Re: Meltdown
- Original Message From: Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 8:19:12 AM Subject: Re: Meltdown On 24/09/2008, at 2:34 PM, Gautam Mukunda wrote: Me: Ah yes, because I'm definitely running for office right now. Come on, this is just tiresome. At least try to have a simple discussion without accusing everyone of bad faith. Yeah. Discussions can get heated, and occasionally blow up, with people you've been talking to for a long time, but to be consistently rude to people you don't know at all is a different thing entirely. Hello Gautam. Long Time No See. I seem to recall we were having a bit of an argument last time we spoke. Ah well, that was 5 years ago. Peace. Charlie. Older, More Travelled And More Tolerant Maru Hi Charlie. Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I've thought about it occasionally in the intervening period. I guess I'm older too. I'm willing to bet I'm no longer the youngest list member though :-) GM ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Meltdown
Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com - Original Message From: John Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 6:52:33 PM Subject: Re: Meltdown Dan M [EMAIL PROTECTED] That's what the interest rate measures...the willingness of folks to buy GE notes. Gee, really? It couldn't possibly be just a little more complicated than that? Me: Well then, what do you think it measures? For a first approximation analysis, that's a pretty good assessment of what it measures. There are more factors, but in the short-term money market, not that many, really. These are usually very short-term unsecured notes (1 day, I believe, in this case). The only way to lose money is if the company defaults _tomorrow_. Most companies, btw, rely on this sort of very short-term financing, and every company relies on it indirectly, because even if you don't (and the odds are really, really high that your company does) your customers surely do. A rational market wouldn't change GE's interest rate that quickly Again, really? Either you are stating a tautology, or you have no way of knowing whether the change was reasonable. Me: Well, he can't state it to a certainty, but I think you need to provide an alternative explanation here. We had enormous market events followed immediately by a pretty-much unprecedented increase in money market interest rates, paired (presumably not coincidentally) by a massive flight of investors from the money markets - massive defined as hundreds of billions of dollars. This flight was particularly odd given that _no person_ lost money in such investments. Fidelity, which would up its fund, covered its responsibilities and made up the money the fund had lost out of internal funds (and good for them too!). While such a massive movement of capital might be rational, it's stretching the Efficient Markets hypothesis _way_ past its breaking point to argue that this is so, and in particular ignores everything we know about behavioral finance. It also ignores everything any practitioner could tell you. BTW, in saying this, I'm arguing that there is a problem that is not inherently related to the government, but originated with market players who build bubbles and panic, How profound. Maybe you should write it up as a paper and submit it to an economics journal. Surely you are the first to realize this! Me: OK, this is just rude. Are you a professional economist? In a sense, the problem is not that there is a housing bubble in some areas of the country. It's the timing of the market response, and the irrational extension of it. Sure, the government was largely responsible for creating a huge home price bubble and encouraging a bunch of bad loans to con-artists and people who had no business getting the loans, but that is not the problem. The problem is that the market finally began adjusting the price towards fundamental values. Right. Good point. Me: I would say this is an opinion without a lot of evidentiary support. The government was not largely responsible for the run-up in home prices. It certainly didn't help - it was at least partly responsible. But there are many other actors involved. A conservative should understand the limits of the power of the government! Even if this were the case, the actions of the government were known and transparent. They do not - and cannot - explain the decision by AIG to take on $42BB in unhedged risk on credit-default swaps structured based on subprime mortgages. That's a purely private failure. The government made many mistakes in this case, but it's simply impossible to argue that it is solely, or even primarily, responsible for the decision by major financial institutions to (functionally) go massively long on sub-prime mortgages. The obvious support for that argument, btw, is that at least two major players in the financial markets - JPMorganChase (run by Jamie Dimon) and Goldman Sachs (run by Lloyd Blankfein) didn't. If the government were responsible, you'd have to explain why they were immune to pressure. Instead they - brilliantly - handled this potential crisis exactly right. And thank goodness, too, if Dimon hadn't called this one I think we'd be completely screwed. There's a difference between the position markets are usually the best way to allocate capital and markets are always right. I can't think of any economist who would agree with the latter statement. This is a personal example of the irrationality of the market that I'm talking about. Right, blame the market for adjusting values to where they should be, not the government for being largely responsible for putting values out of whack. That's the ticket. Me: The government certainly did some things that were very foolish. But I'm curious as to what, exactly, you think
Re: Meltdown
- Original Message From: John Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 8:48:12 PM Subject: Re: Meltdown Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: John Williams Gee, really? It couldn't possibly be just a little more complicated than that? Me: There are more factors, Yes, that is what I was referring to. but in the short-term money market, not that many, really. Surely the laws of supply and demand still hold? In other words, if the supply of money to be lent (in aggregate) goes down, then the price (interest rate) will have upward pressure. Me: Yes, but again, it's a circular problem. Why did the supply go down? Because people were afraid of losing money in the money markets (even though _no one had_). So there was a stampede for the exits. Fine, but when there's a stampede lots of people get trampled. Was the risk of defaults across the market so large that _GE_ was at a higher risk of default? Obviously not. But such a stampede could cause lots of otherwise fine companies to go under, which would cause still more companies to go under, and so on, until finally the only things left would be companies like, well, GE and Microsoft and Pfizer. We know what financial collapses look like. They look like 25% unemployment rates and a decade of disaster. It's hard to imagine _anything_ worth the risk of going through that when interventions can prevent it. We had enormous market events followed immediately by a pretty-much unprecedented increase in money market interest rates, paired (presumably not coincidentally) by a massive flight of investors from the money markets Several large firms were in imminent danger of failing. I would pull my money out, too, if I thought I might lose it or it might get tied up in a bankruptcy. Me: Sure, that's fine. The problem is that when everyone does it these actions can _cause_ a bankruptcy that will not otherwise occurred. This is a standard collective action problem. You have described exactly the mechanics behind a back run. If there's a run on the bank, you want to be first in line. But since everyone wants to be first in line, you can get runs on banks for no reason at all. That's not a market functioning perfectly, and if you can prevent it, you should. That's what the FDIC is for, and here we had a similar problem. This flight was particularly odd given that _no person_ lost money in such investments. Do you wait until you have been in an accident to put on your seat belt? Me: No, but _putting on my seat belt cannot cause an accident_. This is the fundamental problem with your analogy. JPMorganChase (run by Jamie Dimon) and Goldman Sachs (run by Lloyd Blankfein) didn't. If the government were responsible, you'd have to explain why they were immune to pressure. Instead they - brilliantly - handled this potential crisis exactly right. Which would be great if the government didn't interfere. The strong companies that made good decisions would survive, and the others would fail. But instead we have the government bailing out the bad companies. Me: Well, we don't yet know. _But_. If the run on the money markets had continued, we would have seen strong companies go under. Like, for example, Goldman, which probably was in some danger for a while there. That's what contagion means. You have people who didn't do anything wrong going under. The only financial institution which I have really high confidence in right now is JPMorganChase, and even they're not invulnerable. For example, we had a series of events occurring. We saw the mark-to-market value of financial instruments constructed based on subprime mortgages drop to near zero. Functionally that explains the collapse of Lehman and AIG. Although the value of these instruments is presumably substantially lower than their purchasers thought they were, a true value of zero is implausible at best (absent strange leverage constructions _unviersal across the instruments_ this would imply a default rate on subprime mortgages of nearly 100%, which is clearly not going to happen). This collapse forced Lehman to declare bankruptcy while it was technically still solvent - an unprecedented event, so far as I know. As I mentioned in another post, there is a practical definition of solvency and a technical definition. The market seems to follow the practical one. Extreme leverage necessitates a probabilistic definition of solvency. Me: That's fine, but I don't think you've thought through the implications of such a definition in a period of extreme ambiguity. You can have situations where _no one knows_ if you're solvent or not. If that's true, and people have suddenly ramped up their risk aversion, then companies that are, in fact, solvent can be rendered insolvent simply by the existence of these concerns
Re: Meltdown
- Original Message From: John Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 11:16:58 PM Subject: Re: Meltdown Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] But such a stampede could cause lots of otherwise fine companies to go under, which would cause still more companies to go under, and so on, It's hard to imagine _anything_ worth the risk of going through that when interventions can prevent it. So, you imagine a problem, make it plenty scary, then imagine a solution, and say that a few people can magically do it. It is a good thing you guys are so much smarter than the rest of us dumb market peons, what would we do without you? You may not be a politician, but you have the mindset down perfectly. Let me try one. My god, there are thousands of asteroids in the solar system and one could slam into earth at any time. Billions would die! Mass hysteria! Dogs and cats, living together! But I have a PLAN! I can save us all! Just give me $700B and I will avert the disaster! Whadya say? Me: Well, I say I'd go to astronomers, and astrophysicists, and aerospace engineers. And I'd find the best ones in the world. I'd ask them - what's the risk of this happening? What's the best way to prevent it? How much would it cost? Then I'd decide if that was worth the risk. What would you do? Judging by your feelings about finance, none of those people would be worth consulting. Are you, by some chance, one of the best astronomers, astrophysicists, or aerospace engineers in the world? Is there some reason I should believe that you know what you're talking about? snipping stuff Quite simply, ego. You don't know nearly as much as you think you do about what will happen and how you can control it. You run around wild-eyed telling us how the world is ending but don't worry, you know how to save us. Then you do something, the world does not end, and you claim you saved us. Sorry, I have much less confidence in politicians and people like you than I do in the collective self-interest and creativity of a large group of talented people to solve problems competitively. Me: OK, your argument, just to be clear, is that you don't know anything about finance. You have no experience with financial markets. You don't know anything about me (so how do you know you shouldn't trust people like me?). You are aware of the overwhelming consensus of people who do have experience in finance, who have studied financial markets, and who (like me) have absolutely nothing to gain by exaggerating (or minimizing) the risks...but you think from a vague first principles belief in large groups of talented people (the same large group, it's worth noting, who caused this problem in the first place) that nothing should be done (even though the members of this large group are universal in their belief that something must be done) and you think it's _my_ ego that's the problem? You're welcome to that belief, but, well, I'm a political scientist. I believe in _data_. I believe in theory too - my work is highly theoretical - but theories need to be grounded in clear causal mechanisms and tested against the empirical evidence. You _still_ haven't come up with a historical example. Not one. You're talking about isolated bailouts of firms (and it's worth pointing out that, so far, the AIG bailout has worked - the markets have not collapsed, even though they came pretty close, so this cuts _against_ your argument, not for it). My point was that an organized and skillful bailout of an entire financial sector in panic can, and has, worked in the past. Even more so, you don't seem to understand what I've been saying, so let me try again. _My whole point_ is that we don't know what will happen. We know there's a chance of the next Great Depression. _We don't know_ what the odds of that happening are. Had the money markets collapsed, the odds were very high (in my opinion) but they haven't yet, so we just don't know. However, the best people in this field think that the odds remain uncertain but significant. _Given that fact_ almost all of them feel that it's worth risking significant amounts of money to minimize the risk. I'm the one saying We don't know what's going to happen, so we should play it safe. You're the one who seems to be arguing that your understanding of markets is so total that you can predict that only the bad companies will fail. Well that might be true. You're _so certain_ that's true you're willing to wager the an unknown possibility of a second Great Depression against it. I'm _so uncertain_ that I'm willing to pay significant costs to insure against the possibility. So I have two simple questions for you. What do you think the odds of such a collapse occurring are? 1% 5%? Whatever number you pick - what do you think should be done to lessen that risk? Nothing? If so
Re: Meltdown
So I have two simple questions for you. What do you think the odds of such a collapse occurring are? 1% 5%? Whatever number you pick - what do you think should be done to lessen that risk? Nothing? If so, do you not buy health insurance? Best, Gautam I hate replying to m own post, but I had a good idea. Do you know what iatrogenic errors are? They're mistakes by doctors that cause harm to patients. Iatrogenic errors are among the leading causes of death in the United States - I'm not sure, but I think they might actually be the leading cause of death. Does that mean that you should never go to a doctor? After all, sometimes people get better on their own. Sometimes cancer goes into spontaneous remission. And unlike most of the people involved in this debate, doctors have a financial incentive to treat you unnecessarily! So does that mean you should never go to a doctor? Of course not. When you're sick you need to listen to your doctor. You shouldn't listen blindly, but it's probably not a good idea to ignore them completely either. Gautam ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Meltdown
- Original Message From: John Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 12:15:33 AM Subject: Re: Meltdown Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Well, I say I'd go to astronomers, and astrophysicists, and aerospace engineers. And I'd find the best ones in the world. Why haven't you? Me: Well, I have. Or at least, I've read what they have to say. I even know who they are. Do you? John: There are a large number of economists who think Paulson's $700B bailout is a bad idea. That you have the cahones to claim that your viewpoint is an overwhelming consensus of experts is a perfect example of the absurdity of people like you actually being able to fix the problem. Me: Brilliant. You have paid such close attention to what I'm saying that you manage to...come to an opinion on something about which I have expressed no opinion. Remarkable. Actually, I don't think Paulson's bailout is a good idea. Although the fact that you keep citing it as $700B suggests to me that you don't understand it. I prefer Dodd's plan, which isn't perfect, but is much better. (the same large group, it's worth noting, who caused this problem in the first place) Politicians and people like you, yes. Me: Again, you know nothing about me, except that I'm taking the time to debate with someone incapable of even ordinary civility. Which, to be fair, doesn't speak well of constraints on my time. But I'm trying to procrastinate right now. I believe in _data_. Me too. Me: The data do not suggest that. You _still_ haven't come up with a historical example. Not one. Show me the data of the last three bail outs that I mentioned, and how they averted disaster. Me: It's not my job to educate you. It may amuse me, but it doesn't really do that at the moment. _My whole point_ is that we don't know what will happen. We know there's a chance of the next Great Depression. _We don't know_ what the odds of that happening are. Had the money markets collapsed, the odds were very high (in my opinion) but they haven't yet, so we just don't know. However, the best people in this field think that the odds remain uncertain but significant. You are really good at that. Did you learn that in political science class? I don't know, but all the experts agree with me. So I must be right. It works even better when all the experts actually do agree with you, though. Me: OK, so, I've talked about basic financial market mechanics and pointed to works by Kindelberger and Taleb. You have...talked about mystical properties of markets. Hmm. So I have two simple questions for you. What do you think the odds of such a collapse occurring are? 1% 5%? Whatever number you pick - what do you think should be done to lessen that risk? Nothing? If so, do you not buy health insurance? You sure are dramatic. Why not wait and see what happens? If things turn out as badly as you predict, surely your cadre of experts will be able to propose a simple solution in a few weeks or whatever. Oh but wait, then we might see that you were crying wolf. Hard to get re-elected then. Me: Ah yes, because I'm definitely running for office right now. Come on, this is just tiresome. At least try to have a simple discussion without accusing everyone of bad faith. When you get cancer, you go to the oncologist. She says, we need to do chemo now before it metastasizes. Your answer is, of course...let's wait and see what happens. After it metastasizes surely you will be able to propose a simple solution... Try that approach. Tell me how it goes. Gautam ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: malaria in Africa
On Feb 18, 2008 6:20 PM, Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But one issue where we do actually _know_ what the right thing to do is, is trade. Free trade is the right policy. And McCain is right on that (as, sadly, both Democrats, repudiating one of the greatest achievements of the Clinton Administration, are wrong). If I can't trust someone to get the right answer in an area _where we actually know what the right answer is_, I don't see how I can trust them to get it right on the issues where it's a lot harder. Could you explain further? Our views on Obama and McCain are fairly similar, but switched around. I wouldn't be too unhappy to see either one as President, but I'd prefer Obama. Nick Me: There aren't many issues in the social sciences where there is virtually complete professional consensus. I'm not sure if there are any except this one, but there is one. That one is free trade. There is absolutely no doubt that free trade is good for both countries. If two countries trade freely with each other _they will both be better off_. No qualifications, no restrictions. There are a tiny handful of complicating issues (strategic trade theory, for example) but they are, to first approximation, irrelevant. Trade can certainly have poor distributive effects. But making up for them will cost less - almost always vastly less - than the benefits from the free trade. I can't imagine any competent economist disagreeing with anything I've written there. There are particular special circumstances in which the earlier statements might not be true, but they are relatively rare and far less important than the general principle. Beyond that, free trade has positive distribution effects across all people - that is, it may increase inequality within states, but it decreases inequality between states, and inequality between states is vastly larger than that within (most) states. That is not _certain_, but it is, I would say, highly probable. Free trade has positive effects for the US's national standing. Hillary Clinton, in declaring her opposition to the few free trade agreements President Bush has negotiated, has hit on the one policy that might actually make our international standing _worse_. That is, again, less certain than the previous statement, but it's _still_ highly likely. Finally, I believe it is likely (not highly likely, but likely) that free trade policies prevent war. Why do some people oppose free trade? Many of the gains from trade are distributed, while the losses are concentrated. So unions oppose trade agreements (almost always incredibly foolishly - even if the agreements weren't passed, the larger economic forces are much more important) because their workers may suffer even though the nation as a whole will benefit. Note, btw, that unions almost always _oppose_ retraining programs that might help those same hurt workers, because such programs would move those people out of the unionized industry and weaken the union even as it hurts its members. This is a classic principal-agent problem, and if you think it's right-wing to say that, tell it to Robert Reich, who first pointed it out to me. Others are, quite simply, wrong. But unless you're a member of one of those wounded industries, you should be in favor of free trade. And even if you are, you should acknowledge that by doing so you're putting your personal welfare over the general good. Now, some people don't like this - they argue that the economists have it wrong, for example. I guess that might be true, although there is no finding in social science in which I have more confidence than the principle of comparative advantage. But anyone who chooses to say that I never want to hear ever criticize a Creationist or an Intelligent Designer ever, ever again. Because both are doing exactly the same thing - rejecting evidence and science in favor of faith. Do it if you must, but don't claim you're part of the reality-based community or anything like it. Gautam Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: malaria in Africa
Charlie Bell wrote: Heh. It's very frustrating to people who don't have spare time, and it's very frustrating to people who are trying to sort out one point to be totally smothered. You're not exploring details, you're just drowning people in volume, and switching or adding topics. It's very poor in debate, and it's just plain rude in a conversation. But after 10 years, I'm pretty sure you're not going to change. I replied: Look, Charlie, Dan is fantastically good at researching and analyzing data. There's something frankly perverse in the idea that such an ability (one that puts him in the tiny handful of the very best I've ever met at such things) is something that he should _not_ use on the list. He's not smothering you with data, he's doing data analysis. There are basically two ways to construct a logical argument. You can be inductive (reasoning from concrete details into general findings) or deductive (reasoning from general theories into concrete hypotheses). Dan is very good at both, but when he's reasoning from evidence he's engaging in superb inductive reasoning. Quite often it's good enough that it's basically a model of how to construct an argument, one I would use enthusiastically if I were teaching a class on the subject. If he's not allowed to use data to support an argument, exactly how is he supposed to try to persuade someone? I find inductive reasoning in politics to usually be vastly superior to deductive reasoning, because it is empirical and because our theories of politics are insufficiently well-grounded to value them over countervening information. Empiricism requires data. If you're not as good at it as he is (no shame - I'm not either) I would think reading and debating with him would be a great opportunity to _get better at it_. If he challenges your opinions using data it might be worthwhile once in a while to consider whether your opinions should change, instead of believing that he has bad motives. What you call changing topics is usually, for example, use of an enormously valuable technique - drawing out the logical implications of stated beliefs into a different domain and seeing if they still make sense. If they don't, they probably don't make sense in the first domain _either_. How do you try to persuade people to change their minds? And in particular, how do you do it without using data? For example, in this discussion I have _not once_ seen anyone actually engage with the argument or the data. There are dismissals any point of view differing from the priors as bought and paid for (I've always wanted to ask people who believe that - if you think everyone's opinion is for sale, doesn't that really say something about yours?). I've seen cites to irrelevant arguments (DDT is nasty - well, no shit. It's an insecticide. Is it as nasty as malaria? Is it as nasty as the chemicals that might be used instead of it?). And I've seen no concern whatsoever with the people involved - like his daughter. Dan is a real scientist, and I'm at least a social scientist, so we're both trained to ask a simple question in any argument - what is the obtainable information that would cause you change your belief? If you can't come up with an answer, haven't you just said that you're not persuadable at all? And if you _can_, why do you reject as ill-intentioned (and what would his motives be, exactly, for having ill-intent?) efforts by a very bright and talented person to bring such information to bear? Gautam Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: malaria in Africa
Doug wrote: Hi Gautam, how are you? I hope you'll stay with us for a while. I'd especially be interested in your perspective on the Presidential contest which continues to be one of the most interesting in my lifetime. What do you think of McCain? I know your buddy George Will has expressed reservations. You're back in the Boston area, eh? Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l Hi Doug. I am indeed - I've been here for 3.5 years now. I have huge disagreements with McCain. I think McCain-Feingold has been a disaster (as some of you may recall, I can at least claim that I thought that _before_ it was passed). There are several other issues. That being said...Dan is right, I'm a big McCain supporter. He's actually the first Presidential candidate that I've ever given money to (and I gave it to him before NH when everyone still thought he had no chance). I don't know if he'll be a great President. I don't even know, really, if he'd be a good one. But there's no doubt in my mind he's a great man (as David Brooks wrote in his column). He's the only politician in America I can think of who really would rather be right than President. John Dickerson wrote an article in Slate comparing Obama and McCain (and I like Obama a lot too) pointing out that Obama says he's going to tell you hard truths in his speech - and then never does. McCain sometimes doesn't do anything else. He began town hall meetings in NH in a Republican primary by saying Global warming is a big problem and we have to do something about it. He attacked the ethanol subsisy in Iowa. He (correctly) said that the old manufacturing jobs in Michigan weren't coming back. There simply isn't another politician who does things like that. I don't know what it would be like to have a President that committed to saying the truth and doing what's right for the country, but I'd really like to find out. When he won (I think) the NH primary, I put a link to this clip from the West Wing on my Facebook page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAXz6j4Yj9M. It seemed appropriate, somehow. Beyond personal qualities: McCain is the one person I'm sure will make torture illegal, which is, to me, a matter of national honor and thus absolutely non-negotiable. I think he will handle Iraq responsibly (Hillary's pledge to start removing troops in 60 days is, to me, the perfect example of everything that's wrong with her as a candidate, and a good start at what would be wrong with her as President). The war has been mishandled horrendously, but extricating ourselves from it is something that must be done carefully, to put it mildly. On economic issues - he surely doesn't know them as well as I would wish. But, look, there are lots of policy issues where we don't really know what the right thing to do is. I don't _know_ what the right thing to do in Iraq is. I have some ideas, but I'm really not sure, and I don't trust anyone who is. But one issue where we do actually _know_ what the right thing to do is, is trade. Free trade is the right policy. And McCain is right on that (as, sadly, both Democrats, repudiating one of the greatest achievements of the Clinton Administration, are wrong). If I can't trust someone to get the right answer in an area _where we actually know what the right answer is_, I don't see how I can trust them to get it right on the issues where it's a lot harder. Anyways, all of that being said - I think Obama is fantastic. I don't think he's quite ready, but he is something special. The best political talent of his generation, surely, and the best speaker I've ever seen, bar none. Amazing. I don't see how you can look at him, know that, right now, a man who _in his own lifetime_ would not have been able to use buses and waterfountains in half this country, and know that he's the person most likely to be the next President and not be enormously proud of this country. I think the searching for the Messiah aspects of his candidacy are quite troubling, but he is the incarnation of the American Dream, and I would be proud to have either as my President. Gautam Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Deathly Hallows - no spoilers
I just finished it. I'm in San Diego, so I lost three hours due to the time change, but just finished it. It's amazing, wonderful, deeply moving, and not just everything I hoped for, but far more. Happy reading to all of you still working on it!!! Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.coml Got a little couch potato? Check out fun summer activities for kids. http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=oni_on_mailp=summer+activities+for+kidscs=bz ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 9/11 conspiracies or why the Red Sox collapsed
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Good to here from you. So even though you are clearly wrong about 9/11 (everyone knows that it was a mutant energizer buddy sent by the Bush daughters because they could not count up to 103 and were therefore insulted by the towers) I hope you have some more insight into the collapse of your beloved sox. I think George talked to George who told Manny David that they had to lose. The future of the free world depends on Yankee victory. Seriously who do you like for MVP Heh. They're falling apart because they made a sequence of ill-advised trades in a hopeless attempt to create a super-team like the Yankees. Right at the beginning of the season I thought trading for Beckett and Lowell would be a bad idea. MVP? Pujols in the NL, even though he's been injured, but if not him, Ryan Howard, I guess. In the AL I think it's definitely Jeter, who's the only AL player in the top 5 (he's fifth, I think) in VORP. He has, rather remarkably, gone from being a truly atrocious shortstop to one who is basically average (he was significantly better than average last year, I think). Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 9/11 conspiracies or why the Red Sox collapsed
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 9/18/2006 9:58:12 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: He has, rather remarkably, gone from being a truly atrocious shortstop to one who is basically average (he was significantly better than average last year, I think). OK - maybe you will grant that he has gone from a very good shortstop with somewhat limited range but a great arm to an excellent shortstop who can always make a key play. You really have to watch him every day to appreciate how good he is Sorry, I phrased that poorly. He was _always_ an extraordinary, Hall-of-Fame caliber shortstop, because his hitting more than made up for his atrocious fielding. His hitting was never quite as good as people gave it credit for (he was never, ever, in the same league as ARod) but he was always very good. Now he's moved from an excellent shortstop who hits his way into the HOF despite an awful glove to an excellent shortstop who hits his way into the HOF despite a mediocre glove. As for the you have to see him play every day...let's talk about hitting for a second. Assume 600 plate appearances in a season. A .250 hitter is a poor one, a .300 hitter is a good one. The difference between a .250 hitter and a .300 hitter over 600 plate appearances is the difference between 180 and 150 hits - 30 hits. That's less than one hit every five days. Even if you were in the press box for every game, the human mind is simply incapable of assessing the difference between the two non-numerically. No one can tell the difference between 1 hit a game and 1.1 hits a game. OK, then think about how much harder judging defense is. Most importantly, being there helps someone in judging hitting, because you always watch the batter and events are unambiguous. The batter gets a hit or he doesn't. In judging defense, though, an observer _isn't_ watching the SS at the key moment (when he takes his first step). Furthermore, the brain has a bias against judging events that don't happen. You don't remember the balls that go pass a SS in bad position - but you do remember the plays that look amazing because the SS was badly positioned when a better positioned SS would have made them routine - and you remember them to that SS's _credit_, instead of as mistakes on his part. So I really don't think that watching Jeter play every day will help you judge his defense - in fact, I think it will probably _hurt_, because you'll see the spectactular plays that he makes, but not the routine ones that he misses. Does he have a fantastic arm? Sure? How does that balance against all the hits that get by him because he didn't move quickly enough to get them? No one can judge that subjectively - the only way to do it is analytically, and we can tell that, analytically, the strength of his arm just wasn't very important. Best, Gautam Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: 9/11 conspiracies (WAS RE: What should we believe when there is no reliable information?)
--- Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nick wrote: Is there some reason I'm not aware of that you and your network of highly placed acquaintances would need to be notified if we were planning an act of high treason? In his rush to play the man instead of the ball, Nick completely misses the point of my posts. The whole thrust of my argument is precisely that, for there to be a conspiracy of the type alleged, thousands of _perfectly ordinary_ people would have to be involved. Not nefarious actors with malevolent links to Saudi financiers. Just engineers, scientists, civil servants, businessmen, and even students. If Nick were to plot high treason, we'd never know - well, until he was caught, of course. But for this type of conspiracy to have occurred - one in which the towers were destroyed by explosives inside the building, and then the evidence of this suppressed after the attacks - then literally thousands of people would have to be involved in the coverup, because that's how many people were involved in the investigation and/or have the skills to identify flaws in the published reports about the investigation. The number of people involved is so large that even a graduste student without wealth or political connections would have to know many, many people involved - so many that for me not to have noticed _something_ strange going on would take either heroic stupidity or active connivance. Either of those is possible, of course. Jonathan had the courtesy to disclaim any such beliefs, but Nick does not need to, of course. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 9/11 conspiracies (WAS RE: What should we believe when there is no reliable information?)
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm writing to apologize for being such a pompous ass. Also to state that my current position on the whole thing is that whoever it was who plotted to bring down the WTC buildings succeeded in a manner so spectacular that it must have surprised even them. 9/11 was a ghastly crime committed by crazed fanatics, some or all of whom were Muslim extremists. Dear Dave, Thanks for the kind words. In fact, I just want to note here that in fact you are _precisely_ correct. I can't cite the page # for you because my books are in the office, but as _The Age of Sacred Terror_ among other books notes, it is exactly true that the plotters were surprised by their success. We have _on video_ Usama Bin Laden stating that he was the most optimistic member of Al Qaeda in terms of his expectations for the damage done by the impacts, and that even he thought that only the floors above the point of impact would be destroyed. Best, Gautam Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 9/11 conspiracies
--- Gibson Jonathan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I have no idea if your accomplished friend is in on
anything. If I had
I would have directly said so. I wasn't trying to
besmirch her, I was
pointing out many people accept a
go-along-to-get-along mentality and
yet others find this quite handy for climbing the
ladders of power.
Greetings John. That _may_ be true. But think about
whta that means in this case. It means that she (and
I, and many other people I know) are so committed to
climing the ladders of power that we're willing to
countenance - and in fact, actively cover for - high
treason. Do you really think that's plausible?
Personally, I had never considered massive {in
repurcussion} internal
conspiracies from within until I read Tom Clancy's
Red Storm Rising
many years ago: facing an internal crisis a central
soviet cabal
orchestrates an attack on the schoolchildren by
terrorists as pretext
to hide other systemic failures by launching WWIII.
Yeah, but, that's a _novel_. I'm not saying
conspiracices never happen - they do - but it's a
novel. It's also a novel about the Soviet Union, and
most people would say the old Soviet Union operated a
little differently than the US does.
Webster Tarply's
role in uncovering NATO intelligence behind the
multiple false-flag
machine-gun terror attacks by Reds in Italy - and
one such kidnapping
which killed a government minister is part of the
Italian public
record. General Smedley war is a racket Butler
was approached by a
cabal of wealthy industrialists who sought to
overthrow Roosevelt in
the 1930's, but he refused and exposed them - with
no action taken to
imprison them: this ought to inform your opinion of
some timeless facts
about American power structures. Operation
Northwoods was concocted by
American generals in the early 1960's to hijack
planes and kill
Americans as pretext to inciting a Cuban invasion -
Kennedy nixed it
and fired the perps.
I'm not going to comment on any of these in particular
- except to point out that even if they occurred, they
all involve a handful of people, and they were all
_discovered_. Any 9/11 conspiracy would involve
thousands of people - it would have to be so large,
remember, that it would probably include someone as
insignificant as me - and _none of them_ would have
ever said a word about it. Don't you think that's an
entirely different kettle of fish?
I'm reminded of a saying Gore Vidal once said
describing how things
have long worked in D.C., I won't rat out your
scheme, if you don't
rat out mine. Much mischief gets done all the time
by our so-called
protector class. Why insist black hearted and
aristo-minded people
could not possibly treat us as expendable chattel?
Well, I met Gore Vidal in June and let's just say, I'm
not impressed by his insight into how the government
works. I'm sure he likes to think that's how it
works, but that doesn't mean that it does.
I have no doubt there was a massive explosion at the
Pentagon, but what
it was is open to question. I'd like to know if
your friend that close
to the impact actually saw the exact airline in
question since almost
nothing remained, even a dent where the engines
should have impacted -
let alone survived. A simple 3-6 clips showing the
impact from
different vantage points would clear up the issue a
great deal - the
absurd chunky digital frame or two fobbed off on us
last year did
nothing to quiet the concerns and as I recall only
raised the
temperature of discussion. Surely, you must wonder
why this event is
still shrouded when it could be so easily dispensed
with? The public
wonders, like it or not.
No, I really don't. It's not a case of like it or not
- the public wonders, but the public has been shown
the truth. Just out of curiosity, why do you think
there would be 3-6 video clips of the Pentagon? And
if there were, don't you think that this would be used
as evidence that there was a conspiracy, since it
would be strange if such clips exist. But if you need
an eyewitness report of the impact, such things do
exist:
http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins040902.asp-
for example.
My friend, thank God, was not at his desk at the
moment of impact - or he'd be dead, instead of the
American hero that he is.
Like the three blind men feeling different parts of
an elephant, we can
all take different measures of the same item before
us. I do not doubt
your impressive credentials. I recognize your name
from the NOVA
update to 9-11 last week.
I have to admit my total confusion as to this one.
I've never been on NOVA in my life - and as far as I
know, I'm the only Gautam Mukunda in the United
States, so I don't know whom you might be confusing me
with. Whomever it was, though, I assure you it wasn't
me.
4) Idiots don't get multiple degrees, but it is true
that people with
degrees can be fooled from real estate
9/11 conspiracies (WAS RE: What should we believe when there is no reliable information?)
their motivation? 4) The other possibility, of course, is that all of us are idiots. I admit that this is a possibility. Do you have any particular evidence to suggest that this is the case? Best, Gautam Mukunda (make sure you spell it right when you do the Googling) Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Gas Prices
--- Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ahh, but the other side of that is (for instance) how rare asteroid strikes to Earth have been; it's probably not going to happen as long as our species is around. However, would you agree with capitalism's logic that it's inefficient -- therefore unwise -- to plan for such a contingency and develop technology to help us prevent it? That's not the logic of capitalism. It's barely even the logic of some sort of cliched stereotype of capitalism. Protecting against risks like that is what is called a public good. Somewhere around your second week of a first year economics class, they'll explain that public goods are things that markets don't provide for adequately, and this is when governments have to step in. Gasoline is, however, not much of a public good. Efficiency in a market can't be the only measure of a thing's value, because there are human-scale effects which can't be costed. A true but trivial statement. Efficiency in a market is an _enormously important_ value. When a market is inefficient you are saying that, in the aggregate, people are less well off than they might be. If you build a refinery using some resources, then you fail to build something else with those same resources. You are giving something up by choosing to build that refinery. So you must make a decision. Build a refinery or build something else. A company that built a refinery 20 years ago (when gas prices were quite low) or 10 years ago (when they were _extremely low) would have been making a very bad decision. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Gas Prices
--- Deborah Harrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It is when driving your car is the only way to escape death. It is when critical patients stuck in generator-powered-only hospitals can't breathe. It is when food and water have to be trucked miles into a disaster zone where refugees haven't had any for days. Debbi But Then That Explains Your Take On Drug Prices Maru (Hey, just following your shining example of argumentation, ol' boy.) No, it still isn't. Public good is a technical term with a clear meaning. It doesn't mean whatever is convenient for Debbi at this moment in time. And my take on drug prices is based on a desire to preserve innovation and access in the United States and around the world. Other than a reflex hostility to corporate profits and self-righteousness, where does yours come from? Sauce for the goose, after all... Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Gas Prices
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What a load. Ever hear of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? Apparently, someone, somewhere thought that the government needed to step in to ensure a consistent supply of this public good. Dave I have. But you haven't, apparently, because you don't seem to know what it is. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a very good idea designed to deal with political (i.e. non-market) disruptions in crude oil supplies. The problem we're dealing with at the moment is (first) mainly a problem of _refined_ gasoline, to which the SPR can contribute very little right now, because it stores crude oil. It's also _strategic_, i.e., designed to be used because oil is a political commodity. This is very different from price controls (enforced, in your call, by shooting people who violate them, because that's how you usually end up dealing with looters). Price controls are almost always a bad idea. They've always been a bad idea. They're the idea of people who think that they are somehow morally exempt from the laws of supply and demand, a position that makes about as much sense as claiming you're morally exempt from the law of gravity. You might _want_ to be, but I still advise a parachute next time you jump out of an airplane. In this case, if we were to not raise the price of gasoline when the quantity of gasoline available has shrunk, the outcome would be immediately predictable. Shortages. Gas lines. You raise the price of something if you want people to use it more efficiently. We now have less gasoline. You want people to use it more efficiently? The price has to go up. It can go up in the dollar price. Or it can go up by making people wait in line. We tried that in the 1970s, it wasn't really a successful policy. Unless you're a member of the left, I guess, which seems to believe that the entire world should be run like the DMV. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Gas Prices
I have said this before, but just to make it clear. No post from Nick will _ever_ get any answer of any sort from me on list beyond this one. For me to be called a racist by someone like _him_, of all people, puts him entirely the bounds of decent society, and I will continue to ignore him now and in the future. --- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 9/2/05, Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Other than a reflex hostility to corporate profits and self-righteousness, Still haven't abandoned the When will you stop beating your wife style of argument, eh? where does yours come from? A rather different sort of ethics -- one that I greatly prefer than what I see as idolization of free market economics. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Gas Prices
--- Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: government intervention. A truly conservative argument is that, for all of its flaws, the market does a much better job of allocating gasoline in most cases than does the government. Dan M. To be fair, that's _one_ of the two libertarian/conservative arguments. The other is that it's much, much better to make sure that the government must not have the _power_ to control these things, because if they do, they will put it to bad use. If the government can control gasoline allocations, then only the friends of the people in power will get gasoline, and this is A Bad Thing. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Gas Prices
--- Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Capitalist Evil Logic dictates that with such low margin it´s not worth building a new refinery. No, that would be _correct_ logic. If the margin for building a refinery were that low, then _you should build something else_. The reason capitalism is A Good Thing is because it forces economies to operate efficiently. Spending money on low-return projects when higher return projects are available is inefficient. It is impossible to predict what the price of oil will be in 20 years, so of course you don't build refineries that might or might not be useful 20 years from now. That would be a useless waste of resources. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Doom That Came To N'Warlins - II Meets Gas Prices
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When threads collide... It occurred to me that the answer to the original question in the Gas Prices thread was looting, just being engaged in by corporations, and not individuals. I think that whatever punishment is meted out to individuals caught looting stores ought to be brought to bear upon corporations who engage in looting in the form of hyper-inflated gas prices. Dave Because obeying the law and maintaining property rights is the same thing as stealing things at gun point. And clearly it's a good idea to make sure that there is no incentive whatsoever for corporations to prevent shortages and create stockpiles. It's always reassuring to know that no matter how brutally bad the mistakes we made in the past were (see price controls on gasoline in the 1970s)...there are people who want to do it all over again. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Doom That Came To N'Warlins - II Meets Gas Prices
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sep 1, 2005, at 12:24 PM, Gautam Mukunda wrote: --- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When threads collide... It occurred to me that the answer to the original question in the Gas Prices thread was looting, just being engaged in by corporations, and not individuals. I think that whatever punishment is meted out to individuals caught looting stores ought to be brought to bear upon corporations who engage in looting in the form of hyper-inflated gas prices. Because obeying the law and maintaining property rights is the same thing as stealing things at gun point. And clearly it's a good idea to make sure that there is no incentive whatsoever for corporations to prevent shortages and create stockpiles. It's always reassuring to know that no matter how brutally bad the mistakes we made in the past were (see price controls on gasoline in the 1970s)...there are people who want to do it all over again. Sorry Dave - that came out a lot more acerbic than I meant it to be. Hmm. I don't recall saying that. I recall saying ... well, there it is, just above your paragraph: that if corporations engage in looting in the form of hyper-inflationary gas prices, they should be punished as thieves. But this isn't looting. The gasoline is _their property_. They paid for it fair and square. In doing so they took a risk - the price of gasoline could also have dropped suddenly. In this case, they will be rewarded for that risk, but it doesn't have to happen that way,and somehow I don't think you'd be calling for them to be bailed out if it went the other way. They can sell it (or not sell it) for whatever price they choose. They have competitors who are also trying to sell things - and presumably they will use lower prices as their primary marketing tool, as this is, after all, the one they already use. You cannot, by definition, loot what you already own. Dave Since when is fairness the same as centralized control? Land Well, when you get to define fairness, it does appear to be the same thing as centralized control, yes. In this case you want whatever punishment is brought to bear upon the looters - that is, people who are stealing - to be brought upon companies who are obeying the law. How is that _different_ from centralized control, exactly? Fairness, it seems to me, involves asking people to obey the law. There is no part of that in imposing price controls on a highly competitive market. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Gas Prices
--- Horn, John [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I filled up yesterday morning at $2.39 per gallon. When I went home yesterday, it was $2.69. I just passed the station on my way home from work today and it was $2.99 per gallon. How can that be? How can it have gone up $.60 per gallon over the course of a day? I know Katrina hit the gulf oil platforms hard but did gas prices jump this much in past hurricanes? Can someone (anyone?) explain what's going on? - jmh The problem isn't crude oil supplies (mainly) but refinery capacity. Quite a few refineries are on the Gulf Coast as well, so this causes a significant problem, particularly because there is (IIRC) little or no slack in global refinery capacity either, so it's difficult to make up the difference. We haven't built a new refinery in the US in ~25 years or so - one guess as to why. The oil industry has also adopted JIT inventory management along with everyone else, but this means that oil prices are much more vulnerable to supply shocks than they were when everyone was keeping huge inventories of the stuff on hand. So this sort of a price spike is unsurprising. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Yahoo! Mail Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Gas Prices
--- Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The margin of the refinery drop too low, and Capitalists won't invest in things that don't have an _immediate_ high return. You're kidding, right? Just to pick an example from my old industry, a pharmaceutical company will spend on average ~$800MM to develop a drug, and that development process (from molecule to market) averages ~10 years. This is not anyone's definition of an immediate high return. This is one of those myths that people want to believe, I think. But it's not exactly true [*] that no new refinery was build, because those that exist are upgraded regularly to 2x, 4x, etc their initial capacity. Alberto Monteiro This is absolutely true, and something I said a few minutes ago in a talk with my Mom on this same topic. It is also true, though, that despite these improvements in capacity, US refining capacity was running flat-out even before Katrina, and this is not a good thing and something that really needed to be alleviated with some new construction. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: This post made in honor of Ronn
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gautam: well-spotted, and thanks for the laugh. Gautam does a half-bow in Dave's direction... I actually got the email while at the office and just started laughing like mad in a meeting. My advisor who, despite having twice as many Harvard degrees as I do never misses an opportunity to make fun of me about the place, thought that its placement on an alums list was what made it just right, somehow. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: USA bashing is fun
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Aug 21, 2005, at 5:35 PM, Gautam Mukunda wrote: --- Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In part, it is because there are well-organized, well-funded groups behind the USA's anti-evolution crusade. Dave This is, however, a response that provides no information. There are well-organized and well-funded groups in the United States for _everything_. The amount of money thrown out by the Ford Foundation _by itself_ is probably more than all of the prominent right-wing funding sources put together, and George Soros just might be spending more than everyone else _combined_ (no one really knows). The question is, why do such groups exist/have power in the US when they don't exist elsewhere? A couple of the other posters suggested an answer, though. It is a truism said so often that people forget its meaning that American politics are far less elite-driven than those of other democracies (see, for example, the death penalty debate in the US versus Europe). In this case some of the other posters have written things wihch suggest that where there are significant evangelical and/or fundamentalist religious populations in other industrialized states they too object - it's just that in the US they are able to influence the political process, while in Europe (for example) they are marginalized. This makes sense. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
This post made in honor of Ronn
An example of the true value of a Harvard education, drawn from a recent post on the Harvard Boston recent grads email list, as part of a request for a roommate: Looking for someone similar to the two of us already in the house: mid-20's young professional or grad student. Someone who is clean, respectful, easy to get along with, who values having a nice home, and doesn't mind emptying the dishwasher or changing the role of toilet paper. So, does anyone have any ideas as to new _roles_ for toilet paper? Apparently the old one isn't sufficient anymore :-) Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: This post made in honor of Ronn
--- Maru Dubshinki [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Clearly what we have here is a rather progressive youngster, a shining example of the further march of liberty: this wimmin, or persun, is advocating that toilet paper be liberated from its constricted role of cleaning our bottoms. They hold with Freud that this fixation on the anus is infantilizing, and retarding of progress integrating the self; in short blocking personal growth. Thusly, we must change the role which toilet paper plays to clean other areas, such as the nostrils, or the mouth, other bodily orifices. I dare say that in this cry for progress we can see a covert dialectic, leading to a synthesis of the negative, or shadow aspects of the whole metemphysical nature of toilet paper: what could be more subversive than turning an item that is meant to clean, and tragically, be immediately disposed of into a representation of the Great Mother that the patriarchal Western scientific society has repressed and demonized than by into the embodiment of its enemy, waste, and permament waste at that? ~Maru Frighteningly enough, it wasn't entirely clear to me that this was a satire the first time I read it... Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: This post made in honor of Ronn
--- Maru Dubshinki [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Didja like how I threw in some legitimate scholarship like Freud's anal fixation theories of sexual maturation, and the Great mother religious motif, and Jung's shadow, just to camouflage the nonsense? ~Maru Heck, judging by some of the stuff I've seen, it is impossible to differentiate anyways... Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: USA bashing is fun
--- Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Today's biggest br newspaper has a huge story about the return of Creationism to USA classes. It has the general flavour of look how those USAns are stupid to believe this nonsense. Alberto Monteiro Now, the interesting question for me is, why does this essentially only happen in the United States? The US is the most religious industrial nation, so I have to ask - do Christian Third World nations even teach about evolutionary theory? Do they have debates over whether it is taught? Why _just_ here? I honestly have no idea, and would be very curious as to anyone else's thoughts on the subject. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Mindless and Heartless
--- Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: They are known because they prominent members of the neoncon movement. The current administration (Bush and Channey) accepted at least some of their ideas and wolfie and perle were given prominent positions in the adminstration. They did not get these positions because they were jews. Thank you. Ritu This is, you do know, indistinguishable from the point I was making, right? Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What the Heck Is a Neocon?
--- Doug Pensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/180 I think this is largely correct, except for this: The most prominent champions of this view inside the administration are Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Their agenda is known as neoconservatism, though a more accurate term might be hard Wilsonianism. Advocates of this view embrace Woodrow Wilson's championing of American ideals but reject his reliance on international organizations and treaties to accomplish our objectives. (Soft Wilsonians, a k a liberals, place their reliance, in Charles Krauthammer's trenchant phrase, on paper, not power.) Like Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, hard Wilsonians want to use American might to promote American ideals. Everything in this is right except the inclusion of Cheney. He's not a neocon. As far as I can tell he is a traditional realist - in fact, he seems to be almost completely indifferent to questions of democracy outside the US. If your definition of neocon is someone who thinks that the US should use its power to promote the spread of democracy around the world then I would agree, I think that's an accurate one. But there's not much evidence that many people at the top levels of the Administration _other than_ the President believe in that, and the President seems very much to be a Johnny-come-lately on the topic. He seems to have come to this belief only after 9/11. He certainly didn't believe it before then. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Mindless and Heartless
--- Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gautam Mukunda wrote: What makes you say he _was_ a major player in getting us involved? He was the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Can you name the Deputy Secretary of a single other Department? Have any other Deputy Secretaries given major interviews on the most controversial topic of the day? Until I read this thread I had no idea that Wolfie was a Jew, but I remember him basically because of his statement that the administration went ahead with the WMD rationalisation/charges because it seemed to be the most convenient way to garner support for the invasion of Iraq. It was the Vanity Fair interview, and if I recall correctly, he also said that the invasion of Iraq would undercut AQ propaganda because it would enable the US to withdraw it troops from SA. Yes, of course. Everybody in the Administration supported the war, Ritu. It was sort of a job requirement. The others just don't get the same amount of press. The _only_ below-Cabinet rank figures of any significance most people have ever heard of are Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. One guess as to what they have in common. *That* I know! They were both very visible and vocal in their support for the invasion of Iraq. Perle gave countless interviews describing Saddam's Iraq as a terrorist state, but what I recall the best about him is the fact that he admitted that the invasion was illegal. I sincerely doubt this, since it, well, _wasn't_. I think you may be misremembering. Perle is not a lawyer, of course, so he might have made a mistake. And all that stuff about Wolfie not being a major player is well and good from the point of view of administrative details but it certainly doesn't support your contention that the only reason people have heard of them is because they are Jews [that is if Perle is a Jew...?]. Ritu He is. He's also an administration official to about the same extent I am - he's an unpaid member of the Defense Policy Review Board, a purely advisory capacity. But he is a Jewish conservative - another person people can claim has betrayed the US in favor of Israel. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Yahoo! Mail for Mobile Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Mindless and Heartless
--- Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think you are fudging a bit here, Gautam, unless Bush appointed you as the Chairman of the Defense Policy Review Board sometime in the recent years and you just forgot to mention that here. :) Ritu Not really :-). Who is the current Chairman of the Policy Review Board? Who is any other previous Chairman? Can you name any other members of the Board? I think I _might_ be able to do the last, but not many of them. Again, just not a very important position. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Mindless and Heartless
--- Horn, John [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OK. I'm confused. You saying that the reason that Wolfowitz and Pearle are known is because of the fact that they are Jewish and are neo-cons. But *who* made them well-known? Surely not the vast left-wing liberal media? The anti-war liberals? David Duke? - jmh Some mixture of those. The media needed a story to tell. One story was the strange conspiracy of Straussians and neocons. A story told, I do believe, by people who've never read a word of Leo Strauss. It's a nice story to tell. There's this conspiracy of strange and funky people - people who operate in the shadows, who have bizarre professions like political scientist, and who are easily imagined as the power behind the throne in the Administration. Many of them are Jewish. Then we're off to the races. Wolfowitz is often described as the architect of the war. But how, exactly, was he that? The war had an architect, but it appears to have been _Rumsfeld_, not Wolfowitz, judging by everything I can tell about him. But the SecDef can't be a member of a shadowy conspiracy. Ritu asked if other members of the Defense Policy Review Board were interviewed on such controversial subjects. Of course they were. While I can't find a complete list of board members, I'm pretty sure that Newt Gingrich and Tom Foley are both on it! You can bet they were interviewed. But their roles don't fit into the conspiracy theory, so the attention isn't as big. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mindless and Heartless
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This guy's head -- and apparently, his heart -- is completely empty. Dave I'd say that that description is much more accurate of the anti-war movement that's cruelly using this poor woman. In this case, you're dealing with someone who has _already_ met the President, and who also deals in pathetic anti-Semitism, incidentally. Christopher Hithens dealt quite well with such things in Slate, amongst many other people. http://www.slate.com/id/2124500/ Out of curiosity, had I been killed in Iraq, would that mean that my parents would then have the right to demand a _second_ meeting with the President and insist that he continue the war so that my death was not wasted, or does such a privilege only go to people who agree with you? What I would ask also is, has the anti-war movement no sense of decency, using this poor woman as a prop in its attempts to attack the President? How do you feel rallying to someone supported by David Duke (http://www.davidduke.com/index_print.php?p=350) - it seems to me that people willing to exploit a poor, bereaved woman as she lashes out to assuage her grief should be comfortable in his company. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mindless and Heartless
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gautam, --- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This guy's head -- and apparently, his heart -- is completely empty. I'd say that that description is much more accurate of the anti-war movement that's cruelly using this poor woman. She went there of her own accord. What others do with that is their choice. Some, like the neo-con echo-chamber, are cruelly abusing her. That's their choice, too. Dave, you flawlessly agree with everything everybody on the antiwar left says. I really don't think the echo-chamber thing is really something you want to bring up. She and a group of others met with him prior to the revelations that this war of choice was entered into on a foundation of lies. She was mildly polite about their last meeting, and has changed her mind as the falsehoods that cost her son his life have piled up. There used to be a photo on her family website of the President kissing her. Possibly she's (at the urging of people like Michael Moore) changed her story? The evidence suggests that this is the case. In the piece cited by this Bush apologist, I do not find the claim of anti-Semitism claim that you assert. He quotes her noting the PNAC pro- Israel basis for the war as a reason that her child died. Do you confuse her rejection of blind support for Israel as anti-Semitism? I guess it is no longer permitted to criticize Israel. I'm sick of people shouting anti-Semitism every time Israel is criticized. Hitchens is a socialist and an atheist, incidentally. Clearly a member of the vast right-wing conspiracy. Not everyone who defends the war is a Bush apologist. Many of us are capable of independent thought. Since you parrot the far-left anti-war movement flawlessly, who are you an apologist for, exactly? You clearly don't know much about PNAC (I even applied for a summer internship there once - quite a Jewish conspiracy that would have made, with the Hindu guy in the background). But I think her belief that we fought this war for Israel at the behest of a Jewish cabal is pretty obviously anti-semitic. If you believe that, have the balls to say so. If you don't, have the decency to repudiate it. I support people with whom I agree, so I probably wouldn't get behind the Mukundas' pro-war rally. Nonetheless, they would be as much under Maureen Dowd's claim that The moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute. as Cindy Sheehen is. I would disagree with their stated aim, but endorse their right to declare it. That is the most intellectually vapid argument it is possible to make. You have the _right_ to declare that you are an armadillo. No one is suggesting that you don't. The point is, would President Bush (or, say, Howard Dean) be mindless and heartless for refusing to meet with them? You can't have it both ways. Unless you are, of course, mindless and heartless and just using this poor woman to make political points. How do you feel rallying to someone supported by David Duke (http://www.davidduke.com/index_print.php?p=350) - it seems to me that people willing to exploit a poor, bereaved woman as she lashes out to assuage her grief should be comfortable in his company. I don't play that game with you, and it is a game. Dave Well, Dave, line up with the anti-semites and people are going to draw conclusions. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mindless and Heartless
--- Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Aug 16, 2005, at 9:34 AM, Gautam Mukunda wrote: What I would ask also is, has the anti-war movement no sense of decency, using this poor woman as a prop in its attempts to attack the President? How do you feel rallying to someone supported by David Duke (http://www.davidduke.com/index_print.php?p=350) - it seems to me that people willing to exploit a poor, bereaved woman as she lashes out to assuage her grief should be comfortable in his company. That's also pathetic, Gautam -- or are you happy rallying behind a president supported by a porn star? By this logic, you are on the side of the rednecks who decided to protest Sheehan by destroying some of the crosses left near her vigil point (vandalism is illegal, last time I checked), No, of course not. You're an editor, Warren, you can do better than this. My point is (obviously) that this person has made claims that draw the specific support of anti-semites, and according to our list's self-apponted arbiters of all that is good and compassionate, we're supposed to defer to her moral judgemnt, blah blah blah. But, of course, it's not a coincidence that the David Duke's of this world have rallied particularly to her claims. They agree with them. This tells us something. Now I think this is just no enemies to my left. Anti-semitism (lots of people), anti-Americanism (Michael Moore, for example), and actually wanting the Iraqi insurgents to win (George Galloway) are all fine, as long as these people oppose the war. So here we've got a case where this poor woman has, under the influence of far-left figures, made claims that echo the traditional anti-semitic slanders, and been supported in those claims by some of the most prominent anti-semites in the United States. And guess what? We find out that very prominent members of the anti-war movement - and even ones on the list - are just fine with those statements and the people who make them. This doesn't surprise me, of course. But when someone makes _exactly_ the same statements that David Duke would make _on the traditional topics of anti-semitic slander_, it is, to put it mildly, highly significant, and it tells us something about the people who are willing to exploit her grief for their cause. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mindless and Heartless
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Aug 16, 2005, at 10:40 AM, Gautam Mukunda wrote: Pathetic. I will not allow the fact that I have a consistent point of view to be held against me. No, you just hold it against everyone you disagree with. But I think her belief that we fought this war for Israel at the behest of a Jewish cabal is pretty obviously anti-semitic. If you believe that, have the balls to say so. If you don't, have the decency to repudiate it. This isn't about my balls, but it helps me see that you are putting this in a my manhood vs. your manhood frame, which I find completely useless. No, it's about intellectual honesty and intellectual courage. It's now pretty clear to me that you _do_ believe these things. This doesn't shock me, and it explains a lot. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mindless and Heartless
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hmm. Perhaps I should go back into our archives to recall when you attacked the poor, grieving uncle of a Marine killed in Fallujah? Does that translate as someone who used someone else's bravery and sacrifice to claim an entirely unearned moral authority in order to influence a debate he couldn't win on the merits? Because I seem to recall protesting your doing that. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mindless and Heartless
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 11:46:19 -0700 (PDT), Gautam How convenient for those with conservative views to paint Cindy as weak and able to be manipulated, rather than as an intelligent, articulate, obsessive crusader against this war. Nick ...who thinks that it was the product of a Jewish conspiracy launched to protect Israel instead of for the interests of the United States. That is, you know, not a minor point. Not to me, anways. If a very prominent supporter of the war (say, one whose family was killed on 9/11) said that he supported it because he wanted to kill Arabs, I sure as hell wouldn't be lining up behind him. I'd feel sorry for his grief, but I would not be making him _my_ spokesman, and I wouldn't carefully orchestrate a media campaign to make him the face of my movement. Now, you _have_ chosen to do that. That is, of course, your choice. But don't pretend that it's not possible to draw conclusions from that choice either. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mindless and Heartless
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 16:09:39 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote No, it's about intellectual honesty and intellectual courage. It's now pretty clear to me that you _do_ believe these things. This doesn't shock me, and it explains a lot. Why, that sounds to me like an ad hominem attack, which is frowned upon here and pretty much rules out any chance of reasonable discussion. Nick How oculd it be so? You and Dave don't even _object_ to those views. If you did, all I'm saying, is, say so. You've had endless opportunities to do it, and you've consistently refused. What am I supposed to think, exactly? It can't be an ad hominem attack if I'm saying you believe in things that _you appear to believe in_. Here's, it's easy, I'll write the post for you myself. I disagree with the war. I think it was a bad idea, and I think we should leave Iraq immediately. But, whatever the reasons were that we invaded, I don't believe that the war was fought at the behest of Jews who were loyal to Israel instead of the United States. I understand that this echoes one of the oldest tropes of anti-semitism. I don't believe it. I don't support anyone who does believe these things, and I won't choose people who do believe these things as my spokesperson. There, see? Not hard at all. I'm happy to believe that you and Dave weren't even _aware_ of these parts of her views. Except, now, you are...and I notice that neither of you has lifted a finger to even disavow the _views_, much less the person expressing them. So what, exactly, am I supposed to think? Everything I wrote above would be something that any reasonable war opponent should believe and do. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mindless and Heartless
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So if you are going to get on your high horse how about taking a look at the right. But, of course, I did. I don't recall if I posted on list about it, but I thought the Terri Schiavo thing was outrageous, and I said so in quite a few places. I don't have any problem looking at the right. That's the difference. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mindless and Heartless
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Did someone give you a wedgie today or something? I mean, welcome back, but sheesh! Dave No. not at all. I'm going to repost something I wrote a while ago, which got _no_ response from you or Nick, about why the way you two argue bothers me so much. I'm going to make one rather more delicate point, I think. Two of my best friends on this list are devout Christians. In Real Life, several of my best friends are devout Evangelicals, Orthodox Catholics, or even Fundamentalists. I have never felt uncomfortable with their way of explaining how their faith informs their beliefs about politics, even when that meant that we very strongly disagreed in our views on government policies. I, as a non-Christian, find President Bush's expressions of faith and how it informs his policies to be remarkably welcoming, in fact. But, to be blunt, the way in which you use faith - stripped, so far as I can tell, from rational analysis of means and ends - makes my skin crawl, which is one of the main reasons I think you often get such an emotional response from me. The conflation of all types of moral analysis with that that of your own particular religious principles is one thing - the second is the consistent failure to acknowledge that just having faith that something will happen is not a policy. God does not, so far as I can tell, intervene to make the government policies I want successful just because I believe in Him. The best I can do is support policies that history and political science and every other type of knowledge and analysis tell me might work and that are as ethical as I can make them, in the hope that, as Lincoln said, this puts me on His side. But arguing that I should - in this case - not go to war because God is opposed to war (maybe he is, but I think and pray that He is opposed to other things far more than He is to war) and therefore I should do other things (like your council of churches plan) that could work only if He directly intervenes on this earth in a way that He certainly didn't in the last fifty years for European Jews, or Guatemalans, or Cambodians, or Russians, or Chinese, or Rwandans, or Kosovars, or Bosnian Muslims - that, it seems to me, is arguing that your faith dictates specific policy in a way that I have never seen (for example) the President do. I can't really see how it's different, in fact, from saying we should do this because God told you that's what to do, and that's not an attitude that's healthy for democracy, or safe for those of us who are religious minorities in the world's most tolerant and diverse democracy. In this case, here's what I hear you and Nick doing. You are right to oppose the war. You are as sure that you are right as you are sure of anything. So anything anyone who opposes the war does is okay. Make the hoariest of anti-semitic slanders? No problem. You're right, everyone else is not just wrong, they're going _against the will of God_. Now, if moral authority comes from dying in Iraq, then I don't have any. Neither does anyone else on list, for obvious reasons. But let's be clear. I volunteered to work as a privatization advisor in Baghdad who would spend most of their time outside the secured areas. My PhD advisor (very well connected in the military and government) initially supported my decision to volunteer to go. When he found out what job I was up for, he did everything he could to stop me, because he thought You'll probably face more than a 5% risk of being killed. I still tried to go. I am not amused at being told that we went to war because a bunch of Jews in the government were loyal to Israel. I'm not clear how the uncle of someone who died there gets exclusive claim to opine on the war either. I am deeply sorry for your loss, Nick, but I don't think that the above gives me any special claim at all on the war, so I don't think you get one either, and I don't appreciate being told that I'm not even allowed to disagree with you. I don't think it's too much to ask that people who disagree with my position on the war don't support figures who make anti-semitic statements, and don't claim that their position is the only moral one, and I certainly don't think it's inappropriate to be wary at those who (so far as I can tell) claim the endorsement of God Himself for their beliefs later on. Particularly when this is my second time explaining this, since the first effort got exactly no response. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mindless and Heartless
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Aug 16, 2005, at 5:10 PM, Gautam Mukunda wrote: Here's, it's easy, I'll write the post for you myself. I disagree with the war. I think it was a bad idea, and I think we should leave Iraq immediately. But, whatever the reasons were that we invaded, I don't believe that the war was fought at the behest of Jews who were loyal to Israel instead of the United States. I understand that this echoes one of the oldest tropes of anti-semitism. I don't believe it. I don't support anyone who does believe these things, and I won't choose people who do believe these things as my spokesperson. No, but how about this: I disagree with the war. I think and have always thought that it was a bad idea, and we should remove our troops as soon as practical. We have damaged their infrastructure and disrupted their society too much to leave them in the state in which we've put them. We have a moral obligation to help them re-establish the kind of government that *they* would choose for themselves. Whatever the reasons were for invading, I am certain that it was not solely at the behest of Jews, Arabs, oil interests, the military- industrial complex, Jesus, avenging George's Daddy, or any other single individual, group or idea. I know that Gautam is desperate to paint me as an anti-semite, but I think that even he knows that dog don't hunt, so he writes some hogwash that I wouldn't say for love or money, and I sure as hell wouldn't choose him as my spokesperson. ...[w]as not solely at the behest of Jews... What particular part of my statement did you disagree with, other than the part saying that dual loyalties had _nothing_ to do with the war? When I try to work for the government, are you going to oppose it on the grounds that I can't be trusted not to value the interests of India over those of the US? Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mindless and Heartless
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: she can read Constantine's Cross to see how arguements like hers have existed for over a thousand years and have been used to persecute and murder jews. I think Bob means Constantine's Sword, and I should add that I am particularly sensitive to issues of anti-semitism precisely because of reading that book (by James Carroll, a very extreme war opponent if people need that before picking it up). Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mindless and Heartless
--- Doug Pensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bob wrote: So let me get this straight. She blames the Neocons (many of whom are Jews; the movement was founded by Jewish intellectuals. So the neocons (who are Jews) got the president to support the war to aid Israel (by the way in what way does this war aid Israel?) Isn't the president and much, if not all of his administration Neocon? Not at all. Unfortunately, neocon has been turned into a phrase that basically means person of conservative persuasion with whom I disagree. A quick and dirty way to figure out who is a neocon might be, Who votes Republican _and_ thinks that human rights are the most important thing on earth? The set is not exactly large, for good or ill :-) Without going into the history of that particular word, the most important neocon in the Administration (was) Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense. The only reason anyone has heard of him is because he is Jewish. A question. Without looking it up, can _anyone_ on the list name a Clinton Administration Deputy Secretary of Defense? I'm a professional in this field (paid unbelievably tiny amounts of money to study it :-( ) and I have _no idea_ who his DepSec was. There are actually very few neocons in the Administration - probably fewer than there were in the Reagan Administration. And the reframed goal of the Iraq war is to democratize and pacify the Middle East, wouldn't that benefit Israel? Maybe, but are there many people in the world whom a democratized and pacified Middle East _wouldn't_ benefit? And would we want those people to be better off, even if they wouldn't benefit from it? Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mindless and Heartless
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Aug 16, 2005, at 9:35 PM, Gautam Mukunda wrote: I am not picking a fight with you, but what is the basis of this claim? Maybe we have heard of him because he was a major player in getting us involved in Iraq. Dave, who really wants to know how you know that the only reason anyone has heard of Paul Wolfowitz is that he is Jewish. Dave What makes you say he _was_ a major player in getting us involved? He was the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Can you name the Deputy Secretary of a single other Department? That's not a hostile questoin - I can't, and at least in theory, it's my job. I can't even name his replacement, and I've read articles about the man. DepSecs are not usually key players in decisions to go to war - not unless they're Dean Acheson (who wasn't actually one, I think, before WWII)! As far as I can tell, he _lost_ every major internal Administration battle, and we'd all be better off if he won them (I think - figuring out what actually happens within the Administration is essentially impossible, and anyone who's mortally certain what happened is, in my opinion, either lying or deluding themselves. No Administration in living memory has operated so close to the vest). But he has a nice Jewish name that you can hang conspiracy theories on. The major players in the foreign policy of the first Bush II Administration - Bush himself, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice - none of them are neocons. It would be better if they were - we probabl ywouldn't have screwed up the occupation so badly if they were. The _only_ below-Cabinet rank figures of any significance most people have ever heard of are Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. One guess as to what they have in common. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mindless and Heartless
--- Doug Pensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gautam wrote: I wrote: So you would disagree with the profile I posted? Yeah. I'm not sure where you got it, but I thought it was about equivalent to a liberal is someone who hates the United States. There are some who do, but it's basically a caricature without much in the way of information. Irving Kristol (the original neocon) has written some stuff on what they are. There are very few who would argue in favor of an American empire for example, and those who do would mean something very, very different from what most people mean by empire. To some extent you're getting into an intramural dispute here - I, for example, have argued on a several occasions with Steve Rosen (a neocon) about his use and (in my opinion) misuse of the term empire. Wolfowitz was the ideological father of PNAC who's founding members also included the the vice president, the Secretary of Defense and the president's brother. Well, he was _an_ ideological father of it, but so what? Lots of people sign onto things like that. So did John McCain, for example. So did I, for that matter, although I wasn't important enough to actually join. PNAC just isn't that important. It was a think-tank project - not even a fully-fledged think tank - with some interesting ideas. I don't even think it had a staff. As I recall, when Steve Rosen and I talked about me getting a job there the conclusion was that they didn't _have_ much of a staff, so they couldn't hire me because it wasn't possible. It's been a while, so I might be wrong, but that sounds about right. Of course, but what does that have to do with anti-Semitism? -- Doug Nothing in and of itself. But the accusation that is made is that the neo-cons supported the agenda they did because it was good for Israel, even though it was bad for the United States. Non-Jews presumably have little incentive to betray their country for Israel. So the assertion - cleverly disguised but, in the end, as transparent as the substitution of intelligent design for creationism - is the hoariest of anti-Semitic slurs, that Jews cannot be trusted within a society because their loyalty to Israel is more important than their loyalty to their country. Well, I'm not Jewish, and I thought the PNAC was pretty on the ball. Not entirely, of course, but far more right than wrong. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mindless and Heartless
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Aug 16, 2005, at 10:28 PM, Gautam Mukunda wrote: --- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am not picking a fight with you, but what is the basis of this claim? My question remains unanswered. If you insist on ignoring my point, I cannot help you. My point is that it is somewhere between unlikely and impossible for a DepSec to be a major player in the decision to go to war. It's pretty obvious. While I would love to be a DepSec, and they are important people, they aren't the people who make decisions like going to war. Wolfowitz didn't have the power to do that himself. No one in a position to do that was influenced by him to any great extent. Anyone who thinks Donald Rumsfeld (for example) could be manipulated by a _political science professor_ like Wolfowitz is just nuts. Wolfowitz is more important than I am (this is not hard). He's much, much less important than the people who _actually made the decision_. None of whom were Jewish. It was convenient for some war opponents to create a Jewish conspiracy. As Hitchens said, it's pretty obvious what's going on. http://www.slate.com/id/2084147 But, in the end, he was _only a deputy secretary_. It's implausible, to put it mildly, that he was the crucial figure in the decision. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Gulags
--- William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: LOL. I'd rather be right than interesting any day of the week :) -- William T Goodall I note (for historical interest, if nothing else) than Henry Clay once said I'd rather be right than President. To which Andrew Jackson (I believe) immediately replied, Senator, you'll never be either. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Designer Genes (was: Gulags)
--- Deborah Harrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: While I personally find most of Nature so complexly gorgeous as to suggest a Designer, let us consider merely one facet of anatomy: the proximity of the procreative organs to eliminatory orifices. Need I say more? Debbi Tymbrimi Humor, Or Tytlal? Maru At MIT, this is usually held to be proof that God is a civil engineer, because who else would run a waste disposal line through a recreational area? :-) Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: space shuttle obsolete
--- Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In what sense would these be nuclear powered? Nuclear propulsion is practical for long, slow accelerations, not lifting off a massive body like the earth. Relatively little progress has been made in that area because the physics is straightforward, and the chemistry basically just chemical engineering. I think material science is probably the area where the advances would be most useful. The next most important advance would be rugged electronics. In my own limited field, we subject electronics to far greater stresses than anything one would expect going to space. Let me toss in a different technology - nanotech. The single most interesting thing I attended in my year at MIT was a talk by an aeronautical engineering professor here on the aerospace implications of nanotech - in particular, the nanotech developments _already working in his lab_. One of the things that he showed us were massive increases in the efficiency of jet and rocket engines. He actually handed out a working jet engine about the size of my thumb. The engine for the F-22 - probably the most advanced normal jet engine in the world has (IIRC - it's been several months now) an 8:1 power to weight ratio, which is pretty good. This little thing, a first generation engine using nanotech, has a 50:1 power to weight ratio. It was astonishing - one of the most interesting hours of my life, really. I've never seen a presentation anything like it - and it was most impressive not because it was all blue sky projects but because everything he was talking about was either _already working_ or very close to being so. He thought, IIRC, that he and his grad students could, if they chose, build a rocket that could put 10 kgs in LEO for about $50,000. It was just mindblowing - I wish I had a tape of the presentation so I could show it to people. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: space shuttle obsolete
--- Doug Pensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gautam wrote: He thought, IIRC, that he and his grad students could, if they chose, build a rocket that could put 10 kgs in LEO for about $50,000. It was just mindblowing - I wish I had a tape of the presentation so I could show it to people. Fascinating stuff, Gautam, but why _wouldn't they choose to do it? Doug Well, among other reasons, because I think it might be illegal, as such a rocket would also qualify as an ICBM :-) In all seriousness, I don't actually know. He said they've actually gone ahead and designed all the hard parts, and actually built some of them, so he didn't feel it was much of a challenge. OTOH, I'm not sure what _use_ putting 10 kgs into LEO would be right now. 10 kgs isn't that much. If someone were to right him a check for the amount, he seemed very confident he could do it. My guess is that scaling it up to launch heavier payloads is a bit more of a challenge, but, judging by his talk (I am not, after all, a specialist in nanotech) eminently doable. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter Discussion (Spoilers!!!) L3
--- Matt Grimaldi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My big question is about the object they retrieved. Who is RAB, how many other horcruxes did he find, how long ago, and did he destroy them? Another angle is that maybe Harry really does have the Horcrux, and has been duped by misinformation. I think RAB has to be Regulus Black, Sirius's brother who was killed by Voldemort. The horcrux he took would then be the locket that gets briefly mentioned while they're cleaning out 5 Grimmauld Place in OotP. My guess is that this locket was stolen by what's-his-name, the guy Harry gets upset with in this book, and they'll have to find it and retrieve it in book 7. Now, my question is, is _Harry_ a horcrux? That would give Voldemort a Gryffindor-tied horcrux, which is exactly what he wants. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Harry Potter Discussion (Spoilers!!!) L3
is their enemy? Rowling makes it clear, though, that evil is evil, and whatever claims it might make, it _must_ be fought. Dumbledore - in his wisdom - wants to do everything possible to bring the giants onto the side of the good guys. But he and all the other good guys are also clear. When it comes down to it, it's time to fight. I think that among the many things I love these books are the ways in which they combine the best of both sides of much of the political debate in the Anglo-American world. Despite the rather disappointing lack of non-white characters in significant roles, the books could not more strongly reject racism, snobbery, class prejudice, or the other least attractive features of the old right. Rowling never confuses power with virute and could not more clearly reject all forms of bigotry. This is, after all, the central theme of the struggle between Voldemort and his enemies. There is, however, equally clearly a second message in the books. This is the reality of good and evil, the unacceptability of temporizing between the two, and the necessity of fighting- literally fighting - to defend the good. There is no question about the difference between good and evil - no moral equivalence, no appeasement, no question in her heroes minds that there's no question it's better to fight - even to die fighting - than to give in. In this - its moral clarity, its determination, and its resolve, it draws on the best of what the right contributes to modern politics. In that sense these books are, I think, the ideal books for these times. If I could pick a message to be imbibed by - literally - tens of millions of children around the world, and presented in a form that they will take it seriously, not reject it as preaching from their elders, I could not imagine a better set of messages than the dual ones of rejecting bigotry and accepting differences while also focusing on the importnace of recognizing evil and fighting it when you see it. I have little doubt that Rowling's books will join the pantheon of great children's literaturel, right along with Narnia or (for that matter) The Dark is Rising. I also believe that - to a remarkable extent - the book and the times match. Terry Pratchett once wrote (rejecting the ludicrous bowdlerization of fairy tales so popular in today's schools) that the value of fairy tales isn't to tell kids that their are monsters. Children already know that their are monsters. Fairy tales tell children that monsters can be defeated. Rowling's books tell children that there are _human_ monsters. But those monsters too, can be defeated, if we choose to do fight them. In a world where it seems almost every day we get new evidence of the extent to which our enemies truly are evil that belongs more in a fairy tale than in the real world, then that is the perfect thing for them to learn. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter Discussion (Spoilers!!!) L3
--- Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] So, spoilers ho! 1. The plot of this book was actually very sparse. In terms of the main plot - the war - what happened? Three chief events. Dumbledore is killed. Snape is revealed. We learn what Harry will have to do to defeat Voldemort. That's all I can think of. Each of these is important, of course, but it's really not much for a 652 page book. I'll bet against #2. Say first time we meet after book 7, the loser buys drinks? There are some indications that things are more complicated than we think. From memory after reading yesterday, Dan hasn't completed his thought here, unfortunately. Jim made the same point (Hi Jim! I deleted your post by accident, or I would be responding to it first). Thinking about it a little more after both your posts, I think you're both right. This probably was a setup by Rowling - something that takes particular strength, I think, from the fact that she has stated that she thinks of this book and the 7th one as really a single, longer book, in which case she'd be maintaining her pattern if we're supposed to be surprised by Snape's innocence at the end. That being said, if it turns out that way, I'll be both happy with Rowling (because it would be a little annoying if Harry was right all along about Snape) and disappointed (because given the way it was set up, it seems to me that Snape could have rescued Dumbledore if he wanted to - he had the opportuntity to take all four Death Eaters by surprise from behind, and we know that Snape is an exceptionally dangerous combatant). But I'll take your bet, Dan, even though I think you'll probably win it :-) I think there's one other point that further strengthens this argument. We know that Harry's father saved Snape's life, we know that a powerful bond is formed when a wizard saves another wizard's life, and we know that Snape repayed James by being indirectly responsible for his murder. What happened to that debt? It has to have been passed along to Harry, and knowing that, it seems unlikely to me that Snape can really have turned. 2. OK - this is really the part of the book I find most interesting. The extent to which these books are, in a sense, didactic is quite remarkable to me, and I really admire both Rowling's skill and her principles. There are a few scenes in particular that, to me, send this message. But let's set the context a little bit. In the earlier books Harry was, in general, a poor, downtrodden kid. I don't think so. He is _the_ Harry Potter almost from the beginning. He is a favorite of the headmaster, of many of the teachers, and is a rare first year Seeker, who is remarkedly good at it, too. He is proclaimed a hero at the end of the first book, and wins glory for his house with his actions. Only Snape, who distrusts the family, and Malfoy and his henchmen are against him. Further, Malfoy is against him because he turned down an invitation to join him very publically. Harry was sticking by ordinary people (a poorer wizzard family and a Mudblood from the the very beginning. That's true, but I think it understates the power of the scenes where Harry is at the Dursley's. There he's clearly the oppressed one, and Rowling (significantly, until this book) is careful to give us a good long taste of what it's like for Harry to live there. Similarly, it may be true that only Snape is against him - but the other teachers really do little to help him, while Snape does a great deal to harm him. So I think it's true that Harry stuck by ordinary people from the beginning - but it's different to do so when your primary identification is as one of the downtrodden, and another when you're the elite. When was he an outcast? He had two great friends, he was a key player on _the_ sports team, etc. It wasn't until book 4 5 that people in general started questioning him because he said that You-Know-Who was back and that he fought him. I think that it's true that he was only an outcast at Hogwarts for some periods. But he was an outcast for _the first 11 years of his life_. And Rowling is careful to make that status clear in all of the earlier books. One of the striking things about the books, really, is how _angry_ they are. You get the feeling that Rowling works herself up into a howling rage at the British class system - something she is able to do despite being a billionaire. That was the biggest insight to come out of Slate's Book Clubs on Harry Potter, I think. I agree that, after setting up a classic prince in hiding scenario, Rowling changes it into what you saidwhich is well done. I think that our disagreement on Snape is tied into the nuances of the moral message we think Rowling is teaching. If Snape turns out to be a hero in the end, I think that it will tied up with a key lesson
Half-Blood Prince (No spoilers)
Just finished - I got it at 8:50am this morning. It's dazzling. Rowling gets better with each book - it's just phenomenal. I might post more later...still processing it. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Half-Blood Prince (No spoilers)
--- Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I read The Postman in about 8.5 hours, but that was doing nothing except reading (with bathroom breaks and lunch). I can't imagine having the time to sit and read a book of that length in one day... Damon. 4 hours 20 minutes on the dot - not too long a stretch, given that it was a Saturday morning. Normally I would have gone to the gym, but I knew that wasn't going to happen with a new Harry Potter novel out, so that's really all it cost me. I'll do a longer session this evening instead. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Yahoo! Mail for Mobile Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Half-Blood Prince (No spoilers)
--- Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's 260 minutes to read a 652-page book. I'd call you a fast reader, is what I would do. :) Julia I'm just glad I got (and assembled) my new futon yesterday, as my old one was so uncomfortable that sitting on it for more than half an hour or so was really unpleasant... :-) Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter - no actual spoiler, just a complaint
--- Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: THERE IS A MISTAKE ON PAGE 10! At least in the US edition. Was Gautam reading too fast to catch it? :) Julia who is on page 10 I just re-read the page and _still_ can't find it, I'm afraid :-( What is it? Unless Fudge misues effected - I think it's right, though... Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter - no actual spoiler, just a complaint
--- Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The sight/site switch? Jumps off the page, doesn't it? Yes it does, expletive! At least, at me! Julia Ah, now I see it :-) Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
It's the All-Star break...
And things are getting interesting. Particularly for someone whose two major team allegiances are to the Red Sox and the Orioles! There's this third team in the AL East that might challenge for the playoffs too - they really worry me. But I think the Blue Jays are still too handicapped by the need to pay players in US dollars :-) In all seriousness - things are getting interesting. So, in an attempt to kick off a discussion on a _really_ important topic, I will make my midseason picks for the playoffs and see what people think: AL East: Red Sox AL Central: White Sox AL West: Angels AL Wild Card: Twins (sigh...) NL East: Braves (yes, again!) NL Central: St. Louis (this one's too easy) NL West: Hmmm...this one I'm really not sure of. San Diego is so far ahead (and the other teams in the division are so unimpressive) that I guess it has to be them. NL Wild Card: Washington I note that all of these - with the exception of the Braves - are the current division leaders. Quick explanations for why I think so, in reverse divisional order: NL West: 5.5 games is a lot, and no one else in that division is very good. LA, if De Podesta decides to make a move. NL Central: No need for an explanation here NL East: Washington really isn't all that good - they've just been astonishingly lucky. They won't keep it up. The Braves will beat them out. They are, however, sufficiently far ahead in the WC standings that I think they'll probably make it. AL West: The Angels are too far ahead. I have a slight tie to Texas, which is a story worth sharing. I was at the wedding of one of my best friends a year ago, and his soon-to-be-wife (also a good friend) saw me and said Let me introduce you to my bridesmaids! As I issued a heartfelt thank you, I quickly realized that she wasn't actually doing me a great kindness - because all of them were married(!)...save one who was, even better, dazzlingly pretty. Except, as I soon found out, she was engaged - to a pitcher on the Rangers! Several of my other friends also went through the same chain of thinking. We reached, however, a consensus that none of us felt even a little bit upset about this. Like most American men, we felt that professional baseball players were definitely members of a higher league ;-) She is, however, a really nice person, and in her honor I will root for the Rangers...except the Angels are just a little too far ahead. I am suspicious, however, of any team that plays Erstad at 1B. AL Central: I don't think the White Sox are anywhere close to this good, but they're so far ahead it doesn't matter. AL East: Ah, now this is an interesting race. The Yankees are actually back in it, despite my little joke in the opening (hi Bob!) :-) They are, however, really not a very good team. Their hitting is spectacularly good, but their pitching is only mediocre, and their defense is beyond atrocious. Moving Bernie out of CF helps that, but they have too many defensive holes at other positions cough shortstop /cough. The Orioles may actually have even better hitting and have been devastated by injuries - but they just don't have the pitching to keep up (as we've seen in their recent slide), I refuse to believe that Brian Roberts is _this_ good, Sammy Sosa has clearly fallen off the map...and besides, given the suffering I've gone through since 1997, I sure as hell am not getting my hopes up now. Given the choices, the Red Sox seem clearly to be the most complete team in the division, although they are hardly without holes. The Twins are enough better than the O's, and play in a softer-enough division, that I think they'll take the WC. As for the playoffs...insert my standard disclaimer about playoff games being essentially random events here...the Cards are clearly the class of the NL. In the AL, ummm, probably Boston by default. So a replay of last year's WS is my pick (unlikely though that is in practice)...and emotionally I want to say with the same result. In practice, though, I think it's a tossup between two pretty similar teams, both with excellent hitting and mediocre (at best) pitching. Pujols is the best player on either team (by a lot) - but once Schilling is back Red Sox pitching should be slightly better. So anybody can win this one - I'll say the Red Sox just because they were _so_ superior to the Cards last year and the Cards have not improved, although the Sox clearly have fallen back. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Sell on Yahoo! Auctions no fees. Bid on great items. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Abortion and Liberal Democrats Re: The AmericanPoliticalLandscape Today
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 16 May 2005 22:23:42 -0400, JDG wrote Now, hobgoblins, that's the conservatives' cue to tell me I'm living in a fantasy land if I think that abortion can be made rare. Pink unicorns and all that. Nick No, the pink unicorns are because you think domestic politics, where the rule of law is a real thing, are the same thing as international politics, which are consulted in anarchy. The pink unicorns are there, but they're associated with the other part of the comparison. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Which political group is mainstream (was Re: The American Political Landscape Today)
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Who is mainstream, according to this report? Who, Gautam Nick Not you, Nick. Most Americans don't think God has an opinion on marginal tax rates, and most of those who do don't share yours. I am comfortable with my own position as pretty near the median voter. Could you even _find_ the median voter? Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The American Political Landscape Today
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This does not appear to be the case. People often vote *against* their self-interest. This conundrum appears to be resolved by the understanding that people vote their identities, not their interests. The Republican party did a superior job in the past election of appealing to the middle in this way. Dave This is true _only_ if you are so arrogant that you believe you understand people's self interest better than they do. Thomas Hobbes had something to say about that centuries ago. It wasn't true then that elites could (or would) understand most people's self interest better than they did, and it isn't true now. Maybe they _do_ vote their self interest, and you just don't understand what their self interest is. I know which one seems more likely to me. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Yahoo! Mail Mobile Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The American Political Landscape today
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You persist in making personal attacks on me. Knock it off. Dave You persist in being a jackass. Why don't _you_ knock it off? I'm still pissed at being maliciously quoted out of context, forget about being accused of a lack of intellectual honesty by someone who (as far as I can tell) couldn't find it with a map. So why don't you remove your head from your ass, and then I'll stop pointing out it's up there? Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Br!n: Re: more neocons
--- Andrew Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gautam Mukunda wrote: No, the question is the exact opposite. Why is it that you claim that it's _only_ America that acts only in its self-interest, and everyone else gets a pass? Point out where I said that. No one else gets a free pass. Really? Then when did you mention the behavior of other countries, which are clearly acting for reasons of corruption or avarice, with far better evidence than anything for the US. Where did you mention this _even once_, in between your heated condemnations of - as far as I can tell - anything and everything the US does in the world? Look, I am not a War for Oil theorist, not in a direct sense, but you can't deny that if Saddam was a dictator in some oil-free tinpot African state, we would not be having this conversation, cos he would still be in power. You're not? Yet below you make the most facile of War for Oil arguments about the Sudan, of all places. That's remarkable. At any rate, so what? Oil is power. A state with oil is more important than one without oil, all other things being equal. Your point has relevance if and only if you believe that force can be used only when it is irrelevant to, or actually opposed to, the national interest. Umm, and after the US intervention, I will leave you to guess who would have 'new' massive oil contracts with the 'new' Sudanese government. Gee, Andrew, do you _think_ this might be why I don't believe you when you claim not to be anti-American? Do you seriously want to claim that helping in genocide (France, Russia, China) and trying to stop genocide (the US) are the same thing, morally? I guess being saved by Americans is worse than being killed by someone else, or something? If you're not a War for Oil theorist, then this is a pretty crazy argument. If you are, it still is, but at least it's consistent. You have a funny way of showing it. You know, I constantly hear, I like America from people who never have anything good to say about it and who oppose everything it does in the world - particularly when they are the _beneficiaries_ of what it does in the world. You'll forgive me if the simple statement doesn't quite convince me one way or the other. Well, that is your choice. I would not even be arguing about this if I did not feel strongly about freedom and democracy, of which America is a great champion. Ah yes, the rote statement. You just think, though, that in the Sudan we're trying to stop a genocide because of the oil there. It couldn't possibly be because _we think genocide is bad_. And how am I supposed to show it? Well, looking at the Sudan and saying, Gee, I prefer the people who are trying to stop the genocide to the people who are trying to help it, even though the people who are trying to stop it are Americans would be a start. No, it can't be refuted because it is, in fact, too late to try any other approach. Since no one has suggested anything that even vaguely resembles another approach with any sort of reasonable possibility of success, this is pointless. You can't oppose something with nothing. You can't say, I want to get rid of Saddam but I want to do it without war. Well, I want the tooth fairy to do it, but since that isn't happening, let's try something that might work. Opposing the invasion, was, surprisingly enough, opposing the invasion. And opposing genocide is, surprisingly enough, opposing genocide, except when the US does it, right? As a consequence, he may have stayed in power, I accept that, but I did not favour him. Andrew Well, that's more honest than some people. No one said you favored him. That's the difference between saying that's what you wanted, and that's the _effect_ of what you wanted. If you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. You can't separate them, however much you want to. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Yahoo! Mail Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Which political group is mainstream (was Re: The American Political Landscape Today)
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When you write stuff like this, as if I'm another God-in-my-back-pocket prosperity-Gospel preacher, I'm pissed off. I'm angry when I hear you misrepresenting ideas that are very important to me, life and death issues. I'm certain that you know you are way out of line. Nick Then _distinguish what you believe_ from that, Nick. I posted on how your use of religion makes me - someone from a different faith - enormously uncomfortable. It was ignored. Instead I just got more appeals to the Divinity for whatever policy you appear to favor today. I would say that someone who dragoons God into supporting his own policies is out of line, not someone who is perturbed by it. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Discover Yahoo! Find restaurants, movies, travel and more fun for the weekend. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/weekend.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The American Political Landscape today
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It is clear that I have gotten up Gautam's nostril this week, and I have found his messages more than a little intemperate, but I will not descend with him to the level personal attacks, and hope you'll allow me to invite you to resist the temptation as well. So I'll ask (taking Gautam temporarily out of my killfile so I can see his no doubt thoughtful and honorable reply): When you said why don't you remove your head from your ass, did you mean something other than that you think I have my head up my ass? Dave Not really, no. You're right, you've gotten up my nostril. I don't like being maliciously misquoted. I don't like being patronized by someone who is in no way my superior. I don't like people who distort religion to support secular political agendas. I don't like having the unimaginably pompous and self-important accuse me and others of such things. And when people do those things, I'm likely to react angrily. I don't use killfiles, because I guess there's some theoretical sense that, say, Gary might say something that is interesting, however low the odds are. But I probably would be better off doing so. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Yahoo! Mail Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The American Political Landscape today
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Fair enough. You believe that I have my head up my ass, and you either don't believe that it is a personal attack OR that you are above the community etiquette of Brin-L. No, but when one of the list-owners is as egregiously offensive - and, frankly, malign - as you are, I'm thinking it's pretty much a lost cause. I regret saying it. I shouldn't descend to your level, however well-deserved that might be. As for pomposity, well: Hello? Pot? Kettle here, with a bit of bad news for you... Dave This from a guy who might well have been the basis for Poobah? Well, whatever. I would have to care about your opinion to be bothered by this - and I've realized that I don't, so why am I bothering? Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Yahoo! Mail Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Abortion and Liberal Democrats Re: The American PoliticalLandscape Today
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I suppose it does. But that is dramatically different from defending abortion. One can defend the legality of abortion without endorsing it. The fact that something is wrong and undesirable, even horrible, cannot imply that it must be made illegal. Otherwise, wouldn't we have to make war illegal, for example? Nick We already have. Kellogg-Briand, 1928. They won the Nobel Peace Prize for it. It was signed by, among other states, Germany, Japan, and Italy. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Yahoo! Mail Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The American Political Landscape today
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm clearly out of *your* main stream... Main stream of what, I'm not entirely sure, but I am happy to be out of it. Dave Well, I like to think about politics, you like to posture about them. It's not surprising that we'd come to different positions, is it? Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Discover Yahoo! Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The American Political Landscape Today
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gautam, et al, I'm writing to retract my previous message. I reject your categorization of me as being out of the mainstream. Moreover, I found your message a little short on what I'll call intellectual honesty. I was pointing out - using a hypothetical - that your statements didn't even vaguely resemble rational thinking. It's a fairly obvious technique. But, again, I like to _reason_ about politics, and that does make it hard. First, you admittedly pulled your numbers out of your ... um ... head, whereas this thread was discussing *actual* numbers from a poll that has been conducted for 15 years by the Pew Research Center. Guess which ones I consider to have more weight? Guess how much I care? Since I was using a hypothetical, they weren't supposed to be real numbers. Right-leaning: Enterprisers 9% Social Conservatives 11% Pro-Government Conservatives 9% Centrist/Unaffiliated: Upbeats 11% Disaffecteds 9% Bystanders 10% Left-leaning: Conservative Democrats 14% Disadvantaged Democrats 10% Liberals 17% As you can see, the Liberals *as defined by the Pew report* are the largest bloc. The mainstream, one might say. Only if you believe that _conservatives_, that is, people who are _actually defined as conservatives_, Conservative Democrats, are liberals. That is an odd definition. As a rule of thumb, if you ask people, are you conservative, moderate, or liberal they'll split ~40/40/20 pretty consistently. The Pew thing was based on a series of very strange questions - I took the categorization myself and ended up in a very odd place. It's not surprising that you scored as a liberal. If you're purely doctrinaire in what you believe, it's easy for a poll to categorize you. If you are a little more thoughtful in your positions, it's harder. Guess which one I think is more likely to be useful? In particular, the categories are not continuous, obviously enough. You have most Americans, and you have people who think that, say, the United States needs the approval of Communist China, Russia, and France in order to act in the world. These are not, in fact, positions on a continuum. The difference in our positions really comes to this. You selected a small amount of data, took it completely out of context, and then distorted it to support your own positions. Kind of like what you think President Bush did, I guess, but more blatant. On the other hand, I looked at what the data actually meant and pointed out that your assertion - essentially, the single largest group must be the mainstream - even when it was only 17% of the total - is, on its face, nonsensical. Which one of us has problems with intellectual honesty, again? At least this time you didn't quote me maliciously out of context, so I guess you're improving. Small mercies, I suppose. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Discover Yahoo! Have fun online with music videos, cool games, IM and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/online.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The American Political Landscape today
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's nice to know that, despite the opinions of some among our august body, we liberals are *not* out of the mainstream, we *are* the mainstream. Dave A hypothetical...there are four groups in a population. Each with 20% of the population. We can set them up this way: 20% very conservative 20% conservative 20% moderate 20% liberal Now, where would the mainstream be in that block of four, exactly? Note that this is actually not a bad approximation of what the American public looks like. It's not that you're not in the mainstream, Dave, it's that you're so detached from it _you don't even know where it is_. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Discover Yahoo! Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/mobile.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Br!n: Re: more neocons
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, 10 May 2005 14:26:32 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote Yeah, but his argument didn't make any sense, because it was just a wholesale abrogation of moral judgment to other people - people who have an interest in acting in an immoral fashion. Oh, baloney. Your generalization deserves no more intelligent refutation than that. Well, the next time you supplied one would be the first time, so okay. You can be in favor of intervention to stop genocide in Rwanda/Darfur _or_ you can say that intervention on moral principles is contingent on international consensus. And myriad possibilities in between, as well as assistance to NGOs, economic intervention by businesses and much more. Reducing such issues to either-or choices doesn't feed hungry people. Do we have so little imagination that these are the only choices? We end up distracting ourselves from the real issues of poor and oppressed people with ideological arguments, trying to settle whether or not a conservative or liberal strategy is right. The problem is the argument is wrong. NGOs have real difficulties when people with guns line up and shoot them if you try to deliver food. It takes an army to do something in that situation. When you found a company, do you just assert I have a billion dollars in my bank account and expect to be able to withdraw it at an ATM? This is the exact equivalent. This is the way the world works. There are people in the world with guns who want to kill other people. Other people with guns can choose to stop them. Or they can choose not to stop them. You're one of the people who choose not to stop them, you just not honest enough to admit it. As _always_ you say Can't we come up with other solutions? Well, you're constantly telling us how brilliant and accomplished you are, Nick, suggest something that's even vaguely plausible. Just once. No airy, castles in the sky, I'm so much better than everyone else calls for arm-waving. No statements that God will save us all if we just ask him to. Tell me something that would stop a genocide that _doesn't_ involve force. How about if we use this list to brainstorm new approaches, since the old choices are both failing? How about closing our eyes, holding hands, and singing kumbaya? What could private businesses do? What NGOs could we support that would alleviate some of the trouble? How about a faith-based initiative! What other ways are there to intervene? That don't involve men with guns? To first order, none. I don't have any problem ignoring the UN if it is paralyzed by ideological arguments. But that doesn't automatically mean we go it alone. Nick Again with the ideological arguments. It's amazing - apparently when you commit or support genocide you're not a bad person, you're just pursing a different ideology. Apparently including Milosevic and Hussein judging by your support for Ramsay Clark. In this case, however, the UN isn't hobbled by ideological arguments. The UN is hobbled because France has been bought off and Russia and China want to preserve their right to commit genocide in the future, should it ever become something they decide to do again. That isn't exactly an ideological argument. It's not anything. You want to stop genocide with something that doesn't involve force? Suggest something. Don't say someone should come up with something. That's just evading responsibility (again!). Suggest something. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Br!n: Re: more neocons
--- Andrew Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gautam, why is it that only other countries have self-interested agendas? Is it possible that now and then, America does too? I think it is, and that's why I think it is worthwhile getting a second opinion. No, the question is the exact opposite. Why is it that you claim that it's _only_ America that acts only in its self-interest, and everyone else gets a pass? We constantly hear about war for oil or what not in the US's case, when there's no logical connection there. But when there _is_ a connection between corruption and self-interest and nations that _oppose_ the United States - not a word. Other countries - Britain, for example - do sometimes act in ways that are not purely self-interested. That's why you have to analyze each case. Now, in the Sudan, we have a case of genocide going on where the US is saying Let's try to do something. And France is saying There's no genocide here. Now one of those two countries has massive oil contracts with the Sudanese government. I leave you to guess which one. And which one is more likely to be acting for selfish reasons. Perhaps that is what you believe. I don't know. I like America, but I don't think it is perfect. You have a funny way of showing it. You know, I constantly hear, I like America from people who never have anything good to say about it and who oppose everything it does in the world - particularly when they are the _beneficiaries_ of what it does in the world. You'll forgive me if the simple statement doesn't quite convince me one way or the other. To use an argument style that really peed me off, does this inability to intervene in Darfur because the US is stretched out in Iraq, mean that support for the Iraq war is functionally, tacit approval of the slaughter in Darfur? I Was Shocked Too Maru Andrew Well the argument probably peed you off because it's _true_. People said Don't invade Iraq. And we said That will leave Saddam Hussein in power. And they said, Don't invade Iraq. And we said The _only way_ to remove Saddam Hussein from power is to invade Iraq. And that statement is true, and hasn't been refuted by anyone on the list, and can't be refuted, because it is, in fact, a true statement. Maybe you don't care. Maybe you think removing Saddam isn't worth the cost. But you can't say that opposing the invasion wasn't functionally a stand in favor of Saddam remaining in power, _because it was_. And no, in this case it's not true, because whether or not we were going to do what we did in Iraq, we wouldn't be invading the Sudan. A quick look at a map will tell you why. It's an _awfully_ big country. It would pretty much take the whole US army to occupy it. And we're not going to do that. Iraq really didn't have anything to do with that choice one way or the other. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Yahoo! Mail Mobile Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Br!n: Re: more neocons
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have never presumed to propose any specific action. I merely questioned the certainty of my listmate's assertion that the choice is between presumably successful direct action and presumably unsuccessful indirect action. Dave Ah, the _perfect_ leftist stance. I have no idea what to do, but I know that you're wrong, so that makes me better than you, _even though_ I can make no contribution to solve the problem and actively oppose anyone who does try to solve the problem. Congratulations, Dave, you've actually achieved the perfect post. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Yahoo! Mail Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Br!n: Re: more neocons
-- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Are you sure that those who criticize your ideas only care about feeling superior, not about other people, the millions of human beings caught in oppression, violence and poverty? Do you feel inferior? Nick Not really, no. Those who criticize? No. People who pontificate endlessly but suggest nothing, who attack any idea but provide none of their own, who preen constantly but contribute nothing - them, yes, I think that about _their_ motives. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Yahoo! Mail Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Br!n: Re: more neocons
--- Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Maybe you think removing Saddam isn't worth the cost. But you can't say that opposing the invasion wasn't functionally a stand in favor of Saddam remaining in power, _because it was_. I think that overstates the case a bit. I'll agree that anyone who was opposed to the invasion, including me, would have to accept that his remaining in power was a highly probable outcome...so it should be accepted as the price of not invading. But, by the same token, people for invasion needed to accept the very good chance of other significant negative outcomes, including the tens of thosands who have died during the occupation. I know you agree with that. I absolutely do. If I had said A stand against the invasion was a stand against the people of Iraq - that would have been completely untrue. It is possible - I think it unlikely, but possible - that five years from now the people of Iraq will be worse off than they would have been under Saddam. Saying they are so _now_ is like saying the people of France were worse off in August of 1944. They were, but that does not make D-Day a bad idea. But it is possible that things will not have improved five years from now. But without the invasion Saddam would still have been in power, and that's a big difference, and all I was referring to. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Br!n: Re: more neocons
--- Deborah Harrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As Nick (I think) noted already, a 'moral imperative' should be essentially unimpeachable, because it is a softer reason than, say, the other guy has missiles pointed at your capital. Yeah, but his argument didn't make any sense, because it was just a wholesale abrogation of moral judgment to other people - people who have an interest in acting in an immoral fashion. All of the arguments you and he make _completely ignore_ that fact. We have many, many examples of different ways in which the countries whose sanctions you advocate us seeking have showed that moral concerns have little or no claim on their stated beliefs. Ignoring that fact doesn't make it less true. As others have pointed out, he _is_ calling for action WRT Darfur, which is laudable. From what I've learned, it is not possible for the US alone to intervene there militarily, as our forces are stretched too far elsewhere. Getting ANC (?) countries to be major participants in such an intervention would probably be morally better than going it alone, as it shows respect for and confidence in their abillity to police their own continent. But because the Rwanda massecres (sp!!) happened so quickly, sole intervention then would have been justifiable to me. Debbi But, in fact, whether or not our forces were stretched thin, other countries won't really be helping much, because they don't have the military capacity to engage in a wholesale intervention. The complete collapse of deployable European/Japanese military capacity since the end of WW2 has been one of the untold, and most interesting, stories of international politics. Anyways, yes, getting them to intervene is good, but their intervention has been illegal and unapproved by the UN. You can be in favor of intervention to stop genocide in Rwanda/Darfur _or_ you can say that intervention on moral principles is contingent on international consensus. You _cannot_ do both. They are fundamentally inconsistent positions. The French government, which has veto power in the UN, _aided_ in the Rwandan genocide and denies that there is a genocide happening in the Sudan. As long as they do that, UN approval is impossible, therefore legal intervention is impossible. You can either stand on international law or on the necessity of humanitarian intervention. You cannot do both. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Yahoo! Mail Mobile Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
--- Gary Denton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I can get a cup of DDT from an environmental laboratory near here - wanna drink? Want to feed it to the neighborhood birds? Noisy critters anyway. That whole Mother Nature stuff is just so gay. -- Gary Denton And that whole knowing even a tiny thing about what you're talking about is so overrated. Why on earth would any pesticide company bother to fund a campaign in favor of DDT? They wouldn't make money off of DDT. It's an old chemical. Banning DDT was a small, but non-trivial, windfall for the pesticide companies. DDT is currently being manufactured by a single factory in India and it's _still_ a dirt-cheap chemical. I wouldn't terribly want to drink DDT. But I'd probably be safer drinking it than I would the other chemicals that we use for insect suppression _instead_ of DDT. But God forbid you should actually conduct an intelligent risk analysis instead of just parroting the leftist line. Out of curiousity, Gary, is there _any_ issue where I couldn't predict your position with flawless accuracy by moving about three standard deviations to the left of the American mainstream? Even one? Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com Yahoo! Mail Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Permission Slips Re: Rhetorical Questions RE: RemovingDictators Re: PeacefulchangeL3
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: With respect to the song: In attempting to form a civil response to the supercilious puffery of our listmate, Let's call the whole thing off was about as gentle as I could be. It sure beat the hell out of sod off, which suggested itself to me. It was intended to send the literal message let's call the whole thing off, while lampooning inflexible position-taking. Dave Honestly, Dave, if supercilious puffery on the list is your problem, John doesn't appear to be doing it more than, say, you. So maybe if you were a little less arrogant and self-righteous he wouldn't seem that way? I know it's a lot to ask. In this discussion he appears to have a pretty good point - you _do_ seem to want the US to go begging to Europe for a permission slip before doing things to protect itself. I think Iraq was a threat to the security of the United States. So does John. All your certainty otherwise doesn't make you right, it just means that you're unable to understand other people's points of view. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: US Troop Levels in Iraq Re: Permission Slips Re: Rhetorical Questions RE:RemovingDictatorsRe: PeacefulchangeL3
--- JDG [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 05:13 PM 4/26/2005 -0700, Nick Arnett wrote: I think that the fact that al-Zarqawi is able to evade the US in an country that has a large amount of US military presence Large amount? Talked to any military people about this? We are and have been vastly under-staffed for the job we're trying to do there. Intitution tells me that's a major reason we're seeing so many troops return with PTSD. We are spread very, very thin over there. None of which at all contradicts the term large amount. JDG For that matter, I've talked to a _lot_ of military people about this, and, while I think we're grossly under-staffed over there, in no way is that a unanimous opinion. Of the four military officers who are currently military fellows at MIT, for example, the Marine and the Army officer (the two combat veterans in the bunch, interestingly enough - both from Iraq, one from first Iraq, the other from the second) vociferously disagree with me on that. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Peaceful Change L3
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 21 Apr 2005 21:55:50 -0500, Robert Seeberger wrote I don't think Nick intended to call you a McCarthyite It was a particular argument that I said I see as McCarthyism. It was Gautam's argument, which I'm sure doesn't represent the whole of his being and thinking, not the man himself, just an argument he made in a couple of messages on an obscure Internet mailing list. And I stand by my view still, as he'd have us believe that anyone who participates in any peace and justice demonstration in the United States is a Stalinist because a guy (Clark) behind an organization (AIC) that is related to an anti-Trotsky organization (WPP), helped to create another organization (ANSWER) that is trying to coordinate action among a large number of independently organized local and regional peace and justice organizations. OK, I'm done arguing with you Nick, because you're just lying now. That's simply dishonest. I don't know what's wrong with you, but I'm finished. I didn't say any of that, and you know I didn't say any of that, and the fact that you feel compelled to lie and pretend that I said something like that suggests you might want to think about _therapy_, not politics. For the last time - because I have no interest in continuing this. I didn't say any of that. I did say that people who supported those organizations - whatever their own beliefs - should be ashamed of themselves. And they should be. If you _have_ no shame, then I guess you wouldn't be. But that's not my game. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Peaceful Change L3
--- Doug Pensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oh, and maybe we should elect our representatives to that body rather than allowing someone to nominate borderline psycopaths to be our representative. -- Doug Ah, the height of rational argumentation - calling someone who disagrees with you a psychopath. Even when I _caricature_ leftists I couldn't come up with you, Doug. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Peaceful Change L3
--- Andrew Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gautam Mukunda So Gautam, are you saying that the US invaded Iraq out of a deeply felt need to save the Iraqi people? Not cos of WMD risks, not cos of issues over oil? Again with this? Why are people who think _George Bush_ is dumb unable to understand the concept of doing things for more than one reason? Now, I know you are not, it was for a lot of complex intertwined reasons. So please leave a little of the high moral ground for others to stand on. Why, when they're abandoning it as fast as possible? Moral calculations are part of international relations. They are one of the most important parts. They are not the _only_ part, but that's not the same thing as saying that they aren't one part. It is possible to do things that are in your interest _and have them still be moral acts_. Call me a cynic, but I just can't see GWB weeping at night in bed over the plight of Iraqi children. I am not saying he is a bastard, but just that I doubt it was top of his list. And it certainly was not the thrust of the argument put to justify the war. It was, however, _a_ thrust. The argument before the UN was largely about WMD, because that was a legal argument. When the President spends time on an issue in front of Congress, it's a pretty major focus. Now, by David Brin standards, what you wrote above was a lie, because it's a misstatement of fact :-). But I don't operate by David Brin standards. It's just a mistake. President Bush spent lots of time talking about humanitarian reasons for invading. He spent more time on WMD. That doesn't mean that they weren't both important. It really just means that it's convenient for opponents of the war to _pretend_ they weren't both important. Also, your statement that peoples hands etc would still be being chopped off if the war had not happened. How can you say that? How do you know? Well, because Saddam had been doing it for more than 20 years and didn't seem to have any intent of stopping. I don't _know_ that Kate Bosworth isn't going to walk into my apartment in 30 seconds. I don't think it's very likely, though. Waiting Nope. No luck. There were other alternatives. That's one of the points that we lefty extremists keep making and that keeps falling on deaf ears. That's because it's an absurd point. Kate Bosworth is going to walk into my apartment. This statement does not make it more likely that it will happen. How about a UN sanctioned multinational force, that planned it properly and put in some thought about dealing with the peace. That did it with the full agreement of the only body that can be seen as bi-partisan enough to actually be doing it for moral reasons i.e. the terribly flawed, but at least globally based UN. Sure it was hard, those damn frenchies so much easier just to send in the Marines and shoot all the stupid ragheads... but at least it would have been a consensus. Again, this is an argument that flys in the face of _all_ the evidence. Did you say this about Kosovo? Kosovo didn't have Security Council approval either. In fact the only difference between the Kosovo and Iraq coalitions was the presence of Germany and France in the former. So if you _didn't_ make this argument about Kosovo, you cannot consistently make this argument about Iraq. If you _did_, we can talk about why you attach such moral importance to the decisions of two dictatorships. We've had this argument over and over again. _Three of the five members of the Security Council_ were going to vote against the invasion, no matter what. Now, you may feel that Communist China, a newly dictatorial Russia, and the French are moral authorities. But I don't, actually. So your point is - if these impossible things were to happen, you would have supported the war. This is the same thing as saying that there was no real situation to support the war. If I were a billionaire, then I suppose the odds that Kate Bosworth is about to come here would be higher. But I'm not, so _in the real world_, what could be done? Perhaps than you would have an Iraqi where 60 bodies turning up floating in some canal is not page three news. Well, I guess they all had their hands and tongues. Well, you know, they appear to have been killed by supporters of the old regime. Some of us think that's probably evidence that they weren't such nice people. And it's interesting; the main driver for US foreign policy is caring for cute little Iraqi kids unlike those greedy French and Germans etc, whose only interests are oil and power. No, but it's _a_ driver. There's plenty of evidence of just how the corrupting influence of just how ruthless and amoral French and German foreign policy is. The difference - to be blunt - is that the Left hates the US, so it _doesn't care_ about the actions of those other countries. Please, climb down from your high horse and discuss this rationally
RE: Peaceful Change L3
--- Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you _did_, we can talk about why you attach such moral importance to the decisions of two dictatorships. I appear to have edited out a sentence in this post...odd. Not sure how that happened. The two dictatorships are Russia and China, of course, not Germany and France. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Peaceful Change L3
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If I understand this correctly, you're saying that you believe that I have said we should not care about the people affected by the status quo when we make a decision about going to war? You're saying that I'm arguing that it doesn't matter if people are suffering terribly, that isn't a consideration when deciding whether to go to war or a lesser form of intervention? If so, then perhaps you'd like to try again, because you really don't get what I am saying. At all. Want to try again? Nick No. That _is_ what you are saying. It may not be what you are _trying_ to say, but it is what you are saying. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Peaceful change L3
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Under Saddam Hussein, many families were losing loved ones directly to torture, disappearances, and summary executions. Tens of thousands of others were losing their beloved children because Saddam Hussein was spending the country's oil revenue on palaces and weapons rather than basic food and medicine. Isn't that *exactly* what is happening in the United States right now? We've had tax cuts for the wealthiest, poverty is increasing and the war budget is skyrocketing. At what point does this justify an invasion? Nick sigh. I'm pretty sure that in the United States many families are _not_ losing loved ones directly to torture, disappearance, and summary executions. If they are, you're in a lot of trouble. Rest assured though, Nick, if something does happen to you, I'd want someone to do something about it more likely to be effective than asking it to stop. Another difference in our positions, I guess. I'm just going to ignore the rest of the rhetoric on the assumption that it's just a spinal reflex - tap a leftist and he'll claim that tax cuts are murder, no matter how ridiculous it looks. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Br!n: Re: more neocons
--- Doug Pensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gautam wrote: --- Doug Pensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gautam Mukunda wrote: I'd guess that nine of ten words in support of invasion were related to the threat Hussein posed to the U.S. and the tenth was about how nasty he was to his own people. Clearly the American people would not have supported a war to liberate Iraq from Hussein. Just as clearly the administration used propaganda and fear to sway opinion. Clearly to you, perhaps. The _American people_ are also more complex than you seem to think. They might have supported the war for many reasons. Again, this strange conception that you can only have one reason to do anything. CLearly this wasn't about taking over oil fields. That's just the empty cant of ideologically and morally bereft leftist extremists. You're the one that implied that it was in your exchange with Debbie. But of course I did not. There's a difference between saying oil is important and saying I want to conquer the Middle East to control the oil there. There's no more clear cut way to say it. I don't want to own the oil - I want to make sure that someone like Saddam Hussein doesn't have his foot on the jugular of the world economy. But I'll add some substantiation from the necon think tank Project for the New American Century white paper: the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein. You know, Doug, first, you really need to get off the conspiracy theory thing. I'd really recommend reading Richard Hofstader's The Paranoid Style in American Politics. It's an attack on the right, so you'll be sympathetic, but really, it's a perfect description. The PNAC isn't all that important. I tried to get a job there sophomore year of college, among other things, and found out that they didn't even have enough budget space to hire interns! But in this case, yes, that is true. Keeping the Middle East stable is a very good idea, and we have considerable evidence that having American troops in an area is a good way to keep it stable when before their presence it regularly fought wars (see Western Europe and Eastern Asia after the Second World War for two examples). That's not the same thing as saying we need to control the oil. It just means that it's important to prevent war in the Middle East from disrupting the flow of oil to the world - primarily to Europe and Japan, in fact. I’ve gotta call it the way I see it Gautam and whether or not you take me seriously, more and more people are beginning to understand that this administration has been leading us in the wrong direction. -- Doug So many more that he won reelection overwhelmingly? So how did that work out for you, again? Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Peaceful Change L3
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Good heavens. Guilt by association, anyone? ANSWER is associated with IAC, IAC is associated with WWP and WWP (which is disintegrating) didn't go along with Trotsky so it was labeled Stalinist. Meanwhile, the vast majority of war protestors are pro-democracy and reject virtually all of the WWP's ideology. I'm sure that's true. So the next time Republicans march in something organized by the KKK you'll say, ohh, that's guilt by association, really you shouldn't critcize. Wait. No Republican in this day and age would _ever_ do something like that. It would be outrageous and unforgivable. We do have immune systems. One of them is you don't associate yourself with anything that someone like ANSWER organizes ever, for any reason. And if you don't think ANSWER is a Stalinist, pro-Saddam organization, Nick, you're just not paying attention. They'll tell you that themselves. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
France supports unilateralism, preventive war
The amazing thing about this article is how _blatant_ it is. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1559253,00.html Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Peaceful Change L3
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 21 Apr 2005 08:08:29 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote The WWP isn't organzing any anti-war rallies. It is hardly even organized itself. Like most every other extreme leftist organization on the planet, it ain't working. I don't favor McCarthyism for any cause. Ah, the last defenses of the leftist who has lost an argument. Cry McCarthyism, however irrelevant it may be to the point. There's one more of those coming up... ... you don't associate yourself with anything that someone like ANSWER organizes ever, for any reason. Let me see if I do understand. If ANSWER is involved in organizing anything, I should have nothing to do with it, even if I agree with the purpose of the event? Yes. Is that so hard to understand? If the American Nazi Party had organized an antiwar event (which they did, I think) I suppose you think it would have been okay to show up, but I don't. It's that simple. If you believe in the cause that much, organize your own damn event. Is this the flip side of going along with *everything* that the good people organize? They seem like the same idea to me... what's that word for a tendency toward extreme authority? Starts with an f? Ah, the other defense of the pathetic left. Cry fascism. This isn't even worth discussing. If you're using it honestly (and I don't think you are, because you're too smart to actually think this) then, as they said in The Princess Bride, That word. I do not think it means - what you think it means. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Peaceful Change L3
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 21 Apr 2005 09:18:22 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote Yes. Is that so hard to understand? If the American Nazi Party had organized an antiwar event (which they did, I think) Reduction to the extreme again! The parallel would actually be if the American Nazi Party was associated with an organization that was trying to coordinate activies of a bunch of loosely organized coalitions, one of which sponsored an event that I went to. sigh Not really, no. A short history of ANSWER, put together by a blogger and veteran of the Iraq War: http://www.lt-smash.us/archives/002981.html Some highlights: The man who started it all was Ramsey Clark. Clark served as the US Attorney General under Lyndon B. Johnson, but has more recently made a name for himself by representing such upstanding world citizens as Liberia's Charles Taylor, Serbia's Radovan Karadzic, and Iraq's Saddam Hussein. ... Under the leadership of Ramsey Clark, the IAC was the only major anti-war group that refused to condemn Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Indeed, Clark actually flew to Baghdad and met with Saddam Hussein in November 1990, returning home with a handful of Saddam's guests (diplomats' families held hostage) as a token of the Iraqi dictator's goodwill. ... The IAC would go on to become leading apologists for Serbian war criminals in Bosnia and Kosovo, labeling reports of rape camps and ethnic cleansing fabricated atrocities (never mind those embarassing mass graves). When NATO unleashed a bombing campaign in response to the Serbian ethnic cleansing campaign in Kosovo, Clark flew to Belgrade to express his support for Milosevic. Not a good bunch of people. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Peaceful Change L3
--- Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 21, 2005, at 8:08 AM, Gautam Mukunda wrote: So the next time Republicans march in something organized by the KKK you'll say, ohh, that's guilt by association, really you shouldn't critcize. Wait. No Republican in this day and age would _ever_ do something like that. You seem to be suggesting here that no Klan members are Republicans. Are you certain? Or do you mean instead that no elected Republican official would show public support for the Klan? The latter - or, more accurately, that none _should_ (I'm sure it's possible to find one who has), and that if one did, everyone would attack him/her, and they _should_ do so. The fact that Robert Byrd - the seniormost Democrat in the Senate - is a former Klan leader is an embarassment to the whole country. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: France supports unilateralism, preventive war
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gautam, The amazing thing about this article is how _blatant_ it is. Is it that you think the _article_ is blatant (biased towards or against France and/or China), or the willingness of the French Premier to support China's bombast in exchange for Airbus contracts and the like? Dave Oh, the latter. The article never actually spells out the obvious. I wonder if the reporter was biting his lit as he wrote it? But it does make things pretty clear, doesn't it? Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Peaceful Change L3
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ramsey Clark is representing Saddam Hussein. You say that makes him a bad person. Sigh Continuing my descent down the rabbit hole... Ramsey Clark _is_ a bad person. Defending Saddam Hussein was really just a confirmation of that fact, as anyone with eyes to see knew it. From Salon Magazine, which by most people's standards is a left-wing site: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/06/21/clark/ The title of the article is Ramsey Clark, The War Criminal's Best Friend which kind of tells you what you need to know. After this article was written he defended people who committed genocide in Rwanda. It's not just that he's Saddam's defense attorney - although making your entire practice out of genocidal mass murderers seems like an odd way to go about things - it's that there is no enemy of the United States, no matter how vile whom he does not support. The fact that you feel somehow compelled to defend such a thoroughly disgusting figure leads me to ask, Nick, if there is any opponent of President Bush whom you don't think is one of the good guys? No matter how viciously anti-American, deluded, or actively vile? I mean, really, defending Ramsey Clark? What's next - telling us how Kim Jong Il is really a misunderstood warm and fuzzy guy? Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
