Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Warning: You are about to enter the Twilight Zone.
Imagine, if you will, that you live in a state where a governor wields extraordinary power over its residents. Imagine, if you will, that your governor has the legal
authority to appoint an “Emergency Manager” to oversee the local government in the town where you reside. Imagine that the monetary compensation for the Emergency Manager of your community has no cap. Imagine that your Emergency Manager declares that there’s a financial emergency in your town and then takes over control of it. Imagine that the Emergency Manager can break contracts, seize and sell assets, eliminate services—and can also fire duly elected public officials who serve your community. Imagine, if you will, that the Emergency Manager empowered by your governor to run your town has the right to dissolve your school district and to disincorporate your town. AND imagine that you and your fellow residents have no say about what is going on! Just imagine how you might feel if you lived in a state where that kind of thing was going on. Well, the people who live in Michigan may not have to imagine much longer.
Who, you might ask, will be responsible for transforming the state of Michigan into a Rod Serlingesque otherworldly undemocratic Twilight Zone right here in the United States? Why, Governor Rick Snyder and his bold band of Republican state legislators–that’s who. In January, Governor Snyder called for “Emergency Manager” legislation—and the Republican state legislators were more than happy to comply with his request.
This all seems hard to believe, doesn’t it? I’m not making it up. Karen Bouffard of The Detroit News reported the following: Legislation that would allow emergency financial managers to throw out union contracts and overrule elected officials in financially distressed municipalities and school districts was approved Wednesday by the state Senate. Similar legislation passed in the House in February, and the two chambers are working on a final version to send to Gov. Rick Snyder.
In an article published in The Michigan Messenger, Eartha Jane Melzer wrote:
Under the law whole cities or school districts could be eliminated without any public participation or oversight, and amendments designed to provide minimal safeguards and public involvement were voted down.
An amendment to require Emergency Managers to hold monthly public meetings to let people know how they are governing was rejected by Senate Republicans, along with proposals to cap Emergency Manager compensation and require that those appointed to run school districts have some background in education.
Critics say that Republicans are manipulating concerns about budget problems in order to consolidate power by undermining unions.
According to E. D. Kain: Snyder’s law gives the state government the power not only to break up unions, but to dissolve entire local governments and place appointed “Emergency Managers” in their stead. But that’s not all – whole cities could be eliminated if Emergency Managers and the governor choose to do so. And Snyder can fire elected officials unilaterally, without any input from voters. It doesn’t get much more anti-Democratic than that.
Mark Gaffney, Michigan State President of the AFL-CIO said: This is a takeover by the right wing and it’s an assault on democracy like I’ve never seen.
Do you agree with Mark Gaffney? Do you think what’s going on in Michigan is an assault on democracy?
SOURCES
Rachel Maddow Exposes Michigan Republicans Secret War On Democracy (Politicus USA)
Michigan Governor Plays Fast and Loose with Democracy, Invokes Radical New Powers (Forbes)
Michigan Republicans Use Budget Crisis to make Outrageous Assault on Democracy (AFL-CIO)
Michigan Senate passes emergency manager bills (Daily Tribune)
Emergency managers bill sweeps toward final approval (The Michigan Messenger)
Conyers: Emergency Manager bill ‘raises serious constitutional concerns’ (The Michigan Messenger)
Financial manager bill passes Michigan Senate (The Detroit News)
Michigan bill would impose “financial martial law” (CBS News)
Brian,
You’re the one claiming to have a paradigm shift in understanding the universe on par with Einstein or Galileo. Neither me nor OS have laid claim to perfect knowledge let alone the hubris you’ve displayed, so you can put a sock in that nonsense.
However, to answer your question, the universe is composed of baryonic matter that coalesced from the high energy state initially found at the big bang. Matter is simply slow moving energy but because of this phase change, it has different physical properties than pure energy. The universe is made of up in toto of energy that we discretely divide into the subgroups called matter and energy because of the different ways they interact within the environment as confined by the boundary of this m-brane of the multiverse.
Also, you’ve been sufficiently warned that appeals to religion are not valid science nor valid law, so in this instance, I really don’t give a damn what Jesus says.
RE: J. Brian Harris, Ph.D., P.E., March 24, 2011 at 11:17 am
TYPOGRAPHICAL ERROR CORRECTION:
“J. Brian Harrisk, Ph.D., P.E.”
IS INCORRECT. MY SOURCE TEXT DOES NOT HAVE A “k” in it.
The correct text, if the Internet does not blunder, is:
“J. Brian Harris, Ph.D., P.E.”
No communication process is ever perfectly without error…
Its not rocket science. It’s like Mind over matter and you don’t have a mind so it don’t matter.
The only spinning going on here is yours, single tool user. I never said physics and psychology were not related. I said it’s stupid to use physics as the sole tool for addressing psychology. Do you know why there are different nouns for different concepts?
It’s because they are different things, Unci Simpleton.
psychology \sahy-kol-uh-jee]\, n.,
1: the science of mind and behavior
2 a : the mental or behavioral characteristics of an individual or group b : the study of mind and behavior in relation to a particular field of knowledge or activity
is not . . .
physics \ˈfi-ziks\, n.,
1: a science that deals with matter and energy and their interactions
is not . . .
chemistry \ˈke-mə-strē\, n.,
1: a science that deals with the composition, structure, and properties of substances and with the transformations that they undergo
2a : the composition and chemical properties of a substance
is not . . .
engineering \-ˈnir-iŋ\, n.,
1: the activities or function of an engineer
2a : the application of science and mathematics by which the properties of matter and the sources of energy in nature are made useful to people b : the design and manufacture of complex product
is not . . .
law \ˈlȯ\, n.,
1a (1) : a binding custom or practice of a community : a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority (2) : the whole body of such customs, practices, or rules (3) : common law b (1) : the control brought about by the existence or enforcement of such law (2) : the action of laws considered as a means of redressing wrongs; also : litigation (3) : the agency of or an agent of established law c : a rule or order that it is advisable or obligatory to observe d : something compatible with or enforceable by established law e : control, authority
2 a often capitalized : the revelation of the will of God set forth in the Old Testament b capitalized : the first part of the Jewish scriptures : pentateuch, torah — see bible table, ecclesiastical law
3: a rule of construction or procedure (the laws of poetry)
4: the whole body of laws relating to one subject
5a : the legal profession b : law as a department of knowledge : jurisprudence c : legal knowledge
Different tools for different jobs.
Like you using wiki.answers as is a perfect tool if you just want to make yourself feel better about being simple.
Enjoy your wedgie.
RE: Buddha Is Laughing, March 24, 2011 at 10:34 am
And mathematics underpins physics, Unci Wants To Play The Mother Of All Sciences Game. So what? That doesn’t make either math or physics in and of themselves the appropriate tool to study the brain in a holistic manner. I realize that multiple tool use may be too difficult a concept for someone with your stunted intellect to comprehend, but do try to keep up.
##################################
I have never posted a comment on the Turley blawg as “Unci” or under any name other than “J. Brian Harris, Ph.D., P.E.”
However, as it seems to me that you, BiL, and OS carry on as though you know and understand everything knowable and understandable, perhaps you can tell me of what the universe is observably made, how it so so made, why it is so made, and how it became to be so made…
I find that three simple processes, which have traditionally been thought of as “the trinity,” are sufficient, from a quantum-mechanical perspective, to accomplish what I asked you to demonstrate that you can do. Indeed, the traditional Gloria Patri is a lovely account when some “religious words” are replaced with some “scientific words.”
Matthew 19:14, “But Jesus said, ‘Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me; for such is the kingdom of heaven.’ ”
My parents had kept enough of their time of being little children that they did not “suffer” my retaining the kingdom of heaven into which I was conceived and born.
The world in which I find myself living is, and always has been, that promised kingdom of heaven. In that kingdom, life is simple. Whatever happens, as it happens, is both necessary and sufficient, and, whatever does not happen, as it does not happen, is both unnecessary and impossible. Such is the unbroken experience of the whole of my life, without even a hint of a moment of exception. How is such possible? It is possible and it is real because, for the process of existence, all things are possible.
What is do, I do for those who have eyes to see, ears to hear, heart to care, and will to learn and understand.
Speaking of annoying people, where is that Annoying You?
I have a few things I want to say to it and get them off of my chest so I won’t have resentments. Have you ever taken a look at what it is really posting?
But not as annoying as Mr. Harrisk.
Mr. C.,
The uses of resentment
Examines the human emotion of resentment. How this is one of the most futile and destructive emotions; Opinion that many people spend more time dwelling on the wrongs supposedly done to them than they spend dwelling on the wrongs they have done to others; How resentment is more dependent on our inner needs than upon our outer circumstances; Psychological function resentment serves; The importance of victimhood in American culture.
By Theodore Dalrymple, published on March 01, 1995
Are you a victim or are you trying to make others the victim. Think very carefully before you expound upon your response, please?
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199503/the-uses-resentment
Ah my kind sir, the answer at last.
OF ALL THE FUTILE AND DESTRUCTIVE EMOTIONS TO WHICH HUMAN BEINGS ARE PREY, PERHAPS THE MOST UNIVERSAL IS RESENTMENT. SURELY THERE CAN BE FEW PEOPLE WHO HAVE NOT WASTED MANY HOURS OR EVEN YEARS OF THEIR LIFE DWELLING ON THE WRONGS SUPPOSEDLY DONE TO THEM. IN MY EXPERIENCE, PEOPLE GENERALLY SPEND RATHER LESS TIME DWELLING ON THE WRONGS THEY HAVE DONE TO OTHERS.
Psychophysics is a branch of psychology that studies the relationship between the physical properties of stimuli and our psychological perceptions of them. E.g., “color” is a psychological perception of specific wavelengths of the visible spectrum of light. Color does not exist without an eye to see it. Every sensory modality has similar interesting relationships with the physical world.
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_is_psychology_related_to_physics#ixzz1HWxovtbA
Please sit on this an spin.
@Scribe: I am reading Roy Baumeister right now (“Is There Anything Good About Men?”) and I think he’d have a thing to say about resentment. In particular, a pretty good argument for resentment in men. I hypothesize that Maury is a failed man; he has failed to get rich, is frustrated with his sex life (or lack thereof), and in his climb to the top has fallen short of his younger aspirations. So he needs somebody to resent for this state of affairs, and chooses to believe in myths and illogical shit he cannot prove or justify; because the alternative is admitting the problem is him: He lacks the ability, the brains and the self-discipline to get what he wants or be who he wants.
That is why he resents people that are far worse off then he is; he thinks they are getting something he doesn’t get. He thinks life has been unfair to him. I don’t doubt that it has; life is unfair to most people, but he is blaming his fellow victims, fighting their own oppression, instead of their common enemy — And ironically that is because their common enemy is who Maury aspired to join!
RE: Otteray Scribe, March 24, 2011 at 8:59 am
Brian, you are becoming more and more bizarre with every passing moment. You have posted dozens of statements, using thousands of words, and you have yet to make a point. You set up sockpuppet accounts and then lie about it. Do you have a point?
########################################
Otteray Scribe:
You may be sincere; I have no way to test that. You are, however, absolutely and totally mistaken regarding the comedians who are deceiving you into believing that I have ever posted anything on this Turley blawg using any name other than “J. Brian Harrisk, Ph.D., P.E.”
Given your sincere and totally mistaken belief regarding my using any name other than “J. Brian Harris, Ph.D., P.E.,” I here request that someone who knows Professor Turley sufficiently well would usefully ask Professor Turley, if he has not already done so, ask some Interent-competent people at George Washington University and/or WordPress to verify that I am not doing any form of sockpuppetry.
For myself, I would prefer that (after Professor Turley has properly verified that I have never posted a comment here using any other name than “J. Brian Harris, Ph.D., P.E.”) he not disclose this on his blawg because that would interfere with my learning about people who are of liberal political philosophy and tyrannical political process.
The “theory espoused opposed to theory in use” mindset which I have found characteristic of some few “top lawyers” is a remarkable (to me) form of dissociative trauma response, and one which requires more study than I have yet been able to accomplish.
I write as I do because I have never found a more effective way to elicit the data I need to complete my field work research.
I do not make points. The making of points is possible only through using connotative thinking, something I simply can not an therefore do not, do.
The making of points is a declarative brain function; my work is within the procedural brain function, where processes, and not points, are the means of understanding experience within environmental context.
In my work thinking only in connotation is purely the result of shattering forms of traumatic brain injury.
Bruce H. Lipton, a former University of Wisconsin – Madison cell biologist, wrote “The Biology of Belief,” and I have the 7th edition, Hay House, Oct. 2009.
My work is compatible with the work of neurologists and other biological and biophysical scientists who have actually studied the nature, structure, and process of human brain functionality using the methods of the “hard sciences.”
With people whose life experiences have resulted in “thinking in points,” my work is pointless, and it is so because my work, when put into the form of “points” has been designed and developed specifically, exactly, and precisely to be pointless. And that, if you will, is the sole point of my work.
There is a “story” of the Confucian tradition, which I found a while ago in updated form on the Internet:
If I hear it, I forget it.
If I see it, I remember it.
If I do it, I understand it.
If I say it, I internalize it.
Hearing, as a temporal stream of neurological signals, is one-dimensional.
Seeing, as a temporal stream of neurological signals, is two-dimensional
Doing, as a temporal stream of neurological signals is at least four-dimensional (three spatial dimensions and one time dimension).
Saying as a stream of neurological signals, is of very high (beyond 4) dimensions; saying includes, and is not limited to, doing.
A string of points is effectively dimensionless, for no finite number of points will contain any area of volume whatsoever.
What may be named “traditional analysis” reduces a complex phenomenon to a collection of points, for it deconstructs a phenomenon into its isolated component parts, thereby destroying awareness of the relationships among the components, only the relationships are also components of the intact phenomenon.
Because the core of my work is in stark contrast with long-standing human traditions, and because those traditions have been formed so as to exclude the core of my work from conscious awareness, there are no methods within the longstanding human traditions which exclude my work which include my work.
Such is the inherent nature of a completely new paradigm, as my work has been described by some folks who have made the effort required to understand the work sufficiently well as to be capable of evaluating it within any intelligible model of scientific integrity.
Demonstrate the actual making of a mistake and its actual temporal-subsequent avoidance, which is what I observe to be the core of The Adversarial Principle, and my work will be shown to truthfully be silly garbage at best.
In a world model comprised only of points, all things impossible are possible because a world comprised only of points is empty of content because it has no space wherein content can reside.
Human brain plasticity is a stunningly remarkable biophysical phenomenon, indeed!
In a world only of points, that rabbit hole is bottomless because it also is topless.
I am beginning to wonder whether thinking only in points makes a person effectively both bottomless and topless; if so, I see a difficulty for people who are standing up, for the brain is on top, and a topless person must be one without a properly functioning brain?
So, my work is deliberately designed to be pointless; else my work would not exist. I do not make points and this sentence and its immediate prior are both pointless, on purpose.
It is my purpose to do pointless work because my work is of process and not of points. Get the process?
My sequence of posted comments are of process…
In a world only of points, there is no process.
And mathematics underpins physics, Unci Wants To Play The Mother Of All Sciences Game. So what? That doesn’t make either math or physics in and of themselves the appropriate tool to study the brain in a holistic manner. I realize that multiple tool use may be too difficult a concept for someone with your stunted intellect to comprehend, but do try to keep up.
Physics under girds a good many of those sciences you mention.
So yes I think physics is a good science to study the brain with. And also those other things you mentioned.
But for shear understanding of how the brain works? I would say physics has a very large role to play.
I see you are long on verbiage and short on grey matter.
BIL,
“Either way, I end up laughing and you end up with a wedgie”
At the rate these trolls are going, it will be an Atomic Wedgie …
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dgwfhjncr0&w=640&h=390]
Brian, engineering and physics also helped create the surgeon’s scalpel, but knowing how to make a scalpel does not make you a brain surgeon.
OS,
I think you may be on to something there about resentment.
____
Unci Sockpuppet
“WRONG! We use MRI’s, CAT and other tools created by physics research to study the brain everyday.”
Not wrong.
We also use psychology, endocrinology, chemistry, biology, pathology, neurochemistry and information theory to study the brain every day so it looks like physics is still the wrong tool of you wish to address understanding the brain in a holistic manner. In case that word “holistic” confuses you, it means “relating to or concerned with wholes or with complete systems rather than with the analysis of, treatment of, or dissection into parts”. So it would appear that studying the brain solely with physics is about a useful as trying to build a space shuttle using only a hot glue gun. Which was the point of the entire statement about physics being the wrong tool – while useful, it’s the wrong tool to understand the brain because it gives narrow bandwidth answers and is insufficient in and of itself to address the complete system.
So that would still be you that’s both wrong and still coming up short in the brains department, Glue Gun.
Maury, you may not realize it, but you summed up your philosophy of life in one word: “resent.” You spell out your feelings for your fellow human beings in a single word. Resent!
People like you are pitiable for their lack of humanity.
Brian, you are becoming more and more bizarre with every passing moment. You have posted dozens of statements, using thousands of words, and you have yet to make a point. You set up sockpuppet accounts and then lie about it. Do you have a point? If so, please tell us what is your point and be done with it. Instead we have long rambling and largely incoherent screeds railing against the legal system which is based on the adversarial system. If you have some grandiose notion that singlehandedly you will overturn a legal system that has been evolving for thousands of years, you are delusional. It is not a perfect system, because is it administered by humans. Justices Alito, Thomas and Scalia on the SCOTUS are examples of how things can go wrong. On the other hand, I see news stories of parking garages collapsing during construction. We are currently watching the nuclear nightmare in Japan unfold as well, so we know engineering wizards make fatal errors as well.
Name calling and gloating over imagined semantic gotcha points is not argument–it is juvenile. You have become tiresome. If it is your intent to disrupt adult conversations on a legal blawg, you have managed that. Just be aware that you are not the object of admiration around here, but are an annoyance, much like being alone in a dark room with a mosquito.
I must say, that while it was difficult to wade through your poor writing, I got the impression you lost a custody lawsuit over your grandchild after a family tragedy. Obviously, losing a child is traumatic and you have my condolences about that. But it was not the loss of your child, that we are discussing. It was the subsequent litigation. You apparently lost a custody battle over a grandchild–although even that is somewhat unclear due to your disconnected rambling. You name several members of the bar and make some very serious allegations against them, which if true, are actionable. If they are not true, then you are libeling several professionals who might be interested in coming after you for that.
I have an idea, and several others here seem to agree; you were your own worst enemy in that litigation. Frankly, if you behaved in a trial the way you behave here, it is a wonder you did not end up in jail for contempt of court. On that point, while you have not said so, perhaps you did. I don’t care one way or the other if you landed in jail or not, but I know several judges who would have put up with your non-responsive and rambling answers for a short time, before slapping the gavel down on you (figuratively speaking) for evading and non-responsiveness. If you think your style will win points in a court of law, you have another think coming. Furthermore, your willingness to lie, and then lie about lying destroys all credibility you might have managed to hang onto going in. Lie and deny all you want, but your writing style is distinct and cannot get past anti-plagiarism software–not that I need software. Document analysis is one of my specialties.
You keep rambling about having a Ph.D., and I say so what. So do I. So do several other commenters on this thread. A Ph.D. in engineering does not make you a psychologist, lawyer, baker or great philosopher. Neither does it make you a writer of coherent paragraphs.
Maury,
You are so smart. You have a brain, right? When do you think it will kick in gear along with your mouth?
The problem with what you are saying is corporate greed has gotten to you. You are the pawn and when they spawn you will be long gone.
The problem with what you are saying is not what you are saying but how you are using it. I bet you a quarter that not one person that obtained employment said that, right?
If you are correct, then Nevada, Arizona and parts of California would be with out electricity. When people heard about this, they took risks. Over 42,000 men applied for 5,000 jobs. I wonder what the other 37,000 thought? The population is guessed to have been about 121,767,000 that is a lot of people without work.
Auntee Social, BS, MS, Phd:
Brian does not need to be found, he is where he is and he knows where that is so I do not need to find that which is not lost.
Dr. Scribe:
here is what some people thought about the New Deal in 1934:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/sns-pod-1934-cartoon-pic,0,7114709.photo
I particularly liked the “young pinkies from Harvard” touch. So true but now they are just plain red.
The sign on the lower left is apt as well.
“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes.
Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them.”
George Santayana