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According to Ambrose Bierce, if I can remember the ditty correctly. . .

Experience is something to hope for.

To the traveler lost in the night and fog,
Mired neck-deep in an unwholesome bog,
Experience, like the rising dawn,
Reveals the path he should not have gone.
 
Some folks have questioned my authoritative use of the word "Idiot" in regard to Marx, Obama, and some JazzFanzers. I here reveal the source of my authority on the subject:

IDIOT, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions of opinion and taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.
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https://www.thedevilsdictionary.com/?i=#IDI_
 
I couldn't get this ditty to copy, but here is something fundamental to my whole world view:

https://www.thedevilsdictionary.com/?t=#!

TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.
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The Enemy of Human Souls
Sat grieving at the cost of coals;
For Hell had been annexed of late,
And was a sovereign Southern State.

"It were no more than right," said he,
"That I should get my fuel free.
The duty, neither just nor wise,
Compels me to economize —
Whereby my broilers, every one,
Are execrably underdone.
What would they have? — although I yearn
To do them nicely to a turn,
I can't afford an honest heat.
This tariff makes even devils cheat!
I'm ruined, and my humble trade
All rascals may at will invade:
Beneath my nose the public press
Outdoes me in sulphureousness;
The bar ingeniously applies
To my undoing my own lies;
My medicines the doctors use
(Albeit vainly) to refuse
To me my fair and rightful prey
And keep their own in shape to pay;
The preachers by example teach
What, scorning to perform, I preach;
And statesmen, aping me, all make
More promises than they can break.
Against such competition I
Lift up a disregarded cry.
Since all ignore my just complaint,
By Hokey-Pokey! I'll turn saint!"
Now, the Republicans, who all
Are saints, began at once to bawl
Against his competition; so
There was a devil of a go!
They locked horns with him, tête-à-tête
In acrimonious debate,
Till Democrats, forlorn and lone,
Had hopes of coming by their own.
That evil to avert, in haste
The two belligerents embraced;
But since 'twere wicked to relax
A tittle of the Sacred Tax,
'Twas finally agreed to grant
The bold Insurgent-protestant
A bounty on each soul that fell
Into his ineffectual Hell.
—Edam Smith
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I have been seen, fleetingly but on numerous occasions, discussing religion and science. Here is the case for "Theosophy". Believe it or not, I had read a book on Theosophy before I developed any inkling of contempt for anything humanly believed.

THEOSOPHY, n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science. The modern Theosophist holds, with the Buddhists, that we live an incalculable number of times on this earth, in as many several bodies, because one life is not long enough for our complete spiritual development; that is, a single lifetime does not suffice for us to become as wise and good as we choose to wish to become. To be absolutely wise and good — that is perfection; and the Theosophist is so keen-sighted as to have observed that everything desirous of improvement eventually attains perfection. Less competent observers are disposed to except cats, which seem neither wiser nor better than they were last year. The greatest and fattest of recent Theosophists was the late Madame Blavatsky, who had no cat.
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https://www.thedevilsdictionary.com/?t=#
 
babe said:
I have been seen, fleetingly but on numerous occasions, discussing religion and science. Here is the case for "Theosophy". Believe it or not, I had read a book on Theosophy before I developed any inkling of contempt for anything humanly believed.

https://www.thedevilsdictionary.com/?t=#
Click to expand...

The human mind, as the consequence of thousands of contrary impulses or considerations, is perhaps a proof of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which is ordinarily only applied to physical phenomena. Describing an interrelationship between opposite characteristics, saying the more accurately you can know one thing, the less you can know what it is.

We turn to religion for certitude, and to science for mystery. But practically-speaking, we get mystery in applying religion, and more questions in applying science.
 
Those who brandish science as fact are religious in the application of it, and religionists who brandish religion as faith, are ungodly practitioners of the gentle arts of uncertainty which faith inculcates.
 
Stat Stamp

Once in a while, I review the stats in the "community" "members" list. Mostly when I'm worn out and need to rest, and come in here to do it.

So I'm ranked #30 in rep, #35 in post count. In the latter respect, I'm closing in on two others within the next hundred posts or so. Dr. Jones/PKM is just under 52000 in posts, and immeasurable rep. One thing I wouldn't do right now is hold a shark by the tail next to my bare legs, though.
 
Lots of stuff on the radio about man-caused climate change because it's finally rained in Texas. Supposedly some presidential candidate is supposed to admit that the floods of 2015 require us to enrich Al Gore's Carbon Credit enterprise. The old coal money just doesn't fill his pockets enough, now he wants to earn handsome profits from exchanging a currency he invented, as he views it, called "carbon credits". And he wants the government to mandate we all patronize his enterprise, and pay more for electricity, or stop using it. or something. So, anyway, folks, we have had some persistent weather patterns lately. And we have a sorta weak El Nino in the Pacific west of Mexico, and a moist air flow coming off of it and mixing with some cool air coming down from Canada over Texas. Whoopee. The damn drought is breaking, finally, even in northern California. SoCal will likely have some rain this summer, too. Maybe a hurricane even coming onshore in Orange County.

wait for it.
 
^

This is a big part of what drives me nuts about the whole man-made global warming/climate change thing, is the stuff they come up with to line certain pockets that realistically have no impact on the supposed "problem" at all. So Al Gore flies around in a private jet and keeps 3 residences in full readiness, but he makes the right speeches and pays the right people so he suddenly is ok to spew tons and tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. I call ******** on that.
 
babe said:
Those who brandish science as fact are religious in the application of it, and religionists who brandish religion as faith, are ungodly practitioners of the gentle arts of uncertainty which faith inculcates.
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logically, this barbed view would have God being the most uncertain, or most confused, observer of Truth. Humility is allegedly a godly virtue. . . . long-suffering endurance is allegedly also a godly virtue, as is doing what your wife tells you do on Monday morning. Go take out the trash, hon.

Only a random sampling of the illogical nest of values we can call "religion".
 
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