“Given the number of major changes consumers have experienced over the past couple of years, the gap between customer expectations and actual service experience tends to widen as uncertainty from mergers greatly influences consumer perceptions. Case in point is the impact major market dynamics plays in future switching intent. Between 2004 and 2005, there has been a 5 percent increase in the intent to switch wireless carriers in the next 12 months -- a reverse from the past two years, where future switching intent remained stable.”
The problem I want to talk to you about tonight is the problem of belief. What does it mean to believe? We use this word all the time, and I think behind it lurk some really extraordinary taboos and confusions. What I want to argue tonight is that how we talk about belief- how we fail to criticize or criticize the beliefs of others, has more importance to us personally, more consequence to us personally and to civilization than perhaps anything else that is in our power to influence.
One must always be careful of books,' said Tessa, 'and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.' 'I'm not sure a book has ever changed me,' Will finished. 'Well, there is one volume that promises to teach one how to turn into an entire flock of sheep-' 'Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry,' said Tessa, determined not to let him run wildly off with the course. 'Of course, why one would want to be and fire flock of sheep is another matter entirely,' Will finished.
“When I was a young lad, I listened to Cream, Hendrix, Frank Zappa and the Allman Brothers. I thought they were gods. Hendrix still seems like one. But then I wanted to know who influenced them, so I had to go back to Howlin Wolf, Albert King, B.B. King and Muddy Waters. I also took a look at country greats like Jerry Reed and Buck Owens. My goal has always been to amalgamate song and flashy guitar.”
Our dominant idea about the mind fail to recognise the conflict between the two sides of the mind — the mind as machine and the mind as anti-machine, delighting in its powers of combination and transgression. They fail as well to appreciate the extend to which the relative presence of these two sides of the mind is influenced by the organisation of society and of the culture, with the result that the history of politics is internal to the history of the mind. In these as in many other respects, our beliefs about ourselves resist acknowledging the relation between our context-shaped and our context-transcending identities and powers.
Wouldn't the world be a much better place if we didn't make it past the age of maybe 10? Think back to when we were younger, before we were so easily influenced by adults. We rebelled against everything that we now believe is impossible. Super Heroes still existed and we didn't hold grudges because "sorry" was okay and as long as you still wanted to share your toys with me, nothing more needed to be said. Be 10 years old today everyone.
Do you want to be safe from the influence, ways, and lusts of the world and the flesh (I John 2:16)? From the sins which so easily entangles us (Hebrews 12:1)? Then delight in yourself in the Lord, in His provision, in His Word. Faithfully feed on the things that possess true substance and real meaning. When you remember that "all Scripture is given by inspiration by God and is profitable" (2 Timothy 3:16) and partake of such divine substance, then you are fed, you are led and you are safe!
Jefferson feared that Hamilton had plans radically at odds with the Constitution. As he saw it, Hamilton wanted to warp the federal government out of constitutional shape, converting it into a copy of the British government, built on debt, corruption, and influence. Hamilton's goal, Jefferson charged, was to ally the rich and well born with the government at the people's expense, creating a corrupt aristocracy leagued with the government against the people and destroying the virtue that was the basis of republican government. Only a republic could preserve liberty, Jefferson insisted, and only virtue among the people could preserve a republic.
Every man whose tastes have been allowed to develop in wrong directions, or in whom the best tastes have failed of higher perfection, loses thereby from the inner joy and outer value of his whole life. Every good taste is a source and guarantee of happy healthy hours and days, and thus of the enrichment and elevation of life. A reasonable capacity to appreciate music and art quite suffices to enrich life and exercise a wholesome influence upon character. The taste for good reading is inseparable from a taste for good thinking.
It’s possible that the reason I've never experienced a ghostly presence is that my temporal lobes aren't wired for it. It could well be that the main difference between skeptics (Susan Blackmore notwithstanding) and believers is the neural structure they were born with. But the question still remains: Are these people whose EMF-influenced brains alert them to “presences” picking up something real that the rest of us can’t pick up, or are they hallucinating? Here again, we must end with the Big Shrug, a statue of which is being erected on the lawn outside my office.