tcpip | Pope Contradiction, Dolphins and Penguins, Fantasy Imperium and Borat, New Zealand

The Pope has presented two Christmas messages; overcome prejudice (to the laity) and condemn gay marriage (to the clergy). The Age publised my letter this morning on said contradiction.

On another moral theme, recently the 20 million year old Chinese river dolphin was effectively sacrificed to the altar of economic development. When

doomydoombear was visiting us from BrisVegas we took her to the St. Kilda pier and spotted some of the local penguins. Now some damn fools have murdered several of them. Human beings are a bad species.

In entertainment news my rather blunt review of Fantasy Imperium has attracted a fair bit of attention. Last night saw Borat. I find the reaction of various government agencies against Borat's (fictional) prejudices utterly bizarre given the unscripted real-people prejudices that are filmed. It's a great film; highly recommended.

caseopaya and I are off to New Zealand in a couple of days.

taavi is visiting from Laos and will be housesitting over the new year, followed by

severina_242 who will be dropping in in subsequent days to ensure that rodents and lagamorphs have sufficient food and water. My thanks to both of you.

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Bad species, or just bad humans? Or even bad incentives? If truly the former, we would have killed ourselves off long before now, unless Darwin really was wrong. ;-)

That penguin attack is truly sickening, however. And the fact that folks like you and I find it so provides hope for the species yet.

Have fun in NZ!

OK, name another species that requires incentives to not launch ICBMS.

M.A.D.

QED.

And thought there was an incentive to make them in the first place...

No other species has the ability to build such weapons, or even comprehend their use. Having that ability doesn't make us "bad" any more than a cat playing with its prey before killing it makes it bad. It's part of our nature.

Note that many humans don't need incentives to realize that launching ICBMs is a bad idea. Unfortunately, not many of them appear to be working in government. . . .

I have said nothing regarding the ethics of building such weapons, nor have I cast aspersions upon human moral constructs. I simply made the comment that I perceive humans to now require incentives to not launch them.

Bad species, or just bad humans?

It was a deliberate synecdoche on my part (I do write for my readers as well as myself).

Maybe I'm not as cynical as I used to be. I generally save my broadest brushes for tagging the government. ;-)

I generally save my broadest brushes for tagging the government. ;-)

The capacity to engage in an action (any action) is is governance.

Pope Contradiction, Dolphins and Penguins, Fantasy Imperium and Borat, New Zealand

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> Or even bad incentives?

Re: > Or even bad incentives?

Re: > Or even bad incentives?

Re: > Or even bad incentives?

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