Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty, (rafflaw), Guest Blogger
Since Professor Turley is snowbound in the Winter Wonderland, the weekend warriors are back to bring your blood pressure up!
I have been critical of the Right Wing Mass Media for its continual banging of the drum of hate towards President Obama and the Democrats in general. Now, there are times that the Democrats and President Obama should be called on the carpet. For instance, for not confronting the Bush torture crowd and for claiming that the President has the authority to kill American citizens without due process, just to name a couple. However, the civility that President Obama has asked for in his latest speeches, have gone unheeded by many on the Right and some on the Left.
We all succumb to the emotion at times and say things that we shouldn’t, but the Right seems to carry these statements to an extreme and they are unapologetic for it. Yesterday, fans of Rush Limbaugh faxed death threats to California State Representative and San Francisco Mayoral candidate, Leland Yee, because Lee had requested Rush to apologize for Rush’s ill-tempered and racially charged comments about the Chinese President during his recent visit to the United States. Rush mocked President Hu Jintao’s speech and Mr. Yee “..said Limbaugh owes the Chinese community an apology for his “pointless and ugly offense.” ‘. http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/crime/2011/01/leland-yee-receives-racist-death-threat
You can guess the result of State Rep. Lee’s request for an apology from Rush Limbaugh. He continued his rant and mocked Rep. Lee on the next program. I know some of you will want to know why the authorities believe that Rush’s fans are behind the death threats. Take a look at one of the faxes on the link below and you will understand. Rep. Lee received similar threats in April of last year that are also being investigated.
I would put the fax on here, but the language is a bit “rough”. See below for a link to the faxes in question. Those who continue to voice their ugly rhetoric in the mass media have a responsibility for the result of that rhetoric. I for one think they are getting the response that they are looking for. What do you think?
http://www.sfexaminer.com/files/blog_files/Yee%20threat%20flier.pdf
Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty, (rafflaw), Guest Blogger
Chan,
it is nice that you actually believe the Banksters version of it. If they were forced to accept it, why didn’t they just pay it back one week later?
Buckeye:
then why do all progressives want to take peoples money from them? And use the full force of government to do it? I.e. if you do not pay your taxes you go to jail.
Rafflaw:
who made the laws that allowed all of that to happen? Who has created the environment that hampers profit making?
There are really only 2 operating systems, Apple and Microsoft. Linux and some others are available. Linux can be had for free, why haven’t they taken off?
If you cannot compete, then stay out of the market. Microsoft has a fairly good product at a reasonable cost, so what is the problem?
As far as banks go, I saw John Allison speak (the president of BBT at the time of the TARP) and he said his bank and others were forced to take TARP money. They did not have a choice, they were given an offer they could not refuse by Paulson.
Don’t ask me to explain this gravatar. Now I’m going back to make more pretty pictures…
This gravatar is another version of the same figure.
Raff,
You were wrong. Heterodyning is a mathematical concept (which, like many mathematical concepts is useful in describing an aspect of the universe) and I doubt anyone could explain it with much less math than I just did but if you want a picture of how it works, the x-axis of my gravatar is frequency and the y-axis is a parameter (think of it as where you’ve set your radio dial) and the color shows the strength of the oscillations at any particular frequency and parameter value. The red curve is the radio signal, the light blue curve to its right is the frequency that you have the dial set to and the other light blue curves are (a few of) the heterodyned frequencies. To tune in the red station, you need to adjust your dial so that one of the light blue lines hits a specific vertical line (which is a characteristic of the individual radio receiver). Does that help?
Slarts,
Good try, but I thought there would be no math? 🙂
Kind Chan and JILL CHAVEZ:
I am indeed a Christian. And I am indeed very interested in Libertarian thinking and philosophy. I frequent various Libertarian websites everyday (when online) and I follow all the happenings at the Von Mises website (Mises.org)
I devour Hayek’s work. I am learning Rothbard.
But I am a staunch conservative.
I would say I’m a conservative with strong Libertarian leanings. And that would be true. The reason I don’t refer myself as a Libertarian are several. One being that American Libertarians don’t really understand Hayek (called by many the Father of Libertarianism).
He believed in the value of culture, religion (though he was an atheist), and tradition. And he considered a wholesale attack on them foolish and dangerous. Socialism was one of his great examples of a wholesale attack.
American Libertarians do not understand that aspect of Libertarianism and I do not wish to be associated with them because of that. Neal Boortz typifies this type of unthinking Libertarian who tends to associate Libertarianism with license (instead of ordered liberty). I’m not saying Hayek was big into ordered liberty. But I am.
Nevertheless Men like Boortz are iconoclasts and even nihilist (though I believe they would deny it). Hayek would disapprove. And so do I.
This is not to say Hayek did not advocate reform of cultures, governments, religions, etc. He did. He just believed it was more evil to attempt to destroy in total that which we find on earth after we arrive here because we cannot completely understand how it came to be this way. He believed we end up making things worse because we cannot predict the future since we do not process with certainty all the information needed to make such a monumental change.
Men like Boortz have a cavalier viewpoint of culture and tradition. And I find this true of the Lew Rockwell website as well (though I am extremely fond of it). This cavalier viewpoint is not to be found anywhere in the works of Hayek. And that is why I do not claim to be a Libertarian.
So that about sums it up. And thank you for your kind words.
I completely agree with that notion and absolutely adore it.
Fair and Balanced:
You wrote:
“Why do you call leftist filthy?
Do they not take baths? Do they use “filthy” language?
Just what makes a leftist filthy?”
Well now I’m going to call them filthy because I think it’s going to really annoy rafflaw and that seems like fun to me. I cannot remember why I used the word filthy. Maybe it was on this thread? (someone might remind me where)
If you run across any other adjective that might annoy the filthy leftists more, and it is family friendly, please let me know.
🙂
Raff,
Since explaining heterodyning is germane to the paper I’m working on right now, I’ll give it a shot: Heterodyning is a phenomenon that occurs when two non-linear oscillators are coupled (the question of what happens when two liner oscillations are mixed is something I’m currently trying to answer numerically). If the two oscillators have frequencies w1 and w2, then the signal you get by coupling them has all frequencies of the form n*w1+m*w2 where m and n are (possibly negative) integers. The classical use of this is in tuning a radio – the incoming signal is mixed with that of a variable frequency oscillator in the radio which can then be tuned so that one of the heterodyne output frequencies is passed through a notch filter (a filter that allows only a specific frequency to pass) into the radio’s amplifier resulting in a clean signal which is then converted into audio. Hope that helps…
Stamford Yankee,
I want to be the ONLY woman in my man’s life. Zeus was a womanizer and serial cheater. Besides, I wouldn’t want to get any MTD’s–Mythologically Transmitted Diseases–from ANY male partner. I don’t care if he is a god!
😉
Jill Chavez
Can you get Tootie to quit picking on us? Thanks.
Slarts,
Welcome back, even if it is only temporary! I think you will have to explain just the heck you were talking about with that “heterodyning” stuff!??
Elaine M:
You mean you don’t want to be the object of Zeus’ lust? I would be flattered! 🙂
Chan L.,
When I read your question on my other computer, it looked like you had written “lo” instead of “Io.” Sorry about that.
To answer your question: I am not Io. Nor am I a heifer.
You all quit picking on tootie and chan. Chan is the man. He is smarter than all of you. Did I hear someone say that he was smart enough to get into Hillsdale College?
If Chan said tootie is a Christian liberation I think she is. Can not you be both?
I am Jill and I know when someone is being abused and stalked. I am a victim. Cyber stalking is just as bad. Please find some houseadone and take some.
Chan L
“Buckeye:
Tootie is a Christian Libertarian. She has read many libertarian works. She is as most of the progressives on this blog except she just believes something else.”
No, I really don’t think she is as most of the progressives on this blog, but I did look up Christian Libertarian just to make sure.
[Christian libertarians believe that Christians should not use government as a tool to control others’ moral behavior or to initiate the use of force against others]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_libertarianism
No, I’m pretty sure she’s not a Christian Libertarian; but most progressives here would probably be Christian Libertarians if it were limited to the above paragraph. Any other suggestions?
Gyges,
I’m making an exception to my self-imposed exile because sometimes when you speak the Devil’s name he appears…
What makes this site interesting to me is the wide range of education and experience of the posters (with a heavy concentration of lawyers for obvious reasons). Yes, I have a PhD – I believe that it adds credibility to my opinions on matters of science, gives my opinion some authority when I’m talking about mathematics, and I believe that I am probably the foremost authority in the world when it comes to discussing the mathematics of the heterodyning of coupled time-delayed oscillators (though I’d love to meet someone who understood it better… ;-)). None of that means that I think I can come close to matching Bob’s rhetoric or Buddha’s liberal education or Mike Spindell’s wisdom or Vince Treacy’s meticulous research or Elaine’s poetry* or… (I could go on and on… so let me just add that I don’t believe that I’m anywhere near Tootie’s equal when it comes to bigotry, either – at least I hope I’m not…). Chan takes a very restrictive point of view on what ‘educated’ means (the better to elevate his flawed arguments, I guess…) – I prefer a much more catholic approach. I think that everyone has had an ‘education’ comprised of their life experiences, that everyone’s experience is valid, that everyone’s experience is relevant to something, and that no one’s education is relevant to everything. Since our own ‘education’ is all we have, we have no choice but to interpret the universe in terms of that education. To me, the important thing is to recognize where other people’s experiences lend their opinion more credibility than your own (or in knowing when and where you know nothing, to paraphrase a wise and educated man…). This leads me to ask myself, where does Chan’s experience lend his words any gravitas or credibility at all? If you can think of an answer, let me know…
*Elaine – Loved your poem about Winnie the Pooh-bah! (or is that Rushie the Poo?)
rafflaw:
The stories I could tell! It’s pretty disturbing to see what the “haves” have discharged – hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax and credit card debt “poof”, gone, just to call us after the discharge asking if debt incurred after the filing can be discharged as well. It just breaks their free market hearts when they find out that they are on their own. This after we tell them, repeatedly, to stay “clean.” Some people never learn.
It’s those that have the means that game the system, not the other way around, as some need to believe in order to cling to their delusions.
Chan,
I did forget to make this one additional comment. When you disparaged the edcuational and/or intelligence of the majority of us on here, I was a little surprised. I wouldn’t go throwing stones at anyone else’s college when yours has William Kristol as part of their Constitution Day ceremonies. Bill Kristol on the Constitution?