I have been encouraged by a fellow blogger to pursue the Best New Blog of 2005 Koufax Award.
Phronesisaical does not have a huge amount of readers. But making the cut for an award like this would be awful encouraging. Those of you who are everyday readers, occasional readers, or first-timers, please take a moment to nominate little old us for the category of Best New Blog here at Wampum.
Nothing democratic about it -- the more nominations, the better. Vote often. Just pretend you're an Ohio or Florida Republican, and it's easy.
Norwegianity -- bless the Wege's soul -- has already nominated us, and I've already mentioned that he and Neddie are most deserving of further recognition, in my view. Barba, Rollo, and Flaco may have other choices, and I invite them to add to this post if they like.
I've said it before, but we are very grateful for the great regular readers we have here in this corner of virtua-land. I can only name a few, but thanks to Neddie, The Wege, Eric Gordy, DCat, Elyas, Peter Daou, Troutsky, Selves and Others, Peter Levine, Lindsay at Majikthise, Ward Harkavy at the Village Voice, my former grad students and now good friends from NYU, my neighbor Greg, Paul F. and Sean M. from UMD, Dave R. in San Antonio, David at DOE, and everyone else. There are others I don't know, but can see that you stop by regularly -- thanks to you too and please feel free to make yourself at home and leave comments.
You really do make it worthwhile.
UPDATE:
I also have to mention Neil Shakespeare, my writer-friend who goes by the blogosphere name O. de Potomac, and someone from Rochester who has been faithful to the blog since the early days.
Friday, December 16, 2005
Upholding the law
"I will make this point," Bush said. "That whatever I do to protect the American people — and I have an obligation to do so — that we will uphold the law, and decisions made are made understanding we have an obligation to protect the civil liberties of the American people."First, today, I saw an interview with Gonzalez on CNN in which he was questioned about torture. We should trust that the US will uphold the law, he said, avoiding anything more substantive than that. Does waterboarding count as torture? "We will uphold the law." Second, Bush won't talk about the NSA eavesdropping on its own citizens. Trust us, he says, "we'll uphold the law."
Now, the question is: what is "the law"? How is it interpreted? The fact is that we have seen this administration bend, break, and torture the law. Here's the answer: "I cannot comment on a national security issue."
Does this matter? Torture and spying on citizens are legal issues to a certain extent, but their force and content as juridical comes from the normative ethical claims that support or don't support them. "We do not talk ethics; that's our own secret. Bugger off."
UPDATE:
See also this in the LA Times.
American fear
I wrote a while back about political fear (and flatulence). Take a look, if you will. I like that piece.
Thinking about Barba's piece below and the last line about being afraid.... What is striking about the past twenty years or so of conservative causes is how much they are generated by fear and how much the fear-mongers revel like pigs in the American slop of terror. The Republican Party -- the party of Reagan, Schwarzenegger, the Marlboro Man, Bruce Willis, Charlton Heston, and other tough guys and hideous cackling monsters like Phyllis Schlafly and Ann Coulter -- the party of guns and war and torture and degradation and fuck you poor people -- the party of meta-hypocrisy, of do as I say, of commanding you to obey, of grotesque political purchasing power, of defense contractors' checkbooks, of man's domination over nature, of supposedly heroic figures with hidden sad stories, of taking truth to be a function of power, of the Nietzschean will to power, Machiavellian machinations, Hobbesian brutalities, Platonic mythologies, Straussian elitism, and Sadean pathologies -- that Republican Party makes policies out of their own fears.
These are frightened people. Bullies and cowards. The policies of the past six years are entirely built on fear: of poor people and people of color, of an invasion of the brown hordes, of Arabs in our closets, of men who prefer cock to vagina, of being in public, of the little private secrets US citizens might share over the phone or email, of a womanly sensing of nature and art, of the expansiveness of spirituality, of a God they've falsified, of intellectual thoughts beyond Jesus and Kissinger, of genuine compassion (rather than the ploy), of non-Americans and Americans alike, of losing their economic status, of not reigning the world under their own flaccid beliefs, of someone strange coming to the door or walking past or "looking suspicious," of giving, of their own ability to maintain consistency in their lies and control of the media, of truth itself, of justice, of any goddamn thing that happens to be good on this planet. My God, they're afraid of the French!
This ends up being policy. Check it all. All of it -- from the bombings to torture to walls to spying on citizens to banning gay marriage to treating non-Americans as non-humans. They build as many barriers between themselves and the Other as they can, and US citizens pay billions for it and many pay with their lives, livelihoods, aspirations, and peace. Why, Dick Cheney had his own secret bunker built underneath the Naval Observatory during the past couple of years (I live nearby; I heard the dynamite, as did everyone in the neighborhood). They are afraid. They are paranoid. And we've seen governments in the past similarly frightened and paranoid while holding similarly massive power. The "banality of evil." None of them have ended well for anyone.
Why such fear and fear-mongering? Or, let's turn this around: how can opponents of these people dispel the fears that now drive a cowering American population into unwise wars and domestic policies? We are a country of cowards and bullies. We could be a country of decency.
Thinking about Barba's piece below and the last line about being afraid.... What is striking about the past twenty years or so of conservative causes is how much they are generated by fear and how much the fear-mongers revel like pigs in the American slop of terror. The Republican Party -- the party of Reagan, Schwarzenegger, the Marlboro Man, Bruce Willis, Charlton Heston, and other tough guys and hideous cackling monsters like Phyllis Schlafly and Ann Coulter -- the party of guns and war and torture and degradation and fuck you poor people -- the party of meta-hypocrisy, of do as I say, of commanding you to obey, of grotesque political purchasing power, of defense contractors' checkbooks, of man's domination over nature, of supposedly heroic figures with hidden sad stories, of taking truth to be a function of power, of the Nietzschean will to power, Machiavellian machinations, Hobbesian brutalities, Platonic mythologies, Straussian elitism, and Sadean pathologies -- that Republican Party makes policies out of their own fears.
These are frightened people. Bullies and cowards. The policies of the past six years are entirely built on fear: of poor people and people of color, of an invasion of the brown hordes, of Arabs in our closets, of men who prefer cock to vagina, of being in public, of the little private secrets US citizens might share over the phone or email, of a womanly sensing of nature and art, of the expansiveness of spirituality, of a God they've falsified, of intellectual thoughts beyond Jesus and Kissinger, of genuine compassion (rather than the ploy), of non-Americans and Americans alike, of losing their economic status, of not reigning the world under their own flaccid beliefs, of someone strange coming to the door or walking past or "looking suspicious," of giving, of their own ability to maintain consistency in their lies and control of the media, of truth itself, of justice, of any goddamn thing that happens to be good on this planet. My God, they're afraid of the French!
This ends up being policy. Check it all. All of it -- from the bombings to torture to walls to spying on citizens to banning gay marriage to treating non-Americans as non-humans. They build as many barriers between themselves and the Other as they can, and US citizens pay billions for it and many pay with their lives, livelihoods, aspirations, and peace. Why, Dick Cheney had his own secret bunker built underneath the Naval Observatory during the past couple of years (I live nearby; I heard the dynamite, as did everyone in the neighborhood). They are afraid. They are paranoid. And we've seen governments in the past similarly frightened and paranoid while holding similarly massive power. The "banality of evil." None of them have ended well for anyone.
Why such fear and fear-mongering? Or, let's turn this around: how can opponents of these people dispel the fears that now drive a cowering American population into unwise wars and domestic policies? We are a country of cowards and bullies. We could be a country of decency.
Drunk, Half-Naked Finn Sets Norway Record
Just another nice headline, though this article is worth a read. I would have put my money on something like this in the first place. Once rode with a bus full of drunken Finns in Leningrad at 7am.
Via Norwegianity, who you can still support by clicking the link in my self-promotional self-promotional of Norwegianity, who is kind enough to suggest that Phronesisaical ought to be up for Best New Blog 2005. You can still nominate here. And don't forget By Neddie Jingo!, which is one of my favorite blogs and obviously deserving of further recognition.
A riff in a moment on Barba's nice piece below on the fear business.
Via Norwegianity, who you can still support by clicking the link in my self-promotional self-promotional of Norwegianity, who is kind enough to suggest that Phronesisaical ought to be up for Best New Blog 2005. You can still nominate here. And don't forget By Neddie Jingo!, which is one of my favorite blogs and obviously deserving of further recognition.
A riff in a moment on Barba's nice piece below on the fear business.
That's What I'm Talkin' About
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said negotiations had been ongoing throughout the day Thursday after Republicans met behind closed doors to close ranks on the immigration bill. He said the meeting helped build momentum to pass the border fence measure.Merry Christmas, American People!
"What would be the best Christmas present to the American people is pictures of concrete being poured" for the fence, Tancredo said. "This is a good thing."
Here's a response from Mexico to the latest wave of immigration fear in the House of Representatives:
El canciller Luis Ernesto Derbez expresó su preocupación por la iniciativa de ley antiinmigrante que se debate en el Congreso de Estados Unidos; sin embargo, advirtió que cualquier propuesta que solamente refuerce las medidas de seguridad fronteriza no será negativa para México sino para el país del norte, debido a la aportación económica y social que los migrantes realizan a esa nación.Lest I am accused of oversimplifying the issue, I'll acknowledge that the credibility of Mexican politicians in the ongoing disucssion over immigration is a bit compromised by the fact that so many Paisanos in the United States send so much money to Mexico each year. Moreover, like Helmut, I'm suspicious of arguments rooted in economics--or even of arguments posing as credible by referencing economics--especially when we should be talking about humans.
"Es en beneficio de Estados Unidos que se dé una reforma migratoria que le permita a los ciudadanos, a las empresas y a los gobiernos de Estados Unidos a nivel estatal, municipal, tener identificadas a las personas y tener también las capacidades para que puedan (los migrantes) desarrollarse al máximo en su proceso de integración a esa sociedad", dijo el canciller en conferencia de prensa en Tlatelolco.
I'll leave this, for now, to much better writers than me: Ben Ehrenreich, of The Believer, in an excellent piece on AlterNet yesterday ("The Guerilla War Against Cheap Lettuce"), asks:
It's hard not to laugh out loud: all this mad fuss over so much nothingness. What are we so afraid of?
La Tragedia de Macario or: Will a Fence Fix This?
The Laredo Center for the Arts offered a free screening last night of a new (and Sundance-bound) film called La Tragedia de Macario. It's one of those projects imaginatively shot by a student--Pablo Veliz, at the University of Texas at San Antonio--for an impossibly tiny amount of money. Taking as its inspiration the May 14, 2003 deaths of 19 immigrants in Victoria, Texas--of asphyxiation and heat exposure--in the back of the locked, insulated semi trailer, the film tells the story of Macario's decision to leave Sabinas Hidalgo and cross the border in search of work; the film, from its opening--and through its thoughtful use of a corrido throughout--makes no secret of the fact that Macario dies en route locked in a train car, so I won't either. But I'll not spoil anything else about the film.
In making its case that the people who decide to cross the border illegally in search of work don't generally imagine they have other options, La Tragedia de Macario subtly addresses another theme: the fact that cargo moves so freely across the border--thanks to trade liberalization--while labor cannot (Phyllis Schlafly is quick to explain that "illegals" are to blame for the resurgence of bedbugs) means too often that labor becomes cargo. Is this OK? Hey, Americans, is the cheap Tyson chicken worth it? The everyday low prices?
More importantly: a fence or wall or flying drones or computer-operated cameras or just more U.S. Border Patrol agents pumping gas into SUVs with busted bumpers won't really stop the cargo-style transport of those folks who see no option but to cross the border. Too much cargo--I live about 100 yards from I-35, 40 miles north of the Mexican border, and the trucks and trains never, ever stop--and too much money is at stake. Building a fence will solve one of our problems: "the minutemen," that volunteer corps of mostly middle-aged white guys, will return to their basement porn collections or maybe learn to read. The fence will ensure that all such trafficking in humans is as cargo.
But maybe the fence is about making sure they're invisible, after all? Wouldn't that brighten everyone's holiday just a little bit? Not to have to think about Central Americans dying of exposure?
In making its case that the people who decide to cross the border illegally in search of work don't generally imagine they have other options, La Tragedia de Macario subtly addresses another theme: the fact that cargo moves so freely across the border--thanks to trade liberalization--while labor cannot (Phyllis Schlafly is quick to explain that "illegals" are to blame for the resurgence of bedbugs) means too often that labor becomes cargo. Is this OK? Hey, Americans, is the cheap Tyson chicken worth it? The everyday low prices?
More importantly: a fence or wall or flying drones or computer-operated cameras or just more U.S. Border Patrol agents pumping gas into SUVs with busted bumpers won't really stop the cargo-style transport of those folks who see no option but to cross the border. Too much cargo--I live about 100 yards from I-35, 40 miles north of the Mexican border, and the trucks and trains never, ever stop--and too much money is at stake. Building a fence will solve one of our problems: "the minutemen," that volunteer corps of mostly middle-aged white guys, will return to their basement porn collections or maybe learn to read. The fence will ensure that all such trafficking in humans is as cargo.
But maybe the fence is about making sure they're invisible, after all? Wouldn't that brighten everyone's holiday just a little bit? Not to have to think about Central Americans dying of exposure?
Governance and trust
Two things that do not appear to go together. We all ought to see this as a very bad sign. This does not mean it's undeserved, but that the more government is run by cynics, the more it attracts cynics and the new class of cynics will have even less reason to represent anyone and the less citizens will want to or be able to participate.
Another headline, this one just tragic
US drops opposition to torture law
But don't forget...
The Wonderful World of Outsourced Torture
See also this piece by Scott Horton at Balkinization.
But don't forget...
The Wonderful World of Outsourced Torture
See also this piece by Scott Horton at Balkinization.
My king the spy
UPDATE:President Bush signed a secret order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in the United States, despite previous legal prohibitions against such domestic spying, sources with knowledge of the program said last night.
The super-secretive NSA, which has generally been barred from domestic spying except in narrow circumstances involving foreign nationals, has monitored the e-mail, telephone calls and other communications of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of people under the program, the New York Times disclosed last night.
And look at this from Attytood: the NY Times knew the story before the 2004 elections. I'm going to take them out of my links now. That's enough, bastards. And we can get the good stuff like Frank Rich and Bob Herbert a day late via Truthout.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Shameless self promotion echo
Mark the Wege of Norwegianity posts this:
And, upon a quick unreflective navel-gazing reflection backwards double-axel smackdown, I decided that we here at Phronesisaical are worth a mention in the Deserving of Wider Recognition and/or New Blog categories. Keep in mind, we actually write stuff, which takes time, plus give you the links you need. Plus provide fruit photos. Does Emperor Atrios do that for you?
I second that, but I can't do so without also including By Neddie Jingo! Please give them both votes on the link provided by The Wege.The 2005 Koufax Awards nominations are now open for business!
Most Deserving of Wider Recognition
This category was added last in 2003 year at the request of the readers. It seeks to honor bloggers who are consistently good but for whatever reason do not receive the recognition they deserve. In 2003, it was won by the now departed South Knox Bubba. Last year, the MDWR Sandy was won by the wonderful Susie Madrak of Suburban Guerrilla, who, by virtue of the award, should no longer be eligible (she is eligible for Best Blog, of course). Who do you think is this year’s undiscovered gem?Yeah, this is the one I’d love to get nominated for. Lots of you did in fact nominate me for this one last year, but I didn’t make the cut. This year my goal is to make the cut, so the more nominations the better. Click here, read everything and then post your nominations in the comments at the bottom of the page. Include my link (http://norwegianity.com) and that’s all there is to it.
And, upon a quick unreflective navel-gazing reflection backwards double-axel smackdown, I decided that we here at Phronesisaical are worth a mention in the Deserving of Wider Recognition and/or New Blog categories. Keep in mind, we actually write stuff, which takes time, plus give you the links you need. Plus provide fruit photos. Does Emperor Atrios do that for you?
Speaking of Straw Men
What misguided and sleep-deprived sense of oneupsmanship led me, just now, to read a Phyllis Schlafly piece in The Conservative Voice? I so enjoyed Helmut's comments on George Will's essay (you know he's just going to look breezily at the grade, Helmut, that your thoughtful commentary is just so much wasted red ink) I thought I'd seek out a piece of writing related to Vicente Fox's comments yesterday regarding a proposal in the United States to build a wall along its southern border. But Schlafly makes Will look like the head of the fucking class. You think conflating kinds of energy is rhetorically sloppy? Check this out (it's a whole paragraph):
Failing to close our border to illegals means giving up on the war on drugs because most illegal drugs come over our southern border. Mexican drug cartels are even running illegal marijuana farms in our national parks, protected by booby traps and guards carrying AK-47s.
Trust us, they said
You know how you worried about the Patriot Act and our government said, trust us, we're not out to spy on citizens or abuse civil liberties? You know, as usual, we have no control over whether legislation like this passes? You know how our representatives later say, hey, what goes here? You know how we slap our foreheads and think to ourselves, really, I do know that I'm not a tinfoil helmet guy?
Pentagon officials said yesterday they had ordered a review of a program aimed at countering terrorist attacks that had compiled information about U.S. citizens, after reports that the database included information on peace protesters and others whose activities posed no threat and should not have been kept on file.
The move followed an NBC News report Tuesday disclosing that a sample of about 1,500 "suspicious incidents" listed in the database included four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, some aimed at military recruiting.
Although officials defended the Pentagon's interest in gathering information about possible threats to military bases and troops, one senior official acknowledged that a preliminary review of the database indicated that it had not been correctly maintained.
"On the surface, it looks like things in the database that were determined not to be viable threats were never deleted but should have been," the official said. "You can also make the argument that these things should never have been put in the database in the first place until they were confirmed as threats."
The program, known as Talon, compiles unconfirmed reports of suspected threats to defense facilities. It is part of a broader effort by the Pentagon to gather counterterrorism intelligence within the United States, which has prompted concern from civil liberties activists and members of Congress in recent weeks.
I made the mistake
I made the mistake of reading George Will's column this morning: "Our Fake Drilling Debate." Fake, indeed. He lumps up the environmental cause like this: "to enlarge governmental supervision of individuals' lives." George Will -- I prefer his bedside name of Snuffy the Butler -- doesn't pay much attention to actual environmentalist claims and arguments or even those of environmental economics (which still makes me itch, given its neoclassical orthodoxy in a green outfit). Another irrelevant columnist. So, why bother? I don't know. I just made the mistake of reading this dumb column.
Okay, so given that Will poses as one of our grand intellectuals, we're supposed to engage him as intellectuals. Public debate and all that (taking note that it's an elite, of which Snuffy is a member, that dictates public debate by guiding us all into a cardboard box at the end of an alley).
I'm also still grading papers.
So -- red check here, moving into "minus" territory -- just exactly who are these collectivist environmentalists, George Will? You need a citation here. Probably a few cites. And be careful not to generalize from some imaginary enemy to millions of people with a diversity of views regarding the environment, including the case of ANWR. I suggest taking a course in environmental ethics and/or policy or environment and development, if you truly have an interest in environmental and energy issues. This might help you to develop your thoughts better. Further, the suggestion that environmentalists are hiding some big collectivist secret is simply paranoid. Very few make that claim. In general, environmentalists tend towards smaller-scale, environmentally sustainable forms of governance when discussing the political dimension. Do some research! Avoid the strawman! It only makes your claims weaker.
Second, "produce scarcities"? Toss-off economic language does not an economist make. Besides, environmentalists do not produce scarcities. They generally demand that we understand that approaching scarcities -- of which price (e.g., petroleum) is perhaps an indicator? -- may no longer be resolved through the neoclassical religious faith in technological progress. We have only weak and ineffective technological choices regarding biodiversity loss. We have no technological choices for global warming, for instance, apart from giving up on fossil fuels. ANWR is no answer there, plus drilling ANWR has few real benefits in terms of an increase in oil production and reducing "reliance on foreign oil." You need to discuss this further in order to strengthen your paper.
Third, modernity has produced goods and bads. How do we assess these -- from the position of modernist assumptions about good and bad? Simply stating that what's modern is modern and that what's modern should stick around is intellectually lazy and wholly confuses descriptive and normative dimensions of the issue. The descriptive and the normative are never entirely distinct, but to claim flatly that a given state ought to be the case requires further argument, especially when the qualities of that given state are at issue. Would you say, analogously, that the mess in Iraq ought to be the case just because what it is is a mess [ed. note: yes, yes he would]? Are you suggesting that the assumptions of neoclassical economics hold the end-of-history key to what ails us environmentally and in terms of energy sources? Take a look at the work of the many economic and philosophical critics of neoclassical orthodoxy, including that of several Nobel Prize laureates. Should history always remain "modern"? What do you mean by "modern" in the first place? Are you a Cartesian? Kantian? Newtonian? Keynesian? Dickensian? This statement requires further research and unpacking.
Fourth, you should also do some research on current debates about energy sources. Your paper suffers greatly on this point. One big debate at present, for example, involves nuclear power vs. fossil fuel power in the face of global warming. The debate does not involve the complete elimination of traditional (or "modern") energy sources. That's just a silly claim on your part. No one advocates totally eliminating energy sources. Many advocate more intelligent uses of energy sources we do use combined with the development of alternative technologies that pollute less, consume less, and, in some cases, cost less. Even the energy industry has started to invest more in this direction. This section needs complete reworking.
Finally, although there's more to be said here on the substantive side, we are all on deadlines. You need to manage your time better, and a spate of holiday dinner parties in Georgetown does not count as a medical excuse, despite the rich cheesecake. This paper demonstrates last-minute preparation and ill-formed thoughts. It is premised on a strawman from which you make inferences that have no further support. The paper receives a C - (and I inflate grades). If this continues, you may expect a poor overall grade. Unless your work improves, I suggest considering a career as a butler, or perhaps joining the military, rather than continuing your aspirations to being a public intellectual.
Okay, so given that Will poses as one of our grand intellectuals, we're supposed to engage him as intellectuals. Public debate and all that (taking note that it's an elite, of which Snuffy is a member, that dictates public debate by guiding us all into a cardboard box at the end of an alley).
I'm also still grading papers.
So -- red check here, moving into "minus" territory -- just exactly who are these collectivist environmentalists, George Will? You need a citation here. Probably a few cites. And be careful not to generalize from some imaginary enemy to millions of people with a diversity of views regarding the environment, including the case of ANWR. I suggest taking a course in environmental ethics and/or policy or environment and development, if you truly have an interest in environmental and energy issues. This might help you to develop your thoughts better. Further, the suggestion that environmentalists are hiding some big collectivist secret is simply paranoid. Very few make that claim. In general, environmentalists tend towards smaller-scale, environmentally sustainable forms of governance when discussing the political dimension. Do some research! Avoid the strawman! It only makes your claims weaker.
Second, "produce scarcities"? Toss-off economic language does not an economist make. Besides, environmentalists do not produce scarcities. They generally demand that we understand that approaching scarcities -- of which price (e.g., petroleum) is perhaps an indicator? -- may no longer be resolved through the neoclassical religious faith in technological progress. We have only weak and ineffective technological choices regarding biodiversity loss. We have no technological choices for global warming, for instance, apart from giving up on fossil fuels. ANWR is no answer there, plus drilling ANWR has few real benefits in terms of an increase in oil production and reducing "reliance on foreign oil." You need to discuss this further in order to strengthen your paper.
Third, modernity has produced goods and bads. How do we assess these -- from the position of modernist assumptions about good and bad? Simply stating that what's modern is modern and that what's modern should stick around is intellectually lazy and wholly confuses descriptive and normative dimensions of the issue. The descriptive and the normative are never entirely distinct, but to claim flatly that a given state ought to be the case requires further argument, especially when the qualities of that given state are at issue. Would you say, analogously, that the mess in Iraq ought to be the case just because what it is is a mess [ed. note: yes, yes he would]? Are you suggesting that the assumptions of neoclassical economics hold the end-of-history key to what ails us environmentally and in terms of energy sources? Take a look at the work of the many economic and philosophical critics of neoclassical orthodoxy, including that of several Nobel Prize laureates. Should history always remain "modern"? What do you mean by "modern" in the first place? Are you a Cartesian? Kantian? Newtonian? Keynesian? Dickensian? This statement requires further research and unpacking.
Fourth, you should also do some research on current debates about energy sources. Your paper suffers greatly on this point. One big debate at present, for example, involves nuclear power vs. fossil fuel power in the face of global warming. The debate does not involve the complete elimination of traditional (or "modern") energy sources. That's just a silly claim on your part. No one advocates totally eliminating energy sources. Many advocate more intelligent uses of energy sources we do use combined with the development of alternative technologies that pollute less, consume less, and, in some cases, cost less. Even the energy industry has started to invest more in this direction. This section needs complete reworking.
Finally, although there's more to be said here on the substantive side, we are all on deadlines. You need to manage your time better, and a spate of holiday dinner parties in Georgetown does not count as a medical excuse, despite the rich cheesecake. This paper demonstrates last-minute preparation and ill-formed thoughts. It is premised on a strawman from which you make inferences that have no further support. The paper receives a C - (and I inflate grades). If this continues, you may expect a poor overall grade. Unless your work improves, I suggest considering a career as a butler, or perhaps joining the military, rather than continuing your aspirations to being a public intellectual.
For some people, environmentalism is collectivism in drag. Such people use environmental causes and rhetoric not to change the political climate for the purpose of environmental improvement. Rather, for them, changing the society's politics is the end, and environmental policies are mere means to that end.
The unending argument in political philosophy concerns constantly adjusting society's balance between freedom and equality. The primary goal of collectivism -- of socialism in Europe and contemporary liberalism in America -- is to enlarge governmental supervision of individuals' lives. This is done in the name of equality.
People are to be conscripted into one large cohort, everyone equal (although not equal in status or power to the governing class) in their status as wards of a self-aggrandizing government. Government says the constant enlargement of its supervising power is necessary for the equitable or efficient allocation of scarce resources.
Therefore, one of the collectivists' tactics is to produce scarcities, particularly of what makes modern society modern -- the energy requisite for social dynamism and individual autonomy. Hence collectivists use environmentalism to advance a collectivizing energy policy. Focusing on one energy source at a time, they stress the environmental hazards of finding, developing, transporting, manufacturing or using oil, natural gas, coal or nuclear power.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Baseball and stupidity
Why, Mike Piazza is going to play for Italy and the president of that country is a dictator who owns the entire media. Give me a free speech speech please. Then let's slap some sense into our Cuba policy.
Cuba won't be allowed to send a team to next year's inaugural World Baseball Classic, the U.S. government told event organizers Wednesday.UPDATE (9:13pm) on a stupid policy decision:The decision by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control was conveyed to Major League Baseball on Wednesday, according to Pat Courtney, a spokesman for the commissioner's office.
A permit from OFAC is necessary because of U.S. laws governing certain commercial transactions with the communist island nation.
U.S. bids to host future Olympic Games will be damaged by the Bush administration's decision to prevent Cuba from playing in next year's inaugural World Baseball Classic, a member of the IOC said Thursday.The U.S. Treasury Department denied a request by Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association for a permit to allow Cuba to send a team.
"It's for baseball to decide, but if they don't make a stand on something like that, then they will have big problems down the road," said Dick Pound, an International Olympic Committee member from Canada.
If not reversed, he said "it would completely scupper any bid" by the United States for the Summer or Winter Games.
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