jerry arkive CHAOS MANOR

Tuesday, This is from another conference. James Guest is an Australian party leader and intellectual. You may think of this as a Guest editorial:
Why do intellectuals get things so wrong so often?
September 27, 2005
Leading Australian conservative Owen Harries, in The American Interest, on a poor academic track record
ON political matters, intellectuals tend to share two characteristics: they are slaves to fashion; and, on the big questions, they tend to get things hopelessly wrong.
Intellectuals generally are prone to run together. Beneath their often savage surface differences and scorn for orthodoxy, there is usually a surprising degree of uncritical acceptance of erroneous views concerning the way things are and, in particular, the way things are going.
Thus, if you had been an intellectual living in 1910 or thereabouts, it is more than likely that you would have subscribed to the view, propagated by Norman Angell in The Great Illusion that war was a dying institution (because it did not pay), and that the forces of capitalism - technology, free trade and liberal rationality - were rapidly creating a peaceful and borderless world. You would have been wrong, of course. But the fact that an unprecedentedly bloody war followed soon afterwards did not prevent Angell from being awarded a Nobel prize in due course.
Had you been a typical intellectual 25 years later, on the other hand, you would have believed the exact opposite: that, with the Great Depression, the world was witnessing the death throes of capitalism and liberalism, that the failed system was destroying itself due to its "internal contradictions". To replace it there was a "coming struggle for power", to quote the title of another enormously influential book by John Strachey, a fight to the death between fascism and communism.
Indeed, the belief that capitalism was finished remained intellectual orthodoxy in Europe well into the next decade . . . At the end of the 1940s, the influential editor and man of letters Cyril Connolly was saying . . . "It is closing time in the garden of the West and from now on an artist will be judged only by the resonance of his solitude or the quality of his despair." All this as the West was on the eve of the biggest surge of economic prosperity in human history, brought about by the supposedly terminally ill capitalist system.
Go on another couple of decades and the prevailing intellectual view was that the totalitarian communist system was indestructible, the Soviet Union was winning the Cold War, and the US, defeated by a peasant army in Vietnam, torn by internal dissent, disgraced by Watergate, was losing it.
As late as 1984, the intellectuals' favourite economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, was insisting that "the Soviet system has made great material progress in recent years", and that "the Russian system succeeds because, in contrast with the Western industrial economies, it makes full use of its manpower." Even later, in 1987, a history book Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers made an enormous impact in intellectual circles when it depicted the US as suffering badly from "imperial overstretch" and facing decline. And later still, into the 1990s, it was widely predicted that Japan and perhaps Germany(!) would soon overtake America economically.
Nor should one forget the apocalyptic conclusion of the Club of Rome in the 1970s - that unless prompt and drastic action was taken to limit population and industrial growth, the world would self-destruct by the end of the century - which was enthusiastically seized on by most intellectuals. Before the end of the decade, the club's book, The Limits to Growth, had sold four million copies and become the bible of the enlightened.
And so it goes. Why do intellectuals get things so wrong, so often? . . . Is all this worth bothering about? Probably, yes. We are living at the beginning of an epoch whose essential character still awaits definition. At present, several competing herds of independent minds are careering around, noisily insisting that their preferred label - American hegemony, borderless world, rise of the Asian giants, postmodern world, ecological catastrophe, war on terrorism, etc - does the trick. As we listen to them, it will do no harm, and it might do some good, to bear in mind what an appalling record of prediction intellectuals have had in the past century.
James Guest
And there was this reply:
It occurs to me, in fact, that the list of major intellectuals who got things RIGHT would be, though short, quite illuminating.
---Burke (and John Adams) on the French Revolution
---Bertrand Russell on the Russian...
Interesting to note that Orwell, now regarded as the sage of his time, was flat wrong about everything. Not one of his predictions came true.
John
==
This is a unfair to Norman Angell, who described early in the 20th Century in detail just how horrible a new European War, fought with the full power of industrialization, would be. His argument was that such a war would be a disaster for all sides and that peace and trade made far more sense. He was much more right than all those who went to war in August 1914 assuming they would be victorious by Christmas.
Steve.
==
Dr. Pournelle,
Regarding Orwell being wrong... I don't buy the flat statement that he was completely wrong. Was he wrong, or did he instead shape the future as people made conscious decisions to guide society away from the future he saw? Or is he still right, just not yet?
Yes, my television isn't (yet) reporting back my conversations but my cable box is not only reporting what I watch, it contains industry mandated and government supported circuitry that dictates what content I can watch, what I can do with such content even after it makes it inside my house, I can go to jail for circumventing electronics in a device I purchased, and I can go to jail for even longer for telling others how to do the same.
So how wrong was Orwell again?
Sean Long
==
Jerry,
Victor Hanson has some stinging words in the Wall Street Journal:
"In a world of intellectual integrity, Robert Birgeneau would ask, 'Why are Asians excelling, and what can Berkeley do to encourage emulation of their success by other ethnic groups?' Denice Denton might wonder whether open hiring, monitored by affirmative action officers, applies to university staff or only those who are not associates of the president. President Hoffman would decry Ward Churchill's crass behavior and order a complete review of affirmative action and the politicized nature of hiring, retention, and tenure practices at Colorado. And Larry Summers? In the old world of the campus, he would defend free inquiry and expression, and remind faculty that all questions are up for discussion at Harvard."
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007319
I work at Caltech, which is somewhat buffered from the trends Hanson declaims. But the U.S. can't function solely on places like Caltech; it needs well-run liberal-arts university programs (and universities) as well. This worries me.
--Erich Schwarz
==============
On another matter entirely:
Subject: Codecs
Jerry, I just read and enjoyed your latest column. On the issue of codec, please check out: http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/ . I recommend the full version. Their executable examines the codecs on your system, upgrades where necessary, adds new ones and just keeps your system up-to-date. It leaves any standard codecs untouched. During installation, select 'decode only' and make sure to add the Indeo drivers which are not checked by default. It just works.
Cheers, Fred Collington
Thanks. I will have to try that.
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On electronic publishing:
Dear Jerry:
As you know, I have a little experiment going called Francis Hamit Electronic Publishing. So called because it distributes my previously published magazine articles (mostly). To do this, I had to characterize them as e-books. So it ain't rocket science. Anyone can do it. Register your copyrights before you publish. Details at the Copyright Office web site,
Step number one is to have a clean copy of your text prepared in whatever format you are going to publish it in. If you convert it from another format (such as Wordperfect to Word) you will have to re-edit it to detect and correct unintended artifacts and odd paragraphing and word wraps. Then determine which format you want to publish it in (I use Adobe Reader and MS Reader). You will have to re-edit for the same problems. (Hint: you have to print it out at every stage to be sure and really examine it closely for errors.) If you want to control customer copying then I recommend you use a high security level and never use HTML, which is designed not just to be copied, but rewritten easily.If you value your work, you must retain control of it. Using HTML is giving it away.
Step number two is to buy a group of International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs) from R.R. Bowker, the ISBN agent for this nation. You will need a separate one for every version of every title. So, if you have an e-book in Palm, Adobe and MS Reader, that's three ISBNs, not one. Further information at the Bowker web site, including prices.
Step number three is to contact Lightning Source, Inc at their web site. They distribute e-books and e-documents to the online bookstore trade. The discount from the retail price is 55%, but you set the price. This will get you on Amazon, Powells, El;ibron, Fictionwise, Diesel E-books, and dozens of affiliated sites, and not just here, but in the UK, Australia, France, Canada, Germany and Japan. Amazon alone has 50 million potential customers.
Lightning Source also does Print on Demand books in various formats, so you can republish hard copies which are produced as customers buy them. Perfect for out-of-print books.
Part of this process is creating or hiring someone to create designs for book covers. These are done as JPEG images and can be done with MS Paint or a similar program Leigh does all of mine. These get uploaded on Lightning Source along with the text of your products.
Lightning Source pays ninety days after the sale, once a month. They send the money to your bank account. Once you have everything set up, you just collect the money. They have been waiving the set-up fee for e-books for some time now and that offer is good until the end of the year, at least. I also recommend that you read The Long Tail web site to better understand how online niche markets work.
Now of course, there are little quirks and a learning curve, but if you want to take your out of print work and get it out electronically you can do it. I've been promising a handbook on all this, but we are still figuring it out and are not quite ready for that yet. Anyone who wants to see what a finished e-document looks like can go online at Amazon or one of the other sites and buy one of mine.
Sincerely,
Francis Hamit
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ALAIN Juppée et les francois constipé

Bon ben je vois que vous avez tout un tas de
gens constipé
sur ce blog.
Il y a des centaines de blog de francais qui sont ici ou qui veulent y venir.
Ils sont tres bien écrit pour la plupart.Il y en a quelques uns qui sont en language de teletext.
Mais dans tout les cas les commentaires sont bref et en language "décontractée".
J apprecie que vous avez a porté un étandard et j'approuve le ton que vouz vomme auteur utilisé.
Mais vos lecteurs
Y poura ti pas u aller plus molo.
Y on droit d etre Zen.
A lire vos reaction Chers autre commentateur on croirait entendre des petit politiciens de la campagne profondes.
Vos textes sont digne de journeaux de combat ou de la colone des lecteurs d un de vos quoditien favoris.
Il sont bien
Mé la vous avez donc rien compris au bloc-blog.
Lachez vos grand discours et descendez de vos grands chevaux .
Allez y au plus court.
Le monsieur qui ecrit est en classe avec du vrai monde .
Il va en entendre d autres.
Il est pas au parlemnt.
Dieu du ciel, Y va falloir que nous autres on s en mêle. Si non ce ne sera pas le blog d un ex-pat qui enseigne mais la plateforme du tas de petit "franca" de con crissé
(note Ici ce mot s écrit en un seul mot. Il est decomposé en sylable pour que les lecteur de l'autre cote de la grosse riviere comprennent.)
Bon j arrete la "pa ce que" je ne sais pas si la censur va couper ou meme accepté mon texte.
Luc Vautour
PS.M le Professeur:
J aime le blog et je lit et lirai avec plaisir meme si on me censure.Je crois que vous merité que le vra peupe d ici vous lise.

Les tabous français

Les tabous français................

Afin de vous être utile, voici les sujets sur lesquels il faut, de préférence, éviter de s'exprimer, ou, si l'on y est contraint par des circonstances funestes, il faut n'en dire que du bien et du positif sans avoir peur de forcer la note,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Et surtout, surtout, ne JAMAIS faire preuve d'humour, ou pire, d'ironie. Ne pas suivre ce conseil vous expose à porter à vie une étiquette infamante (raciste, esclavagiste, pédophile, anti-social, sans-coeur, macho, etc.)

LIRE LA SUITE

http://fboizard.blog.lemonde.fr/fboizard/2005/12/les_tabous.html

while females evolved two alternative strategies :madonna or whore!

SEXUAL VARIETY




Are women really less interested in sexual variety?

My own modest proposal is that during our long evolutionary history most males pursued trysts to spread their genes, while females evolved two alternative strategies to acquire resources: some women elected to be faithful to a single man in order to reap a lot of benefits from him; others engaged in clandestine sex with many men to acquire resources from each.
This scenario roughly coincides with common beliefs: man, the natural playboy; women, madonna or whore.

Lovely babe from blog of sasa

http://storage.msn.com/x1pxJgTq-tfK6ui3DiL55_pyplFv21CEwYCywQC5hoz3hfFw29gL4f815IhjyC-fQDVsOwZCmzLmfiEAKw9lW5DciSJjP7-e7sxnVpziqJiZAqgT2EuS3F72fekuKdErarO

aurelie-au-canada Votre Adresse IP sera enregistrée

<>
Pas de problemes avec cela

aurelie_canada@hotmail.com

Blog de maria la crazyyy

Blog de maria la crazyyy
Jeudi 14 Juillet 2005
Ja Ja !!!!!

Journee tres enrichissante aujourd hui ...g bcp parle allemand, bcp rigole...et surtout on a ose me dire ke "Ja Ja " ca ne veux pas dire "oui oui " mais " leche moi de cul !" ...HE oui c la grosse honte des kon me demande qqch depuis le debut je dis "Ja Ja " paske jM bien dire "Ja " et puis jsuis telment contente kan jcomprend skon me demande ke jle dis avec enthousisame ! mais non maintnant je le sais Ja Ja ne se dit PAS ....enfin bon bonne crise de rire ...et je suis pardonnee paske je suis francaise et dc je nT pas supposee le savoir :))

A part ca jsuis tte get sss paske g mange en tete a tete avec Guido ( the boss) ce midi ..paskon a pris notre pause un peu tard ...et donc jy croyais meme pas kan il me posait la kestion : il ma demande si javais un petit ami! g dit OUI..et il ma demande sil me mankais...g dit oui ! et il ma dit ke si je voulais il pouvait venir me voir ..il suffit juste ke je le tienne au courant !!! alors ca peut vous paraitre tout logik ...mais non pas forcement paske je suis deja super chokee par la confiance kils ont en nous ( mon colloc et moi) ..paskon vit vraiment ds lentreprise, la cuisine est ds le labo, tout le monde laisse son bureau ouvert..on a acces aux ordis pour surfer kan on veut .. ..ma salle de bain est a cote du bureau du big boss... :) bref javais peur ke ca se fasse pas trop de ramener qqun :))) Et en fait c le big boss lui meme ki a dit ca au sous big boss ( la pauvre petit francaise elle riske de se sentir perdue sans son copain...) !! franchement ils sont vraiment trop sympa...deja kils sont grave aux petits soins avec moi ...alors la!! kon me le propose JADOOOREE ...dc coco si tu lis mon blog t le bien venu...tu vas connaitre tte la boite et le ptit dej le matin la tete ds lcul ce sera avec ts les inge :))

voili voilou a part ca je me sens un peu mieux avec l allemand...mais bon jcomprend pas tout encore ...loin de la :))

haaaa joubliais journee de chaleur HORRIBLE AFFREUX IMMONDE ...pfffiuouuu laisse tomber en plus pas moyen de mettre des tongs ou une jupe ( trop dangereux au labo) dc jean et chaussure et blouse et gants et lunettes ....TRANSPIRATION bouhhhh trop relou de travailler par ce temps...c bizzarre jtrouve ke chak ville a sa chaleur et la c ETOUFANT A SOUHAIT ....on mavait deja di kici kan il fait froid il fait froid et kan il fait chaud il fait vraiment CHAUD ( merci maria pour cette grande reflexion ) :))

sinon pas mal g fe un deal avec mon ingenieur favori...je lui prepare une solution pour 8h30 demain et je ne bosse pas de lapres midi ( mais bon la solution il faut au moins 2 h pour la preparer et fo ke je calcule qq trucs) ....mais c bon plan ca ...jvais faire bronzette tte lapres midi hihaaaa :))

bis baldddd

http://admin.over-blog.com/article.php?a=71&IdArticle=586018&amp;nomBlog2=marialafolle&nomDomaine2=over-blog.com&ModereCommentC=0&IdBlog2=226747092&ALIAS2=marialafolle.over-blog.com&AlertEmail2=1

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http://www.foster-chemicals.de/pics/design/frontseite.jpg

Stephanie

sarmangau2004@yahoo.fr
Stéphanie Armangau, stefarma@aol.com


Beauvais !? Je viens de Rouen. Et j'ai fais mes études au Havre...


Stephanie ARMANGAU
25, the Esplanade
Suite 1218
Toronto, ON, M5E 1W5
Canada

Stéphanie Armangau - Présidente Parfums Passion
Adresse professionnelle :
Parfums Passion 30, rue Pigeon 76420 Bihorel

FRBC8- Journal Clin d’Oeil, Stephanie Armangau, 30 rue Pigeon, FR-76420 Bihorel, FRANCE.
Vente et échanges de miniatures, cartes parfumées, flacons et factices. Expositions didiées à GUERLAIN. Grange de la Petite Madeleine le 06.10.2002. 76420 Bihorel

Information transmise par Stéphanie ARMANGAU (parfumspassion@fr.st) le 05/09/2002
*******************

hissyOk here goes. I found the website a bit distracting with all the ads, they kept getting in the way of reading the text. I found your cause to be heartwarming, but I also as I read came to understand that you do not have time to do any of the things you talk about and are asking for volunteers to do them all for you. You need to run interviews, but you have no car, you want to save cats, but you have no money to do so. You want to promote your website, but you have no money to do that either, so you want others to do it for you.

Sounds like a giant pill to swallow, and though overly ambitious without a real clear direction, you may find many people not willing to help you. Getting advertising for any website is extremely difficult. You need to submit to search engines, and the search engines that used to be free long ago, now cost to submit. Perhaps a better plan for you would be to find people in your immediate area who could foster cats from the shelter you are involved in. That would be a welcome relief for the shelter volunteers and a welcome respite for the cats freed from living in cages.

www.rehomecats.com

The french probably comes from the advertising that shows on the page. Click on the text in the wrong place and suddenly all you see is advertising written in French.
TNR1stefarma..I don't think anyone is trying to be mean to you....but you are definately taking on a lot more than you yourself can handle and without having the network already in place (the interviewers, home checkers etc) it is going to be difficult to get your idea off the ground. That being said...I'm not sure why you are trying to tackle the entire process...I thought you were going to provide a website where people could post about cats available...not charge them and then try to find each cat a home. I think you have a wonderful heart and you can certainly help the cats in Toronto...but I think you need to start small (ie pictures of cats looking for homes....no advertizing other than your website) and see where it goes from there.

Katie