Sic Semper Tyrannis

I've been mulling over how these words are floating around on the web.  It is Latin for "Thus always to tyrants" or something to that affect.  Since it is most famous for having been shouted by John Wilkes Booth as he killed Abraham Lincoln, and supposed (by some) to have been said by one or more of Caesar's assassins, the implication is that tyrants always are, or should be, killed.

Why this phrase?  A huge segment of the American public has convinced themselves that Obama is the worst tyrant ever to "reign" in America.  Google the phrase and you will get 100s of thousands of links which at a first look seem to be to right wing blogs, etc.

Liquidity Crisis (The Current Recession) Like Medical Shock?

Medical shock is a kind of failure of circulation.  All over the body cells get too little oxygen, and in some cases, blood pools in places where it isn't needed.  Sounds a lot like a liquidity crisis to me.

Practical Epistemology Recycled

[Originally posted April 2010, but has been reworked a couple of times.  The original (with some comments) is at  http://therealtruthproject.blogspot.com/2010/04/practical-epistemology.html]

Wikipedia defines epistemology as "the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge". Traditionally it has led to questions like whether we can really know anything, and discussing the qualities of different kinds of knowledge like logical or mathematical knowledge.

How much attention has been paid, however, to the question "Who can I trust?" -- perhaps far and away the most important epistemological question that anyone can ask.

The Civil War of 2016

"The Civil War of 2016" is the title of an editorial in the Washington Times, dated Aug. 7, 2012, based in turn on an article from the Small Wars Journal.  The Washington Times clearly wants to suggest that the article, in the "respected" SWJ gives reason for concern that the U.S. military is making plans for wars on American soil against American citizens.

The SWJ article does indeed posit the scenario that

"In May 2016 an extremist militia motivated by the goals of the “tea party” movement takes over the government of Darlington, South Carolina, occupying City Hall, disbanding the city council, and placing the mayor under house arrest."

and asks what should the army do, and proceeds to give answers.

Whittaker Chambers on Ayn Rand

[Originally posted Sunday, May 30, 2010 at
http://whatwasthecoldwar.blogspot.com/2010/05/whittaker-chambers-on-ayn-rand.html]

Whittaker Chambers on Ayn Rand

Whittaker Chambers spent a long time in the American Communist party and came to regret it, writing a book called Witness, about his experiences, and also serving as star witness against Alger Hiss in his perjury trial when Hiss denied his association with Chambers in the Communist underground in the mid 1930s (My impression, impressionistic as it is, is that Hiss did perjure himself). The case remains controversial, but Hiss was sentenced and spent 3-4 years in prison. The Hiss case also helped launch Richard Nixon's career as he played a leading role in getting Hiss convicted.

Jonah Goldberg says Only Extremists can Build Bridges.

Sound counter-intuitive?

I was reading the intro to Jonah Goldman's just released The Tyrrany of Clichés.  The intro can be accessed the "Tyrrany Blog", created to promote the book.

So here is how he views extremism or some true-blue ideological position vs "the center".  The ideologist of one stripe will build the bridge across the river.  The one of another stripe won't build the bridge at all, but the moderate or centrist will build it half way across the river.

A few new thoughs on Climate Change (and Geoengineering "solutions")

This is in reaction to some discussion I read at  http://grist.org/list/tar-sands-magnate-bill-gates-stump-for-geoengineering/#disqus_thread.

One thing few people seem to appreciate is that just about any big aspect of global climate from the gulf stream that warms Europe to the Monsoon could be balanced on a knife-edge, and we don't know how unstable these things are.  Unfortunately, there has been too much emphasis on changes in the average global temperature on the order of 1-2 degrees C, and many people imagine the warming would be evenly distributed, when the greater probability is that some places will get a lot hotter, or wetter, or dryer and some maybe even a lot colder.  Might it all balance out?  Even there is some balance in the rearrangement of the climate, areas that have been built up and heavily invested in become deserts while some deserts become the new breadbaskets.  To take advantage of the "balance" would require vast redistributions of population.  Geoengineering schemes might plausibly balance the change in average temperature but they won't prevent great shifts from taking place.

It isn't that some elite wants to determine the "proper" temperature.  We should be coming from an essentially conservative reluctance to roll the dice and spread changes around the world that will be lot more drastic than an evenly distributed climate change of 1-2 degrees C.

Some day hopefully in at least a couple of hundred years, the climate might change drastically on its own, as it's done often in the past, but by then there's a chance we might understand the system well enough to manage it.  At this point we don't, and attempting to do so means somebody making decisions for other nations which may not stand for it.

For some of the basis of this point of view, read _With Speed and Violence_ by Fred Pierce, a journalist who is indepent enough to sometimes get on Joe Mann's shit list.

Another thing that makes all this alarming to me is that the right seems to thrive on climate denial very largely because it reinforces the idea that EVERYBODY BUT Fox and friends, the the right wing think tanks are the big liers.  See http://therealtruthprone would guess from a chJonah Goldberg, National-Review,ange ofoject.blo... for elaboration of that.