"The first observation, giving the title to the book, is that eons of natural selection gave us the ability to make a fast reaction to a novel situation. Survival depended on it. So, if we hear an unnatural noise in the bushes, our tendency is to run. Thinking slow, applying human logic, we might reflect that it is probably Johnny coming back from the Girl Scout camp across the river bringing cookies, and that running might not be the best idea. However, fast thinking is hardwired."

We went to the hospital laboratory in Kandahar where Malaysian “Anthrax CEO” Yazid Sufaat claimed to have isolated a virulent form of bacillus anthracis. There, a joint FBI-CIA-military team collected forensic samples and evidence of biological weapons-related activity, precisely as Sufaat had claimed under interrogation by Malaysian authorities.

"No one is saying in any way that the al Qaeda wasn't looking into obtaining anthrax for possible use in terrorist attacks against the United States. They almost certainly were - and are. All that is being said on this web site is that the evidence indicates that the anthrax mail attacks of September and October 2001 were almost certainly NOT perpetrated by al Qaeda. The evidence indicates it was someone else - most likely an American scientist with an overwhelming compulsion to awaken America to the threat of bioterrorism, which he certainly accomplished - while killing 5 people in the process."

The result is a frenetic pace of change that Andrew Grove, Intel's chairman, has enthusiastically called ''the software spiral,'' in which each new and more feature-ridden operating system and word processing program leads inexorably to another generation of hardware.

In a way, this could be Microsoft's real crime. While the software giant was convicted of violating antitrust laws, the company may actually be more guilty of locking its customers into an endless series of software upgrades that demand increasingly powerful machines.

While so far there is little evidence of a large-scale backlash, some consumers are beginning to grumble about being forced to continually buy and relearn new equipment just to keep up to speed. ''The machines are supposed to be easier to use with each generation,'' said Douglas Rushkoff, a novelist who often writes about the Internet. But now, he said, ''Microsoft has to sell me software that comes packaged with a built-in wizard to help me figure things out.''

THAT'S "non-standard usage" because I've never met a single American in my six plus decades who ever used 'junk mail' in that way.

TRUTHER

Noun- One who rejects the accepted explanation of the events of 9/11. Truthers generally believe the U.S. government committed the acts of terrorism against itself.

BYU professor Steven Jones is perhaps the most famous Truther.

The modern truther is more than a simple nut job conspiracy theorist. Being a truther means believing your truth to such an extent that you shun anyone who dares question it. Let the SHEEPLE out there think that two airplanes knocked down the Twin Towers. A truther knows better. The rest of you are so naïve, so easily led astray. Your wrongness is almost comical. I LAUGH AT YOUR IGNORANCE HAHAHAHAHA I BET YOU HAVEN'T EVEN SEEN LOOSE CHANGE YET. A truther is a rabid devotee of horseshit—someone who can take any imperfection in a tragic narrative and construct an iron mountain of garbage from it. 

From 9/11 conspiracy theorists and UFO obsessives to the cult of Ayn Rand and Birther crusaders, America is suffering from an explosion in post-rationalist ideological movements. In Among the Truthers, journalist Jonathan Kay offers a thoughtful and sobering look at how social networking and Web-based video sharing have engendered a flourishing of new conspiracism. Kay details the sociological profiles of ten brands of modern conspiracists—the Failed Historian, the Mid-Life Crack-Up, the Damaged Survivor, the Campus Revolutionary, the Stoner, the Clinical Case, the Puzzle Solver, the Christian Doomsayer, the Cosmic Voyager, and the Egomaniac—in a compelling exploration of America’s departure from reason and what it means for the very future of rational discourse as the nation steps further into the 21^st century. 

The basic aspect of empirist epistemology is that we live in an objective reality, which already contains in itself the sense of all things and exists independently of our perceiving it. This reality is also unique and the same for everyone. Knowledge is only a representation of reality and the only way to prove if this knowledge is true is by means of the correspondence of external order with knowledge, conceived as a representation of this order. 

the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.

As for me, my next chore is to learn more about epistemology.  As I understand it,

False propositions cannot be known.  Therefore, knowledge requires truth.  Something has to be true before it can be known.

However, if you don't believe a thing, you cannot know that thing.  Therefore knowledge also requires belief.

But, belief is not knowledge.  Therefore, knowledge also requires justification.

Justification assures that a belief is not just a wild guess.

So, truth, belief and justification are together necessary to have knowledge.

And I believe I truly have the justification to say this is already giving me a headache. 

Once I was walking along the Golden Gate Bridge and I saw this guy about to jump.

I said, “Don’t jump.”

He said, “Nobody loves me.”

I said, “God loves you. Are you a Christian or a Jew?”

He said, “A Christian.”

I said, “Me too! Protestant or Catholic?”

He said, “Protestant.”

I said, “Me too! What denomination?”

He said, “Baptist.”

I said, “Me too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?”

He said, “Northern Baptist.”

I said, “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”

He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.”

I said, “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist, Great Lakes Conference, or Northern Conservative Baptist, Eastern Conference?”

He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist, Great Lakes Conference.”

I said, “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist, Great Lakes Conference, Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist, Great Lakes Conference, Council of 1912?”

He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist, Great Lakes Conference, Council of 1912.”

I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him off.    

If Brian Williams’s future as the anchor of “NBC Nightly News” rests on his trustworthiness and ratings, new research delivered some sobering news on Monday.

Before Mr. Williams apologized for exaggerating an account of a forced helicopter landing during the Iraq war, he ranked as the 23rd-most-trusted person in the country — on par with Denzel Washington, Warren E. Buffett and Robin Roberts. On Monday, he ranked as No. 835.

Only two months ago, he’d signed a five-year contract at a reported $10 million a year. But since last Wednesday, when the military-focused newspaper Stars and Stripes published a damning story that Williams has repeatedly embellished his 2003 war-reporting experiences in Iraq, his perch at the top of the network news ziggurat is suddenly at grave risk.

“The Comcast people have a track record of marching out all these million-dollar figures to buy their way through their problems,” says an NBC News veteran, referring to the Philadelphia-headquartered cable television and broadcasting behemoth, the news division’s parent company. “[Fired Today cohost] Ann Curry cost them a bundle. [Fired Meet the Press moderator] David Gregory cost them a bundle. [Former news president] Steve Capus cost them a bundle. But Brian Williams is different—he’s a $50 million problem. If it was a lot less than that, you’d have to wonder whether they’d keep him.”

Get over it. Williams needs to make a choice: Is he a newscaster or entertainer?

Anchors and reporters shouldn't become part of the story. Quit using "I" in reports.

Graeme MacQueen: It seemed to me first of all that there’s no way a lone-wolf attacker could have done all the things that were done in the anthrax attacks. You have to remember that stories were planted all over the place. In the Washington Post, New York Times, many, many newspapers, The Guardian in the UK, TV stations, before the anthrax attacks even were discovered, all these reports about the fear of anthrax and the threat of anthrax based on fraudulent intelligence [were published]. It seems to me that this would have taken high-level people and it would have taken multiple people. No pathetic lone-wolf perpetrator could have made the media carry all those stories.

I can openly admit that I might be wrong. But I know when something is being pushed on me. I know the smell of bovine excrement when it wafts my way. The CDC seems awfully desperate to convince everyone that this is a settled matter. Nothing to see. Just go about your business. This of course is the same CDC trying to convince me that 500 cases of measles in a country the size of the United States is an "outbreak." The same CDC that just last year was telling me Ebola was going to kill me because two people in the country had it. The same CDC that swore in 2009 that the swine flu was going to kill me. The same CDC that swore in 2006 that e coli was going to kill me. The same CDC that swore in 2005 that the bird flu was going to kill me. The same CDC that swore in 2004 that SARS was going to kill me. The same CDC that swore in 2002 that West Nile was going to kill me. The same CDC that swore in 2001 that anthrax was going to kill me. But I am the crazy guy? Really? Doubting the government when they swear to something does not make me a conspiracy theorist. It makes me conscious. 

 

 

Full Definition of UNDERSTANDING

1

:  a mental grasp :  comprehension

2

a :  the power of comprehending; especially :  the capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars

b :  the power to make experience intelligible by applying concepts and categories

3

a :  friendly or harmonious relationship

b :  an agreement of opinion or feeling :  adjustment of differences

c :  a mutual agreement not formally entered into but in some degree binding on each side

Full Definition of FINDING

1

a :  the act of one that finds

b :  find 2

2

plural :  small tools and supplies used by an artisan (as a dressmaker, jeweler, or shoemaker)

3

a :  the result of a judicial examination or inquiry

b :  the results of an investigation —usually used in plural

Note that the word "opinion" is not used in the definition of "finding." A finding is the "result" of an examination, investigation or inquiry.  A finding has nothing to do with opinions.  Opinions are not involved.

When you're seeking a finding, opinions just get in the way.  They're the opposite of what you are seeking.  Opinions are obstacles that can prevent you from reaching a finding.

Hmm.  It's snowing and blowing like crazy outside.  That's not an opinion.  That's a finding based upon an examination of the visual and auditory evidence.  Furthermore, here is some photographic evidence:

I wonder if a Truther who has made up his mind can ever see the difference.  It is NOT just my opinion that it is snowing and blowing outside.