User:	lambda_ultimate
Date:	2008-07-05 03:34
Subject:	Lisp’s 50th Birthday Celebration
Security:	Public

http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/2885

See the Dusty Decks announcement.

User:	overcomingbias
Date:	2008-07-04 20:55
Subject:	Is Morality Preference?
Security:	Public

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/07/is-morality-pre.html

Followup to:  Moral Complexities

In the dialogue "The Bedrock of Fairness", I intended Yancy to represent morality-as-raw-fact, Zaire to represent morality-as-raw-whim, and Xannon to be a particular kind of attempt at compromising between them.  Neither Xannon, Yancy, or Zaire represent my own views - rather they are, in their disagreement, showing the problem that I am trying to solve.  It is futile to present answers to which questions are lacking.

But characters have independent life in the minds of all readers; when I create a dialogue, I don't view my authorial intent as primary.  Any good interpretation can be discussed.  I meant Zaire to be asking for half the pie out of pure selfishness; many readers interpreted this as a genuine need... which is as interesting a discussion to have as any, though it's a different discussion.

With this in mind, I turn to Subhan and Obert, who shall try to answer yesterday's questions on behalf of their respective viewpoints.

Subhan makes the opening statement:

Subhan:  "I defend this proposition: that there is no reason to talk about a 'morality' distinct from what people want."

Obert:  "I challenge.  Suppose someone comes to me and says, 'I want a slice of that pie you're holding.'  It seems to me that they have just made a very different statement from 'It is right that I should get a slice of that pie'.  I have no reason at all to doubt the former statement - to suppose that they are lying to me about their desires.  But when it comes to the latter proposition, I have reason indeed to be skeptical.  Do you say that these two statements mean the same thing?"

Subhan:  "I suggest that when the pie-requester says to you, 'It is right for me to get some pie', this asserts that you want the pie-requester to get a slice."

Obert:  "Why should I need to be told what I want?"

Subhan:  "You take a needlessly restrictive view of wanting, Obert; I am not setting out to reduce humans to creatures of animal instinct.  Your wants include those desires you label 'moral values', such as wanting the hungry to be fed -"

Obert:  "And you see no distinction between my desire to feed the hungry, and my desire to eat all the delicious pie myself?"

Subhan:  "No!  They are both desires - backed by different emotions, perhaps, but both desires.  To continue, the pie-requester hopes that you have a desire to feed the hungry, and so says, 'It is right that I should get a slice of this pie', to remind you of your own desire.  We do not automatically know all the consequences of our own wants; we are not logically omniscient."

Obert:  "This seems psychologically unrealistic - I don't think that's what goes through the mind of the person who says, 'I have a right to some pie'.  In this latter case, if I deny them pie, they will feel indignant.  If they are only trying to remind me of my own desires, why should they feel indignant?"

Subhan:  "Because they didn't get any pie, so they're frustrated."

Obert:  "Unrealistic!  Indignation at moral transgressions has a psychological dimension that goes beyond struggling with a struck door."

Subhan:  "Then consider the evolutionary psychology.  The pie-requester's emotion of indignation would evolve as a display, first to remind you of the potential consequences of offending fellow tribe-members, and second, to remind any observing tribe-members of goals they may have to feed the hungry.  By refusing to share, you would offend against a social norm - which is to say, a widely shared want."

Obert:  "So you take refuge in social wants as the essence of morality?  But people seem to see a difference between desire and morality, even in the quiet of their own minds.  They say things like:  'I want X, but the right thing to do is Y... what shall I do?'"

Subhan:  "So they experience a conflict between their want to eat pie, and their want to feed the hungry - which they know is also a want of society.  It's not predetermined that the prosocial impulse will be victorious, but they are both impulses."

Obert:  "And when, during WWII, a German hides Jews in their basement - against the wants of surrounding society - how then?"

Subhan:  "People do not always define their in-group by looking at their next-door neighbors; they may conceive of their group as 'good Christians' or 'humanitarians'."

Obert:  "I should sooner say that people choose their in-groups by looking for others who share their beliefs about morality - not that they construct their morality from their in-group."

Subhan:  "Oh, really?  I should not be surprised if that were experimentally testable - if so, how much do you want to bet?"

Obert:  "That the Germans who hid Jews in their basements, chose who to call their people by looking at their beliefs about morality?  Sure.  I'd bet on that."

Subhan:  "But in any case, even if a German resister has a desire to preserve life which is so strong as to go against their own perceived 'society', it is still their desire."

Obert:  "Yet they would attribute to that desire, the same distinction they make between 'right' and 'want' - even when going against society.  They might think to themselves, 'How dearly I wish I could stay out of this, and keep my family safe.  But it is my duty to hide these Jews from the Nazis, and I must fulfill that duty.'  There is an interesting moral question, as to whether it reveals greater heroism, to fulfill a duty eagerly, or to fulfill your duties when you are not eager.  For myself I should just total up the lives saved, and call that their score.  But I digress...  The distinction between 'right' and 'want' is not explained by your distinction of socially shared and individual wants.  The distinction between desire and duty seems to me a basic thing, which someone could experience floating alone in a spacesuit a thousand light-years from company."

Subhan:  "Even if I were to grant this psychological distinction, perhaps that is simply a matter of emotional flavoring. Why should I not describe perceived duties as a differently flavored want?"

Obert:  "Duties, and should-ness, seem to have a dimension that goes beyond our whims.  If we want different pizza toppings today, we can order a different pizza without guilt; but we cannot choose to make murder a good thing."

Subhan:  "Schopenhauer:  'A man can do as he wills, but not will as he wills.'  You cannot decide to make salad taste better to you than cheeseburgers, and you cannot decide not to dislike murder.  Furthermore, people do change, albeit rarely, those wants that you name 'values'; indeed they are easier to change than our food tastes."

Obert:  "Ah!  That is something I meant to ask you about.  People sometimes change their morals; I would call this updating their beliefs about morality, but you would call it changing their wants.  Why would anyone want to change their wants?"

Subhan:  "Perhaps they simply find that their wants have changed; brains do change over time.  Perhaps they have formed a verbal belief about what they want, which they have discovered to be mistaken. Perhaps society has changed, or their perception of society has changed.  But really, in most cases you don't have to go that far, to explain apparent changes of morality."

Obert:  "Oh?"

Subhan:  "Let's say that someone begins by thinking that Communism is a good social system, has some arguments, and ends by believing that Communism is a bad social system.  This does not mean that their ends have changed - they may simply have gotten a good look at the history of Russia, and decided that Communism is a poor means to the end of raising standards of living.  I challenge you to find me a case of changing morality in which people change their terminal values, and not just their beliefs about which acts have which consequences."

Obert:  "Someone begins by believing that God ordains against premarital sex; they find out there is no God; subsequently they approve of premarital sex.  This, let us specify, is not because of fear of Hell; but because previously they believed that God had the power to ordain, or knowledge to tell them, what is right; in ceasing to believe in God, they updated their belief about what is right."

Subhan:  "I am not responsible for straightening others' confusions; this one is merely in a general state of disarray around the 'God' concept."

Obert:  "All right; suppose I get into a moral argument with a man from a society that practices female circumcision.  I do not think our argument is about the consequences to the woman; the argument is about the morality of these consequences."

Subhan:  "Perhaps the one falsely believes that women have no feelings -"

Obert:  "Unrealistic, unrealistic!  It is far more likely that the one hasn't really considered whether the woman has feelings, because he doesn't see any obligation to care.  The happiness of women is not a terminal value to him.  Thousands of years ago, most societies devalued consequences to women.  They also had false beliefs about women, true - and false beliefs about men as well, for that matter - but nothing like the Victorian era's complex rationalizations for how paternalistic rules really benefited women. The Old Testament doesn't explain why it levies the death penalty for a woman wearing men's clothing.  It certainly doesn't explain how this rule really benefits women after all.  It's not the sort of argument it would have occurred to the authors to rationalize!  They didn't care about the consequences to women."

Subhan:  "So they wanted different things than you; what of it?"

Obert:  "See, now that is exactly why I cannot accept your viewpoint.  Somehow, societies went from Old Testament attitudes, to democracies with female suffrage.  And this transition - however it occurred - was caused by people saying, 'What this society does to women is a great wrong!', not, 'I would personally prefer to treat women better.'  That's not just a change in semantics - it's the difference between being obligated to stand and deliver a justification, versus being able to just say, 'Well, I prefer differently, end of discussion.'  And who says that humankind has finished with its moral progress?  You're yanking the ladder out from underneath a very important climb."

Subhan:  "Let us suppose that the change of human societies over the last ten thousand years, has been accompanied by a change in terminal values -"

Obert:  "You call this a supposition?  Modern political debates turn around vastly different valuations of consequences than in ancient Greece!"

Subhan:  "I am not so sure; human cognitive psychology has not had time to change evolutionarily over that period.  Modern democracies tend to appeal to our empathy for those suffering; that empathy existed in ancient Greece as well, but it was invoked less often.  In each single moment of argument, I doubt you would find modern politicians appealing to emotions that didn't exist in ancient Greece."

Obert:  "I'm not saying that emotions have changed; I'm saying that beliefs about morality have changed.  Empathy merely provides emotional depth to an argument that can be made on a purely logical level:  'If it's wrong to enslave you, if it's wrong to enslave your family and your friends, then how can it be right to enslave people who happen to be a different color?  What difference does the color make?'  If morality is just preference, then there's a very simple answer:  'There is no right or wrong, I just like my own family better.'  You see the problem here?"

Subhan:  "Logical fallacy:  Appeal to consequences."

Obert:  "I'm not appealing to consequences.  I'm showing that when I reason about 'right' or 'wrong', I am reasoning about something that does not behave like 'want' and 'don't want'."

Subhan:  "Oh?  But I think that in reality, your rejection of morality-as-preference has a great deal to do with your fear of where the truth leads."

Obert:  "Logical fallacy:  Ad hominem."

Subhan:  "Fair enough.  Where were we?"

Obert:  "If morality is preference, why would you want to change your wants to be more inclusive?  Why would you want to change your wants at all?"

Subhan:  "The answer to your first question probably has to do with a fairness instinct, I would suppose - a notion that the tribe should have the same rules for everyone."

Obert:  "I don't think that's an instinct.  I think that's a triumph of three thousand years of moral philosophy."

Subhan:  "That could be tested."

Obert:  "And my second question?"

Subhan:  "Even if terminal values change, it doesn't mean that terminal values are stored on a great stone tablet outside humanity.  Indeed, it would seem to argue against it!  It just means that some of the events that go on in our brains, can change what we want."

Obert:  "That's your concept of moral progress?  That's your view of the last three thousand years?  That's why we have free speech, democracy, mass street protests against wars, nonlethal weapons, no more slavery -"

Subhan:  "If you wander on a random path, and you compare all past states to your present state, you will see continuous 'advancement' toward your present condition -"

Obert:  "Wander on a random path?"

Subhan:  "I'm just pointing out that saying, 'Look how much better things are now', when your criterion for 'better' is comparing past moral values to yours, does not establish any directional trend in human progress."

Obert:  "Your strange beliefs about the nature of morality have destroyed your soul.  I don't even believe in souls, and I'm saying that."

Subhan:  "Look, depending on which arguments do, in fact, move us, you might be able to regard the process of changing terminal values as a directional progress.  You might be able to show that the change had a consistent trend as we thought of more and more arguments.  But that doesn't show that morality is something outside us.  We could even - though this is psychologically unrealistic - choose to regard you as computing a converging approximation to your 'ideal wants', so that you would have meta-values that defined both your present value and the rules for updating them.  But these would be your meta-values and your ideals and your computation, just as much as pepperoni is your own taste in pizza toppings.  You may not know your real favorite ever pizza topping, until you've tasted many possible flavors."

Obert:  "Leaving out what it is that you just compared to pizza toppings, I begin to be suspicious of the all-embracingness of your viewpoint.  No matter what my mind does, you can simply call it a still-more-modified 'want'.  I think that you are the one suffering from meta-level confusion, not I.  Appealing to right is not the same as appealing to desire.  Just because the appeal is judged inside my brain, doesn't mean that the appeal is not to something more than my desires.  Why can't my brain compute duties as well as desires?"

Subhan:  "What is the difference between duty and desire?"

Obert:  "A duty is something you must do whether you want to or not."

Subhan:  "Now you're just being incoherent.  Your brain computes something it wants to do whether it wants to or not?"

Obert:  "No, you are the one whose theory makes this incoherent.  Which is why your theory ultimately fails to add up to morality."

Subhan:  "I say again that you underestimate the power of mere wanting.  And more:  You accuse me of incoherence?  You say that I suffer from meta-level confusion?"

Obert:  "Er... yes?"

To be continued...

User:	emergent_chaos
Date:	2008-07-04 21:56
Subject:	Passport-peeking probably pervasive
Security:	Public

http://www.emergentchaos.com/archives/2008/07/passportpeeking_probably.html

Back in March, we wrote about unauthorized access to Barack Obama's passport file.

At the time, a Washington Post article quoted a State Department spokesman:

"The State Department has strict policies and controls on access to passport records by government and contract employees"

The idea was that, while snooping might occur, it would be caught by controls put in place specifically to detect accesses to the records of high-profile people.

Well, as it turns out the State Department may not be quite as good at detecting such accesses, or at following up (shocking, I know).

In a July 4 article, the Los Angeles Times reports:

A federal investigation of unauthorized snooping into government passport files has found evidence that such breaches may be far more common than previously disclosed, and the State Department inspector general is calling for an overhaul of the program's management.

In a report issued Thursday, the inspector general found "many control weaknesses" in the department's administration program, including what investigators said was a lack of sound policies on training staff, accessing electronic records and disciplining workers who break privacy rules.

According to the article, passport files may be viewed by over 20,000 government workers and contractors. In a sample of 150 celebrities chosen for examination by investigators, 85% had been accessed at least once. One was accessed over 100 times (!) in the last six years.

Amusingly, at a press conference held on July 4, State said that half of those who had access in March no longer have it. They also were unable to say whether spot-checks on detected accesses were taking place in the past. Put those together and you have a system where at least twice as many people have access as need it, and privileged operations are recorded but the folks in charge do not know if the audit trail is used.

The redacted report is available at the C-SPAN web site, but not at the State Department's near as I can tell. Draw your own conclusions.

	User:	threadwalker
	Date:	2008-07-04 13:59
	Subject:	cheerful silliness
	Security:	Public

This is awesome- muchly smile-making. Also I totally wish that was me. :)


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Where the hell is Matt? I have this suspicion that he got a grant/contract from Vimeo to introduce them this way. ...but it's still cool.

*reposted from lnghnds- thanks!

User:	nqb2
Date:	2008-07-04 19:45
Subject:	Sonic Youth show starts in 30 minutes...
Security:	Public

http://www.josephhall.org/nqb2/index.php/2008/07/04/syfs

Easily my favorite music artists, Sonic Youth, are playing a free show in Manhattan at Battery Park starting at 4:15  EDT. It's part of WMFU's 50th Anniversary... and it will broadcast live and streamed at http://wfmu.org/.

	User:	princessmadelyn
	Date:	2008-07-04 13:31
	Subject:	BIKE!!!!!!!!! pt. 2
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	ecstatic

I BOUGHT THE COOLEST BIKE EVAR!!!!!!1111!!11!1!!!!!!1

It's a trek 1000, and it was only $200! and it's red! hooorayyy!

User:	onelaptopfb
Date:	2008-07-04 13:33
Subject:	Laptop.org Reality Check: No More "$100 Laptop" Slogan
Security:	Public

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/OneLaptopPerChildNews/~3/326805419/laptop_dot_org_reality_check.html

http://www.olpcnews.com/people/leadership/laptop_dot_org_reality_check.html

Have you looked at laptop.org, the One laptop Per Child website recently? Maybe you noticed a subtle change in the title of the site. In the past, there was a direct reference to the marketing price of the XO laptop:

</span>

One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a $100 laptop for the world's children's education

One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a low-cost, connected laptop for the world's children's education

Now, maybe OLPC can take the next step and describe its mission and the XO in full detail, the way I've tried to described it when asked:

One laptop Per Child is developing and distributing the Children's Machine XO - the best educational technology for primary-age school children in the developing world.

User:	lizardkingdom
Date:	2008-07-03 21:54
Subject:	Because That's Not Freakin' Obvious
Security:	Public

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/lizardkingdom/~3/326780946/because_thats_not_freakin_obvi.html

I got a spam email yesterday from "Hoagland Wattenbarger" with a subject line of "sententious smaragd."

Anyone stupid enough to buy Viagra from an email like this pretty much deserves whatever they get.

User:	mollydotcom
Date:	2008-07-04 14:41
Subject:	What is Independence to You?
Security:	Public

http://www.molly.com/2008/07/04/independence-what-is-independence-to-you/

Today is the 4th of July, which is independence day in the U.S. We party with feasts and drinks and fireworks.

It’s a great tradition. Have you tried the hot dogs? Beef, hot mustard, sauerkraut.

Still, I’m concerned with the core values of Independence. Concerned that the idea that independence is not at all what we have, even though it might be what we thought we set out to have.

Independence to Me

Is believing everything I do matters, even if it doesn’t.

User:	overcomingbias
Date:	2008-07-04 06:00
Subject:	Rah My Country
Security:	Public

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/07/yeah-my-country.html

Today is the revered USA "Approval to Print a Declaration of Independence Day":

The Declaration of Independence was not signed [July 4] by the 56 persons whose signatures would eventually adorn it.  Perhaps no one signed it that day. ....  What Congress actually did that day was agree to print and publish the Declaration authorized two days earlier. ...  What was voted on July 2 was, however, really decided on July 1.  But on June 28, Congress considered Jefferson's draft of the Declaration, so was the die then cast?  Or was it cast on June 10, when Congress voted that "a committee be appointed to prepare a declaration"?  The Declaration was first actually declared -- read aloud to a crowd (at the State House, now Independence Hall) -- on July 8.

I prefer this classic Onion:

As a true patriot, I would gladly die in battle defending my homeland. I love my country more than my own life. But I would also be more than willing to give my last breath in the name of, say, Mexico, Panama, Japan, or the Czech Republic. The most honorable thing a man can do is lay down his life for his country. Or another country. The important thing is that it's a country.

Here in Northern Virginia there are lots of "Support Our Troops" signs and bumper stickers.  I now have this bumper sticker on my car:

This is my other sticker:

I like the way both play on three levels of meanings.  My stickers may seem on the surface to say the opposite of what some other popular stickers say, but they can be better read as saying something subtler.

The usual "Support Our Troops" seems to say to support our side in a war, while "Support Everyone's Troops" seems to say to support all sides in every war, which is silly.  But the best way to support all troops everywhere would be to stop the wars ASAP.   

The usual "Question Authority" seems to say "fight the power" while "Question Authority, But Raise Your Hand First" seems to say "accept their power."  But you really shouldn't fight or accept powers until you can get past your dominance & submission reactions to calmly evaluate those powers, politely asking questions as needed to complete your evaluation.

	User:	chimerically
	Date:	2008-07-04 00:36
	Subject:	3^3 and patriotism
	Security:	Public

Today at 11:37am I will enter my 28th year (EDIT: meaning I've now lived 27 years, hence the 3^3), and the country in which I was born will enter its 233rd (by some definitions of a country's beginning, anyway). I've had an uneasy relationship with patriotism for much of my life, and it's not because I share my birthday with my country's, though perhaps that has made me think more about it than I might have otherwise. In some ways I'm deeply patriotic in that I agree with many of the tenets of freedom and equality on which our government is theoretically built, though I am and have long been critical of the various instantiations of our government and its role in both the lives of its citizens and in the affairs of other countries. In my mind, the best patriot is not blind to her country's problems but works to address them. Also, there is another, more concrete, aspect of patriotism that is important to me, but in lieu of explaining it myself, I'll quote a poem I remember from high school that I think expresses it well. It was originally written in Spanish, but I'll post both that version and the English translation.

High treason
by José Emilio Pacheco

I do not love my country. Its abstract splendor
is beyond my grasp.
But (although it sounds bad) I would give my life
for ten places in it, for certain people,
seaports, pinewoods, fortresses,
a run-down city, gray, grotesque,
various figures from its history
mountains
(and three or four rivers).

( en Español )

	User:	ucberkeley (posted by for_nepenthe)
	Date:	2008-07-04 00:52
	Subject:	Mathematics
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	awake
	Music:	"Ready to Go"

Okay, so, quick question--

for a person who is absolutely AWFUL at non-linear mathematics and calculus, out of the following, which would be easier for such a person (i.e. me):

a)  Math 1A  (Calculus)
OR
b) Math 16A (Analytic Geometry and Calculus)?

because i'm guessing that Math 16A is slightly less difficult than Math 1A (based on the credits awarded for both courses).

but really, i'm totally not a mathematics-type person.  so, based on your own experiences (if you are/were a similar person), which is easier out of the two?

I was way better at geometry than calculus.  then again, analytic geometry could actually be a bajillion times more difficult than calculus...  i honestly have no idea what to expect of the two courses.  again, any help offered greatly appreciated.

	User:	ucberkeley (posted by for_nepenthe)
	Date:	2008-07-04 00:29
	Subject:	frosh scheduling
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	apprehensive
	Music:	Ryan Cabrera: "On the Way Down"

so, I'm about a week away from my set CalSO date and FREAKING THE HECK OUT after checking out the orienteering site extensively and realizing that, though i'm not in the last CalSO date, a TON of classes (that are pre-requisites for my major) are already full.

and then, there's a small hope when I see "currently not open"-- though I'm not particularly sure what that means.

anyway, everyone I know is telling me to "chill" out and relax because they (being, the counselors or advisors or whatever they call them in uni) wouldn't totally abandon people who are in later CalSO's, but... I'm super apprehensive that I'll be stuck with a schedule full of electives my first semester in.

should i freak out?

I'm particularly anxious because I'm planning on going abroad for half of next year (Summer and Fall 2009), and would need to figure out how to take the courses I'd have had to take during Fall of 2009 another time (preferrably earlier).

are any other freshmen who have a later CalSO date stressing as well?
and, to you upperclassmen, is this panic warranted?  Or, will things (via the advisors) just work themselves out?

I'm so used to scheduling everything myself that simply putting trust in others (even professionals) makes me anxious.  and worried like crazy.

then again, I'm a bit of a control freak.  *ahem*  anyway.  any help/advice/opinions on this topic would be super appreciated.

luckily, i've already satisfied a great majority of degree requirements, i'm just mostly concerned about the pre-reqs for majors.

Thanks again...  And hopefully see you soon?  : ]

User:	overcomingbias
Date:	2008-07-04 02:43
Subject:	Moral Complexities
Security:	Public

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/07/moral-complexit.html

Followup to:  The Bedrock of Fairness

Discussions of morality seem to me to often end up turning around two different intuitions, which I might label morality-as-preference and morality-as-given.  The former crowd tends to equate morality with what people want; the latter to regard morality as something you can't change by changing people.

As for me, I have my own notions, which I am working up to presenting.  But above all, I try to avoid avoiding difficult questions.  Here are what I see as (some of) the difficult questions for the two intuitions:

• For morality-as-preference:   
  • Why do people seem to mean different things by "I want the pie" and "It is right that I should get the pie"?  Why are the two propositions argued in different ways?
       
  • When and why do people change their terminal values?  Do the concepts of "moral error" and "moral progress" have referents?  Why would anyone want to change what they want?
       
  • Why and how does anyone ever "do something they know they shouldn't", or "want something they know is wrong"?  Does the notion of morality-as-preference really add up to moral normality?
• For morality-as-given:   
  • Would it be possible for everyone in the world to be wrong about morality, and wrong about how to update their beliefs about morality, and wrong about how to choose between metamoralities, etcetera?  So that there would be a morality, but it would be entirely outside our frame of reference?  What distinguishes this state of affairs, from finding a random stone tablet showing the words "You should commit suicide"?
       
  • How does a world in which a moral proposition is true, differ from a world in which that moral proposition is false?  If the answer is "no", how does anyone perceive moral givens?
       
  • Is it better for people to be happy than sad?  If so, why does morality look amazingly like godshatter of natural selection?
       
  • Am I not allowed to construct an alien mind that evaluates morality differently?  What will stop me from doing so?

	User:	princessmadelyn
	Date:	2008-07-03 23:37
	Subject:	BIKE!!!!!!!!!
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	determined
	Music:	The Fall on random

My brain is completely consumed by the bike page on craigslist!!!! I want a new bike to ride up hills so badly!!!! WAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!

User:	emergent_chaos
Date:	2008-07-04 06:18
Subject:	In Congress Assembled, July 4, 1776
Security:	Public

http://www.emergentchaos.com/archives/2008/07/in_congress_assembled_jul_2.html

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:

New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts

John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut

Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York

William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey

Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania

Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware

Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland

Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia

George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina

William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina

Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia

Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

User:	xkcd_rss
Date:	2008-07-04 04:00
Subject:	I Am Not Good with Boomerangs
Security:	Public

http://xkcd.com/445/

	User:	ucberkeley (posted by chasingred)
	Date:	2008-07-03 21:15
	Subject:	The New U
	Security:	Public

New York Times had a great front page article today that directly relates to changes UC Berkeley has seen in the last 50 years. The ’60s Begin to Fade as Liberal Professors Retire by Patricia Cohen:

Together, these Midwestern academics, one leaving the professoriate and another working her way up, are part of a vast generational change that is likely to profoundly alter the culture at American universities and colleges over the next decade.

Baby boomers, hired in large numbers during a huge expansion in higher education that continued into the ’70s, are being replaced by younger professors who many of the nearly 50 academics interviewed by The New York Times believe are different from their predecessors — less ideologically polarized and more politically moderate.

[...]

Yet already there are signs that the intense passions and polemics that roiled campuses during the past couple of decades have begun to fade. At Stanford a divided anthropology department reunited last year after a bitter split in 1998 broke it into two entities, one focusing on culture, the other on biology. At Amherst, where military recruiters were kicked out in 1987, students crammed into a lecture hall this year to listen as alumni who served in Iraq urged them to join the military.

In general, information on professors’ political and ideological leanings tends to be scarce. But a new study of the social and political views of American professors by Neil Gross at the University of British Columbia and Solon Simmons at George Mason University found that the notion of a generational divide is more than a glancing impression. “Self-described liberals are most common within the ranks of those professors aged 50-64, who were teenagers or young adults in the 1960s,” they wrote, making up just under 50 percent. At the same time, the youngest group, ages 26 to 35, contains the highest percentage of moderates, some 60 percent, and the lowest percentage of liberals, just under a third.

User:	gracedavis
Date:	2008-07-03 20:18
Subject:	Care for an Eye Taco, anyone?
Security:	Public

http://gracedavis.typepad.com/i_am_dr_lauras_worst_nigh/2008/07/care-for-an-eye.html

Care for an Eye Taco, anyone?

Originally uploaded by GraceD

There's a story behind this, dollins. But first I'm going out for sushi. Just regular fish, no fish brains, lips, tongue or IIII-EEEEE!



(Eye Tacos. Mild or hot salsa? With beans and sour cream? Think about it.)

User:	madelleathome
Date:	2008-07-03 22:30
Subject:	are you crazy people still reading my blog?!
Security:	Public

http://madelleathome.blogspot.com/2008/07/are-you-crazy-people-still-reading-my.html