william.scherk

Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States Remote-access software and modems on election equipment 'is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.'

LIES! LIES! LIES! LIES! LIES! LIES!

How to wade through the rushing waters and get to the shore? I mean, if there are "legitimate" concerns about The Give and The Get in Helsinki, how could one separate out the utter crap and the just barely cogent? If criticism of President Trump's performance in Helsinki is "illegitimate," then the matter is simple. If Director Coats contradicts his boss about Russian "active measures," then it's bullshit. Every criticism of President Trump is bullshit. Wheeeee ... Some "enemies of the American people" per the President have made illegitimate criticisms. Ergo, all criticisms are illegitimate. Wheeeeee ... Enemies of the People Jonathan Swann and Mike Allen purport to talk to people in the Administration. Sure, Jan. LIES! Lies, lies, LIES! [And more lies:]

Measurement omission?

Accurate descriptions of arguments made ... For those who haven't watched the Trump Putin press conference ... Link to plain-jane transcript.

Memeorandum.com is an 'aggregator' of third-party information that I have referred to multiple times. It 'takes a reading' of which new stories are cited most by other news or new media outlets. The most cited stories are bumped to the top of a list. The sampling is probably also weighted to give precedence to some old grey eminences which were once sold as "newspapers of record." This is sort of the spread as with the Fake News thread here. Certain list header items can be surprising. For example, media/new media do not often quote from dodgy sites like, say, Gateway Pundit (due, you might expect, to a certain bent) But every once in a while an 'alternative' POV kind of site will perch atop a list of other sites commenting on or referring back to it. So an Infowars item might head a list of 'my story contains a link to or commentary on the article' ... Anyway, yeah, so what? -- it sounds like an aggregation of Unreliable News and Worse. Yes, boring wind-up to my boring use of Grand Hoopla and Grand Supreme Hoopla. These are modeled against the bizarre hierarchies of winners in those sad and bizarre pageants for toddlers and young girls. In that weird pageant world, there appears no higher step beyond Grand Supreme (unlike the Scientology awards to big donors or "whales"). And I'd thought that there would be no day exceeding previous exuberantly overwrought Grand Supreme media moments. Wrong. If Memeorandum is a proxy for the temperature of the hoopla machinery, today marks a new heat record. Media large and small and dodgy and trustworthy or not are feeding on the Helsinki story like piranhas on your leg. It's remarkable. I won't quote it since it would occupy too much space ["snapshot" page as of the writing of this comment: https://www.memeorandum.com/180716/h1805] Ultra Grand Supreme Hoopla! with Techron™

Translations are rather tricky. Three-word English phrases are even trickier -- in this case because English grammar is loose. One can just add up the modifiers (albeit in particular order) and lard them about a noun: gross green stinking sticky awful shit. In English word-pairs containing a noun can become adjectival nouns: gross green false-news shit. In French, grammar is strict and some 'false friends' can fool you into assuming the same word means similar things. For example, to express 'fake news' you need to know of an alternate general term in broadcast French. To translate Radio-Canada's flagship 24 hour French 'news' channel RDI to English is easy, but the English is clonky: Network of informations. Reseau de l'information. News of the day: actualités. Strictly speaking, you can translate Fausses Nouvelles straight up as False News, but just adding "shit" doesn't make sense in la belle langue. This is a better indication of the various idioms that correspond in French: So, try " merde de fausses infos" and Frenchies will understand. The other way, they'll think you want help getting something off your shoe. I remember striding up Montreal's famous Rue Ste Catherine mid-summer, where most American tourists will end up at some point. Ahead, paused, a family of black people wearing sort of giveaway tourist clothing. They had apparently stalled in their traverse and needed directions. A black Montrealer was heading the opposite way to me, and they seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, just as I neared the encounter. "Can you please tell us how to get to Place X?" The black guy said in French, rather curtly I thought, "I don't speak English," not breaking stride. The point was they were taken aback by the non-English-speaking brother. In that instant it probably struck them that almost everybody can do their business in French in Montreal (except for exceptions) and they should now be afraid to talk to black people on the street. I stopped to help. We walked around the corner so I could point out the spire at Place X, and briefly explain that many black Montrealers were from la francophonie in Africa or France itself (overseas dependencies), and weren't always confident in their English, if they spoke or understood it at all -- but that inside commercial premises downtown there would always be a bilingual person in attendance. Needless to say, I love Montreal. It's my favourite city on Earth. I hoped that family got the full value of a night like this. Less lay boh tah roo lay.

Depressing ... statement from the President of Ukraine.

Placeholder for now, but what the hell? "Did you read the affidavit, William?"

This should go in under Fake News, but no doubt OLers will have comment on the meeting of the Presidents of Earth's two top nuclear powers. Syria, Ukraine, Iran, DPRK, 2016 election issues here with Donald Trump. Lots to think about. I'll eventually make a comment on Friends and Foes blog in under "Russian Goals" ... My metaphoric choices start with histrionic and end with HOLLYWOOD SQUARES ON BATH SALTS. Trey Gowdy's comment is, er, intriguing.

Long ago, in a place far away in time and good faith, a paraphrase ... From where I stand the flow of this discussion is evidence of my point: judging someone's perspective, only on its external features judged from a contrary perspective without understanding how that someone's perspective was formed, necessarily leads to misinterpretation. Understanding a person is no different, in principle, from understanding any entity. We can't understand what it does until we fully understand the processes that determine its identity and behaviour. Whether we are trying to understand the nature of an atom, a star, an amoeba, or a human brain, we cannot claim to understand why a thing behaves as it does until we understand the processes/principles that shape its nature and actions.

Wound care ... I noticed that William just reacted to this old post with a "confused" icon. That's true. These days, no. Worry, no. Debunking all forms, no. [See: availability heuristic.] In other words, my interest in apt and in-apt analogies extends back in time on this forum. It's not a new thing or a new focus or a new line of 'attack.' You and I have been tangling over in-apt or misleading or dodgy analogies since shortly after I joined in discussion. My opinion is that analogies are fraught when used to deliver a conclusion. Why pay attention to analogies? Well, I can think of a few and so can you. I "know that about you." You would (in my creative imagination) agree that analogies aren't always good emulations. You'd agree that there are excellent analogies, compelling and insightful analogies, creative and illuminating analogies, less good analogies, strained analogies, and at the end of the scale, bad or false analogies. Sometimes analogies get in the way of discussing actual events, motives, thoughts, actions and positions. That realm of possibilities and cautions is -- since you are wise and well-informed -- perfectly acceptable to you intellectually. ********************** Recursion: It remains interesting to me to see the use of analogies in argument -- especially when an analogy is used as a replacement for a careful argument. Sometimes analogies are satisfyingly 'aha'-ish ... even when false or faulty. Not all analogies are built to the same exacting standards. So your statement is a bit wrong. It is based on a faulty identification, in my opinion. Here in this thread, above, the lamented Selene used a metaphor about 'to the bone' in the context of a wound. The wounding of American education. We had an interesting and rewarding exchange. This may be so, but you have misidentified my own. Here's the thing -- when you don't understand why someone like me has been interested in the differences between apt and in-apt analogies, perhaps the best way of answering the 'why' is to ask the person, me. And not to assume you are the fully-cognizant or omniscient narrator of other peoples' interior lives. To analogize, imagine a forum owner and leader whose amour-propre guides her to reject and rubbish cogent critiques, to demean critical voices as somehow morally-squalid. As if the leader was an Empress, legislator, appeal court, investigator, magistrate, prosecutor, beat cop, traffic cop, and the wisest person in most discussions. Apt, in-apt? Correcting for the misapprehension of motive and agency, I suggest again that next time you ask the person about the thing you do not quite understand. When you are confused, it's perfectly legitimate to ask "do I understand your moral quest correctly?" Presumptions can be ... Anyway, it seems to me that you simply do not accept that analogies can be fraught. I could definitely be wrong, since I don't have access to your mind except through your words. This one line from Adam's statement was (on its face) puzzling to me: "Metaphors are reasons." Yeah? Here is the most interesting part of the linked commentary, for me. Mileage may differ for Empresses and legislators. Emphases added. Metaphors We Think With: The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning "The way we talk about complex and abstract ideas is suffused with metaphor. In five experiments, we explore how these metaphors influence the way that we reason about complex issues and forage for further information about them. We find that even the subtlest instantiation of a metaphor (via a single word) can have a powerful influence over how people attempt to solve social problems like crime and how they gather information to make “well-informed” decisions. Interestingly, we find that the influence of the metaphorical framing effect is covert: people do not recognize metaphors as influential in their decisions; instead they point to more “substantive” (often numerical) information as the motivation for their problem-solving decision. Metaphors in language appear to instantiate frame-consistent knowledge structures and invite structurally consistent inferences. Far from being mere rhetorical flourishes, metaphors have profound influences on how we conceptualize and act with respect to important societal issues. We find that exposure to even a single metaphor can induce substantial differences in opinion about how to solve social problems: differences that are larger, for example, than pre-existing differences in opinion between Democrats and Republicans." Adam Selene is no longer here to extend his argument or explain in more detail.

Fasting cure cancer breakthrough in chiropractic whoopee ... What is your point? Do you have a point? It is a point of information, for readers. At his clinic, he says that all of his fasts are 'medically supervised,' which is great. He himself is trained solely as a chiropractor. There are several MDs advertised as being affiliated with or on his staff at his business, along with what one might expect -- naturopaths, osteopaths, massage therapists and so on. Here is an excerpt from his website on 'informed consent. Emphases in the original. First, TrueNorth Health is not a hospital or medical care facility with a staff of doctors, nurses, etc. It is a health education program, where participants can reside for a short period of time while participating in its programs. TrueNorth Health has independent doctors of chiropractic, two medical doctors, and a psychologist who assist in its programs. (For more information on TrueNorth Health and its affiliated healthcare providers, please see our website or brochure.) Please be clear that if you have any problems with the fact that TrueNorth Health is not a hospital or a medical care facility, then you should not undergo a water-only fast at TrueNorth. TrueNorth Health also compiles medical data obtained from its participants, analyzes this data, and publishes articles regarding this data and research in scientific journals. These articles do not reveal the identities of any of the participants, but rather only identifies, summarizes and analyzes the medical data. If, for some reason, you have any problem with the fact that TrueNorth Health compiles data based upon your medical information, and publishes that data in scientific journals, then you should not undergo a water-only fast at TrueNorth Health. Next, you should be clear that chiropractors will be assisting you during your fast. These doctors of chiropractic are not medical doctors. There is a medical doctor who is affiliated with TrueNorth, but you will probably be seeing chiropractors much more than this medical doctor. These chiropractors will have access to your medical records, and the medical doctor will be discussing your case with them. If you have any problems with the fact that chiropractors will be assisting you throughout the majority of your water fast, then you should not undergo a water-only fast at TrueNorth. -- of course "publishes that data in scientific journals" is enticing. Which ones? And who publishes? Actually, not him. One of the MDs associated with him has published at least one review article in a medical journal (Cell) which is pretty interesting, but comes nowhere near to supporting the claims made by, say, the video at the top. Sure, the guy who fled to Central America. Whatsisname? Loren Lockman. Jerry, fasting is not a panacea, nor -- within reason -- is it terminal, deadly. I object to valorizing a chiropractor -- especially one who overlards the goose. I wish I could do something to help you past your obsession with fixing your body by supernatural natural means. Your condition (the inoperable mass on your spinal column) has to be a burden on you, and for that you have my fellow-feeling.

The "Doctor" at True North ... is a DC. Doctor of Chiropractic.

Friends, foes, friends, competitors, friends, foes, adversaries ... A wag friend of mine said she had a dream about Trump confiding in her. The gist was "I want to rule the world. I want to get the USA together with my good friend Xi and my favourite Russian, Putin, and I think we should rule the world." From Faye and the Deep: "I think the European Union is a foe," Trump says ahead of Putin meeting in Helsinki