Iran nukes?

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avidaloca
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Post by avidaloca »

I do think that Kevin is much better at wisdom than he is at understanding politics and the root causes of war.
I don't think I'll forget for some years trying to translate Weininger with Kevin in 1999. I spent hours every day for months reading Weininger in German after some years experience with it (which didn't help at all because it's quite different to modern German and much more full-on).

Then I'd show Kevin my drafts and with no experience in the foreign language, several times he insisted his interpretation was right!

I've noticed he has little respect for others' views, even if that person is in the centre of a certain field of knowledge, he knows best.
MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi »

I am interested, what made you gather that?
Because you wondered if I thought that Kevin did not take my writing about Islam seriously. On the forum, I have never seen any indication that he did not take my writing about Islam seriously. I wondered if you know something that I do not.

Kevin is ignorant of Islam -- pretty much by choice and favortism. He naively believes that Christians are not prone to violence and hate -- entirely ignorant of the Bush Crusades. He seems to believe that Christians follow the tenets of Christianity so he holds that Muslims must be following the basic tenets of Islam. He views Sufism as a New Age religion when Sufism, the so called mystic side of Islam, is ancient.

Submission to God does not mean that one declares war on the world. Submission to God means that one submits oneself to nature -- whatever that entails -- including science and cultural progress.

That is the essence of true Islam -- the wisdom of Sufism. Sufism is submission to God without Islamic doctrine.

Faizi
MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi »

I don't think I'll forget for some years trying to translate Weininger with Kevin in 1999. I spent hours every day for months reading Weininger in German after some years experience with it (which didn't help at all because it's quite different to modern German and much more full-on).

Then I'd show Kevin my drafts and with no experience in the foreign language, several times he insisted his interpretation was right!
If your knowledge of German is modern, did you have difficulty interpreting Weininger? Is that what you are saying -- kind of unclear from your writing above.

I recall Kevin asking for interpreters in 1999 or some year.

I have scant understanding of Urdu and Punjabi but I know enough to know that language is language. Translation is often difficult -- because one translates the literal without the nuances.

It is hard for me to imagine that Weininger's German was so un-modern.

How would interpreting Weininger from German differ from interpreting Nietzsche? Nietzsche wrote before Weininger.

How did Kevin know that his translation was right when yours was not?

Had Kevin employed a German language scholar, would he have believed the scholar's translations?

Faizi
avidaloca
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Post by avidaloca »

If your knowledge of German is modern, did you have difficulty interpreting Weininger? Is that what you are saying -- kind of unclear from your writing above.
The only German I knew when I started looking at Weininger was modern German, like most people. It didn't help a lot. It's not so much the new words, which are few, it's the new way of looking at the world. You have to change the way you approach things to get in Weininger's mode of thought. That took a while but once you find it on paper, you've found it in yourself, and then can go from there. The possibilites of thought are infinite from Weininger's work, and much of that is imbued in the German of his time which was much more interesting than today.
It is hard for me to imagine that Weininger's German was so un-modern.
Many of the concepts he used are out-of-fashion today and it took some effort to comprehend what he meant, things like vanity, the Good, evil, neurasthenia, crime, the criminal. You may think they have set meanings but what he meant by them then isn't what we mean by them now.
How would interpreting Weininger from German differ from interpreting Nietzsche? Nietzsche wrote before Weininger.
I have only barely looked at Nietzsche's writing in German and found it pretty hard being written 40 years earlier. Weininger writes in a more modern style. This reminds me of what Weininger said about Jewishness and modernity being linked, because he was a Jew.
How did Kevin know that his translation was right when yours was not?
There's no way he could have known because he couldn't understand the sentence in German. The only time I had an interpretation dispute with him was when dictionaries and my own experience backed me up with interpretation A but he felt his own interpretation B was right against all that, despite not knowing German. I had difficulty with believing in his ideas when what was before me on the page, and in bilingual dictionaries, had a totally different meaning.

This happened maybe 10 times or so. The times when we argued over what Weininger might have meant, because it wasn't clear in the words as such, were useful.
Had Kevin employed a German language scholar, would he have believed the scholar's translations?
I guess you'll have to ask him. I know when I started translating Weininger, I wasn't good at all, and made many mistakes. But after a while I did gain proficiency, and I think Kevin struggled with the idea that someone could get it wrong and then start getting it right. I just takes interest and practice, neither of which he had or did much of in learning German.
MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi »

I guess you'll have to ask him. I know when I started translating Weininger, I wasn't good at all, and made many mistakes. But after a while I did gain proficiency, and I think Kevin struggled with the idea that someone could get it wrong and then start getting it right. I just takes interest and practice, neither of which he had or did much of in learning German.
I am struggling to understand your meaning.

I speak only English. Yet, I can read Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte and understand their meaning, even if the usage is not modern. It is modern enough to be easily understood by a twenty-first century intellect.

Are you saying that Kevin did not like your translations once you started getting it right?

A lot of contradictions.

Faizi
avidaloca
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Post by avidaloca »

I am struggling to understand your meaning.

I speak only English. Yet, I can read Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte and understand their meaning, even if the usage is not modern. It is modern enough to be easily understood by a twenty-first century intellect.

Weininger writes from both a different time and different culture, so there are differences in what the terms mean, and how they were used at that time. I often came across words I couldn't understand because there seemed to be so many interpretations both in dictionaries and my own and Kevin's thoughts.

Two good examples off the top of my head are Schuld and Ich. Schuld doesn't mean guilt in the same way we use it today, I think Weininger meant it as more an original sin type of fault or error, and his use of I is more like self or ego or consciousness/individuality rather than I or me.
Are you saying that Kevin did not like your translations once you started getting it right?
He did say that he didn't like the fact that I at first I initially got translations wrong when I started them, then later toyed around until I found something better. He specifically made a point of the fact that because I got it wrong the first time, he didn't trust it when I came up with an accurate revision later.

But that's the spiral evolutionary model of development - you don't always hit on the answer from the very start, but you use those knowledge-gathering experiences and experiments to create the final product which is correct. In that case, Kevin shouldn't use electric light, because Edison got it wrong hundreds of times before he created the lightbulb, and by Kevin's logic he should have got it the first time or it's not worth anything.
MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi »

I reckon that is a beef between you and Kevin. I know nothing of the German language.

Kind of sounds like he needed a scholarly translator who is familiar with all the nuances of the language; someone neutral but whose knowledge of German is beyond rapproach.

I am sure that your efforts were great and I can appreciate that. But sounds like an expert in German language was needed.

An automaton who could not be disputed.

A Vulcan.

Faizi
Leyla Shen
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Post by Leyla Shen »

Submission to God does not mean that one declares war on the world. Submission to God means that one submits oneself to nature -- whatever that entails -- including science and cultural progress.
I would love to call George Bush unnatural. Unfortunately, I cannot and be consistent with my idea of nature.

My anti-Bush position is entirely based on the question of sanity. I think he is an insane egoid from hell. And those who buy into his policies and rhetoric are ignorant.

Yet, there are many men who do comment on the subject and display excellent reasoning powers and wisdom in doing so.

That Kevin does not comment directly on the subject indicates that he does not want to be pulled into the politics of it all. Maybe, for him, it is as simple as the fact that he lives here in the West and we are more powerful. Might is right because might is.

The Greek empire fell, and one of his main men of wisdom before the event. The texts were preserved by Muslims and later again by "us." Perhaps that is why he does not speak on current affairs.

I cannot fathom his reluctance. Today and in the West, he -- or anyone -- is much less likely to be crucified or put to death for their views.

Is it not an excellent opportunity -- an excellent example, this War on Terror -- to contrast right with wrong action? Or, are there some instances where reason is not all that it is cracked up to be?
avidaloca
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Post by avidaloca »

Kind of sounds like he needed a scholarly translator who is familiar with all the nuances of the language; someone neutral but whose knowledge of German is beyond rapproach.
I know he asked around at the time to German academics like Claudia Grinnell but she and others said they didn't have the time.

I guess if he had the money to pay a professional, he would have done so. In any case I was reaching a pretty good level by the end of it anyway.

The end in fact came surprisingly when we found out over the net that a Canadian professor was translating the same work (On Last Things), which had not been translated to that point. So we released Weininger's notebook and letters in English instead (downloadable as an e-book at http://www.dvdictionary.com).

Then we just collaborated a bit with him with what we had left over and left it all up to him. The final product was pretty good, though was peppered with (fortunately) fairly minor translation errors. Burn's On Last Things though doesn't compare for either translation or source material quality with Loeb's Sex And Character (released 2005).
My anti-Bush position is entirely based on the question of sanity. I think he is an insane egoid from hell. And those who buy into his policies and rhetoric are ignorant.
If you go to America and live among the native tribes as I have done, you'll find that they're too dumb to be evil megalomaniacs. They're just old-fashioned people who've had the luxury of their own abundant continent for four hundred years, and have had no real spur to move up to a modern level of thinking. They're stuck in 17th century morality in the 21st.

Studies the world over show that when immigrant communities migrate to a new land, they retain their old ways more so than those who actually live back in the old country, because the latter group has to move with the influences around them more. Those who still live there have less motivation to hold to old values within a world foreign to them - they know their neighbours and freely interact with them. It's more difficult for those who come from a different culture and are plonked within a completely alien system.

American culture was created in the same way, and like the isolated but protected immigrants, has had no reason or motivation to move on from their now largely outdated views.

One thing that is visionary about America is the way they are so effective in inculcating new arrivals into Americanism. They have had more time and need to practice this than any other country, and therefore do a good job of it. It's how they managed to hold together such a vast land with such varying cultures arriving over the centuries.

The only problem is, the system or culture they created to do this is now ironically appearing out-of-step with the rest of the world's views in some ways - Bush is merely the clearest revealer of that.
MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi »

you'll find that they're too dumb to be evil megalomaniacs.

As a so called American, I think this is partially true. Lots of ignorant people here. Lots of dumb ones, too.

I doubt that I will ever be able to afford travel to other countries where I might encounter large populations of very intelligent people, like ya'll have in England and Australia.

Closest I will ever come to that is Boston. Waitresses and cabbies in Boston can discuss philosophy.

Too bad the damn place is so cold and expensive.

Alas, I will never get to visit the bastion of great intelligence that is Europe. Italy -- home to the Pope; England -- home to Queen Elizabeth, that great intellectual light; France -- where young people are getting bilked. Denmark -- overrun with Pakistanis.

Faizi
MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi »

they're too dumb to be evil megalomaniacs.

They just elect evil megalomaniacs for reason of religion.

Faizi
MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi »

It's how they managed to hold together such a vast land with such varying cultures arriving over the centuries.

Despite some massacres and imprisonments; an interment camp here or there. Plus imposition of poverty on certain groups. Not to mention hate cults.

Other than those little things, we done good.

It is great now to have a president who invites immigration to usurp the last remainders of the middle class. Middle class -- who needs it?

What the US needs is a strong upper class with Mexicans willing to work for far less than minimum wage. We not only welcome Mexicans, we are striving to be more like Mexico. Who knows? In the next twenty years, we might achieve that.

We have the compounds. Just need the walls -- you know -- to keep the scumballs out.

On the positive side, we can use illegal Mexicans to fight the war against Iran. A dead Mexican is as good as a live one.

All right with me. I would gladly allow Mexicans to take the place of my kids in war. I could probably pay a couple of Mexicans thirty cents a day to fight in their stead. Far cheaper than going to Canada.

Like Canada would let an American immigrate! HAHAHAHA!

How does Canada feel about Mexicans?

We have plenty to spare.

Faizi
Greg Shantz
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Post by Greg Shantz »

MKFaizi asked:
How does Canada feel about Mexicans?
We want them to come here.
Leyla Shen
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Post by Leyla Shen »

Martin wrote:
...you'll find that they're too dumb to be evil...
It just so happens that if I am going to use the term evil, that is more or less how I define it: "dumb."
MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi »

My anti-Bush position is entirely based on the question of sanity. I think he is an insane egoid from hell. And those who buy into his policies and rhetoric are ignorant.
To be absolutely honest, until very recently, I thought George Bush was an asshole. I was that much of an optimist. It has only been recently that my eyes have been opened to the fact that he is insane. I figured he was an asshole for getting into Iraq. But talking about nuking Iran -- that's insane. I know that he lied to get into Iraq -- played on fear. I yet attributed that to assholeism.

But nuking Iran -- that's insanity. For one thing, the US can't afford it.

Additionally, his pro illegal Mexican stance is suspicious for insanity. He is lying through his teeth when he says that Mexicans are here to do work that Americans WON'T do. It is not that Americans won't do the work. The problem is that Americans cannot live on two dollars an hour and it is also a problem that Americans have never had to live in a house with forty other people.

Illegal Mexicans can do that. They get free medical care. They can drive illegally -- because they will work for nothing. Children of illegal Mexican immigrants get scholarships that are government funded.

I am not racist in the least.

I know first hand how hard it is to immigrate here legally. It is not hard to work here illegally -- if you are Mexican.

I have been saying for years that the US is becoming a Third World country. The US is becoming more and more like Mexico. The middle class is deteriorating. Middle class income is minimally thirty thousand dollars a year. I do not make that much money. Yet, I consider that I am clinging to middle class existence. Barely.

I am low enough to realize that my parents' home looks luxurious to me.
And it is just average -- nothing like the mini-mansion compounds down the road.

Kind of how they must look to a Mexican.

George W. Bush has done more damage to this country than Richard Nixon could have thought possible. I am not sure that it can be repaired. It's that bad.

My old father is a WWII vet and he knew enough to know that the war in Iraq was bogus.

Interesting how retired generals are finally starting to speak against the war.

Damn shame that they did not revolt from the get-go. Personally, I would be ashamed that I went on with a faulty plan based on lies; knowing it at the time but covering my ass.

On the whole, generals are pussies. Suck ups. For the most part, the army is composed of suck ups -- called the chain of command -- the higher up you go, the more the sucking.

How do I know? I was a soldier.

Bottom line -- Bush needs to go. I don't see how the US can stomach two more years. The rather sad thing is that most Americans now agree with that. I do not see it as an excuse but, in 2004, Americans were still voting out of fear. For a brief time after 2004, Bush was yet considered the Great Cowboy.

Now, he is the emperor without clothes.

Best thing that could happen would be for him to let an intern blow him and go public.

Unfortunately, he is too politically correct for that.

Faizi
MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi »

We want them to come here.

Duh.. yup.

"We" want them to come here so global corporations can have cheap labor.

Faizi
MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi »

It just so happens that if I am going to use the term evil, that is more or less how I define it: "dumb."


Yet, if you came to the US, I can tell you with certainty that my family would welcome you and give you a room to stay. They would do the same for an Iraqi or Iranian or Mexican.

That may be dumb but I don't think it is evil.

For the most part, the American people are not evil. They voted for Bush out of fear, kind of like Germans welcomed Hitler -- from fear.

If I brought Ossama himself home, I reckon they would welcome him before George Bush. I well know that they would not allow Bush in their home -- even if he is a cousin. As long as he was polite, they would not know Ossama from any other Arab.

Many Muslims have been welcomed at my parents' home.

I certainly do not mean to say that they would knowingly house a murderer like Ossama but neither would they house a murderer like Bush. They would know Bush on sight. I doubt that they would recognize Ossama.

Just a nice Arab guy.

They are that dumb.

Faizi
MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi »

The only problem is, the system or culture they created to do this is now ironically appearing out-of-step with the rest of the world's views in some ways - Bush is merely the clearest revealer of that.


Well, you may have a point. It is true that immigrants cling to the ways of the old country more than those in the old country cling.

My immigrant husband was appalled when his nephew -- close to his own age and a lawyer -- chose to wear jeans on a visit to Washington, D.C. The nephew was visiting us from Lahore. Faizi would never have worn jeans to D.C. He only wore jeans at work.

I think it is plausible that Americans are more ignorant than the countries that initially populated it because they cling to old world traditions -- like religion and the work ethic.

That said, I can say that George Bush is ignorant beyond that and I think he is truly -- *ahem* -- fill in the blank.

Under the guise of a cowboy, he is selling us out to global corporation.

Faizi
MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi »

That Kevin does not comment directly on the subject indicates that he does not want to be pulled into the politics of it all. Maybe, for him, it is as simple as the fact that he lives here in the West and we are more powerful. Might is right because might is.

He is ignorant of politics. Not a matter of not wanting to be pulled.

The only thing that he knows is that it is better to live among a Christian populace than a Muslim populace.

Given the fact that Islam is not separate from government in most Muslim countries, I can well understand his bias.

The only thing that keeps Christians at bay is separation of church from state. If that tenuous hold ever falls, Christians would not be different from Muslims.

I do not think Kevin realizes this. Thus, he naively sides with Christians and considers Muslims insane.

I think I mentioned elsewhere the Christian objection to a cartoon Jesus on Southpark. If given free reign, Christians would revoke the First Amendment.

I am rather amazed that that has not happened yet.

Faizi
Leyla Shen
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Post by Leyla Shen »

Marsha,
Yet, if you came to the US, I can tell you with certainty that my family would welcome you and give you a room to stay. They would do the same for an Iraqi or Iranian or Mexican.

That may be dumb but I don't think it is evil.
Hence my reasons for qualifying my use of the word with “if” and keeping “dumb” in quotation marks. I rarely use it. G Dubbya is one of those rarities whereupon I make such an exception. Kind of a remnant of his own stupid “axis of evil” rhetoric. Way too emotive a proposition to produce rational thought, in general.
For the most part, the American people are not evil. They voted for Bush out of fear, kind of like Germans welcomed Hitler -- from fear.
Precisely.
Just a nice Arab guy.

They are that dumb.
My dad’s pretty cool, I reckon. He took out a restraining order on Jehovah’s Witnesses -- as a group. They seem pretty harmless but, God, does that door-knocking thing get annoying on the weekends.

I was thinking that maybe Kevin could assist David with a similar approach toward becoming an apostle-type. You know, start off in a little group to build up your courage.

I was also thinking that this Iranian dude is becoming quite the serial pest, though I hardly think he would be considered as having the right sort of connection to truth.

For the record, I am quite serious about my two comments above -- they are not at all intended to be facetious.
He is ignorant of politics. Not a matter of not wanting to be pulled.

The only thing that he knows is that it is better to live among a Christian populace than a Muslim populace.

I do not think Kevin realizes this. Thus, he naively sides with Christians and considers Muslims insane.
Yes, I think you are right.
I think I mentioned elsewhere the Christian objection to a cartoon Jesus on Southpark. If given free reign, Christians would revoke the First Amendment.
Yes.

Personally, I have to say, when it’s good, it’s really good. My favourite episodes are Metrosexual and Ninjas.
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Tomas
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Post by Tomas »

When we were in love
I pretended that you didn't exist
That way, I loved you more
You suggested that we get married and move into a house
I suggested that we jump overboard
And live underwater in the lost city of Atlantis
Where mermaids sing
And tuxedoed dolphins bring you breakfast

One year later I was transferred to the moon
Worse pay - better hours
I was transferred to the moon
Worse pay - better fellow workers

I built our love out of blood
I went to the dentist and told him
''Take out my heart!''

I feel better now
I feel better than James Brown

I was attending Mardi Gras with Fidel Castro
Buxom cross dressers threw fake gold coins at our feet
As we discussed the fate of the revolution
Suddenly CIA men dressed in bikinis tried to stab us with fountain pens
Fidel blew mustard gas through his cigar and immobilized the lot of them
Nineteen tequilas later we had a deal
Havana goes back to the mob
And Fidel and I open a chain of Kentucky Fried Chicken Shops
Ain't life sweet

I feel good
I feel better than James Brown
I feel better now
How do you feel
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Tomas
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Dick Cheney & Vigilant Shield

Post by Tomas »

.

Dick Cheney & Vigilant Shield

Will a missing nuke from the B-52 incident be used in a Simulated Terrorist Attack?

Dr. Salla has a Ph.D in Governement from the University of Queensland, Australia, and an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Melbourne, Australia

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne ... vigila.htm

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Tomas
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Re: Dick Cheney & Vigilant Shield

Post by Tomas »

Tomas wrote:.

Dick Cheney & Vigilant Shield

Will a missing nuke from the B-52 incident be used in a Simulated Terrorist Attack?

Dr. Salla has a Ph.D in Governement from the University of Queensland, Australia, and an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Melbourne, Australia

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne ... vigila.htm

.
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Tomas
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Straightjacket Bush

Post by Tomas »

.

Forget impeachment. Straightjacket Bush

Don't treat Bush & Cheney like criminals, they're psychos

The president's warmongering remarks on the Iranian threat suggest he is psychotic. Really.

http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fair ... esE25.html

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sagerage
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Re: Iran nukes?

Post by sagerage »

put it up your ass and press...... K-funjbc
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