BaalChatzaf

Economics is NOT any kind of science. It is right up their with psychoanalysis, psychology and phrenology. If you laid all the economics who ever were in a straight line head to foot you could not reach a conclusion. Ba'al Chatzaf

When stated correctly, the question becomes "what non-physical entity (if any), created the physical cosmos". There is no inherent contradiction living in this form of the question. Ba'al Chatzaf

Hi campers! Here is my cheerful thought for the day. -Building the first atom bomb took many years and cost a measurable fraction of the defense budget of the richest and most powerful country in the world for just a few prototypes. Now almost any miserable adulteress-stoning, thief-mutilating fourth-rate country in the Third World can build a nuclear arsenal without dipping into the Swiss bank accounts of its leaders-. Ain't technology wonderful? Have fun! Ba'al Chatzaf

Neither. I am asking what conditions would need to hold to have a reasonable assurance that the blood you might need is in the pipeline. The ideal situation is enabling the sale of blood. Supply and demand would regulate the selling/donating opportunities. The next best thing is banking your own. The problem with that is you can only put a pint in the pipeline every 56 days and the blood lasts only 25 days. The next best thing is to find two friends with the same blood type as you and each of you make a donation with banking phased at 20 day intervals. That guarantees one pint of the right type when needed. But if two or three of you need the blood at the same time there may be trouble. Given that blood is generally not sold, but donated what action would you take to encourage the donation of blood and maximizing the chances of having the blood you need should an emergency arise. So what strategy would you propose to maximize your chances of making available the blood your or your family members might need. Clearly the policy of never donating, if practiced by everyone will guarantee that the blood you need will NOT be in the pipeline. If you -expect- blood to be in the pipeline for you, then you assume there will be a sufficient number of people donating. If you assume there will be donors isn't it only reasonable that you be a donor too? Keep in mind that being a donor is not an act of self sacrifice. It is part of a strategy to make sure the blood YOU or a family member needs is in the pipe line. It is a rationally selfish policy. Ba'al Chatzaf Ba'al, I don’t really understand why you are belaboring this one point, the giving of blood?? It is rather superfluous. If you followed the bouncing ball of my points and where I stand---I'm all for self-interest, free-markets based on voluntarism, and the helping of loved ones! -Victor Because giving blood (or donating an organ) happens to be a place where rational self interest and generosity intersect. It is your turn to follow the bouncing ball. R. Hillel said it well: If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, then when? Perke Avot I:15 Ba'al Chatzaf

Abortion surely is killing. So is swatting flies, applying antiseptic and pulling weeds. The question underlying the abortion is issue is NOT whether it is killing, but whether it is murder; the termination of a conscious, autonomous sentient being -- i.e. A PERSON. Fetuses are NOT persons, they do not have enough brain tissue or neural interconnections to be persons. Neither are new-born infants. If they aren't persons, then what are they? Answer: they are property, the product of the carrying female who has grown the fetus within her body and nourished it through her own efforts and all to the hazard of her own life. The woman who carries the fetus has the right of disposition. It is NOT a scientific question at all. It is a question of property rights. The woman owns the fetus she has grown in much the same way as she would own crops grown in her own garden in her own soil. She can permit them to grow or plow them under as she chooses. And shame on Nat Hentoff for being such a sentimentalist. Ba'al Chatzaf

One of the hallmarks of a good scientific theory is its fertility and productivity. A good theory will lead to questions and abductions which will lead investigators to find even more -facts-. In short a good theory leads to a corpus of facts well beyond the facts that were used to establish the theory in the first place. Even a good theory that turns out to be -wrong- will take investigators to a better place. Maxwell's electromagnetic field theory lead Hertz to experiments requiring technology sufficiently good to notice the Photoelectric Effect. While Hertz could not explain the phenomenon at that time, like any good physicist he carefully described what he saw and wrote it down for others to ponder. Later, Albert Einstein in studying the photoelectric effect abducted to the concept of quanta of electromagnetic energy in free space -- in short the photon (although Einstein himself did not use that term). It was Einstein's paper on the photoelectric effect that put Planck's quantum hypothesis on the map and also lead to Einstein receiving the Nobel Prize. Maxwell's theory conceived of charge as a continuous substance. In fact charge is carried by -particles- (the electron) and partial color charge is carried by quarks (discovered much later). Maxwell's electrodynamic field theory is sound in extenso, but at the subatomic level is wrong. Classical electrodynamics cannot account for the stability of atoms. Bohr's assumption of discrete orbits (made in 1913) finally lead to a theory of atoms which was consistent with observation. Likewise, Maxwell's classical electrodynamic theory does not predict nor does it account for tunneling (potential barrier penetration). Even so, Maxwell lead both Einstein to produce The Special Theory of relativity AND the heuristic account for the photoelectric effect which ultimately lead to the theory of photons and a sound account of the interaction of radiation and matter. Newton's theory of mechanics and his theory of optics (Newton invented the -reflecting- telescope) lead to telescopes that were so precise that the anomalous motion of Mercury was discovered. This is one of the finding which later show that Newton's theory of gravitation was incorrect, except in the context of the weak gravitational field. Later on Einstein conceived of gravity as a manifestation of the geometry of the spacetime manifold, rather than a force acting at a distance in a Euclidean manifold. Even so, it was Newton's incorrect theory of gravity that lead to a better theory of gravity. In addition to leading to more facts and perhaps better theories and good theory will also lead applied scientists and engineers to better and better technology. The Phlogiston hypothesis and the Caloric hypothesis we discarded not only because they lead to contrary to observation predictions, but even more they lead to a dead end in the questions produced and the insights gained. The idea of fluid -substances- underlying what is observed is effectively gone, relegated to at most a pedagogical device for aiding in visualization. That is why aether is gone from modern physics. It lead to a dead end. Even if the Michelson Morley experiment had not killed the aether dead in 1887, it would have been morphed into some kind of a field theory to account for radiation and gravitation. The correct explanation of the photoelectric effect would have killed the aether hypothesis eventually. So to recap a bit: A good theory must not only make good predictions, but it must lead to further discovery of facts and better insight and understanding of what is currently known. Ba'al Chatzaf

5

Science, the free market -AND- natural selection. The government is no help in this situation. What is possible and perhaps likely to happen is a queen with mutant genes that is immune or partially immune to whatever it is that is causing sickness among the bees. She will breed a race of immune bees. When you have a lethal pathogen, the totally lethal version kills all the victims which can further spread the disease. A less lethal form is therefore selected to survive, since some of its victims can live to spread the pathogen and then recover. In the victim population mutations will arise that are immune or partially immune to the pathogen. We have an example of this with sickle cell anemia which is a disease that provides immunity against malaria. In an environment with the malaria spreading mosquito this disease is actually a survival characteristic. Ba'al Chatzaf

Neither. I am asking what conditions would need to hold to have a reasonable assurance that the blood you might need is in the pipeline. The ideal situation is enabling the sale of blood. Supply and demand would regulate the selling/donating opportunities. The next best thing is banking your own. The problem with that is you can only put a pint in the pipeline every 56 days and the blood lasts only 25 days. The next best thing is to find two friends with the same blood type as you and each of you make a donation with banking phased at 20 day intervals. That guarantees one pint of the right type when needed. But if two or three of you need the blood at the same time there may be trouble. Given that blood is generally not sold, but donated what action would you take to encourage the donation of blood and maximizing the chances of having the blood you need should an emergency arise. So what strategy would you propose to maximize your chances of making available the blood your or your family members might need. Clearly the policy of never donating, if practiced by everyone will guarantee that the blood you need will NOT be in the pipeline. If you -expect- blood to be in the pipeline for you, then you assume there will be a sufficient number of people donating. If you assume there will be donors isn't it only reasonable that you be a donor too? Keep in mind that being a donor is not an act of self sacrifice. It is part of a strategy to make sure the blood YOU or a family member needs is in the pipe line. It is a rationally selfish policy. Ba'al Chatzaf

If by universal you mean at all times (eras) and all places, you are quite mistaken. The Spartans practiced infanticide by tossing ill formed or sickly newborns off a cliff. The purpose was to insure that only health sons and daughters would survive to populate the State. The business of Spartans was to be soldiers and only the healthy were permitted to survive into childhood. Of those, the youngsters were taken at age seven in inducted into a very rigorous training regimen and not all of these youngsters survived. The Spartans did not call it murder. That Athenians practiced exposure of infants who were sickly or ill formed and children that the parents could not afford to feed. These were not killed outright. They were left to freeze to death a night. If a kind soul took an exposed child to nurture so be it. The Athenians did not call it murder. The Romans also practiced infant exposure and the the father of the family had the power of life and death over his children. If the father killed a child for whatever reason, he was not held to account for it. The Romans did not call it murder. The Aztecs also practiced exposure. We don't know what the Aztecs called it since the Spanish destroyed almost of of the codices. Thus infanticide and even killing of the more grown up children occurred in some rather great civilizations. In modern times we are more sentimental. Thus we carry the burden of keeping unhealthy, unfit, ill formed children alive, very often at public expense. Fortunately the very unfit often die early (but not always) and are sometimes not a long term burden on the public purse. Refer to the following article on infanticide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide Ba'al Chatzaf

Praying can be quite harmful if it displaces action. Praise the Lord, but be sure to pass the ammunition. Ba'al Chatzaf

Which do you think will happen first: 1. A kind of "protestant reformation" will transform Islam or 2. Islamic crazies will get a hold of weapons of mass destruction, possibly radiological bombs or even full bore nuclear fission weapons and they will take out New York City (where the Jews are) or Washington D.C.. ????? Ba'al Chatzaf

Been there and done that. I got enough for tomatoes to go with my salad. I did a no bee scenario with hand pollenation Worse comes to worse pollen can be gathered by hand and spread by airplane. Bees are better, but something is better than nothing. Other pollenators are wasps and ants and hummingbirds. Neither as good as bees. Nature took a quarter of a billion years to make bees. It is a hard act to follow. BTW Do you expect to starve to death? What are the chances that a mutation producing an immune strain of bees will happen? I am inclined to bet on it. Here is why. When a pathogen starts killing a host or carrier it is undoing itself. Therefore when a milder version of the pathogen arises (by mutation) it is selected to survive because enough of the host/victim population survives to spread the pathogen. A really totally lethal pathogen is doomed. When it runs out of victims it is finished. Natural selection will eliminate such a pathogen. Ba'al Chatzaf.

Grown up people realize that the Bible (and the Holy Books of other religions) were written by human beings and were done so in an age before science existed (the Q'ran is an exception: Aristotle was known to the Arabs and Jews before the time of Mohammed). What is likely to be found in such books? 1. Some kind of creation story. 2. Some kind of moral exhortation. 3. Some kind of list of mores and customs. 4. A bit of history both mythical and real 5. Some poetry and song. What sensible, grown up folks should not expect is the Word of the Lord. Only the Fundies and other religious extremists buy this notion, that the Bible is Truth straight out of G-d's mouth. More sensible folk take the bible as literature and a cultural artifact. Now it turns out that the Hebrew Bible (TNKH or Old Testament as the goyim call it) is a staple part of western culture, in much the same way as The Illiad was a staple part of Greek culture. Aristotle, Plato and Socrates knew the Illiad backward and forward. They had it read to them as children and they read it as adults. This is simply the case. It has nothing to do with whether the Bible (or the Illiad) contains facts (it so happens that the Hebrew Bible contains a very good description of the land around the Dead Sea and the land down at Etzion Geber, where the modern port of Elat is). The Bible may even provide a clue to the location of King Solomon's copper mines. The Hebrew Bible has a mythologized story of how the Hebrews and Egyptians interacted both during the rule of the Hyksos (the story of Joseph in Egypt) and afterward when the Southern Dynasty took over in Egypt. You don't have to believe literally in Ten Plagues to appreciate the end of slavery, as is memorialized at the Passover, also remembering the near genocide of Jews in Persia during the time of King Artitaxes has its uses. The Scroll of Esther is the only book in the Hebrew Bible in which G-d is not mentioned, not even once. Unlike the more recent genocide in Germany, the Persian Jews fought back from the git-go. That is something worth remembering, or so I think. I am sure the Jews who -did- fight back in the rebellion of the Warsaw Ghetto and Sobibor had the Scroll of Esther in mind. In fact, Hitler even chose time of Purim for his final dissolution of the Ghetto. That is no accident. For forty two days, the Jews of Warsaw proved to the world that the Nazi supermen were not all that super and they bled just like everyone else. The Jews lost that round, since they were completely outnumbered and outgunned but they gave as good as they got for forty two days in spring. They lasted longer against the Nazis then the French army did. So the Hebrew Bible did have some use, as an inspiration to courage and defiance of tyranny. The story of the Hebrews in Egypt did not go unheeded by Black slaves in the American South. They saw the story of Moses and the Hebrews as being totally relevant to their situation. Not bad for a Book that is total bullshit, yes? The slaves of the south did not rely totally on De Lawd. They made good use of the Underground Railroad, run mostly by Quakers who also read the Bible. Not bad for a book that is total bullshit, eh what? Ba'al Chatzaf

Lets examine this. I assume that you would wish for, hope for or even expect that there will be blood in the pipeline for you if (heaven forfend) you are in need of a transfusion. What conditions, do you think, would have to hold to give you a reasonable assurance that blood will be their when -you- need it. I would point out that if everyone took your stand, there would be hardly a drop in the pipeline, so someone must be willing to donate. Perhaps it were better if blood were bought, to give an incentive to provide a pint. In either case someone must be willing to have a need put in his arm vein to put the blood in the pipeline, whether or not it is a donation or a sale. I donate blood regularly. Not because I am a "good guy", but to encourage others to do the same. It is a kind of Karma principle. How am I to expect the blood to be there for -me- if I do not do something to make sure there is blood in the pipeline. It is conceivable that I might even receive my very own blood in case of an accident or illness. If it were possible to give blood every 25 days (that is as long as it will keep in storage) I would, and I would earmark the pint for me or my family and pay a storage fee. But rules say no more often than every seven weeks (56 days). All I can do then, is set an example and hope others will be similarly motivated. That way there is a good chance of being able to get a transfusion. It is either that or keeping a clone handy to be used as a blood reservoir. I work on a generalized Trader Principle. If I expect a certain good when I need it, I must be prepared to pay for it somehow. It will be either cash, services or trade. I trade pint for pint. Ba'al Chatzaf

Did I say one word against it? Did I not ask some questions? Do you happen to know the answer to any of them? Is there a difference between a question and a declarative sentence? Ba'al Chatzaf.

We import 60 percent of the oil we use. About 25 percent from the Saudis and the Emirates. What shall we run our cars and trucks with -- moral rectitude and optimism? We have to reconfigure our energy usage and that will take years, probably decades. So we are not going to stop buying their oil immediately unless you wish to see gasoline rationing by the (ugh!) government. I was a kid during WW2. I remember how my Dad was limited to five gallons a week and four new tires a year. There was, as you can imagine, a lot of car-pooling going on. Do you think Americans are ready for this? Ba'al Chatzaf

I must have missed out on the Million (American) Muslim March Protesting Terror Attacks. Perhaps I did not get the memo or my t.v. was out that day and I missed the March on CNN and Fox. What I did hear was a lot of the following: Yes, it was terrible .... but. When I hear Yes...But in circumstances like this my blood pressure goes up all the way to 130/85. If an American had Yes... Butted the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor back in 1941 he would have been either strung up on the spot or tarred and feathered. Now that the (first) Pearl Harbor is over sixty years behind us, there are historical revisionists who justify it on the grounds of how mean we were to the Japanese after they raped, looted, plundered and conquered in Manchuria. I hear similar crap and balderdash today concerning the attack on 9/11. Isn't it awful how America supports Israel against Muslim attackers that blow up supermarkets and pizza parlors? No wonder a bunch of Egyptian and Saudi Wahabites attacked on 9/11. And so it goes. Ba'al Chatzaf

New York, October 29, 2006 Newberry Workshop — Mini-Tutorials: Innovation and Fundamentals in Art Did the woman portrayed here lose a contact lens? Did she stumble and fall? Why is she doing ass and elbows? What is the artist trying to say? Beats me. Ba'al Chatzaf

Yes I have. NB is not a person who can talk about durable relationships. I was neither impressed or convinced. I go with my verdict --- it is bullshit. Bullshit talks, but lasting relationships walk. We not only have the Good Times, the Bad Times and the Interesting Times to show for it, We have four children and five grandchildren, each and everyone of them a joy. I will reconsider when NB celebrates 50 years of a durable and cordial relationship. This to my wife, who is a Woman of Valor, Eshet Chayil. An heroic woman, who can find? Her value is far beyond pearls. Her husband's heart relies on her and he shall lack no fortune. She does him good and not evil, all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax, and works with her hands willingly. She is like the merchant ships, she brings her bread from afar. She arises while it is still night, and gives food to her household and a portion to her maidservants. She plans for a field, and buys it. With the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. She girds her loins in strength, and makes her arms strong. She knows that her merchandise is good. Her candle does not go out at night. She sets her hands to the distaff, and holds the spindle in her hands. She extends her hands to the poor, and reaches out her hand to the needy. She fears not for her household because of snow, because her whole household is warmly dressed. She makes covers for herself, her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known at the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land. She makes a cloak and sells it, and she delivers aprons to the merchant. Strength and honor are her clothing, she smiles at the future. She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the lesson of kindness is on her tongue. She watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness Her children rise and praise her, her husband lauds her. Many women have done worthily, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceptive and beauty is vain, but a woman who is upright shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates. Proverbs 30:10 You can keep your Romance. You are welcome to it. Ba'al Chatzaf.

My guess is that it is some nasty micro-organism that has evolved to be fatal to bees. I think the problem will be solved scientifically and some kind of immunization will be worked out. Bees from other parts of the world may have to be imported and immunized to restore the bee population. Also natural selection should produce a subpopulation of bees that are immune to whatever it is that is killing the bees. It is possible that an immune population may be developed in the laboratory and then placed in the field. Eventually the problem will be solved. In the meantime airborne pollination may be to be used. It is not as effective or efficient as bee pollination, but we will have crops. I do not think starvation is imminent. Other species have been plagued (sic) by harmful micro-organisms, including the human species. One third of Europe's population was killed by some variant of the bubonic plague back in the late middle ages. But our race survived. When the Spaniards conquered the Aztecs, about six million Aztecs perished from smallpox carried by Spaniards. The Spaniards lived in an environment populated by animals that carried a sub-lethal version of the pox. In effect, most of the Spaniard grew up covered with shit (to use a Monty Python-esque phrase). They developed a partial immunity. The Aztecs, alas for them, had not exposure so the Pox did a number on them. Even so a sub population of the Aztecs survived the pox and they too developed a partial immunity to the disease. Here is my guess and predictions: 1. some of the honey bee population will survive. 2. a technological fix to the problem will be developed. 3. We will not starve. Ba'al Chatzaf

Nazi Germany was a slave society also. Somehow these slave keepers managed to organize their engineers and scientists to produce the forerunners of every non-nuclear weapons system our armed forces now use. Cruise Missiles, Ballistic Missiles, Surface to Air Missiles, the Jet Plane. We even co-opted the Head Rocketeer Werner von Braun * whose designs helped put Americans on the Moon. For a society that cannot have technological progress the Nazis managed quite well. If Hitler were not such a putz, he would have had jet planes in 1940 and a Swastika would have been flying over the Houses of Parliament. If he were not such a crazy anti-semite, it would have been Germany to develop the first A-bomb (there were about half way there at war's end, even without Jewish help). Until the mid 1930's when the Nazis came to power, quantum physics was a German cottage industry. Our own Robert Oppenheimer got his PhD at Goettingen. Germany was the place for every aspiring young physicist to go until the Nazis come to power. Had they been more rational concerning their scientific intellectual assets, they would have retained the lead. As it was, they did alright technological despite the insanity and stupidity. Ba'al Chatzaf * Werner von Braun claimed that he Aimed for the Stars. But sometimes he hit London and Antwerp.

That says something about America in the 20-th century, doesn't it? The Great Man also sent Marines into Lebanon improperly armed and without a specific military objective. Two hundred and forty one Marines were blown up in their barracks by a Muslim suicide bomber (a portent of Things to Come). The previous week, Marines were shot down in ambush by Muslim mujihadin, members of Hizbollah at the Beruit airport. I personally helped in the burial of one of these young men (I was a member of the Havurah Kadesha - the Jewish burial society) and I participated in the ritual preparation of this young fellow's shot up corpse. I won't forget that --- ever. Instead of coming home, getting married and rasing a family, Allen Soyfert (the victim) is raising daisies in Nashua, New Hampshire. So, I am disinclined to forgive the Great Man for spending the lives of young American men to no discernible end. [The same remark applies to our current Fearless Leader too]. To the Great Man's credit, he helped the Republic of California recover from eight years of Governor (Pat) Brown's incompetence. California was well on its way to becoming the People's State of California. Ba'al Chatzaf

Only after the Main Event. Have you ever read a Woody Allen short story called -The Whore of Mensa-? Ba'al Chatzaf

I am going to rain on your parade here. I would go so far as to say Romance is bullshit. What matters is - compatibility and friendship. I have been married to my best friend Ginny a Woman of Valor, for nearly fifty years (fifty this Aug 18, God willing and the overpass don't collapse). We have know each other longer than we have known our own parents. What it is all about is Friendship plus Lust. How many Romantic Relations have broken up over the long run? Probably more than half, I would guess. Romance is nice, but it is not durable. Romance talks, but Friendship walks. You can't build a life on Romance. It is just so damned silly. Ba'al Chatzaf