Iran said today that an Iranian-American journalist whose family have not heard from for three weeks was arrested for engaging in “illegal” activities because she continued to work after the Government revoked her press credentials.
Roxana Saberi, 31, who has reported from Tehran for the BBC and other news organisations, called her father in the United States on February 10, saying that she had been arrested for buying a bottle of wine.
"She called from an unknown place and said she’s been kept in detention,” Mr Saberi said from Fargo, North Dakota, where her family lives.
“She said that she had bought a bottle of wine and the person that sold it had reported it and then they came and arrested her,” he said, adding that the wine purchase was just an excuse to arrest her
Ms Saberi said that she had already been held for ten days, and called back moments later to say that she would be released in two more days. Neither her family in the US nor her friends in Tehran have heard from her since. Mr Saberi said that he was going public with the information because of fears for his daughter’s safety.
RENEGADE EYE
268 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 268 of 268They just put the whole country on welfare and pretend that sonce there's no poverty
Evidence of this please, otherwise it's just your prejudice and inaccurate opinion."
from Wikipedia...
Swedish welfare refers to the Swedish variant of the mixed economy welfare state prevalent in much of the industrialized world. Similar systems are found especially in the other Nordic countries.
They even CALL THEMSELVES a "welfare state".
The other post came from Wiki on Swedish Crime. Feel free to Google it.
---
I find it hilarious that the birth rate in all the modern civilized "welfare state" economies has crashed off a cliff. Socialists HATE children. In fact, they're even starting to hate the immigrants who are moving into their now depopulated countries.
Whoda guessed that socialism was a mutual suicide pact?
As for civilisation depending upon monogomy, perhaps but that doesn't mean marraige equals monogomy.
Then why marry? LOL!
what do you mean by 'mere culture'
A society which requires a Nietzschean "blond beast" to govern and repress into a psychological state in which the oppressed people are finally self-controlled enough to voluntarily follow the laws w/o being shadowed by cops and informers wherever they go and beat into submission.
In other words, a moral consciousness doesn't just spring into one's head unassisted. It takes a real prick and a lot of pain to put it there in the form of a memory.
...and later to put the prick himself in your head when he later becomes your "SuperEgo" and forces you to repress those thoughts about banging mom or sis.
Farmer:
I agree with Larry that your reliance on poor correlations (the report you mentioned) rather undermines your case and that it was probably prepared with the conservative debater in mind.
Like with IQ we're talking about very poorly defined ('fuzzy') response variables, very hard to accurately measure and yielding weak correlations without much of a causal agent to provide explanatory power.
I'm not at all surprised that report of yours concentrates on the marriage misfortunes of African Americans.
Larry's citing of Sweden is also interesting. Highly 'liberal' in terms of sexual mores, highly 'Marxist' in terms of economic model and yet this society is neither a communist gulag, nor a sexual morass, al la Sodom and Gomorra (although divorce rates are sky high)
Sweden is indeed interesting. The effects of declining culture do not materialize instantaneously. It takes "generations".
And look at what has happened to Sweden's fertility rate (2009 est - 1.67) over the course of a relatively few generations. Fertility is perhaps one of the most important measures relating to the "health" of a organism. European "culture" is NOT flourishing. European societies encourage their women to kill their offspring so as to prevent the children from becoming a "burden" on social services.
Mutli-culturalism is becoming more and more an "economic necessity", as immigrants are taking on the roles previously reserved for the young and providing the money necessary to provide geriatric support services for aging Europeans (something family's once did themselves). And who will inherit their country? Not the children of Swedes or Europeans.
Within a hundred years, the European socialist states will collapse and be replaced w/Islamic and African cultures as the evolutionary "Out of Africa" migration cycle continues.
Ixion's wheel continues to spin. Romours of an ancient "atlantis" will be all that remains.
Like with IQ we're talking about very poorly defined ('fuzzy') response variables, very hard to accurately measure and yielding weak correlations without much of a causal agent to provide explanatory power.
Try reading Hernnstein & Murray's "Bell Curve". IQ correlates highly w/economic outcomes and social factors relating to "welfare dependency", "reproductive success" and "criminality".
Anybody here ever read Plato's "Republic"?
Communism is only viable so long as the "guardians" breed in season. As soon as they stop, their system is doomed to collapse.
Plato, "Republic"
And how can marriages be made most beneficial?--that is a question which I put to you, because I see in your house dogs for hunting, and of the nobler sort of birds not a few. Now, I beseech you, do tell me, have you ever attended to their pairing and breeding?
In what particulars?
Why, in the first place, although they are all of a good sort, are not some better than others?
True.
And do you breed from them all indifferently, or do you take care to breed from the best only?
From the best.
And do you take the oldest or the youngest, or only those of ripe age?
I choose only those of ripe age.
And if care was not taken in the breeding, your dogs and birds would greatly deteriorate?
Certainly.
And the same of horses and animals in general?
Undoubtedly.
Good heavens! my dear friend, I said, what consummate skill will our rulers need if the same principle holds of the human species!
Certainly, the same principle holds; but why does this involve any particular skill?
Because, I said, our rulers will often have to practise upon the body corporate with medicines. Now you know that when patients do not require medicines, but have only to be put under a regimen, the inferior sort of practitioner is deemed to be good enough; but when medicine has to be given, then the doctor should be more of a man.
That is quite true, he said; but to what are you alluding?
I mean, I replied, that our rulers will find a considerable dose of falsehood and deceit necessary for the good of their subjects: we were saying that the use of all these things regarded as medicines might be of advantage.
And we were very right.
And this lawful use of them seems likely to be often needed in the regulations of marriages and births.
How so?
Why, I said, the principle has been already laid down that the best of either sex should be united with the best as often, and the inferior with the inferior, as seldom as possible; and that they should rear the offspring of the one sort of union, but not of the other, if the flock is to be maintained in first-rate condition. Now these goings on must be a secret which the rulers only know, or there will be a further danger of our herd, as the guardians may be termed, breaking out into rebellion.
Hope your plans for spaying and neutering the world pan out to your satisfaction.
...and in terms of IQ, Europe is "regressing towards the mean". Why would smart $250/yr lawyer chicks give up their cushy Manhattan lifestyles to empty diapers and get slapped around by obnoxious husbands?
Farmer:
I agree with Larry that your reliance on poor correlations (the report you mentioned) rather undermines your case and that it was probably prepared with the conservative debater in mind.
Like with IQ we're talking about very poorly defined ('fuzzy') response variables, very hard to accurately measure and yielding weak correlations without much of a causal agent to provide explanatory power.
I'm not at all surprised that report of yours concentrates on the marriage misfortunes of African Americans.
His citing of Sweden is also interesting. Highly 'liberal' in terms of sexual mores, highly 'Marxist' in terms of economic model and yet this society is neither a communist gulag, nor a sexual morass, a la Sodom and Gomorrah (although divorce rates are sky high)
Farmer:
I agree with Larry that your reliance on poor correlations (the report you mentioned) rather undermines your case and that it was probably prepared with the conservative debater in mind.
Like with IQ we're talking about very poorly defined ('fuzzy') response variables, very hard to accurately measure and yielding weak correlations without much of a causal agent to provide explanatory power.
I'm not at all surprised that report of yours concentrates on the marriage misfortunes of African Americans.
His citing of Sweden is also interesting. Highly 'liberal' in terms of sexual mores, highly 'Marxist' in terms of economic model and yet this society is neither a communist gulag, nor a sexual morass, a la Sodom and Gomorra (although divorce rates are sky high)
Farmer:
"Try reading Hernnstein & Murray's "Bell Curve". IQ correlates highly w/economic outcomes and social factors relating to "welfare dependency", "reproductive success" and "criminality"."
I've already commented on IQ elsewhere, you didn't respond.
Many people's propensity to believe in those types of correlations stems from poor understanding of the methodologies used, what mathematical statistics can and cannot do, how empiricism works etc. The book is enormously controversial and has received mountain heaps of criticism.
The fact that it confirms some stereotypes you hold dear doesn't change that or make it true. It's called 'confirmation bias', IIRW.
The book is also a manifestation of a society (the US) that believes itself to be highly meritocratic, when in reality it is no more so than most developed societies.
Farmer:
"Europe is "regressing towards the mean" "
HAHHAHAHHHAHAHHHAHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAH - PISSING MYSELF -HAHHAHAH - attempting to regain composure.
"Regressing toward the mean", pal, is a property of the IQ test, and one on which grounds you could successfully dismiss the whole IQ test to the dustbin.
RTtM has nothing to do with Europe or the US or anywhere, it's intrinsic to the whole crackpot test.
Man. oh, man. I'm beginning to see why you like IQ: if you really believe a test must be truthful because it confirms that you're group is somehow better, that's rather cui bono, no?
Tell me again how IQ isn't culturally biased: you've just provided the proof!
HAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!
Please make it stop?
Sorry about the duplicates, not sure where they came from...
Ah, I see: we're on a new page. This regressed European (thick as two short planks) didn't see that.
Farmer:
The greatest threat to 'Conservative Family Values' will not come from 'Bad Libruls' but from technology.
Technological Evolution (as distinct from, "Evilutionary" Biology) will define how long we live, how relationships will 'evolve', whether we stay on this planet or migrate, how we 'communicate', the role of animals or plants (as food), how we cure diseases, how we conduct war, etc etc.
Yet on sexual mores, reproductive strategies and such like, American Conservatives are stuck in a time before we even understood the basics of the mammalian reproductive system! Good luck with that...
The fact that it confirms some stereotypes you hold dear doesn't change that or make it true. It's called 'confirmation bias', IIRW.
The same could be said about your automatic "rejection" of the book's conclusions. And I'll trust the math, thanks. The correlations are extremely strong... as for the "fuzziness" issue, it's still a LOT less fuzzy than the current Obama poll numbers.
The fact that it confirms some stereotypes you hold dear So you're inferring that I only accept the study's conclusions because I am a racist? Hardly.
The book is also a manifestation of a society (the US) that believes itself to be highly meritocratic, when in reality it is no more so than most developed societies.
Since the arrival of "affirmative action", I'm inclined to agree with you.
ROXANA SABERI
Fuck it, I wasn't going to do a point by point and Gert has done it well BUT...
The Sweidish quote doesn't prove that they are all on welfare whcih they are not. Try again. I've looke dinto the Swedish crime thing and you're wrong on that too. Great.
As for birth rates, this is common in most Western nations and some not so Western, you read too much into it re: socialism as you always do.
People marry for all kinds of reasons, not just monogomy. Cool. And your mere culture definition makes no sense, the culture you describe does not exist, you remind of the person who exists only in books, you need some reality.
Speaking of birth rates, Poland's is even lower and they are embracing capitalism. So? Means nowt.
"Within a hundred years, the European socialist states will collapse and be replaced w/Islamic and African cultures as the evolutionary "Out of Africa" migration cycle continues."
Nonsense, pure speculation and prejudice, a riff in your head, no basis in fact.
gert has it down with IQ, it is not a measure for your golden society and the fact you're having a measure speaks volumes about how bad your ideas are.
Yes, I've read republic, I was 19, it was alright, no idea why you're block quoting again here and talking about Marxism.
"Hope your plans for spaying and neutering the world pan out to your satisfaction."
Who are you talking to, this sounds like you with your unworkable average society model.
This is getting worse...
Farmer:
"The same could be said about your automatic "rejection" of the book's conclusions."
Sure, I'm not in a position (time and resources) to make my own compelling refutation, so I trust others who do that for me.
But your own ridiculous misinterpretation of 'regression towards the mean', a well-recognised flaw of IQ tests, doesn't bode well with respect to your correct understanding of these correlations. It's not good enough to 'trust the math', not in such a contentious field. This isn't Quantum Mechanics, not by a long shot.
Like I said, some things rank high on your 'Disgust-O-meter', then you look for the post hoc rationalisations.
Like with IQ we're talking about very poorly defined ('fuzzy') response variables, very hard to accurately measure and yielding weak correlations without much of a causal agent to provide explanatory power.
Yes questions like, "have you every been to prison, have you ever collected welfare, what did your baby weight, how much money do you make, and have you ever graduated from high school." Those are such "fuzzy" response variables.
"Regressing toward the mean", pal, is a property of the IQ test, and one on which grounds you could successfully dismiss the whole IQ test to the dustbin"
If you knew nothing of statistics. You do realize that Galton invented 'statistics', don't you? Regression towards the mean is a purely mathematical phenomena, it has nothing to do with IQ specifically. The rate over which the measured phenomena occurs, is however, a product of the object being observed and measured.
Tell me again how IQ isn't culturally biased. IQ tests are today rigidly controlled for cultural bias.
I'm beginning to see why you like IQ: if you really believe a test must be truthful because it confirms that you're group is somehow better, that's rather cui bono, no? Yes, mathematics and especially "statistics" is very racist. It was invented by a white racist (Francis Galton) so as to always prove that whites are smarter than everybody else except Chinese people (but math only) and Ashkenazi Jews (in everything).
Ad hominem's don't refute mathematics.
ROXANA SABERI?
"Yes questions like, "have you every been to prison, have you ever collected welfare, what did your baby weight, how much money do you make, and have you ever graduated from high school." Those are such "fuzzy" response variables."
Yes they are and can't tell us much at all about someone, only as vague generalisations.
"IQ tests are today rigidly controlled for cultural bias."
May be so but that still doesn't stop them being them being so.
MORE IMPORTANTLY, this would not work, no one would buy into it and as a practical idea, it stinks.
If you don't believe me, try and float it as an idea and run for local office FJ...
Farmer:
"IQ tests are today rigidly controlled for cultural bias."
How, by means of more cultural bias?
Hell, we can't even unequivocally define intelligence, never mind measure it.
IQ is pseudo-science, far, far too flawed to take seriously.
More later.
Hell, we can't even unequivocally define intelligence, never mind measure it.
IQ is pseudo-science, far, far too flawed to take seriously.
Like economics and all the social sciences, right Gert? I mean/w/o an international currency, we'll never know what a dollar or a particular stock is worth! LOL!
The greatest threat to 'Conservative Family Values' will not come from 'Bad Libruls' but from technology.
Technological Evolution (as distinct from, "Evilutionary" Biology) will define how long we live, how relationships will 'evolve', whether we stay on this planet or migrate, how we 'communicate', the role of animals or plants (as food), how we cure diseases, how we conduct war, etc etc.
If it can be done, it definitely SHOULD and WILL be done. Is that what you're saying, Gert? So what will happen to "libril values"? I can't wait until they fit you with the control collar and effect the lobotomy.
Yet on sexual mores, reproductive strategies and such like, American Conservatives are stuck in a time before we even understood the basics of the mammalian reproductive system! Good luck with that...
I'd take Plato or Aristotle against Derrida, Chomski or Zinn any day of the week. After all, they invented both mammals and reproductive systems.
Like I said, some things rank high on your 'Disgust-O-meter', then you look for the post hoc rationalisations.
Is that how it works with Conservatives like me? Of course, librils operate on an entirely different principle...
Grow up. Address the fact. Impugning the opposition's "motives" is the mother of all rhetorical fallacies.
Socialism is the politics of resentment par excellence. There, now your motives are impugned, too!
NEWSFLASH
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had said that Richard Holbrooke and Mohammad Mehdi Akhoondzadeh had an informal but "cordial exchange".
She said the US had given the Iranian delegates a letter, but Iran's foreign ministry "categorically" denied this.
The US had welcomed Iran's presence at the meeting as a "promising sign".
On Tuesday, Mrs Clinton said that Mr Holbrooke and Mr Akhoondzadeh had had a brief meeting on the sidelines of the conference in the Hague.
She said the meeting had been unplanned but that the men had agreed to "stay in touch".
'No letter'
But on Wednesday, foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi told Iran's Mehr news agency: "No meeting or talk, be it formal or informal, official or unofficial between Iran and US officials took place on the sideline of this conference."
"We categorically deny the reports published in this regard," he said.
Mr Ghashghavi said that as no meeting had taken place, "naturally no letter was handed to Iran from the American side".
Mrs Clinton said Iran's presence at The Hague meeting was 'a promising sign'
Mrs Clinton had said the letter was about the welfare of three US nationals in Iran.
Mrs Clinton's comments came at the end of a one-day meeting of delegates from 70 countries and other organisations interested in rebuilding Afghanistan.
It was called by the UN amid widespread concern that not enough progress has been made since the US-led invasion in 2001.
Iran's presence at the Hague had been described by Mrs Clinton as "a promising sign that there will be future co-operation".
Tehran gave a guarded welcome to US plans at the meeting to increase regional co-operation over Afghanistan.
Oooops.
Farmer:
"Is that how it works with Conservatives like me? Of course, librils operate on an entirely different principle..."
Sure, I mean, no, they don't.
On "The Bell Curve" and assorted mild forms of 'racism':
In societies like the US (and the UK to a lesser extent) where huge amounts of African slaves were employed up to relatively recently, residual feelings of superiority by the collective former owners with respect to their collective former property must inevitably linger. That takes generations to subside (if it ever does, anti-Semitism is still around too).
Slavery dehumanised Africans because it's much easier to treat people like cattle when you think of them as sub-human. Whole theories around their humanoid, rather than human nature where spun, even by the Church ("God is White, Adam and Eve were White and Blacks are the degenerate jungle offspring of Whites and primates").
Once freed these people were free but penniless and had yet to fight a second battle, this one for equal rights. That battle 'finished' yesterday, so to speak.
Combine this now with the perception that African Americans seem to "under-perform" (in a society that has performance appreciation practically written into its constitution) because these former penniless people haven't yet caught up on the wealth gap between their former owners and themselves, and you have a recipe for 'pattern seekers' who jump to the seemingly obvious conclusion that Blacks must indeed be somewhat inferior ("we were right all along!"). For these people books like The Bell Curve are gefundenes fressen.
That, in a nutshell, is my theory.
"Like economics and all the social sciences, right Gert?"
Their evidence base is much, much weaker than the natural Sciences.
"If it can be done, it definitely SHOULD and WILL be done. Is that what you're saying, Gert?"
On most of these changes, society will have intense debates. I'm all for that. Win some, lose some. Some of them will be the height of absurdity. The debate on embryonic stem cell research is one of them, IMHO.
"After all, they invented both mammals and reproductive systems."
No, they imagined one. Modern understanding of the reproductive system is much more recent.
"Socialism is the politics of resentment par excellence."
Socialism is the inevitable product of the European Social movements. Without them we (and you) would still be living in the Dark Ages.
Not sure what your NEWSFLASH is supposed to mean to me.
BTW, like you new avatar, where do you get them? Remember when someone 'stole' Beaky's avatar? Oh, boy, halcyon days!
That, in a nutshell, is my theory.
The book "The Bell Curve" does not even address "race" until the final 3 or 4 chapters of the book. 7/8ths of the data applies to explaining how IQ relates to life outcomes WITHIN the "white" community... IQ quintiles as they relate to arrests, educational levels achieved, socio-economic outcomes, low birthweight babies, etc.
You dispute the fact that people with measured IQs in the 85-90 range don't end up as professionals (doctors/lawyers) and don't usually end up in the upper income quintiles?
Not sure what your NEWSFLASH is supposed to mean to me.
The Iranians are currently denying being contacted about Roxana Saberi's situation... you remember her... the subject of this thread.
BTW, like you new avatar, where do you get them?
I steal them off the web, like everybody else, of course.
Farmer:
"The book "The Bell Curve" does not even address "race" until the final 3 or 4 chapters of the book."
No, but addressing it made it an explosive book topic. Don't tell me the authors weren't aware of that.
"You dispute the fact that people with measured IQs in the 85-90 range don't end up as professionals (doctors/lawyers) and don't usually end up in the upper income quintiles?"
It doesn't provide a causal agent. It ignores the entire myriad of other factors that lead to success. By doing so it over-emphasises the importance of 'intelligence'.
It doesn't provide a causal agent. LOL!
Nietzsche, "Gay Science"
112
Cause and Effect. We say it is "explanation "; but it is only in "description" that we are in advance of the older stages of knowledge and science. We describe better, we explain just as little as our predecessors. We have discovered a manifold succession where the naive man and investigator of older cultures saw only two things, "cause" and "effect,"as it was said; we have perfected the conception of becoming, but have not got a knowledge of what is above and behind the conception. The series of "causes" stands before us much more complete in every case; we conclude that this and that must first precede in order that that other may follow - but we have not grasped anything thereby. The peculiarity, for example, in every chemical process seems a "miracle," the same as before, just like all locomotion; nobody has "explained" impulse. How could we ever explain? We operate only with things which do not exist, with lines, surfaces, bodies, atoms, divisible times, divisible spaces - how can explanation ever be possible when we first make everything a conception, our conception? It is sufficient to regard science as the exactest humanizing of things that is possible; we always learn to describe ourselves more accurately by describing things and their successions. Cause and effect: there is probably never any such duality; in fact there is a continuum before us, from which we isolate a few portions - just as we always observe a motion as isolated points, and therefore do not properly see it, but infer it. The abruptness with which many effects take place leads us into error; it is however only an abruptness for us. There is an infinite multitude of processes in that abrupt moment which escape us. An intellect which could see cause and effect as a continuum, which could see the flux of events not according to our mode of perception, as things arbitrarily separated and broken - would throw aside the conception of cause and effect, and would deny all conditionality.
No, but addressing it made it an explosive book topic. Don't tell me the authors weren't aware of that.
G_d forbid someone should sell a book...
By doing so it over-emphasises the importance of 'intelligence'.
No, it isolates it from "all those other factors" save 1 other and allows the reader to draw their own conclusion.
Farmer:
"G_d forbid someone should sell a book..."
Sell away, no skin off my nose.
"No, it isolates it from "all those other factors" save 1 other and allows the reader to draw their own conclusion."
That's what it attempts to do. Separating out covariant variables from the variable under investigation is extremely difficult to do. In the Natural Sciences, where multiple factors are at work, controlled conditions are created that allow almost 100 % separation, using orthogonal experiment designs.
But to separate these things on an existing set of data, not generated in controlled conditions, is virtually impossible, IMHO.
And what's the use of IQ, assuming for argument's sake even the whole thing is kosher? It's supposed to be a predictor. So you're gonna tell intelligent kids to become doctors and black simply not to bother? Talk about social engineering!
ROXANA SABERI
Talk about social engineering! What do you think affirmative action is. It's social engineering w/o ANY science and a heavy dose of "past injustice".
But to separate these things on an existing set of data, not generated in controlled conditions, is virtually impossible, IMHO.
Yes it is extremely difficult to separate people by the number of children they've had, age in giving childbirth, the level of education they've achieved, the types of jobs they've had, and the salary they earned. I mean, it might even take a simple questionnaire.
See: The Mismeasure of Man (Stephen Jay Gould)
Amen.
ROXANA SABERI
See the critique of Mismeasure>...
Just PC nonesense.
renegade eye,
geopolitics doesn't cover everything...the iranians deny any letter given to them...the US news media is doing more for the iranaians in making it look like Roxana is guilty before anything...
it seems though most people don't really have a clue as to why roxana was detained or ways of magic
take care,
ravin ;))
The US News media consists almost entirely of Leftist idiots who couldn't serve the interests of freedom and liberty if their lives depended upon it. They're in the tank for totalitarian control of the social order.
FJ:
"See the critique of Mismeasure...
Just PC nonesense."
The Bell Curve,
Just biased pseudo-scientific nonsense?
"The US News media consists almost entirely of Leftist idiots who couldn't serve the interests of freedom and liberty if their lives depended upon it."
Just Manichean nonsense. I didn't see the US MSM protest or question the war in Iraq much until things started going South.
And criticism of Israel is only just about becoming acceptable, mainly if it originates from American Jewish writers.
As regards, "They're in the tank for totalitarian control of the social order.", methinks you've been reading Ayn Rand again...
ROXANA SABERI
FJ:
As regards the Nietzsche quote:
"we explain just as little as our predecessors."
Overstated in my view: the way the major paradigms confirm each other seems to indicate we're onto something beyond mere description.
"We operate only with things which do not exist, with lines, surfaces, bodies, atoms, [...]"
Nietzsche died around the time atoms were being discovered as physical, existing entities which then allowed to flesh out the somewhat older, embryonic atomic theory. Prior to their physical discovery, many were skeptical and believed atoms were merely philosophical/mathematical constructs of the mind.
As regards the point on cause and effect, he almost makes it sound like a trick of the light!
Overstated in my view: the way the major paradigms confirm each other seems to indicate we're onto something beyond mere description.
So string theory and quantum physics are so much better now at explaining the universe then Einstein or Newton's ever were?
Are you sure those "atoms" aren't strings?
ROXANA SABERI
Between two absolutely different spheres, as between subject and object, there is no causality, no correctness, and no expression; there is, at most, an aesthetic relation: I mean, a suggestive transference, a stammering translation into a completely foreign tongue — for which I there is required, in any case, a freely inventive intermediate sphere and mediating force. "Appearance" is a word that contains many temptations, which is why I avoid it as much as possible. For it is not true that the essence of things "appears" in the empirical world. A painter without hands who wished to express in song the picture before his mind would, by means of this substitution of spheres, still reveal more about the essence of things than does the empirical world. Even the relationship of a nerve stimulus to the generated image is not a necessary one. But when the same image has been generated millions of times and has been handed down for many generations and finally appears on the same occasion every time for all mankind, then it acquires at last the same meaning for men it would have if it were the sole necessary image and if the relationship of the original nerve stimulus to the generated image were a strictly causal one. In the same manner, an eternally repeated dream would certainly be felt and judged to be reality. But the hardening and congealing of a metaphor guarantees absolutely nothing concerning its necessity and exclusive justification.. --Nietzsche
ROXANA SABERI
NEWS FLASH!
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's judiciary has issued formal charges against jailed Iranian-American freelance journalist Roxana Saberi, Reuters reported.
"The indictment has been sent to the branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court," Saberi's attorney, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, told Reuters on Sunday. "I will see the indictment in the coming days. I have no information about the charges."
Saberi's parents hope to meet with their daughter as a first step toward seeking her release, Khorramshahi said Sunday after the North Dakota couple arrived in Iran.
Reza Saberi and his wife, Akiko immediately began seeking a meeting with Iranian authorities to ask permission to see their daughter, Khorramshai said.
Iranian officials have said Roxana Saberi was arrested for working in the country after her press credentials had expired. Her parents found out about her arrest in a Feb. 10 phone call from her.
She has told her family she has not been harmed physically but that the detention is psychologically challenging, her father said.
Saberi grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, and is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Iran. She has lived in Iran for six years and has reported for several news organizations.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said last week that the United States had given a letter to Iranian officials during a meeting in Europe, seeking Iran's help in resolving the cases of Roxana Saberi and two other Americans missing or detained in Iran.
The returns of Roxana Saberi, Robert Levinson and Esha Momeni would be a humanitarian gesture, the letter said.
Levinson, a retired FBI agent from Coral Springs, Fla., was last seen on Iran's Kish Island on March 8, 2007. He disappeared in Iran while investigating cigarette smuggling for a client of his private security firm.
Momeni, a dual U.S. and Iranian national, was visiting Tehran to research a master's thesis on the women's rights movement in Iran. Momeni, born in Los Angeles, was arrested Oct. 15 on a traffic violation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
So we shall see...
Levinson might well be dead if he was investigating cigarette smuggling. The Iranian government may well have had nothing to do with it. As for Momeni doing a master's thesis on the Iranian Women's Rights movement, I have an idea that if he isn't dead, he's somebody's bitch, and at this stage might well physically look the part-somewhat.
FJ:
"So string theory and quantum physics are so much better now at explaining the universe then Einstein or Newton's ever were?"
String theory remains controversial and mathematically problematic. The contribution of quantum mechanics to Cosmology is enormous: from the earliest moments of the universe to stellar elemental compositions resulting from the various stages of stellar thermonuclear combustion and from collapsing stars (supernovae), the paradigm plays an important part in it.
"Are you sure those "atoms" aren't strings?"
Perhaps they are. They would still exist. Time may tell.
You could try and prove reality doesn't exist of course. But I still need to take a piss now. Ignoring it will only lead to pissing myself. Illusion?
As Nietzsche's favorite/yet rejected teacher (Schopenhauer) would have put it... "The World as Will and Representation"
Yet you previously claimed that the "atom" was so "well known" that we'd moved "beyond mere description". Care to retract?
Nietzsche died around the time atoms were being discovered as physical, existing entities which then allowed to flesh out the somewhat older, embryonic atomic theory. Prior to their physical discovery, many were skeptical and believed atoms were merely philosophical/mathematical constructs of the mind.
Sounds kinda like the stage we're in now between Einstein's physics and the "string theory" of quantum physics, especially seeing as how NONE of string theories postulates have yet been scientifically verified.
They would still exist.
Not according to Aristotle's 1st principle, they couldn't.
"For the same (characteristic) simultaneously to belong and not belong to the same (object) in the same (way) is impossible."
...hence string theories need for "extra dimensions"
Schrodinger's cat might still meow in the vacuum, though
ROXANA SABERI
FJ:
"Yet you previously claimed that the "atom" was so "well known" that we'd moved "beyond mere description". Care to retract?"
No. I think we've moved beyond mere description but not completely. A successful characterisation of atoms by means of string theory would in all likelihood make the same predictions about atoms as the current model, possibly moving beyond that and making predictions the QM model currently can't make. The descriptive nature of science remains an important aspect of it, I never said otherwise.
You're overreaching: models like QM that yield the value of certain fundamental constants by means of calculation (prediction - thereby rendering them non-fundamental, of course) must have some explanatory value, IMHO.
Nietzsche (like everyone else, of course) lived in his own time and was a product of it. I wonder what he would make of a theory like QM that predicts the chemical composition of an entire Universe. You sure he wouldn't adjust his views somewhat?
As regards Schrödinger's cat, it's a good illustration of how our perception of the world is radically different from the underlying reality (in agreement with N., of course). That doesn't mean we can not explain that underlying world (yet).
FJ:
It's possible a full explanation of underlying reality may never be obtained. Would that be proof that it doesn't exist? Or would it be proof that this reality is so complex that we'd need a near-infinite amount of time and computing power (information processing) to unravel it?
You sure he wouldn't adjust his views somewhat?
I'm positive.
It's possible a full explanation of underlying reality may never be obtained.
It's not only possible, it's CERTAIN.
Would that be proof that it doesn't exist?
You need to be wary of using the word "exist" around philosophers. Existence only occurs at a point in time known as "now" which includes an imaginary conception held in mind of that which "exists". Now whether there are such things as "particles", "waves" or "strings," these will always remain as mere "imaginary conceptions" held in mind. The "thing in itself" will forever remain "undeterminable" in any "definitive" sense. We'll continue to refine our characterizations of energy and matter and exploit the "predicitive powers" were emerge from them, after all it's "useful" info.
As Nietzsche would say, "Truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live. The value for life is ultimately decisive." and "The criterion of truth resides in the enhancement of the feeling of power."
Or would it be proof that this reality is so complex that we'd need a near-infinite amount of time and computing power (information processing) to unravel it?
Have you got an "eternity?" Because the physics (ie - inside a black hole or even the speed of light) we know at this point in time in our little section of the galaxy today is NOT and perhaps has not always "necessarily" been a constant.
"Existence only occurs at a point in time known as "now""
Damn straight! That's why I don't take time travel scenarios seriously, however fun they might be in fiction. There's no there there, nothing to go back to, nothing to go forward to either. Just at best going backwards or forwards to nothing, assuming that much is even possible.
As Heraclitus said, "You can't step into the same river twice."
Panta Rhei!
We're all like Theseus' ship (or Locke's socks).
Nietzsche, "Will to Power"
488 (Spring-Fall 1887)
Psychological derivation of our belief in reason.--The concept "reality", "being", is taken from our feeling of the "subject".
"The subject": interpreted from within ourselves, so that the ego counts as a substance, as the cause of all deeds, as a doer.
The logical-metaphysical postulates, the belief in substance, accident, attribute, etc., derive their convincing force from our habit of regarding all our deeds as consequences of our will--so that the ego, as substance, does not vanish in the multiplicity of change.
--But there is no such thing as will.--
We have no categories at all that permit us to distinguish a "world in itself" from a "world of appearance." All our categories of reason are of sensual origin: derived from the empirical world.
"The soul", "the ego"--the history of these concepts shows that here, too, the oldest distinction ("breath", "life")--
If there is nothing material, there is also nothing immaterial. The concept no longer contains anything.
No subject "atoms". The sphere of a subject constantly growing or decreasing, the center of the system constantly shifting; in cases where it cannot organize the appropriate mass, it breaks into two parts. On the other hand, it can transform a weaker subject into its functionary without destroying it, and to a certain degree form a new unity with it.
No "substance", rather something that in itself strives after greater strength, and that wants to "preserve" itself only indirectly (it wants to surpass itself--).
ROXANA SABERI
5/11/2009
TEHRAN, Iran — An American journalist jailed for four months in Iran was freed Monday and reunited with her parents after an appeals court suspended her eight-year prison sentence on charges of spying for the U.S. Her parents said they would bring her home to the U.S. within days.
The release of Roxana Saberi, a 32-year-old dual Iranian-American citizen, clears a major snag in President Barack Obama's efforts to engage Iran in a dialogue after decades of shunning the country. Washington had called the charges against Saberi baseless and repeatedly demanded her release.
Saberi's arrest in late January, followed by a secretive, one-day trial and a heavy prison sentence, prompted sharp U.S. criticism. Soon after, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other officials appeared to back off, suggesting the sentence could be reversed.
On Monday, an appeals court reduced her jail term to a two-year suspended sentence, Iran's judiciary spokesman, Ali Reza Jamshidi, told reporters. Jamshidi said she was free to leave Iran.
"I'm very happy that she is free. Roxana is in good condition," Saberi's Iranian-born father Reza Saberi said after her release.
"We had expected her release but not so soon. She will be preparing to leave (Iran) tomorrow or the day after tomorrow," he told reporters at his house in Tehran.
He said Saberi was staying at a friend's house, where her parents would join her.
The family lives in Fargo, North Dakota and her parents have been in Iran for several weeks seeking their daughter's freedom. At one point, the younger Saberi held a two week hunger strike protesting her jailing, but ended it after two weeks for health reasons.
What good news, free at last, she is free at last!
on the way home, THANK GOD
Allah is Master of the day of Requital
and i did like the recipe...;))
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