Sometimes obfuscation is simpler than engagement.

I have blogged before about the dual nature of my family life...two cultures, two languages, two faiths. My conclusion has always been been that, though difficult, I think our multiplicity makes us (ultimately) all the richer.

But it's more disconcerting when it's the country that's bifurcated. People are shocked by the knowledge that there are normal, educated fellow citizens who would disagree with their position completely. As we tend to revolve around others who are similar in situation, taste, and geography, the idea that we might face resistance when leaving said circle is worrisome. It's even more worrisome when those people are across the lunch table. My father recently mentioned a conversation he had with a close friend about the economic bailout in which the friend finally became so discombobulated that he couldn't continue the conversation. His final words before walking away were: "You just don't know what the heck you're talking about!". Easy to argue, less easy to prove- and usually, the conversation-ender.

Here's my suggestion: can we try, perhaps as a country, to entertain these polar differences? Can we stop seeing our opponent as ignorant, uninformed, or stupid, and begin to discuss the issue? Let's throw off the shackles of ad hominem and ad populum. Let us not assume that our opinion is shared by "those in the know" and, instead, argue about policy, about positions, about records. Accept the bifurcation as richness rather than the riot act. Address the issues from a pluralist standpoint (and yes, this from a conservative Christian).

With whom do you disagree? Does everyone in your circle think the same way? Might it be time for a change of scenery?

If everyone has a 'thing' than, not being around for long periods of time, is mine. I'm moving, again. Same city, again. I have a future ex-residence to look forward to so I predict that my internets will be held hostage by my broadband provider exploiter for weeks. I know I usually just disappear for 6 months in a row without any explanation. I Thought I'd give you guys a heads up on this one. I promise It won't be months.

As you can see I unpublished all previous posts, except for the defloration. Jeff stays.

I seem to write with the mere purpose of endless correcting, updating, improving, regretting, perfecting and eventually killing it all. I'd make a terrible goddess. Aesthetically inclined, but cruel.

Truth is, I just don't qualify as a blog-type person. I'm too vain.

huvinsa kullakin!:

Suomi jellona:

Ryssille vain kylmää terästä:

oli karkki: Tuosta tonttikaupasta sen verran, ettei kukaan osta mitään, ellei joku myy !!

Karkkipoju ei ole ymmärtänyt, että tässä käydäänkin keskustelua SUOMALAISTEN, ei ryssien Suomi-syönnistä.
Nämä Suomenmyyjät ovat suomalaisia, eivät ryssiä. Eli, ei olisi ostajia, ellei olisi myyjiä.

Hävettää saatanasti olla suomalainen. Jos nimittäin nuo myyjät luetaan suomalaisiksi.

Joo pitäs siinä ryssille myynnissäkin pistää defense namikat kaakkoon.On se kyllä helvetillinen häpeä, että monet ovat kuolleet tämän maan takia ja sotineet vuosia että saisivat ne elukat pysymään rajan takana, niin jotkut rahalla sen antavat ryssille.Vittu mitä maanpettureita josta tulisi tuomita elinkautiseen!!!

Näin kirjoittaa lapsellinen ja kansallismielinen kakara jolla ei ole järjen häivääkään eikä käytöstapoja. Oikein kiihkomielinen reppana! Ja vielä joku antautuu "keskusteluun" tuollaisen kanssa!?

kukahan se lapsellinen moni nicci on.Pistäs paskahousu omalla nimimerkilläsi, jos uskallat!Pitäsköhän myös asiaan ottaa kantaa, eikä mollata keskustelijoita.SE ON LAPSELLISTA KAKARA

- nimimerkki  Suomi jellona, "Kävikö Suomi ERILLIS-SOTAA???", Plaza.fi Ajassa, Keskustelut, 19.8.2007

The concept is an old one, but the phrasing used by Obama is rather new. Many porcine proverbs describe vain attempts at converting something from ugly to pretty, or from useless to useful. The famous maxim that "You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear" dates back at least to the mid-16^th century. Other old sayings play on the ludicrousness of a pig getting dressed up. "A hog in armour is still but a hog" was recorded in 1732 by British physician Thomas Fuller. As Francis Grose later explained in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1796), a "hog in armour" alludes to "an awkward or mean looking man or woman, finely dressed." Charles H. Spurgeon noted another variation in his 1887 compendium of proverbs, The Salt-Cellars: "A hog in a silk waistcoat is still a hog," meaning, "Circumstances do not alter a man's nature, nor even his manners."

The "lipstick" variation is relatively novel—not surprising, since the word lipstick itself dates only to 1880. The incongruity of pigs and cosmetics was expressed as early as 1926 by the colorful editor Charles F. Lummis, writing in the Los Angeles Times: "Most of us know as much of history as a pig does of lipsticks." But the exact wording of "putting lipstick on a pig (or hog)" doesn't show up until much later. In 1985, the Washington Post quoted a San Francisco radio host on plans for renovating Candlestick Park (instead of building a new downtown stadium for the Giants): "That would be like putting lipstick on a pig."

A smear campaign is an intentional, premeditated effort to undermine an individual's or group's reputation, credibility, and character. "Mud slinging", like negative campaigning, most often targets government officials, politicians, political candidates, and other public figures. However, private persons or groups may also become targets of smear campaigns perpetrated in schools, companies, institutions, families, and other social groups.

Smear tactics differ from normal discourse or debate in that they do not bear upon the issues or arguments in question. A smear is a simple attempt to malign a group or an individual and to attempt to undermine their credibility.

Smears often consist of ad hominem attacks in the form of unverifiable rumors and are often distortions, half-truths, or even outright lies; smear campaigns are often propagated by gossip spreading.

Wikipedia

So, making factually-based criticisms of a (Vice) Presidential candidate's knowledge on foreign policy or economics, for instance, is not smearing. These are legitimate issues relevant to the position s/he is running for.

On the other hand, it is smearing to repeatedly claim or insinuate that a particular candidate is a terrorist, a foreign national or a sexist, for example, when there is no evidence to support the claims or the claims have been proven false.

In short, all smears are criticisms, but not all criticisms are smears.

There's really not a lot more to say on the subject; it's really quite that simple. So that's our lesson for today. Class dismissed.

Posted by Lottie -- Copyright © 2008 Rambling On

Beispiel:

Person A: Spenden für Entwicklungshilfeorganisationen sind eine praktikable Möglichkeit, die eigene Ohnmacht angesichts der Ungerechtigkeit dieser Welt zu überwinden und etwas zu tun.

Person B: Spenden sind im besten Fall ein Tropfen auf den heißen Stein, im schlimmsten Fall absolut kontraproduktiv, weil ... (Argumente, Beispiele)

Person A: Es macht überhaupt keinen Sinn, sich mit einem Zyniker über Ideale und Werte unterhalten zu wollen. Nicht jeder ist so schlecht (wie Du).

Für besondere Durchschlagskraft unterstelle man zusätzlich, die Kritik sei persönlich gemeint, um über Beleidigtsein Schuldgefühle evozieren zu können.

Freunde der effizienten Gesprächsführung dampfen die Argumentation zusammen auf "Man soll nicht von sich auf andere schließen" und lächeln dabei freundlich-entwaffnend.

Aiding that smear effort was John Ruberry who posted a series of ad hominems attacking VP candidate Biden over the weekend. Mr. Ruberry is an arch-McCain supporter and conservative wannabe-pundit who sits in on the campaign's national strategy conference calls and was rewarded with credentials to the GOP's Twin Cities convention next week.

To illustrate the point that Mr. Ruberry's attacks (and, by extension, the bulk of the cons' smears) are hollow and petty, let's swap the candidates' names and use one of Mr. Ruberry's own posts as an example of the conservative partisans' pointless bleating....

For months John Ruberry has been mocking the John McCain campaign as the Cult of "Judgment". To him, McCain's "judgment" (aka, "experience") is warmed-over failed conservative dogma from the past 8 years. But after McCain's pick of that full-of-himself So-And-So to be his running mate, it's hard even for McCainiacs to argue that this veep's selection represents "judgment."

McCain's pick is definitely part of the mess of conservative ideology, as people with whom Ruberry agrees have noted in their own posts -- posts that he's simply echoing.

Obviously, that's a parody of Mr. Ruberry's original character assassination of the Obama-Biden ticket.

I suppose the intent of the conservatives' empty attacks like this are to feed the media (and the American public) some hollow fodder in an attempt to boost Sen. Biden's negatives... but the only affect they really have is to smudge over the real debates we need to be having in this country.

Instead of calling Veep picks "full-of-himself" and yelping that pragmatic policies are "warmed over", we ought to be actually discussing what's gone wrong with the conservative ideology we've had in place for the past many years and determine what elements of progressive solutions will likely work for the long-term.

We should even be talking about where we may find reasonable common ground and (gasp) compromise in order to work together and move America toward a better tomorrow as a united, rather than divided, country... If our partisan con friends can get past these childish foot-stompings that is.

But Republican partisans apparently are trying real hard to avoid talking about real issues like finding solutions for our national security, future energy platforms, the economy, strategic redeployment from Iraq and a host of other matters much more pressing than typefaces and colors on a sign.

Are conservative partisans honestly complaining about the Obama-Biden rally signs or have they run out of POW quips in their efforts to avoid calling out the fact they have no workable solutions to the challenges America is facing?

Is this the point where the melancholy McCain drinking game comes into play.... McCain spokesman Brian Rogers today defended the campaign's use of typography on its signs by saying, "John McCain is a guy who only had one typeface for five and a half years — in prison."

Out of respect for the great many veterans who don't rely on their military career like a crutch every time something goes wrong for them I've hesitated til now to really highlight the McCain camp's tendency to issue 'A Noun, A Verb, and "POW"'every time his campaign takes a hit, but partisan conservatives complaining about campaign signs and yet another reference to his own POW status in response to Joe Biden's veep nomination speech yesterday is simply beyond petty and likely explains why nearly half of all Americans think McCain's ads are too negative.

When McCain's partisan supporters, the folks who would support him no matter what simply because he's go that (R) after his name, are squealing about Obama-Biden rally signs and when his campaign responds to just about everything with by noting he's a POW, they do a disservice to the very concept of democracy and all those ideals for which our Founding Fathers and more than two centuries of US military men and women since have fought and made the ultimate sacrifice.

What are they afraid of? Start talking about solutions, McCain supporters. My friends from the red side of the aisle, let's have an honest debate about our nation's future, not a stupid water balloon fight about typefaces.

(h/t Mr. Dizzy from Spinning himself) ;)

It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others.

What's interesting to me here is that this type of attack seems unique to the right, against the left. Or maybe it's that the attack is sort of anachronistic? I'm not quite sure. In any case, I can't imagine such a comment coming out in response to the Swift Boat Vets group that smeared John Kerry's version of the Vietnam war. Sure, they were ridiculed and denounced, but somehow I doubt anyone called them out for playing RPGs. As one commenter on the BoingBoing article that covered this story points out, "this feels almost like a jock running for class president in high school."

Thanks to Sniperbunny for pointing me to this follow up story at BoingBoing.

You are my friend for all seasons

but definitely no reasons.

You are like the winter sun

and so much full of fun.

You are like the monsoon rains

with whom I can be myself without any pains.

You are like the blooming flowers in spring

and you don’t even realize the cheer you bring.

You are the one whom I would trust

when my shadow would turn into dust.

You are the one I would turn to

when I would have no one to look up to.

You are the one who pulls me up when am feeling blue

and now forever I lay all my trust in you.

Believe me you are my most cherished gift

and trust me I would never succumb to life’s any rift.

This is just to tell you that I love you and would always do

no matter where I go and whatever I do.

Very soon I am going to add another column on my blog which would be wholeheartedly dedicated to my experiments with cooking ;) Since the time I have landed in Israel I guess this is all that I have done creative...have designed my own recipes, have modified difficult or fancy ones into simpler ones...in a way have done everything to make cooking as simple as 1-2-3 and thats why my new column would be known as "1-2-3 recipes" :) Though some of them might be a li'l time consuming but then you can always make more of it and store it in the fridge. Then just heat and eat...(again it would seem to be a 1-2-3 thing!!).

I thought of doing it as there are many people like me staying alone who really want to eat good and healthy food but cannot do so as they do not know easy recipes or can't figure out how to use things that are available and end up eating silly stuff in some restaurants or places alike. To tell you frankly I do not enjoy eating in restaurants or cafeteria's at all as am so used to homemade food. :(

Well here most of the things that am using in cooking belong to the category of things which either I had never used or used very rarely. So once am in the kitchen my cooking can be termed as a series of experiments!! But surprisingly they come out good :D

Okay now I gotta get back to my presentation work...would soon start posting the recipes...watch out! 8-)

P.S. Even if you feel those recipes are old or you already know them trust me they would have something new in them ;) and if you cannot find a difference you can ditch that recipe :D

]]> http://bloggernacleburner.wordpress.com/?p=74 Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:23:53 +0000 bloggernacleburner http://bloggernacleburner.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/tu-much-ad-hoominum/ [/caption] ]]> http://disaphorism.wordpress.com/?p=28 Sun, 10 Aug 2008 17:24:34 +0000 disaphorism http://disaphorism.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/guidelines-for-argument/ Please oblige.

1. Don't use clichés.

2. Don't use aphorisms. Don't use maxims. Don't use proverbs. Don't use witticisms. Be original, OK?

3. Don't use the ad hominem. Meaning, don't think that criticizing the person I am is an effective way of negating the ideas I proposed. Attack my ideas.

4. Don't operate under the belief that the pithier your language, the more persuasive it is. In other words, don't use zingers. Don't be snarky. Don't be crass. Don't be callous. Don't be sarcastic. And please don't indulge in schadenfreude. Basically, don't troll.

5. Don't "refute" me by arguing about or asserting something other than what I proposed. If I argue that the sky is red, don't attempt to refute me by saying "cats like to eat string."

6. Don't use jargon. I don't care what a postmodern hermeneutic demagogic reader-response paradigm is. I do know that it obfuscates any real argument you think you're making.

7. Don't make a prestigious fallacy/appeal to authority. Just because you read H.L. Mencken or went skiing with Foucault or graduated from Cambridge or helped Schrödinger place his cat in the box doesn't mean that what you said is right.

8. Everything stated above has been put forth as a means of directing you to my real point: debate and refute my actual ideas. That typically means restating what I said by putting it in quotes. E.g., "Don't use aphorisms." Response: aphorisms aren't inherently wrong. Sometimes they can be appropriate. One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic, along with this empirical evidence I'll present, is a great way of refuting your argument that people are more affected by mass genocide than by the death of a charismatic, attractive young woman. (Of course, the key will be the evidence you present, not so much the aphorism.)

Time magazine reports that McCain's presidential campaign is attempting to discredit Obama by suggesting that he is the Biblical Antichrist. This is, of course, a ridiculous attempt at 'arguing the man' (i.e. slandering character) instead of actually addressing any of the facts. Such slander is antichristian too, by the way, if you observe in scripture how the tongue ought to be used, but this is not the disturbing part.

McCain's campaign against Obama is childish and absurd (well done, Paris Hilton, for highlighting this), but this is expected from politicians who will exploit any angle to win power (yes, Christian American, that's what McCain is doing -- exploiting you. He's trying to convince you that he is the 'Christian' vote, to make you feel guilty for considering voting for the Devil). What is disturbing is that Christians have taken the Antichrist slander seriously! A sizeable group of American actually believe that it is true! Even Hal Lindsey seems to think that his fantastic misinterpretations of scripture in the Left Behind series have now come true.

Could American Christians please start learning how to read and understand their Bibles and cultures for a change? If there are Republicans who have integrity and genuine faith, are you content to allow such blatant dishonesty, slander and manipulation to continue? It's time you stand up and let us in the rest of the world know that Conservative Christianity in the States has not fallen heavily on its head one too many times. It's embarrassing to keep having to make excuses for you.

which whenever was stirred,

made me scared,

and your questions sometimes,

got my answering skills impaired.

But now the water is crystal clear,

and I have got rid of a strange fear,

I would really like you to hear,

That you would be held dear,

always…year after year.

"I dedicate this to my brother Mayank. This is for you bade, a li'l Rakhi gift from me :) Lotsa love...Sis"

The way I like,

the day I was born.

The way I like,

watching movies with popcorn.

The way I like,

drinking cold coffee in winters.

The way I like,

to hate female singers.

The way I like,

to watch a cute animated movie.

The way I like,

good music making me feel groovy.

The way I like,

to detest things that appear hazy.

The way I like,

to laugh like a crazy.

The way I like,

to always bug people.

The way I like,

to quietly read a novel.

The way I like all these,

is the way I like you.

The way I love,

to eat and enjoy food.

The way I love,

to cheer up someone’s mood.

The way I love,

to play in the rain.

The way I love,

to drive myself insane.

The way I love,

to do non-stop fussing.

The way I love,

day and night sleeping.

The way I love,

to be myself as a friend.

The way I love,

to sometimes act like a fiend.

The way I love,

the intoxicating scent of wet soil.

The way I love,

to annoy people who make me boil.

The way I love myself,

is the way I love you.

Ad Hominem - attack the person making the argument rather than the argument, this includes saying the person is a racists therefore, anything that person produces is the result of that. Atheists get accused of this; there unwillingness to believe in a God is more important than their arguments to why they should not believe. Even within this blog I have been accused of being an "atheist" so the things I say are implied to be less relevant still if I was a believer and made the same comments it is sort of suggested that they would be worth more. The arguments are the arguments deal with them rather than who I am. Of course people tend to seek justifications so they can place a comment or article within a larger perspective, this is normal still they should self ban involvement rather than encourage it, after all if you cannot deal with others that don't think like you do then you are simply unable to understand the points that are being raised. There are two fallacies in this area; the first is that of abusive which Pat Condell if he was a weaker man would react to! The death threats or personal attacks force someone into defending themselves rather than discussing the arguments. The second is Circumstantial which is the attack of a position, as I said being an atheist of course I would not understand metaphysical feelings of God; this is often an assumption and allows the argument to be dropped. Overall it is a distraction of the topic!

Circularity - as the name suggests it is just an argument that goes around and around, if you believe something then you already know the reasons to why you believe it, if you don't believe then nothing will be able to convince you that the argument is true. This is what a lot of arguments about the metaphysical are based upon, you have to believe that there is something if you don't then you cannot just understand it so the implication is that you have to assume that it is true before it can be justifiable. This could include believing in something and then seeing the arrangement of life in accordance within that belief, in other words using evidence to support your conclusion rather than the correct way in looking at the evidence and then coming to a decision. The original argument is the purpose of any further argument for example; the bible is God's word therefore God is real, the notion of God's Word is required in order to show the God is real. God is required to be real in order for the bible to then be God's word; this does not say or add anything. Likewise saying we do something since it makes us lucky is often based on this type of logic, a lucky rabbits foot is a useful thing since it brings me luck, is all based on the first assumption in the first part of the sentence of ‘lucky rabbits foot'. I have also heard that Reiki will only work if you give it a chance, this is a notion that should always be rejected, it only assumes that it will work if you have belief in it. We should always reject this if Reiki works then it will work regardless of the level of belief that is invested into it

Correlation not causation - my favourite saying is that religion is not born from poverty, it simply benefits from it. They are found together still it cannot be said that either one causes the other. Let's go one further and argue that religion causes good things to happen; they might be found together in some cases still this does not promote the goodness of religion. If it is a causational relationship then religious people should only be the ones that commit good actions, this is not the case plus religion can cause really negative acts as well. People sometimes commit good acts while others sometimes commit bad acts, this is a far more honest statement. There might be many reasons behind good acts and to simply assume religion is the cause is to ignore a great deal of other factors. It is like saying the more music I listen to the more cavities I get in my teeth, since the older I get the more my teeth get damaged although it is also true the older I get the more music I have listened to, the two have nothing to do with each other. Likewise when people say they have had a metaphysical experience when they walk into a cathedral it does not necessarily have anything to do with the cathedral being a religious place. The authoritative aspect, the size, the colour, the music, the smell and many other factors could set off a reaction inside your head which you think has to do with God but to assume that it is, even if you strongly believe it so, does not add weight to those feelings.

Generalisations - we take the small cases and apply them to the whole situation, this is something that I am at times guilty of. It differs in some situations, still normally when the particular cases are somehow very different to the normal process. Someone pointed out to me that I was using a small number of occasions where Islam mistreated women causing me the formation of opinion and I have to reject their arguments on this one. What I always am referring to is the scope of things that is allowed for under a set of believes still I use statistics to show the general trend of things. Of course it is always wrong of anyone to say Islam is bad because something happened, that was not my point rather it was to show that the core belief is different from my own and perhaps under the banner of human rights certain things are wrong. It does bring us to the question though of how to deal with religious people since they are meant to believe the same things but often don't. Still generalisations are conclusions only based on a small number of cases so if you can include a larger base then you will never be guilty of this although it is sometimes justifiable to look at small numbers.

Straw Man - is a misrepresentation of a position in order to reject it, although it leaves the position alone and does not address the necessary issues. The misrepresentation does that, it shows the real situation in a different light and thus ignores the original factors or effects the caused the situation in the first place. This differs from Ad Hominem since rather than attacking the person making a statement, the statement is taken out of context or further along than it was meant to. Conclusions are made from the first statement to which nothing ever referred to them and then these conclusions are rejected on perhaps better grounds than could be achieved on the first statement. The line of reasoning would first start off with a particular statement about Jesus being able to forgive your sins then making further reasoning on the matter by saying it does not matter what you do since Jesus will forgive your sins anyway. It is a lot easier to see why we should reject Christianity based on the further reasoning even though the original statement never said this.

These are just a few of the ones that I liked still there are many more, watch out for them since we are all guilty of making logical errors.

A little more on this matter...

The amazing atheist did a video about this and he goes through a lot of other logical fallacies in his usual manner. It is interesting to watch...

And people might just leave you comments, as well. Either on your blog, or in your inbox, or on the same blog where you commented. And, invariably, their attacks are ad hominem. Or, in my case, more like ad feminam.

An ad hominem attack is one which, instead of addressing the issue, either appeals to your prejudices and emotions, OR, as is more common, attacks the person rather than the logic of the argument. Having recently been the target of such attacks (albeit in to a miniscule degree, let's be honest-it's not like my readership is global or anything), I wonder that people find that these attacks are effective. And, at the same time, I wonder why we are so affected by them.

We like to say that the comments of others don't hurt, or that we "don't care what people think", and yet this medium of blogging is such a judgement-bound one. We do want to know what others think. Why do we blog in the first place? We want to know that our choices are good, that our writing is inpiring, that the things that impact us also are impactful to others. We want to connect. So we do, to some extent, invite these attacks.

That doesn't make the rhetoric any more valid.

So here's my thought- how about we start using our brains and logic to respond to people, rather than emotional knee-jerk reactions which make us feel better for a few minutes, but create an environment of hurt rather than thoughtful discourse?

My rant for the day. Inspired? (Insert ad hominem here).

Mengapa Ad Hominem ?

Oktober 26, 2007 oleh goldfriend

Ditulis dalam Education, Personal | yang berkaitan Current Affairs, Personal | & Komentar

sumber : http://fertobhades.wordpress.com/2007/10/26/mengapa-ad-hominem/

Finally thought of writing my second page but this page itself doesn't contain any information about the nutrition labels ;)

My next post is about Nutrition Labels and its going to be a real long one so I decided to divide it in to three parts to make it easy for you guys to read and comprehend. Long posts usually remind us of class notes :D

Hence this page should be treated like an index for posts' on 'Nutrition Labels'. The three parts would be:-

• What are Nutrition Labels?
• Why they hold importance or why they should be given importance?
• How to understand what the labels say?

I would try to provide as much information I can but even then an equal amount or more of it would remain but for the beginners this is the best approach as these labels can be really mind-boggling.

So watch out for the upcoming posts :)

See ya...

and most painful feeling.

Hot n dry desert waits

year after year,

to feel the pleasure

of a drop of water.

A family doesn't stop waiting

for their son,

who went missing

in the war.

A mother waits for

nine months,

to know the joy

her child's touch would bring.

People separated in love spend

their whole life,

hoping to see the other,

before their lives end.

Waiting is the sweetest,

and most painful feeling.

I'm the desert.

I'm the mother.

I'm the family.

I'm the separated lover.

Living with an eternal hope of meeting

I'm everyone,

feeling the sweetest and most painful feeling.

Yes...waiting is the sweetest

and most painful feeling.