March 2011
February 2011
3 tags
Guns on campus
My friend kohenari has offered a nice riff on a NY Times Sunday piece about proposed legislation in Arizona that would allow students and others to carry guns on campuses in that state. You can read his comments here: guns on campus.
As someone who stands in front of classes of 200+ students every semester, I want to add three things:
1. I am not going to feel even a little bit safer if a gunman...
Random Thought #297
Has anyone else been struck by the fact that so many Libyans still have the flags of the Kingdom of Libya, which is the flag the rebels use when they take territory from Ghaddafi? It’s been 40 years …
On Libya and the Price of Gas
If there’s one media meme that needs to die amidst the Libyan revolution, it’s “unrest in Libya is making the price of your gas go up.” Your desire to fill your tank for $5 or $10 less than you now have to pay does not justify several hundred million people across the Middle East living in oppression and cruelty.
The only people who have a right to be worried about the...
5 tags
Rolling Stone, Psyops, and Investigative...
As I was reading today’s investigative bombshell in Rolling Stone, on the Army’s apparent use of psy ops techniques on US Congresspeople visiting Afghanistan, I was struck by a question that I think has a disturbing answer: why is there so little good investigative journalism outside journals like Rolling Stone?
If you haven’t seen today’s piece, you can find it...
6 tags
Glenn Beck, Libya, and Barack Obama
As I did during the Egyptian revolution, I am currently watching Glenn Beck’s take on the Libyan revolution. He has a remarkable imagination.
Apparently, Barack Obama wants Islamic radicalism to triumph globally. Beck’s logic is fairly hard to follow—it’s not really logical, after all—but as best as I can figure out, Beck believes that Obama has failed to support...
“Men freely believe that which they desire.”
– Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico
4 tags
Of legitimacy, generations, and Arab dictators
Last week, I posted a long piece in which I argued that the accelerating collapse of the authoritarian regimes across the Arab world was grounded not—as Glenn Beck would have it—on some well-organized conspiracy run by Google and Facebook, but on the collapse of the legitimacy of those regimes.
And now we have, perhaps, Libya. One thing I did not mention last week, but am reminded of...
“Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual...”
– John Maynard Keynes, 1936
A brief thought on entitlements reform
The politics of entitlements reform can be explained in a very brief, but exceptionally insightful, George Carlin gag:
Have you ever noticed that other peoples’ stuff is s**t, but your s**t is stuff?
Until people are willing to give up stuff that matters to them, nothing meaningful is going to happen—except, unless you’re poor, and don’t have a powerful lobby to protect...
2 tags
A quick birther followup
In response to my earlier post, mcentellas offered the entirely on-point comment,
“But it doesn’t even matter! By law, his mother’s citizenship makes him a “natural born” citizen (like me), regardless of place of birth!!”
He’s right—which is why all this debate is both so fascinating and so ridiculous. John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, but to US citizen...
4 tags
Are the Birthers Really in Charge of the GOP?
A story’s been running around the web that 51% of likely voters in the GOP primary next year are birthers, meaning that they do not believe that President Obama was born in the United States, and so is ineligible to be President.
This story is based on a poll done by a group called Public Policy Polling. You can find their summary, and a link to the full report here:
...
