Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

The previous entry dealt with politicians' lies and clergymen's damned lies.  This entry deals with statistics (often grouped with the former two sins).

Group: Kerry's Misery Index
Selective, Makes Bush Look Bad

Tuesday, April 13, 2004 11:40 AM ET

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., claims middle-class Americans are miserable under the economic stewardship of President George W. Bush. A new report released Tuesday says Kerry's campaign selectively designed a "misery index" to make Bush look bad.

Easter Politics

At Fort Hood, Texas, a sermon for the President of the United States:

" 'Christianity is based on one historic event-- it happened Easter morning.' Members of the congregation responded with cries of 'Amen!'."

-- Scott Lindlaw, The Associated Press

This, of course, is a damned lie.  Christianity is, in fact, based on damned lies, not on Easter or any other alleged historic events.

Meanwhile, in Boston, the President's political rival John Kerry received communion at a Catholic Easter service, implying his endorsement of the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation -- one of the blackest of Christianity's many damned lies.

So voters have a choice this year between a damned Protestant liar and a damned Catholic liar... just as in 1960.  Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

For my own Easter sermon, see the previous entry.

Good Friday and
Descartes's Easter Egg

"The use of z, y, x . . . to represent unknowns is due to René Descartes, in his La géometrie (1637).... In a paper on Cartesian ovals, prepared before 1629, x alone occurs as unknown.... This is the earliest place in which Descartes used one of the last letters of the alphabet to represent an unknown."

-- Florian Cajori, A History of Mathematical Notations. 2 volumes. Lasalle, Illinois: The Open Court Publishing Co., 1928-1929. (Vol. 1, page 381)

This is from

http://members.aol.com/jeff570/variables.html.

Descartes's Easter Egg is found at

EggMath: The Shape of an Egg --
Cartesian Ovals.  

An Easter Meditation
on Humpty Dumpty

The following is excerpted from a web page headed "Catholic Way."  It is one of a series of vicious and stupid Roman Catholic attacks on Descartes.  Such attacks have been encouraged by the present Pope, who today said "may the culture of life and love render vain the logic of death."

The culture of life and love is that of the geometry (if not the philosophy) of Descartes.  The logic of death is that of Karol Wojtyla, as was made very clear in the past century by the National Socialist Party, which had its roots in Roman Catholicism.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall "In the century just completed, the human race found itself in a position not unlike the scrambled mess at the base of an imaginary English wall.... ... we are heirs to a humanity that is broken, fractured, confused, unsure of what to make of itself....  ... 'postmodernism' is merely the articulation of the fractured, dissipated state of the human being....  Without relating a history of modern philosophy, our unfortunate human shell has suffered a continual fragmentation for a period of roughly 500 years. (You philosophers out there will recognize immediately that I am referring to the legacy of René Descartes.) And this fragmentation has been a one-way street: one assault after another on the integrity and dignity of the human person until you have, well, the 20th Century. But now it’s the 21st Century. The beauty … the marvel … the miracle of our time is the possibility that gravity will reverse itself: Humpty Dumpty may be able, once again, to assume his perch." —  Ted Papa, Raising Humpty Dumpty

Voilà.

The upper part
of the above icon
is from EggMath.
For the lower part,
see Good Friday.

Couleurs

In memory of
René Descartes
(born March 31)
and
René Gruau
(died March 31)

On the former:

"The predominant use of the letter x
to represent an unknown value
came about in an interesting way."

On the latter:

"The women he drew
often seemed to come alive."

Harrowing

"The Ferris wheel came into view again, just the top,
silently burning high on the hill, almost directly in front of him,
then the trees rose up over it.  The road, which was terrible and
full of potholes, went steeply downhill here; he was approaching the
little bridge over the barranca, the deep ravine.  Halfway across
the bridge he stopped; he lit a new cigarette from the one he'd been
smoking, and leaned over the parapet, looking down.  It was too
dark to see the bottom, but: here was finality indeed, and
cleavage!  Quauhnahuac
was like the times in this respect, wherever you turned the abyss was
waiting for you round the corner. Dormitory for vultures and city of
Moloch! When Christ was being crucified, so ran the sea-borne, hieratic
legend, the earth had opened all through this country ..."

-- Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, 1947. (Harper & Row reissue, 1984, p. 15)

Comment by Stephen Spender:

"There is a suggestion of Christ descending into the abyss for the
harrowing of Hell.  But it is the Consul whom we think of here,
rather than of Christ.  The Consul is hurled into this abyss at
the end of the novel."

-- Introduction to Under the Volcano

---

 Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter XXI --

Gibbon, discussing the theology of the Trinity, defines perichoresis as

"... the internal connection and spiritual penetration which indissolubly unites the divine persons⁵⁹ ....

⁵⁹ ... The   or 'circumincessio,' is perhaps the deepest and darkest corner of the whole theological abyss."

---

 "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process
he does not become a monster.  And when you look long into an
abyss, the abyss also looks into you."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, section 146, translated by Walter Kaufmann

---

William Golding:

 "Simon's head was tilted slightly up.  His eyes could not
break away and the Lord of the Flies hung in space before him. 

'What are you doing out here all alone?  Aren't you afraid of me?'

Simon shook.

'There isn't anyone to help you.  Only me.  And I'm the Beast.'

Simon's mouth labored, brought forth audible words.

'Pig's head on a stick.'

'Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!'
said the head.  For a moment or two the forest and all the other
dimly appreciated places echoed with the parody of laughter.  'You
knew, didn't you?  I'm part of you?  Close, close, close!' "

---

"Thought of the day:
You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar... if you're into catchin' flies."

-- Alice Woodrome, Good Friday, 2004

Anne Francis,
also known as
Honey West:

"Here was finality indeed,
and cleavage!"

-- Under the Volcano

From the official
     Anne Francis Web Site:   

   Come into my parlor....

For some background,
see the use of the word
"spider" in Under the Volcano:

WRIDER/ESPIDER:
THE CONSUL AS ARTIST IN
UNDER THE VOLCANO,

by Patrick A. McCarthy.

See, too, Why Me?

Lost in Translation?

In memory of

Murray L. Bob:

A lecture,

A picture,

A song.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Bush Seeks to Shore Up
Support for Iraq

Fri Apr 9, 2004 03:49 PM ET

By Jeremy Pelofsky

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President Bush on Friday won renewed pledges of support for U.S. efforts in Iraq from allies Italy, Poland and El Salvador, the White House said, as casualties and kidnappings mounted.

Viva El Salvador!

-- Jim Carrey at
 the 1996 Academy Awards

3 PM
Good
Friday

Temptation

Kylie sings
Locomotion.

In memory of Victor Argo,
who died Tuesday, April 6, 2004.
Today's New York Times
says Mr. Argo was cast
"somewhat against type"
by Martin Scorsese as

The Apostle Peter in
"The Last Temptation of Christ."

Odd Massing

"An odd massing of consciousness takes place."

-- David Kalstone,
   On "Lost in Translation"