Angela Merkel May Wear Hijab Soon

Germany's dictator Angela Merkel, if taken seriously, has decided to let prosecutors throw the book of puns at a comedian who mocked and ridiculed a foreign politician. The politician is the leader of Turkey. Turks are serious as heart attacks and want to be taken seriously after being Germany's ally in the First World War and being the legacy holder of the Ottoman empire that was the right flank of the invade and occupy Europe by Islam movement of the 7th to 21st centuries.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/04/15/merkel-allows-prosecution-of-german-comedian-who-mocked-turkish-president/

Though Adolph Hitler and the Nazi legacy is the proximal reason for censorship in order that they don't say racist or Supermenish sorts of things when the stock of BMW's rises, ridiculing politicians is an essential part of modern politics. Politicians are turkeys preponderantly at the federal level at least. Creating corporatist dictatorship globally proceeds with the media owned by the 1% and of course comedians put down.

Kolob Star System Loyalists Still Consider Russia a Foe

Mormons still regard Russia as a top foe of the U.S.A. for denying the proselytization of Mormonism's extra-solar system teachings of their particular cult. I don't know that I personally would support a war with Russia to open the door for conversions to the planet and star system of Kolob where the martinets of Salt Lake plan their special ops. yet I might consider it if I got drunk sometimes.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865652264/In-our-opinion-Mitt-Romney-was-right-about-Russia-as-a-top-US-foe.html?pg=all

The Past Tense and Present Infinitive of Czech Republic is 'Czach'

The Czech Republic is about to make a grave name change error of using Checia as its slang nomenclature. I can tell them that the right infinitive abbreviation is Czach; for free.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/15/474337369/-my-friends-call-me-czechia-czech-republic-aims-to-rebrand-with-shorter-name

Political Liquidation at Cahokia of Former Chief's Family

The ancient American aboriginal; mega-city of Cahokia in the St. Louis area has evidence of mass execution of men and women-apparently friends and relatives of a deposed Chief that has been the subject of research for decades.

Cahokia suddenly disappeared in the 1600's I recall, before the Rams moved there and left for L.A. later. Modern Americans are not as enlightened as the ancients in some ways. With good draft choices the Rams could have won another Super Bowl at St. Louis.

http://westerndigs.org/victims-of-human-sacrifice-at-cahokia-were-locals-not-captives-study-finds/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mound_72

Ancient peoples often killed off the family of the former chief to prevent possible efforts to return the family to the job of chief, king etc. That practice was also not unknown in Western royal lines. There may be lessons that voters in the 2016 Presidential election can take from that.

Rather than clubbing, strangling or poisoning the families of former Presidents, Americans can kill off a former chief's relatives at the polls casting a vote for anyone besides. Of course prospects for political patronage and kickbacks always stims a percent of loyalists to suck up to the next candidate from the former chief's clan.

Kasparov News; He'll Play Match With U.S. Chess Championship Top 3

Former world champion Garry Kasparov will play a round-robin blitz chess match against the top three finishers in the U.S. chess championship tournament in progress it was reported during today's coverage...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8qQt_z-tTo round 1 U.S. Chess championship

There are several super-GMs playing for the 2016 title including three top ten rated players (in the world) with Nakamura, So and Caruana being amidst the aforementioned.

Migs Zip Around Baltic Sea Over U.S. Ships

For some reason this news does not seem like news of much interest. If the Migs were buzzing ships near Boston that would be news. Without bullets in the aircraft or anti-ship missiles it seems, well, a little war gamish. Our boat was probably practicing hypothetical missile shots and solutions at Petersburg and Moscow-who knows?

I recall riding a boat from Denmark to Sweden long ago when some NATO jets buzzed over very low. I get the impression that is how people in the military ordinarily fly around the Baltic instead of way up high where they are presumably easier targets.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russian-flyby-uss-donald-cook-baltic-sea-alarms-experts-n555921

In the good old days when thrillers were written with Marines landing at Leningrad-Petersburg and nukes went off making the ground snap from blast wave at a distance like a towel breaking legs this sort of incident would hardly have merited notice. Politicians and the 1% media must be desperate for some cold war news.

Drones of the near future will be much larger problems for ships-especially those that can hover on-station over the water yet fly at Mach3.

Majority Views Nepotism and Leverage as Fundamental Qualifiers for President

Apparently Americans view nepotism and insider leverage as essential qualifications for a President. That is, the Washington Post discovered that a majority regard Hillary Clinton as the sole candidate qualified to be President.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/04/14/hillary-clinton-is-the-only-candidate-who-a-majority-of-americans-say-is-qualified-to-be-president/

U.S. Labor Participation Rate Lower Than in 1978

The U.S. labor participation rate has dropped to just 59%. Compare that to the low rate of 62% in 1978. In 2015 when Bloomberg published the article below the U.S. labor participation rate was 62%. According to government labor statistics the participation rate has dropped since. Without good jobs people are retiring, going on disability and/or signing up for federal means tested work programs.


In some respects the U.S. is evolving non-profit status except for the upper 5% or even 1%.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-05-02/workforce-participation-at-36-year-low-even-as-more-jobs-beckon

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/92594000-americans-not-labor-force-hits-all-time-record-participation

http://prospect.org/article/40-year-slump

The employment-population is at or near a 40-year low while government debt is up.

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000 emplopyment-population ratio 2006-2016

The Nature of Rationalism Today

Socrates addressed matters of belief, true opinion etc. Knowledge isn't infallible. Wittgenstein wrote a book titled; 'On Certainty'. One might be able to qualify almost any statement epistemologically speaking as conditional except for tautology probably. Some like to morph and equivocate belief with faith and that subjective intentional self-aware opinion with extensional opinions about God; who is transcendent of physics and being.

Someone who hasn't faith brought up a couple of points of interest to me. I'm a Christian however so  I view the points philosophically concerning the nature of rationalism. I want to address a point first about free expression. Censorship of free speech is a result of concentrated power and statism generally. The left and atheists are the worst offenders since communist governments took over. Yet the right in Nazi Germany and Imperialist powers also censor. Even modern corporatism can censor as well as capitalism. If one's product is regarded as a rival opinion influencing consumer selections and a power has the ability to finesse it out of existence it often will. That's human nature; original sin if you like.

Renes Descartes perhaps was the founder of that epistemologically speaking in modern terms, although Plato's allegory of the cave and Bishop Berkeley's Three Dialogues obviously were earlier 'products. Then one gets on to Sartre, existentialism, Heidegger and Husserl in phenomenology and the modern problem of epistemological relativism or what might also be called; realism. Plainly though what most naive people-non-philosophers-mean by rationalism is empiricism and mathematics, astronomy and so forth.

Modern rationalism denies the objective existence of reality and particle physics in a sense seems to confirm that. At the least one can say that the evident universe of the senses is a quantum flip up of particles or force without an ultimate original ground in-itself. If one takes Kurt Godel's incompleteness principles for an illustrative paradigm where a set of all sets including itself cannot exist, the first cause of the Universe cannot be attributed to a force or original particle. The Bible solves that with the word of God spiritually speaking the first things into being.

Atheists have the implicit problem of rationally finding no source in-the-Universe for moral authority. Some people can make one up just as communists and capitalists can invent their own value theories (and there are many more possible some of which haven't yet been invented). Nietzsche's 'Beyond Good and Evil', an inspiration to the Nazis, personifies the existential problem of morality. In his companion book 'Just Spake Zarathustra' a philosopher-hermit lives on a hill overlooking a village where he abuses the villager's traditional morality. He thinks that superman beyond good and evil should run the world. Nietzsche also believed in eternal recurrence of cosmology and the world and though this life recurs infinitely therefore it's best to be a wise-guy and take advantage of all the rubes.

Chris Matthews' Leg Tingling; A Reliable Election Predictor?

MSNBC star Chris Matthews said he got a 'tingling sensation' in his leg about Barrack Obama in the 2008 election cycle. Has he had any sort of similar feeling about Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders or Hillary? If so I suggest he double-down on Christian protestant reformation era authors such as Thomas Brooks and look to salvation and eternal life concerns more.

For those troubled by the modern problem of science viewed as in conflict with Christianity my book (available free for download) is a useful remedy... http://www.lulu.com/shop/garrison-clifford-gibson/god-cosmology-and-nothingness-theory-and-theology-in-a-scientific-era/ebook/product-22635083.html