Movie Parking Warning Beverly Hills Jun 01, 2010

Filming.

May the Sun Shine BRIGHT

http://www.the-brights.net/vision/backtalk.html#8

A new word struggles to become accepted...

You can't convert an adjective into a noun!

English is fine the way it is?  Sorry, but we feel there is a clear need for a noun that "umbrellas" (note the verb usage?) over the naturalistic worldview folks. The term just had to be something easy to pronounce. It was desirable that it be "in tune" with the Enlightenment heritage and scientific values.  To us, this term just plain ol' fits the bill.   

Perhaps the noun Bright won't make it.  We can certainly try, though, to introduce a term that we feel has important uses, not only for the Brights, but for society at large.

Language has always changed and will continue to change.  We would like to see Bright as a commonly accepted affirmative noun with which to refer to persons whose worldview is naturalistic. There's no such word for that concept right now.  We hope in twenty years, there will be.

--
Cheers,

Frish

Climate activist faces jail time for peaceful civil disobedience

If you can help, or know someone who can, perhaps you will take the time to see this video and act accordingly...like, write your Senators and Congressperson...like I just did...and spread the word...the more sometimes the merrier...

http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/blog/?p=3197

Synopsis:

Ted Glick of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network was convicted by a jury May 13th of peacefully dropping the banners inside the U.S. Senate Hart Office Building last September. The D.C. U.S. Attorney's office clearly has decided to make an "example" of Ted because of his previous two — count 'em, two — convictions related to peaceful acts of climate civil disobedience.

--
Cheers to all correspondents, some I only contact infrequently, but this got my attention, Ted Glick is one of the good guys...
Frish

Today's Special

My classified ad for the Haiku Gazette < BeverleyLesley >05/23 20:45:21 

 

THIS WEEK'S SPECIAL 

**Circumcisions 25% off 

**25% off covers the percentage of foreskin to be removed for free, the remaining foreskin will be removed at our regular price. 

Free parking with validation 

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/forums/?ID=159494841

30 minute presentation on Human Population Growth, Carrying Capacity etc.

Excellent synopsis of why we are experiencing "over-population". 

http://www.panearth.org/world%20food%20&%20human%20population%20growth/player.html

Of course, it simply tells us why we are on our current trajectory, no info on how we're going reverse the trend (until we "break" the system that supports our growth, and that won't be pretty).
--
Cheers,

Frish

Adventures in Prospecting: Love it when a prospect answers my email...

From: Adam P

Date: Wed, May 19, 2010 at 11:32 AM
Subject: RE: New capabilities
To: Frish 

Not interested in your services.

Please remove me from your call and email list.

From: Frish  

Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2010 10:17 AM
To: Adam P
Subject: New capabilities

Adam, hope to hear from you regarding print and how it supports your marketing efforts.

Yes, we're a traditional offset printer, for catalogs, posters, postcards, calendars, etc.

We're also a digital printer, for short runs and personalization (see attached for some fun examples – show me the money and pencil me in…)

Our in-plant direct mail facility provides you with least cost postage and quickest delivery with less handling.  Your project will arrive in better condition.

Thanks for your kind communication,

Frish

Michael W. Frishberg

Print and Marketing Strategist

Supreme Graphics Inc.

"We don't do everything, we do everything Right!"

Another Good Reason for child-free existence!

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/mentalhealth/la-sci-postpartum-fathers-20100519,0,3479195.story?track=rss

"Post-Partum" (sic) Fathers?  ROFL...

""There have been a few very good studies documenting negative child outcomes when fathers are depressed," he said. "That alone makes this a significant public health concern and something we need to pay more attention to."

What we need is to pay more attention to is men NOT BECOMING fathers, then this won't be an issue.
--
Cheers,

Frish

Further to Urban Dictionary - IBMer was published

Replies to last night's missive included several pithy observations, thanks to all. 

However, one comment emerged with both gravitas and vintage perspective! 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lloyd 
Date: Sun, May 16, 2010 at 8:33 AM
Subject: Re: Urban Dictionary - IBMer was published
To: Frish

Blue suits and white shirts in a bar--OK, but the authentic experience was singing three choruses of "Ever Onward" at the start of each sales meeting.

Lloyd

(Lloyd was the fellow who hired my father in 1957...'nuff said!)

Urban Dictionary - IBMer was published

Shocked to see it wasn't already in...happy to correct the omission...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <noreply@urbandictionary.com>
Date: Sat, May 15, 2010 at 6:49 PM
Subject: Urban Dictionary - IBMer was published
To: frish

Thanks for your definition of IBMer!

Editors reviewed your entry and have decided to publish it on urbandictionary.com.

It should appear on this page in the next few days:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=IBMer

Urban Dictionary

IBMer

An IBM employee

The bar was filled with a sea of white shirts and blue suits, all IBMers.

-- Cheers, Frish

Astounding...extinctions are just around the corner, but VHEMT has a presence on the net...

Posted a comment on an NPR article (National Public Radio - in USA, non-commercial radio)...

Is The Planet Facing A Mass Extinction?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126831134

Did a google search on extinction and hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction#Modern_extinctions

At the bottom was a link to the wiki entry for VHEMT.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Movement

I am still smiling...Frish

You are the one, darling

lax haiku hotel (context)
You are the one, darling < frish >
2010-04-26 22:15:27 +12

Can't say I'm obsessed 
Yet, I've found an object for 
My fantasy life 

My mind considers 
Some Possibilities and 
Therein lies the rub 

Imagination 
Brain on fire, frustrated 
Anticipation 

A Fruitless pastime 
Onan has nothing on me. 
Socks are running scared. 

I ought to thank her 
For the pleasure I'm finding 
Lonesome but happy. 

Best to keep down low 
The specifics that I want. 
Reality Bites! 

Terrible teasing 
Is how to characterize 
This quite cruel friend 

Friends with benefits? 
Simply out of the question… 
Our Moral Compass

Dan Barker's appearance on Fox News...

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/10/novice-level-monster.html

--
Cheers,

Frish

Thought this was from The Onion, but Noooo - BBC!!! Lounge Lizard's Saviour!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8675050.stm

"Miss McLuskey said: "My research found that in some cases a person's environment can be more disabling than a hearing impairment and so, in some respects, we are all hearing impaired on a daily basis."

Gotta love the design...lol

The differences between Men and Women

My friend Lloyd, a fellow in his late 80's who continues to educate himself on big topics, wrote the following

Michael,

Books that were an important discovery for me are Richard Dawkins'
"The Blind Watchmaker" and "The Selfish Gene". In all of his writings,
he cites examples of how Darwin's work on
evolution-by-natural-selection can be explained at the DNA level.  A
side issue was the suggestion that many of the wired-in male/female
differences are explained by the Hunter (male)/Gathering (female)
division of labor by early humans.

The attached clip from the May 1 issue of "The Economist" is along
similar lines.

Lloyd

My response...

My anthro studies (that began almost 40 years ago, is that possible???) informs me of the following:

1. Yes, evolution happens at the molecular level, since that is where "beneficial" mutations occur.
      What people fail to realize is just how long 100,000 or 1,000,000 years actually is!
     
2. The physical fossil record is so sparse (in terms of numbers of individual examples and through time) and the need by academicians to publish!, that generalizations about our ancestry are highly suspect!
      a. Bullshit Alert!

3. Lately, there have been two new strains of closely related human-like species (or sub-species, since I don't know if we could have interbred and obtained fertile offspring (the definition of a species - that which can mate with fertile offspring as the result (unlike Horses and Donkeys for example, that most frequently produce sterile Mules) that co-existed on the planet with us until just a few thousand years ago.
       a.  Shows how little we actually know about our ancestry, once again.
       b.  See:  Homo_floresiensis aka hobbits!
       c.  See also:  A new human specie or just a pinky!

4.  Just this year, it has been posited (and given loads of press this week) that we and Neanderthals were not only capable of interbreeding successfully, but that our (Caucasian) genes are made up of 1-3% elements common to both Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens.
      a.  This is a rather complicated hypothesis, but does NOT surprise me, I have known humans who look like Neanderthals (although without any of the stigmatization!).  Had a camp counselor in MN who was extraordinarily Neanderthal like, and a great college football player!

5.  What you mention, regards men/women differences, hunting vs. gathering, has been observed in several different ways.
      a.  Recently read an article regarding male/female shopping strategies (how each gender actually finds things within grocery stores!) that reflects our modern "implementation" of our gender differences.
           i.  I'd hesitate to say which came first however...our natural tendencies to hunt or gather depending on gender, or, how our hunting vs. gathering affected our gender tendencies.
          ii.  Love to better understand Chimpanzee (for example) gender differences.
     b.  Women smell and taste things more accurately/acutely than men for example, since they are charged with ensuring that children eat healthy and not spoiled or otherwise poisonous food stuff...and, so, it makes sense that they also performed the gathering duties since that also made up far more of our nutritional intake than hunting did. 
      c.  Hunting is generally a far more dangerous activity than gathering, so this also points to having men do it, since women are in need of protection from risk as much as possible, to ensure offspring health, once again...
             
6.  What I also observe is the following...WE ARE ALL, EACH OF US, THE "MISSING LINK"!
This is true, as you have discovered with your observations, since evolution operates on POPULATIONS not INDIVIDUALS...

Had some fun early today writing all of the above, thanks for the opportunity to be what I really ought to be, some kind of professor instead of a salesman...perhaps I will win the lottery and actually become one!

7.  I just bought a book called "The eerie silence" (Paul Davies) concerning the lack of evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence.
     a.  I am having great cognitive dissonance as I delay (procrastinate) reading it!
            i.  I don't want to pollute my own observations as to why there are no "aliens" out there
                1) for example, perhaps the universe is just old enough to allow for the first "intelligent" life, humanity.  Therefore, it is only a matter of time for other intelligent "races" to become extant.
                 2) He posits things like - don't look for radio signals (which is what we've been doing for the past few decades) as evidence of other life, there are other far more probable indicators...

As you already know, my firm belief, based on observation of Homo Sapien Sapien = the universe selects against intelligence...

Our recent human experience of so called "intelligent" life will be so short lived in terms of the evolution of the universe that we may as well not have existed at all! 

Or put another way:  While each individual human can be said to have a measure of intelligence, the actual "wisdom" of humanity - to act in concert with Nature for example, and thereby retain a place in the biosphere - is non-existent.  The ironic part is we'll be documenting our demise each step of the way, and won't be able to do a damned thing about it.
--
Cheers,

Frish

Christians and Separation Anxiety

Stolen in it's entirety from:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126499105&f=1057&sc=igg2

The Nation: Let Us (Not) Pray

by KATHA POLLITT

EnlargeHulton Archive/Getty Images

On April 15, the National Day of Prayer was ruled unconstitutional.

May 4, 2010

Three cheers for U.S. district judge Barbara Crabb, who on April 15 ruled the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional. And hurray for the plaintiffs over at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the scrappy Wisconsin-based group that really, really believes in separation of church and state (full disclosure: I'm on the honorary board). And what, you may ask, is the National Day of Prayer? Like "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" on our dollar bills, the NDOP may sound like it goes back to the days of wigs and three-cornered hats; but it's actually a product of 1950s anticommunism, back when "communism" was usually modified by "godless." Billy Graham pushed for it as a way to promote "the Lord Jesus Christ"; Senator Absalom Robertson (father of Reverend Pat) introduced it in the Senate, citing "the corrosive forces of communism which seek simultaneously to destroy our democratic way of life and the faith in an Almighty God on which it is based"; and in 1952 President Truman signed Public Law 82-324, which directs the president to "set aside and proclaim a suitable day each year, other than a Sunday, as a National Day of Prayer, on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches [sic], in groups, and as individuals." Always a Christian thing, for decades the NDOP has been firmly in the grip of Focus on the Family. The NDOP Task Force, chaired by Shirley Dobson, wife of FOTF founder James Dobson, organizes 30,000-40,000 events, culminating in the National Observance, in Washington. How Christian is it? In 2005 the Hindu American Foundation sought to join in and was rebuffed.

You'd think libertarians and Tea Party members, who claim to oppose overweening government power, would adore Judge Crabb. Don't tread on me with your federal prayer mandate! But somehow, the government using its massive powers to promote prayer just doesn't grab them like the terrible injustice of someone other than themselves getting a government benefit. Sarah Palin was quick to weigh in with some typically tangled remarks: "Lest anyone try to convince you that God should be separated from the state, our founding fathers, they were believers," she told a gathering of Christian women. "Hearing any leader declare that America isn't a Christian nation.... It's mind-boggling to see some of our nation's actions recently, but politics truly is a topic for another day."

What part of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" does the Christian right not understand? Judge Crabb's ruling is an "assault on religious freedom," says Shirley Dobson, who is also upset that the Pentagon, which has collaborated with the NDOP Task Force, "melted like butter" when faced with criticism from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and disinvited from its services Franklin Graham, son of Billy, who has made a specialty of calling Islam "evil" and "offensive," and telling Muslims that Christ died for their sins. "We at the National Day of Prayer Task Force ask the American people to defend the right to pray in the Pentagon," she writes on the Task Force website. In the topsy-turvy world of the Christian right, any restrictions on their collective sectarian power is a denial of individual rights. To reject a bigoted preacher is to deny "the right to pray." To end government-endorsed prayer is to ban all prayer. You might as well say that if we don't have a national bedtime — lights out at midnight, everyone!—the government is forcing us all to stay up forever. But not to worry: Franklin Graham will speak at the NDOP observance on Capitol Hill; President Obama is appealing Judge Crabb's decision; and, having issued an NDOP proclamation that mentioned God only once, he visited Billy Graham at home in North Carolina for a personal prayer session. I'm not too down on Obama for that — maybe that's what a politician has to do in this country — but it's all very far from Christ's own advice in Matthew 6:6:

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Or as Thomas Jefferson put it: "Say nothing of my religion. It is known to myself and my God alone."

Speaking of the First Amendment, far be it from me to suggest that right-wing Christians are the only ones who don't seem to get it. On its website an American group called Revolution Muslim warned South Park's Matt Stone and Trey Parker that they risk ending up murdered like Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh for an episode that mocks the ban on images of Muhammad by showing him wearing a bear costume. It would be easy to dismiss this marginal group as the Muslim equivalent of, say, the Westboro "God hates Fags" church, except that Islamist fanatics have killed or tried to kill quite a few people for words or art they found blasphemous. It's shocking that Comedy Central caved in and censored the episode. Just as it was shocking when Yale University Press deleted the illustrations from Jytte Klausen's study of the Danish Muhammad cartoon controversy, The Cartoons That Shook the World. And when Random House dropped The Jewel of Medina, Sherry Jones's novel about Muhammad's wife Aisha.

I'm not equating Muslim fanatics with right-wing Christians, except those who bomb and set fire to abortion clinics and kill providers (and whose violence has had much the same chilling effect on the medical community as Muslim violence has had on culture and communication). But there is a common thread. National prayers, violent threats to supposed blasphemers — what part of the First Amendment do our modern true believers not understand?

Frish

The flecks in the sky are BEES, a lot of them!

An ephemeral phenomenon, bees swarming in the Anza Borrego Desert, 04-24-2010...luckiest photo I've ever snapped!