Teabagging??

Matt Taibbi explores the fellationic dimension of teabagging and conservative cougars, yikes. More than anything this weekend's wacko experiment in collective, fascistic delusion, egged on by the manipulators at Fox News, proves that the American educational system is beyond abysmal. The images say it all. No doubt the Secret Service are on edge.

Is this actually happening?

Obama continues to build a Justice Dept. that Republicans would envy. On the heels of arguments in favor of secret domestic surveillance he has appointed a 5th RIAA lawyer to a high-level DOJ position. I'm having Kafkaesque visions of secret indictments against citizens based on sealed evidence, and an effective gag on dissent over it due to restrictions on free exchange of information. A scary thought when traditional media are foundering and we're left to rely more heavily on the internet. With the help of info-fascists in the administration, blowhards like Diane Feinstein could get their wish and put a stop to net neutrality.  For your reading displeasure.

New Home

Laserwood News is the new home of all things laserwoody with a more extensive linkage to other news sources and a simpler interface for contributors. Previous comments from the laserwoodcorp website can be found below.

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Previously on laserwoodcorp

April 9, 2009

Ugh.

My predictions (in spite of my hopes) of a mediocre presidency are proving true fast. For your reading displeasure: Obama's DOJ one-ups Bush on Orwellian legal positions.

DE

April 2, 2009

The 10/31 Project

As if it weren't bad enough that he is clearly struggling to keep up with reality, Glenn Beck has completely lost is mind. Stephen Colbert explains.

JM

March 31, 2009

Hitchens in Hell

Christopher Hitchens' account of his recent visit to Lebanon presents a picture of a country trapped, hemmed in by violent ideologies on all sides. It's no wonder that such experiences would lead Hitchens to conclude God is Not Great. On the other hand, it's too bad Hitchens equates religion with fanaticism. Every religion has its fanatics, as does every political ideology (whether Hitchens would equate these is less than clear), but every religion also its share of saints. In fact the rationalism and enlightenment Hitchens lauds give the lie to his own overly generalized claims, but then, discrete and careful analysis doesn't pay. That said, the man is a courageous atheist. Perhaps if he adverted to the 'metaphysical' status of his own morality, he might recognize what is also true in authentic religion. Perhaps.

JM

March 28, 2009

Pain and Consciousness

Treehugger is breaking news on studies that show crustaceans may feel pain. Perhaps. But the myth about lobsters screaming in the pot betrays the childish anthropomorphising that goes on among some PETA-types and reduces the cause of ethical treatment to caricature. In the entire debate over the ethical treatment of animals there is a consistent failure to make distinctions about modes of consciousness and the interpretation of pain. Whether animals feel pain, per se, is not really relevant. It's how they feel pain that creates the ethical problem for human beings. To feel pain as humans do would demand inserting the sensitive/neurological experience of pain into a range of meanings and values that intepret the phenomenon in a variety of ways. Human beings do not experience pain in a vacuum. For the human, pain is experienced as meaningful or meaningless, not simply as pain. It is experienced as suffering. So we can't even begin to fathom what pure pain would feel like. Possibly, not much of anything; just one more peice of sensory data with a correlative fight of flight response. The assumption of some animal-rights activitsts that science can reduce human and animal consciousness to their common neurological denominators thereby necessitating an ethical claim on human behavior made by a moral equal who just happens to be non-human (this is equivalent to a human making an ethical claim against bears for all those maulings). This presumes that human consciousness is simply a more complex version of same thing all sentient creatures share. So, are sentience and consciousness the same thing? The quasi-buddhist ethic of sentience characteristic of PETA logic fails to distinguish between higher order animals that organize sensible data in radically different ways from their lower order counterparts. For an example, consider the old riddle, "if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?" It depends on what one means by 'one'. But assuming for the moment that 'one' refers to a fellow human, the simple answer is 'yes' because, of course, the forest is teeming with other life forms including those that recieve vibrational data in the form of sound. However, if 'one' refers to any being with the sense of hearing, then the answer is 'no'. Sound pertains to hearing, not to vibration. Insects feel vibrations, but do not hear sounds. Insects don't see either. Therefore lower order sentient beings like insects and crustaceans do not even share the same range of data as higher order animals. Proposing interpretations of insect or crustacean behavior that fail to account for these distinctions seems highly dubious. A debate over the treatment of higher order intelligences like mammals may be warranted, but in the meantime, enjoy a lobster roll.

JM

March 27, 2009

The Good New(t)s

Turns out former house speaker Newt Gingrich is joining the fold! Thank the lord there's still a Buckley out there to offer a little perspective on such an occasion.

JM

Handkerchiefs and pocketknives

The Art of Manliness offers some sound advice on the desirability, nay necessity, of equipping one's self with a handerkerchief as a part of one's daily acoutrement. I heartily echo this sentiment. I am a notorious head-sweater, and in the humidity of New England summers a flight of stairs will garauntee a cascade of sweaty ooze eminating from the brow and neck regions. For me a handkerchief is a must. But ,it also betrays in its bearer a certain readiness and sophistication in the face of life's eventualities. In addition to brow mopping duties, a handkerchief can save you when your lunchtime burrito grande springs a leak and napkins are nowhere to be found, or when a beer or cocktail is spilled and inevitably the barman is occupied in his pursuit of the local cougars. The man with a twenty-four inch square of cotton conveniently tucked in his pocket is prepared.

The same goes for pocketknives. My grandfather was never without a pocketknife and its shining steal beauty bewitched me when he deployed it to clean his pipe before loading another round of Captain Black. From those childhood days I wanted a pocketknife of my own but found them mostly bulky and without a great deal of artistry, aside from those silver jobs that cost a pretty penny, and I am not yet ready to do the Full Leatherman, if you know what I mean. However, I recently received a spyderco locking clip blade as a gift. It is not cheap, but it is a great tool. It's easy to open with one hand, has a sturdy locking mechanism and sits flat. It can be used as a money clip, but the clip is best used to holster the knife on the edge of a pocket so that it can be quickly dispatched to its task. It has opened many a box or uncooperative envelope, but it can also carve up an apple, cut a bite of picnic sausage or shiv a mugger.

So if you don't yet have a stockpile of hankies and a trusty piece of steel in your pocket, think it over. Ladies too.

JM

March 26, 2009

Worth a Read

Terry Eagleton on the new atheism and the return of theology and metaphysics.

JM