A Thought for the Day

A subtle but important distinction differentiates judgment from analysis, the first of which utterly predominates among ‘standard Americans’ in the current context, often enough judging before or without facts or reason or awareness and therefore advancing prejudice and presumption instead of any expression that either demonstrates even a semblance of rationality and logic, or that even favors a bit of common inference or simple intuition: the preference for the latter choice rather than the former, as a result, comes down to a simple mathematical formulation of adaptation, the natural selection of adaptive behaviors that bring better results, more often, with less negative ‘feedback’ for the ‘selected’ organisms—that the capacity to reason and figure things out is superior and therefore preferable in this regard to opining whiningly without end will appear perfectly clear except to those who are judgmentally deficient in the extreme.

Quote of the Day

“Men speak of God’s love for man… but if providence does not come in this hour, where is He then? My conclusion is simple. The Semitic texts from Bronze Age Palestine of which Christianity is comprised still fit uncomfortably well with contemporary life. The Old Testament depicts a God capricious and cruel; blood sacrifice, vengeance, genocide; death and destruction et al. Would He not approve of Herr Hitler and the brutal, tribalistic crusade against Hebrews and non-Christian ‘untermensch?’
One thing is inarguable. His church on Earth has produced some of the most vigorous and violent contribution to the European fascist cause. Daniel S. Fletcher: Jackboot Britain(describing the Spanish Civil War)

This Day in History

Everywhere on Earth today is the World Day for International Justice; in a related development one thousand eight hundred thirty-seven years ago, a dozen residents of Scillium, a Numidian Roman province that is likely currently Tunisia, became martyrs when they die at the hands of authorities for the crime of practicing Christianity; showing the flexibility of their aims, eight hundred fourteen years in advance of now, members of the Fourth Crusade diverted their attention from the Holy Land to storm Christian Constantinople and take sides in one of Byzantium’s conspiratorial, internecine rivalries; five hundred eighty-eight years before the here and now, a seventh King Charles ascended to the French throne thanks to a successful campaign that Joan of Arc had led in his behalf; two hundred forty-one years ago, Congress learned of the war or words; two hundred twenty-seven years ahead of today’s dawn, the political economic thinker and critic Adam Smith took a final look around before departing this realm; MORE HERE

Doc of the Day

1. Adam Smith, 1776.

2. Erle Stanley Gardner, 1965.

3. Schmuel Yosef Agnon, 1966.

4. Thomas Putnam, 2006.

Numero Uno—“IntroductionIf we examine the most celebrated and remarkable of the different theories which have been given concerning the nature and origin of our moral sentiments, we shall find that almost all of them coincide with some part or other of that which I have been endeavouring to give an account of; and that if every thing which has already been said be fully considered, we shall be at no loss to explain what was the view or aspect of nature which led each particular author to form his particular system. From some one or other of those principles which I have been endeavouring to unfold, every system of morality that ever had any reputation in the world has, perhaps, ultimately been derived. As they are all of them, in this respect, founded upon natural principles, they are all of them in some measure in the right. But as many of them are derived from a partial and imperfect view of nature, there are many of them too in some respects in the wrong. MORE HERE

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fascism capitalism OR business OR "free enterprise" evolution OR origins OR history OR development natural OR inevitable OR concomitant OR inherent OR sop OR "standard operating procedure"