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Ye Old Scribe Presents: Retort

by Ye Olde Scribe on Wed, Mar 10, 2010

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“Challenging traitors who believe ‘tort’ goes out the window when no due process is convenient.”

Liz Cheney vs. al Qaeda 7…

“whose values do they share?”

Scribe’s retort..

“American values. And you and your father?”

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Ye Olde Scribe Presents: Finally, THE TRUTH!

by Ye Olde Scribe on Wed, Mar 10, 2010

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“Truth telling more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap buildings in a single bound, able to shove a giant shive into fat, over-bloated, Reich Wing egos.”

Anyone else think a party filled with leaders willing to strip people of HUMAN rights, but gives corporation more rights than any human on the planet, is filled with traitors and corporate shills?

-A-non-E-Moose

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Inspection- Of Rats and Their Ship

by Ken Carman on Mon, Mar 8, 2010

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“Our next President: 2013?”

Image courtesy tombsofkobol.com

Last week’s column has solidified into a flood of Politico Breaking News updates slamming my mailbox. Does God read Inspection? Probably not, but I think my own premise of the Dems losing big in November has a lot more gravitas now. Everyone knows about the proverbial rats leaving a sinking ship. Frankly, in this case, I think the comparison is a little backwards. I think Democratic pols know the rats are about to storm the ship and retake control… they’re just getting the hell out of the way. All those prosecutors Bush installed and judges are eager to help the rats as much as possible: willing to find anything they can threaten Dem pols with.

It reminds me of a voice my wife and I heard when we went parking back in the Flintstone days, when we were young and dating. Dead end road; and abandoned Victorian in the distance. The motor was probably still warm, and we weren’t even starting to get hot, when we both heard a voice say…

“Get out! Get out. Get out!!!

We listened. And I think our politicians are listening too, only these aren’t “ghosts.” They’re the same demons that brought us to where we were when Barack Obama ran for the presidency.

Who’s abandoning ships to the rats? Well, every day I have received two or more “Breaking News” reports, and they look just like this…

“Representative William Delahunt (D-Mass.) will not seek reelection, the Boston Globe is reporting.”

Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) plans to resign his House seat on Monday.

All Democrats. Not a single stinking Republican in the lot. I think they see a huge wave coming. I can’t say I’m unhappy each and everyone is leaving: there are some big losers in the bunch. The problem is I don’t see a lot of great viable replacements, and I do see the Right rallying.

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The News Pauper: The Next Crash

by W.B. Dunne on Thu, Mar 4, 2010

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By W.B. Dunne

The News Pauper begs everyone’s pardon for his slackery. It is merely the fact that he is B.R.O.K.E., as in poor, and has been forced to hustle like a bowery boy to heat his hearth and get a little in his stomach. I have not started to sell off my little sundries for scraps as of yet, but it is imminent. I am not alone…a friend is surviving this crap by living in his car and calling a forty-dollar day scavenging for change on the street lucrative.

The News Pauper knows what is lucrative…stealing an entire country’s wealth by rigging a Florida election and installing a president with the help of a crooked Supreme Court…throw in the approbation of a lapdog media, and before we know it we’re starting a devastating illegal war, and terrorizing all of America and the world with torture and outright murder.

In the eyes of the NP, this is just the start.

The meme in the media is that Obama is simply blaming everything on Bush. There is much more to this than meets the eye. Everything that Obama does carries much more authority because he was actually in fact elected! The righty media have done all they can to question the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency…they attempt to inflict the thousand cuts in any and every way they can. But, as is always the case with these asses, it is really a mass exercise in projection. This is all proof to the NP that they know that their guy was illegitimate, and that their entire platform is a farce.

There is a startling rumble in the ground that is guaranteed to knock the earth off its axis; it is called the collapse of the commercial real estate market. We proles will be taken out by the millions. The power grubbers have set it up to coincide with the midterms this fall. Any piece of news will be framed to blame the current administration. By October there will be such an astounding degree of misery in the streets that it will be a miracle if there are not widespread riots. I think that the increase of off-account militias and violent rhetoric spreaders like Beck and Limbaugh will present a particular problem to legitimate law enforcement because any action they take against these rebels will be distorted into a message that is already positioned…namely, that Obama wants to disarm the populace and enslave them all.

It has always been the opinion of the NP that if one needs to know what the right is planning for our future, all that is necessary for one to do so is to look at what they are accusing the opposition of doing. If this is really the case, they have big plans indeed. One needs only to spend a minute or two with the purveyors of the propaganda to be greeted with the images of concentration camps, slavery, the complete abolition of the social gains of the twentieth century, and the spectre of the basics of humanity being reserved only for the rulers of us all.

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Pigs in Hell

by Ana Grarian on Wed, Mar 3, 2010

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Herd About It?

by Ana Grarian

I was doing a Google search for a book I wanted to read and this image came up as a result. Who the hell would treat pigs like this? Pigs are wonderful social animals. They like to nuzzle and cuddle with each other. When raised traditionally they have a relationship with their caretakers. This is sick and disgusting! Please don’t eat anymore pork unless it is from a source that you can verify as humane. If you’d like to help in a peaceful, civil disobedience campaign, print this picture and leave it behind at grocery stores. Ooops, Ana Can’t tell you that, it might be against Veggie Libel laws. Write to the commercial companies that supply the stores and tell them you don’t want pork from this kind of facility. Ask your senators, representatives and state officials to ban this kind of abusive industrial ag.

Thank you to Sara Novak for the fine article at the link below,

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/04/grass-fed-pigs-and-human-health-safety.php

and to Seven Trees for a photo that brings home what factory farming really means.

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A Veggie’s Tale

by Ana Grarian on Tue, Mar 2, 2010

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Herd About It?
by Ana Grarian

Robert Kenner’s Oscar nominated film Food Inc., delved into how industrial food is hurting our health. At a hearing on labeling standards for cloned meats (did you know there were cloned meats?) he heard an industry representative say, it would not be in the consumer’s interest to have that information because it would be too confusing.

I’m confused. I’m confused that (A) somebody thought I would want to eat cloned meat, and (B) my government went along with them!

There is a term called “veggie libel”. The real term is “agricultural disparagement law” which says that anyone who makes a false statement about a perishable food or farm product must pay damages to those hurt financially by that statement. That sounds fair. I shouldn’t be able to go to a farmer’s market and claim falsely that Farmer Jane’s beets were sprayed with paint thinner. But these laws are being used in radical ways in something called SLAPP suits ( Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). Here are some examples from The Global Citizen:

Monsanto, sued several small dairies for advertising that their milk is BGH-free.
McDonalds sued two activists for claiming that Big Macs are unhealthy and harmful to the environment.
Big beef suing Oprah over a show about Mad Cow disease.

Most of these cases are dismissed and found for the defendant. The point of the law is to put the fear of being sued, into journalists and activists and citizen groups so that they won’t express legitimate concerns over food sources and products.Food products, through the corporations that concoct them have more power than the consumers. Where have we heard those concerns recently?

What I want to know is,”If your product is so good, why are you afraid to let me know what it is”?

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The Minor Mind

by minorwork on Mon, Mar 1, 2010

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Science is a crude invention. Quit reading and go out and do it. You’ll find out.

Does it help determine in a half hour phone call whether or not to bail a daughter from jail? Or how many days to let her stay there?  Three nights but not determined by science.

Economists, and geologists in the mine, are scientists in their respective fields. Both are good at telling why there was a fall but not so good at preventing it.

Does science help decide whether and when a son is to accelerate his fathers dying process?
What has the scientific method determined is the best way or even if to tell a brother his daughter is not his?
And can a person apply science’s methods on whether to advise, or not, a grandfather making his will as to which is his blood grandchildren?

Science is crude because it has no jurisdiction in areas of life.  Hell, how many are able to live without knowing what constitutes the scientific method?

Why is there something rather than nothing? Didn’t have that in physics or chemistry.

Consciousness then.  I forget what class covered its formation, structure, and classifications much less its contents.

Can science tell me what in the hell my wife was thinking when she blew up our car’s engine after continuing to drive, and faster at that, with no oil pressure?  Please science, help.

What is the correct scientifically engineered method to nullify religious fanaticism?

Here’s the most practical justification for calling it crude. 
I’ve pursued science and engineering in school and used, of necessity its methods for arriving at truth with practical problems on the job at the coal mine. I’ve found it my last choice to use in troubleshooting. Many other methods are superior by reason of time involved in their application compared to the scientific method. The scientific method is slow and crude in application when there are faster and more precise troubleshooting techniques available.  For example:

 Face boss runs up and tells me to get my tools the miner is down. What would the scientific method have me do? Question. Why doesn’t the miner come on when I press the start button? Educate. Consider the electrical schematic. Hypothesize. Wire has burnt in two, switch not closing, faulty hold in coil, bunch of other stuff. Test. Walk 4 crosscuts to the power center and lock and tag out the miner cable. Return to the miner and open up explosion proof panels (15 bolts each) on both sides of the miner to gain access to test points and start metering circuits. 30 minutes of testing fails several times to find a fault and finally a test reveals the stop button is open. The current must flow thru it to hold in the run circuit. Open it and the hold-in coil is de-energized thus cutting power to the pump motor. SUCCESS. Fix the stop button and close up the miner. Check the explosion proof covers with a .004 inch feeler gauge all around and it slides in. Take all the bolts back off and find a piece of dirt in the flamepath. Clean it and install door and recheck. Do the other panel door. Go back to the powerbox, unlock the plug of the miner cable, screw it back to the power receptacle. Pull the breaker on. It goes off with a bang and sparks. Son of a bitch. Do it again and it stays set. I’m the man. Get a paid lunch.

Two hours shot in the ass with the scientific method when one of the non-scientific methods would of got the problem fixed in less than 5 minutes at the most and still get a paid lunch. Science might get you the answer, but it is slow. Crude.  No I’m not gonna’ tell the quick way.  That’s job security and worth a lot in leverage. 

I have to admit that the scientific method will get the job done eventually if the quicker methods fail or do not apply given that the problem is amenable to the constraints of the scientific method in the first place. I made my own conditions at the mine on my understanding of the scientific method but I didn’t like to use it and was always my last choice.

The everyday questions that haunt me in relationship issues with family is where science sings like a pig. Another reason that I call it crude. Science considers and is concerned with things that are placed within its reach by being measurable. But there are more things not capable of being measured than those that are. Lots of stuff in the world that can’t be measured. How long did I fantasize about Jessica Alba’s or her double’s performances in Sin City in 2006? How am I supposed to get that info today? Carbon dating?

In a narrow aspect from Newtonian mechanics, to spooky quantum entanglements and teleportations, the accomplishments of science would be magic of the highest sort if viewed from the perspective of 2000 years ago. But improving life span to 77 years or so is not doing much considering what was done without science in the 3.5 billion years leading up to one of its breakthroughs with Galileo’s outlandish, (in a time of truth determination by the best debater’s view), technique of “contrived” tests. Science has not been necessary to evolutionary development.

And then there are applied sciences.  What does applied science even mean when psychology cannot squeeze itself thru the narrow door of real science without widening it with the sledgehammer of pharmacology? http://www.arachnoid.com/psychology/index.html

How convincing is science when only 32% of the public “Think that humans, other living things have evolved due to natural processes.”  http://people-press.org/report/528/

I’ve had a buttfull of this for now. Fun though.

 Science is crude due to its slow, paced, application in getting to knowledge. It is the best method to determine truth if you can’t use anything else and you can find an area in which it applies. Scientific theories are only “theoretically” 100% correct all the time until they’re proved wrong. Science’s limits are described in the engineers mantra “Cheaper, better, faster. Pick two.” Like the engineers mantra science has its limits and its applications are in a rather narrow field of endeavor in the human experience. The coal miner has no respect for the engineers mantra and is able to provide all three parameters in a solution. He is not bound by the scientific method alone. It is not only possible but preferable to avoid the scientific method. A crude invention.

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Over Whelming Odds

by Ana Grarian on Mon, Mar 1, 2010

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HERD ABOUT IT!
by Ana Grarian

What is the sensible thing to do in the face of overwhelming odds? As a Christian I was brought up to admire Bible characters such as: the boy David slaying Goliath with a sling shot; Meschach, Shadrach and Abednego going to the fiery furnace rather than deny their God, Christ going willingly to the cross, giving his life to save ours. In school I learned about Patriots who went against all odds to fight for their country. Movies and books portrayed the hero or heroine who stood up bravely against a bully or criminal.
I can remember clearly being shocked and confused in my 1st aid class when we were cautioned not to put our own lives in danger in order to save someone else. Wait a minute! Isn’t that what firemen, policemen and 1st responders do every day? Isn’t that their calling? Read on -- There is more »

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Inspection- Want to Make a Bet?

by Ken Carman on Mon, Mar 1, 2010

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It’s a gentleman’s bet; and I don’t mean that in a sexist way. No money. Lose or win, here is what I’m asking you to do if you disagree with me. You write something about your own predictions; post it or put it in the comments here. I’ll save any comments and this column. You save any predictions you post. If you don’t post anything on site then I can be reached at ken@ltsaloon.org. After the election, in November you write something regarding how wrong, and how right, you felt either of us were: I’ll do the same.

Our bet is about what will happen…

The day after election day: November, 2010.
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Ye Olde Scribe Presents More Spam

by Ye Olde Scribe on Sun, Feb 28, 2010

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wiki

“Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it… damn stuff.”

Spam from the great white North: no relation to Ollie…

December 8 – 6:00 PM

It started to snow. The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our cocktails and sat for hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses Print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love snow!

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