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From With three armies on and behind the western front, 1918 by Arthur Stanley Riggs (1879-1952).

p.95
“[...] a house with every window blown in, and everything else blown out; an utterly gutted residence, roofless and floorless, with everything heaped in wild confusion in the cellar—and a shaving mug and brush still serenely standing on half a mantelpiece; [...] a cafe sliced neatly in two, with its bar and bottles in the standing half - and nothing broken.

“As we stood looking at the cathedral [Arras] one brilliant morning, and marvelling at the unique change shell-fire had made—in this case transforming one of the ugliest renaissance churches in france into a sublime and inspiring ecclesiastical ruin [...]”

p.168
“[...] the cathedral [Noyon] is less damaged than I expected: only the organ shows traces of the invader's sacrilegious hand - its pipes ravaged to make shell-bands.”

p.191
“there has been idle talk in both France and America about restoring the cathedral [Reims] [...]”

The author then waxes lyrical about how it cannot and should not be done. The restoration of Reims cathedral has been done, albeit in its vandalised state. Remember the book was written in 1918.

related material
also see
Arras cathedral
Noyon cathedral
Reims cathedral

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour032011.php#war_250411

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are they angry because they’re lefties, or the other way round?

“...using sixteen nationally representative General Social Surveys conducted by the National Opinion Research Center between 1980 and 2004 [I found that] compared to anti-redistributionists, strong redistributionists have about two to three times higher odds of reporting that in the prior seven days they were angry, mad at someone, outraged, sad, lonely, and had trouble shaking the blues.

“Similarly, anti-redistributionists had about two to four times higher odds of reporting being happy or at ease. Not only do redistributionists report more anger, but they report that their anger lasts longer. When asked about the last time they were angry, strong redistributionists were more than twice as likely as strong opponents of leveling to admit that they responded to their anger by plotting revenge.

“Last, both redistributionists and anti-capitalists expressed lower overall happiness, less happy marriages, and lower satisfaction with their financial situations and with their jobs or housework.”

It is very complicated to analyse and understand this, but very interesting to attempt to understand something so difficult.

Let me propose as a start, that these people are life’s natural failures, and they resent that fact. It is very hard for them to look at themselves as the source of their problems. So they seek assiduously to find something outside themselves on which to blame their problems.

Add to this the modern foolishness of encouraging the less able to believe that ‘they have a perfect right’. Incompetent teachers encourage those who are ‘failing’ to a self-belief that those individuals cannot possibly meet.

Tthis leads to an arrogance and an inclination to believe they ‘know already’ and do not need to work or study. This, of course, leads naturally and inevitably to further ‘failure’.

This is the most useful recent book I’ve seen on the problem:
United in hate - the left’s romance with tyranny and terror by Jamie Glazov

related material
socialist religions
authoritarianism and liberty
laying the foundations for sound education
franchise by examination, education and intelligence
citizenship curriculum

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour032011.php#angry_socialists_120411

why don’t you get a fatwa when you ‘insult’ astrologers

“The Association will be requesting that the BBC make a public apology and a statement that they do not support the personal views of Professor Brian Cox or Dara O'Briains on the subject of astrology. We also request that the BBC will commit to making a fair and balanced representation of astrology when aired in the future.”
—
“This is not the first time that Brian Cox has waded into the astrology controversy that has raged in science for literally almost none of the last couple of centuries. The hackles of Britain's astrologers were raised last year, when Cox took a moment during his Wonders of the Solar System series to explain to the public that "astrology is a load of rubbish," a statement which pretty much echoes the scientific consensus on the matter, which says that, "astrology is a load of rubbish." It's a position that was first reached by Islamic scholars at least 650 years ago, and has been studiously ignored by such great minds as Jonathan Cainer ever since.”
—
“Such a representation would depict astrology as a pseudoscience with no real basis in evidence that was already being ridiculed in the Dark Ages, and note that after thousands of years astrologers still can't produce statistically meaningful results.

Which is more than can be claimed for Islam.

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour032011.php#astrology_fatwa_100411

religion makes you fat

“It might be the potlucks, it might be those long hours sitting in pews, but whatever the cause, a new study presented this week shows a link between religious activity and weight gain.

“The study, conducted by researchers at Northwestern University, found that young adults who frequently attended religious activities were far more likely to become obese than those who didn’t.

“ “Our main finding was that people with a high frequency of religious participation in young adulthood were 50 percent more likely to become obese by middle age than those with no religious participation in young adulthood,” .....”

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour032011.php#fat_religion_270311

fossil media in panic mode over japanese earthquake

“Japanese nuclear officials say radiation levels inside a nuclear power plant have surgedto 1,000 times their normal levels after the cooling system failed.”

Where in the plant?
What are “normal levels” in the plant?
What does “failed” mean?

and that’s just the first paragraph.

The local area is in flat panic mode.

“The nuclear safety agency said early Saturday that some radiation has also seeped outside the plant, prompting calls for further evacuations of the area. Some 3,000 people have already been urged to leave their homes.”

What is “some”?
Where is the similar panic in areas of constant bad water and air quality from the filthy fossil fuel industry?

Nuclear safety is ridiculously over-regulated, especially in comparison to the filthy fossil fuel industry.

Meanwhile, nuclear safety regulatory systems in Japan and the USA are generally rather sloppy.

Tens of thousands are being killed yearly in the USA filthy fossil industry. Danger is an integral part of power production, but nuclear power is by far the safest despite it being a new industry. The numbers dying in the train of this nuclear problem in Japan will be piddling numbers compared with the direct killings by the tsunami.

The Three Mile Island melt-down 1979:

Its other reactor now has an extended operating licence.

There were no deaths, and with the probability of no deaths in the long term.

Another nuclear power plant at the same site still operating.

Nuclear power has safest cleanest energy production known.

And humans continue to build right up to the coast in an area notorious for earthquake-driven tsunamis. The Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant was built right on the coast with just a couple of breakwaters to stem any tsunami. This does not look like well thought out planning.

Humans take risks for what they see as the advantages of a sea view, or a short journey to work.

Among the risks humans take, nuclear power is less of a risk than being struck by lightening.

The public is being swept up in the usual fossil media hysteria.It’s how the fossil media make their money, winding up the uninformed in order to sell soap flakes, or newspapers.

related material
fossil fuel disasters
nuclear power - is nuclear power really really dangerous

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour032011.php#japan_media_panic_140311

the presidential candidate and the maths lesson

“In any event, Richardson's statistical claims are suspect, to say the least. He would not win an Oscar for math. He says that 10,000 jobs and $4 billion "are huge numbers for a state with a population of only about 2.1 million." You can say that again. If Richardson's figures were correct — if every state had a similar program and every program achieved the same alleged success on a per capita basis — that would mean film subsidies would be adding $600 billion to the economy over eight years and would create 1.5 million jobs. Given that the entire movie production and distribution industry generates about $55 billion a year, it seems unlikely that this subsidy alone generates $75 billion a year (one-eighth of $600 billion) in new business. Similarly, it's hard to see how the subsidy could add 1.5 million jobs to an industry that employs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 362,000 people.”
—
“...Bill Richardson, former nearly everything including governor of New Mexico and a semi-serious candidate for president.”

This is standard socialist economics, the success of which has been comprehensively proven by the Brown the Clown, Ed Balls, Millipede etc.

That’s only $400,000 a job; with 2.1 million population that’s only 20 cents each for a ‘job’.

Or less than $2000 extra taxes in total for each person, as long as the baybees and retirees pay their share.

Just think, with $20,000 extra taxes, there could be 100,000 new jobs. With $200,000 extra taxes, a million could be employed. That’s half the population of the state (including baybees).

With $500,000 in taxes from each peorson, they could even start employing the citizens of other states!

Problem over. Obama gets a second term and Brown the Clown is fully vindicated.

Save the world - vote for socialism!

related material
socialist religions
how to teach a person number, arithmetic, mathematics - introduction
Laying the foundations for sound education

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour032011.php#innumeracy_020311

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