Savages

http://www.torontosun.com/2015/05/12/blogger-hacked-to-death-in-bangladesh-third-this-year

The moors cannot deal rationally with Logic. All they want to do is kill off anyone who does not agree with their stone age religion. Islam is irrational and illogical; what other conclusion can anyone draw?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32708975

Savages.

Life should be about doing good, and helping is a flourishing society, not about killing off those who disagree. That is conceited, believing that you are so right that you have the right to kill off those who oppose the Muslim views. That is enough evidence to prove that Muslims are just wrong, and beyond wrong, irrational savages.

It is time for all people to look at what we believe, test it for logic and through out all the bad logic and irrational beliefs. That includes Christian religions.    

Sloppy thinking idiots

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150414130530.htm

Idiots. The prime directive applies.

So what is the major component in a burger and fries? Not fat, but carbohydrate. No wonder it is all so confusing when the picture and words do not match. So if we eat a meal with high wheat content, high carbohydrate content, how does the body react?

Well the first thing it must do, due to the amount of carbohydrates that digest fast, it will produce a bunch of insulin to get the glucose out of the blood stream. That is obligatory. High glucose makes us drowsy. We cannot have high glucose around for long. So the insulin gets the glucose and the fat out of the blood stream, and that leaves us hungry or with the munchies. When we eat carbohydrates, we must go through hunger, and get insulin down before we can start to draw on our reserves, fat. If we are busy doing active physical effort that we enjoy, we may not notice. Our liver with kick out a bit of glucose through glyconeogenesis, and hunger may not even show up. Not so if we are sitting at a computer or a desk. There is not stimulation for the liver. Hunger must then show up and abate without food to get to the point that fat can come out of the fat cells.

Insulin is the storage hormone, it stores glucose and fats, in order to get glucose down fast, forcing the use of glucose also.

The weight loss solution is to never eat carbohydrates and fat together. If you are eating carbohydrates, I wish you good luck at your weight loss. If you only eat fats, we never become satiated nor really hungry. I can live with light hunger and use of stored fat, but also need to feed tha gut bacteria a little bit.

My main objection is to call a burger and fries as fat. The bun and fries are carbohydrates with a bit of fats.

Picture just because

Osprey on the Clearwater

Piled Higher and Deeper (PHD)

https://blog.logos.com/2013/10/the-stoics-and-the-early-church/

How does one call bullshit on some of these statements?  This is written from Christian perspective, not a stoic one. The author does not understand Stoicism. Where does one start? I will start with this statement toward the end, because it demonstrates miss-understanding of one of the basic concepts. The words are but dull pointers to the underlying concepts.

Stoic- 1. Life according to nature.  2. Some things are up to us, some are not. 3. We must bring our desires into line with what happens... acceptance of what is, aka, live in the present moment. 4, We are social animals, and our obligation is to flourish as a society. We need to use reason to do this. 5 We do not react to the object or event, but our thoughts about the event.

It is all about what we define as god. To some of the stoics, god was nature: winter summer animals plants too little too much moon sun stars storms wind sunshine rain birth death, we all see each piece differently. To other stoics, god was the highest function of our soul, reason, logic. To others something else that did not concern itself with humanity, or non-existent concept that some held as a real object (a delusion).

When we compare two philosophies, we need to look at the major concepts first, not the minor ones, like what is god, and death.

The article says  "For the Stoics, dependence on the world was to be replaced by dependence on oneself—”The wise person,” taught Seneca, “is self-sufficient.” Paul, in contrast, taught that Christians are profoundly dependent on God (FSB)."

Ourselves is all that we have. We are profoundly dependent on ourselves. Some thing are up to us, some are not. Anything not up to us we need to accept. That which is up to us, we can control, and can be self-sufficient in. We can only rely on ourselves, so we had better be able to handle any thought or impression that comes along. We do not react to the object or event, but our thoughts about the event.  If something is up to us, no need of a god, it is up to us, we can change it. It is about the division of responsibility between us and others or the world. Stoic self-sufficient is not about growing our own food, closes, creating our own shelter, however we, at one time would have to have learned a trade or skill to sell for our livelihood. It is not about being a nomadic people. Stoic self sufficiency is about separating our responsibility from those around us and taking care of our responsibility. It is about life as nature intended. We are just animals that have the capacity to reason. It is bringing ourselves to be OK with death or what ever happens, and that is going to happen whether we like it or not. The dog tied to the wagon, the dog is obligated to follow. He may do it willingly or not, but he is forced to follow. So for our own flow in life, we need to aline our will to "that which is about to happen".

Christianity is one more death denigrating religion. An after life is at best a concept, likely untrue. If you wish to believe that, the prime directive applies. We are profoundly dependent on what happens in the world around us, not god. Enough.

Clearwater river at ? Bailey's Chute

 

Nisku Prairie crocuses 2015

Nisku Prairie crocuses 2015 May 1

Trench pics

Pictures from news.. Global post shows no shoring after failure before fire dept arrived or did much. No shoring, no ladder, no shoring plan likely.

The failure is semi circular in plan view. Big blocks of soil. No back fill. all the dirt in the trench caved in, no backfill. So this is a trench toe failure with toppling, not a slope failure. These happen fast. Dead Fred had no chance. It was criminal negligence causing death by the hoe guy, and/or excavation company.

 

Unshored Trench Stability

The picture has been cut from global news without permission.

The man was playing unshored trench roulette. He lost. Note that the banks are still calving on the left. There is a block on the dropped in shoring at the tip of the hoe boom.

Note that much, if not all of the shoring carries the fire department yellow.

He or his bosses gambled on a win of time against death. No job is worth taking a risk like this for; especially for wages. He may be in a "do it or we will find someone who will" situation. Until Alberta puts a whistle blower protection in place, or "no fire" over refusal to do unsafe work policy, with investigation, and teeth, the problem will continue. Firing someone or even asking anyone to do unsafe work should carry a major fine, and be religiously prosecuted on the governments dime, to have any effect with shoe string contracting companies. 

OH&S regulations state no entry into a straight cut trench deeper than 1.5 meters, or 45 degree back slope with 1.5 meter bottom straight cut in undisturbed native clays.

The spill pile is too close, 1.2 meters required, by OH&S.

It is fill, not clay. We can see the garbage and bricks in the spill in the new report video. OH&S therefore does not apply. The strength of fill is unreliable, therefore expect failures.  

This is not quite straight cut, but it is steeper that a ladder likes, about 70 degrees so I will estimate 80 degrees. It does not matter, it grossly exceeds OH&S.

It is my opinion that OH&S rules are not rigid enough as it stands. But if they were followed, we would have far fewer injuries and deaths. In all my years in geotechnical, I have only seen a few cases where failures occurred within OH&S rules, and these were blocky and/or slickensided soils, large or deep excavations, or long term conditions.

It is my opinion that everyone involved should be charged with manslaughter, general contractor, trench contractor, and hoe operator. There should be a mandatory course required for anyone entering a trench, or pushing a trench job. Major fine for doing the work without the card.

Nuts

There is nothing wrong with the people, it is their belief systems that is just nuts. ISIL, ISIS, Jews, Israelis, Philistines, Christians, Hindu, Sikhs, etc, all religions are just nuts. Irrational beliefs, death denying, creation of an after life as an ultimate goal of life, forced marriage, mutilations of female, foot bindings, even circumcision, face covering, religious irrational obedience, extended prayer, long mediation, even development of control freakes, even the desire to control others, etc.  There are no better words than nuts; it is the historical belief systems that are less than ideal.

Many people of antiquity realized that they would not likely be around to coach the next generation to adulthood, and also recognized that much of what they learned was a big improvement over what they had growing up, so they wrote it down for the next generation. Some collected up this data, and in the old days, that meant collecting up old manuscripts and recopying them, learning along the way. Stobacus also added his comments as he transcribed. Some of his comments are infused into the modern translations, like the reference to the Amazon in Epictetus. Oh well, shit happens.  

We stand on the shoulders of those who went before, but we also must accept that we are able to develop better than our ancestors, because we are starting on their shoulders, on what they figured out in their lives. Some of the things they tried to teach us are just wrong, or old thoughts, in the modern world with transportation and communications technology being what they are, and yet many of the underlying concepts are still right, and valuable, and should be adhered to. Yet the elders dictate poor behavior, poor logic, poor reasoning, poor judgement, poor decision making. Which is it easier to change, beliefs or behaviors? Behaviors follow our beliefs.

When we start from reason as the highest human characteristic, and the ultimate purpose of life as to flourish, to aid in flourishing, we humans have done well, well we are batting 0.350 or better. But what will the earth stand of continued survival of the species long term? Less people than we have today. Prepare for large scale die off or control the population. China's one child policy is about right.

It is the needless killing that must end so that we can live in peace, but that will require giving up of the historical religions and migration to reality, logic, reason based life. Yet everywhere we see those who do not seen capable of reason, compassion, justice. I am glad that I will be done, returned, or expired before the end of civilization. I have exceeded my "best by date" and am in the decline now, so I can talk, and will never be called upon to deliver. It is not just the Flynn effect. We are better educated when we take the tests, yes. It is all about deciding at an early age to live ethically, and what those ethics really are, yes, we can also improve with age as well.

The stoics at least laid out the logic, the reasons for ethics and virtue as the basis of building a life, and allow the individual the freedom to choose. It is based on logic and understanding, priorities, and picking the better plan, and being aware of the plans drawbacks. When we are aware of the drawbacks, we can see them and make exceptions. Bullshit is still bullshit, even when it come from a prize bull.

Enough. and a picture just because