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Phidippides
KeymasterLooks like an equestrian cap.
Phidippides
KeymasterMerry Christmas from a rather un-snowy Pennsylvania.
Phidippides
KeymasterAnd Aetheling the….(fill in the blank)? Merry Christmas to you all, and to all a good night!
Phidippides
KeymasterThe answer is that the first two letters forms the notes on a musical scale: do re mi fa so….etc. Ut was changed to Do in the 17th/18th century.
Phidippides
KeymasterI have my own opinions about this issue and would like to flush some things out. Donnie and Scout, you said you are against the ordinary restrictions on fully autos. Would you extend this to opposing restrictions on private ownership of artillery? RPG launchers? Tanks? Basically, I am curious about what you would prohibit, if anything, in terms of weaponry, and whether your opposition is based on the Second Amendment or some other source.
Phidippides
KeymasterNot Silent Night. Hint: something most entry level musicians learn the first day of music school.
Phidippides
KeymasterI just think we should look at everything critically and base its credibility on that critical analysis. I dislike archaeology because that element o critical analysis often seems to be missing. Especially in pieces reported in the news. I do not know if that is because of crappy journalism, crappy archaeology or a combination of the two. I read some scholarly archaeology pieces too, mainly battlefield archaeology I do know that I rarely see any archaeologists go out of their way to correct the sensationalism reported to the media, I dislike that most of all. That is not to say that there are not some historians who are not as bad, just turn on the History channel to see what I am talking about.
If your problem is with media reporting on archaeology, then I can understand that. But the same can hold true for any field, including media reports on what historians say. At the end of the day, I don't think archaeology is superior or inferior to history, nor are archaeologists unequal to historians in their research and analysis of history. Each field has its strengths, strong scholars, and weak scholars.
Phidippides
KeymasterI wouldn't put much stock in what Obama says or doesn't say, given his track record. Now, I'm not panicking about anything that is imminent or not; rather, what I'm trying to say is that passing legislation in the heat of the moment creates bad policy. Yes, I realize that some Republicans hop on board in times like this, as it makes them look “responsive” to the needs of the nation. And, I imagine there are those on the left that don't want to rush into anything either, and I would respect them for that. It's just that generally speaking, I think the recent clamoring for more restrictive gun laws has come from the left.
Phidippides
KeymasterWell, all this talk by politicians about gun control illustrates one very important point – it's not a good idea to legislate based upon emotions. I'm getting tired of all this talk about gun control lately. Yes, tragedies have occurred, in CT and in CO not that long ago. These were done by individuals who presumably had mental problems. In a nation of 300 million, a handful of people are going to be the cause of sweeping legislation? This is only possible because of the deep emotional effect the shootings have had on people. And as we should all know by now, most liberal arguments seem to be based on emotion, rather than reason.I remember seeing a speaker talk about political ideologies, and how liberals hold the view that man is good, but corrupted by certain outside influences; take away the guns, and man will live in peace with his brother. This view seems to ignore the fact that man is already corrupted. In essence, they are refusing to look at the real cause of the problems our nation is facing.
Phidippides
KeymasterIt's like I have been telling you guys, archaeologists are great for unearthing the past, but it's not their job to interpret it. That's for historians to do.
Don't you think that is rather ivory towerish of you? The historian's domain is not "history" per se, but rather the written word from history. The archaeologist's domain is also not history per se, but the historical artifact. What gives the historian privileged insight into data accumulated from the artifact? Can the historian make a judgment about how the pyramids were built that is better than the judgment made by the archaeologist who actually examined the pyramids? You seem to be reducing the archaeologist to a mere workman whose only real contribution is braun, and when this work is done the historian provides the brains. That would be like saying the historian should only be concerned with translating and compiling historical texts, but let others do the analysis of them.
Phidippides
KeymasterI did not say the ID of the cause of death, I said the ID of the mummy. It seems the evidence is pretty good that it is actually Ramses they are looking at. I question the ID of the accompanying corpse.
Well, the article doesn't say anything about the ID of the first mummy being in question, or being uncovered . What they were looking at and interpreting was the cause of the death of the mummy, presumed to be that of Ramses III, and then the ID of the "screaming mummy", who they think could be Ramses III's son. If you saw something in the article that I missed, let me know.
"My standards", what exactly do you think "my standards" are? Come on, I am saying extrapolating events from objects dug up by archaeologists absent and written evidence is pure speculation. I don;t reject written accounts out of hand, I think they should be subjected to critical review but I will take written testimony of historical events over archaeology. Archaeology can corroborate or disprove historical accounts but it is difficult, impossible even, to generate a narrative based on archaeology alone. That is all I am saying. I have never demanded bullletproof, I just dislike pure guesswork.
I just think that your standards are overly skeptical, and your burden of proof is higher than need be. If we applied such a burden to historical texts - the domain of the historian - we could also refute much of what has been learned. Do we learn about Napoleon's decisions through his correspondence with other military commanders? He could be lying, and we'll never know. Can we trust any of Hitler's memoirs? He could have been a psychopath when he wrote them. Can we trust anything written by Bismark? He might have been drunk, and therefore his writings cannot be believed. Can we believe anything from first-hand accounts by Louis XIV? Perhaps not if we think future documents will be uncovered which change our knowledge of him. Basically, we can raise doubts about anything if we really wanted to. This means all our historical knowledge falls into the lines of "probability". And as you said before, "probability = the academic and respected word for guess".I guess at the end of the day, I think it is a bad practice to dismiss virtually the entire field of archaeology as "guesswork". Archaeologists are trained in methods which have become more and more exact over the decades, and I think the results have become more and more trustworthy. Where theories are raised, they tend to be labeled as such. I find nothing wrong with this so long as they are labeled possibilities. This is a critical step in the investigative process, and is not something to be dismissed as "garbage".
Phidippides
KeymasterThis is kind of funny so I want to point it out. I spend a lot of time gathering and organizing information on a lot of inauguration events taking place during inauguration weekend. I have a lot of people going to it and I know that sometimes other sites copy stuff off my site. I can't really prevent them from doing it I suppose. What's funny, though, is that for some of the inaugural events I link to, I get commissions from the sale of tickets if they buy through my link. I have noticed a few other sites have copied not only the event information I provide, but my urls with my affiliate link embedded into them. So at least theoretically, I should still get a commission if customers buy using those links. Kind of nice, huh?
Phidippides
KeymasterI'll tell you right now that if they ever passed a ban on semi-auto weapons I would not obey it. Be damned the consequences.
How in the world would they ever enforce such a ban? With some 300 million or whatever guns in the U.S. (I'm guessing this does not count those in the hands of the military/government), would they go knocking door to door, asking homeowners to turn them over? I can't ever foresee something like that happening. Maybe they would just enact a ban on the sale of such guns? At least that is something they could largely enforce.
Phidippides
KeymasterI still don't see how you could say the identification of the death of Ramses is “pretty solid” based upon your own standards. How could we know that this was done before of after his death? For all we know, it was done post-mortem. There's a quote in the article which raises this as a less likely possibility, but your standard, which seems to hinge on vacuum-proof evidence rather than conjecture, should highlight this as an indication we really don't know how he died.Of course, using your standards, I think that the vast majority of what is written by historians should have to be disbelieved as well.
Phidippides
KeymasterScout, my intention is not to go against the interpretation typically held by the Scalia-Thomas bloc of SCOTUS (the former of whom consistently tries to find the original interpretation of laws as written), but instead to point out that the right is not quite as clearly articulated as it may seem. A right may be stated in the Constitution, but it is not always well-defined. Even the First Amendment protects “freedom of speech”, but today SCOTUS does not recognize certain things, such as child pornography, as even being “speech”; whereas lesser forms of pornography are protected forms of expression. Those distinctions are not articulated in the Amendment. We also have to allow for the possibility that the Founding Fathers did not envision certain situations which arise nowadays. For those, SCOTUS (e.g. Scalia) tries to think how the Founders "would have" considered an issue. This may take some imagination/speculation, to be sure, which underscores the lack of absolute clarity in Constitutional statements.
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