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Guess Who Will Eat Well In Venezuela?

Venezuela army deployed to control food production and distribution

"In a decree, President Nicolas Maduro has ordered the army to monitor food processing plants, and co-ordinate the production and distribution of items.

Venezuela is going through a deep economic crisis despite having the world's largest oil reserves.

Basic products are increasingly hard to find and many say they struggle to feed their families.

The Venezuelan Bishops Conference said the rise of the military is a "threat to tranquillity and peace".

Mr Maduro says the measure is to fight the "economic war" he claims is being waged against his government by political foes and businessmen, with US backing.

But the opposition says the government has mismanaged the economy, and has called for a referendum to oust the president."

Giuliani: Like It Is.

Giuliani leaves Dickerson in the dust, whining.



Maybe I'll vote for Rudy...

UPDATE:
Here's ol' Al Sharpton on the subject of shooting police officers:

SHARPTON: Offing the Pigs

Quote of the Week

"Many of the hundreds of rioters who closed down Highway 94 were evidently willing to be murderers, as their concrete blocks and rebar could easily have killed one or more policemen. In truth, on the Left there is not a sharp division between the violent and the non-violent, but rather a continuum that runs from demonstrators to protesters to rioters to looters to rock throwers to arsonists to killers. There is no such thing as a political Left without violence.

Rest assured that we will see plenty more violence before the Black Lives Matter movement has served its political purpose and is put to rest."
John Hinderaker, Powerline
[emphasis added]

Another Settled Science Self-Refutes

Scientists who found gluten sensitivity evidence have now shown it doesn't exist

The scientific method in action.
JENNIFER WELSH, BUSINESS INSIDER
19 AUG 2015

In one of the best examples of science working, a researcher who provided key evidence of (non-celiac disease) gluten sensitivity recently published follow-up papers that show the opposite.

The paper came out last year in the journal Gastroenterology. Here’s the backstory that makes us cheer: The study was a follow up on a 2011 experiment in the lab of Peter Gibson at Monash University in Australia. The scientifically sound - but small - study found that gluten-containing diets can cause gastrointestinal distress in people without celiac disease, a well-known autoimmune disorder triggered by gluten. They called this non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

Gluten is a protein composite found in wheat, barley, and other grains. It gives bread its chewiness and is often used as a meat substitute: If you’ve ever had 'wheat meat', seitan, or mock duck at a Thai restaurant, that’s gluten.

Gluten is a big industry: 30 percent of people want to eat less gluten. Sales of gluten-free products are estimated to hit $US15 billion by 2016.

Although experts estimate that only 1 percent of Americans - about 3 million people - actually suffer from celiac disease, 18 percent of adults now buy gluten-free foods.

Since gluten is a protein found in any normal diet, Gibson was unsatisfied with his finding. He wanted to find out why the gluten seemed to be causing this reaction and if there could be something else going on. He therefore went to a scientifically rigorous extreme for his next experiment, a level not usually expected in nutrition studies.

For a follow-up paper, 37 self-identified gluten-sensitive patients were tested. According to Real Clear Science’s Newton Blog, here’s how the experiment went:

Subjects would be provided with every single meal for the duration of the trial. Any and all potential dietary triggers for gastrointestinal symptoms would be removed, including lactose (from milk products), certain preservatives like benzoates, propionate, sulfites, and nitrites, and fermentable, poorly absorbed short-chain carbohydrates, also known as FODMAPs. And last, but not least, nine days worth of urine and faecal matter would be collected. With this new study, Gibson wasn’t messing around.

The subjects cycled through high-gluten, low-gluten, and no-gluten (placebo) diets, without knowing which diet plan they were on at any given time. In the end, all of the treatment diets - even the placebo diet - caused pain, bloating, nausea, and gas to a similar degree. It didn’t matter if the diet contained gluten. (Read more about the study.)

"In contrast to our first study… we could find absolutely no specific response to gluten," Gibson wrote in the paper. A third, larger study published this month has confirmed the findings.

It seems to be a 'nocebo' effect - the self-diagnosed gluten sensitive patients expected to feel worse on the study diets, so they did. They were also likely more attentive to their intestinal distress, since they had to monitor it for the study.

On top of that, these other potential dietary triggers - specifically the FODMAPS - could be causing what people have wrongly interpreted as gluten sensitivity. FODMAPS are frequently found in the same foods as gluten. That still doesn’t explain why people in the study negatively reacted to diets that were free of all dietary triggers.

You can go ahead and smell your bread and eat it too. Science. It works.

This article was originally published by Business Insider.

Another Response to Weekend Fisher, on the Physical Mind

This is my response to WF’s post in our discussion progression.

Today I’ll take the concepts serially as they are written by WF.

First up:

” If a flea hops, there's nothing in the four forces that made it hop, so there's something more going on than the four forces -- but there may not be anything more going on than instinct. (Another working definition: let 'instinct' be the motives and reactions that are hardwired into a living thing.)”

Instinct is not a force. If you are to prove that mind is a physical entity, then you must use the knowledge of physics. Claiming “biology” is not a valid claim for evading the principles of physics. Your attempt to maneuver that sort of evasion into an all new definition of an old word is the standard fallacy of Equivocation.

Instinct:

Full Definition of instinct
1. 1 : a natural or inherent aptitude, impulse, or capacity
2. 2 a : a largely inheritable and unalterable tendency of an organism to make a complex and specific response to environmental stimuli without involving reason b : behavior that is mediated by reactions below the conscious level

If you actually believe that this is the definition of a force, then how is it measured in pounds? What is the acting agent causal for the force? What is the entity which is acted upon by the force? How much energy is expended? What sort of parasitic entropic counter forces exist?

Instinct is not a physical force. It is a programmed inclination (logic decision) which implements actual physical forces when certain circumstances are encountered as inputs to the system. Here are the actual workings of a flea’s hopping muscles: A flea hops because of the stimulation of muscles by electromagnetic (electrochemical) neural signals which a) contract the femur to the coxa using the trochanter levator muscle, and b) simultaneously store energy in the tightened trochanteral depressor muscle. The trochanter depressor muscle is stretched “like the bow string on a crossbow”, and is set in place by a trigger mechanism on the femur extension, the lever which is called the trochanter. When a neural signal is received by the lateral trochanter depressor muscle, the trigger is released and the energy in the trochanter depressor muscle is released in less than 1mS, causing the trochanter lever to be raised and the femur to be extended with rapidity and much energy. The flea has hopped.

There is no reason to define a force outside of those identified by the discipline of physics for the operation of biological functions. In fact, that seems to go directly against your posit that “mind is purely physical”, presumably meaning that it obeys the laws of physics.

What I have observed in the literature on cells and molecular biology is the existence of forces which are physical, but are privileged in a fashion that makes them unidirectional or creative outside their normal boundaries and expectations. I think of this privileging as “directed” forces, in the sense that in living biological entities there exist a privileging function that acts to cause forces to perform only in directions and methods beneficial for the living biological entity. That privilege ends when the biological entity dies. At death, the forces are allowed to become unprivileged which includes destructive action under the rules of entropy.

Privileging is a function which exists “outside the four forces of physics”, and occurs only in living entities.

This seems to me to be more parsimonious than redefining the meaning of a normal term to include mysterious forcing functions which are not recognized by physics.

So the issue remains, how are the neural signals generated in order that they have meaning within the biological entity, and act to the benefit of the biological entity?

Next: You say this:

” 'Reason' tells us the reasons why the thing we want is right.”

This statement is difficult to decipher, just based on the face of it. Reason, in general, can be faulty if it is not voluntarily and objectively tested against the Aristotelian standards for principled deduction. Most of what passes for human “reasoning” is not logic-based. And reasoning can lead to pogroms and atrocities such as those of the “rational” French Revolution’s Committee of Public Safety and the resulting Reign of Terror (the logic model admired by Lenin).

” In general, I think people often attach themselves to a conclusion (or a goal, or a side) first, and then set the mind to work to justify what was already desired.”

Are you sure that this does not describe your quest to prove the mind to be material? You have set that specific objective out in the first session, and are trying to fill the premise voids in order to justify it.

” I would never expect computers to duplicate an animal need for dominance or territory. Neither do I see our animal need for dominance or territory as some sort of proof that we are 'more than physical' in our minds; I'd say it's proof that we are less than rational. Dominance and claiming territory are expressions of animal instincts.”

Yet your definition of instinct as a force does not work; not all people want to conquer Europe or to assert dominance; and some do. Here you seem to claim that the mind, the human mind, does not necessarily conform to rational precepts, being less than rational. Computers, on the other hand, are completely rational since they perform only logic functions which are built-in. But in order to be a complete simulation of the human mind, then the non-rational functions must be simulated also. And in fact, your next statement appears to concede that point to biology:

” On the contrary, I'd think it shows that humans are so physical that our instincts hijack our better judgment, and it can interfere with our minds' trustworthiness. There's definitely something more going on than the forces of physics, but it seems to be something animal / biological.”

So is the objective changing to “non-interference with mind’s trustworthiness”, instead of replication of the full range of human mind? If that is the case, then the new objective, trustworthy mind, should be fully defined. I personally don’t think that pure alogorithmic logic is a trustworthy source for decision making. The societies which purported to be based on such have turned out to be the most oppressive and bloody ever seen on the planet.

The comment about “something animal / biological” is interesting. Unless that “something” can be defined algorithmically, it is unlikely to be simulated in an immutably logic based machine. On the other hand, if it is a set of completely predictable responses, then it should be easily simulated.

And here you double down on this human “defect”:

” You were saying:

if the human mind is to be shown reducible to software, thereby demonstrating that the human mind is likely to be merely physical in nature, then the software must demonstrate the ability to produce all (sum total) of the processes which are available to the human mind ... (Stan)

I'd disagree because of the animal / biological features of our mind. That is to say: The human mind also includes things I'd attribute to biology (e.g. animal instinct). So I'd say that a software system as analogy for the mind would need to account only for those items not accounted for by biology.”

So it is your intent or claim that the computer simulation would include only the non-biological, logic-based, rational functions of the human mind, and not include functions which are not rational because those are defined as “accounted for by biology”.

This has become quite circular. It amounts to the following tautology:

A computer can be programmed to perform the logic functions of the human mind which are logic functions that are capable of simulation by computer programming. The other actions, thoughts and processes of the human mind are “accounted for by biology” and therefore are not addressed by this simulation.

This alone is sufficient to falsify the original concept. Not all of the human mind’s functions are included in the machine software simulation, and much human mental acuity is specifically avoided, since it is obviously non-rational in terms of being syllogistically analyzable. Only the subset of the human mind: “rational thinking”, is included in the proposed machine software simulation of the human mind. This involves arbitrary truncation of the human ability to adhere to irrational ideologies, and also then to change one’s mind – a common feature of human thinking. This is not rational thinking, it is emotion-based (“I am here to save the world”… “or maybe not”). It is probably the most common form of ideology that exists today.

I think that I will stop here, without reading further. I don’t think that there is any way that I can agree with the conclusion that the “human mind is reproducible” in deterministic software. It appears to me that the arguments for that are without sufficient merit to justify the claim, unless significant restrictions to the definition of human mind are made and accepted. I can’t accept the proposed restrictions, and the remaining claim is circular.

Further, the claim being made here that the human mind is purely a physical entity depends entirely upon the truth of the premise that computer/software is capable of simulating the human mind. Again, that is self-refuted by the need to truncate the definition of human mind in order to accommodate the deterministic logic functions of the computer/software.

Thank you for the civil give and take; it has been interesting.

Black Panthers: Just More JV's

Obama Justice Department Laughed Off Armed New Black Panther Threat

Let's see. Blacks and Muslims are protected Victimhood Classes, right? So we need to worry about the Tea Party, those terrorists are the threat... to the Left, at least.

White? Then It's Your Fault.

BUT HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT WE GET THIS STUFF RIGHT BEFORE EVERY ELECTION WHERE THE DEMOCRATS ARE WORRIED ABOUT BLACK TURNOUT? Some Want a Race War, But Dallas Won’t Deliver.
Instapundit

Maybe not Dallas. Maybe not the millions of average blacks who are just trying to get along. But the Democrats won't relent: it's what they do, who they are, who they always have been. Without racial animosity, along with government subsidization of anti-aculturalization and anti-assimilation into the hated culture of equal opportunity and reward for quality of productivity, the Democrats and racist Left would have too few followers to thrive.

Racial hatred, bottom-up from the designated and fully supported Victimhood Class, is absolutely essential to Democrat/Leftist survival. And no one can foment riots better than the Obama/Clinton combo.

There is a possible case to be made that the blacks who never made it out of the Democrat subsidized ghettos have been maintained in a pre-civilized mental state. This goes clear back to the Democrat Jim Crow laws against blacks, and Democrat slavery of blacks before that. The only difference is that today's ghetto blacks really believe that the Democrat subsidies mean that Democrats are their friends. After all, the Dems make sure that they get (just) enough free stuff to keep them alive, right? If someone else wants them to acculturate and become self-sufficient and responsible, then they are the enemy.

Enemies are needed if you're gonna have a war. So the Lefty-Dems see to it that the enemies are well identified. And it boils down to: me. And all whites.

A Simple Computer Algorithm Could Write This Script For Race Riot Support

Fomenting the race war is what the Democrat Party does. It always has; it always will.

Lynch to Dallas protesters: ‘Do not be discouraged’

Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Friday encouraged protesters not to allow the “heinous violence” that occurred in Dallas to silence their “important” voices.

Hillary Clinton Blames Whites, Cops for Deaths of Young Black Men

Hillary Clinton used a CNN interview on Friday to completely embrace the Democrats’ claim that white people and cops must change to help reduce the number of African-Americans killed in tense exchanges with cops.

“I will call for white people, like myself, to put ourselves in the shoes of those African-American families who fear every time their children go somewhere, who have to have ‘The Talk,’ about, you now, how to really protect themselves [from police], when they’re the ones who should be expecting protection from encounters with police,” Clinton told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

Obama Pushes More Federal Oversight of Cops After Dallas Attack on Cops

President Barack Obama is harnessing the increasing attacks on police — and the periodic shootings of people by stressed cops — to push his agenda to federalize state and local police forces.

“I want to start moving on constructive actions that are actually going to make a difference,” he said during his evening press conference in Poland when he was asked about the Dallas attack.

Those actions, he said, would be based on the recommendations of the panel that he picked after the 2014 street riots in Ferguson, Missouri. The panel offered “practical concrete solutions that can reduce — if not eliminate — the problems of racial bias,” Obama said.

The dramatic shootings are an opportunity to push that agenda, Obama said. “If my voice has been true and positive, my hope would be that… [the panel] surfaces problems, it frames them, it allows us to wrestle with these issue and try to come up with practical solutions,” he said.