US Politics: Mark your calendars

[TerraPrime]

Victory for gun rights today as well:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/12/11/federal-court-strikes-down-illinois-ban-on-carrying-concealed-weapons/

Federal court strikes down Illinois ban on carrying concealed weapons

Just so.

Does Portland have concealed carry?

[Crazydog7]

Victory for gun rights today as well:

http://www.foxnews.c...cealed-weapons/

Federal court strikes down Illinois ban on carrying concealed weapons

But Obama...hates guns....socalism....Obama something.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

CD,

What does the President have to do with that court decision?

[Kouran]

Just so.

Does Portland have concealed carry?

According to this site yes they do. http://licenseinfo.oregon.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=license_seng&link_item_id=14705

Fuck posting on the metro.

[Guest Raidne]

On Moore v. Madigan, the 7th Circuit case striking down - and this is important - Illinois' blanket ban on carrying any gun in public in any fashion, whether open or concealed, with a few "use" exceptions, requiring licenses, for hunting, certain professions like security guards, etc.

So, the court's ruling did not "strike down a concealed carry ban" in Illinois. The ruling struck down a blanket ban on any public gun carrying. Illinois can turn around tomorrow and pass a law allowing for open carry licenses, while still maintaining a concealed carry ban, and it would not violate the Court's ruling.

Further, the decision was authored by Richard Posner, who is a very good writer, and probably a passable economist, but a terrible, horrible, awful lawyer who either does not understand legal analysis or feels that the acquisition of jurisprudential knowledge is useful only to the extent that it creates a very large, public space into which he can, at will, spew his blantant, vile sophistry.

I personally agree with the result. Anyone who feels the same way better hope that no conservative SCOTUS Justice dies before this case reaches the Supreme Court because it is laughably easy to tear this rhetoric-laden excuse for a "judicial decision" apart. So, you know, thanks but no thanks, Richard, er, Dick - you aren't doing anyone any favors, least of all the people who are inclined to agree with you.

God I swear I have more intellectual distate for that man than I have for Bakker. And it's not a liberal/conservative thing - Posner has publicly stated dozens of opinions on the right to privacy that are exactly the same as Lev might say if he were a little more clever and a better writer.

I'm not fond of Wittgenstein. I'm of the odd belief that words actually mean things.

Ever heard of John Wilkins? 17th century British philosopher? Shows up as a character in the Baroque Cycle, friend of Hooke, always working on the "real character" toward a universal language? This must make sense to you if you disagree with Wittgenstein on language, so please explain to me how words can ever possibly function like numbers and what it is that people have with wanting words to have "fundamental" meanings. To me, it's a historical accident that anyone ever acquired this idea, born out of the use of Latin as an academic language across the European continent combined with Latin's excessive formality and highly regular structure.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Raidne,

My understanding of Wittgenstein is that he didn't believe in objective reality. He believed that our words impose meaning on the world. Not that our words seek to describe objective reality. That's what I disagree with. The Moon is the moon regardless of what I believe it to be.

[awesome possum]

CD,

What does the President have to do with that court decision?

Well for a select number in this country, the President wants to take away all the guns. And he rules the federal government with his fascist dictator of an iron fist. So therefore, his federal lackey judges should be striking down the citizen's rights to bear arms at any moment.

[Jaxom 1974]

Frankly I hope they get the conceal and carry law fixed up and back in the "illegal" column here in Illinois. Guns bother me in general and the increasingly cavalier attitude about them I see in friends and people around me sets off the little hairs on the back of my neck. It doesn't help that my cop brother will, on occasion, carry his weapon when not on duty to tweak me...

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

AP,

People don't understand how courts work. This is not a surprise. Throwing out that an independent judicial officer ruled in a fashion that does not correspond with the preceived postion of the President does nothing to deal with that perceived postion because the problem is perception not reality.

[awesome possum]

The problem, I'd say, is that too many people believe that perception is indeed reality.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

AP,

That's why I disagree with Wittgenstein. There is reality regardless of the way it is perceived.

[lokisnow]

Ever heard of John Wilkins? 17th century British philosopher? Shows up as a character in the Baroque Cycle, friend of Hooke, always working on the "real character" toward a universal language? This must make sense to you if you disagree with Wittgenstein on language, so please explain to me how words can ever possibly function like numbers and what it is that people have with wanting words to have "fundamental" meanings. To me, it's a historical accident that anyone ever acquired this idea, born out of the use of Latin as an academic language across the European continent combined with Latin's excessive formality and highly regular structure.

My understanding of Wittgenstein is that he didn't believe in objective reality. He believed that our words impose meaning on the world. Not that our words seek to describe objective reality. That's what I disagree with. The Moon is the moon regardless of what I believe it to be.

Would you guys stop turning this thread into a discussion of how Bakker's magic system works? Perhaps this should be cross-posted to the WLW thread...

AP,

That's why I disagree with Wittgenstein. There is reality regardless of the way it is perceived.

Ever are men deceived.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Lockesnow,

Because US politics isn't an endless circle jerk of the same never resolved issues? I know that smacks strongly of bitterness but I'm having a really shitty day.

[The Progressive]

Stock market are acting as if a deal on the fiscal cliff will be reach.

In other news, the Treasure department sold its remaining stake in AIG yesterday with very nice total profit of over 20bils to taxpayers ........... which just rub the geithner-haters all sort of wrong lol.

The data just keep accumulating that the measures taken by the Fed and Treasury to fight the Great Recession are astoundingly successful for the bucks ............. i'm looking forward to QE4 which will no doubt rub all the bernanke-haters raw hahahaha.

By the way, the argument over core-inflation is so stupid because there's the CPI for that purpose ............ might as well throw in housing price votality into the equation if you're that obsessed over core inflation.

[awesome possum]

AP,

That's why I disagree with Wittgenstein. There is reality regardless of the way it is perceived.

I agree. I just wish the 30% or so of the country that are total loons (on both sides of the aisle) could also agree.

Sorry you're having a bad day. Maybe this will help?

[Fez]

The Fed announced that they will keep interest rates near zero until unemployment falls below 6.5% and any future rate change will be due to unemployment changes so long as inflation stays below 2.5%. I don't know if this is QE4 or an extension of QE3, but they are going to spend $45 billion/month purchasing Treasury bonds and $40 billion/month purchasing mortgage bonds.

[Fez]

Isn't this to some degree an extension of what they said last time? I know the last round of announcements were sold largely as a longer term commitment, and that commitment was supposed to be the big market signal. At least that's how I recall it.

Mostly. But the Fed saying that lowering unemployment is so important that they will let inflation raise all the up to 2.5% (which still isn't that high) is a big deal since up until now the Fed has always put keeping inflation in check as more important than lowering unemployment.

I guess the fact that inflation hasn't skyrocketed the past few years (as conservative economists claimed it would) has convinced them that its not a major concern right now.

[Guest Raidne]

My understanding of Wittgenstein is that he didn't believe in objective reality. He believed that our words impose meaning on the world. Not that our words seek to describe objective reality. That's what I disagree with. The Moon is the moon regardless of what I believe it to be.

The point is that you believe that among the various categories of space rocks, there is a thing called "moon" and you have a conception of what it is, and what is not "moon." It likely includes the captured asteroids orbiting Mars, but maybe shouldn't, and probably doesn't include the bits of rock that make up the rings of Saturn, although maybe it should. Maybe these things are just types of grains of mass that are gravitationally bound by a planet's gravity, but none of those words, on their own, have any clearer definition. They take on a really clear meaning in context of each other and in context of the discussion of what is and is not a moon though, but in a different culture with a different language we'd likely need a different assortment of words to say the same thing. You need to go read some of Ursula le Guin's novels. :)

Frankly I hope they get the conceal and carry law fixed up and back in the "illegal" column here in Illinois. Guns bother me in general and the increasingly cavalier attitude about them I see in friends and people around me sets off the little hairs on the back of my neck. It doesn't help that my cop brother will, on occasion, carry his weapon when not on duty to tweak me...

There is a stay on the repeal to give Illinois time to pass something that does not flagrantly violate the constitution.

But I understand. It's not rare that the political speech of other people bothers me in general also, but you know, I guess some people think that this old piece of paper should determine how we think about everything so I'm resigned to never getting my "STFU numpty" bill passed. ;)

By the way, have you ever fired a gun? Apparently it isn't true for everyone, but I've seen a lot of people reverse the common tendency to anthropomorphisize the object once they have.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Raidne,

If Wittgenstein is correct and there are no universal truths please explain the universality of mathematics. (You Procian syntactic you)

[Guest Raidne]

Scot, for Wittgenstein, the problem is when the meaning of words is taken outside of context, common use, grammar, etc. Mathematics is like Latin, but more so. Because everyone understands it to mean the same thing (mostly, anyway, at least to the same extent that every Latin writer/reader understands the meaning of the word "res"), we think of it as universal. But it's not that mathematics is universal - it's that it's a good language - people understand the context, usage, and grammar the same way across different cultures, like they did with Latin. It's the context and usage, etc., that are universal. Think of times when it hasn't been - what happened to Newton's version of calculus? And think of things that only make sense in the context of mathematics - irrational numbers, for instance, really have no meaning when you're counting bananas.