Ruben Navarrette Jr. is almost as big a tool as Glenn Beck–although it takes a lot to be as big of a tool as Beck. Ruben posted a commentary on CNN.com: Commentary: Obama’s confusing blend of left-right economics in which he whines about not understanding Obama’s message that just as each of us need to [...]
READ MORE »Monthly archives for August, 2008
The Invisible Hand needs some emergency room care.
The “invisible hand” to which I refer is the famous metaphor for the free market economy. The supposed magic hand that makes everything cheaper and more efficient. Feh! But more on that general topic later. Right now, here is some excellent information on how the free market health care system is f—d up. Here’s an [...]
READ MORE »What they don’t teach in Sunday School.
(Or at all, really. I had to finally read the Bible myself to learn about these religious atrocities.) Friendly Atheist features a review and some illustrations from the book Illustrated Stories from the Bible (that they won’t tell you in Sunday School) by Paul Farrell: Illustrated Stories from the Bible It’s one thing to hear [...]
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“To hell with Democracy!”
This is a very, very scary time we live in right now. Jack Cafferty has a fantastic although disheartening commentary on CNN.com right now: Commentary: Is McCain another George W. Bush? He talks about how McCain was at the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy (likely got into the Navy through his Admiril [...]
READ MORE »Cory Doctorow puts the Singularity into perspective.
An interview recently released (but recorded a year ago) with writer and technoculture critic Cory Doctorow, on Reality Break podcast, has what I think is a brilliant observation about the subjectivity of contemporary issues and the concept of “the Singularity” specifically: Science fiction is about reflecting the present not the future, so, all science fiction [...]
READ MORE »Community responses to crime.
I really need to keep writing this weekend (OMG! I just touchtyped that last sentence! And most of this sentence! This is a big deal for me. I’ve been using a keyboard, sometimes 10+ hours a day, for 25 years, and I still can’t touchtype. Anywa….) so this should be reasonably brief. A couple of [...]
READ MORE »“Year Zero” may become a series.
I’m a huge Nine Inch Nails fan. I think Trent Reznor is a brilliant musician and a savvy marketer and electronic music guru. From Nine Inch Nails one can draw lines of influence to bands and performers like Filter and Tweaker and Marilyn Manson (as Reznor had something more than a minor direct influence on [...]
READ MORE »WWJD…in hell?
Joe E. Holman over at Debunking Christianity has a great post today in which he contemplates the purpose of hell and what sense there is in the Christian God torturing his children for eternity if there’s no rehabilitation implied: What Would Jesus Do…in Hell??? So, I want to know: what does God want us to [...]
READ MORE »Exemplification of “the machine”.
This news item: Man whose US immigration notice was sent to the wrong address is detained with untreated spinal cancer until he dies, denied access to his wife and children I have no comment of my own that could add to the story itself. I’ll just post what some others have said: OM: …You know, [...]
READ MORE »The Big Oceana! Er, Big London? Ah, Big Apple. Oh Brother!
“Oceana” is a reference to the setting of George Orwell’s 1984, which is what the U.S./British empire has become. Where Big Brother monitors and watches and tracks everyone. “London” is a reference to…modern day London, which has careened full throttle toward Orwell’s hellscape of 1984 by, as Cory Doctorow puts it, installing a “CCTV camera [...]
READ MORE »Free market education: the fail.
Yesterday I posted a super-bloated overlong post: The failure of conservatism. (That’s what happens when I allow myself to write unedited in stream-of-consciousness–which is every time, really.) I railed against the ideas of free market capitalism and libertarian, objectivist anarchy in the modern world. I briefly mentioned public education as part of “the commons,” a [...]
READ MORE »The failure of conservatism.
Animal Farm revisited: There’s a chain email that’s being passed around conservative emailers that tells a story of a foreign freedom fighter describing to his American college professor how to capture wild pigs by feeding them free corn and slowly penning them in. The email ends with a quote: “A government big enough to give [...]
READ MORE »The People’s Encryption.
(Vital Update: Check out my comment at the bottom for some very important info on this post.) OK, remember that post I wrote not long ago: On the issue of privacy and protecting civil liberties? That got reprinted by Steganos security software site? (“Sheesh, you never freakin’ let us forget!”) Seems I have some people [...]
READ MORE »“But I just believe in the stuff about love.”
Here’s a question for you. First the setup: Imagine a husband and father, we’ll call him “Alan.” He sometimes writes poetry, and not too bad. He often expresses his love for his wife and children. He often says he believes in peace and beauty. But, he’s killed his two previous wives, and tortured a few [...]
READ MORE »Maybe this is the beginning of change.
There’s been a rather dramatic increase in the paramilitary approach to the “war” on drugs which has left a wake of abused and dead innocents and civil liberties. I’ve pointed up some of the stories here: The changing view of the “men in blueâ€. But of course so long as police departments keep getting money [...]
READ MORE »Vacuum tube relativism and logic.
A quickie: Here’s a great and even amusing post by Harry McCall in which he uses his experience with guitar salesmen, vacuum tubes, and personal biases to explain how people see “truth” as relative and its criticism often off-limits to those “not a part of it” Truth: Absolute or Relative? I’ve had some heated discussions [...]
READ MORE »Many layers of stupidity regarding security and greed.
Not long ago I posted an article, “On the issue of privacy and protecting civil liberties“. Since then I’ve heard Cory Doctorow discuss more frequently how the underlying problem with the loss of personal data and thus a real threat to our lives (and livelihoods) goes beyond the loss of collected data into the wrong [...]
READ MORE »“What do you think about your son now?”
There are a few songs that make my eyes tear nearly every time I hear them, especially if I sing along to them, and it’s often songs that involve lyrics regarding fathers–generally estranged or returning fathers. For example: I don’t believe in I don’t believe in your sanctity your prophecy I don’t believe inI don’t [...]
READ MORE »Novel length has been achieved!
As you may know I’ve been writing my master’s thesis for my English (Creative Writing) M.A. as a creative thesis–a novel. It’s based on an idea I’ve had for a few years now but never got more than five pages into it. So when I started my ENG 699 (Thesis) coursework this last Spring, I [...]
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