-PILING-UP-lyrics-Talking-Heads/8628A820B33F2F49482568B000304A3A
« Last Edit: 2008-11-03 12:40:51 by Blunderov » Report to moderator   Logged
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #27 on: 2008-11-10 03:12:02 »
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[Blunderov] I could not believe my eyes when I read this. I suppose it might be true. In a world where there is a niche for telephone sanitizers anything seems to be able to happen. It's hard not to wonder though whether there is not a paranoid element involved here; the well known symptom being the fear of invisible forces and their malevolent influences. Perhaps "hygienic" hand creams are de rigeur in Washington? It's a strange, strange world we live in...

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/11/09/bush-and-obama-to-meet-tomorrow/

Bush and Obama to meet tomorrow.»
President-elect Barack Obama and President George W. Bush will meet face-to-face tomorrow at 2 pm in the White House to discuss the upcoming transition. Atrios highlights a previous encounter between the two men:

“Obama!” Bush exclaimed, according to Obama’s account of the meeting in his second memoir, “The Audacity of Hope.” “Come here and meet Laura. Laura, you remember Obama. We saw him on TV during election night. Beautiful family. And that wife of yours — that’s one impressive lady.”

The two men shook hands and then, according to Obama, Bush turned to an aide, “who squirted a big dollop of hand sanitizer in the president’s hand.”[Bl.] (My bold)

Bush then offered some to Obama, who recalled: “Not wanting to seem unhygienic, I took a squirt.”

[Bl.] Jumping Jesus. Fast forward to January 20th. I'm sure that the world, like me, can't wait to see the last of this ambulant arsehole.
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #28 on: 2008-11-10 08:19:52 »
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If I shook hands with Bush, I too would want to wash my hands.

Kindest Regards

Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #29 on: 2008-11-15 23:50:49 »
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Quote:
[Blinderov] Ah the magic of backlighting! Yet more proof of the absurdity of the notion of "intelligent" design - in an intelligent universe everything would always be backlit, no matter what angle it was viewed from. (Maybe with a little fill light al dente.)

I have been waiting in great anticipation for the ultimate backlite scene from what I understood your new Eden like setting beside the 'great pond' might offer for the clicking.

Cheers

Fritz
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