Medical Update

 I think I mentioned Nurse Walker before. She is actually a nurse practitioner, which is kind of like a doctor, who I have been seeing about some other stuff since February.  Well, she told me a couple weeks ago that I should go to the emergency room if I felt dizzy, light-headed, or "wonky".  I did feel that way on Sunday, so I cancelled my planned grocery shopping trip and just crashed for the rest of the day because I didn't feel competent to drive.  I didn't feel any better on Monday morning, so I called 911 and they sent an ambulance to come get me because, like I said, I didn't feel competent to drive.  On the way over, one of the paramedics diagnosed my heart problem as tri-something, which was later confirmed by the ER doctor after a brain scan and some other tests.  He said, however, that wasn't the cause of my dizziness.  He didn't know what the cause was, but I wasn't having a stroke or heart attack, which was nice to know.  He prescribed a pill, which I later found out was basically a souped-up version of Dramamine, which is commonly used to treat motion sickness.  

Next day, I found out that Nurse Walker had come to the same conclusion after she had me wear a mobile heart monitor for two weeks.  She then changed my blood pressure pills and said to come back in a month.  I couldn't drive to my appointment with Nurse Walker, so a nice guy from the Senior Center took me there and back for five bucks.  Nurse Walker's assistant told me that the new prescription had already been called in to Walmart and I could pick it up on my way home.  When we got there, the pharmacists at Walmart said that they didn't know anything about it.  I tried to call Nurse Walker's people on my cell phone, but their phones weren't working again, so I told the nice guy to just take me home.  My wife says that their phones have been like that for ten years, off and on.  How in the hell can they run any kind of business, especially a medical facility, without reliable phone service?

  Nurse Walker has been trying to get me in to a cardiologist for months.  The cardiologist's people were supposed to call me about it, but they never did, so she called them back and "left a message on their machine".  Apparently the cardiologist's phones don't work so well either.  And guess what?  She wants to send me to this cardiologist for a "stress test."  I am not making this up!  If they ever do call me, I think I'm going to tell them to forget it, as I have had enough stress the last few days to last me a long time.

The good news is that I woke up this morning feeling much better, and I felt competent to drive by this afternoon, so I made a trip to town to pick up some groceries.  My daughter had taken a day off work and come all the way from Petoskey on Monday to get the groceries that I was supposed to get on Sunday, so this was a relatively brief trip.  I still don't know what caused the dizziness, or why it got better, and I don't even care anymore. 

Don't get me wrong, these are all good people, and I'm sure that they are doing the best they can under the circumstances.  Everybody is over worked and understaffed these days, especially the medical people.  Some good did come out of this as I finally have something interesting to write about.

Summer's almost gone.

Summer's almost gone
Summer's almost gone
Almost gone
Yeah, it's almost gone
Where will we be
When the summer's gone?

Where will we be indeed.  Right here, doing nothing. What is there to do?  We can drag out that big old battleship of a heavy coat.  Is it still shipshape?  Zipper still goes up and down.  Shall we try it on to see if it still fits?  Oh I haven't the heart.  I will wait for the day that my neck is under the frosty heel of Old Man Winter's rough boot and those sweatshirt, jacket combos are not cutting the mustard, and then it will be  warm, a little cumbersome, but what the hell, embrace me you big old lug.

I could go through the pockets, there is likely some crumbled grocery receipt, maybe a wadded up twenty, maybe a little missive from that French girl.  Well you never know.

But I don't want to do that now.  I'll save something for those roaring days after Christmas when you look out the window at the driven snow, a rueful tough guy look on your mug as you push the door open thinking, I can take all of your guff you dish out because I carry with me the vision of the thin girl in the yellow green gown who will come walking into the meadow four or five months from now.

I couldn't make hide nor hair out of that article after reading it several times.  What was he saying?  Where was his conclusion?  He just seemed to be floating above the issue like he was too clever for it and then he reached his word limit and ended it.

An open mind is a wonderful thing, but you can't keep it open for everything or else you will spend your waking hours reading essays about reasons to believe that the world is flat.  I rate the possibility of these flying saucers the same as I rate the flat earth, and I don't want to waste time on it.  

I can't speak for the gummint, but I reckon the reason it is not opening its archives is because no matter what it releases people will always claim that is not everything and they want more and before long Coatless Jim Jordan will be issuing a subpoena for everybody who is not nuts like he is and will be claiming the whole thing is Hunter Biden zooming around with space hookers snorting space cocaine. 

And if you need further proof that The Enlightenment has run its course and we are now returning to the dark ages, 37 percent of dog owners think that vaxxing their dogs against rabies will give their dogs autism: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4177294-majority-of-us-dog-owners-now-skeptical-of-vaccines-including-for-rabies-study/

Space Talk

 Thanks to Uncle Ken for the info about the Moon.  It just goes to show that you're never too old to learn something. 

Here's another perspective on that UFO thing we talked about recently.  I have said in the past that it's more likely that the space aliens are covering up the government than that the government is covering up the space aliens.  Governments thrive on panic but, if the space aliens are here to study us under natural conditions, they might want to prevent the panic that would surely ensue if people knew everything that the government was up to.  This guy doesn't use the exact same words because that would be plagiarism, but he's saying pretty much the same thing.                                                 

"The usual explanation of alleged alien coverups is that the government wants to avoid “mass panic,” but this never made sense. The military-industrial complex loves mass panic. It’s good for its budgets. If it’s covering something up, it has far less high-minded reasons."

UFO Crashes Almost Certainly Aren’t Real. But the Government Itself Is Responsible for Public Distrust. (msn.com)

The answer man

 Beagles

I didn't know that the Moon even had a south pole.  How could it?  Since the Moon doesn't rotate, it doesn't have an axis. 

Uncle Ken to Google

how can the moon have a pole when it doesn't rotate

Google to Uncle Ken

An enduring myth about the Moon is that it doesn't rotate. While it's true that the Moon keeps the same face to us, this only happens because the Moon rotates at the same rate as its orbital motion, a special case of tidal locking called synchronous rotation.

It was not me boarding that train.  I once saw somebody on fb that I thought looked exactly like me, and there is a friend of friends in Champaign how sorta looks like me.  But those are the only fortunate ones that I know of.

Why evil?  I am guessing in response to my goodness.

Friend in town and I'll be seeing him this morning so that's all I have time for this morning.  Happy Friday everyone.

Hot town, summer in the city

I was out and about today, and before I started I looked at the thermometer in my apartment and it read 88F but it felt warmer.  I figured it was the humidity.

-----

Very competent use of duct tape Old Dog, but my attention goes to that blue (painter's?) tape and the writing on it.  ...eney?

-----

Uncle Ken, did you happen to board a southbound Brown Line train at Irving Park today, around 3:45pm?  If not, you have an evil twin lurking on the North Side.

 

Okay, Here's Something

 When I said that there was nothing new under the sun, I didn't mean there was nothing new going on in the world, I just meant that there was nothing new in my repertoire that I found interesting enough to write about.  Then, I picked up the newspaper today and found something.  Isn't that how it goes?  Just when you are ready to give up searching for something, you trip over it as you're going out the door.

It seems that the Russians tried to land something on the Moon a few days ago, and it crashed.  Then the Asian Indians tried the same thing and were successful.  That in itself is no big deal as far as I'm concerned.  People have been on the Moon several times in the past, but not recently.  I think that's because they didn't find anything up there that was worth the expense of going there.  I mean, if Columbus had returned from his first voyage to the New World with nothing to show for it but a bag of rocks, I doubt that he could have found anybody willing to finance his second voyage.  

What piqued my interest was that both landing attempts were made near the Moon's south pole.  I didn't know that the Moon even had a south pole.  How could it?  Since the Moon doesn't rotate, it doesn't have an axis.  How can you have a north and south pole without an axis?  Unless they're talking about magnetic poles, and I didn't know that the Moon had a magnetic field either.  Does it?

blah blah blah, blah blah blah (have you any wool?)

So far I have avoided the CPAP, but I recently took up tamsulosin and I now only get up four or five times a night rather than nine or ten.  And instead of getting off the Brown Line and rushing to get to Brehon's and their men's room, I ride the el around the loop and get off at State and Lake a mere block from my house.  It's so much nicer.

Very competent use of duct tape Old Dog, but my attention goes to that blue (painter's?) tape and the writing on it.  ...eney?

My choices of tape at five in the morning after the mighty storm with the sap leaking and hardening in the stem were Scotch, masking, art, and duct.  Duct seemed the most waterproof of the four so I went with it, and as I have said before the proof is in the pudding.

As a political junkie I really wanted to watch the eight pygmies squabble, but having chosen the rooftop movie for the night, Judas and the Black Messiah (which I recommend, but I know that nobody follows my recommendations, just as I almost never follow anybody else's) I was obliged to attend that.  And the more I thought about it, the sicker the thought of giggling at the pygmies became.

The movie is very strong and deep, pulls you in so that you are scarce aware of where you are.  Until that old guy got up out of his chair and just collapsed and wasn't moving.  Whatthefuck.  Then he was getting up, but fell back down again, and then it appeared that there was a nurse among the crowd and she was taking charge and he was drinking a can of pop, and there was talk of him being at the Sox game in the heat of the day and dehydration and whatever, and they put him in a wheelchair and took him to his apartment and the show went on.  The movie was about when the Chicago police assassinated Fred Hampton, the head of the Black Panthers, and there were some pretty graphic scenes of shooting.  But that was in a movie, that old guy collapsing was in real life, could have been me, and maybe the outcome would have been worse.  Oh well, whaddaya gonna do?  Have another beer and take down the equipment at the end of the show and go downstairs to my apartment, and see what happened with the pygmies.

Well Didn't miss much at all.  Likewise nothing new in the Trump/Tucker screed.  One more beer and off to bed.

 it seems to me that the three of us are on different paths, in different direction

This is what led me to say that The Institute was disintegrating.  Yar, kind of a stretch, but it's true that the The Institute is not the lively exchange of ideas that it once was.  I know, I know, sometimes you guys have nothing to say for a few days to a week, but earlier that was not the case.

Seems to me maybe a year ago we had a discussion on what kind of truck Beagles has and I don't remember how it came out.  My best remembrance was that it was a Ford, and that is why I called it that.  Apparently I was mistaken.  Thank you Scourge for setting the record straight.  The objective physical universe is nothing to trifle with.

Blah Blah Blah

Meanwhile, I have gotten my CPAP machine and started using it.  It's not as bad as I expected, but it still blows.

Well done, Mr. Beagles!  It took me a while but I finally got it.  By the way, I have an almost thirty year old Miehle vacuum cleaner that really sucks.

-----

Last week there was an awesome downpour early in the morning so I took a peek at the AccuWeather site to check out the storm front and I was amazed.  This big-ass storm stretched all the way along the east side of Lake Michigan from Chicago to Cheboygan; it was raining in both places at the same time.  That's something you don't see every day.

-----

Here's something else you don't see every day.  The little dark speck in the top chamber is a spider, and the barely visible blob in the lower chamber is it's recently shed exoskeleton on the same strand of webbing.  Doesn't take much to amuse me and, Uncle Ken, please note the usage of the duct tape between the two chambers to join the threaded lids.

-----

So what the hell is wrong with duct tape?

Simply that the adhesive is too aggressive.  If there is any need to modify the splint you may tear the plant apart and I didn't think that it's a risk worth taking.  Me Culpa.  And are you sure that iron rod you used isn't really steel?  I kid, I kid!

-----

There's some kind of political hoopla on the tube tonight and, of course, I'm giving it the attention it deserves, meaning it will be ignored by me.  But here's a link to a YouTube channel that answers the question "Why is America the best county in the world?"  Spoiler alert: It's not.  Aaron Sorkin is a brilliant writer (I think he wrote it) and Jeff Daniels is a brilliant actor.  Worth the five minutes or so to watch it, in my opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIpKfw17-yY

-----

Everything I want to say has already been said, most of it more than once, and there is nothing new under the sun.

Finally! A post from Mr. Beagles that I can take issue with.  For a while I thought we were brothers from different mothers.

It could be true there is nothing new under the sun but we still don't know everything that's there, or how it all fits together in the Cosmic Scheme of Kumbaya (I just made that up).  Ask a fish expert how many species of fish there are and his answer will likely be: "No idea."  Ask the bird guy how many species of bird there are and his answer will be the same, "No idea."  You can ask a lot of experts the same thing about monkeys, trees, fish, fungi, bacteria, and this, that, and the other thing, and the answer will be the same: "No idea!"

Which all means that there may be nothing new under the sun but we still don't know shit.  If you don't want to post, Mr. Beagles, you'll need a better excuse.  I have a suspicion that the real reason is that you are working on Cheboygan's largest ball of tin foil.  If you need help with that, remember, the Institute is behind you.

-----

Old Dog is right that the Institute is disintegrating.

Okay, might be time for The Scourge to leave a mark.  Where in Margaritaville did that come from?  I have no idea myself; I did say that we were on different paths but it's a real stretch to extrapolate that statement to the disintegration of the Institute.  If there is something I'm not understanding please let me know, toot sweet.

I formally and profusely apologize...

Apology not accepted for such a trivial oversight.  I wasn't aware that "pissed off" implied a serious kind of animus, maybe a poor choice of words on my part.  After giving it some thought (a lot, actually) some better words would be vexed, irked, baffled, befuddled, or flummoxed.  And there are plenty of others, I'm sure.  But I'm not done being an asshole yet, Uncle Ken.  Why did you keep referring to Mr. Beagles' new truck as a Ford?

-----

Whew!  Time to close this post out before the hands cramp up after all that typing.  This link shows a humorous use of AI, finally proving it can be good for a few laughs.  Cut, paste, and enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7cHr_C-tUQ

 

I'm-a-Nomad

In case you guys have forgotten this old joke:

What is the definition of a nomad?  Answer: An even tempered Italian, "I'm-a-nomad". 

Although none of us are Italian, it pretty well describes my attitude towards my esteemed colleagues.  The reason I haven't been posting lately is that I seem to have run out of things to say.  Everything I want to say has already been said, most of it more than once, and there is nothing new under the sun.  

A formal apology

 So what the hell is wrong with duct tape?  The only other tapes I had were art, masking, and Scotch, and none of them seemed properly waterproof to me.  And as you can see the flower is doing just fine, so I am considering the proof to be in the pudding.

This is roughly the fourth time recently that Old Dog has told me how much I piss him off, and apparently there have been many more times that I pissed him off that he has chilled on.

He is right that I mean well, and I am not trying to piss him off.  In fact I take some effort not to, but apparently not enough.

I'll use the Popeye sweet potato excuse.  I yam what I yam.

Old Dog is right that the Institute is disintegrating.  Can't hardly get a word out of Beagles this past month or so.  He has nothing to say he says, but he still gets riled now and then.  I have thought of saying something about politics because that is always on my mind, but political talk bores Old Dog and with Beagles there is plenty of heat, but not much light.

I did think that the topic of the sunflower splint would interest Old Dog.  He is growing his own plants and I thought that the mechanical aspects of the splint would get a chuckle out of him.  I deliberately chose that topic over others.

After I got my left eye done, I did not immediately get the right one done.  I felt like I had super distance sight in the left and with the right one I had good close up sight without any kind of glasses if I held my subject right next to my eye.  It was a good feeling painting with my naked eye right next to the paper, and I feared that if I put a lense between me and my paper I would lose something.

But the right eye was deteriorating and was not helping out the left eye with distances as it once did and it was even getting a little dark.  I could have done something similar to what Old Dog did, a distance eye and a close up eye, but I wanted to have that super distance viewing in both eyes, so I got the right for distance also.  It is great.  I can just sit somewhere and look at stuff and have a perfectly good time.

But I do have to wear the reading glasses for close work.  In fact I have two different kinds of reading glasses.  I have powerful ones through which distance is not much more than shadows.  And I have weak ones which are fine for writing things on the computer and allow me to see distance fairly well, but are no use for that close up work like mixing the raw sienna with the sap green.  

I hope I haven't pissed anybody off.  I formally and profusely apologize to Old Dog and Beagles for thinking Beagles' writing was Old Dog's.  I should have checked it, it would only have taken five seconds, but I did not, and I was wrong.

Long live The Institute.

The days get shorter

And now we are at six days later and I am hoping for at least a little bit of curiosity from the dawgs.

Okay, since you asked, why the hell did you use duct tape?  You seem to be unfamiliar with the concept of "suitability of materials."  I'll go no further except to say that I hope the plant does well.

-----

Confession time: there are times when Uncle Ken's posts bring out the absolute worst in me, and I'm not proud of it.  Certain buttons get pushed and it's all I can do to not fly off the handle and write something like YOU NITWIT!  AREN'T YOU PAYING ATTENTION?  MR. BEAGLES WROTE THAT, NOT ME!  YOUR ATTENTION TO DETAIL STINKS!  So I pause, reflect, take my time and consider whether I should mention something or not.  And I usually don't; it's not worth the effort.  Uncle Ken means well, I'm sure, and has plenty on his mind, as do we all.  But it seems to me that the three of us are on different paths, in different directions, and I'm not enough of a Nosey Parker to ask a lot of questions.  Live and let live, I say, and keep your powder dry.

-----

Middle of August already and unless my eyes are playing tricks on me it looks like some of the treetop leaves are starting to lose their intense green.  And in little more than a month the Equinox will be upon us; the sun sets a couple of minutes earlier every day as it is.  I can't decide if watching the sun set every evening is a waste of time or not.

-----

Speaking of eyes playing tricks, how did your cataract surgery go, Uncle Ken?  Mine went well; no more eyeglasses for me.  But it's a little weird.  With the plastic lenses they put in my eyeballs one eye is a little near-sighted and the other is a little far-sighted.  At arms length everything is perfect.  So I can do detail work up close or see things well at a distance but not with both eyes at the same time.  A good compromise, I think, and it's good enough for me.  I have to remember to wear safety glasses with some projects and sunglasses on bright days but I think I got a good deal.

-----

Do either of you guys fool around with video capture?  Plenty of devices now have cameras with video capabilities and you can get some interesting results.  I've been trying to capture images of spiders and bees and it's impossible for me to track them for single exposures, so it's video to the rescue.  The trick is to extract the individual frames and, with any luck, you might end up with a good image or two.  Plenty of free software to experiment with and did you know that some spiders glow under ultraviolet light?  Cool!

 

Weekly update

 Six days of silence from the ivied walls.  How I long for the days when I would write every morning, and Beagles would reply that evening and in between us, not every day but often enough to keep a train of thought, Old Dog would share his thoughts.

Well that was then and this is now, so it goes.

In my last post my main theme was that broken sunflower.  Well you know I had saved a sunflower a few years ago with a splint and some string, but that break was higher up on the stem and more easily accessible, not this one which was lower and seemed more dire.  But what did I have to lose?

I stuck a stick into the mud next to the plant, tied it to the plant with string and when that did not look strong enough I wound some duct tape around the wound.  It all seemed so unprofessional and so rinky dink that I was dubious.

The next day I added an iron rod, more duct tape, more string and that looked a little better, my assessment of dubious changed to probably not, but well, you never know.

And now we are at six days later and I am hoping for at least a little bit of curiosity from the dawgs.

 Here is the overview, not such a good photo but if give it a close inspection things seem to be coming along rather well.

And here is what the healing hands of Uncle Ken did for the stem, holding up pretty well I daresay.

And here is the proof of the pudding.  A strong and resolute head aiming right at the sun.  Oh happy day.

sunflower update

 Found an iron rod among my stuff and added that to the splint, and some more of that miracle duct tape, and I have to say of this morning I notice that the upper leaves are not drooping and its little head is up gazing directly at the sun, and I think this sunflower may just pull through.

Still no more word from the French girl but I am sure that she will soon come to her senses and realize that the affection of an aging plant surgeon is worth more than all the millions that a defi mining swindle would bring.

No fool like an old fool

 I don't often get comments on my masterpieces from strangers on fb, but it happens sometimes, so I didn't pay much attention when Judy posted Monday last week.

 Allen Judy

Great job  I am also a painting enthusiast, I hope to have more communication with you, can you invite me through my friend

I tried to friend her but fb wouldn't allow it for one of its arcane reasons.  Suspicious, I asked her if we had any connection, and she said she had seen me on one of her friend's pages.  I looked on her page and there was some sketch of a flower on it, so I figured she was legit, but didn't do much about that.  

On Wednesday she was messaging me again, just casual comments, and we evolved into having little conversations on movies, dogs and cats, suburbs vs cities, and gardens.  She said she was French and her English was not so hot, which it wasn't.  When we were talking about pets she sent me this photo of her and her dog which I have to say piqued my interest.

Not that I had any interest, well okay, a little, but still I realized how preposterous any idea that anything along those lines was going to happen.

But still nice to know that I sparked some interest in a babe like that, and you know me, I love to talk.  I just thought well maybe we will have one of those internet conversations, just a couple people from very different backgrounds learning about either other.

I have to say I wondered didn't she have other friends?  Well probably but maybe she was interested in this odd duck, just because he is an odd duck.

Friday I came back from the Ten Cat with a bit of a buzz and there she was.  We got into some casual conversation about Friday.  With my buzz I waxed a little poetical and then she sent this:

I already have a date for the weekend, my best friend invited me to eat a big meal, a few months ago time my girlfriend bought the stock lost a lot of money, she was afraid that her husband knew after scolding her let me help her, and then this period of time I took her to do Defi mining project not only helped him to recover the loss but also earned a lot of

Defi mining?  I quickly went to the google, and as I expected it had something to do with crypto.  Well what was this shit?  I told her I thought that crypto was like flying saucers and green men, just a big scam.  She kind of defended crypto and I said we could continue to chat but I was not interested in investing in any crypto scheme, and that was the end of our little fling.

Little fling, well I guess she was running the long con on me.  Well no harm done, and I kind of enjoyed our little chats, a little ray of sunshine if you will.  Of course she was likely not the woman in the photo, and of course she may not have even been a woman.  But still, nice interlude.

Mighty winds went through my garden Saturday and when things calmed down I discovered that one of my sunflowers had been broken.  I had this happen to me a few years ago and I put the broken part back onto the main stem and put a splint on it and tied it on and to my amazement that did the trick and I got some flower out if it.  But this looks like a worse case and too low to do a splint so I turned to that top mechanic's solution and wrapped it up in duct tape, which I don't think will work, but you never know.  Maybe that French woman will messenger me back this afternoon saying something like, "Oh you fool, it was never about the crypto, well it was at first, but once I got to know you, and heard you when you waxed poetical I have fallen madly in love with you!

Well you never know huh?

believe it, don't believe it, it's a free country

 Well spoken Beagles.  Logically the argument is air tight, but as applied to the real world it's value is nil.  One  could just as logically start with the axiom that anybody who does not believe in flying saucers is not rational.  

I meant it as an example of a rationalist argument, it is not my argument against believing in flying saucers.  One of my arguments is that if they are as powerful as their alleged flight patterns indicate they could easily keep themselves hidden.  The only reason they would let themselves be seen is to get us into a frenzy in which case we are playing right into our hands.  And some think they are spying on us.  If you had a powerful modern army why would you give a shit where the savages are hiding their best war clubs?  And they have been investigated by all sorts of people for like seventy years and there is not a scintilla of hard evidence.  And why would people think the gummint would have proof that nobody else has, and why would the gummint deny they had it if they did?  And you know whatever info the gummint gives up over this probe, people are still going to say that's not all they know.  And how come the sightings always see different things?  There is no uniformity in the sightings.  Are the aliens flying a different kind of saucer everytime  they buzz the Earth?  And there may be a lot of sightings, but there are way more people in the world who have never seen one.  And what if I am wrong about that and there are aliens (or some saucer nuts claim maybe it is the Russkies or the heathen Chinee, or maybe those secretive Albanians, who are doing it which to my eyes is even more improbable than green men of Mars), but if they have that much power and have evil intentions what can we do about it?  I have more arguments but the morning is already growing late.  

Rational, or deductive, arguments can prove decisively things like the the sum of the squares of the sides equal the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle, but outside mathematics the empirical, or inductive, arguments are much more useful in science and everyday life but can only give us probabilities, and at a certain point you have to dismiss things or go through life thinking that Elvis is still singing Hound Dog somewhere or that Hunter Biden is the antichrist.

Or not.  If Beagles wants to continue to believe maybe there are flying saucers and the gummint is hiding evidence, ain't no pretentious city slicker going to tell him otherwise.

And sorry about the paradox thing.  The way you introduced it made me think you might be unaware and you know how eager I am to enlighten.  Anyway I was wrong, and sorry that I cast aspersions.

But I can't say I'm sorry that I brought out the subject.  It did bring Beagles back to The Debate Hall and showed that there is still plenty of fire in his belly.

Circular Logic

My argument was rationalist.  Anybody who believes in this flying saucer foolishness is perforce bull goose loony.  Anybody who believes people who believe otherwise is not rational.  Therefore all rational people believe that anybody who believes in flying saucers is bull goose looney.

I seem to remember that a statement like this is called "circular logic", or maybe it's "begging the question", something like that.  It's a weak argument either way.  The only way it might work is if you accept the opening assertion as axiomatic, a self-evident truth.  In that case, your logic would be correct, but your conclusion would not be accepted by a person who doesn't accept your axiom.  So now it all comes down to belief, not unlike religious belief.  People believe in God because they believe in God, or don't because they don't.  Me, I try to keep an open mind about things like that.  Just because a thing hasn't been proven yet doesn't necessarily mean that it's false.  Even if it never gets proven, that still doesn't prove that it's false, just unlikely.

By the way, I know what a paradox is, I just wanted to see if you knew it.  

Sorry Beagles

 I'm sorry for mistaking Beagles for Old Dog, not that there is anything wrong with being Old Dog, just that people don't generally like being mistaken for somebody else.  Also apologize for taking the liberty of erasing about two pages of blank lines just to make scrolling easier.

I am not sure that you understood that all generalizations are invalid is a paradox. The statement itself is a generalization, therefore it must be false, but if it is false that means that all generalizations must be valid, but if they are than the statement is false, but if the statement is false, then all generalizations must be valid, and so on, kind of like the paper that has turn over written on both sides.

I think it was Hume who said just because the sun has risen every morning in recorded history is no reason to be sure that it will rise every morning.  I think it was another philosopher who said that just because every swan you have ever seen was white does not mean there is not a black swan lurking in your garden pond waiting for you to take your morning stroll.

There are two schools in philosophy, empiricism and rationalism.  The empiricists think the only true source of knowledge is your perception of the world around you, and the rationalists think that your senses are deceptive and the only thing you can believe is the stuff in your own mind.  Mathematics, where you can develop all of mathematics sitting alone in a room with pencil and paper, is rationalist.  Science, where you have to go out and make a lot of measurements, is empiricist.

My argument was rationalist.  Anybody who believes in this flying saucer foolishness is perforce bull goose loony.  Anybody who believes people who believe otherwise is not rational.  Therefore all rational people believe that anybody who believes in flying saucers is bull goose looney.

I can make my argument about why anybody who believes in this nonsense is bull goose looney, but not this morning because I just heard my paper thud against the door and it is time to go out onto the balcony and read the news of the day.

That Was Me

 Anyway I thought that Old Dog had a clever paradox with  we all know that all generalizations are invalid.

That wasn't Old Dog who said that it was me.  Actually, I was quoting one of my high school teachers who said that often.  I was responding to Uncle Ken's assertion, Well of course I do know what every rational person on Earth knows those guys are bull goose looney.  My contention was that, since it was unlikely that Uncle Ken was personally acquainted with every rational person on Earth, he couldn't possibly know for a fact that they all believe those who report UFO sightings are bull goose loony.  Even if he did, and they did, it wouldn't necessarily make it true.  If Uncle Ken had bothered to read the link I posted, he would have learned that few people are talking about "little green men" these days.  All they, and I, are saying is that there are some sightings that haven't yet been explained, which is why they don't even call them UFOs anymore, they call them "unidentified anomalous phenomena".  

paradoxi

 Well Gentlemen here we are in the month of sloth.  Stepped out to the garden early this morning and I swear the morning glories were yawning and the tomatoes were thinking about yawning but were too lazy to even stretch their viney arms.

And I myself, normally a coffee-buzzed fiend around sunrise, am not feeling much oomph about writing a post today, but I hate these long gaps in posts, makes me feel that The Institution, once buzzing with blarney, is fading away.

The last exchange between myself and Old Dog was kind of peculiar.  Pretty sure that Old Dog was spoofing, as I was with that that NEVERTHELESS, Nevertheless post.  

Anyway I thought that Old Dog had a clever paradox with  we all know that all generalizations are invalid. This is like the ancient Greek barber who shaved all men who didn't shave themselves, or (1) All men are liars (2) I am a man.

If one wanted to be argumentative, one could say that that particular statement is an exception to the thrust of all generalizations are invalid and not only that, it is the exception that proves the rule.

The exception that proves the rule sounds, well it sort of sounds true, doesn't every rule have an exception, and therefore when you find it that proves the rule?   No.  That doesn't mean anything.  The whole phrase is balderdash.  It comes from something Cicero said, which was of course in Latin, and by the time you translate it and make some word changes you can come up with the phrase, but the truth is pretty much what you expected when you first heard it, nothing.

And you know this whole thing about flying saucers is full of paradoxes.  If the green guys are flying these incredible machines, whose very existence indicates they have a very advanced technical society, that they are keeping a secret from us, why do we see them all the time?  Ah, but maybe they are doing that on purpose in order to confuse us and make us set up some committee to investigate them, and if we do that are we not unwittingly doing the bidding of the aliens?

It's August.  I am ready for a nap.