Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
I'll bet that the Obama White House wishes that about this: In March 2012, on the floor of the United States Senate, Mike Lee (R-UT) predicted that if Obama was reelected gas would cost $5.45 per gallon by the start 2015. Lee said that gas prices would rise 5 cents for every month Obama was …
Continue reading "Sometimes We Wish Our Opponent's Predictions Came True"
I must have been in an especially catty mood when I posted this on Stand Firm in Faith: Clinton stated that “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” Clinton was only stealing a concept from Southern Baptist Eucharistic theology. I actually got a thumbs up for that. Nevertheless, it's something that's …
Continue reading "Bill Clinton's Eucharistic Theology: It Depends on What 'Is' Is"
It's supposed to be the time of year for joy and merriment, but I've seen a few things lately that bother me about the immediate course of the country. Most of those concern foreign policy, that necessary evil Americans aren't very good at, even with all the years of travel and media coverage. (I think …
Continue reading "Let's Not Do Something Stupid About the Russians"
The Republican "wave" (what that means electorally depends upon whom you talk to) in the recent Congressional elections has highlighted their opponents' weaknesses at the state level. To a large extent there are two electorates: one at the mid-term and one at the Presidential year. The one thing these two have in common, according to …
Continue reading "Maybe the Democrats Don't Need a Deep Electoral Bench"
In this wild election cycle, a Republican is about to break a record she wasn't "supposed to": An upstate New York Republican is slated Tuesday to shatter the congressional record of former Brooklyn Democratic Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Elise Stefanik, 30, is favored to win in New York’s …
In the middle of Julian Assange's long diatribe on Google, we have this: The received wisdom in advanced capitalist societies is that there still exists an organic “civil society sector” in which institutions form autonomously and come together to manifest the interests and will of citizens. The fable has it that the boundaries of this …
Thorston Pattberg at Asia Times Online thinks he's found something novel: There is a cult of Western evangelists and self-righteous crusaders who are determined to dislodge non-Western nations and usurp their governments. Unfortunately, Western "experts" have hung around China for a long time. In the years immediately after the start of the People's Republic, same …
Continue reading "The "Cult" of China Experts is Hardly New"
In France, no less: At today's rally, Zohra Bouchiba, a French Muslim, was handing out fliers for a prevention group for youngsters tempted by jihadism. “We should have been out here a long time ago,” she says. No kidding...in any case, a couple of weeks ago I reposted my piece They Feel the Shame, about Muslims …
Continue reading "The People That Feel the Shame Finally Speak Up"
There was a time with the writings of "Karl and Fred" (Marx and Engels) were prominent on my reading list. During my growing up years, their followers controlled a third of the world's population and most of its nuclear weapons. During my career in the family business I spent a great deal of time in …
Continue reading "Beguiling the Left, One Charlatan and Crackpot Scheme at a Time"
And some will admit it: Many more in the Republican Party love using this line, "I'm not a scientist." Marco Rubio, John Boehner, and Rick Scott, have all used versions of this line to dismiss climate change science or promote creationism. In 2012, asked how old Earth is, Rubio repeated, "I'm not a scientist," twice. …
