Curt Doolittle

Form: Quote Commentary

  • OF ENDEMIC CORRUPTION IN KIEV: “PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR” I lived in a very nice sma

    http://24tv.ua/home/showSingleNews.do?turchynov_dismisses_presidential_advisors&objectId=413772&lang=enEXAMPLE OF ENDEMIC CORRUPTION IN KIEV: “PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR”

    I lived in a very nice small hotel in downtown for a long time. And in the morning I’d go down for breakfast and sit on the veranda overlooking the street.

    One of the frequent characters was a fellow who always seemed to meet foreigners and talk to them about doing business in Ukraine.

    Eventually we moved mutual recognition, then to morning smiles, and I finally introduced myself. We spoke briefly. .He gave me his card. He was an “Advisor to the President”. Which seemed strange to me because he looked far more like a carpet salesman than anyone with deep knowledge of any kind of civil affairs.

    Over time I gathered enough information by ‘accidental’ listening, to understand that he was a gatekeeper for foreign businesses in Ukraine. If you want to start a business, obtain credit, film a movie, or gain access to television and media, you could pay ‘fees’ for the his ‘service’.

    His service involved collecting bribes on behalf of the president in exchange for ‘assistance’ in accomplishing your goals.

    I haven’t seen him lately. I don’t remember his name. But I’m pretty sure that the list of ‘advisors’ is a lot longer than the official one.

    Today, the parliament dismissed an whole list of ‘advisors’.

    Story below.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-25 14:40:00 UTC

  • RATIONALISM AND THE APRIOR AS FAILURES IN CONTRAST TO NATURAL SCIENCE – ALWAYS A

    RATIONALISM AND THE APRIOR AS FAILURES IN CONTRAST TO NATURAL SCIENCE – ALWAYS AND FOREVER WILL BE

    –“Newton’s work stands as the great exemplar of the accomplishments of natural science for the eighteenth century, the most salient contrast between Newton’s work and that of the great rationalist systems lies in their methods.”

    “Whereas the great rationalist philosophers of the seventeenth century conceive of scientific knowledge of nature as consisting in a system in which statements expressing the observable phenomena of nature are deduced from first principles, known a priori, Newton’s method begins with the observed phenomena of nature and reduces its multiplicity to unity by induction, that is, by finding mathematical laws or principles from which the observed phenomena can be derived or explained.”

    **”The contrast between the great success of Newton’s “bottom-up” procedure and the seemingly endless and fruitless conflicts among philosophers regarding the meaning and validity of first principles of reason naturally favors the rise of the Newtonian (or Baconian) method of acquiring knowledge of nature in the eighteenth century.”**–

    From SEP : By Mark Alznauer, Margaret Atherton, Kyla Ebels-Duggan, Alan Nelson, Julius Sensat and Rachel Zuckert provided helpful comments on an earlier draft, which lead to substantial revisions.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-25 09:28:00 UTC

  • YES. BUT WHAT IF OUR CONCEPT OF ‘CHURCH’ CHANGES? –“We have seen that a univers

    YES. BUT WHAT IF OUR CONCEPT OF ‘CHURCH’ CHANGES?

    –“We have seen that a universal church is apt to come to birth during a Time of Troubles following the breakdown of a civilization and to unfold itself within the political framework of the ensuing universal state. We have seen also… that the principal beneficiaries of the institutions maintained by universal states have been universal churches; and it is therefore not surprising that the champions of a universal state, whose fortunes are on the wane, should dislike the spectacle of a universal church growing within its bosom. The church is therefore likely to be regarded… as a social cancer responsible for the decline in the state.”– A J Toynbee

    Property

    Militia

    Chivalry

    Common Law

    Banking and Finance

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-25 05:56:00 UTC

  • CONSERVATIVES SUCCEED WHERE LIBERTARIANS ALWAYS FAIL. –“for the foreseeable fut

    CONSERVATIVES SUCCEED WHERE LIBERTARIANS ALWAYS FAIL.

    –“for the foreseeable future, the Deep State must restrain its appetite for taxpayer dollars. Limited deals may soften sequestration, but agency requests will not likely be fully funded anytime soon. Even Wall Street’s rentier operations have been affected: After helping finance the tea party to advance its own plutocratic ambitions, America’s Big Money is now regretting the Frankenstein’s monster it has created. Like children playing with dynamite, the tea party and its compulsion to drive the nation into credit default has alarmed the grown-ups commanding the heights of capital; the latter are now telling the politicians they thought they had hired to knock it off.”–

    Well. Bill Moyers might not realize that some of us, people like me, started working the strategy of driving the state into credit default in 1980. It just took a while.

    That said, conservatives understand power. That all human organization requires power – decision makers. Deciders. Whether monopoly or distributed.

    For liberty to persist, those who desire it must use DISTRIBUTED POWER. We must CONSTANTLY pay the price of liberty. We cannot obtain it at a discount.

    Power is expensive. Liberty is difficult to price because it is so expensive.

    You can’t get liberty at a discount by claiming ‘it’s a right’.

    That kind of nonsense is for children.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-25 00:28:00 UTC

  • STATE IN ACTION – MURDER WHOLESALE In case the media (or the Russian government)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RmDqqZZceX0THE STATE IN ACTION – MURDER WHOLESALE

    In case the media (or the Russian government) suggest that the government troops were defending themselves, watch them murder men from a distance who are pinned down on the ground. Watch real men fighting for their liberty, not for a share of someone else’s money.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-25 00:10:00 UTC

  • PLEASE IGNORE THE TINFOIL HATS IN FRONT OF THE UNION JACK I live in downtown Kie

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-uprising-we-can-break-protesters-legs-no-one-will-punish-us-the-law-is-on-our-side-9147903.html?loadcomments=true#7f9da0e79d38436da5ea885464fd05b0NONSENSE – PLEASE IGNORE THE TINFOIL HATS IN FRONT OF THE UNION JACK

    I live in downtown Kiev. In the old city (Podol) There is no chaos here. I’ve been up in Maidan at the stage and it’s basically a cross between a keg party and a church ceremony now.

    We couldn’t get western attention here for months, and then all of a sudden we lose a lot of people in one day, the media finds bread and circus for the peasantry, and the average western clown is an expert on events here.

    Russians (and Ukrainians – prior to 1900 known as the Rusyas ), have a bravado bit of nonsense on the scale of Southern Italians. And western news media, always looking to make viewers feel morally and intellectually superior, take advantage of it.

    When realistically, compare Kiev to Venezuela, and look at the body language of the protesters alone. These are gentle people tired of corruption. They just want freedom from an oppressive state.

    Unless Russia walks into Donetsk with tanks, all will be boring and fine here.

    They’ve asked for Volunteers to clean up the main square starting on March 1st and I’m sure we’ll all chip in and take care of it. And it will be a CIVIC PEOPLE who CARE ABOUT THEIR CULTURE, and who don’t expect the government to do anything to help, that will make it happen.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-24 12:45:00 UTC

  • INFANTILIZED AND OBSOLESCENT “My biggest criticism of the American public educat

    INFANTILIZED AND OBSOLESCENT

    “My biggest criticism of the American public education system is it’s a 13-year preparation for industrial jobs that disappeared 20 years ago. An American 18 year old is neither educated nor trained. Most go on to another four years of a university where the primary focus is extending adolescence.” — Eric Field

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-24 10:03:00 UTC

  • JOBS ARE LIKE THIS You will never find a ‘good corporate job’ like your parents

    http://www.returnofkings.com/28771/youll-never-find-a-good-corporate-job-like-your-parents-didALL JOBS ARE LIKE THIS

    You will never find a ‘good corporate job’ like your parents did.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-24 10:03:00 UTC

  • moral victory of the hard men of the Ukrainian opposition in Kiev in trampling o

    http://isteve.blogspot.com/2014/02/what-it-takes.html?spref=fb–“The moral victory of the hard men of the Ukrainian opposition in Kiev in trampling on the most recent European-negotiated compromise solution and successfully driving the elected President out of the capital comes not just from dying bravely, but from winning. “–

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-23 12:55:00 UTC

  • Oborne: “…the House of Commons cannot be relied on to defend traditional Engli

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10191978/These-hereditary-peers-put-our-MPs-to-shame.html?fbPeter Oborne: “…the House of Commons cannot be relied on to defend traditional English liberties or the British way of life. Again and again, the nation has found itself relying on the good sense and sound instincts of the House of Lords, in particular the hereditary element. “

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-23 09:10:00 UTC