I'm back, bitches!

I've moved 2/3 of the way across country, and I still don't have steady access to the internet, but I do have wireless access at the law school library now. So, I'm back, bitches.

Corsi the Comedian.

For those that are unfamiliar with Jim Corsi, he's the co-author of the new anti-Kerry hit piece "Unifit for Command". Well, it seems that Corsi has made number of not-so-nice comments about just about everyone on the freerepublic.com message board. Of course, these comments we're all just in good fun. According to Corsi, "...they were meant as a joke and he never intended to offend anyone". Let's have a look at what's so damn funny then.

This one's a hoot:

Islam is a peaceful religion — just as long as the women are beaten, the
boys buggered and the infidels are killed.

Zing!

This one's not bad, either:

So this is what the last days of the Catholic Church are going to look
like. Buggering boys undermines the moral base and the lawyers rip the gold off
the Vatican altars. We may get one more Pope, when this senile one dies, but
that's probably about it.

Ha! Even the Pope got think that's funny, and not even Carrot-top make the Pope laugh.

More of Corsi's comedic stylings can be found here at the MMFA website. This guy's gonna go places, and I know talent when I see it.

And that's putting it nicely-- at best.

Here's some news analysis from the NYT's:

All week long, President Bush traveled the country, cheerfully telling audiences that ''we've turned the corner'' on the economy. But on Friday, in the face of the government's paltry new numbers on job growth, the president's new slogan suddenly sounded premature at best.

More on the Increased Terror Alert.

Here's what the Washington Post is reporting. Of particular interest:

Most of the al Qaeda surveillance of five financial institutions that led to a
new terrorism alert Sunday was conducted before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and
authorities are not sure whether the casing of the buildings has continued,
numerous intelligence and law enforcement officials said yesterday.

More than half a dozen government officials interviewed yesterday, who declined to be identified because classified information is involved, said that most, if not
all, of the information about the buildings seized by authorities in a raid in
Pakistan last week was about three years old, and possibly older.

"There is nothing right now that we're hearing that is new," said one senior law
enforcement official who was briefed on the alert. "Why did we go to this level?
. . . I still don't know that."

And:

"Most of the information is very dated but you clearly have targets with enough
specificity, and that pushed it over the edge," the counterterrorism official
said. "You've got the Republican convention coming up, the Olympics, the
elections. . . . I think there was a feeling that we should err on the side of
caution even if it's not clear that anything is new."

That last statement is pretty much an admission that this is all bogus.

Actual Times Report on Dated Intelligence.

Here's the actual NYT's report on the outdated intelligence that has prompted the installation of a Police State in the Northeast. Even if we ignore the date of the information, this is still troubling:

Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert at
several large financial institutions in the New York City and Washington areas
was three or four years old, intelligence and law enforcement officials said on
Monday. They reported that they had not yet found concrete evidence that
a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under
way.
But the officials continued to regard the information as
significant and troubling because the reconnaissance already conducted has
provided Al Qaeda with the knowledge necessary to carry out attacks against the
sites in Manhattan, Washington and Newark. They said Al Qaeda had often struck
years after its operatives began surveillance of an intended target.

CNN just did a report where they stated that many of the pictures of key potential targets or whatever were old, but that some were recently taken. It almost seems like they're doing damage control, and after calling Howard Dean a "nut"for suggesting that this is all political. I mean, it seems to me that he might be on to something.

This is Just Amazing

Link

This is from the New York Times:

The Times reports today that much of the information that led to the
heightened alert is actually three or four years old and that authorities had
found no concrete evidence that a terror plot was actually under way. This news
does nothing to bolster the confidence Americans need that the administration is
not using intelligence for political gain.

What the fuck was going on at the good ol' Dept. of Homeland Security? Were they going through a bunch of old intelligence reports and just came across this information? And even so, why all the fuss? I guess this explains why this intelligence was incredibly specific, but "lacked a specific time'. That's right, it's four fuckiing years old!

I just don't get it.

I've Been Kicked Off 'The Evangelical Outpost'.

Going through the blogroll on some rightwing blog, I came across a link to 'The Evangelical Outpost'. I looked around for a bit, and soon came across some of the lamest posts ever. And by lame I mean absolutely illogical. Specifically, the guy that runs this thing fancies himself a philosopher (an apologist, really), and insists on advancing some of the most rediculous arguments all with the aim of proving the God exists. For example, this argument claims to debunk any form of materialism because the theory implies that just about any material object has mental states:

Since doxastic states are produced by matter, matter can produce doxastic
states in anything (or everything). If this is true it leads to a peculiar
result. Mountains can have “beliefs”, car engines can feel “pain”, and rivers
can have “memories.” In fact, since matter is all that exists, existence itself
becomes a singularity. Materialism is, after all, another form of monism.

Let me restate that once more so that we are clear about what is being
claimed:

1. Everything in the universe either exists or does not exist.
2. Matter is all that exists.
3. Everything that exists is made of matter; anything that is not matter
does not exist.
4. The universe exists and does not contain any things that do not exist.
5. Since matter cannot exist and not-exist at the same time, matter is
unified (matter is one).
6. Since everything in the universe has an existence and everything that
exist is made of matter, the universe is one.
7. Within the universe, no non-arbitrary distinctions can be made between
things that exist.
8. Doxatics states are physical states and physical states are composed of
matter. Therefore, doxastic states are composed of (or at least properties of)
matter.
9. If any part of matter can produce a doxastic state, all matter can do
so. (Follows from 1, 2, and 6).
10. Anything that exists can produce a doxastic state.
11. All doxastic states are one.

Here's my response:

The real problem that I have with this post is that, despite the fact that
you mention causally emergent properties, you never actually deal with them. I
suspect that you don’t really have a grasp on this whole concept and that is
what causes you to make highly dubious claims like these gems:

6. Since everything in the universe has an existence and everything that
exist is made of matter, the universe is one.
7. Within the universe, no
non-arbitrary distinctions can be made between things that exist

I’m really not sure what you’re saying here. Do you mean that the universe
is some plenum that is completely full of matter? Does that mean that you don’t
believe in space, or black holes? I think more plausibly what you are trying to
say is that there is just one type of matter in the universe. But then your next
premise is just as confusing. What on earth do you mean by non-arbitrary?
Surely, you’re not suggesting that simply because two entities are composed of
the same substance there can be no meaning full distinction between them? A 2 x
4s is just a bunch of wood, but if we arrange them in a certain fashion what we
get is a fence. It’s still the same bunch of wood, but what has happened is that
the manner in which the wood was arranged has caused this other thing (a fence)
to come into existence. This is what causes me to think that you don’t have a
clear grasp on the notion of causally emergent properties. The upshot of all
this is that your conclusion about how we can’t know whether or not TVs and
stuff can cause mental states just doesn’t follow. Sure we can, in the same way
we can know whether or not a bunch of 2 x4’s actually causes a fence—by looking
at the causal structure.

His posts on other issues are just as silly, especially social issues. Pretty much no one has engaged me on any of my posts, but whatever. If you're in need of a good laugh, I highly suggest checking it out.

That's not what got me kicked off, i don't think. Instead, Rick had this to say:

By the way, I think Joe [the guy that does this blog] would
appreciate if you could post comments without resorting to profanity. Have a
nice day.

Well I just couldn't resist. I made the following post under the name 'Dick Cheney':

Go fuck yourself.

I think that's what did it.

I Just Don't Know What to Say.

This is a very unusual story. It reports that a photographer for the Arizona Daily Star (the same paper that is reporting the story) was asked to identify her racial background before being cleared to photograph Vice President Cheney. The photographers name, Mamta Popat, is very "swarthy" sounding, but what I originally considered to be a plausible explanation was given by the secret service:

"All the information requested of staff, volunteers and participants for
the event has been done so to ensure the safety of all those involved, including
the vice president of the United States," he said.

That seems reasonable. So, it would seem to follow that all of the other folks covering Cheney would be asked to provide this information too. But that just doesn't seem to make sense because then this would just be a non-story. If we inspect the statement a bit closer, it's not the case that the same information is necessarily requested from everyone across the board. For example, we are told that

Journalists covering the president or vice president must undergo a background
check and are required to provide their name, date of birth and Social Security
number. The Star provided that information Thursday for Popat and this reporter.

The problem is that we don't have anything to suggest that this is all that falls under the umbrella of "All the information requested of staff, volunteers and participants...". This could be what is generally requested of most, at a minimum, of everyone involved, but they could go above and beyond this stuff. This seems to be the case with this incident.

In response to why the photographers race was requested in this instance, we get this:

Walton told Hayt that Popat's race was necessary to allow the Secret
Service to distinguish her from someone else who might have the same name.

OK. First, at the risk of sounding like a dick, what are the chances of two people named Mamta Popat showing up at a rally in fucking Arizona. Second, what if it's someone named Tad Smith? I bet it would be a white dude. If they are really concerned about two people with the same name, I would think that a more specific description would be better.

I really don't know if the Arizona Daily Star is a credible paper, but if there's some truth to this, it's just not good.