Wizenberg Law Firm Plug

Please be sure to visit my brand new website, (created hours ago in about 15 minutes, and it looks it!)

Wizenberglaw.com

--
Peter Wizenberg, Esq.
The Wizenberg Law Firm
662 SW 158 Terrace
Pembroke Pines, Florida 33027-1134
(954) 889-4715
Wizenberglaw.com

I Opened Up a Law Firm

I have opened up a law firm entitled "The Wizenberg Law Firm". There are, of course, innumerable tasks associated with opening up any new business -- especially a law firm -- and right now, my priority is finding a suitable office to rent.

--
Peter Wizenberg, Esq.
The Wizenberg Law Firm
662 SW 158 Terrace
Pembroke Pines, Florida 33027-1134
(954) 889-4715
Wizenberglaw.com

Learning Spanish

Due to rush hour traffic, my commute to and from work is approximately one hour. Living in the Miami area, I've wanted to learn Spanish. I had never studied Spanish, (I took French as a schoolboy), and so I got Pimsleur Spanish audio CDs to use while driving. I enjoy them, and my learning seems almost effortless. Indeed, I find that when I respond to the prompts to say a phrase or sentence in Spanish, I do so often without much conscious effort.

 

I highly recommend Pimsleur for gaining conversational proficiency (not fluency) in a language.

--
Peter Wizenberg, Esq.

Primer on Arab/Israeli Conflict

<http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/ >

"How to" Videos on the Web

How to videos on all sorts of topics. Worth a visit. Many of them truly helpful!

<http://www.videojug.com/ >

--
Peter Wizenberg
Pembroke Pines, Florida

Google Ads

I've decided to accept Google Ads with all monies received to be donated to the Triple Nine Society.

A Little Self-Promotion...

I have just started a blog on business & real estate litigation with a focus on Florida. If interested, please visit it at <http://businesslitigation.blogspot.com/>

Resumption!

This blog became moribund due to my stopping posting. However, I intend to resume posting (at least sporadically). I will also seek to encourage other Triple Nine Society members to contribute.

Philosophers Behaving Badly...

New Sport...Chess Boxing!

Eight Ancient Roman Recipes

Pantanassa, (who styles herself an "Ancient" Greek), says that some of these ancient dishes remind her of her grandmother's cooking.

Bon Apetit!

Rats!

Gives a whole new gloss to the phrase 'dead duck' .....

Where Have All the Children Gone?

The Coming Crackdown on Blogging

Because of the McCain-Feingold law the Federal Election Commission may get involved if someone posts a link on a website to a campaign, or even if they reproduce a press release on their site.

California Judge: Shield Law Protecting Jounalists Doesn't Apply to Bloggers

California has a shield law that protects "journalists" from revealing their sources. In a case involving Apple Computers, the court agreed with Apple's claim that people who publish on web sites are not "legitimate members of the press."

What's scary to me is that if this ruling were to hold up, it's conceivable that some of the free speech protections that people who publish on the web enjoy, could be jeopardized.

Of course, we haven't heard the last of this issue.

What Are the Chances It’ll Happen?

The following point is very obvious—but only when one thinks about it. The reason I bring it up is that I suspect, all too often, many people, especially when in haste, don’t think about it.

I was discussing something with someone and he said that a certain event we were discussing would likely occur. I pressed him and asked him how likely he thought it would be. He said he guessed it’d be about 80%.

When I asked him why, he said, event A is about 80%, which leads to B which is about 80%, which leads to C which is about 80%. So, he concluded, the likelihood of C occurring is about 80%.

Now this man is not a stupid man; he just wasn’t thinking. When I pointed out to him on that chain of probabilities, C is about slightly better than 50%, he immediately realized I was right.

I suspect that all too often, when people are estimating probabilities they merely average them out in their heads rather than multiply them; what I mean is, that if you asked many people about the probability of an event occurring when the prior events leading up to it all have a probability of around 80%, many people would unthinkingly answer about 80%. Yet, if there are five events in the 80% chain of events, the likelihood of the final event occurring is less than 1/3.

Just something to be mindful of.

Increasing Happiness

New Yorker Article About Godel & Einstein

Injustice, in Secret

From the February 21, 2005, Washington Post:

"ATTORNEYS FOR the Justice Department appeared before a federal judge in Washington this month and asked him to dismiss a lawsuit over the detention of a U.S. citizen, basing their request not merely on secret evidence but also on secret legal arguments. The government contends that the legal theory by which it would defend its behavior should be immune from debate in court. This position is alien to the history and premise of Anglo-American jurisprudence, which assumes that opposing lawyers will challenge one another's arguments..."

Click the title above to read the entire article. (Registration may be required.)

Evolving Law

Many people are opposed to the idea that the U.S. Consitution is a 'living document'. For example, some people argue that the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection clause doesn't mandate that same-sex couples be allowed to legally marry, since none of the people who were involved in enacting the 14th Amendment would have supposed that that would be the case, or indeed would have supported the legalization of same-sex marriage. I'm sympathetic to the idea that we should interpret laws in light of our best current understanding of the manifold purposes of law.

The Talmud, (the Jew's NEW Testament, in the sense that it amplifies and supersedes, in some sense, the Torah), evinces the argument that our understanding of law evolves and develops; read below.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Halakha_&_aggadata_&_midrash.html

One particularly well-known bit of aggadata is found in the talmudic tractate Bava Mezia 59b. The aggadata follows a halakhic discussion in which the rabbis debated whether an oven that had become impure could be purified. While almost all the sages felt it couldn't be, Rabbi Eliezer, a lone voice but a great scholar, disagreed:

"On that day, Rabbi Eliezer put forward all the arguments in the world, but the Sages did not accept them.

"Finally, he said to them, 'If the halakha is according to me, let that carob­tree prove it.'

"He pointed to a nearby carob-tree, which then moved from its place a hundred cubits, and some say, four hundred cubits. They said to him 'One cannot bring a proof from the moving of a carob-tree.'

"Said Rabbi Eliezer, 'If the halakha is according to me, may that stream of water prove it.'

"The stream of water then turned and flowed in the opposite direction.

"They said to him, 'One cannot bring a proof from the behavior of a stream of water.'

"Said Rabbi Eliezer, 'If the halakha is according to me, may the walls of the House of Study prove it.'

"The walls of the House of Study began to bend inward. Rabbi Joshua then rose up and rebuked the walls of the House of Study, 'If the students of the Wise argue with one another in halakha," he said, "what right have you to interfere?'

"In honor of Rabbi Joshua, the walls ceased to bend inward; but in honor of Rabbi Eliezer, they did not straighten up, and they remain bent to this day.

"Then, said Rabbi Eliezer to the Sages, 'If the halakha is according to me, may a proof come from Heaven.'

"Then a heavenly voice went forth and said, 'What have you to do with Rabbi Eliezer? The halakha is according to him in every place.'

"Then Rabbi Joshua rose up on his feet, and said, 'It is not in the heavens' (Deuteronomy 30:12).

"What did he mean by quoting this? Said Rabbi Jeremiah, 'He meant that since the Torah has been given already on Mount Sinai, we do not pay attention to a heavenly voice, for You have written in Your Torah, 'Decide according to the majority' (Exodus 23:2).

"Rabbi Nathan met the prophet Elijah. He asked him, 'What was the Holy One, Blessed be He, doing in that hour?'

"Said Elijah, 'He was laughing and saying, "My children have defeated me, my children have defeated me.""'

The British-Jewish scholar and writer Hyam Maccoby has commented: "This extraordinary story strikes the keynote of the Talmud. God is a good father who wants His children to grow up and achieve independence. He has given them His Torah, but now wants them to develop it...."

Really Cool Visual Periodic Table of the Elements

Quotable Quote

“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence.” – Bertrand Russell, Roads to Freedom

Koranic Arguments Convince Terrorists to Renounce Terrorism

Reinventing Physics

A Nobel Laureate reflects...

"Escape From the Universe"

Great article!

Interesting Article About Gifted Children

How to keep an idiot busy...

Scanning for Schizophrenia

The Scotland Sunday Times reports on a new method to detect schizophrenia up to three years before onset.

Researchers at Edinburgh University believe their test — which measures IQ, memory, motor skills and verbal learning — can be used to take action against the illness, which typically strikes people aged between 17 and 30, from being triggered.

[Crossposted from PlagueBlog.]

Suicide and IQ

There's a brief blurb at GNXP about the positive correlation between suicide and national IQ.

Turning Pi into Music!

Click HERE to go to a site that enables one to turn the digits of the decimal expansion of Pi into music. You pick ten notes to represent the ten digits and then hear what the music sounds like when the notes are playing out the decimal expansion of Pi!

Tsunami Theodicies

Money, Sex and Happiness: An Empirical Study...

...is the title of a newly published paper.

Abstract:

The links between income, sexual behavior and reported happiness are studied using recent data on a sample of 16,000 adult Americans. The paper finds that sexual activity enters strongly positively in happiness equations. Higher income does not buy more sex or more sexual partners. Married people have more sex than those who are single, divorced, widowed or separated. The happiness-maximizing number of sexual partners in the previous year is calculated to be 1. Highly educated females tend to have fewer sexual partners. Homosexuality has no statistically significant effect on happiness.

If you want to read the paper, Blackwell Publishing is charging $25 for the download. Click HERE to visit the site to pay and download it. By the way, I have not read the paper.

2005 EDGE Annual Question, Asked of Prominent Scientists & Thinkers: "What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?"

The 21st Century Will Belong to China

Brainy Women & Marriage

News item reports that British study says a high I.Q. reduces women's marriage prospects.

Helping the Most With Your Charitable Donations

With the tsunami catastrophe in the Indian Ocean area numbing us as to the immensity of human suffering being endured, people all over the world are giving money to help.

Readers may be interested in a website that asseses the "efficiency" of charities, and displays results for specific charities along a number of factors. Here is a link to Charity Navigator. Also, here is a link to a part of the site that specifically focuses on helping the victims of the tsunami.

Marking Time

With 2005 approaching, I started thinking about the ways we mark the passage of time. (E.g., trips around the Sun, the Earth rotating about its axis, etc.)

I stumbled across a site (click here also click here for the home page) that has a "calculator of useless facts." One inputs a date and time, and it calculates what a subsequent date and time is in so many seconds, minutes, hours or days. Areas of the website enable one to mark time in any number of seconds, minutes, hours and days.

For example, it calculates time intervals and presents one with a list of for example 1 billion seconds, 25 million minutes, 1/2 million hours, 25,000 days, etc.

Mathematically inclined children of all ages enjoy this, and it also informs one of the next "celebratory" event. For example, one could use it to plan a surprise party for someone when he or she turns 20,000 days old, or one billion seconds old!

The Amish & the Law

Piping Up

Harvard Magazine has an article about Daniel Pipes and his views about Islam.

Money quote:

"It's a mistake to blame Islam, a religion 14 centuries old, for the evil that should be ascribed to militant Islam, a totalitarian ideology less than a century old. Militant Islam is the problem, but moderate Islam is the solution."

~Daniel Pipes

iPods Ain't Just for Tunes...

Elementary Web Presentation of Libertarianism

Click HERE for a web presentation of a very elementary introduction to a version of political libertarianism. I just thought this was interesting/provocative enough to post. My reaction was a bit mixed to it.

EU Overturns British Banning of Canadian Berry

The Telegraph reports that ever vigilant British bureaucrats banned the (unfamiliar to them) saskatoon berry, eaten by people in Canada for God knows how long. Because other EU nations were importing it, Brussels overrode the British ban.

Money quote:

"[T]he berry is illegal in Britain, and will be for as long as two years while tests are conducted to find out whether the population of Canada is right in thinking it to be edible, and that is all there is to it."

A Godfather of "Neo-Conservatism" Explains His Views on 'World War IV'

2nd Wives (of the Polygamous Sort) May Get a Tax Break in the U.K.

Faced with men who have (under the laws of the religion they subscribe to) more than one wife, the U.K. Inland Revenue is contemplating recognizing those marriages for tax purposes.

Click here for the Times of London article.

Money quote:

"It is seen as a breakthrough by Muslim leaders who have been campaigning to incorporate sharia into British domestic law."

"What the #$*! Do We Know?!"...

...is the title of a new film that explores in a 'popularized' fashion, (not in the good sense of the term), the interrelationships of quantum mechanics, reality and consciousness. Click HERE for the Scientific American article on the movie.

Sidney Morgenbesser...

...Sidewalk Socrates.

Click here (registration may be required) to read about him.

Money quote:

"There is a danger, of course, in being too clever, and no one knew this better than Morgenbesser. He was exceptional at taking ideas apart, but not at building them up. No argument ever satisfied him, least of all his own, and his exacting standards made it hard for him to publish..."

Birth of a Rabbi/Carpenter

Geza Vermes discusses here who the real Jesus was.

Merry Christmas!

Nativity Scenes & Aluminum Poles: Festivus Joins Christmas in the Public Square

In December in the U.S., when government property is used to display Nativity scenes it leaves the door open to other groups to erect their own displays. Typically Chanukah menorahs, since Chanukah is also in December. (Incredibly, courts have ruled that Nativity scenes and Chanukah menorahs are NOT religious symbols! What an insult!) Consequently, besides the placing of menorahs near Nativity scenes, government property may now be adorned with other holiday symbols.

A Seinfeld fan club in Polk County, Florida, in celebration of Festivus, erected a display that read: "Festivus for the Rest of Us". Click HERE to read an acount of it. Moreover, a Zoroastrian display was also put up.

Expect of course, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, and all sorts of other displays (including pagan and Satanic ones) to become more common on government property.

Years ago, when the constitutionality of Christmas being a government holiday was litigated before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court ruled that it was constitutional for Christmas to be a legal holiday, because, the Court held, Christmas is NOT a religious holiday!

Merry Christmas!

Group Opposed to the Death Penalty MURDERS 23 People on Bus

Philosopher-Mayor

Hat Tip: A Triple Nine Society Member via the Triplenine Message Board.

The Unusual Situation of the Druze

Interview With Penn Jillette

Do Not Pass Go....

Have a Festive Festivus!

Click here if unlike the rest of us, you're unsure of Festivus.

Death Knell of the West?

In what seems to be simultaneously a disturbing restriction on both freedom of expression & freedom of religion, two Christian ministers have been found guilty of "religious vilification" in Australia. Click here to read it and weep.

Battleground God

This was linked to in an earlier post (among other games), but I wanted to ensure that more readers were aware of this fun game which consists of a series of questions to test the consistency of one's beliefs about theistic matters. Click the title above to start the game!

Ex-Best Friend, Now Enemy, Shines the Spotlight...

Bill Clinton has numerous enemies. But to me, his most fascinating nemesis is Dick Morris, because Morris was once Clinton's closest friend and advisor and knows him better than virtually everyone else.

Morris has written a book entitled Because He Could in which substantial portions are rebuttals to Clinton's autobiography. Here is a thoughtful review of Morris's book.

E Anti-Americanus Unum

Here is a review of a book entitled The United States of Europe by T. R. Reid. The reviewer proffers the notion that anti-Americanism underlies the agglomeration.

"The United Nations is the pre-eminent trade association for people involved in the business of government power."

Read the whole thing by clicking here.

Why Stand When You Can Sit?

(Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan)

Firefox vs. Internet Explorer

Read this article from the New York Times about the relative advantages of Firefox vs. Internet Explorer by clicking here. (Registration may be required.)

Then, if you want to download Firefox for free, click here.

I heartily recommend Firefox.

Update: A newly reported security problem shows that Internet Explorer is vulnerable to Phishing. Click here for a 12/20/04 article on the topic.

Let's Stop All the Abominations!

Dear Nigerian Scam Artist,

A recipient of Nigerian scam spam engages his would-be predators in hilarious correspondence...

Click HERE to be amused...

Frank Costanza Would Be Proud!

The growing popularity of Festivus for the rest of us! Click here! (Registration may be required.)

Is Syria Next?

I just overheard John Loftus (someone in the past whom I've found to be quite reliable, and I enjoyed one of his books) say on Fox News Television something to the effect that when Israel informed the White House that it was interested in negotiating with the present government of Syria, (under dictator opthalmologist Assad) over the Golan Heights, the White House told Israel, don't bother negotiating with them they won't be in power for long!

Important Caveat: I was only half-listening in the beginning and all of this is totally unconfirmed. Moreover, perhaps I heard it wrong.

Anyway, if Syria's Criminal Gang does come tumbling down soon, remember where you heard it first!

Update: This article (registration may be required) affirms what Loftus was saying.

Money quote from the article:

"It really wouldn't look good if Israel legitimizes Syria's regime by resuming peace talks when there is talk in Washington about striking Syria militarily," said one Israeli diplomat.

Blog, Blog, Blog...SEX

Today's New York Times Magazine (registration may be required) has an article about blogging & sex...

World's Greatest Pickup Line...

"What are you doing after the orgy?"

0/0 = ?

If a is NOT equal to zero, we say a/0 is undefined because it has no real solutions. No real number multiplied by 0 gives a non-zero product. Hence we disallow division by zero.

If a =0, then a/0 which is the same as 0/0 is also considered "meaningless" or "undefined", yet it seems to me that 0/0 has an infinite number of solutions, namely the set of real numbers. Any real number multiplied by 0 gives the product zero.

It's true enough that 0/0 doesn't indicate or demarcate any particular real number, but so what? Other operations can have more than one solution, (When X "squared" = 4, then X = +2 or -2), and that's considered perfectly acceptable. [Maybe mathematicians want to set things up so that "fundamental" operations (like +, multiplication, of course, is just repeated addition) have only one solution.] So, this operation, 0/0, has an infinite number of solutions. I guess because 0/0 has an infinite number of solutions it's characterized as "meaningless".

Maybe it's all just a matter of pragmatics in mathematics, insofar as since 0/0 is equal to any real number, it wouldn't do any interesting work.


Update: The above was just written off the top of my head. (Obviously.) As a commenter correctly points out, in some areas of mathematics, division by zero is accomplished. Albeit with different mathematical rules. I should have made it explicit in my posting above that I was referring to the rules in ordinary arithmetic and algebra. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_by_zero for more information. (Note: Wikipedia's reliability cannot be vouched for.)

Actually, this buttresses my point that pragmatics is involved with whether mathematics accepts division by zero. Different rules can be used to achieve different purposes.

The Economist's Competition for Wisest Fool

Send in your nomination for "The Wisest Fool". Click here for the gory details or email competition@economist.com. Winner gets a King James Bible dedicated to the memory of the first wisest fool.

Erections & Fresh Breath! What a Combo!

Wrigley has patented a chewing gum that enables erections (and gives you fresh breath). I kid you not...

Click here for a discussion of two books, one entitled The Rise of Viagra, and the other the Updated Joy of Sex.

Only Nixon Could Go to China...

This was said (partly) because of Nixon's unimpeachable (pun intended!) anti-Communist credentials. Analogously, Hosni Mubarak, the President (i.e., dictator) of Egypt said recently:

"Sharon is the only one in Israel who can take the courageous step toward peace".

When some people were wailing and gnashing their teeth upon Arik Sharon's ascension to the Prime Ministership of Israel, I told them that it was just like when Begin was elected. (It's also reminiscent of Reagan's peace breakthroughs with the U.S.S.R.) Only someone like Sharon (with unimpeachable Israeli security credentials) would be capable of making great progress towards peace.

Click here (registration may be required) to read the full story.

Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman on the Battle Half Won

Invitation to Triple Niners

Triple Nine Society members wishing to contribute to the Triple Nine Blog are invited to email their names to wizenberg@yahoo.com.

Revolving Apartments!

Historian: Honest Abe was Gay...Honest!

The New York Times (registration may be required) has a review of a new book by C. A. Tripp entitled The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln in which he argues that there is substantial evidence to conclude that it is more likely than not that Lincoln was a homosexual.

I wonder how opponent of same-sex marriage George W. Bush would react to the poem the G.O.P. hero penned in which two men marry each other.

An American in Berlin

Click HERE to read a fascinating interview with one American working and living in Berlin. I was personally pleasantly surprised to see that the interviewer's last name, Gerstenfeld, is the same as my mother's maternal grandmother's maiden name.

Pop-Tart Expertise

This is why you visit the Triple Nine Blog--to read here about a court allowing an engineer to testify solely on the basis of his being an expert on toasting Pop-Tarts!

How the Drug War Undermines the War on Terror

My favorite self-described hard-core Leftist, Christopher Hitchens, explains HERE how the U.S. Government's "War on Drugs" aids terrorists.

Victor Davis Hanson on the Left's Credibility

I enjoy the writings of Victor Davis Hanson. Moreover, people who vehemently disagree with him grudgingly acknowledge that he's quite thought-provoking. (His allusions to ancient history are also very refreshing.)

Click HERE for a very interesting and controversial column from National Review in which Hanson contends that "the Left" has lost credibility in foreign policy matters. I'm hoping that readers who disagree with his thoughts will post their opposition.

Money quote:

"All the standing ovations for Kofi Annan cannot hide the truth that the Oil-for-Food scandal exceeds Enron. Indeed, Ken Lay’s malfeasance never involved the deaths of thousands, while cronies siphoned off food and supplies from a starving populace. The U.S. military does not tolerate mass rape and plunder among its troops, as is true of the U.N. peacekeepers throughout Africa. There can be no serious U.N. moral sense as long as illiberal regimes — a Syria, Iran, or Cuba — vote in the General Assembly and the Security Council stymies solutions out of concern for an autocratic China that swallowed Tibet. Millions were slaughtered in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur while New York bureaucrats either condemned Israel or damned anyone who censured their own inaction and corruption. Rather than faulting those who fault the U.N., leftists should lament the betrayal of the spirit of the liberal U.N. Charter by regimes that are neither democratic nor liberal but who seek legitimacy solely on their ability to win concessions and sympathy from guilt-ridden Westerners."

Judicial Propriety

Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit, is widely acknowledged to be among the smartest judges around.

Click HERE for a very interesting article by him on ethical issues facing judges.

Killing Time: Godel & Einstein's Friendship

You're Visiting the Triple Nine Blog...

...so, tax your brain & click here!

Christmas gifts for the scientifically inclined

Whither Intellectuals?

Click here for a review of a book entitled "Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?"

Money quote from the review: "[British philosopher A. C.] Grayling argues that surprisingly few university academics in the English-speaking world are intellectuals 'in the sense of having wide interests of the mind and deep commitments in moral and political terms, often together with a vocation for deploying these in debate about matters of public concern.' A university academic is a specialist in a narrow field who publishes, usually in jargon, technical research in journals of interest only to other specialists."

A hefty percentage of that research is purely careerist, and only read by a relatively small subset of the specialists in those areas.

Academia's Sincerest Form of Flattery?

Was Kerry Poisoned??

Click here.

Japanese Parisians Depressed...

Click here to read about it in the Australian...

Human/Animal Chimeras

Free Global Virtual Library on the Way...

Google agrees with Oxford University and leading libraries to make their holdings freely searchable and available over the net...

Click here for the New York Times article, (registration may be required)...

2004 Junk Science Awards

All the Junk That's Fit to Debunk!

Click here for Junkscience.com's Top Ten Most Embarrasing Moments of 2004.

Update: Antony Flew: "I'm Still an Atheist"

Click here for the latest!

Euroblogging Catches On...

Click the above heading for the story.

Stephen Hawking Implicitly Disses Triple Nine?

Click here (registration required) to read an email interview with Stephen Hawking in the December 12, 2004 issue of The New York Times Magazine.

Interview tidbits: Hawking answers a question about I.Q. and calls President Bush's plans to put a human on Mars "stupid".

Money quote: "People who boast about their I.Q. are losers."

Suggestions

Any suggestions as to how this newborn blog may be improved would be appreciated...

Bush Nominates Nanny to Replace Kerik

Click the above title for the story; this one should stick...

Philosophical Activities & Games

Click here for a page of activities & games dealing with philosophical concepts from the same site that has the "TABOO" test in a post below. If you like philosophy, you'll likely find many of these activities fun!

Atheist Now A Theist

Click here for a transcript of an interview with formerly one of the world's foremost atheist philosophers and now a theist, Professor Antony Flew.

Though his theism is highly attenuated, and subject to revision in the light of his further evaluation of the evidence, as a fan of his atheist writings which span a half century, I am shocked!

The Slippery Slope Express

As same-sex couples are increasingly receiving forms of legal recognition in the U.S. and around the world, --most recently New Zealand and Israel--non-gay sexual minorities, such as polyamorists, are likewise organizing for their rights.

When gay rights activists who advocate same-sex marriage are asked whether polygamy should also be legalized, the question is most often brushed aside.

Click here to see why this tactic won't work for very long.

I've long believed that the ultimate solution is to separate Marriage from State, and permit consenting adults to set up whatever mutually agreeable contractual arrangements they wish. Don't hold your breath. It likely won't happen in our lifetimes.

Hop aboard the Slippery Slope Express...final stop, the Logical Conclusion!

Planetary Dynamics and Climate

Or, evidence that the real hot air of the climate scare is coming out of hungry pseudo-scientists' mouths on the global warming bandwagon, aka "scientific consensus", of the UN's program to initiate an even bigger scam than the oil for food charade...

http://www.crawfordperspectives.com/ClimateKeplerianPlanetDyna.htm

Unplug...

Don't read this.

Federal Appeals Court Weighs Journalistic Privilege

The New York Times reports here on arguments that took place before a Federal Appeals Court over whether journalists (as opposed to non-journalists) have a privilege to refuse to obey a court order to reveal confidential sources.

While driving and listening to the radio, (I'm pretty sure it was NPR), I heard someone claim that one of the First Amendment's purposes was to protect members of the press.

I completely agree that the First Amendment protects the press's freedom of expression.

But this raises the question: Who, precisely, is the press? And does this imply that the "non-press" (whatever that is) are not protected?

Luckily, courts have been loathe to even attempt to differentiate between which entities have a right to freedom of the press and which don't, and have held that all should enjoy freedom of the press.

Consequently, in the eyes of the law, there can be no difference in the legal rights between a New York Times reporter, and a lone blogger with a miniscule audience.

If "journalists" have a privilege to refuse to obey a court order to reveal a confidential source, that privilege must extend to anyone who disseminates ideas to others. (Virtually everyone.) If my elderly aunt who disseminates ideas (she gossips to her friends) and I (who blog) don't have this privilege why should a Times reporter?

How in the world do you draw a principled distinction? Moreover, do we want to empower government to determine which disseminators of ideas are worthy of journalistic privilege and which are not?

Happy Chanukah!...

...T'is the season,

My little nephews, ages 5 and 7, loved this flash animation. (Confession: Pantanassa & I loved it too!) Click the candles on and off individually to hear the individual sounds.

(Hat tip: David Bernstein from The Volokh Conspiracy.)

Google AdSense?

I'm thinking of signing up this blog with Google AdSense. Google will place "unobtrusive ads" on the site and will pay me (probably pennies) if people click through them and/or make purchases.

Google Adsense's site is: https://www.google.com/adsense/?hl=en_US&sourceid=aso&subid=us-et-ads

I did not start this blog with any intention of making money. If it does make money, and I'm sure in the beginning it'd be very, very modest, perhaps I can donate some (or all) of it to a worthy cause such as the Triple Nine Society. I don't however want to create any "official" connection, legal or otherwise to the Triple Nine Society.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Prettying Up the Blog...

Triple Nine Society member Pantanassa Wizenberg, definitely not just another pretty face!

Taboo

I highly recommend the website butterfliesandwheels.com as it has lots of fun articles articulating its skeptical stance towards all sorts of issues, particularly religion.

Click this link here to an amusing and interesting "test" to rationally scrutinize one's moral intuitions concerning taboos.

Journalistic Privilege

Judith Miller, a reporter for the New York Times, faces possible imprisonment for refusing to obey a court order to divulge a source for a new story. She is claiming “journalistic privilege.”

As her case wends her way through the courts, one of the things that’s problematic about her defense is coming up with non-question begging criteria of who is a journalist. All would agree that Ms. Miller is a journalist, and a fine one at that. What’s problematic is whether a reporter for the New York Times can be distinguished from an individual who publishes on a blog freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection or a small town newspaper reporter who writes for a circulation of 200. Surely, the size of one’s readership is not relevant to defining who is or who is not a journalist. (What if I print out my writings and hand them out free to passersby on street corners?)

Today, there are bloggers with thousands, even tens-of-thousands of readers, more so than many traditional newspapers. (Think of Matt Drudge and Andrew Sullivan.) So defining a journalist in terms of numbers of readers is fruitless.

If anyone who publishes on the internet, (or communicates his or her ideas to others in other ways) is a “journalist”, then virtually anyone could claim the “privilege”, and the privilege being well-nigh universal would defeat the purpose of laws which require people to reveal the source of illegal leaks to courts. (Which may or may not be a good thing.)
The upshot is that it seems that the courts will either have to extend the “journalistic privilege” to virtually everyone or deny it to everyone. What would be dangerous territory would be for the government to set itself up as an arbiter of who is or is not a “journalist”. Although the government licenses broadcast media, the consequences of print media being required to have a government imprimatur have frightening implications for freedom of expression.

Update: Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy links to this dialogue about journalistic privilege in which a Constitutional Law Professor points out that the courts are loathe to define who is a journalist as that is repugnant to the First Amendment.

String Theory

This morning's New York Times has a very interesting article on the current state of string theory which you can access here. (Registration at www.nytimes.com required.) The world awaits testable predictive consequences.

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I have a couple of blogs already: PlagueBlog, devoted to disease news, and a writing link blog. If anyone's interested in joining PlagueBlog, I'd love the help. There are so many exciting diseases out there!

I also follow Gene Expression, a community blog with occasional posts about IQ and related topics.

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Peter Wizenberg