Monthly Archives: March 2019

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Of profits and profiteers

When the mightiest profit of da lawd is not caught in a billion shilling scandal, he spends his time bamboozling the sheep that follow him with cheap threats that he has knowledge of impending calamities. Here he is at again.

On Sunday he said

I am seeing Gods judgement upon Kenya, I have talked to high profile leaders about the coming judgement for them to prepare,”

He added

“Just as I saw in 2005,2006 and 2007 it was written by many and read by everyone, until it happened in 2007. I warned people will be running for their dear lives, I for-seed gun wars but people never listened till it happened” he added

And for those who can recall, many lives were lost following a disputed election in December of 2007. So the profits god saw it coming and left neighbour to butcher neighbour, for what? So that profit can claim he is profit. Madness is you ask me.

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Repeal all blasphemy laws

This case of four Pakistanis in court for various blasphemy charges is quite scary. And sometimes you don’t even know your accuser so you can face them in court. And what is this with religious sensibilities? Can’t god take a joke? And why be so uptight about what others say of your religion? This reminds me of the comments of the inquisitors, why show mercy anyway and you are going to hell.

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Africa music tour

 

Mondays are not great days for braining and so I have decided this one we shall take a music tour of Africa where I share with you music that I like.

From Kenya

From Tanzania

From Uganda

From South Africa

From Senegal

From Zim

From Nigeria

From DRC

From Ivory Coast

From the Gambia

And finally, one of my favourites

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on why the watchmaker argument fails

We know the contrivances of human beings whenever we see them. If I should find a bicycle assembled, I wouldn’t have to rock my head trying to discover its source. Everyone who has seen a bicycle knows to what ends they are produced and by whom. We do not have the same knowledge for things occurring in nature. I cannot tell, when I meet an elephant that there was a purposeful designer who wanted it to crash plants.

To say something happened by chance, does not rule out a designer. It could have been experiment and this result was a chance result. It was never planned.

The theist has no reason to limit the being of the universe to this

The only possible explanation for the structure is that it was designed by an intelligent being, not some random physical process.

For what is intelligence? It includes

the capacity for logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, and problem solving

many properties which would rule out the god of theism; an all knowing god can’t learn, reason nor plan. Such a god can’t be creative. We are told, for example if you believe the Abrahamic religions, that god said and it was. In a scenario such as this, the god need only wish and it is.

The question of how did the universe come to be is not made easier in supposing an intelligent designer. I could grant you a designer and ask why must we stop at one designer? If one argues from man made things to the universe, then we see that many things have components built by different people; someone a roof, someone windows and doors and another walls. So, then, we can be certain there is no contradiction in saying there is a designer for trees, another for elephants and another for fish and for all other million of things that exist.

I contend this blogger has not demonstrated his claim.

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Skin in the game

By N. Taleb.

If you want to be provoked, maybe even annoyed by something you have read, then this is a book to read.

Having said that, if an author has said they have written a standalone book, it makes no sense when one feels every few pages is a sales pitch for previous books of the same author. We are not trying to read all your books, just this one, so go slow on the sales pitch.

Taleb hates Hillary Clinton, Steven Pinker, Dawkins and many others. I wish he could treat this is a separate subject or give an explanation. I think Pinker is misleading us on his claims of us living in the most peaceful times. I am not interested in doing the hard work presently, though.

He is right that those who make policies should have some skin in the game. Think for example, the idiots who make pronouncements about our non existent public transport have a driver paid for by a tax payer. They never get inconvenienced by their stupid regulations. Had they been forced to use public transport, we would have better service. To this extent, and in many others, Taleb has a point. The adage that if someone’s pay is dependent on them solving a problem, they are unlikely to solve it, applies here.

As for his use of aphorisms, I don’t think he succeeded. This work sometimes appear disjointed, random and doesn’t flow so coherently.

He makes a good case for skepticism about GMO and further that sometimes there are simpler solutions to the problem that GMO proponents are trying to solve. Looking at the people dying of hunger in Baringo (where Moi who was president for 24 years hails) is evidence that the problem is infrastructure and political will. To solve the problem, one would need to improve access and plan for adverse weather. But when you have idiots and thieves in charge, you have people die from starvation. Well, they voted for the idiots, anyway. It’s a problem they have a hand in, too.

Have a good weekend everyone. Read a book, if you can. If you can’t, drink a beer, take a walk, make love! Do something, don’t just sit.

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what is civilization?

Mark Twain, through the mad philosopher tells us

Morally, it is the evil passions repressed, the level of conduct raised; spiritually, idols cast down, God enthroned; materially, bread and fair treatment for the greatest number.

Then he says of his (our) civilization, and here he seems to be speaking as a prophet, unless the conditions of 1900s reflect those of the present age. He writes

Our civilization is wonderful, in certain spectacular and meretricious ways; wonderful in scientific marvels and inventive miracles; wonderful in material inflation, which it calls advancement, progress, and other pet names; wonderful in its spying-out of the deep secrets of Nature and its vanquishment of her stubborn laws; wonderful in its extraordinary financial and commercial achievements; wonderful in its hunger for money, and in its indifference as to how it is acquired; wonderful in the hitherto undreamed-of magnitude of its private fortunes and the prodigal fashion in which they are given away to institutions devoted to the public culture; wonderful in its exhibitions of poverty; wonderful in the surprises which it gets out of that great new birth, Organization, the latest and most potent creation and miracle-worker of the commercialized intellect, as applied in transportation systems, in manufactures, in systems of communication, in news-gathering, book-publishing, journalism; in protecting labor; in oppressing labor; in herding the national parties and keeping the sheep docile and usable; in closing the public service against brains and character; in electing purchasable legislatures, blatherskite Congresses, and city governments which rob the town and sell municipal protection to gamblers, thieves, prostitutes, and professional seducers for cash. It is a civilization which has destroyed the simplicity and repose of life; replaced its contentment, its poetry, its soft romance-dreams and visions with the money-fever, sordid ideals, vulgar ambitions, and the sleep, which does not refresh; it has invented a thousand useless luxuries, and turned them into necessities; it has created a thousand vicious appetites and satisfies none of them; it has dethroned God and set up a shekel in His place.

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Extracts from Eve’s Diary

by Mark Twain,

Anyone who has read these essays of M.T has in someway pondered over how life would have been for Adam and Eve, had they been the first personages on earth.

Where did the first lion get the meat to eat if all animals were created at the same instant? Or maybe, lions were first vegetarians, just like tigers and leopards and only started to eat meat after the fall. And it is after the fall also that all animals lost their innocence and started copulating.

Have you heard of the law of fluid precipitation? Well, Twain made it up. But imagine the first person to notice that water flows downhill.

Then think about that command of not eating fruit of some tree or else you shall die. They have no idea of what death is. They have not seen any death already. And here, Twain arrives at one of his truisms

a person can’t think when he has no material to think with.

The first pair decide the best way to find our what to die means is to eat the fruit, then they shall die, and will know what it is, and not have any more bother about it. If you believe the bible is true, we are still dying from this desire for knowledge.

It’s morning here, go ponder the rest.

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how long will we survive this government?

As I have said elsewhere, the worst that can happen to a collective, say, a nation-state is to have leaders who are incompetent, clueless, murderous and rent seeking. The Jubilee administration is all the above and worse. It’s a government whose officials have taken a vow to plunder the country till it goes bust.

How, for example, do you explain aviation fuel with 5 million dollars disappearing into thin air? And that is the least of their crimes. We cannot tell the extent of the grand larceny that is taking place within this government. It will take ages and a different regime to uncover the theft that these thieves have gotten away with since 2013, though this, too, is only a dream. The same wolves are busy positioning themselves to stay at the helm to either continue stealing or to make sure they are not prosecuted or both.

In this day, we have our countrymen and women dying from starvation while those responsible are busy stealing public funds. To imagine people in Baringo, from where Moi, who ruled for 24 years die of hunger is evidence of the moral bankruptcy of our leaders. How bereft of ideas they are and of course, how useless.

As Ndii has opined, I think the level of graft, no, theft this government has committed against is qualifies to be called crimes against humanity.

Maybe, this post that I wrote a while ago is still relevant.