Saturday's Musing, CutN'Pastes, and Quotes

CATO Concerned with "Who" Gets to Implement Income Taxes; not Concerned that Income Taxes are Wrong
"Poor Charlie Rangel. The chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee got some bad press in July when the sweetheart deal giving him four rent-controlled apartments became public knowledge. Now he’s getting another dose of bad publicity because he somehow forgot to report $75,000 on rental income for his luxury villa at the Punta Cana resort in the Dominican Republic.

"New York State law classifies filing a false city or state tax return a felony punishable by up to four years in prison..."

"In a good tax system, governments only tax income earned inside national borders – the common-sense practice of “territorial” taxation. As such, the only government that should be concerned about Rangel’s Domincan Republic income is the Dominican Republic. The Ways & Means chairman is only in trouble with American tax authorities because the United States has a very imperialistic system of “worldwide” taxation. [italics added]


"It’s worth noting that the chairman has not tried to fix this policy. Indeed, he wants the make the IRS bigger and the tax code more onerous."

Now wait a minute--in a good tax system, a government would not attempt to tax the means of production, meaning it would not tax the efforts to produce, which means it would not tax the produced earnings of either individuals or of corportations. What would replace income tax is outside the scope of the discussion, namely that taxation of productive capacity reduces that capacity.
Cato-at-liberty http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/



CATO Gets This Wrong, Too
Cato-at-liberty reported that during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, John McCain spoke about pledging federal support for alternative energy so the United States can reduce the amount of energy it imports from abroad. Cato-at-liberty then tied it to another project, quoting the Repulican candidate: “When I’m president,” McCain told cheering delegates, “we’re going to embark on the most ambitious national project in decades. We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us very much. We will attack the problem on every front.”

Cato-at-liberty then asked: "Specifically, where did that $700 billion number come from?
That is far more than what we pay for imported energy. In 2007, Americans spent less than half that amount—$319 billion—for imported energy of all kinds, including oil and natural gas. Even with higher energy prices in 2008, our total bill for imported energy this year will be nowhere near $700 billion."

When I first heard McCain make that pledge, about a week ago, he didn't seem, then, to tie it only to the money we pay for oil. It seemed he was talking about the money we altruistically send to help nations in poverty, and to help feed them, and to help care for them medically, etc., when in the end all our altruism gets us is criticism on the political front from some of those nations--not to mention a bigger tax bill.

I think if he wins, one way he will lower our taxes is by vetoing money to those nations. McCain "vowed that he would halt aid to hostile countries [by saying] 'We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much..." [italics added]
Minneapolis Star Tribune, MN http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGQD_enUS290US290&q=McCain+nations+that+don%27t+like+us+very+much

Atheists Who Don't Deny the Existence of Gods?
Austin Cline's blog in About.com states: "Many people insist that atheism is really the denial of the existence of God" but that this "pretends that atheism is exclusively about their god, the god common to Christians, Jews, and Muslims."

Why doesn't it apply to any god, like Diana or Zeus, or like Ngai, the Maasai name for God? Why doesn't it apply to the Xhosa name of Uthixo? to the Chinese God Shangdi? I'm certain there must be atheists in those cultures who deny the existence of any and all gods.

But Cline goes on, adding, "[That definition of atheism] focuses on a narrow sub-set of atheism and atheists to the exclusion of all others." What other atheists are there but those who deny the existence of gods?

"Standard dictionaries," he says, "list 'disbelief in god or Gods' as the first and primary definition of atheism."

Does this mean that an atheist can believe gods exist, but not believe in them? What nonsense is that?

Sarah Palin is "Nebulously Like Me"
"She's a gutsy gal with a lot of personal appeal. She’s a former Miss Alaska runner up, a big-game hunter and an NRA member, a basketball player and a sports fan. She’s tough in the motherhood arena, choosing to have kid #5 even knowing he would have down syndrome; she gave birth and was back to work in three days and still makes time to use a breast pump at night. It’s the intangibles that could make her a big help to McCain—the nebulous sense of “like me” and [she's got a] “good story” that comes from her humble origins, can-do, unpretentious demeanor, and her penchant for all-American stuff like hunting and sports."
Jean Kazez "Talking Philosophy" http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=374

Christ With a BIG Penis
"A statue by Terence Koh of a tumescent Christ in Gateshead has led to predictable howls of outrage, followed by the now familiar scratchy noise of lines being drawn in the sand. "Enough gratuitous offence to believers!" says one side; "enough kowtowing to religious sensitivities!" say the other.

"This case is actually clear-cut because the Christian suing the Baltic Centre is theologically confused. Every good Bible-believing Christian must know that Christ was all God and all-man (which is an impressive 200% being) and that he is "one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are" (Hebrews 4:15). That means it is orthodox belief that Christ had a penis, which was at least once erect. Even the evangelical minister who taught us RE knew that, and I remember him admitting how troubling he found the thought of his saviour suffering sexual temptation.

"But not all complaints about religious offence can be so easily dismissed as failing on their own terms. What are we to say of these?

"Saying that we have a right to offend skips over the question of whether we are right to offend."
Whether or not someone is "right" to offend is not yours to choose, Mr Baggini. No law could ever be structured on the "correctness" of one's free speech offences.

"Free speech is indeed precious, but that doesn't mean that we have to defend without qualification every moron who abuses it. [W]e should not always be in as much of a hurry to defend the offender, even when we allow their right to offend."

Defending the offender's right to free speech is not the same as "defending the offender" of his offences, Julian.
Julian Baggini http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/03/art.religion?gusrc=rss&feed=artanddesign

Are You Contradictory About Your Beliefs About God?
The Philosopher's Magazine Online asks, "Can your beliefs about religion make it across our intellectual battleground?"

"In this activity you’ll be asked a series of 17 questions about God and religion. In each case, apart from Question 1, you need to answer True or False. The aim of the activity is not to judge whether these answers are correct or not. Our battleground is that of rational consistency. This means to get across without taking any hits, you’ll need to answer in a way which is rationally consistent. What this means is you need to avoid choosing answers which contradict each other. If you answer in a way which is rationally consistent but which has strange or unpalatable implications, you’ll be forced to bite a bullet."

It is going on midnight, and it's been a long day. I think I'll take TPM up on their game, but not until I've had enough sleep to use my critical thinking skills.http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.htm

Quotes For Your Weekend

If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing.
W. Edwards Deming

Compromise, hell! ... If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time? Senator Jesse Helms

All my life I've wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific. Lily Tomlin

In the true Literary Man there is thus ever, acknowledged or not by the world, a sacredness: he is the light of the world; the world's Priest; -- guiding it, like a sacred Pillar of Fire, in its dark pilgrimage through the waste of Time. Thomas Carlyle

There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it. Christopher Darlington Morley (1890-1957)

"The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt." Ayn Rand; "Atlas Shrugged"

It's kind of fun to do the impossible. Walt Disney

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us. Jane Austen; "Pride and Prejudice"

The American businessmen, as a class, have demonstrated the greatest productive genius and the most spectacular achievements ever recorded in the economic history of mankind. What reward did they receive from our culture and its intellectuals? The position of a hated, persecuted minority. The position of a scapegoat for the evils of the bureaucrats. Ayn Rand

"The American Dream [is] one of the greatest ideas in the history of human achievement . . . It thrives today in an age when its core components of freedom and opportunity are open to more Americans than ever before. It holds a real, identifiable place in the American heart and mind, and it informs the aspirations of everyone from farmers to software developers, from detectives to bankers, from soldiers to social workers . . . It defines us as a people, even as we add to its meaning with each new chapter in our national experience and our individual actions."
Dan Rather

Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you, you still have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analyses, you have got not to forget to laugh.
Katharine Hepburn

Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades. A mode of conduct, a standard of courage, discipline, fortitude and integrity can do a great deal to make a woman beautiful. Jacqueline Bisset

We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war.
Erich Maria Remarque; "All Quiet on the Western Front"

The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny — it is the light that guides your way. Heraclitus

The four cornerstones of character on which the structure of this nation was built are: Initiative, Imagination, Individuality and Independence. Edward "Eddie" Rickenbacker

Anger is always concerned with individuals, ... whereas hatred is directed also against classes: we all hate any thief and any informer. Moreover, anger can be cured by time; but hatred cannot. The one aims at giving pain to its object, the other at doing him harm; the angry man wants his victim to feel; the hater does not mind whether they feel or not. Aristotle; "The Art of Rhetoric"

Please send all comments to

mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the sm of the Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism tm, the educational arm of the Assemblage. This publication © 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

Musings and Quotes for Saturday

Condensed from About.Com
"John McCain did the right thing and tapped Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running-mate.
".Palin showed a commitment to her pro-life conservative principles by not bowing to the pressure to abort her mentally-challenged child.
".Palin will be keenly aware of how her military decisions and the decisions she influences as vice-president will affect the men and women serving in the armed forces. Her oldest son, Trig, (sic) is headed to Iraq next month.
".At 44, Palin nullifies any advantage Barack Obama might have with his youth...brings a refreshing female voice to the debates and the campaign... has a likeable style and toughness .
"...earned a staggering 90-percent approval rating from her Alaskan constituents, not the easiest people to please. Her commitment to her principles and her willingness to follow through on promises makes her the toast of Alaska, the darling of the GOP and, now, the apple of the nation's eye."
Justin Quinn http://usconservatives.about.com/b/2008/08/29/alaska-gov-sarah-palin-the-right-partner-the-right-running-mate.htm

Condensed from CATO Institute for Media
"She has been a crusader against pork-barrel spending and has taken on the corrupt Alaska Republican establishment. Certainly this pick carries a great deal of risk, but it has a high upside as well." Michael D. Tanner
"Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's selection as John McCain's running mate is a political masterstroke. Always an electorally attractive choice, Palin is an even stronger selection following Barack Obama's political punt on Joe Biden. Palin checks a lot of boxes for the McCain campaign: a maverick, anti-establishment profile; a youthful, telegenic, professional woman and devoted mother; and a non-Beltway politician popular among grassroots conservatives." Patrick Basham
http://www.cato.org/pressroom.php?display=ncomments&id=137
"Palin supported and signed into law a $1.5 billion tax increase on oil companies in the form of higher severance taxes. One rule of thumb is that higher taxes cause less investment. Sure enough, State Tax Notes reported (January 7): “After ACES was passed, ConocoPhillips, Alaska’s most active oil exploration company and one of the top three producers, announced it was canceling plans to build a diesel fuel refinery at the Kuparuk oil field. ConocoPhillips blamed the cancellation on passage of ACES [the new tax]. The refinery would have allowed the company to produce low-sulfur diesel fuel onsite for its vehicles and other uses on the North Slope, rather than haul the fuel there from existing refineries.” "Chris Edwards http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/08/29/palin-uninspiring-tax-policy-record/

Condensed from Fox News.Com
" Women are not fungible.
"I don’t know if anyone sitting around with John McCain in the last few days has explained that to him; frankly, I don’t know if there even were any women sitting around with John McCain in the last few days. But, I think I understand a few things about Hillary’s base in the Democratic party, and why so many women have been so loyal to her, and if John McCain thinks that simply picking another person with similar anatomy is going to win their votes, he’s about to learn a very important lesson in gender politics." Susan Estrich http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,413525,00.html

"I appointed both Democrats and independents to serve in my administration. And I championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. In fact, I told Congress — I told Congress, “Thanks, but no thanks,” on that bridge to nowhere.
If our state wanted a bridge, I said we’d build it ourselves. Well, it’s always, though, safer in politics to avoid risk, to just kind of go along with the status quo. But I didn’t get into government to do the safe and easy things. A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not why the ship is built.
Politics isn’t just a game of competing interests and clashing parties. The people of America expect us to seek public office and to serve for the right reasons.
And the right reason is to challenge the status quo and to serve the common good. Now, no one expects us to agree on everything, whether in Juneau or in Washington. But we are expected to govern with integrity, and goodwill, and clear convictions, and a servant’s heart."
Sarah Palin http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/08/29/raw-data-sarah-palins-remarks-after-being-named-gop-vice-presidential-candidate/

Now, my own opinions are these:
I hate Obama's far left politics, and if elected he will cost this nation a lot, in terms of money, in terms of irreversible social policies such as came from the FDR's New Deal (like Social Security,) to LBJ's Great Society, whose "War on Poverty" still has young people asking by what means can we eliminate poverty, as if that is ever going to happen. You can't legislate equal pay to all persons; you can't take from the rich to give to the poor; and if you give a college education to everyone, there are still those who will make so much more than others, percentage-wise, that they will cause those who among the college educated will fail at life, to fall under the "poverty line."

But Obama is the person America needs to heal us from decades of wounds done to the self-esteem of black Americans, and to the esteem of white American's who were ashamed of what their neighbors had perpetrated on blacks. His election would give MLK's "Dream" a reality that others before Obama could never have brought. He acts like a politician, not like a black politician, such as Jesse Jackson. Oh, I admire Jackson for many things, including the teaching of
blacks in the 60's to stand up and shout, "Say it loud--I'm black and I'm proud!"

Jackson even has international foreign policy credentials which I admire: "In addition to Slobodan Milosevic, Jackson has also persuaded Hafez al-Assad, Fidel Castro, and Saddam Hussein to set American captives free." http://www.slate.com/id/1002723/

But Jackson's personality often appears to polarize America. It is an historic fact that most black American politicians are polarizing. After all, they came of age in the violent era of the Civil Rights Movement. Obama is not polarizing and doesn't come from that generation. He does not even have any American ancestors who were slaves. That has caused some of those polarizing black leaders to question Obama's "blackness."

I like Obama. I really think he thinks that left-wing policies are moral, and good for people. But how he can square up those socialistic policies with the Constitution he has taught at the college level, can only be explained by the socialistic policies that our left wing courts have allowed to pass unchecked. He comes from a generation that believes because legislation and policies within the New Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society were not struck down as unConstitutional, that more of the same will be more than "ok," it will be cathartic for the younger generations who have demanded "social justice" and not gotten it.

With Obama they will get it, but they will push this nation further than it has ever gone, in the direction of Marx's proclamation that "From each [we shal steal] according to his ability [to be stolen from;] to each [we will give the stolen money] according to his needs [and according to how much we can afford to steal from those with ability.]"

That is not the kind of social justice that comes from the Constitutional dream of individual sovereignty. "Individual sovereignty was not a peculiar conceit of Thomas Jefferson: It was the common assumption of the day..." Joseph J. Ellis http://www.friesian.com/ellis.htm

On the other hand, the Republicans have gone along with much of it, and when they protested against leftist socialistic legislation, they protested too quietly and rarely about the socialism that such legislation represented. It was usually about the costs, or a side issue, or it was just partisan bickering.

For the cathartic effects, and because it would, in a John-Galt fashion, hasten the failures of socialistic leaders and thinkers in this country, I seriously considered voting for Obama. As I said, he's likable, and the fact that we would have elected a likable black man, rather than having this nation ripped apart more by seeing a contentious black man in the Oval Office, would heal many wounds.

But John McCain's pick of a young female who is as likable as Obama and who has the credentials of political integrity, if not of political background, changed the race. (She is a Republican who fought against corrupt Republicans in Alaskan government--and won.)

McCain will not be "four more years of Bush" because McCain pushed Bush to change much of the policy Bush was hell-bent on following. Those two have been political enemies far longer than they have appeared to be friendly. So he voted 90% with Bush? Well, sometimes voting against a bill is worse than voting for it. I suspect that if voting against Bush would not have given ammunition to the leftists in America, McCain would have voted far less than 90% with Bush.

And now, in one brilliant stroke, he has given us the same power of catharsis, for women if not for blacks; and since Obama is not a woman, we are forced to take "catharsis" one step at a time--either in the step toward black, or toward female.

See what I mean about voting against something? In this case voting against a likable woman V.P. along with a maverick Republican Presidential candidate would be worse than voting for a likable socialistic black male candidate with a contentious white male V.P.

Have a happy and safe Labor Day Weekend.

Quotes to Get You Through the Weekend

"Money won't buy happiness, but it will pay the salaries of a large research staff to study the problem." Bill Vaughan.

"If you want to be happy, be." Leo Tolstoy

"I am at two with nature." Woody Allen.

"Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up." Chinese Proverb

"The greatest reward in becoming a millionaire is not the amount of money that you earn. It is the kind of person that you have to become to become a millionaire in the first place." Jim Rohn

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." Mark Twain

"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistence." Daniel Hudson Burnham

"Operator! Give me the number for 911!" Homer J Simpson.

"First there are those who are winners, and know they are winners. Then there are the losers who know they are losers. Then there are those who are not winners, but don't know it. They're the ones for me. They never quit trying. They're the soul of our game." Paul William "Bear" Bryant

"When we got into office, the one thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we’d been saying they were." John F. Kennedy

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt

"One of the things that distinguishes man from the other animals is that he wants to know things, wants to find out what reality is like, simply for the sake of knowing. When that desire is completely quenched in anyone, I think he has become something less than human.” – God in the Dock; C.S. Lewis

"Congratulations. I knew the record would stand until it was broken." Yogi Berra

"Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men — the other 999 follow women." Groucho Marx

"Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises."
Samuel Butler (1612-1680)

"I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong."Benjamin Franklin

"The price of greatness is responsibility." Winston Churchill

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream." Mark Twain

"For two people in a marriage to live together day after day is unquestionably the one miracle the Vatican has overlooked." Bill Cosby

"If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." Anatole France

"In any free society, the conflict between social conformity and individual liberty is permanent, unresolvable, and necessary."Kathleen Norris

"We can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness. Paradoxically, it is the way of strength." Bill W. from the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous

"I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." Michael Jordan

Please send all comments to mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the sm of the
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism tm, the educational arm of the Assemblage.
This publication © 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

Quotes and Musings, on Saturday

NEW FEATURES

I have added several new blocks of text at the bottom in the left column. I really think you will find them interesting, valuable, perhaps new to you, and decidedly dedicated to naturalism, objective thinking, and human freedoms.

Besides "The Phrase of the Week," which is really just meant as a curiosity to introduce readers to ideas they have not heard of before (so some of them might appear to be very obscure--or very basic,) I've added some blocks of history in education, philosophy of religion, and other subjects which will make good reading. I will change these as I see fit, but as I see fit right now, they are a perfect juxtaposition from the philosophy of naturalism to educated ideas that promote the value of the human being, and contribute to each of us achieving that state of "Man qua Man."

There is a block "ON SECULAR EDUCATION" by John Stuart Mill; a block on "Sex Between Humans and Gods," by the American Patriot Thomas Paine; a block on "Free Will and Naturalism," by Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D ; and because so many Yahoo Answers readers want to know what "time" is, (though by the tone of some of the questions you just know the questioner is as skeptical that time exists as he is that he himself exists,) called "Consciousness, Reality and Time," by Professor Alek Samarin.

Even though the viewer counter I choose never showed up on this page (I'm not a geek; I can't understand RSS urls and things like how to put a counter on the page!), still, Google tells me in my account how many hits this page has had, and I must say I appreciate everyone of them. I only wish that some of you would comment so I knew what you were thinking, but I hate allowing comments to be put directly on the site without my reading them first, because then I get arguments, straw men, hate messages, irrational ranting, etc. I know that if someone takes the time to click on the link to this email address, that he or she has the constitution to write a logical, rational rebuttal or the knowledge to correct me where I've been wrong, or just to comment one way or another. So the "comments" button won't be coming up on this site anytime soon.

But Saturday is the day I've chosen to lay back and take it easy, posting my own offhand comments, or more than likely some of my (new!) "favorite" quotes from other people. If you're interested in whose quotes I used last week, they are listed under "Blog Archive" for the previous week.

BTW, if you have noticed, there is a link to PHILO, The Center for Inquiry, and Purdue U. at the top of the left column of this page. There are lots of links that might astonish you. Check them out. And while you're at it, click on some of the Google ads that have to do with Naturalism, or Atheism, etc. You'll be be helping me pay my bills! Or click on the pretty, animated ad for Turner Movie Classics. I'm broke.

LAST WEEK'S SERIES ON THE "INFORMED" NATURALIST AND SECULARITY

If you have followed my week-long series based on Dr. Quentin Smith's paper published in PHILO, on the subject of "uninformed vs. informed naturalists," then you will understand why I'm not energetic enough to comment on anything today.

Each of those daily blogs took me approximately four hours of research and writing and editing for format (the appearance, the look,) of the blog. How many online blogs have you read that provide all the necessary links to the websites from which the information came? I want each of you to be able to judge whether or not I "appropriately appropriated" the copyrighted materials of others under fair usage and according to whether or not I was on the mark with the material I used: was it properly supportive of my own ideas? was I creating straw man arguments? did I "appropriate" too much to make a point, or would you have liked me to use more, in order to make my own case as tight as possible?

At any rate, the authors and the holders of the copyrights I appropriate under fair usage deserve--legally and ethically--to have their material linked. And several editors and publishers have given me outright carte blanche to appropriate as much material as I need or want, so long as I give the credit where it is due.

"Dear Curtis,

Many thanks for writing, I’ve put you on our newsletter list. I’m glad to know that you self-identify as a naturalist and we’ll be happy to help in any way we can. You can use and distribute anything at Naturalism.Org and Centerfornaturalism.Org, just cite the source.

I certainly encourage you to promote naturalism using all possible means – talking with co-workers, friends and family, giving talks, writing op-eds and articles. I look forward to collaborating in making naturalism better known as a worldview.

Best regards,
Tom Clark
Thomas W. Clark, DirectorCenter for Naturalism www.centerfornaturalism.org
www.naturalism.org Encountering Naturalism: A Worldview and Its Uses "

Thank you, Tom. We are not related, tho our last names are the same. I've never met Tom. I've never spoken to Tom. Tom and I have each written only one email to each other. But this is the kind of response that people in our field are willing to give to each other.

Dr. Quentin Smith lives right here in my home town and I've met and spoken with him. I wrote him an email about my week-long series, but he never got it. I sent it to the general email address of the Western Michigan University philosophy department, and yesterday when I went there to ask the Dr. what he thought of how I had handled his paper, not only was he not there, but the department secretary said her own volunteer had been absent and had not forwarded the email! But I did manage to get another professor, someone who's bio and photo are not yet up on the WMU website http://www.wmich.edu/philosophy/index.php?content=home to promise to take a look at this site. I hope he shows it to Dr. Smith. I hope he shows it to the whole staff and to any students who are interested in Naturalism, or in whatever else the young professor may find interesing here.

I almost want to say his name was Professor Philo, but that would be too convenient. It only reminds me of "philo." At any rate, Professor, thank you for promising to at least look at my site, and my deepest apologies for having a short term memory loss.

A friend of mine who owns a 50,000+ sq. ft. building suitable for a convention, and I, are hatching the first big idea for the Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism. It will probably happen before the Academy begins offering unaccredited courses. I've been looking at several courses that are well regarded in both academic and non-academic circles. But it is not just a matter of finding the right material to advance Naturalism, or to advance the epistemic integrity of bringing secularism back into the field. It is a matter of find the right professors who can work long distance with students who are not in a formal classroom on a formal campus. It also requries hiring a webmaster who can put the package of online learning into the kind of internet superhighway of academic learning that I envision for the Academy.

Oh yeah, did I leave you hanging up there, about the "first big idea" of a convention? I'm going to have to continue to leave you hanging because the whole idea is only a week old, barely old enough to be debatable as to its possibility, let alone as to its probability. Sorry.

Tomorrow is Sunday, the day I take off from my postings. I'm going to an AA picnic today (there is a link to AA International on here, also, if you have not noticed.) It's supposed to be a bright, warm, wonderful day under the naturalistic sun on the naturalistic turf of a large county park on a beautiful and large naturalistic lake. But I just broke one of my smaller toes. I may have a hard time walking tomorrow. It's the same toe I broke a year ago. I limped in my shoes for a month.

So I hope you all have as wonderful a weekend as I'm going to have, and I'll see you Monday with another blog, the subject of which I have no idea yet as to its subject. I'm worn out from thinking about this week's subject, and the many hours it takes to write and publish it, not only here but on my Yahoo 360 profile 360.yahoo.com/curtisedwardclark , and on Scribd. http://www.scribd.com/

Suggestions for topic are welcome, as well as suggestions for the "Phrase (or Word) of the Week." And you are welcome to send original material, as this blog points out in approximately 20 different places.

Until Monday, then, Best Wishes that the naturalist events of the cosmos work to your advantage.

Curtis

QUOTES TO MAKE YOUR DAY

"The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance. "
Robert R. Coveyou, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

"I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation. "
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

"All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind." Abraham Lincoln

"All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened." Maya Angelou

"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence." Martin Luther King, Jr.

"As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also." Thomas Jefferson

"A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other." Ronald Reagan

"There's no half-singing in the shower, you're either a rock star or an opera diva.”
Josh Groban quotes

"Bart, with $10,000, we'd be millionaires! We could buy all kinds of useful things like...love!" Homer J Simpson. http://www.short-funny-quotes.com/top_ten_quotes.html

"I'm an excellent housekeeper. Every time I get a divorce, I keep the house." Zsa Zsa Gabor ibid

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." Rich Cook ibid

"When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room." Woody Allen ibid

"Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity." - Karl Marx (What--Capitalism from the king of Marxism? WTF?)

"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made."
Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

"No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her own way is without enemies."
Daisy Bates (1863-1951)

"The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust." Samuel Butler (1612-1680)

"Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact." George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] (1819-1880)