Why? WHY?

Robots will kill us all.


This is obvious. It has been demonstrated time and again. Metropolis. The Day the Earth Stood Still. Forbidden Planet. Terminator. Battlestar Galactica. I, Robot (the movie). Westworld. Short Circuit. Just to mention film.


But seriously, a "battlefield robot snake"? From the Israeli Military? Was "battlefield robot spider" not feasible or scary enough?


Really, the point at which you're making anything with a name that begins "battlefield robot", it's time to take a good, hard look at what exactly you think you're doing.


I mean, LOOK at this thing.

Good Lord, why???

update: Fox News has a video. Click here.

Do not adjust your computer screen.

You'll see a lot of changes on the blog in the upcoming period, be they template, picture, or whatever.

I'm trying to figure out what I want, how I want it, etc. I've never blogged before, so the learning curve is steep.

The best way to imagine it is the following analogy. Suppose there's a man who loves reading books, and reads books all the time. One day he says, "You know what, I'll write a book!" And he does. And he lives happily ever after.

But suppose that another man, in addition to writing his masterpiece and forging in the smithy of his soul the uncreated conscience of his race, suppose this man has to make that book. Like, physically. Like, he has to make the paper, forge a printing press, harvest (see? I don't even know the word to use) ink, tan hide for a leather cover, and bind it all up

I am that second man, and right now, I am in the forest, desperately trying to mash a log into pulp. Paper comes from pulp.

This much I know.

Wish me luck, and soon I will regale one and all with tales of the ink harvest and the battles against the mighty squids from whence it comes.

Best. Comeback. EVER.

It's old news by now, in internet terms, but it's still hilarious.

From The Bulletin newspaper, article by David Bedein.

"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has issued an unprecedented statement clarifying President Barack Obama’s demands for Israel to stop expanding Jewish communities in areas it acquired following the 1967 Six-Day War, including Jerusalem.The statement, issued Wednesday, applies to the area known in Israel by their Biblical names, Judea and Samaria, and as the West Bank by the international community.There are now 128 Jewish communities in these areas, with a population of almost 300,000 Jews.Mrs. Clinton explained President Obama demands that there should be no expansion in these communities for the purpose of “natural growth.”
That would include an American demand to stop construction of kindergartens, schools and housing for young couples. “West Bank maps” issued by the United Nations also include 18 Jewish neighborhoods inside the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, in areas inside the city that Israel formally annexed after the 1967 war.One of the Jerusalem neighborhoods resettled by Jews after the 1967 war is the Old City of Jerusalem, which hosts the Temple Mount, the holiest place in the world to the Jewish people....

Israeli Government Press Director Daniel Seamen reacted to this Obama administration statement by saying: “I have to admire the residents of Iroquois territory for assuming that they have a right to determine where Jews should live in Jerusalem.”"

Bwhahahahaha!

No wonder all comedians are Jewish. Hi-freaking-larious.



Also, here's some blasts from the past, showing why Jews in government have always had the last laugh. From the admirable Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the UK under Victoria:



Mr. Kremlin himself was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.

The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity.

The very phrase 'foreign affairs' makes an Englishman convinced that I am about to treat of subjects with which he has no concern.

He was one of those men who think that the world can be saved by writing a pamphlet.

The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps.

And, drumroll...

When Daniel O'Connell, attacked Disraeli in the House of Commons, referring to his Jewish heritage, Disraeli replied "Yes, I am a Jew. And when the ancestors of the right honorable gentlemen were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon."



RIGHT IN THE KISSER!

Piscatores?

Why “piscatores”? Briefly, I was reading the book God of Jesus Christ by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, and he quoted an early bishop as saying that he and his brother bishops tried to act as “piscatorie et non Aristotelice,” translated as “fishermen and not philosophers.”
This quote struck me as particularly apt for the title of my blog. Having studied philosophy and being partial to it, I have to remind myself that the Faith is greater than the merely philosophical. Naming my blog Piscatores seemed to be a way to keep myself on the straight and narrow, a useful corrective to my natural tendency.

Why plural? Well, that’s where you come in.


Oh, and if someone cites this to me in a comment on something philosophical I’ve posted, I will hunt him down and end him. I brook no insubordination!





More info, for those so inclined:

Here’s the passage that struck me in the book.

…After the Council of Chalcedon (451), Emperor Leo I asked the bishops what they thought of the decisions taken by this assembly. Thirty-four replies, bearing the signatures of about 280 bishops or monks, have survived in the so-called Codex Encyclius. One of the bishops whose words are recorded sums up the spirit of the entire document when he says that the bishops sought to answer “piscatorie et non Aristotelice”, like fishermen, not like philosophers. These words could just as well have been said by one of the conciliar fathers at Nicea, since they perfectly describe the attitude that inspired the bishops in their fight against the temptations of Arianism. They were not interested in the questions of scholars, twisting around in an ever more refined subtlety. They were interested in the simple point that got lost to view behind such questions: they were interested in the simple basic questions of simple people. The panorama of academic reflection is in continual flux, but these basic questions have an enduring character, since the fundamental structure of human relatedness, the simple center of man’s existence, is always the same. The nearer our questions come to this center, the more they lie in the very heart of what it is to be a man, and the simpler they are, the less it is possible to declare them obsolete.
“Piscatorie, non Aristotelice”: Must we not then ask who this Jesus really was?...

“Who was Jesus?” is a “fisherman’s question”, not a problem of philosophical ontology alien to us today. …
It is only if Jesus was God, only if God became man in him, that something actually took place in him….
Precisely this Being is the tremendous event on which everything depends….

----Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), The God of Jesus Christ




Additionally, it seems that St. Ambrose said it first, and it became something of a saying.



Not philosophers but fishermen, not masters of dialectic but tax-gatherers, now find credence.
---- St. Ambrose

Is This the Blog for You?

Welcome all.

As we know, the number of blogs grows by the billions every day. With so many choices, the issue is clear: is this the blog for you?

To answer that question, I have created the following quiz.


Quiz

1. Which of the following best represents your sense of humor?

a. “Hegel makes Kant look like beach reading,” said with a light chuckle and a knowing smirk.
b. POOP!
c. “Hegel makes Kant look like beach reading. POOP on you, Hegel!”


2. The 2nd amendment:

a. Codifies an individual right to bear arms.
b. Codifies an individual right to bear arms, and if the situation requires, to arm bears.
c. Codifies an individual right to bear bazookas, tanks, and tactical nuclear weapons.



3. Do you agree with the following syllogism?

i. The three greatest endeavors of man are philosophy, theology, and poetry.
ii. Baseball is poetry in motion.
iii. A being in motion is the same being as that being without reference to motion or rest.
iv. Therefore, the three greatest endeavors of man are philosophy, theology, and baseball.

a. Yes.
b. Certainly.
c. HELL YES.


4. Marxism is wrong because:

a. It assumes and requires a radical change in human nature, referred to by Marx as the “species-being of man”.
b. It doesn’t work.
c. Karl Marx looks like a deranged koala.






5. Faith and reason:

a. Are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.
b. Is an awesome band name.
c. Go together like a horse and carriage.


6. Sleep is notable because:

a. It is for the weak.
b. It knits up the raveled sleeve of care.
c. It allows you to play tricks on your friends.


7. What is the correct way to read a book in public?

a. While smoking a cigarette and looking intense.
b. Hunched over the book. You’re so enthralled and intellectual!
c. Holding the book upright, so others can see what you’re reading. Bonus points for Loeb’s. Ultimate points for Oxford Classical Texts.


8. Why should you always carry a lighter?

a. To open your beer.
b. Because pretty ladies don’t light their own cigarettes.
c. Cherry bombs don’t light themselves.




9. Sports teach us that:

a. Whenever you are not practicing there is someone who is, and when you meet him he will beat you.
b. Second place is the first loser.
c. Materialism is a crock.


10. The most beautiful phrase in the English language is:

a. There's some beer left.
b. Cellar door.
c. Play ball!


If you answered a, b, or c to any of the above questions, this is the blog for you.

Onward and upward! Excelsior!