Halloween blasphemy

Balder posted the below photos in this IPS post. Looking at the last post above it reminded me of a more recent discussion of relative and absolute terms in this post and several following. This is very scary stuff for a metaphysical absolutist, akin to the Christ and Buddha blasphemies below.

 

Proof of ISP fuckery

See this article providing evidence that according to M-LAB, a nonprofit research consortium: "Verizon and Comcast, as well as Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, and AT&T, are intentionally squeezing data coming from some incoming networks — in particular, networks associated with Netflix, which competes with these companies in video entertainment. Customers of these eyeball networks are getting degraded service that cannot be explained by anything other than business decisions." It's not speculation that this sort of thing might happen; it's happened and will only continue to get worse with the new FCC rules. See the previous post for the new petition on the issue.

Fight for net neutrality

We won the first battle so now the FCC is coming back with another scheme to protect the ISPs, not us. Which tells you where they get their bread buttered. See the below from freepress and consider the petition. My personal petition response was: "I don't get how you will not do the right and simple thing and declare ISPs as common carriers. And it's the simplest solution. Yet you continue to try to swing these deals that benefit the ISPs as the expense of everyone else. We see right through your smokescreen. How about representing the people, which is your job, right?"

From freepress:

Tell Chairman Wheeler: No Frankenstein Net Neutrality. Halloween came early to the FCC: Last night, word leaked1 that Chairman Tom Wheeler's building a new Frankenstein proposal that's not Net Neutrality (NOT Neutrality?). Here's the good news: According to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, the truly awful proposal the FCC released in May is dead. Here's the bad news: Now the agency is considering a convoluted plan with too many of the huge problems we've been protesting against all year. Just how bad is it? This new proposal: • Would allow broadband providers to cut specialized deals with companies to reach Internet users. • Still gives us slow lanes and gives users no real protection against discrimination from Internet service providers. • Rests on shaky legal arguments that won’t stand up in court. This isn't what millions of us have been fighting for. And dressing up fake Net Neutrality in a new costume won't work. Tell Chairman Wheeler: Don't Turn the Internet into a Nightmare.

Voter suppression

The regressives have such great policy ideas that they must resort to extending Halloween to election day.

Sage Ebola advice

John Oliver has some sage advice on how to avoid contracting the disease near the end of this short clip.

Sam Harris on meditation without religion

Stewart on Christie's ebola hysteria

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Senator Warren criticizes Governor Christie's ebola quarantine

Warren is having none of Christie's mandatory 21-day quarantine for all health workers that have had contact with ebola patients. She warns him to use science on this, not politics. A regressive use science? That's like asking a Christian to use a pentagram-shaped communion wafer. The regressives have been continually cutting the scientific research budget since forever and all they got to offer now, as usual, is fear based not on fact but ideology.

California leading the clean energy movement in US

See this article. Last week the 25th annual Bioneers Conference was held in Marin. Their energy goals included 3,000 MW of solar power installed in the state by the end of 2016, photovoltaic panels on a million rooftops by 2017 and another million installed by 2020. They also plan on 1.5 million electric vehicles on the road by 2025 and to build 1,000 charging stations for them, as well as reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050. All retail electricity suppliers in the state must provide 33% of their power from renewable sources by 2020. If this can motivate the rest of the States and Fed energy policy we just might have a chance.

Gulf oil spill is NOT cleaned up

If we were to accept the media's lack of coverage after the initial spill, or the BP commercials thereafter, we'd think that the Gulf was good as new. But it is far from it according to this recent federal damage assessment research, which estimates that 10 million gallons of oil coagulated on the ocean floor around the exploded rig. 172 million gallons were spewed into the ocean from the spill, with scientists still trying to figure out where it all went and the environmental consequences. All is not well in the Gulf but the oil business proceeds as usual.

Plus-one

Continuing from the last post:

Starhawk's chapter 6 is packed with a lot of helpful information. But for now I'll focus on one particular leadership role that seems at least broadly akin to the plus-one noted above. This is from the Snake style:

"Snakes keep an underview. They watch the group’s process and also help the group adopt practices and projects that build connections. They watch the patterns of emotion and communication in the group, and bring hidden conflicts up into the light. They challenge groupthink, keep watch on gossip and look at what is not being said or spoken about openly or directly" (131).

Here's how Bryant describes the plus-one:

Leaderless leadership

Bryant has a couple of interesting recent posts. In this one he again talks about Brown's rules of form, on how we must draw a distinction to discuss ( or think) anything, yet with each distinction we lose sight both of the unmarked space outside the distinction and the fact that the distinction so drawn becomes invisible to us. And yet we can take this process into account with second order observation, at least opening our distinctions to this excess beyond them, if not the impossible task of grasping the entirety of the unmarked space.

Kansas and the zombie lie

Of trickle-down economics. Maher's special new rule investigates the case of the KS governor imposing this always failed economic theory on his State to disasterous results. And yet regressives, faced time and again with this failure, keep insisting that it just wasn't implemented right. Or something. But never that it always fails because the theory IS a failure.

And worse yet, said regressive Governor was losing in the polls for his reelection until it was revealed that his Democrat opponent went to a strip club in his 20s. Yes, that's all, and yet the idiots of KS think that's some sort of disqualifying criteria and the opponent's lead in the polls has evaporated. So the regressive governor, who has caused real harm to the KS people, might win reelection when his opponent has only looked at boobs in his 20s? Maher's right that many of the American people are just plain stupid.

Maher's monologue

As usual last night touched on current events. The first was on how those health workers in Africa directly exposed to ebola come back to the US knowing full well that they might have contracted the disease, yet have this unshakable urge to go in as many public places as possible to share the infection. Are they just stupid or feel invulnerable because they follow the protocols that have already proven to be ineffective? The second is on a Muslim jihadist, but at first Maher says he must be a good liberal and not mention to what religion he belonged so as not to appear to be a bigot, reminding us of the ridiculous cultural relativism critique from his last run-in with the topic.

Halloween birth

When you drink too much on Halloween

No time

Krugman's horrible idea

He thinks that a Clinton/Warren ticket is a good idea, with Clinton at the President. He surmises that Warren will keep Clinton from going too far right into Wall Street's back pocket. Not likely. If anything, Warren as VP would be muzzled from her current status as the outspoken leader of the progressive movement, along with Senator Sanders. A Sanders/Warren ticket would be formidable, with either one in the lead slot. But could either beat Clinton in the primary? I think both of them could.

Regressives aren't scientists but...

they like to spread misinformation about scientific topics. The very same regressives that deny climate change with the "I'm no scientist" line are quick to spread scientific misinformation when it comes to Ebola. Like you can catch it at a cocktail party. Or it's transmitted through the air. Or Mexican will bring it in. All are entirely made up. What is true is that there is indeed an epidemic, one of fear man-made by the regressives to scare people away from the polls.

What happens when you raise the minimum wage?

In the 13 States that have done so they've reduced unemployment and created more jobs than the States that did not. Them's the facts.

The news sources of liberals/conservatives

Interesting piece on the topic. Not surprisingly, regressives tend to get their news mostly from one source, Fox News. They like to live in a bubble with others of the same worldview. Whereas progressives use a variety of sources and rely more on NPR and the NYT. They tend to be more issue-based instead of ideologically prone like the regressives.

Break of Reality

Monobody

The regressive agenda in a nutshell

This ad against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker sums it up pretty well:

Developmental dillwads

In ongoing IPS FB discussions on the Sam Harris-Ben Affleck argument, kennilinguists continue to peg people into developmental boxes, as if anyone ever consistently displays one particular level. So I must reiterate, apparently ad infinitum, actual research from developmental psychology.

Kennilinguists think developmental levels might be useful in this discussion, which levels are involved? From which participants? In what particular statements? In what contexts? If we accept the actual developmental research* that no one is 'at' a level all the time in all contexts, or that something like a CoG is even feasible, then go ahead and get specific in each sentence they utter, in each context, in each line, in each emotional state etc. Please.

And perhaps an even more fundamental question: Does one have to speak kennilingus to be considered 'integral'?

* Recall Fischer in the Handbook of Developmental Psychology:

Sam Harris interview on the Islam debate

This is following the big blowout on Maher's show a couple of weeks ago.

Sam Harris on Randian libertarianism

I posted this Sam Harris blog at FB concerning the greedy rich. Here are a few excerpts of his follow-up post:

"It is difficult to ignore the responsibility that Ayn Rand bears for all of this. [...] As someone who has written and spoken at length about how we might develop a truly 'objective' morality, I am often told by followers of Rand that their beloved guru accomplished this task long ago. The result was Objectivism—a view that makes a religious fetish of selfishness and disposes of altruism and compassion as character flaws. If nothing else, this approach to ethics was a triumph of marketing, as Objectivism is basically autism rebranded."

Jon Stewart on political dysfunction

 He nails it in this clip. The regressives run on a broken government that they in fact broke with their deliberate obstruction. Senate minority leader McConnell admitted as much before Obama's inauguration, knowing his ignorant and easily manipulated base would blame Obama for their failures. Another prime example is McConnell's campaign for reelection in KY. The KY Obamacare exchange is called Kynect and it is working and highly popular, even among his ignorant base. So he agrees to keep the Kynect website while getting rid of the program that is helping those who need it in KY?

Freedom to be a burden

This cartoon is the regressive rationalization for FREEDOM to poison themselves so that it costs the healthcare system and the rest of us more, thereby placing the burden on us for their irresponsible personal behavior. But in their little minds their childish and indulgent freedom is more important than the social freedom from high health care costs for everyone.

The US is number one, but in what?

See this article. We lead the world in military expenditures, weapons export, have the most guns and gun-related deaths. How are we ranked otherwise? We are 17th in reading, 21st in math, and 20th in educational attainment. We ranked last in industrial countries for healthcare, and 30th for all countries. We have the 7th highest cancer rate and rank 26th in life expectancy.

Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly on white privilege

Stewart almost gets the clown to admit to it, sort of. But he won't admit it.

Regressives want to blame the CDC on ebola but...

they won't fund the NIH to fight it. Once again proving they're all about creating fear and blaming anyone but themselves. But when asked to fund such programs there is no money. The NIH director noted if not for the funding slide in the last 10 years they would have had an ebola vaccine by now. So the Dems called for a hearing on this issue and the regressives said no thanks, we're in recess. And yet they came out of recess to hold a hearing on the ebola crises itself in order to blame the CDC director.

The power of love

All this talk of agape brought this old classic to mind. Love survived the Mullet.

Enlightenment and agape

Continuing from this post, at IPS andrew posted a link to a John Cobb piece comparing Christianity and Buddhism on agape. It's a good one. A couple of excerpts emphasizing how a Buddhist-inflected AQALingus might display some of the traits we've noticed in the previous links.

"I find in Pure Land rhetoric, as in Buddhism generally, a strong focus on enlightenment as the one goal worthy of pursuit. [...] At this point in history I am much more concerned for the salvation of the planet, and especially of the human species, from the misery and destruction we are now bringing upon it than for personal salvation. [...] But I find preoccupation with our inner states an inappropriate response to our global historical situation.

How regressives woo women

Colbert nails it. Regressives think they need not address equal pay or access to contraception. Women just need to get married and let the guy think about that stuff. In the ad the bride whores herself for several regressive candidates so Colbert thinks that disqualifies her for something (see video below). And Colbert's parody ad is hilarious.

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Chuck Todd, partisan hack

Todd does it again. He's supposed to be a neutral journalist but proved once again to be a hack for the regressive party. This time, in response to candidate for Senate Alison Lundergan Grimes refusing to answer if she voted for Obama, Todd noted that her answer "borders on disqualification." By exercising her right to privacy at the ballot box, and by correctly distancing herself from a highly unpopular President in a deeply red state, she made a smart move with a good justification. And yet Todd thinks it almost disqualifies her with nary a work on how McConnel's many misstatements and lies on Obamacare and its state-run exchange in KY. It seems Todd would be better suited as a partisan hack for Fox News than NBC.

Stiglitz on inequality

See this article. According to the US Census Bureau's annual income and poverty report, median household income, when adjusted for inflation, is lower than it was 25 years ago. And the 2014 UN Human Development report adjusted the US score for inequality and it dropped 23 spots, the largest decline for any developed country. This is what we get with regressives in Congress: regression in human development.

An 'integral' response to Sam Harris on Islam

Balder posted Dustin DiPerna's response to the recent dust up. Too pie in the sky. Michael asks the right question-- "Is there a proven path towards integrally interaction with fundamentalists that is effective?"-- and the answer is no. (See qualification at the end.)

I commented earlier on Fareed Zakaria's response.  His stats, along with Maher's accurate stats, should amply demonstrate to AQALinguists that the majority of Muslims are caught in mythical ethnocentrism. Granted there are more rational Muslims, but they are the exception and do not have a voice in these governments. And Harris said he most certainly supports those voices in building the exact kinds of bridges (aka conveyor belts) needed.

Thom Hartmann decodes the regressive jobs plan

In this video he examines the 5-point regressive jobs plan by first stating their spin and then reframing what they actually mean. This is accomplished in the first two minutes. The rest of the video is Hartmann interviewing a regressive mouthpiece that just churns out more empty spin.

Fareed Zakaria on Maher and Harris

Recall the recent Real Time episode that caused such a stir. Zakaria agrees in part and disagrees in part with Maher and Harris. He disagrees in that he thinks they blame all of Islam for the behavior of a few. Yet that stats he cites belie that it is just a few. For example, 7 of the top 10 terrorist groups are Muslim. Of the 24 most restrictive countries on freedom of religion, 19 are Muslim majority. Of the 21 countries that have laws against apostasy, all are Muslim majority. This is not a 'minority' of Muslims by any stretch. In trying to counter Maher and Harris he ends up proving them accurate.

If Republicans take the Senate

Robert Reich lays out the facts on what you'll get if this happens. It's not hyperbole but easily demonstrated by what the regressives have already done, and more specifically, what they haven't done. Is this what you really want?

Valuing workers pays off

See this story highlighting how some businesses pay their employees better with benefits and their sales are beating the competitors who treat employees like shit. One example is QuikTrip, a convenience store that's entry level salary is $40,000 with benefits. Their sales per hour is 2/3 higher than competitors and they are expanding. Sales per square foot are over 50% higher. When you treat employees well they have a stake in their job and the company and pass along better customer service.

Rifkin: nuclear is a bad investment

See his answer about nuclear energy at the Wermuth Asset Management 5th Annual Investor Event:

That Mormon can dance

Here's a Mormon missionary in a dance off with a Michael Jackson impersonator.

Krugman on Obama in the Rolling Stone

Krugman has never hesitated to criticize the President when necessary. And yet in his recent Rolling Stone article he gives credit where it is due. While Obamacare is not ideal, it is better than things were and what the regressives would have done (nothing), and it is performing better than expected. Financial reform also has not gone as far as progressives would like, but it is effective in some ways. And again, a damn sight more that regressives would have done (nothing). Same with the economic recovery. Not as good as we'd hope, but despite every regressive obstruction we're doing better than many other countries that don't have the same regressive self-destruct in their legislature. No, Obama hasn't been the progressive ideal, but given the circumstances he's done "one heck of a job," to quote Dubya.

Salon interviews Senator Warren

In this link. An excerpt:

"If Barack Obama had not been president of the United States we would not have a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Period. I’m completely convinced of that. And I go through the details in the book, and I could tell them to you. But he was the one who refused to throw the agency under the bus and made sure that his team kept the agency alive and on the table. Now there was a lot of other stuff that also had to happen for it to happen. But if he hadn’t been there, we wouldn’t have gotten the agency.

More on eros/agape

Continuing from this post, and in response to some FB posts:

I prefer Mark Edwards' notions on eros/agape and agency/communion. See his "Through AQAL Eyes" series at integral world for his distinctions. For him eros/agape is the ascending/descending currents in each line in each quadrant. But the individual and social have their own holons, each with 4 quadrants and 8 zones, each with both agency and communion aspects on the interior and exterior. So he too makes the same distinctions you mention David, but expands it in the above way.

In terms of ascending and descending currents though (eros/agape), he sees them as occurring simultaneously, where when any particular line in any quadrant ascends or evolves it also descends or involves by the integrations of the junior levels. Granted Wilber says this too, but he also has the 'universal' involution/evolution holon of everything theme,* where one happens first, then the other. It is the latter metaphysical frame which tends to infect the more practical frame of transcend and include, or eros/agape dynamic, for each level. Hence that infection expresses in what several others are noticing, the Hegelian dialectical notion of subsumption of the lower in the higher.

Attorney General Holder on voter suppression

See the AG's impassioned plea against voter ID laws. He cites the Government Accountability Office's recently released study showing that states with restrictive voter ID laws have "sharper reductions in election turnout than those that did not." Those reductions "came disproportionately from African Americans and young people." And the regressives that create such voter suppression laws are well aware of this fact and is the true reason they do it. They also know that their purported reason for such laws, voter fraud, is itself a fraud but it plays well with their ignorant base. Their agenda is quite clear; they know they cannot win on facts so they must not only manipulate the narrative with lies but prevent as many people as possible from voting, especially the demographic above that votes predominantly Democrat.

Eros and agape

Balder started an IPS thread on this here. It contains only a few posts of the FB discussion, so see that for more commentary. My comment is included below.

We could approach this question from other angles, or parabolas if you prefer curves. In Wilber's involutionary myth (see excerpt A, footnote 26), the process is indeed a linear trajectory in both directions but in alternating space-time frames: Spirit involves 'downward' in space-time and then evolves back 'upward' in space-time. Granted Wilber notes the reverse trip back up also follows the laid down morphogenetic gradient on the return so as to allow for creative and novel evolutionary forms. But that is a red herring because the template is still one of only one of those things happening at a time in the holon of everything space-time. And this dynamic is exactly of the nature of what above comments have noticed, one of a linear dialectic that presupposes a holon of everything Spirit at both ends of the dialectic, or a deus ex machina pulling the strings. Also see Frank Visser's Integral World essays on evolution.

Now if we take Desmond's post-dialectical metaxological notion of the mutual interpenetration of involution and evolution (or any typical complementary pair), they are always occurring simultaneously in space-time. He argues against a Hegelian dialectic, which inevitably subsumes difference in a never-ending series of higher integrations and unitary sameness. This is what Bruce and others are pointing out in AQAL/IT theory. Whereas for Desmond the 'between' in/of in/evolution is the glue that both binds and separates them is a different relationship that that of the sort of Hegelian dialectic Wilber and other developmentalists use.

What Koch $ buys

See Robert Reich lay it out in 3 minutes.

The rise of neo-integrative worldviews

Subtitle: Toward a rational spirituality for the coming planetary civilization? This is a chapter by Roland Benedikter and Markus Moltz in a book on critical realism and spirituality. I'll be back after I read it.

Sam Harris further responds on Islam

Recall this post on the argument between Maher, Harris and Affleck on Islam. Sam Harris responds to it in this blog post, "Can liberalism be saved from itself." He is clear and specific in his accurate criticisms but some liberals just can't hear it because they are too busy projecting racism onto any criticism of Islam, legitimate or otherwise.

Do wah diddy

Another oldie that just popped up today.

The courts and gerrymandering

This Virginia Federal Court struck down the regressive gerrymandering which strongly favors GOP candidates and incumbents. In the last election such gerrymandering in VA gave the GOP an 8 to 3 advantage in the congressional delegation, despite the overall vote tally favoring the GOP by less than 2%. Not to worry though, since the Supreme Corp just rejected an appeal about gerrymandering in South Carolina, so if this case is appealed to the Supremes it will be overturned.

3D printing beats mass production in energy efficiency

See this article: "A study from Michigan Technology University shows 3D printed products require 41% to 74% less energy than large-scale manufactured goods."

HSBC investment bank on solar energy

HSBC is one of the largest investment banks in the world and this article highlights what they say about solar energy. Fossil fuel profitability is done and solar is in. Affordable battery storage is already here and will increase distributed energy generation while reducing demand from the grid. Solar energy generation with battery storage will achieve grid parity in Germany by 2015 allowing independence from the grid. The tech is here and the price is almost right. And when HSBC signs on you can bet your bottom dollar it is a good investment, not only in energy independence but environmental sustainability.

Jon Stewart on misplaced regressive paranoia

The regressives are literally up in arms about ISIS and ebola, that our government should do whatever it takes to stop these direct threats to our people. They fail to mention that to date neither one has caused any deaths in the US. But regressives are in complete denial about real killers in the US. Heart disease kills about 600,000 annually. Yet regressives make fun of the first lady's proposals on diet and do nothing to stop these massive deaths. Same with guns. 32,000 are killed annually in the US but no, we can't do anything to stop that either. It's our right to die by firearm, damn it. Same with climate change.

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The fault in our stars 2

SNL does a take-off on the movie.

Scalia on separation of church and state

This regressive Justice of our Supreme Corp thinks that separation of church and state does not mean the state cannot favor religion over non-religion. He says it's nowhere in the Constitution and that it's just fine for state legislatures to open with prayer and for schools to do the same. Which of course should only apply to Christian demonstrations; I'm sure he'd be aghast and find plenty of Constitutional authority to prevent Muslims from so doing.

Discussion of Islam on Real Time

Maher starts by interviewing Sam Harris on Islam and ISIS and then the discussion gets heated. Maher and Harris point out that Islam has a lot of bad ideas, like treating women as property and gays like a disease. And it's not just radical Muslims, its the majority that hold these beliefs. Ben Affleck thinks that to hold all Muslims responsible for the radical actions of ISIS is racist. What Affleck does not address is that the majority do in fact hold beliefs contrary to liberal values, like those mentioned above.

George Lakoff strategy call

See the below from George Lakoff and please pass the word:

The 2004 presidential election had barely begun when I got an unexpected phone call. It turned out the Howard Dean campaign had read my book “Moral Politics” and wanted to use it as a guide for the election. They planned to run a different type of Democratic candidacy -- one which used moral framing to stand up for progressive principles. Just one year later, my next book “Don’t Think of an Elephant,” took the political world by storm, helping Democrats reframe the national debate and take back Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008.

Ten years later, Democrats have enjoyed numerous political victories at all levels of government by following Gov. Dean’s lead in articulating our own core values while rejecting Republican talking points. However, in recent years, Tea Party Republicans and Fox News have hijacked the national dialogue -- with the most recent example being President Obama’s “latte salute.”

That’s why, with control of the Senate on a razor’s edge -- and the 2016 presidential election looming -- we’ve got to take the narrative back again.

Will you join me on Tuesday, October 7, at 8:30 pm ET/5:30 pm PT for a special “DFA Live” strategy call to discuss how Democrats can win the framing wars in 2014 and 2016? Just click “Yes” or “No” below:

Yes, I will join the “DFA Live with George Lakoff” strategy call on Tuesday night.

No, I can’t make it, but I want to donate to DFA to receive a copy of the all new "Don't Think of an Elephant” -- updated for 2014.