Ask Jake Anything

I appreciate your good word, but ther are rules here, and this is commentary and not a question. Colette will spank you now. PS the easiest way to get away with commentary is to include, in your post another question.

You can borrow one from MJ after she gets done spanking you for arguing with me in my forum, and forspanking her in my forum without permission.

Because it is easier to quantify something with objective criteria, and math and numbers represent easy, objective quatifications of mental actuity. Also from an historical perspective, the nascency of western thought was forumed during the age of reason, when it was generally accepted as a whole that rational logic was the highest form of thinking. Numbers, and scinece function as a system and led themselves to logic and thus became entrecnhed as the tools of reason.

How differnt our world would be if thousands of years ago the sophist ideals had triumphed over the teachings of socrates.

One this that is very often overlooked is that true genius often excells in both areas. Look at Da Vinci. Creativity and intuitional thinking is an essential contribution to scientific advancement. That is why not every honor role physics student becomes an einstien. In fact I beleive that be compartmentalizing the sciences from the arts, our society does a huge disservice to both areas.

No. for the same reason, bone to marshmallows is a transmutation. Bone is collogen and calcium. Marshamllows are gelatin and sugar with a bit of vanilla (orginally instead of gelatin they used the root of of the marshamllow plant, wheich is how they get their name).

Thus while superman can likely do many interesting things with is ass (all of which terrify me) he cannot turn bone to marshmallows.

Smart people are hot!

Ah my dear. No question in your post. Rules are rules. I will spank you myself.

And yes smart people are hot. That comment sort of makes me wish I were smart.

yvw on the good word

oh yeah, question....

How do you know that it was not part my evil plan in the first place, to receive a spanking by not asking a question?

So if I wanted to leave 2 comments, would I need to ask 2 questions?

Okay, well if Superman ate a whole bag of pig knees, could his ass boil them until gelatin was produced?

Could he then use his flying power to levitate and spell out a poopy-gelatin "S" shape?

Oops! Sorry?

1. Because I am the all knowing Jake. Also you get spanked because the punishment satisfies my sense of justice, and thus whether you enjoy it or not does not really matter to me.

2. No you don't need to ask tow questions to leave a comment. But I warn you, take advantage of my permissive and generous nature and you will be punished.

Jake,

Several months ago there was a lot of talk about "court stripping". What does that entail and what are your personal views on the topic?

Thanks,
-Kiamat Dusk
"There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots."

Jake, I've had no power since Wilma. When will I get my power back?

Buster

Soon.

Dear Jake,

who killed RFK, and why?


Cheers,

Taco

Court strippig is all rage among the religious right, because it would allow them to back door their way around the constitutional review authority the courts have held since marbury v. madison.

In short court stripping is the process of curtailing the courts authority by way of passing legislation that removed the court's jurisdiction in cases dealing with the Pledge of Allegiance, government-sponsored religious displays, school prayer, same-sex marriage, etc. Con*gress would then be free to pass whatever laws it wanted, without worrying about interference from the court over pesky constitutionality questions and that silly notion of checks and balances.

Its a simple matter of saying "the court is in the way of our social agenda, so we will just remove it from the equation."

My own personal opinion is that first of all its stupid-the courts would have judicial review over the legislation that stripped them of the jusrisdiction-they would simply strike down the legisaltion as uncontitutional. Only a constitutional amendment, or the courts themselves, can alter the courts jurisdiction.

Judicial review and an independent judiciary are essential to the protection of our freedom. It is the courts, and not the president who often protect us from the capricious whim of a few. The checks and balances system operates for ths very reason - to protect the people from a rampaging legistaure. Not a single congressman or senator represents the wishes of every one of his consitiuents. the process of judicial review protects the constitution and the freedoms it guarantees from the rampaging courts.

In my own opinion the religious right is frustrated becuase it is not the overwhelming majoirty in america. It has extreme political power but it is slowly being ground down the face of overwhelming social reality. At this point the constitution stands in the way of the reactionary vision op america that the christian coalition has, and this it must be made to fall.

This is scary thinking, and it is takes place at the highest levels of our government. Take these quotes:

U.S. Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind.):

“Congress controls the federal judiciary,” Hostettler said. “If Congress wants to, it can refer all cases to the state courts. Congress can say the federal courts have gotten out of hand. Enough is enough.”

“When the courts make unconstitutional decisions, we should not enforce them. Federal courts have no army or navy…. The court can opine, decide, talk about, sing, whatever it wants to do. We’re not saying they can’t do that. At the end of the day, we’re saying the court can’t enforce its opinions.”

Always remeber Hitler was Elected.

Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968. The convicted assassin, 24-year-old Palestinian Sirhan B. Sirhan, attributed the killing to Kennedy's support for Israel during the Six-Day War. On March 3, 1969, in a Los Angeles, California court, Sirhan admitted that he had killed Kennedy. Sirhan has since recanted, and seeks a new trial.

Jake,

who REALLY killed RFK and why?

Sirahn Sirahn really killed RFK for anti semetic reasons. His recanting wwas just to try and get out of jail before the turn of the century. All that nonsense about a second shooter and saying more than eight shots were fired is just hyperbole to make the RFK assasinaton as glamours as the JFK one.

There are plenty of places to go looking for consipracies (like why did they do away with red M&M's in the 70's cause they were a afraid of red dye, but they did not do away with red kool-aid?), but the RFK hit is not one of them.

Dear Jake,


Who protects us from rampaging courts?


-Kiamat Dusk

Well the courts themselves do. The level of judcial activism has fluctuated over the years, with a "hands off" approach being more the norm than in the past, when courts trying to enact civil rights legislation went inot such minutia as drawing the bus routes in certain cities to foster integration

In gerneal however the courts have inherent limitations built in. They don't enact laws, nor do they enforce them. This is left to the legistlature and the executive respectively. Secondly the Courts can only get involved when a dispute is brought to them-they cannot go out and seek to change a law just beacuse they here about it in the paper. Courts resolve actual controversery. In practive the courts only get involved when they are asked to.

Secondly the people have the authority, by way of constitutional amendment, to restrict, redefine and control, or even abolish the judiciary. The advocates of court stripping know that getting an amnedment passed is next to impossible - even one like the ERA making men and women constitutionaly equal failed (that being said, a series of laws enacted to prevent gernder discimination, as well as court interpretations of the equal protection clause have obviated the need for and ERA, except as a statement about our society).
The religious right doesn not have majority in amercia strong enought to get an amendment passed (ratified by 2/3ds of the states).

However If americans truly feel unified against say Gay marriage, then they can make a consitutional amendment banning it from america.

Dear Jake;

What type of policy exists to keep government officials in Washington from profiting off of their decisions. Is there any regulations that keep a government official with financial investment in a company from passing or proposing a policy that would make that company money? If no regulation exists, do you think there is any chance the public could get such a regulation made, or do you think the government would be able to keep such a regulation from ever coming to be?

Well really their really isn't a law that says a politician cannot profit fron thier actions. There are laws, like bribery laws, that come into play that aaffect how politician can profit (in other words you can't offer or accept money to do a politcal or regulatory favor - hence th3 polularity of gifts and campaign contributions).

Also all candidates and politcal appointees go through a financial disclosure process.

Fibnally the system is set up so that really, no one person canhave legislation passed-you could not easily make, for example, a law that says everyone must buy texaco gas.

Federal procurement is also a regulated process, so that one person could not promise that all federal office supplies would come from office depot, for example.

Really though the biggest problem in washington is not people profiteering on their activities while in office, it is the lack of qualifications to serve in the capacity to which they are elected or appointed. We keep sending dummies to washington and we are going to end up with an constitutional amendment making Intelligent design the law of the land.

Hey Jake,

What is intelligent design?

How would Darwin and Einstein feel about it?

Thanks

Intelligent design is a junk science popular currently with the religious right that attempts to put forward the notion that the universe was created by some intelligent, transcendent entity. this is almost always the christian god, though in an effort to downplay this and beef up the fiction that intelligent desing is a scientific theory, the don't call it christian creationsim. Being that blatant would never pass muster with the courts, and would violate church and state provisions of the contstitution.

In essence proponents of intelligent desing argue that the irrreducabe complexity of life (as in the statistical arguments proffered in another thread saying random life was impossbile), as well as the fact that specified complexity of life (the suitability of each thing for its ecological niche) are evidence that some inteeligence planned everything. Life did not happen randomly, god must have made it so.

Intelligent desing fails as a scientific theory on a number of levels.

First of all it is not falsifiable. In order for something to be a scientific theory, it must be capable of being provent incorrect. This does not suggest every theory is wrong, just that every theory recognizes the possibility that some other information may come along a render the theory false. ID does not accept that it could be wrong. By its very nature, it relies on the unprovable assumption that there is a god woho desinged the universe.

Secondly it cannot be tested by expriementation.

Thirdly it is not consistent with itself, or witht he observable evidence.

It also dos not follow the scientific principal of parsimony ( between two explanations-take the simpler) in that it necessitates the participation of a transcendent deity in the creation of life, something that can be explained alternatively by evolution.
ID is not correctable and dynamic, nor does it admit to the possiblity it is wrong (its not scientificly tentative). Nor is it progressive, it does not build up previous theories.

Thus from a scientific (and also legal) persepctive ID is simply junk science. Its not a theory at all.


And interesting question is how darwin and einstien would feel about it. I think they would both be dismayed by its lack of merit as scientific theory.

Darwin, undoubtably would disagree with ID entirely. He was keenly aware that his theory of evolution contrasted with the the popular theory of benficial design. However Darwin start life a very religious man, and was at one point desiting for the clergy. On board the beagle he was religions, but his observatiosn changed his mind. The death of his daughter, years later finaly caused him to reject the notion of the christian god entirely, and thus he would see ID as reactionary tripe, and the firsdt step int he return to a new dark age.

einstien was a far more spiritual and religious man, and he certainly would have recognized an aspect of the divine in creation. A famous quote of is "god does not play dice with the universe." Still einstein saw the beauty and divine spirit in a universe that fucntioned according to scientific principals. Einstien would have regarded the notion of ID as soemthign unneccessary. Why use a bad thoery to explain somethign that on its own shows the divine? Eistien found plenty of room in the universe for god, even if he did not accept the notion of an earth that is 6000 years old created by god in seven days.

Jake, Does a bullfrog always bump his ass when he Jumps?