What's in a name?

The first time I saw the name of the North Korean pres/dictator's son:  "Kim Jong Un"  I was sure it was a joke - a bit of snark by whoever (don't remember) wrote the piece I was reading.   But NO! that's really his name.  How wonderful that reality imitates the Onion.

Well, this is bogus. Only about 50 chracters. bah <Marian>

(2/2) `contacts ~ one @ a time!! But won`t send Martina`s pic or JamesBrown I Feel Good!<Marian>

(1/2) Trying the new phone for a blog entry. Can`t seem to send any pics ~ the very 1st one! Or ring tones from the old phone to the new. Sent all my

.......reality is an illusion — in some cases, a dangerous one.

I am not sure why we are so obsessed with the idea of free will. We exist in a dense plenum of realities and histories, all acting at different times, speeds, intensity, motivations, etc., from inside us and from outside. The mind sits and sees some of it, probably very little of it, really. And yet we presume that we are making choices to do this or that or say this or that and that we have all of the knowledge necessary to make this or that decision. That can't be true. Most of what we do and say and think occurs in a massive continuum of contingent realities, so that the notion of "free will" seems really irrelevant to understanding how humans "are" in the real world. Looking forward from a decision, say to eat a piece of toast or not. So many variables involved in the decision, which may come down to the dog needing to be walked and so no toast for me, even though, had contingent reality not intruded, I would have been able to assess whether I really wanted, needed, would enjoy, etc., etc. that piece of toast. That kind of decision, writ large across a life, such as say choosing a career, or choosing a mate, or just about any forward looking "decision" clearly is subject to vastly greater forces than some pipsqueak "free will" allowing me to choose one path over another.

Bottom line: immediately snatching from science an outcome of an experiment, without knowing much about the experiment at all, and leaping into tortured elucubrations is interesting, perhaps, but not particularly illuminating of the human condition. Grock the full dimensions of the science before gluing it to some quickly made kite.

All this began with the NYT and. . .

"Freedom and Reality: A Response

By WILLIAM EGGINTON

The idea that we can fully comprehend reality is an illusion — in some cases, a dangerous one."

The italicized above is from a comment on the post that precedes the one I'm noting above,

from : (re: re: re: like, heh heh)

Christina Forbes, Alexandria VA

Sounds like someone with whom to sit down for toast.

It's all fixed and you can't change it - still

An article in (on?) today's SF Gate, about bio fuels etc. My comment:

Bio-fuel harvests are destroying rain forests and critical habitat all over the Third World. Here, as some one already said, corn is a subsidy pretending to be a fuel solution. There is no such thing (italics!) as clean coal - a life destroying endeavor from start to power release phase. Hemp would be good, but. . .
However - all of these solutions involve burning something, at some point, with by-products. . .
Hydrogen (combustion by-product - water) is the cleanest, but maybe a new form of pollution to consider.

We need a new government funded Skunk Works to take on this problem. Total conversion of matter to energy. But they'd have to fund it through black-ops or some other 'secret' source, cuz the folk in D.C. remain in deep pockets and Big Oil wouldn't like that.

The Future is Here! (again)

omg! Touchable holograms. The ripple effect. No more spreading germs - in medical settings, particularly. No need to buy the actual switch - a manufactured item, just a new holo. Not "outsourcing" but "upsourcing" mmmm spell checker no like :)

And the future of the Gulf Coast (day 100, now) remains unclear, but clearly troubled. The news heads are saying that visable oil is much diminished, and isn't that swell. But wait. . . oil is still heavier than water in their universe, no? Much of the oil was 'dispersed' with yet another toxic chemical. The critters who don't just toes up will be whelping two headed -and other freakish young pups for generations. The epa, or someone, will declare Gulf Coast fauna perfectly safe to eat, so the toxicity spreads up the food chain. I've read this scenario in multiple "future history" books. The queerly malformed descendants of the last technological civilization.

Seems as tho the Brits (PM) are pushing hard on Pakistan's (nuclear) buttons. Cameron tweaks their nose on "exporting terrorism" prior to a visit to India. ("the former jewel in the crown of the BE" thx to BBC News) Expecting imminent attack from India is a Pakistani national passtime/paranoia. India has, for pete'sake, enough of its own troubles, and is stupid for not making this more clear to P. For that matter, MOST countries have enough of their own problems, (US US US!!) and need to stay the heck within their own borders.

And the highlight of my week: 92,000 leaked documents showing everything you always really suspected about the War in Afghanistan. If you are truly a revolutionary* - in the very best sense of the word - you've just got to send them some money.

*like George Washington, Thomas, Jefferson, Thomas Paine - those Revolutionaries.

"We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves"*

Ever wondered exactly how powerful the biggest corporate lobbies are? In Washington, note that Republicans support suspected terrorists' "right" to purchase guns, even while maintaining that no other part of the U.S. Constitution or the Geneva Conventions apply to them. And in Sacramento, a pesticide so cancer-causing that it's often used specifically to create cancer in rats for medical experiments was just proposed for use on the state's strawberry crop.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?entry_id=62991#ixzz0nJKvP9On

*George Orwell, 1984

Maybe it IS a curse

Poor Gulf Coast. Place to be hit worst: NO LA. BP America offshore oil rig still spewing. Three - count 'em 3! fail safes built into the rig to shut down pumping, seal off flow - - FAILED. There have to be viral conspiracy theories oozing across the Web. Already worse than Exxon Valdez. Day 10 (yesterday) wind was so strong they couldn't deploy booms. Way to go La. - Day TEN?? Where the hell were the frelling booms on day 2? Seafood and aqua tourist biz - totaled.

All this coming not even a month after Obama announced opening up vast swaths of the Atlantic Coast to drilling.

I just do not believe in coincidence this vast. I might believe the Goddess reached down, except for the creatures who will die from the oil - and the remedies employed to staunch it.

Fundys who have not yet proved to the world's satisfaction that N. O. sins must be smote?
Environuts?
Real terrorists?

CNN already asking if we think Obama's response has been good, bad or indifferent. I'm pretty sure he has no authority in La. waters. OTH, where was the frelling Coast Guard? They have the necessary technology to investigate, at least. Why do we not just assume that the corporate entity at the heart of the disaster is gonna LIE their teeth off for as long as they can maintain the lie. (Just like the guy at the mine that killed 129 or so guys last month) "Two thousand gallons only." oh wait, I meant 20 thousand, no, 20 million, now it is the size of a small state. Exactly like the Cosco Busan, which fouled up SF bay a couple of months back. If we'd known the extent of the leak from the first, it could have been contained. Coast Guard and a slew of volunteers were standing by, but the corporate rats lied like rugs for three days, til visually they could no long get away with it.

The punditm say it won't affect gas prices - lots of replacement oil - Katrina's affect on oil prices related to refinery capacity. So we won't really care. . . except those who care for The Mother

Here's hoping the techno folks have some mighty microbe tucked away, just waiting for its opportunity to show the world that it can transform an oil slick into something beneficial, or at least neutral. If there was such a microbe - one that could total devour/destroy/convert crude into something non-toxic - the OPEC guys would have buried it so deep it'd be sharing "core" (of the earth) space with Edgar Rice Burroughs characters.

The Internet Will Save the World! Part . . .

"Governments across the globe are quietly asking tech companies to take down material they do not like, and to provide data about their users. Google took a welcome step toward transparency last week when it unveiled a new tool that reports on both of these kinds of requests." NY Times editorial. So frelling awesome! Should be ported to iPhone/clones any minute now.

So much for mobile blogging

WHY ARE PEDOPHILIA-HIDING, CHILD-ABUSING CHURCH FATHERS ALLOWED TO WRITE LAWS ABOUT WOMEN'S BODIES?  

seems to cover it in a nutshell, but the AlterNet article is behind the link.

I just spent 20 minutes wandering around my house mumbling wow, WOW,
wow!!   Gonzalo and his German girlfriend resurrected my house, so to
speak: cleaned, rearranged do dads and knick nacks, furniture, all the
misc. crap from Carmen/Crystal's room,  etc.!!! Martina and Lilly Rose
are ensconced*   in their usual spots on the bed; Shere Khan is playing
hard to get at the moment, but she will come to the lap as soon as I
'make' one.   (well, the spell checker doesn't seem to know 'esconsed'
so I STILL don't know how to spell it. But WAIT - there's a dictionary
right here on my computer table !!-  but NO again - not in there unless
my spelling is really wildly off - I give up)  *but of course it is - and
Blogger.com was able to come up with the right spelling!  Although it was unable to accept the AlterNet  spelling of women's, offering woman's, w omen's etc. I've told it to add to the dictionary: maybe after a log off it will cope.

As for mobile blogging - just didn't have enough time in between flights to continue it.

Had a wonderful week at Linda's doing no work - , watching those amazing kids, driving - rather, being driven - around SW Florida where everything is 45 min. away from where you are right now. We went to a large predator (mostly big cats) rescue place, where you could begin to feel sorry for the critters in their cages, until you read their stories and discover what hell holes most of them came from.

Went to church where the preacher reminded me that "It's not all about YOU."  Got to hear Robb and associates play and sing a bunch of songs/hymns - the better part of the morning.
Oh yeah. And got myself kicked by the horse - Rainey - who was determined to get at that bucket of feed I was carrying.  Nice bruise on my right thigh.  I was gonna say "upper thigh" but it covers pretty much the whole thing! A humbling experience.

I finally get a chance to blog from the phone! Might need to learn how to use The t9 or whatever they call the auto complete thingy

It's all fixed. . .part 200 or so

Daniel Ellsberg on "Democracy Now. Be sure to note the related headlines at the bottom.

I have to imagine that the MIC (military industrial complex - thanks Ike!) has Obama by the nuts in some kinda way, to cause him to ignore 5,000 years of history in Afghanistan - (sheesh, we're history blind over here). USSR-10 years, no cigar! umpteen invasions over umpteen centuries, nada. The PTB redrawing the map of the world in their image. "History is written by the winners." Imagine, given what we do know, what the real story would be. I hope I come back as an animal (maybe I should chose a non-endangered species) .

and here's a bit more on that subject from the NY Times

It's All Fixed, and You Can't Change It Pt.II. .

or, Change You Can Believe In? redux.

From AlterNet:

"On March 4th, Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman introduced a bill called the "Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010"

Half way down the first page, is this heart-breaker:

"Now, however, as president, Obama has helped pave the way for such radical legislative efforts as the one introduced by McCain and Lieberman, by embracing -- and re-branding -- the military commissions he once opposed."

and concludes:

"A close reading of the bill suggests it would allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely in the U.S. based on suspected activity."

This is a defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Where's the outrage? And will it come before it's too late?

I wish I said that !

Another awesome from top to bottom Mark Morford SF Gate column.

I'm tired. YC's quasi-functional computer / software continues to make me CRAZZZZY ier by the minute. By the end of my 3rd straight day, I'm pounding the table top and hollering a lot. "I used to be so good at this job," is my frequent lament. SW has always been not quite professional (imagine a data base that crashes if more than one user opens the same file - an item that elicits howls of laughter from the cognizant.) but as it has been "updated" incrementally over the years, it now approaches the perfect pie crust.

A lovely Cat story

by VERLYN KLINKENBORG for the NY Times Linked above, but I am reproducing most of it, because I love the mood it puts me into (into which etc., . . .)

" For wildlife, there are cats. In fact, I seem to be living in a feline observatory. Large windows look out onto the porch, and the porch seems to have been used — for how long, I have no idea — by the cats of the neighborhood as a kind of theater, a place to work on their soliloquies. One by one, they come across the yard and up onto the porch, where they rehearse a fixed repertory of poses. Then they make their exit, stage left, departing through a small gap between the gate and the fence.

I cannot see these cats — I’ve counted nearly a dozen so far — without thinking of a sentence by the writer Guy Davenport: “My cat does not know me when we meet a block away from home, and I gather from his expression that I’m not supposed to know him, either.”

Perhaps that’s the value of my backyard as feline habitat. It’s a college-owned house, and it sat empty for the past few months. I’m unknown to these cats, and therefore they put on no pretense. Perhaps some are genuinely feral street cats. I suspect most of them have good homes with owners who let their pets out. My yard is where they come to be themselves.

I especially admire one nimbus-gray cat that comes walking across the yard looking as much like a feline bull as it is possible to look. I’m fond, too, of the longhair that spends a good part of the day sitting on top of the van parked across the street but takes a tour of my backyard around dusk. I stand back from the windows, hoping to remain undetected, but at least one of the cats — a gray and white — has found me out. It sits watching me as though it has never seen a writer in its habitat before. Then it walks away, jaded.

I would trade these cats for birds, of course, but the one precludes the other. I’ve seen a flicker and a scrub jay, also a hummingbird and several doves. The rest of the birds have been turned into cats over the years, just as the desert has been turned into houses with cats in them. Meanwhile, the neighborhood dogs stand behind their fences and bark at what they think is going on."

Oh, those imaginative puppies! Another whole tangent to drift into . . .(ibid)

depression

if I don't start soon, I'll continue to sink farther and farther into the slough of despond. I've always liked that phrase. I cannot sleep right. went to sleep at 0300. or rather, lay down then. still awake when the TV went into its 0400 reset. I was making endless movies on my eyelids. people i didn't know places I'd never been, viewing them totally outside of my body - i'm just not involved.

so i'm up again at 0730. oh yeas, and I've got some mysterious belly ache for 3 or 4 days. feels like gas that can't get out. no matter what i eat, it sits there and hurts. if I stand up and walk, i'm able to belch much of the pain away.

i'm so profoundly depressed, i can barely get out of bed. i manage to make it to scheduled events - like my JOB fircrissakes, two out of three days, most weeks. to the symphony, with effort.
I need to make an appointment with the cardio doc. - have needed to since October. I need to call medicare again and see if they've straightened out the "she has kaiser NO I DON'T" problem.. I could go to my local clinic if i knew this - and could convince them of this

i desperately need to get my house cleaned. i have a little cash, i could hire someone. the kicker here is that so much of the mess is insurance and medicare papers, and other personal junk probably from5 years back which absolutely requires my participation. same for the yard I've been meaning to call Mary Ho for both the dog and cleaning help. Just like the October time since when I should have called the doctor. I DESPERATELY need to have a dog keeper set up I can call if/when I'm hospitalized. Last time around, seems Leah has decided I'm too much trouble. I got no response asking them to go open the door for the dog. My amazing puppy lasted 17 hours I went to work at 2230 -straight to the hospital where I stayed all day getting the atrial fibrillation under control - receiving an increase in the medication that was already making me depressed as fuck. I got home around 1700 and the floor was still dry.
When I lay down this mooring at 0300, I felt really pretty bad, and I noticed that Martina made herself especially available to cuddle, so i could rest my head on her and my arm what a fine puppy. and that's another thing my poor baby hasn't been to the park in two weeks. I've GOT to get out of the house.

Every day I expect to feel better tomorrow. Every tomorrow I'm still a day older and feeling closer to death

The next great depression is only a moment away

Greece is almost in default. Japan is in massive deflation. Spain is putting new austerity measures in place. Much of Europe (see last article) is struggling to maintain solvency. Might be time to buy gold. Without looking it up, I'd guess the price of Au is well past $1,000 an ounce now. Wish I had some

So many fat cats getting fatter by eating all the fish. We've almost come full circle to the days when the rulers took all the production and left the serfs to starve. So the serfs got educated, took over the rule of law, and saw government as 'benevolent rulers,' supposedly doling out benefits paid for by the tax on their production. The big cats want most of the fish, so they pay for a rule of law that exempts them from taxation and responsibility. The biggest cats soon owned all the fish.

It's all fixed and you can't change it

Once again, a line from a rock song sez it all. read the story - the whole thing.

"I don't pretend to understand much about how derivatives work or what hedge fund managers do, but I've been watching the ups and downs of Apple's stock price long enough to recognize a pattern when I see it.

This one was a classic slingshot, described succinctly by Jason Schwarz in his seminal Apple: Seven Reasons Shorts Love It:

"If you can keep a good stock down," he wrote, "then you are able to load up for the ride back up. It's like a slingshot — the harder you pull, the more propulsion you generate." "

Whence?

"I won't die. Of that I am all but certain. My life is too contingent to lead to anything so absolute as death. No doubt I will eventually fade away and be lost in oblivion, as I would have done long ago if the poet hadn't summoned me into existence. Perhaps I will become a false dream clinging like a bat to the underside of the leaves of. . ."

Got to find where this comes from . . . an ending quote from a recent Jon Carroll column.

Ursula Le Guin - new novel, "Lavinia." Le Guin picks a bit player out of Virgil's epic poem, "The Aeneid," and builds that character's story into its own epic.

Le Guin learned Latin in her 70's to read Virgil in the original. Today's lesson