This is truly astonishing!!!
Author: Ghoh
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When a Church is Not a Church!
State Police alerted after Nazareth College students of Muslim faith attend Penfield church
“After their student status was confirmed, the police dropped the matter.”Was this necessary? Was even checking the students story necessary? I have been to this Church many times. Not for Services but for concerts. Thank God the “Church” is longer used for that.
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An Apology to “Sufficient Causes”
In my post Conversation with Defender of Trump Tweets and Subsequent Threats to Carrier Union Leader, Trump’s challenge to the President’s legitimacy was, for me, in Aristotle’s terms, “Necessary and Sufficient.”
To say that Trump’s “birther” claim was a Necessary & Sufficient Cause for my conclusion that he was unfit to hold any public office, especially President, was an insult to the concept of Sufficient Causes. I can only hope that this serves as a Sufficient apology.
A Sufficient Cause explains without recourse to any other factors or Causes. There is no limit to the number of Sufficient Causes. [In Trump’s case, the “birther” thing was only the first of many, many, many, “Oh My God”, so many many… Sufficient Causes.] A Necessary Cause is required before any other factors function. Therefore, Sufficient Causes are in a separate exalted league from Necessary Causes, “A Difference in Kind.” To call a Sufficient Cause “Necessary and Sufficient” is an insult to a Sufficient Cause, and I apologize.
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More On: How China Could Save Us from Donald Trump
It was said my suggestion that China mobilize against Taiwan was extreme and dangerous. I cannot argue with that. So what do we need?
What we need is a reaction so imtimidating, hopefully not so dangerous, that will be a “threat we DO believe in!” Scary enough to frighten Republicans to save themselves, with coincidental collateral benefit to us, by getting rid of Trump. The electoral college might then be frightened enough to live up to their Constitutional responsibilities. Enough Congressmen and Senators to convince him that he will be convicted of impeachment immediately upon being sworn in. If so he would resign now.
It could be done if our plight is scary enough. It needs an international fright ASAP to get it done. Nothing national will do.
Consider that this President would not be shy to threaten, behind the scenes of course, nucular [sic] intimidation to get what he wants. If I were threatened by him that way, I wouldn’t question for a nano second his willingness to carry out any threat, that threat.
That is what I believe the Chinese, or any nation, could face from a Donald Trump. He might not ever – God knowing it to be so – have any intention whatsoever of carrying out such a threat, but since no one threatened by him would ever take that chance, he will get whatever he wants! I don’t think that will be good.
He has created an image so crazy, that we have no choice but to believe it. Not just an image, but a terrifying reality!
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Please Read Federalist #68 to See Why We Should Keep It and Swear to Honor It!
The arguments for the Electoral College are elucidated there. Those who claim to value the “Intent of the Framers” – if they really subscribe to that and are not just trotting that out whenever convenient – should read and learn that the Electoral College has been subverted. Read there, prescient descriptions of the kind of person, that is, THE PERSON, who is not yet president-elect. That only after ratification by the electoral college. The Intension of the Framers was clearly to block such a person as Trump from being President. If we were to do away with the Electoral College instead of repairing our system to enable it to function as intended, we will never be able to bring it back.
In the future, if someone also unqualified to be President – perhaps someone much less unqualified than Donald Trump or hard to imagine but “God Help Us More So” – was selected, we would no longer have access to the Electoral College to bail us out. We would be STUCK!!!
Please read. Its amazing. Federalist #68
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Conversation with Defender of Trump Tweets and Subsequent Threats to Carrier Union Leader
Them: I’ll wait till the dust settles and we have all the facts before I comment. I find far too much emotion going on, in what should be intellectual evaluation of the happenings and events in our world.
Me: The dust is settling and piling up. (Adding now: Even if he resigned now and disappeared off the face of the earth, or the cosmos entire, the dust will never be finished settling.) There is not enough emotion going on where it belongs: in the Electoral College and the House and Senate. Intellectual evaluation should result in the appropriate concomitant emotional reaction according to Ayn Rand.
Them: For all of those in “never Trump” mind set,…
Me: I am not or ever been in the “never Trump” mind set. I am not in any mind set. I was convinced from the moment that he played the “birther” card that he was morally decrepit and unfit by virtue of character to hold any public office, let alone President. I don’t keep my position because of a “mind set.” There has been no new evidence since to indicate otherwise. I keep to my conclusion because he has said or done nothing to demonstrate otherwise, and seemingly day by day, confirms my conclusion. That is not a mind set. It is a position held based on continuing observations. My conclusion is subject to change, as everyone’s conclusions should be, but changes should come from evidence, old or new, reevaluations and new evaluations. New evidence confirms my original conclusion and there is none else. His challenge to the President’s legitimacy was, for me, in Aristotle’s terms, “Necessary and Sufficient.”
Them: …if you could dictate Mr. Trump’s actions, what specifically would you have him do to satisfy your desires for now and the future?”
Me: Resign immediately.
Them: Let’s all remember that with rare exception we are all trying to do the best for ourselves and others, and that in most cases we are arguing over the details of how to cook the fish and not if we should be having apples for dinner.
Me: Your last paragraph does not apply to him.
Me: Personally attacking an opponent, signalling a target for attack from your hoard, smacks of the Brown Shirts [the SA]. In those days the orders were given behind the scenes. Here we see the orders given in public, and the responses taken right before our very eyes! How much more intimidating can you get?
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Book of the year. Peter Wadhams (2016) A Farewell to Ice. A Report From the Arctic.
Well worth the time to read. Learn the meaning of or else!
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Latifundism and the Jubilee Year
From John Dominic Crossan’s “The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus.”
Note especially the wonderful quotation from Isaiah included.
Or, as Isaiah 5: 8 said, it was intended to defeat “you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land!”
First, what was the purpose of the Jubilee Year? And notice, by the way, that it started on the Day of Atonement. Here, at least, the answer is quite clear. From Léon Epsztein: “…in order to restrict the creation of latifundia, [that is,] to prevent the concentration of rural properties”(133). From Norman Habel: “The policy provided a mechanism for deferring in the short term and preventing in the long term land monopolies of latifundialization, the process of land accumulation in the hands of a few landowners to the detriment of peasant farmers”(105). From Jeffrey Fager: “It attempted to restrict the latifundism which was prevalent in the ancient Near East in order to keep the means of production evenly distributed among independent families”(88).
Or, as Isaiah 5: 8 said, it was intended to defeat “you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land!”
It wanted to stop the transformation of multiple peasant smallholdings into single large landownerships, to deter the eradication of the family farm and the creation and extension of latifundism or agribusiness. That, of course, put divine tradition on a collision course with rural commercialization.