How about those Stamps?

As a follow up to a previous post, IT'S A DEAL, I am currently sitting at # 7. If you want to read the post from a few days ago to get more info, I would appreciate the help.

http://www.meetrobclark.com

Yep, that's a Mahler beaut - but(!) nothing can compare with *the moment* in the Fifth Movement of the Second Symphony - and if youse don't know what I mean, youse hasn't heard it!

More media masturbation
http://unclemeat.wordpress.com/2008/11/23/media-masturbation/

...strangely quiet on here regarding CFL football. Would the fact an ex-Rider QB wons it for Stamps?

hmmm

The question posits a situation where one *must* fake reality, either by expressing an untruth, or by concretely acting to promote the untruth of a mistake. Untruth has been put on the table by the questioner.

So, as far as I can see, this: "Pace the abstract, in any specific context, individuals will weigh the relative risk/reward tradeoffs between the available horns, and will choose that which appears more valuable, according to their personal axiological value functions" is ethically the only correct respons. It's exactly what ethical people *should* do. (Even if you ask for help, you can't properly act against your own best judgment).

Control and responsibility are corollaries--where one does not exist, both do not exist. You are responsible only for that which you can control, and errors of knowledge are not errors of morality. It's morally sufficient, then, to act according to your own best judgment and knowledge, just as you describe.

Well no. I think you have the whole business inverted. Intent (form) preceeds action(function).
How would you explain a noble action without assuming a noble intent. More to the point how would
you explain altruism.

Happened just last night:

CAIR Served With Fraud-Case Summons At Annual Dinner: Video

http://thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com/2008/11/cair-served-with-fraud-case-summons-at.html

November 24, 2008 – Washington, DC: Four clients of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have filed a federal civil complaint alleging criminal fraud and racketeering against CAIR, a self-described public interest civil rights law firm. The lawsuit also names CAIR’s national leadership as individual defendants.

The defendants were served with the complaint and summons to appear while attending the CAIR 14th Annual Dinner Sunday night in Arlington, Virginia. Congressman Ellison (D-Minn) was a guest speaker at this affair.

The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that Morris Days, the “Resident Attorney” and “Manager for Civil Rights” at the now defunct CAIR MD/VA chapter in Herndon, Virginia, was in fact not an attorney and that he failed to provide legal services for clients who came to CAIR for assistance and who had paid for CAIR legal services.

While attorney David Yerushalmi represents the four plaintiffs in this particular lawsuit, two of whom are African American Muslims, the complaint alleges that according to CAIR internal documents, there were hundreds of victims of the CAIR-Days fraud scheme.

Re: ... I don't think that our function is to be noble, I think that our function is to function. Posted by Vitruvius at November 24, 2008 12:01 AM

Yeah, but as an "aspergian", you would think that wouldn't you?

, and,
...strangely quiet on here regarding CFL football...

Posted by: tomax7 at November 23, 2008 11:09 PM

Yeah, haven't heard from Lance in quite awhile. I hope he's not sick or something.

Yay Stamps, Grey Cup Champs!

"Storytelling in danger, my foot. Where to begin in hurling clods of earth at this nonsense? First, take the issue of the distracting modern world. I bet someone thought the wheel was a distraction when it was invented, or that the quill pen was a shocking innovation – or that Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy would put paid to serious drama."
...-

"A tale of experts and nonsense

How fortunate we are to live in a such a wonderful world. A world in which storytelling is being kept safe by the combined might of Hollywood and the denizens of academe.

At MIT’s new “Centre for Future Storytelling”, we’re told, “a handful of faculty members – ‘principal investigators’, the university calls them – will join graduate students, undergraduate interns and visitors from the film and book worlds in examining, among other things, how virtual actors and ‘morphable’ projectors [which instantly change the appearance of physical scenes] might affect a storytelling process that has already been considerably democratised by digital delivery”.

Apparently these good folk are concerned because people are not going to see story-based films such as The Duchess – their chosen example – in large enough numbers. I offer a sneaky counter-argument that they are not going to see The Duchess because it’s rubbish."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5219853.ece

Spengler, Obama's one-trick wizards

One wants to ask the Wall Street wizards who comprise the talent pool for the incoming administration, "If you so smart, how come you ain't rich no more?"

...

These facts came to mind while reading David Brooks' November 21 New York Times panegyric to Obama's prospective cabinet, which gushes, "Its members are twice as smart as the poor reporters who have to cover them, three times if you include the columnists." Brooks added, "... as much as I want to resent these overeducated Achievatrons ... I find myself tremendously impressed by the Obama transition."

Has Brooks checked the markets? The cleverest people in the United States, the Ivy-pedigreed investment bankers, have fouled their own nests as well as their own net worth, and persuaded the taxpayers to bail them out. If these are the best and the brightest of 2008, America is in very deep trouble...

briann- I don't think that Form can be equated with Intent. I think we have to be careful with terms, and what you mean by Form and what others, including Vitruvius, mean by Form, may not be the same. We also have to be cautious about linearity, for the process may not be linear but non-linear.

I'd posit a triadic process, a slight reduction of Aristotle's Four Causes. The Form is the structure in which the Intent (Final Cause) is housed. The Form of the intention emerges, I'd say, with the function (Efficient Cause).

Now, to Vitruvius' puzzle. He's asking, I think, whether the abstract or universal exists by itself as an inviolate rule that subsumes all non-abstract or particular reality. That's the Platonic mode. I'm going to reject that, as a follower of Aristotle, and say that not only it shouldn't operate as such an inviolate aspatial, atemporal Rule-Over-All, but it can't.

The Abstract Rule operates only when embedded within Particular contextual reality. That means that it is complex. As complex, that means that it is a judgment that is embedded in reality, it is made within a particular time and space and not a mechanical reaction (never lie).

The mechanical reaction, by the way, allots all Power to the Rule. The human agent is reduced to a passive hapless zero who submits to the Rule. This also sets up a requirement for a merciless Enforcer of the Rule. This then shuts out all dissent and debate. After all, if you are asked, do you believe the earth is flat, and the Rule requires both that the earth IS flat, and that you do not lie..well...

The embedded Rule relies on the ability-to-reason, and reason must take into account the morality of the Rule and the morality of the context (abstract and particular realms).

This doesn't mean relativism, which operates without normative rules. It means making a judgment about the function, as Vitruvius pointed out, of the legitimacy of the Rule in 'this time' and 'this space'.

Whew - so, that's my answer to today's enticing ethical dilemma. Thanks, vitruvius.

"If the only way you could avoid making a mistake was to be dishonest, would you be dishonest and avoid making the mistake, or would you be honest and make the mistake?"

In the real world, one would procrastinate until someone else was forced to make this decision. Then tsk tsk the result and boast that "I would have handled it by....".

Then again, making a mistake is not necessarily a bad thing if done properly. As one chemist I worked for explained: You want the mistake to be large enough that people know your name but not so bad that they remember why. (I never believed that he came up with this himself, is it a quote from someone famous?)

"Al Roker was roaming about Iceland investigating glaciers. Warned Vieira:

"And if they were to melt, the oceans could rise at least 200 feet.""
...-

"Did NBC Risk Employee Lives in a Green Agenda Stunt?

NBC's Ann Curry aborted her quest
to find proof of global warming at the peak of Tanzania's Mt. Kilimanjaro. But at about a half mile shy of her goal, she did find proof that sub-zero degree temperatures and thin, low oxygen concentration air might do a 52 year old woman and her crew serious harm, particularly when altitude safety rules take the back seat to ideology.

For those of you who may not know, as part of last week's silly "Ends of the Earth" series, itself part of their even sillier "Green is Universal" week, the network dispatched four Today show anchors to various locales to discover and teach the world the truth about global warming.

The sweeps week stunt was ceremonially launched during Sunday Night Football when not the stadium but the studio lights gave way to candles for the game's duration. I kid you not. During the flickering half time, Meredith Vieira, appearing from Australia, where she was sent to make friends with supposedly drought-endangered Australian Penguins, broke the deep-guarded secret of where in the world each anchor had landed."
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/did_nbc_risk_employee_lives_in.html

Peter W. Huber, Curing Diversity

Life is unfair, and while others have suspected as much before, biochemists can now prove it. You have colon cancer—possibly because a flawed APC gene failed to produce the protein that helps prevent the disease. When the cancer spreads to your liver, you need Pfizer’s Camptosar. But if you’re the one-in-ten patient with a flawed UGT1A1 gene—find out with a Food and Dr(g Administration–approved test kit—you lack an enzyme to purge the dr&g from your body before it accumulates to toxic levels. Your oncologist may be able to adjust the dose so you can take Camptosar anyway. Or maybe not.

Washington can’t help. The Fourteenth Amendment doesn’t guarantee equal protection at the pharm%cy. No privacy-protecting, discrimination-banning law, no promise that someone else will pay, will ensure that a dr#g that suits others will suit your genetic profile too. If Pfizer can’t make a gentler Camptosar, it will only do business with tougher patients. Meet “pharmacogenomics”—eugenics for dr*gs...

You can beat our meat, but you can't lick our Stamps!

Way to go Calgary!

UNBELIEVABLE!!! Wait - Believe it!

Stamps ARE Grey Cup Champs.

"We have them where we want them" (Hufnagel)

Heh.

"Small wonder that Strong spends his time far away in Communist China these days."
...-

"The new world devised by Maurice Strong and George Soros"

"United Nations and its carefully managed One World Order"

"Have you ever wondered how capitalism was pushed over the edge of the cliff just six weeks before the American presidential election?

According to financial experts, the world, as we know it will change dramatically by the year 2012. People, who provided for their families only three years ago, will be desperately searching for food.

The story of the economic meltdown of 2008 begins and ends with the United Nations and its carefully managed One World Order.

Behind the curtain of this dark chapter in human misery are ogres Maurice Strong and George Soros."
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/6485

another way off the horns of a dilemma, which is perfectly acceptable to the MSM.

" thats above my pay grade"

"Public servants" = bureaucrats, aka 'rats, have blinked says MSM.
'rats with gold-plated, fully-indexed pensions have blinked, says MSM.
It's a crock.
...-

"Public servants accept Ottawa's offer
Canada's largest public sector union blinked in the face of mounting economic gloom, accepting the federal government's final financial offer" (nnw)

Lorne Gunter's summary line in his article nails the Cons inaction on the CWB - and plainly makes the case:

"The CWB has become as much an economic cult as a Crown marketing agency. So it is never going to admit it is a drag on farmers or the West. But at some point taxpayers have to wake up to the fact that they are subsidizing Western farmers to the tune of $1-billion or more a year and they wouldn't have to if the federal government would simply make marketing grain through the board optional, rather than compulsory."

And that reader, is why the politicians do nothing - heaven forbid - it's not a vote winner.

I recall the libranos jettisoning policy for pragmatism, and they retained power very very well.

I hope to read Gunther's CWB column soon but in the meantime I would add that the CWB has been used successfully by the Liberals to inflate the bottomlines of the big old rich families in central Canada with ties to the grain business.

Cheap grain inputs to the Molsons, Labatts, Westons, the Bronfmans etc etc to fatten their profits was the prize the Liberals got when they made the CWB compulsory. Thats why almost the entire milling industry from western Canada moved down east.
More importantly, later on the Liberals found that they could use export subsidies to sweeten the grain sales to foreigners and bait/coerce them into buying merchandize from central Canada's manufacturers.

For anybody wanting proof of my asserion, go ask the CWB to see all their grain sales records back to 1943.
They will not release them (only sanitized versions to gullible professors are presently available) because it would expose this dirty little effing trick that they have played on western grain farmers all these years.
Sadly the CWB leadership has little to no morals and has never had the balls to admit that they were lying to farmers all this time about 'maximizing returns' to the western grain producers.

Privately the CWB and the Liberals laugh their heads off at the western farmers who fall for their tripe and actually support them.

Everything in good time, and everything good in its time.

Vitruvius: Thanks. The adagietto from Mahler's Fifth, my very favourite single piece of music. I presume you've seen Death in Venice in which the music figures prominently!

I just finished my own little iPod Mahler festival -- all 10 of 'em.

I'm finding as I age that I'm getting a bit less patient with the sheer mass and turmoil of the things, but I'm always thrilled with the relief of the adagios!

Catholics flee Liberals in droves

http://blog.macleans.ca/2008/11/24/catholics-flee-liberals-in-droves/

And that's not all:

It’s not just Catholics who’ve had a change of heart. Protestants, who make up 30 per cent of the population, tend to split their vote between the two major parties, but over the last four years, there’s been a big shift toward the Tories.

The Liberals have alienated their base, which shows how weak their support really is,” Grenville says, adding that he isn’t very optimistic about the party’s immediate future. “I can’t see Bob Rae or Michael Ignatieff appealing to that vote either, which is in part why their prospects aren’t too bright.”

Who says Christians don't count? Bad tactical conclusion for politicos.

Vit

With all due respect, the nature of the dilemma you pose makes a value judgment regarding mistakes.

I view mistakes as valuable, even essential in eliminating possibilities. A mis-take invites one to take another crack at the issue at hand with the knowledge that a different course of action is required.

Integrity and honesty on the other hand are to precious to be sacrificed for the sake of expediency....I therefore choose the mistakes...always.

syncro

Um, I didn't pose it, Syncrodox, Perry Mason did. Indeed, frankly, I tend to agree with you. Of course, at the margins, there may be on occasion exceptional axiological judgements at hand. Yet, in general, as Mark Twain said, "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything".

Vit

Perry Mason is an imaginary figure, I figure imagitively...

I stand corrected regarding the source and give a lot of weight to Samuel Clemens.

Syncro

Vitruvious; this is my first comment on SDA even though I am a frequent (daily plus) visitor to Kate's Blog and therefore see and enjoy your supporting general's role. Naturally I look for the insight which is always here. Do you have access to the old Deputy Dawg cartoons? The resemblance of the former cadet defence minister to the cartoon charcter "Deputy Dawg"always comes to mind when I see him in Question Period.I am sure there will be several other characters in these cartoons represented in the opposition benches of Parliament. Just thinking!
cheers