"Dialogue.., Coerced obedience.

If a designer gives the rules and regulations about a design indicating the possible results of potential actions those rules and regulations have to be understood as part of the specification of the design rather than as coercion.

This is self serving reasoning, proving your postulates with your postulates. Coercion is not defined by your 'God' but by the person being coerced, being forced against their agreement. So your axioms of, allegegedly 'God given' rules, coercion are invalid to an outside observer. You may only apply them to yourself, not anyone else. The other will tell you when they are being forced against their agreement, when they are coerced. You may not define that for them. Otherwise, if you define coercion for someone else, you are imposing your rules on them, which in itself is potentially coercive. Why only 'potentially'? Because if the other accepts your conditions, then it is agreement; but if rejected, it is coercion."

"Let us not forget what war is. When we were attacked, the whole world was stunned. Let us not forget, that there will always be those who will wish us harm because we are the free."

---

quote:

How do we know we see what we see? One way is to verify it independently via a third order. For example, if I predict something will happen scientifically, and a second person with same data makes the same prediction, is the factual prediction when it comes true proof of the third kind that it was not an illusion but true?
....
What is really real? Is it ALL illusion, even what was just said? What's the point, if we are staring into a universe that is all an illusion-dream? Dead or alive, it's all the same to this universe, isn't it?

---

• Being a slave to another, or living free?
• Living in sickness, or living in good health?
• Working with a full functioning brain, or one half paralyzed?
• Being abusive, no different from being abused to either party?
• Committing murder, an illusion to the person killed?
• Taking away a mother's child, merely an illusion to the mother and child?
• Living in joy, or suffering in fear?
• Being conscious, or living in a coma?

---

quote:

According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into "grains", just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. "It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," says Hogan.
If this doesn't blow your socks off, then Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab's Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: "If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram."
...
In the 1990s physicists Leonard Susskind and Nobel prizewinner Gerard 't Hooft suggested that the same principle might apply to the universe as a whole. Our everyday experience might itself be a holographic projection of physical processes that take place on a distant, 2D surface.
The "holographic principle" challenges our sensibilities. It seems hard to believe that you woke up, brushed your teeth and are reading this article because of something happening on the boundary of the universe. No one knows what it would mean for us if we really do live in a hologram, yet theorists have good reasons to believe that many aspects of the holographic principle are true.

---

---

quote:

Crucially, this provides a deep physical insight: the 3D information about a precursor star can be completely encoded in the 2D horizon of the subsequent black hole - not unlike the 3D image of an object being encoded in a 2D hologram. Susskind and 't Hooft extended the insight to the universe as a whole on the basis that the cosmos has a horizon too - the boundary from beyond which light has not had time to reach us in the 13.7-billion-year lifespan of the universe. What's more, work by several string theorists, most notably Juan Maldacena at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, has confirmed that the idea is on the right track. He showed that the physics inside a hypothetical universe with five dimensions and shaped like a Pringle is the same as the physics taking place on the four-dimensional boundary.

---

---

quote:

One can mix up any of the above gods with mega-religion gods, such as presented by Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Shiva, Mohammed, Baha-u-Allah, etc., and they come up as a similar pantheon of 'gods' for which the common people will morally act upon their belief-systems.

---

---

quote:

Taken globally, all religions are 'gods' to their own people who believe in them, so the pantheon of gods is very great indeed! (from above)

---

---

quote:

Early glimpses of the genome, which was sequenced by Svante Pääbo, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and colleagues, have already cast new light on the ancient human species that went extinct more than 25,000 years ago.
...
Previous mitochondrial analysis of Neanderthal DNA has uncovered no sign that Neanderthals and humans interbred sufficiently to leave a trace. A preliminary analysis across the new genome seems to confirm this conclusion, but more sequence data could overturn this conclusion.
...
A Neanderthal recovered in Spain, seemed to have the human version of gene linked to language development, Foxp2, leading some researchers to speculate that Neanderthals communicated much like humans.
The same individual probably had a gene mutation for type O blood and at least one copy of a mutation that, in modern humans, would produce fair skin and red hair - possibly an adaptation to a cold climate with little sunshine.

---

---

quote:

Professor Chris Stringer, of London's Natural History Museum: "For many years, people assumed that it was an overall superiority of modern humans: that modern humans were more intelligent, that they had better technology, or had more effective adaptations.
...
But an exceptionally cold and variable climate might have driven the disappearance of Ice Age animals upon which the Neanderthals relied for food.
In addition, climate change probably cleared Europe of its forests, creating an open environment that did not favour the Neanderthals. Had the role of our ancestors in the Neanderthal extinction been overstated?

---

---

quote:

"I think what we have managed to show is, in a sense to simplify the equation, and I think we can be reasonably certain it was not the effects of abrupt catastrophic climate change and Heinrich Events were responsible. Now, that does not mean that climate was not involved at all.
"It is entirely possible that you had a combination of factors, perhaps competition from modern humans at a time of limited resources. Because climate is deteriorating at that time - we are moving into the glacial maximum. So resources are scarce, but, on the other hand, climate alone is not the most parsimonious explanation. So I think the jury is still out on the factors that may have been involved."
...
"It is quite sobering that at one point in the history of the planet, there were different types of us of which one - possibly by chance - survived. In other words, we might be the Neanderthals discussing this today."

---

---

quote:

The team showed that the areas with reduced Neanderthal ancestry tend to cluster in two parts of our genomes: genes that are most active in the male germline and genes on the X chromosome. This pattern has been linked in many animals to a phenomenon known as hybrid infertility, where the offspring of a male from one subspecies and a female from another have low or no fertility.
Dr Reich explained: “this suggests that when ancient humans met and mixed with Neanderthals, the two species were at the edge of biological incompatibility.”

---

---

quote:

Today, the dearest of our many freedoms is under attack all throughout Europe. Free speech is no longer a given. What we once considered a natural element of our existence, our birth right, is now something we once again have to battle for.
As you might know, I will be prosecuted, because of my film Fitna, my remarks regarding Islam, and my view concerning what some call a ‘religion of peace’. A few years from now, I might be a criminal.
Whether or not I end up in jail is not the most pressing issue; I gave up my freedom four years ago. I am under full-time police protection ever since. The real question is: will free speech be put behind bars? And the larger question for the West is: will we leave Europe’s children the values of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem, or the values of Mecca, Teheran and Gaza?
This is what video blogger Pat Condell said in one of his latest you tube appearances. He says: “If I talked about Muslims the way their holy book talks about me, I’d be arrested for hate speech.” Now, Mr Condell is a stand-up comedian, but in the video he is dead serious and the joke is on us. Hate speech will always be used against the people defending the West – in order to please and appease Muslims. They can say whatever they want: throw gays from apartment buildings, kill the Jews, slaughter the infidel, destroy Israel, jihad against the West. Whatever their book tells them.
...
How low can we go in the Netherlands? About my prosecution, The Wall Street Journal noted: “this is no small victory for Islamic regimes seeking to export their censorship laws to wherever Muslims reside”. The Journal concluded that by The Netherlands accepting the free speech standards of, “Saudi-Arabia”, I stand correct in my observation that - I quote - “Muslim immigration is eroding traditional Dutch liberties”.
Now, if the Wall Street Journal has the moral clarity to see that my prosecution is the logical outcome of our disastrous, self-hating, multiculturalists immigration policies, then why can’t the European liberal establishment see the same thing? Why aren’t they getting at least a little bit scared by the latest news out of, for example, the UK. News that tells that the Muslim population in Britain is growing ten times as fast as the rest of society. Why don’t they care?
...
Our enemies should know: we will never apologize for being free men, we will never bow for the combined forces of Mecca and the left. And we will never surrender. We stand on the shoulders of giants. There is no stronger power than the force of free men fighting for the great cause of liberty. Because freedom is the birthright of all man.

---

---

quote:

"Respectfully submitted for your perusal: a Kanamit. Height: a little over nine feet. Weight: in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty pounds. Origin: unknown. Motives? Therein hangs the tale, for in just a moment we're going to ask you to shake hands, figuratively, with a Christopher Columbus from another galaxy and another time. This is the Twilight Zone." - (opening narration)

Sharing their advanced technology, the aliens quickly solve all of Earth's greatest woes, eradicating hunger, disease, and the need for warfare. Soon, humans are volunteering for trips to the Kanamits' home planet, which is supposedly a paradise.
All is not well, however, when a code-breaker discovers the Kanamits’ true intentions: Their book, "To Serve Man", is a cookbook, and all their gifts were simply to make humanity complacent, much like fattening pigs or cows before they are slaughtered.

---

---

quote:

“Hate speech” doesn’t refer to obnoxious behavior that everyone will recognize -- calls to violence, racial slurs, etc. Rather, “hate speech” laws such as those advocated by the OIC -- with a willing audience in the Obama administration -- are tools to silence dissent and outlaw unwanted political opinions. Global jihadists are wielding those tools. “‘Hate speech,’” said Wilders, “will always be used against the people defending the West...

---

---

quote:

I had the privilege of living in Israel for a few years, and since then I have visited Israel many, many times. I love Israel. However, in Europe being pro-Israel makes you an endangered species. Israel is a beacon of light in an area – the Middle East – that is pitch black everywhere else. Israel is a Western democracy, while Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt are medieval dictatorships.

The so-called ‘Middle East conflict’ is not about land at all. It is a conflict about ideologies; a battle between Islam and freedom. It is not about some land in Gaza or in Judea and Samaria. It is about Jihad. To Islam the whole of Israel is occupied territory. They see Tel Aviv and Haifa as settlements too.

---

---

quote:

The GRS rotates counterclockwise, with a period of about six Earth days[63] or 14 Jovian days.

---

IceStar•55p

"Why should the west always adjust? If the Muslims of seventh century mindset want to participate on the international stage then they are the ones who must adjust.

Perhaps sending a dictionary in their own language might be a good first step since it is apparent that we do not have similar definitions for the same words. Also this idiot at the CSM needs to get a clue western civilization is worth defending and protecting, it is the very thing that enables him/her to write that fluffy bunny piece.

1 Clash of Civilizations:Something we have been dealing with for almost 1400 years, this is not new news.

2 Secular: As in values that are common to humanity, may or may not have religious foundations.

3 Assimilation: Yes you blend in and become something more than what you were, still unique, but now united by a common ideal and culture.

4 Reformation: This is for that which is not ossified. Something I fear has happened long ago to Islam. No I don't think reformation is a viable option for Islam, it needs to be broken completely. Why bother offering it as an option?

5:Jihad: No one can argue with an internal struggle if you are human you have experienced this.The theocracy of Islam has, today, in its present day interpretation,has a direct command to jihad. Jihadists are simply doing as their religion commands, time to admit the truth here.

6 Moderate: There is no room in a free society, plural or otherwise for pure Islam. It is the antithesis of such a thing. Those who do not practice pure Islam are always a liability to such a society. They can easily be called to the pure practice of this seventh century cult.

7 Interfaith/Multifaith: What a line of crap. How completely useless is this so called dialogue with Muslims. Unless a theology is criticized and dissected openly and publicly, there is no "inter" anything.

8 Freedom: Yes it means I am free to be licentious if I choose to be. Condi Rice once said "American freedom is for Americans" I whole heartedly agree.
Not everyone can handle this brand of freedom. It is apparent Muslims never will, so if they don't like American freedom they should pack their bags and leave. But make no mistake Americans will fight for their right to American freedom. I have no desire to see American freedom imposed by Americans on anyone. You want freedom, stand up and fight for it. It will be all the more precious if you spill your own blood and that of your children.

9 Religious Freedom: Is this not self explanatory? The most persecuted people on Earth right now are Christians and animists in Africa. Anyone and everyone should have the right to build, speak about, and celebrate their faith or lack thereof freely and without fear. Muslims are not oppressed they are oppressors. For the record I am Pagan.

10 Tolerance: Now why is it anyone's business how another believes? Why does faith or lack of faith have anything to do with trust? Is the integrity of an individual or community defined by religion?
I'm confused here, unless there is a totalitarian theology who's dogma expressly forbids tolerance, it shouldn't be an issue."

(Getting off my soapbox and going to bed)

---

quote:

Giuliani, who based his forecast on concentrations of radon gas around seismically active areas, was reported to police for “spreading alarm” and was forced to remove his findings from the Internet.

---

---

quote:

A desperate search for survivors is on in the mountain city of L'Aquila in central Italy after a quake killed at least 91 people and injured 1,500.

---

---

quote:

According to Guo, the pressure that builds up in rocks before an earthquake causes electromagnetic disturbances which influence cloud formation overhead. The characteristic shapes can be seen in satellite pictures and act as an early warning signal of tectonic stresses.

---

---

quote:

Another aspect of gravity which might be strongly affected by the anisotropic scaling at
short distances is cosmology. In the high-energy regime relevant at early times, the effective
speed of light in gravity models with anisotropic scaling approaches infinity, and the spacetime
manifold exhibits the preferred foliation by constant time slices. This modification of the laws
of gravity changes the notion of locality and causality in the early stages of the universe, and
can lead to new perspectives on the puzzles usually solved by inflationary scenarios.

---

"If Boltzmann's constant represents the electron, what is its macro equivalent represented by mass? So I did something, more a doodle, to figure this out. I know electron mass is m_e = 9.109E-31 kg. So dividing Boltzmann's number by this I got:

1.38E-23 J/K divided by 9.109E-31 kg = 0.1515E+8 J/K for kg. mass."

---

quote:

Viewed traffic: * 2750 Unique visitors; 6980 (2.53 visits/visitor); 20954 (3 Pages/Visit); 41063 (5.88 Hits/Visit)
*excludes robots, worms, etc.

---

---

quote:

Domains/Countries
Page Hits

 

Network.net 5236

Commercial.com 4623

Germany.de 518

Russian Federation.ru 463

Italy.it 361

India.in 317

Slovak Republic.sk 196

Israel.il 194

Poland.pl 188

Romania.ro 175

Thailand.th 131

United Kingdom.uk 123

Brazil.br 108

Ukraine.ua 103

Pakistan.pk 101

Etc.

---

---

quote:

Not only are there spherules on the surface but they are also found deeper in the Martian soil. The difference between these and ones which were found at the surface was that they had a very shiny surface, that created strong glints and glares which made them appear shiny or polished. On March 2, Opportunity mission scientists reported that they concluded a survey of the distribution of spherules in the bedrock. They found that the spherules spread out evenly and randomly inside the rocks, and not in layers.

---

---

quote:

Their scattered position on the deserty grounds, both on Mars and Earth, can be simply the result of the bedrock waethering, or maybe the distribution by water during a time of waterlogging. In any case, their development in both places are bound to the previous presence of abundant water and maybe that of bacteria.

---

---

quote:

During their summer hunts, Inuit families sometimes built stone piles, often in the shape of humans with outstretched arms. The Inuit call these sculptures "inukshuks." They marked good fishing sites, provided shelter from the wind, and sometimes offered a place for hunters to ambush caribou. On the wild arctic landscape they are often the only sign that humans have passed through, a symbol of the traditional Inuit way of life.

---

---

quote:

Another intriguing find was brought about by a lucky accident, says the team. While they were investigating the site with their remotely operated submarine, its trailing communications cable snagged on a stone. When taking the sub back to free the cable, the operators found that it was caught on another pile of rocks that were seemingly arranged by human hands.

The feature consists of a flat rock standing vertically on top of a pile of other stones. Meadows says it resembles an inukshuk – a type of "sculpture" used by modern-day Inuit to signal that they have been in an area.

---

---

quote:

Interest in the site was stimulated by the discovery in 1903 of "Cheddar Man", the complete skeleton of a male individual dating to about 9,000 years ago (after calibration this comes to about 10,000 calendar years).

In the 1980s, excavations uncovered accumulations of human and animal bones and artefacts that appeared to be much older even than Cheddar Man. The discoveries caused a sensation when it was realised many human remains bore a pattern of cut marks compatible with cannibalism.


Cheddar Man was part of another wave of people into Britain
However, researchers were perplexed by the radiocarbon dating results. Although the remains seemed to represent a single occupation level in the sediments, the remains appeared to be a thousand years different in age.

"We had these apparently cannibalised human bones and artefacts and animal remains with signs of butchery. They all looked like they should be part of a consistent population pattern," said Chris Stringer, head of human origins at London's Natural History Museum.

---

---

quote:

"There are large numbers of cut marks on them and they are almost entirely smashed. And that smashing looks remarkably like the patterns of breakage you get on the animal bones in the cave - which we have assumed to be for bone marrow extraction," co-author Roger Jacobi told BBC News.

But Dr Jacobi said this was not the only possible interpretation: "Another might be that the people were dying away from the cave," he posited.

"Other people are then making the human bones small and compact enough to bring them back to the cave where they are deposited. They cut off the flesh and smashed the long bones to make them more portable."

---

---

quote:

Somehow, high-mass galaxies from the young universe grow in size but not in mass – they spread out but maintain their overall heft – to become the high-mass galaxies we see today.
"It's a bit of a puzzle," van Dokkum told SPACE.com. "We think these galaxies must grow through collisions with other galaxies. The weird thing is that these mergers must lead to galaxies that are larger in size but not much more massive. We need a mechanism that grows them in size but not in mass."
So far, such a mechanism is elusive, but astronomers have some ideas. Perhaps these galaxies expand their girth by merging with many small, low-mass galaxies. Or maybe these galaxies eventually become the dense central regions of even larger galaxies.
"It could also still be that we are doing something wrong," van Dokkum said. "But I think at the moment you could say that the ball is somewhat in the court of the theorists. Hopefully they can come up with some kind of explanation that we can test further."

---

---

quote:

The newfound quasars confirm what scientists have suspected for years now: that supermassive black holes play a major role in star formation in massive galaxies. The observations suggest massive galaxies steadily build up their stars and black holes simultaneously until they get too big and the black holes suppress star formation.

---

---

quote:

More massive than the sun, astronomers suggest today at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Even though researchers suggested black holes up to this mass might exist in quasars, this is the first direct confirmation of such a behemoth.The hefty gravity well is six times more massive than the previous record and is orbited by a smaller black hole, which allowed the measurement of the giant's mass.

---

---

quote:

The researchers focused on the supermassive black hole at the center of the elliptical galaxy M84, which is about 55 million light-years from Earth. (A light-year is the distance light will travel in a year, or about 6 trillion miles, or 10 trillion km.) They combined data collected by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory and results from a black-hole computer simulation.
They noticed huge bubbles, or cavities, of hot plasma (ionized gas) rising up from the tips of the black hole's pair of laser-like jets. (As material falls into the gravitational clutches of a black hole, the energy can be spit out as jets of radiation and high-speed particles.) They estimate the bubbles are about 13,000 light-years across and they are launched from jets about every 10 million years.

---

---

quote:

Where did the universe's biggest black holes come from? One idea suggests the behemoths began as smaller "seed" black holes that gobbled up surrounding gas. But new computer simulations suggest these seeds were born with practically nothing around them to eat, deepening the puzzle over how the biggest black holes came to be.

---

---

quote:

But early black holes were not expected to have this same connection. Astronomers predicted that such a connection would develop over time, as the black hole and its parent galaxy gradually reached an equilibrium.
This is simply because of the vast difference in sizes.
"The black hole grows in the center," explained Treister. "But star formation is spread across the galaxy."
For the two to equalize so quickly is surprising.
"Why this connection happens and how it happens so quickly, we don't know," Treister said.

---

---

quote:

Detected by a UK telescope in Hawaii, the hole is seen as it was a mere 770 million years after the Big Bang.
...What is a puzzle is the scale of the black hole driving this quasar. It has a mass two billion times that of the Sun.

---

---

quote:

"If we assume dark matter is non-interacting, when people do simulations of the evolution of galaxies such as the Milky Way, there should be many satellite galaxies around it," Loeb said. "However, when people look at the satellite galaxy population of the Milky Way, they find much fewer than the predicted number, and the inferred distribution of dark matter inside these dwarf galaxies is very different than what is predicted for them as well. Perhaps dark matter behaves differently than expected."

---

---

quote:

Einstein came out with his theory of general relativity in 1916. It describes how the effects of gravity emerge from the way space-time is shaped. …
Where relativity describes the universe at large scales, quantum describes the universe of the tiny, random particles that make up matter. Efforts to combine them lead to mathematical nonsense. "General relativity must fail at some level," says Cosimo Bambi of Fudan University in Shanghai….

---

---

quote:

This time, scientists are excited to find nothing.
In results announced today, a huge physics experiment built to detect gravitational waves has yet to find any.
Rather than be disappointed by the null findings, physicists say the results were expected, and in fact help them narrow down possibilities for what the universe was like just after it was born.
...
LIGO has only been running for a few years - the new results are based on measurements taken between 2005 to 2007 - and it is not yet at its highest level of sensitivity. The fact that this first period of observations did not detect gravitational waves allows researchers to rule out the possibility of waves above a certain amplitude threshold. Simply put, if there were any waves big enough for LIGO to have detected them, it would have. Since it didn't, they aren't likely to exist.
...
In particular, scientists are hoping to eventually find evidence for gravitational waves created by the Big Bang, the explosion thought to have begun the universe. According to theory, the Big Bang would have caused a flood of gravitational waves whose aftermath could still be seen today. This aftermath of many waves of different sizes and directions superimposed on top of each other, much like the chaotic surface of a pond after rain has fallen on it, is called the "stochastic background."

---

---

quote:

Challenging Newton's description of gravity is controversial. But regardless of where the truth lies, the Milky Way's satellite galaxies have become the latest battleground between the proponents of dark matter and theories of modified gravity.

---

---

quote:

One cause for the delay is the difference between the duplicate rover's performance in the sandbox and the actual rover's driving on Mars. The test bed contains a sand cocktail that supposedly approximates the flour-like soil in which Spirit is stalled.
But engineers noticed that the test rover actually did worse driving through the simulated sand than Spirit did during its last few drives on Mars.
"The loose, fluffy soil we have here on the ground is worse than what there is on Mars," Callas told New Scientist.
Engineers are filling a second test bed at JPL with crushed aggregate, a heavier, courser material. "It gives us a second data point," Callas says. "We don't know exactly what we have on Mars, so we're trying to explore as best we can with the resources we have on the ground."

---

---

quote:

Mulkidjanian's "Zn world" hypothesis presents a different version of the prebiotic Earth atmosphere—one in which zinc sulfide plays a major role in the development of life. In nature, zinc sulfide particles precipitate only at deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Its unique ability to store the energy of light has made it popular in many modern-day devices, from various types of television displays to glow-in-the-dark items (and zinc oxide is used in sunscreen).

Its ability to store light makes zinc sulfide an important factor in the discussion on life's origin. Mulkidjanian explains that, once illuminated by UV light, zinc sulfide can efficiently reduce carbon dioxide, just as plants do.

To test the hypothesis, Mulkidjanian and Galperin analyzed the metal content of modern cells and found "surprisingly high levels of zinc," particularly in the complexes of proteins with DNA and RNA molecules.

"We have found that proteins that are considered 'evolutionarily old' and particularly those related to handling of RNA specifically contain large amounts of zinc," Mulkidjanian says.

---

---

quote:

It made sense to think that rock varnish had a chemical origin, since many similar-looking coatings were already known to form chemically. Silica glaze, for example, is one of the most common coatings and forms when silicic acid carried in dust and dew condenses onto rock surfaces.

Everything changed, though, when people saw the internal structure of rock varnish. Electron microscopic images taken by Randal Perry and John Adams at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1978 revealed an intricate layer-cake pattern, with black strips of manganese oxides alternating with orange layers of clay and iron (Nature, vol 276, p 489). No other rock coating combines this microlayered mixture of clays and metal oxides.

The implications here were enormous. This microstructure looked strikingly similar to that of fossil stromatolites - layered rock-like structures formed by ancient microbes as they collected sediments from seawater to build themselves a home. Though they still grow today in some isolated spots, stromatolites were one of the first life forms on Earth, dominating the fossil record from 3.5 billion years ago until about 600 million years ago.

---

"The fact about himself that the bullshitter hides … is that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor to conceal it … "

---

quote:

Frankfurt makes an important distinction between lying and bullshitting. Both the liar and the bullshitter try to get away with something. But ‘lying’ is perceived to be a conscious act of deception, whereas ‘bullshitting’ is unconnected to a concern for truth. Frankfurt regards this ‘indifference to how things really are’, as the essence of bullshit. Furthermore, a lie is necessarily false, but bullshit is not – bullshit may happen to be correct or incorrect. The crux of the matter is that bullshitters hide their lack of commitment to truth. Since bullshitters ignore truth instead of acknowledging and subverting it, bullshit is a greater enemy of truth than lies.

---

---

quote:

The wilderness, life, beauty, is our connection with something deep inside ourselves.

---

---

quote:

Creating beauty: Not all art is beautiful, sometimes it needs to tell an ugly story. But when focussed on beauty, or beautiful prose or music, it brings out a spiritual feeling that transcends the ordinary, and communicates that same feeling to its recipients. Perhaps that is what defines "beauty" in the first place, that it connects us somewhere deep within ourselves into that 'emergent' Mind of the universe, so it moves us, and others admire the work. When a sculptor brings life to form, or a painter sees with the soul, we see it and we 'know' it instantly. It is beautiful.

---