Exceive

This is an image search experiment. You either sketch on the page, or select an image you already have, and the system looks for something similar on Flickr.

retrievr - search by sketch / search by image

The technical logical problem with the “let it get bad enough that the sheep grow canines” idea isn’t that the sheep won’t grow canines for a long time. That’s just the practical problem, and the history of Germany, Russia, Iran, … suggest it is a real big one.

The logical problem is the same fallacy the Creationists like to use: evolution doesn’t answer this question (well, not until you read the part where it does) therefore YHWH created the universe 6000 years ago. The neocons are imploding, therefore the Democrats are going to win. There are many third ways, many of them quite ugly.

If Democrats keep doing the Republican-Lite thing, the other options include the grownups reclaiming the Republican party or a third party emerging. Or, particularly if people catch on to exactly how easy it is to steal an election when you own the computerized ballot boxes, we could end up with a revolution (a real one with destruction of political order and infrastructure, resulting in the ascendancy of violent extremists and thus many bad things, not a liberation of an already well-functioning political order and infrastructure from outside interference, like we had in 1776) or a USSR-type collapse.

I will not be entirely surprised if we go the way of the USSR before 2015, for the same reasons: massive corruption and arrogant ideology unchecked by effective political opposition, resulting in military overreach, economic collapse, and a complete rejection of the national mythology. I think we can, and probably will, pull it together, but by “probably” I mean “better than 50/50 chance” not “almost certainly.”

It isn’t always darkest before the dawn. Sometimes it is darkest before the clowns eat your brain.

Not all that easy, really. Atheism is a rather recent idea.

Somebody wrote, under the name “just some guy”:

…god, in whatever form people have created it, it just a pathetic projection exercise…

I agree that god is largely a projection of the worshipper - but when worship is working, it is a projection of the best of the worshipper, and maybe soemthing more. It seems to me that the character of every other person that one knows is mostly a projection, and that it is only through long intimacy that the reality of the other person can ever come through. I believe it is similar with God.

My wife and I have a costume shop.

The Halloween after 9/11 (well, actually a few days before) a TV station sent a reporter and camera to do a story on patriotic costumes.
Reporter interviewed us, asked if there had been a surge in demand for patriotic theme costumes. Nope. A few extra fire fighters, but nothing else. Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty hadn’t even gone out, and other years we’d had one or two of each go out. Asked about any 9/11 theme costumes. A couple of calls asking about (but not requesting) Bin Laden masks, which we refuse to carry. At the reporter’s suggestion, we called some of our mask suppliers - they weren’t making any, so we couldn’t sell them if we wanted to.
Reporter interviewed three couples who came in. All the interviews went pretty much the same. Looking for patriotic costume? No. Is that because you thought they’d be sold out? No. Is that because you are afraid it would be laughed at? No, just didn’t think of it. Are you going to now? No.
So, of course, the story was all about how patriotic costumes were the in thing this year and lots of people were renting and buying them. It was obvious the story had already been mostly written and the point of the exercise was to get some video and sound, not to find out what was happening.

We didn’t complain. Free advertising, and they used the bit where my wife said we refused to deal with Bin Laden masks or terrorist costumes because we are about fun, not hate. Which was important to us.