Tasty.

 

by wrapping them carefully in foil and placing them gently in a nice hot oven.

Only you can prevent forest fires - by smoking pot.

 

Screen clipping taken: 2/6/2012 7:08 PM

 

It's so sad when federal agencies try to be cool.  Really?  "Get your Smokey on?"  Wrong in so many ways.

So tired of "libertarianism."

Since government (in the abstract/general sense) is simply the instantiation of the social contract, it's not possible to hate government (in the abstract/general sense) without being a masochist or a sociopath. One can hate a certain government, absolutely -- but it's incumbent upon whoever CLAIMS to do so (it's in fact quite rare, though claims to it are common) to first understand that government, as well as his and all his fellow citizens' legitimate interest in it. That's no small task. Nor is it one that I've found many self-proclaimed "libertarians" to have successfully tackled.

OCR on the Android: Google Goggles, Google Docs, Mobile OCR Free, Evernote

If you're an avid note-taker when you read, you know how useful OCR (optical character recognition) is. On the desktop side of things, Adobe Acrobat works brilliantly, though there are many cheap/free alternatives. If you're reading a printed book or magazine and want to grab a paragraph to add to your notes, you can always scan it and use powerful desktop OCR -- but what a pain! How nice if you could just snap the excerpt you wanted with your smartphone and boom, have the text (not some big photo of it!) ready to paste into a document or an e-mail. I tried a few programs & below are the results, worst (for OCR) to best.

Not actually OCR: Google Goggles, Evernote

I don't understand the fuss about Google Goggles as an OCR tool: it doesn't work well as one. Its OCR is so-so, but the real deal-killer is that, when Goggles recognizes the source of some text (e.g. the book it comes from), it doesn't OCR the text you're trying to capture; instead, it redirects you to that book's page on Google Books. Goggles is OK for running web searches on things you can snap pictures of, but it's not an OCR program. Evernote isn't either. While it will allegedly OCR text in photos you put into an Evernote note, you can't really get AT that text. It's used for making text in images searchable, and works only on images you copy to Evernote's server -- i.e. not on local notebooks.

Not-bad OCR: Google Docs

Google Docs is a true OCR solution. You install the Google Docs app on your phone, and it includes an option that lets you create a new online doc from a photo, automatically OCR-ing text that's in the photo. Its recognition accuracy is so-so. Below is what Google Docs did with a photo of a block of text from Sam Harris' 2010 book The Moral Landscape; I highlighted the OCR errors in red.

The framework of a moral landscape guarantees that many people will have flawed conceptions of morality, just as many people have Hgwcd conceptions of physics. Some people think "physics" includes (or validates) practices like astrology, voodoo, and homeopathy. These people arc, by all appearances, simply wrong about physics. ln the United States. a majority ofpeoplc (57 percent) believe that preventing homosexuals from marrying is a "moral" imperative." However. if this belief rests on a flawed sense of how we can maximize our well-being, such people may simply be wrong about morality. And the Fact tha: millions of pcoplc use the term "morality" as ai synonym For religious dogmatism, racism, sexism. or other failures of insight and compassion should not oblige us to merely accept their terminology until the end of time.

Near-perfect OCR: Mobile OCR Free

Mobile OCR Free is available here on the Android Market. A $5 paid version adds more languages and removes a splash screen. It had by far the best accuracy of any OCR program for the Android -- near-perfect. It has a bare-bones interface. The app has no built-in camera, so you can't de-skew or crop an image in it; you have to do that in your camera/gallery program, which isn't too hard. Like Google Docs, the app requires a network connection; it uses powerful servers on the web, and not your phone's puny processor, to do the OCR. Its OCR accuracy is much better than that of Google Docs, and it kicks back your result in a much simpler and more usable form: a plain block of text with a "copy text to clipboard" button, letting you paste it wherever you want. Here's how Mobile OCR Free handled the exact same text photo from that Sam Harris book (with the one error highlighted):

The framework of a moral landscape guarantees that many people
will have flawed conceptions of morality, just as many people have
flawed conceptions of physics. Some people think "physics" includes (or
validates) practices like astrology, voodoo, and homeopathy. These peo-
ple are, by all appearances, simply wrong about physics. In the United
States, a majority of people (57 percent) believe that preventing homo-
sexuals from marrying is a "moral" imperative. * However, if this belief
rests on a flawed sense of how we can maximize our well-being, such
people may simplv be wrong about morality. And the fact that millions
of people use the term "morality" as a synonym for religious dogma-
tism, racism, sexism, or other failures of insight and compassion should
not oblige us to merely accept their terminology until the end of time.

The photo these two programs were OCR-ing from was nothing special: medium resolution, so-so contrast, slightly uneven lighting and a decent bit of skew/warp. Here 'tis:

Occupy and our role as well-educated, privileged culture-leaders

So many of my friends are super-smart, well-educated -- if "privileged" isn't the right word, then maybe educationally "fortunate." I want to say to all of them -- to us -- what I said to a few such friends earlier today:

"Let's folks like us put our heads together to improve our great nation. That's all I'm sayin'. In many respects, especially education, we're the 1%. As such, it's our duty to our country to share good information, to develop smart solutions and to take a bit of time to advocate them. This isn't like a campaign season, where we do our duty by saying Yes to some guy's platform. This is a grassroots-movement season -- a sea-change season -- and as such it's as close as we ever get to the direct democracy that's the gleam in the eye of our representative republic. It's amazing. It's a big deal. It's not business as usual. So whatever side of the fence you're on, let's put aside our normal knee-jerk reactions, put on our thinking caps and step up to the plate. Friends, our country's calling us -- truly asking us, for the first time in our lives, for wise guidance. Let's answer."

 

Occupy and the homeless

Like Occupations everywhere, we in Athens have had homeless people of all types join our scene. Some are nutters; others, like the guy who's in my tent right now, worked for decades and lost their jobs in the recession. BOTH types ABSOLUTELY deserve to be represented; they've been a lot harder-hit than privileged folks like me.

They're also a crucial part of the community building that's central to the Occupy movement. Privileged folks like me have a lot to learn from them. I walked such a lady to her "home" from our Occupation camp last night. Her home's a tent in the woods in a park near my house. She needed someone to walk her home because another homeless guy who lives in those woods has been raping homeless women. He's had the cops called on him a few times, but as you can imagine, law enforcement's difficult in that community: nobody's got phones or fixed addresses, lots of folks have mental or substance-abuse problems. This lady's been homeless only for a month or so; she's been mugged, her camp's been raided and she's been physically threatened repeatedly. This is a church-going lady who doesn't read and write so well but has worked every day in her life -- she's in her 50s -- until recently. No lock on her door; no door.

If Occupy looks unsightly because it's got folks like her handing out pamphlets, great: I'm GLAD these folks, for this brief instant, aren't living in the shadows.

 

Open letter to Jeremy Bird, i.e. Barack

I constantly get these letters from Jeremy Bird at BarackObama.com asking for support. Here's what I just told him:

Dear Jeremy:

I’m one of those many people who were passionate about Obama in 2008 and aren’t now. You want my support? Have Barack come out in favor of the Occupy movement, which is where my political energy and dollars are going. Give us camping rights at federal buildings nationwide. Post a federal peace officer at every camp to help us and help local police maintain safety. Have Barack go on TV and condemn the mayors who are closing us down. Have Barack support our calls for electoral reform, lobbying reform, tax reform. Have him come out as our champion. I’m the 99%, and if Barack fights for me, I’ll fight for him. If not, I’ll continue fighting — alongside my fellow Americans and in the street if necessary — for the CHANGE he promised us.

 

Patrick Denker, Ph.D.

Robert E. Park Fellow

Department of English

University of Georgia, Athens

http://www.facebook.com/pdenker

 

Pretty things.

Ah yes: hearts, butterflies and instruments for torturing/executing people.

Letter to a Young Atheist: or, A Plea for Premises (scientific evidentiary rationalism)

The inimitably refined Michael Long and I were having a conversation about atheism — specifically, conversion experiences and conditions and so forth. Michael (who, apropos of nothing, happens to be one of the most thoughtful young men I’ve ever had the pleasure to know), observed that a catalyst of some sort was always or almost-always required for/in a conversion experience. He went on to opine:

“I think the human mind usually take the path of least resistance. If there is no conflict, internal or external, why change one's opinion? (in most cases).”

Which got me thinking.

It’s obviously true, in a general way: that humans, like all life-forms produced by natural selection — like basically all natural processes, really — follow this path-of-least-resistance policy. But of course, one unique feature of the human mind is our capacity to self-generate resistance — our creativity — the extent (sometimes slight, sometimes not) to which our "reality" is a matter of perception, of ideology. For example, so many of us who self-identify as “atheist,” it seems, have these notions like "rationality" and/or "evidence" stuck in our heads, to the extent that they become moral values — elements of conscience, really — that sting us when we fall short and (equally importantly) give us pleasure when we attain. No rocket science here; it’s the way that any ideal operates, in us atheists no differently than in the most ardent theist. We simply have different Jesuses, as it were. We share, with some Christians, “Jesuses” (ideals) about charity, compassion and human value. With others not: a small number of Ayn-Rand-type atheists don’t share these egalitarian humanist ideals, and many theists don’t. Where we most differ is in regard to science and evidentiary reason as ideals rather than intuition, tradition or personal or (most of all) scriptural authority.

It’s true, isn’t it? Ardent atheists don’t become so out of habit, any more so than ardent theists do. They’re both costly philosophical orientations to occupy. They’re hardly paths of least resistance; we ardent a/theists constantly encounter all sorts of resistance, as any ardent theist or atheist would easily tell you. We maintain these a/theistic commitments, of course, out of allegiance to these more basic ideals: allegiances to evidentiary reasoning and science for atheists, and allegiances to scripture and priestly authority for theists.

If that’s so, maybe an effective way to proselytize atheism is not to address theism directly, as we so often tend to do, but rather to promote these other sorts of values: rationalism, realism, respect for evidence, respect for science. Plant THOSE in a mind and they'll do their work, of their own accord and in their own time. So often — I feel safe in saying almost always — this isn’t at all how we atheists proselytize. Instead, we take our value-premises for granted, and assuming them, launch critiques of theistic behavior: “ha ha Belief X is so irrational; ha ha Belief Y is so woefully contradicted by science …”

This should be familiar to any atheist; she could fill in these Xs and Ys with dozens of particulars. It’s our bread and butter. And hopefully it would annoy atheists to realize that it’s no different than the proselytizing strategies of our theist opponents: they start from unquestioned basic value premises about scriptural and pastoral authority and critique us, as we do them, for being wildly out-of-line with the premise.

So to repeat the practical call to arms, then, with a thought experiment. What if we herded cats in the atheist/agnostic segment of society — an expanding segment, today, according to news reports — what if, overnight, we quit playing “gotcha” games and party politics and instead made a concerted and constant case for the basic values that bind us together? Ideals about evidentiary reasoning and the adequacy of science to explain basic natural processes? I mean, who among us, theist or atheist, wouldn’t at least verbally endorse such ideals? OF COURSE it’s common that people actually DON’T — that in practice they DON’T accept that an argument with 10 pieces of evidence supporting it “beats,” in some very real way, an argument with one piece of evidence supporting it. OF COURSE irrationality is as common in mainstream American culture as the common cold (and similarly viral); there are instances of it in our headlines every day: of Birthers, of Hussein (or the CIA) behind 9/11, of god sending hurricanes to Florida to kill gays, of “keep government out of my Medicare,” of “evolution is ‘just’ (like everything in science) a theory,” of every word that comes out of Sarah Palin’s mouth. Irrationality is becoming (or, I think, has become) the lingua franca of American culture, of course — in practice. But in theory, everyone knows this is wrong. Atheists and theists alike. It’s too basic; it’s too obvious that, ultimately, irrationality will get you killed. Jump off a building and you’ll fall. Print money and you’ll have inflation. Pray to cure disease and you’ll stay sick. If I had a nickel for every so-called theist I meet who says “Yeah, but of course I believe in science” I’d be rich, and if I had one for every theist who said “No, I deny that reasons or evidence have any validity” I’d be broke.

If we all stopped making fun of the CONSEQUENCES of religious belief and instead promoted our better premises — premises which almost all theists themselves at least pay lip service to — would that make a difference? It certainly might, no? Imagine how many people could get on board: every fence-sitter, every wishy-washy spiritual-but-not-religious agnostic deist, every rational adult. The challenge, for atheists, is to shift the conversation: not just to focus on and promote the ideals of “evidentiary reason and a respect for scientific explanations of physical phenomena” — what a mouthful! — but to find the better terminology to name these things, these secular and damn-near-universal ideals, these Jesuses. Simple names to name concepts that everyone, in some basic way, understands and embraces. And heck, maybe a logo, too, and why not! Logos work: cross, star, crescent, yin-yang.

So let’s talk terminology.

I think it’s safe if not obvious to say that we as a free-thinking community have made, thus far, very few attempts to do this, and that those attempts (like Dawkins’ red “A”) have failed. The short-hand almost all of us use for our beliefs — “a-theism” or “non-theism” — also fails, for obvious reasons: it’s a perfect enactment of the problem of defining ourselves according to the wrong level of the conversation, i.e. to theism rather than to evidentiary reason and natural science. “Scientism” was a popular term for a while, back in the late 19^th and early 20^th century, but it came to mean a fetishistic, positivist view of science and thus (rightly) fell out of favor. “Reason”-based terms like “rationalist” and “rationalism” were also popular throughout the 18^th-20^th centuries, but came to mean different and often utterly contradictory things — in large part because they were never consistently wedded to the very particular and concrete Enlightenment concept of an evidentiary reason wedded to natural-scientific explanations of physical phenomena. Today, “scientist” is a professional affiliation, and the term “reason” is as likely to appear as an insult (as in “to rationalize,” i.e. to generate false or irrelevant reasons for something) as a compliment (“rational”). And of course there’s the 18^th century’s lovely sounding “free-thinker,” which a lot of us love because it sounds so nice — and it too utterly fails, since it a) means nothing and b) doesn’t refer, again, to the central premises (reason & science) that ground it.

But make no mistake, fellow free-thinkers: it’s that same old mantra — respect for evidentiary reason and respect for scientific explanations of physical phenomena, two methods working inseparably — that’s our Jesus. And if we’re going to get traction in the public sphere and save our culture from its descent into insane, anything-goes irrationalism, we had goddamn well better find some way to “nail the concept,” as they say in advertising, of that mantra. So what’s it to be? “Scientific rationalism”? That certainly hits the concept, but it’s hardly a nail. “Hi, I’m a scientific rationalist.” People in years past have often tried to use “realist” and “naturalist” as simpler or catchier stand-ins, but again, the problem with those sharper nails is that they miss the concept. Theists are damn sure realists: realists who realistically base their beliefs on the premise of a real god who really wrote the blah blah blah. And “nature”-derived terms were too nature-bound and thus easily morphed into “naturalism” (the false premise that physical nature = moral good) or “naturalist” (one who loves trees and plants).

What’s in a name? Maybe it’s not important. “Christian” and “Taoist” and “Buddhist” nail their concepts, but “Jew” and “Muslim” don’t. Maybe the name doesn’t matter, and what instead matters is the intellectual cohesion of the group — the extent to which its members clearly see their uniting premises and can simply and effectively communicate them — to each other and to others. History would indicate that that’s how it works: that the community of belief comes first and the name gets applied post-facto. If that’s so, then maybe the unlovely term “scientific, evidentiary rationalist” is fine, and catchy nicknames unimportant. Regardless: scientific, evidentiary reason had better be something that we “atheists” or “free-thinkers” or “what-you-will” can understand and talk about as clearly and as compellingly as a Christian saying “Jesus loves you and died for your sins” — whatever the hell THAT, when you think about it, means.

You’d think that, in comparison to the cross-eyed mollycoddle of theology, we’d have been better able, by now, to make a more persuasive case in the public sphere. We haven’t, I think, because we’re making a case for basic notions that are already obvious and accepted by most human beings. Perversely, it’s precisely the absurd falsity of theological premises that makes them so easy to frame. Compare the statement “all motion in the universe is relative to the speed of light” to “everything’s relative”: one’s a profoundly true statement about space and time pretty much anywhere in the universe, and is also meaningless to most people; the other’s meaningless hogwash and makes perfect sense. Our challenge as atheists/freethinkers/&c. is that we have to take a similarly profoundly true and universal (in human experience) concept and express it, if we’re going to do more than preach to the choir, and express it in terms that everyone can understand.

So here's my proposal. It's horrible, but it's a starting place. I propose "scientific evidentiary rationalism" as, if not a movement nickname or anything anyone would use to self-identify, then merely a concise way to express "our" (if I may presume) fundamental uniting premises. How would I explain this "scientific evidentiary rationalism" to the average whomever? I'd say:

Ha! Yeah, I'm a "scientific evidentiary rationalist," I guess, and you know what? I'll bet you are too. No, really. Yes, it's a mouthful -- but it's just a complicated and precise name for something very simple: a three-part way of thinking. About anything, really. Those three "parts" are premises -- basic, fundamental assumptions. It means they're ideals -- that they're true, or OUGHT to be, of everything we say. And they're simply that:

1. "Scientific." We accept that scientific explanations are the right way to explain physical phenomena. All this means is that, if something happens in the physical world -- the world of stuff made from particles and chemicals -- then scientific methods are the right methods to use to talk about that stuff. Example:

If Joe says that the theory of evolution by natural selection is wrong and basically everyone in the life sciences (biology, geology, etc.) says it's right, Joe's wrong, and the only way he'll ever be right is to prove his case in the life-sciences community. Period.

2. "Evidentiary." We accept that you can't just make up reasons for something and expect anyone to accept those reasons. You have to give evidence to support them. Example:

Joe says "Humans never landed on the Moon; it was faked." We ask for his evidence; he says: "I don't know; I read that somewhere." In the meantime, we can provide TONS of hard physical evidence (see Rule #1) that the Apollo missions were real and that people really did walk (and hit golf balls) on the Moon. Until Joe comes up with MORE evidence than ours, he's wrong. Period.

3. "Rationalism." We accept another notion, so basic it's often overlooked: that yes, you really do have to provide reasons to support claims you make! You can't just make a claim and expect people to accept it without your saying why it's true. This hardly needs an example, but here it is:

Joe says "The Moon's made of cheddar cheese." We say: What makes you say that, Joe? Joe frowns. "I don't have to give you reasons. What I say is so. You're wrong if you disagree and you're wrong to demand reasons from me." Joe's a jerk, period.

It's just two concepts, really -- or ought to be, since if you accept the necessity of "evidence," then "reason" should go without saying. Another way to put it might be:

1. Feeling that one owes evidence to support one’s claims rather than accepting “whatever” — i.e. “fuck you” — as valid reasoning.

2. Relying on scientific explanations for physical phenomena rather than accepting “I haven’t learned, therefore it’s not so.”

That's what I'd say! Or something along those lines. And there, I've said it.

Obama's "long-form" birth certificate released

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/obamas-long-form-birth-certificate-released/?hp

 

We’ll see what good it does.  Remember, when he wasn’t stockpiling WMDs, Saddam Hussein planned 9/11.  Or was that the Jews? 

 

When more than 50% of Americans believe in the literal existence of fairies and demons, what do you expect?  Up is down, black is Wednesday, right is LOL.  Orwell: so right about the cataclysm, so wrong about the cause!

Learning from spam.

Interesting how spam, despite its million guises, seems to have four primary targets: 1) people who believe in free money, 2) people who are insecure about their penises, 3) people who are illiterate and 4) Christians.

_______________________________

Re: My Dear Beloved in the Lord!!!!!!!!!

When my late husband was Alive he deposited the sum of ($18,000,000.00 USD) Eighteen Million United States Dollars with a Bank in England whose name is witheld Until we open up communication,this money is still with the Bank till date.

Following my ill health, my Doctor told me that i may not last for the next Couple Of Months due to My cancer problem. the one that disturbs me most is my inability to move Around and Having known my condition I decided to donate this fund to a Charitable organization or a Trusted Person that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein,according to the desire of my late husband Before his death. I don't want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly Way.This is why I am taking this decision. I am not afraid of death Hence I know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the Bossom of theLord. Exodus 14 VS 14 says that "the lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace". I don't need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health hence the presence of my husband's relatives around me always.I don't want them to know about this development and i want you to know that With God all things are possible.

Sunset with electric chairs.

You could almost forget that they’re for executing people.

ATHENS IS A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE BECAUSE

— mosquitoes, fire ants, black widows, brown recluses, scorpions, rattlesnakes, copperheads, Pentecostals: what poisonous vermin do we lack?  Sure, Alaska has grizzly bears AND Sarah Palin.  But we’ve got Stone Mountain, birthplace of the KKK and home to the Confederate Mt. Rushmore.  Top THAT, Mama Grizzly!

ATHENS IS A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE BECAUSE

San Francisco is just a dream in the collective consciousness of humanity.

ATHENS IS A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE BECAUSE

one well-placed suitcase nuke and boom, there goes football.

ATHENS IS A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE BECAUSE

every spring, the trees spew their yellow sexual reproductive cells onto every square millimeter of the city. It's a sexy place to be a tree. Plus they can own themselves.

ATHENS IS A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE BECAUSE

it's the city that'd vote Paul Broun out of office if it weren't in a district gerrymandered to include Phoenix, Uzbekistan and Hell.

 

ATHENS IS A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE BECAUSE

it's barely a five-minute drive from scoring crack on East Broad to a prostitute on Hancock, and you can stop for a latte at Starbucks midway.

 

Video updates

Some old videos, like “20 in 20,” updated: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvAc6L5qqmg

 

And a few new, but just little trinkets (for now): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA2BR_IpgGg

Old friend, borrow-and-spend! You weren't gone long.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/us/politics/05rules.html

Barely seated and the big-deficit, credit-card Republicans are at it again with their economic policy of, rather than tax-and-spend, borrow-and-spend.  Referring to the new House rule that caps spending by requiring spending-cut offsets for any new expenses legislated.  Great!  Except there’s an exception for the health care repeal bill that they want to pass, which will create billion$ of new spending by killing the deficit-REDUCING healthcare reform act. 

So the new Republican contract with America: no more borrow-and-spend! — except for really expensive things.  Or anything we really want.  Or anything we can’t pay for because it’s such stupid economic policy.  Hey, maybe we can re-deregulate financial markets so that we can have another round of speculation and economic collapse!  Hell, the Great Recession, that was what — two years ago?  Four?  Who remembers that far back?