Peter

Wistful and sad in a way. The harmonies are terrific! “Dreamboat Annie” by Heart. Heading out this morning into the sun Riding on the diamond waves, little darling one Warm wind caress her Her lover it seems Oh, Annie Dreamboat Annie, ship of dreams Oh, Annie Dreamboat Annie, little ship of dreams Going down the city sidewalk, alone in the crowd No one knows the lonely one whose head's in the clouds Sad faces painted over with those magazine smiles Heading out to somewhere Won't be back for a while (for a while) Won't be back for a while (for a while) Won't be back (for a while) Won't be back Songwriters: Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson.

Thanks Michael. That is a good, good song.

Every time I click on a link anyone sends, it won't appear. It says it is blocked by Microsoft Edge and it has been doing that for months.

“Retribution” from 2023. We saw it on Prime and it cost a few bucks to see. It was definitely not your usual Liam Neeson film. I highly recommend it but also recommend you do not watch it late at night because it is so “gut wrenching.” “Retribution” starring Liam Neeson. From Wikipedia: Matt Turner works as a financier at Nanite Capital under his friend and CEO Anders Muller and lives with his wife, Heather, and two children, Emily and Zach, in Berlin.

“I’m Not Lisa” by Jessi Colter. Such a simple, but sad song. She reminds me of Dolly Parton. (Edit: Here you go with an embed, Peter. Lovely song... MSK)

“Israel announces strikes on Gaza after truce expires, clear sign that war has resumed in full force . . . . ‘ Hamas is “The Manson Family" in uniform.

Ditto1

Biden approval ratings are dismal: 45 percent approve and 53 disapprove. And the "direction of the country polls" show: right direction 33 and wrong direction 62 percent of the electorate. Wow. The court room shenanigans have reached their peaks. Yup. Ho hum. How can there even be a primary if one considers using data from Real Clear Politics? Trump is not going to be caught by Haley, DeSantis or anyone else. The two lowest poll numbers for Trump are from YouGov: Trump plus 38 percent over everybody, and Yahoo: Trump plus 39 percent over everybody. He is generally in the forties and fifties percent range over his Republican nomination rivals . . . . and we are only a month away from 2024! So, what do the Republican candidates hope to achieve? Are they seeking the award for most stupid, or the dooms day trophy for terrible things happening to President Donald Trump and the country? Or the VP position?

What’s MSM? Do you mean MSN? Anyway, it’s ALL good. NBC Presidential Poll Makes History Story by Jordan Andrews A recent NBC Poll has indicated that former President Donald Trump is leading President Joe Biden in a head-to-head matchup for the first time in the poll’s history. The November poll showed Trump with 46 percent support, two points higher than Biden’s 44 percent. The survey also revealed a decline in Biden’s approval rating to the lowest point in his presidency, with only 40 percent of voters approving of him. Additionally, the poll highlighted that most Biden voters see their vote as “against Donald Trump,” while most Trump supporters view their vote as “for Donald Trump.” These results suggest a challenging scenario for Biden in the upcoming 2024 elections.

A movie about Napoleon is out. I don’t plan on seeing it because he may be one of the most evil people of all time. He constantly “initiated force” in his attempts to subjugate the world. Peter From Wikipedia: Napoleonic Wars casualties. Total dead and missing 2,500,000 military personnel in Europe. 1,000,000 civilians were killed in Europe and in rebellious French overseas colonies. Total: 3,500,000 casualties David Gates estimated that 5,000,000 died in the Napoleonic Wars. He does not specify if this number includes civilians or is just military. Charles Esdaile says 5,000,000–7,000,000 died overall, including civilians. These numbers are subject to considerable variation. Erik Durschmied, in his book The Hinge Factor, gives a figure of 1.4 million French military deaths of all causes. Adam Zamoyski estimates that around 400,000 Russian soldiers died in the 1812 campaign alone. By contrast, Micheal Clodfelter gives the figure of 289,000 in Russian battles between 1805-1814. Civilian casualties in the 1812 campaign were probably comparable. Alan Schom estimates some 3 million military deaths in the Napoleonic wars. Common estimates of more than 500,000 French dead in Russia in 1812 and 250,000–300,000 French dead in Iberia between 1808 and 1814 give a total of at least 750,000, and to this must be added hundreds of thousands of more French dead in other campaigns—probably around 150,000 to 200,000 French dead in the German campaign of 1813, for example. Thus, it is fair to say that the estimates above are highly conservative.

The forthcoming miniseries All the Light We Cannot See — based on Anthony Doerr’s award-winning novel of the same name — is shaping up to be as heartbreaking (and beloved) as its source material. And if you weren’t already planning on tuning in to the four-part adaptation, the all-star, award-winning duo of Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie was just tapped to join the cast. end quote It is on Netflix and it was riveting, though violent at times. I think all four episodes last around three and a half hours and they have a huge production budget and wonderful special effects. It takes place in Nazi occupied France. We watched it all in one night. I highly recommend it. Peter

Ah, the debate. Say what? Whoa, Nikky! From The New York Times: . . . . Mr. Ramaswamy, the Ohio entrepreneur, scolded Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, for allowing her adult daughter to use the app, which Mr. Ramaswamy defends. “She made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time,” Mr. Ramaswamy said. “So you might want to take care of your family first before preaching to anyone else.” “Leave my daughter out of your voice,” Ms. Haley snapped back. The wording from Ms. Haley evoked, however fleetingly, Will Smith’s outburst at the Academy Awards just after he had slapped Chris Rock, yelling at the comedian to keep Mr. Smith’s wife’s name out of his mouth. . . . Onstage, Ms. Haley listened as a smattering of boos erupted as Mr. Ramaswamy referenced her daughter. “You have her supporters propping her up — that’s fine,” Mr. Ramaswamy said of the boos. Ms. Haley, unlike Mr. Smith, kept her hands to herself. “You’re just scum,” she told Mr. Ramaswamy. end quote

From POLITICO: . . . At least four candidates will take the third debate stage next Wednesday in Miami: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie . . . Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said he has qualified for the third debate, but the RNC has yet to confirm to POLITICO whether he has fully met the polling criteria. But the race’s far-and-away frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, will skip the event — and he will almost certainly not attend the fourth debate as well. Trump’s campaign has repeatedly called for an end to the events given his sustained polling lead. Trump and his campaign have reasoned that the debates are dragging out a primary race that he argues is already over, and the continued intraparty battle is distracting Republicans from training their focus toward defeating President Joe Biden. The former president has led the rest of the field combined by at least 20-30 points for months, and the debates have yet to produce a major shakeup in the race . . . . And on the democratic side we have more news. Fox was also talking tonight about the ‘under the table’ talks about replacing Biden. From Knewz: Kennedy Climbing: Independent Candidate Scores Above 20% Against Biden and Trump in New Poll . . . One year before the next presidential election, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is showing strength as an independent candidate in a new poll. Knewz.com has learned Kennedy received 22% support in a nationwide poll conducted in late October.

Jimmany crickets, what does that mean? Lauphy out Ill law" yOU MAY need an unjue test to testate your intelligence.

Who would bring in the most electoral votes? Thye hvae a chnance. Hilarity?

You need a spell checker Marc. Just sayin'. joke. From Real Clear Politics, October 31, 2023. Trump 61, DeSantis 13, Haley 7, Ramaswamy 7, Pence 5, Christie 3, Scott 2, Burgum 1, Hutchinson 0. From Rasmussen. State of the Union. President Biden Job approval. Approve 42. Disapprove 56. From News nation. Approve 44, Disapprove 56. From News nation. Direction of the country. Right direction 23 percent. Wrong track 63. In spite of that, Biden and Trump are practically tied nationally with around 44 percent each. Phooey. I still wonder if the bigger news isn’t: Who’s in line to get their butt kicked and miss a chance at becoming Trump’s 2024 Vice Presidential candidate? Next! Peter.

old news from NBC: Trial begins on whether Trump should be kept off the 2024 ballot in Colorado . . . The lawsuit argues Trump should be prohibited from running in future elections, citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which states no person may hold office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after swearing under oath to support and defend the Constitution. The suit alleges Trump violated his oath of office in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol . . . . end quote The same thing is going in in Minnesota. Of course, he could be a “write in” and still win or at least garner some popular votes.

I picked up on that too. He was a drag to anyone who must have a separation of church and state. He never got that CRUCIAL AMERICAN VALUE. The Republican Party In Total Collapse/ During an interview with “War Room” founder Steve Bannon, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) revealed what he claims was a behind-the-scenes scheme of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to stamp out Speaker nominees such as Jim Jordan (R-OH), Steve Scalise (R-LA), Tom Emmer (R-MN), and Mike Johnson (R-LA). Gaetz said the plan was brought to light in a private meeting. Allegedly, Gaetz told Emmer that it would be difficult to win votes, and therefore should “play into what Kevin McCarthy was working the whole time to try to get people to believe that the only person that could govern the Republican conference is Kevin McCarthy.” “So Emmer agrees that he’s going to have his shot, but that it’s going to be quick so we get that through the gestation system early yesterday,” Gaetz stated. Continue reading What horse shit. They continue to try and sabotage our President Trump . . . Yada yada yada.

I am dumb about this subject so I will go this way or that way or any way, or I will go nowhere. Oh no. Did i just . . .

From: "George H. Smith" To: <objectivism Subject: OWL: Re: Mind as emergent [was: Objectivism's concept of free will] Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 14:44:30 -0500 Neil Goodell (4/11) wrote: "I'm not sure I agree with Mike Rael's (4/9) characterization of mind: [Rael] 'The way I see it, once the physical constituents of a mind have been created, the mind can control the starting of its own processes to some degree. What happens when I raise my hand up? Physical things are going on, but the determiner is my mind.' [Goodell] In my reading of it he seems to trying to keep the advantages of a dualist perspective of the mind-body question but without calling it that. The term "dualism" covers a broad range of views in philosophy. It is often associated with Cartesianism, according to which the mind is a "substance" that can exist independently of matter. In less extreme versions, dualists are those who repudiate reductionism, according to which the mind (i.e., consciousness) is nothing but "matter in motion." Dualists in this latter sense don't necessarily deny that consciousness depends on matter for its existence. They contend, however, that consciousness (a state of awareness) is not something physical per se, however much it may be causally dependent on physical phenomena. I am a "dualist" only in this latter sense, and I suspect the same is true of Mike Rael. Indeed, the kind of emergence theory that Neil goes on to defend is a common foundation for this variety of dualism. Ayn Rand, in maintaining that consciousness is epistemologically axiomatic, that a state of awareness cannot be explained by something more fundamental, was also defending this sort of mitigated "dualism." But I doubt if she would have cared for this label, given its customary association with the Cartesian theory of mind, which of course she did not agree with. Neil wrote: "George Smith makes a distinction between "hard" determinism and "soft" determinism (4/11), between biology and psychology if you will, concluding, "Even though I disagree with physical determinism, there are powerful arguments in its favor, and it is a position deserving of respect. I'm afraid I cannot say the same about "soft" determinism." "As I've said previously, I'm a complete and committed determinist, but I don't agree with any of these views. My position is that mind is an emergent property of the brain. What this means in philosophic terms is that the nature of the causality that operates at the level of the brain is separate and distinct from that which operates at the level of the mind. (This is similar to a levels of analysis argument.)" I agree with emergence theory, as here summarized. This is one reason I reject physical determinism, and it also plays a role in my not-so-thinly disguised contempt for "soft determinism." The mind, as an emergent phenomenon, needs to be studied on its own terms, and we can access it directly only through introspection. We should not assume that causation in the world of consciousness is analogous to causation as we observe it in physical phenomena. We should not assume, for example, that "motives" operate like physical particles that, upon striking other mental "things," such as choices, "cause" them to move. The mind is not a world of mental billiard balls moving to and fro, engaging in endless collisions which "cause" us to choose this or that. Of course, the soft determinist will repudiate this characterization of his position as unfairly crude and inaccurate. But it doesn't take much scratching beneath the language of the soft determinist to see that this is exactly how he analyzes mental phenomena. He adopts what is essentially a mechanistic, linear view of mental causation, in which a mental event (say, a value) somehow "causes" another mental event (say, a preference), which in turn "causes" us to make a choice to put the eight ball in a given pocket. One needn't defend that view that choices and other mental events are "uncaused" in order to defend volitionism. Certainly Rand didn't take this view, and neither do I. I subscribe (as did Rand) to an "agency theory" of causation, according to which a rational agent -- and not merely antecedent *events,* whether mental *or* physical -- can properly be said to be the "cause" of his own mental acts. This is essentially an Aristotelian perspective, one that has been defended not only by modern Thomists but also by other contemporary philosophers, such as Richard Taylor. It had a number of able defenders in earlier centuries as well, such as the eighteenth-century philosophers Richard Price and Thomas Reid. This position was also defended by Nathaniel Branden in "The Objectivist Newsletter" and, later, in *The Psychology of Self-Esteem.* Neil wrote: "And I do not believe my position is inconsistent with Objectivism. (More on this below.)" Emergence theory does not conflict with Objectivism, but any form of determinism most certainly does. [snip] "Rand says over and over again that the premises a person holds in their mind is what determines their character. As she writes in Galt's Speech, "...that your character, your actions, your desires, your emotions are the products of the premises held by your mind—that as man must produce the physical values he needs to sustain his life, so he must acquire the values of character that make his life worth sustaining—that as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul—that to live requires a sense of self-value, but man, who has no automatic values, has no automatic sense of self-esteem and must earn it by shaping his soul in the image of his moral ideal..." This passage does not entail or suggest determinism. On the contrary, Rand's claim that man "is a being of self-made soul" is an expression of free-will. Some time ago on another list, I wrote a post in which I discussed the possibility that, according to Rand, our only truly free choice is the choice to think (or focus) or not, after which everything else is necessarily determined. Although I concede that there are some passages by Rand that give this impression, I don't think this is what she believed; and I would further maintain that this interpretation is inconsistent with her overall approach, including many of her remarks about ethical theory and moral responsibility. I think the passages in question were probably instances of rhetorical exaggeration, made for the purpose of emphasis. This sort of thing is fairly common in Rand's writings. Neil wrote: "I don't know whether George Smith would characterize this as "soft" determinism, but it is certainly determinism of a non-biological kind, "your character, your actions, your desires, your emotions are the products of the premises held by your mind." If this were *not* the case, it would mean that the relationship between premises and character was arbitrary, which would have the effect of eviscerating the entirety of Objectivism's concept of virtue." Rand did not defend any kind of determinism, whether "hard" or soft." In calling our character, actions, desires, and emotions the "products" of premises held by our minds, there is good reason to believe she was drawing logical, rather than strictly causal, connections. In any case, one needn't be a determinist to maintain that how and what we think will greatly influence what kind of characters we have and how we will act. This complex issue has nothing to do with determinism one way or the other. Neil wrote: In other words, if determinism is denied, there can be no morality. If specific causes do not lead to specific effects (i.e., indeterminism) then effects are arbitrary and a person cannot be held responsible for them." If this were true, then we could hold a rock or a tree or a snail morally responsible for its behavior -- for in all such cases specific causes lead to specific effects. In order for there to be moral responsibility, there must first be a moral agent, i.e., a rational being who can make autonomous decisions and choices that are not causally necessitated by antecedent events that he is powerless to change or control. If the actions of a mass murderer were causally necessitated by a chain of antecedent events, which reach back (presumably) to infinity, long before he (or any life form) existed, then he is no more "responsible" for his behavior than a snail. Both behave not as they choose, but as they *must.* For what, in a deterministic scheme, could we hold a mass murderer responsible *for*? For being born? For possessing undesirable genes? For not making better choices that were metaphysically impossible for him to make? For not possessing an omnipotent power to alter past events over which neither he nor anyone else has any control? When we pass a negative moral judgment, part of what we mean is that a person *should* not have made the choice he did under those circumstances. He *ought* to have chosen differently in that precise situation. If, however, his "choice" (and I use the word advisedly in this context) was causally necessitated by antecedent events that he was powerless to change, then to pass moral judgments on humans makes no more sense than to pass moral judgments on clouds for causing a flood. Ghs

You hoser. No it isn't settled. "Bleep" happens. I have mentioned Haley twice I think and all I can get is a pissed off response from a Canadian . . . who can't vote . . . who sounds like a child. Saaaaay. I get it. You want Canada to become America's 51st state!

Various polls from Real Clear Politics. Haley vs Biden. Harris 10/18 10/19 Biden 42 Haley 38 Fox News 10/6 10/9 Haley 49 Biden 45 NBC News 9/15 9/19 Haley 46 Biden 41 Backup Presidential candidate, just in case . . . or VP?

That is certainly plausible. My own direction would be to pay the "speeding ticket" to avoid the hassle of going to court . . . again.

As the headline states, "ITS BULLSHIT." Being Speaker would only detract from President Trump. The press would have fun with the name "Speaker Trump." The job would waste his time. He would need to hang out at "The House." He is going to be President for another term, so I would leave him alone to pursue that goal.

An aside. Today, from Real Clear Politics. Trump 56, DeSantis 16, Haley 9, Ramaswamy 2, Pence 2, Christie 3, Scott 1, Burgum 1, Hutchinson 0 Biden 44, Trump 43