Knowledge, comment to NY times

Knowledge, like consciousness (See William James) is not a thing, it is a process. The process is simple: we get information into the nervous system from the sense organs, so we can know what is in the  environment and to be able to react to it. This information is merged, if more than one sense receives it: both lightening and thunder; and the full set of time related information is merged and stored in  memory, as an experience. The experience can be recalled later, compared to other experiences, put into the form of words with the words relationships then added to the experience and to our memory. Association of memories and analysis of memories and new information come to conclusions to guide our actions. "Charlie fell into a hole in the rode. I'll avoid it." So knowledge is a result of analysis of information that assembles into experiences from which we draw conclusions. The information is true, it carries the facts of the environment, of the physical world. Knowledge is never true, it is correct or incorrect because it is an inference made for a time and is subject to revision as new information comes and new experiences are put into the dynamic neural processes of conclusion making. The major way this all fails is if we fail to care about the correctness of our current opinions, let someone else tell us the conclusions we should have, like media reporters or critics, religious leaders, or scientists. The scientists get more weight because they put the information on the table, along with the inferences and conclusions and tests. 

To The New York Times: Aiding the Government

To be trusted a Government must be trust worthy. The media's first responses after 9/11 was 'patriotic' and trusting. So you swallowed the errors of Bush, the lies of Cheney, the ignorance of Rumsfeld, etc. etc. The Times let the blind, and malicious, lead them. The whole Country did. We were treated as herd animals and reacted as herd animals. Our Representatives did their best to manage us faithfully, but on the basis of errors and lies, they were wrong. And, of course, they were wrong to try and manage us, and they are doing more of it today. The Media has signed up to help us be managed. Only when the people can make judgments based on solid information and scrutinized, critiqued, opinions will there be a chance of our acting correctly. Group-thinking, group-analyzing, group-sourcing, all work. They are based on the old idea that 200,000,000 (two hundred million) brains are better than one, or a few. Hamilton won this argument over Jefferson and the Constitution does not establish a democracy: the people don't vote on laws, for executives, or judges. Only the superior, special, better people do. And the Media supports this attitude. To cease being managed, lied to, unrepresented, sold out - for money, prestige, and power - we must cease to be a Representative Republic and become an Actual Democracy. See assocactualdemocracy.com. Support it, work for it, change the government so the people vote directly on the laws, executives, and judges. Then there will be no Media errors.

On the Bush Cheney Iraq War: re Jeb Bush as candidate

The whole 'non-political' nation knew, and certainly knows now, that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales and the neocons lied about Saddam Hussein's,  involvement in the 911 attack and his weapons. The war was based on lies and deceit and led to 4,000 deaths and 25,000 wounded, trillions of dollars gone to get them killed, loss of moral integrity before the world community, loss of faith in the good sense and political judgement of the country, which is still growing, and the Republican belief in the infallibility of American judgement and military power. All the while corrupt, incompetent, bible thumping, anti-science, anti-reason, anti-American valued incompetents destroyed everything this country ever stood for before the tragedy of 911. And the Media went along, the Democrats went along, the people 'went along. Herd animals, as Nietzsche called us, wanting to be led, put our values and history aside and invaded on lies, lied about torture, lied about accomplishments, buried the dead in secret, burned up our grandchildren's tax dollars and future, for the greater glory of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, the Republican party, The Central Stupidity Agency, the United States military (who have not won a war since WWII), and the future contempt of all thinking, caring, human beings.
 And Obama refused to prosecute these criminals, let them destroy America's ideals and the Constitution with impunity. This is the Generation of Vipers, still consciously working to deceive.

Religion as sterile

Religion has proven itself sterile. It does not contribute to a search for truth. Truth is only to be found in its thousands of year old books that are the presumed word of an omnipotent and loving God. But neither the books not the priests interpretations of books help in solving the problems of life. They don't lead to more food clothing or shelter. They don't address our health care needs, transportation needs, communication needs. 

There are two explanation for our existence: science and religion. Religion gives no explanation as to how our existence works so gives no advice on how we can improve our lives and prepare for our future. That's wht I mean by its being sterile. It's truth cannot grow, it cannot be applied to physical problems, biological problems, or chemical problems. Religion ignores this world for the spiritual world, But we get no information from the spiritual world that can assist us in making cars and planes, in fighting diseases, in making new materials, new fuels, and discovering new applications for what we have previously learned. Praying to have a broken car or broken computer fixed is universally ineffective. 

And omnipotence is logically impossible. An omnipotent being cannot make a brick that he cannot pick up, or a sinner he cannot save, or a saint he cannot corrupt, and on and on. It is a logical contradiction. 

God helps them who help themselves is an admission that god is no help at all. We must look to science to solve problems. We do

Comment on NYT Article about 'Patriot Ac'

Do any of us feel secure in our persons, papers and effects? Do we still believe that we will get due process of law after the Executive Office of the United States has imprisoned 700 men without bringing charges against them? Or torturing uncharged men? Is there any justification for our doing this? Yeah, sure somebody had weapons of mass destruction, didn't they? Well, maybe not, but we tortured some until they said they did. Our Representatives passed laws that did not represent our beliefs, our hopes for this nation, that our children will be forever ashamed of, only because our Representatives don't represent us, or care about our history of humane treatment for all men - and women. These Patriots did not Love Truth, Justice, and Equality before the law. They Loved, torture, Fear, imprisonment without charges, without trial, and without legal counsel. They are far more un-American than any citizens ever were who were said to be un-American. There is no more America where the poor and huddled masses yearning to be free can go to. It doesn't exist. Pity, it was, for one brief shinning moment, the inspiration of the World. Now it's just another place for frightened, cowardly, politicians to read our emails, listen to our phone calls, pay others to read and listen to them, and cause us to hate being Americans in this land of inequality, injustice, limited opportunity, poor education, and disintegrating social cohesion. Its plain to see we need actual Democracy: see assocactualdemocracy.com. But too late.

Four Blackwater War Consultants found guilty of murder of Iraqi murder

Killers were found guilty of killing during a war. It is just. But what about the deaths caused by the outrageous lies of the President, vice president, Secretary of State, the vast majority of our Representatives in both the House and Senate? I know we shrug off that George Bush and Dick Cheney started a war on complete falsehoods, lies that they repeated until the people who trusted the historical offices trusted the despicable people who held the offices at that time. The war cost over 3 trillion ( 3 times 10 to the 12th power, 3,000,000,000,000) dollars, 4 thousand American dead soldiers, slaughtered on foreign shores, 25,000 Americans wounded, and probably 200,000 Iraqi civilians killed, and 60,000 Iraqi soldiers. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, all the NEOCONS (new con artists) are murderers of all these men, women, and children. And worse, they have killed the Constitution: we are no longer secure in our persons, papers, or effects; we are no longer secure from being compelled to testify against ourselves, from cruel and unusual punishment, or from being deprived of our life, liberty or property without due process of law. Our Government is guilty of the Unconstitutional actions of Torture, war justified by lies, listening to all conversations and reading all mail; collecting the book titles we read, the clubs we join, the food we buy, the clothes we wear. Our Representatives universally manage our lives today. We are slaves and no Court has stopped them from enslaving us. The Republic has failed. We must install Actual Democracy, people voting directly on laws: see assocactualdemocracy.com.

Response to NYT on Supreme Court Justices declaring Justice system broken

Of course the criminal justice system is broken. It's used to pay off political supporters with prison jobs: cooks, nurses, guards, Dr.s, and the ever present 'administration officers'. Go to the prisons, look at the parking lots on Wed. mornings, more cars than inmates. But the Supreme Court Justices have a lot of audacity to put the blame on Congress: they ruled that mandatory minimums and sentencing guidelines were Constitutional, then twenty years later said, well, no, maybe not so much. They let the late great Ronald Reagan take the word 'rehabilitation' out of the criminal code. He said, "Lock them up and throw away the key" and Congress did and the Supreme Court rubber stamped it, in the face of separation of powers. Congress took Judicial sentencing power from the courts and the courts let them. The prisoners know who the criminals are: the government. It doesn't represent freedom, the law, human dignity, forgiveness and help to the down trodden. It is what makes us downtrodden. Until the people take back their right and responsibility to vote directly on the laws we will be ruled by political hacks, unscientific religious fanatics, the oligarchy of money, corporations, and the military industrial complex, and the Supreme Court supports all this. Money is more important than people. Politics is more important than education, truth, justice, and our children's future, the Nations's future. I stress that we are not a Democracy. See assocactualdemocracy.com. Join it.