jeffrey smith

Re: Mental hijacking What you are describing sounds like what is usually called hyperfocus: it's a core element of ADD and AHDH, and is usually present in autism (which is why autistics think of ADD and AHDH cases as "cousins"). Everyone has the ability to hyperfocus, but ADD/AHDH/autism has it to a degree that impinges on normal skills, because it does not allow the individual to multitask. IOW, ADD/AHDH is not a situation in which the person doesn't pay enough attention to things around him; rather he or she pays too much attention to one thing in his environment, although the focus of attention may shift rapidly betwen various objects.

And let's not forget that NYPD apparently believes that failure to have an official ID is prima facie evidence of a crime.

Michael: remember that impeachment is only a prelude to trial, the equivalent of an indictment or information in a normal criminal case, and at least under our system, removal from office happens only on conviction. What it seems to be is a case where both sides have acted improperly, and in a normal legal case they would be ordered back to the status quo ante if possible (big if), and then expected to carry on with the case in a more appropriate manner. Added to this is that the Honduran system apparently doesn't have a set procedure on who to remove a President from office when he acts as Zelaya did--no detailed statement of who gets to say the constitutional provisions were violated or who has the authority to actuall force him from office.

A man who kills another unjustly is a murderer. No, he is not. Murder. The unlawful killing of a human being by another with malice aforethought. (Black's Law Dictionary, fifth edition) Unjustly means something entirely different from unlawfully. Were these killings justified? In some cases, possibly, but without a public trial with due process we will never know. Were these killing necessary? Almost certainly not. Trial and conviction, with punishment as set by the criminal law of Chile, for crimes committed would have served the ends of justice just as well. Were they lawful? Certainly not: no court, even in secret session, passed sentence on these people. Be it also noted that much of what the Pinochet regime was not really in defense of freedom but rather in defense of their own political power. And remember this: the fact that some men do evil does not justify doing evil to them. Try them in open court for their crimes. Your attitude is appalling similar to that Inquisitor during the suppression of the Cathars who instructed his soldiers "Kill them all; God will know His own". The fact that you are an atheist and therefore don't believe that "God will know His own" is, in this case, a trivial superficiality.

LOL! Mi chamocha baalim Adonai [Who is like Thee among the mighty, O Lord?] When you've been raised the way I was raised, quoting Tanach and Talmud to illustrate almost any point being discussed is almost second nature. Even if the religious underpinnings are thrown out, the Rabbis had lots to say that is worth listening to. (Of course, that is only when I am not quoting Shakespeare, Pope, Austen, Chaucer, K'ung Fu-Tzu, etc.... And it really is Smith. My grandfather changed it from Smid after being told his name sounded too German in the wake of WWI.

Quoth Ted But again, close elections are not my point. The 2000 election was very close to producing violent protests, not because the vote was close, but because the Democrats were using every method from outright cheating to illegitimate post-facto changes in the election law to steal the election. This would have been a problem had it been the republicans stuffing ballot boxes, asking only for recounts in Republican leaning counties, and so forth. The potential cause for unrest was not a close election or differences in political philosophy. It was an attempted theft of an election that was the problem. Ted, FYI--I live in South Florida, so I had in effect a ringside seat for all of that. The Republicans were just as bad as the Democrats. It was, in fact, Republicans who broke up a recount with the threat of mob violence. (And nothing that goes on in Miami-Dade County can be correctly judged unless you realize the extent that Cubans brought their attitudes to political violence with them from Cuba. In one sentence, they didn't mind it as much as those of us raised in the Anglo Saxon tradition did. That is only now fading, rather gradually, as the older members of El Exilio die off.) But I will say that here in Florida there didn't seem to be any real threat of people turning violent over the elections. That one threat of mob violence was an orchestrated political maneuver. Matus--it may be necessary to take the life of another human being; but that does not mean one should feel good about it. There is a rabbinical saying that being forced to kill another human being is actually a form of punishment.

Matus-- A man who murders murderers is still a murderer. See under Dexter. Rooting out Communism in Chile was necessary. Committing murder, mayhem, and torture in order to do so was not. Committing murder, mayhem and torture on people who were not Communists was even more certainly not necessary.

Adam-- The article's phrasing does not imply that Justice Ginsburg herself advocated eugenics--only that she recognized that there were a lot of people around who did (see the second article about Holdern as an example). And, be it added, the legal rationale behind Roe v Wade would also prevent any woman from being forced to abort or use contraception if she didn't want to.

Thank you, Ted. And here's a blog I follow regularly that's fairly pertinent to this topic http://www.languagehat.com/

Now is probably not the best time to read Busman's Honeymoon. But you're lucky it wasn't worse. I came home from work a year and a half ago and found my mother lying on the living room floor: she had fallen and broken her thighbone. Or, possibly, fallen because of a spontaneous fracture. And two weeks later I slipped on a concrete floor at work and fractured my pelvis in three places. Oh, that was a fun time for everyone. And now I set off metal detectors, of course.... Glad it turned out as well as it did.

Actually, I do watch ScyFy or whatever it calls itself now whenever it takes a break from commercials and puts on a Doctor Who show. Schindler's List--you should definitely watch it. The only moralizing feel good moment in the movie is the coda I'm complaining about--there is no moralizing during the main part of the film; you simply see a man choosing to do good with full awareness of the issues involved. Plus some very good camera work at critical points. It's one of those films that should be on everyone's Best Movie Evah list. (And the software seems to be playing around the "g"s in the blockquote. What's up with that?)

Possibly a different personal context: 1)I tend to dislike, and be suspicious of, anything that seems sentimental (which I define as purposely manipulated emotion). For me, the appropriate ending was the march of the survivors towards their future at the end of the film's action. That's the point at which I started to tear up. The coda turns it from being a march to the future into a salute to the past (and a march into the "untravelled bourne"). 2) My grandparents all came to the US no later than the 1920s, but almost every member of their familes who did not emigrate died in the Shoah; the only exception was a cousin, her husband, and her children, who were hidden by a gentile neighbor in the neighbor's oven (apparently Russian peasants of that era had really big ovens--it was more the size of a large bakery oven) before travelling, mostly by foot, to Shanghai and eventually to the US. Of the rest, my family had to assume they died. As my mother once said of her paternal grandparents: "the letters stopped, and we never heard anything after that". I was born well after the war, but the linkage is direct enough that I react a bit more intensely to the topic of the Shoah. When the TV miniseries War and Remembrance showed the march to the death chambers as experienced by the Jewish victims themselves, I had to run out of the room crying because I couldn't stand to watch the full scene.

Thank'ee. Just expressing an uplift of spirits, like a man stretching his legs out after finding a comfortable sofa, on the realization that there are places on the 'Net where intelligent Objectivists can be found. (Brant, at least, will know whereof I speak.) (Although--fair warning--I am not an Objectivist myself.)

Thanks! One of my enthusiasm is ships. My avatar is the US United States (one of the greatest feats of American engineering) underway.

I think this is Comcast's way of forcing people to upgrade to Digital or whatever they call their high-premium service. One by one all the interesting channels are taken off the basic service. But they haven't reckoned with me. The only channels I watch regularly are the Weather Channel and the local broadcast channels. The rest of the time, if I'm home, I usually listening to my music. Nor am I going to pay $43 a month for the privilege of having my Internet service regularly go kaput. BTW--on the integrity issue, I think Schindler's List is a very good example: one man who, having stumbled into the way of doing good almost accidently, intentionally chooses to do good even when everyone else around him is choosing to do evil: a man who chooses to be human even when everyone around him is choosing to be much less than human. (Although I could do without that mawkish coda in which all the survivors file by his grave.)

This was a purely self interested intervention on your part. You are protecting yourself from whining by everyone who reads this post. (Not only Brant can find this information useful.)

The original statement is correct. "Usable medical results" does not mean "the patient recovered". It means "useful medical knowledge was gained"--in this case increased knowledge of human anatomy. And not only medical knowledge. This is how most Renaissance artists gained their knowledge of the human body--if not through corpses actually stolen, than through what might be called unofficial autopsies. Without the practice, much of Renaissance art, both painting and sculpture would have far less of an impact. (But I presume a Master Sculptor would know that.) Edit--crossposted with Ginny's reply above

As I understand it, you have it more or less correct. The only major point not in there I know of is that the government of Canada will have an ownership share, although not as large as ours. Also, the US government handed GM an extra lump of bailout money. Can't remember if the amount was $50 million or $50 billion. And of course "the new GM runs more efficiently" is more of a pious hope than a fact. One sign of hope: orders for the 2010 Camaro are now on a six week waiting list. But that's the only model that seems to be in high demand. Some, but probably not enough Don't know for sure, but I believe it is to compensate for the lower benefits and pay cuts. What do you mean by non-bondholder investors? If you mean shareholders, they normally get whatever is left over after everyone else has their claim satisfied; they are after all the owners of a failed business, and get what owners of a failed business normally gets. The technical term for what they get is bubkes If you mean unsecured creditors, they are supposed to get at least partial compensation for the debts owed them by the bankrupt company. What is abnormal about the auto company bankruptcies is that the bondholders and creditors are getting less than they normally would in a standard bankruptcy procedure, and the unions and government are benefiting by this. Of course, because of the bailout funds, one might argue that the government is now the chief creditor and therefore gets to the head of the line.