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A Convenient Untruth - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...convenient-untruth.html objectivism criticalthinking
shared by anonymous on 11 Dec 10 - Cached
  • The Ayn Rand Institute’s mission is not to further intellectual enquiry but instead to perpetuate the jejune cult of personality that surrounded the writer, and that Rand herself endorsed from its earliest beginnings.
  • With philosophy as the ultimate discipline, and Objectivism as the ultimate philosophy, its inventor could only be, therefore, the ultimate philosopher – and with all the intellectual, ethical, aesthetic and even sexual qualities that that entails
  • Faced with the inconvenient facts, delivered by an independent historian with no pre-existing agenda and whose evenhandedness is evident on every page, the Ayn Rand Institute and their fellow travelling True Believers' response has been to simply pretend it doesn’t exist: a state of denial Rand called a “blank out.”
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • This is really The Education of Ayn Rand; where the oddball immigrant, simmering with equal parts talent, ambition, and resentment, absorbs the basic political program she was to later do so much to promote.
  • beneath a superficially clear prose style in fact Rand was a confused and contradictory thinker, who had a garbled misunderstanding of the important philosophical problems she claimed to have solved and depended on her own obscure, pseudo-intellectual jargon – not to mention her sheer chutzpah - to conceal her lack of comprehension from both her followers and herself.
  • swathes of Rand’s unpublished writing and speeches have been stealthily rewritten to banish all uncertainties and contradictory thoughts, and keep the convenient untruth of Rand's immaculate conceptions alive.
  • First, they begin with the pro forma objection that the critic is "biased" against Rand, and “doesn’t understand Objectivism”, despite the fact that it is far from clear who, if anyone, actually does understand Rand’s rambling and ramshackle construction.
  • Second, True Believer Objectivists invoke what I’ve dubbed the Objectivist Double Standard.
  • The final True Believer tactic is to simply limn the piece in question for various Thought Crimes such as “determinism”, “pragmatism” or “subjectivism” - terms so conveniently vague that it’s possible to convict just about anyone.
  • From the central darkness of Planet Peikoff itself, only a few, faint, on-the-fritz radio signals have been detected.
  • anonymous on 11 Dec 10
     
    "Jennifer Burns' new biography, Ayn Rand: Goddess of the Market is a genuine event: the first independent, scholarly biography of one of the 20th century's most widely read novelists and thinkers, arriving right in the middle of her biggest revival in decades. Goddess has been acclaimed from the mainstream of Time magazine to the margins of Mises.org, and been plugged from the left of The Daily Show to the right of the Economist. But there's one place where it literally doesn't seem to exist: over at the organization Leonard Peikoff founded in 1985, three years after Rand's death, the Ayn Rand Institute. Searching their website turns up only some fine-print references to it in relation to the Ayn Rand Archives; officially the ARI has not even mentioned it, let alone promoted it."
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A Randroid Review - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...randroid-review.html objectivism criticalthinking
shared by anonymous on 11 Dec 10 - Cached
  • First, they begin with the pro forma objection that the critic is "biased" against Rand, “doesn’t understand Objectivism”, doesn't respect ideas etc.
  • Invoke the Objectivist Double Standard.
  • Simply limn the piece in question for the hint of various Thought Crimes such as “determinism”, “pragmatism” or “subjectivism”, and then condemn the author's intellectual and moral standing due to their allegedly underlying commitment to one or all of the above.
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  • Garnish each review with standardised ARI talking points about Rand's millennial intellectual and moral qualities and achievements
  • anonymous on 11 Dec 10
     
    "Edwin A. Locke is a professor of organisational psychology, with a large number of articles and books to his credit over a lengthy career. He is also, judging from his recent comments on Jennifer Burns' "Ayn Rand: Goddess of the Market", a fully spec'd, boilerplated, T-1000 series Randroid." By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on December 10, 2010.
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The Love of One's Own and the Importance of Place - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...one_s_own_and_importance_place geopolitics
shared by anonymous on 10 Dec 10 - Cached
  • The study of geopolitics tries to identify those things that are eternal, those things that are of long duration and those things that are transitory. It does this through the prism of geography and power.
  • there is a huge gulf between the uncertainty of a prediction and the impossibility of a prediction.
  • There is no action taken that is not done with the expectation, reasonable or not, erroneous or not, of some predictable consequence.
  • ...31 more annotations...
  • Nature is the most predictable thing of all, since it lacks will and cannot make choices. Scientists who like to talk about the “hard sciences” actually have it easy.
  • First, human beings have choices as individuals. Second, and this is the most important thing, we are ourselves human. Our own wishes and prejudices inevitably color our view of how things will evolve.
  • Successful forecasting should begin by being stupid.
  • By being stupid we mean that rather than leaping toward highly sophisticated concepts and principles, we should begin by noting the obvious.
  • we should begin by noticing the obvious about human beings.
  • they are born and then they die
  • Human beings are born incapable of caring for themselves
  • Humans protect themselves and care for their young by forming families
  • Who should you ally with and where would you find them?
  • Why should you trust a relative more than a stranger?
  • The idea that romantic love should pre-empt the love of one’s own introduces a radical new dynamic to history, in which the individual and choice supersede community and obligation.
  • Which love is prior? Is it the love to which you are born — your family, your religion, your tradition — the love of one’s own? Or is it the acquired love, the one you have chosen because it pleases you as an individual?
  • one married out of love for one’s parents, and out of the sense of duty that grew out of that love.
  • Romantic love is acquired love.
  • This notion is embedded in the American Declaration of Independence, which elevates life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness over obligation.
  • Ideology is an acquired value. No child can be a Jeffersonian or a Stalinist. That can only be chosen after the age of reason, along with romantically acquired spouses.
  • Tradition is superseded by reason and the old regime superseded by artificially constructed regimes forged in revolution.
  • As a citizen, you have a relationship to an artificial construct, the constitution, to which you swear your loyalty. It is a rational relationship and, ultimately, an elective relationship. Try as one might, one can never stop being an American. One can, as a matter of choice, stop being a citizen of the United States. Similarly, one can elect to become a citizen of the United States. That does not, in the fullest sense of the word, make you an American. Citizenship and alienage are built into the system.
  • Loving America is simple and natural. Loving the United States is complex and artificial.
  • For modern regimes, birth is an accident that gives no one authority.
  • In post-revolutionary society, you may know who you were but that in no way determined who you would become.
  • Traditional society was infinitely more constrained but infinitely more natural.
  • This leads us to nationalism — or, more broadly, love and obligation to the community to which you were born, be it a small band of nomads or a vast nation-state.
  • Modern liberalism and socialism do not know what to do with nationalism.
  • For economists, self-interest is a natural impulse. But if it is a natural impulse, it is an odd one, for one can see widespread examples of human beings who do not practice it. Consider the tension between the idea that the United States was created for the purpose of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and the decision of a soldier to go to war and even willingly give his life.
  • Dying for a regime dedicated to the pursuit of happiness makes no sense. Dying for the love of one’s own makes a great deal of sense. But the modern understanding of man has difficulty dealing with this idea.
  • There is an important paradox in all this. Modern liberal regimes celebrate the doctrine of national self-determination, the right of a “people” to choose its own path. Leaving apart the amazing confusion as to what to do with a nation that chooses an illiberal course, you have the puzzlement of precisely what a nation is and why it has the right to determine anything.
  • Europe had been ruled by dynasties that governed nations by right of birth. Breaking those regimes was the goal of Europe’s revolutionaries.
  • In the case of the American founders, having acted on behalf of national self-determination, they created a Bill of Rights and hoped that history would sort through the contradiction between the nation, the state and the individual.
  • Why should we love those things that we are born to simply because we are born to them? Why should Americans love America, Iranians love Iran and Chinese love China? Why, in spite of all options and the fact that there are surely many who make their lives by loving acquired things, does love of one’s own continue to drive men?
  • Wherever one chooses to go, whatever identity one chooses to claim, in the end, you cannot escape from who you are.
  • anonymous on 10 Dec 10
     
    The study of geopolitics tries to identify those things that are eternal, those things that are of long duration and those things that are transitory. It does this through the prism of geography and power. What it finds frequently runs counter to common sense. More precisely, geopolitical inquiry seeks not only to describe but to predict what will happen. Those predictions frequently - indeed, usually - fly in the face of common sense. Geopolitics is the next generation's common sense. William Shakespeare, born in 1564 - the century in which the European conquest of the world took place -- had Macbeth say that history is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. If Macbeth is right, then history is merely sound and fury, devoid of meaning, devoid of order. Any attempt at forecasting the future must begin by challenging Macbeth, since if history is random it is, by definition, unpredictable. By George Friedman at StratFor on May 26, 2008.
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Paleo-Future - Paleo-Future Blog - Driverless Car of the Future (1957) - 0 views

www.paleofuture.com/...ss-car-of-the-future-1957.html technology predictions
shared by anonymous on 10 Dec 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 10 Dec 10
     
    "TVs that hang on walls? Automatic lights? Food cooked in seconds? American power companies sure had the future figured out! Except for one little thing... we're still waiting on those driverless cars. The futuristic family from this ad bares a striking resemblance to the family of Disneyland TV's 1958 episode, "Magic Highway, USA." ELECTRICITY MAY BE THE DRIVER. One day your car may speed along an electric super-highway, its speed and steering automatically controlled by electronic devices embedded in the road. Highways will be made safe -- by electricity! No traffic jam.. no collisions... no driver fatigue."
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Rand and Empirical Responsibility 3 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...mpirical-responsibility-3.html objectivism criticalthinking
shared by anonymous on 10 Dec 10 - Cached
  • A free will saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice.
  • Matters of fact simply cannot be determined in this way. No credible scientist would ever be taken seriously if he tried to establish some controversial matter of fact using the method Rand resorts to above.
  • Conclusion: Innate tendencies are impossible
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  • If Rand and her followers want to be taken seriously on these points, they must (1) provide detailed evidence that there assertions are true; and (2) they must explain why the evidence provided on the opposite side of the issue by geneticists and evolutionary biologists is either irrelevant or false.
  • anonymous on 10 Dec 10
     
    "Human beings have no innate tendencies. Instead of providing evidence for this assertion, Rand and her followers merely provides a couple of arguments. Let's briefly examine the two arguments." By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on December 9, 2010.
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WikiLeaks and U.S. Critical Infrastructure - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...and_us_critical_infrastructure geopolitics wikileaks
shared by anonymous on 08 Dec 10 - Cached
  • Media interest aside, STRATFOR does not see this document as offering much value to militant groups planning attacks against U.S. targets abroad. The sites listed in the cable are either far too general, such as tin mines in China; are not high-profile enough to interest militants, such as undersea cables; or already represent well-known strategic vulnerabilities, such as the Strait of Malacca.
  • Instead of an earth-shattering list of sites vulnerable to terrorist attacks, the list leaked this week is really a more revealing look at the inner bureaucracy and daily activities of the U.S. security community and at how diplomats around the world contribute to assessing threats to U.S. interests. This does not mean listed sites will not ever be attacked, but that experienced militants do not rely on DHS studies to provide targeting guidance.
  • anonymous on 08 Dec 10
     
    "Media interest aside, STRATFOR does not see this document as offering much value to militant groups planning attacks against U.S. targets abroad. The sites listed in the cable are either far too general, such as tin mines in China; are not high-profile enough to interest militants, such as undersea cables; or already represent well-known strategic vulnerabilities, such as the Strait of Malacca. "
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Who Fears the Russian Bear? - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...0101207_who_fears_russian_bear geopolitics russia
shared by anonymous on 08 Dec 10 - Cached
  • Rogozin was being sardonic for dramatic effect — Moscow is not actually surprised that NATO has an active war plan against it. Russia completed joint exercises — called “Zapad” (meaning west in Russian) — with Belarus at the end of 2009 that placed 13,000 troops on the borders of the Baltic states and had as its supposed aim the simulation of the liberation of Kaliningrad from NATO forces.
  • And ultimately, Western European — and specifically German — lobbying for inclusion of Russia as a “strategic partner” should be the writing on the wall for the region: Its fate was to either adopt a neutral posture and accept Russian security hegemony or keep being pressured by Moscow.
  • Poland feels spurned, especially by Washington’s decision first to pull out on the initial ballistic missile defense (BMD) plans in September 2009 and then, on a rotational basis, to deploy an unarmed Patriot missile battery to the country with a minimal contingent of 20-30 personnel, when Warsaw hoped for an armed deployment with a more robust — and more importantly, permanent — U.S. military presence.
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  • If we understand Tusk correctly, he essentially hints that the current public Polish-American relationship is an “illusion” and that, in reality, the U.S. security guarantees are insufficient.
  • To Americans, Poland looks like a country with no options. Sure, it feels spurned, but where will the Poles turn? As it did prior to WWII, Germany is making deals with Russia, and French and British security guarantees are unreliable. The United States, remembering its history of fighting wars to defend small allies for the sake of its credibility, would say that the Poles should know better than to doubt American guarantees.
  • Poland is not going to cease being an American ally — not considering its current geopolitical circumstances. But Polish officials also do not have the luxury of dismissing American horse-trading with the Russians over Polish security.
  • anonymous on 08 Dec 10
     
    "The global focus on Tuesday returned to the North European Plain, specifically east of the Oder and north of the Pripyat Marshes, where Russia, Poland, Belarus and the three Baltic states continue to share what is the geopolitical version of an awkward Soviet-era communal apartment. Russian envoy to NATO Dmitri Rogozin, referring to the leaked U.S. diplomatic cables revealing NATO plans to defend the three Baltic states from Russia, asked that the plans be formally withdrawn at the next NATO-Russia meeting. Rogozin pointed out that the recently penned NATO 2010 Strategic Concept speaks of a "true strategic partnership" - a direct quote from the mission statement - between the alliance and Russia and that the supposed "anti-Russian" military plan to defend the Baltics is incompatible with the document. Referring to the plan, Rogozin rhetorically asked, "Against who else could such a defense be intended? Against Sweden, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, against polar bears, or against the Russian bear?""
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How will the recession affect this optimistic, institution-trusting GenY? - 0 views

www.psychologytoday.com/...imistic-institution-trusting-g generations
shared by anonymous on 07 Dec 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 07 Dec 10
     
    "A second realization for those in the middle and lower-middle-class is that meritocracy is a ruse. One lower-middle-class young woman, who had once believed that if you work hard, you'll succeed, is having second thoughts as she sees coveted internships handed out to those with lower grades but the right connections--often parental connections. Instead of heading to an internship to hone her resume, she is working in a car dealership as a receptionist. That burns, she says."
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Geopolitics Continue Despite WikiLeaks - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ics_continue_despite_wikileaks geopolitics stratfor wikileaks
shared by anonymous on 07 Dec 10 - Cached
  • STRATFOR sources in the United States, as well as foreign intelligence agencies and diplomatic officials, continued on Monday to speak to STRATFOR about how the leaks had a negative effect on their ability to conduct diplomatic business.
  • Repercussions of the leaked U.S. diplomatic cables therefore are serious and global, not confined to American statecraft. Diplomacy and intelligence professions may very well consider classifying eras as pre- and post-WikiLeaks. We are not sure, and it is too early to tell so close to the actual leaks.
  • Geopolitics is a set of constraints imposed primarily by geography — with demographics and technology playing roles — that limit strategic options for nations.
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  • One could argue that WikiLeaks introduces a new set of constraints, of open information that will limit how governments pursue their national interests.
  • It is not clear if anyone wins or loses. Power structures established by geography, demographics and technology remain unaffected.
  • Perhaps we have misread the WikiLeak thesis. Perhaps behind the idea that leaked U.S. diplomatic cables would change geopolitics is not a simple argument of new constraints and enablers emerging, but rather the assumption that the revelation of supposed cynicism and insidious scheming of U.S. diplomats would by itself create a call for change within the American — and global — society. This has not happened. In fact, the U.S. public — as well as the global public — seem to be very much aware of what their diplomats are doing and how they are going about their business. They are, as Joseph Stalin once wrote, quite aware that “sincere diplomacy is no more possible than dry water or wooden iron.”
  • anonymous on 07 Dec 10
     
    "Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, said over the weekend: "Geopolitics will be separated into pre- and post-cablegate phases." A number of developments on Monday seemed to support his bold thesis, or at least give credence to the supposition that geopolitics will have to take note of the "post-cablegate" era. Nonetheless, STRATFOR disagrees. " At StratFor on December 7, 2010.
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Wikileaks and the Long Haul - 0 views

www.shirky.com/...wikileaks-and-the-long-haul society
shared by anonymous on 06 Dec 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 06 Dec 10
     
    "Like a lot of people, I am conflicted about Wikileaks. Citizens of a functioning democracy must be able to know what the state is saying and doing in our name, to engage in what Pierre Rosanvallon calls "counter-democracy"*, the democracy of citizens distrusting rather than legitimizing the actions of the state. Wikileaks plainly improves those abilities. On the other hand, human systems can't stand pure transparency. For negotiation to work, people's stated positions have to change, but change is seen, almost universally, as weakness. People trying to come to consensus must be able to speak frankly, and to privately voice opinions they would publicly abjure, and may later abandon. Wikileaks plainly damages those abilities. (If Aaron Bady's analysis is correct, it is the damage and not the oversight that Wikileaks is designed to create.*)"
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Rand and Empirical Responsibility 2 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...mpirical-responsibility-2.html objectivism criticalthinking
shared by anonymous on 03 Dec 10 - Cached
  • "The use or misuse of his cognitive faculty determines a man’s choice of values, which determine his emotions and his character. It is in this sense that man is a being of self-made soul."
  • To describe this viewpoint as controversial greatly understates its tremendous reach. Were it true, it would mean that nearly every scientist in the biological and behavorial sciences, nearly every great poet, dramatist, and novelist, and all great statemen, generals, businessmen, etc. have been wrong; for nearly everyone who has ever studied, described, bargained with, dealt with, or commanded human beings has assumed that man is not a being of self-made soul, that his "soul" (or character) is a product of many factors, and that something called "human nature" most definitely exists and can be used to make generalizations concerning how human beings are likely to react to various incentives.
  • Rand's assertion that man is a being of self-made soul goes into the very teeth of this evidence.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Rand cites no scientific experiment, no article from a reputable scientific journal, no evidence from experimental psychology.
  • It's one of their philosophy's chief presuppositions. Without it, the whole structure becomes wobbly, and threatens to fall.
  • Take away Rand's extreme self-determinism, and the old rules apply once again. The conservative (or "Tragic") vision of human nature, dramatized by Sophocles and Shakespeare, limned by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, scientifically explicated by E.O. Wilson, Steven Pinker, and other scientists, is once more vindicated.
  • anonymous on 03 Dec 10
     
    "Man is a being of self-made soul. Rand explains this assertion as follows: "The use or misuse of his cognitive faculty determines a man's choice of values, which determine his emotions and his character. It is in this sense that man is a being of self-made soul." In other words, a man's "character and emotions" are determined by how he uses (or misuses) his consciousness. Under this view, a man is responsible not merely for how he behaves, but for his personality and emotions." By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature
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The Russian Swagger is Back - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...20101202_russian_swagger_back geopolitics russia
shared by anonymous on 03 Dec 10 - Cached
  • A timeline helps to understand the statements surrounding the case, and broader U.S.-Russian relations.
  • The 10 intelligence officers, working secretly in the United States, were arrested almost simultaneously on June 28 in a major FBI operation. A quick spy swap was orchestrated by July 9; the spies were returned to Moscow.
  • a handful of these agents had been tracked for years in ongoing counterintelligence investigations, so something important triggered the sudden arrests.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • we suspect the leak occurred for one of three reasons:
  • Officials within or overseen by the U.S. Department of Defense wanted to counteract Putin’s claims of the spies’ relative innocence; second, U.S. counterintelligence investigators could be using the leak to “shake the trees” and watch for unusual communications traffic or activities by possible suspects; and this could be another move as Washington combats Russia’s push to spread its side of the story, that it is back on the world stage as a counterbalance to the United States.
  • Putin’s entire interview on Larry King was meant to remind the U.S. public that Russia still has many capabilities to challenge the United States. He spoke of the vast nuclear arsenal, regional alliances and — of course — spies. This was directed at a U.S. audience.
  • Putin identified the reality that every country “operates a foreign intelligence network.” U.S.-Russian intelligence and counterintelligence activities have changed little in decades, and no doubt is back in public view.
  • anonymous on 03 Dec 10
     
    "As the world mulls Thursday's naming of Russia as the 2018 World Cup host, as well as the Wednesday CNN interview with Russian Premier Vladimir Putin and the U.S. response, we should not overlook two new claims about the case of 10 Russian spies arrested in the United States in June. Answering a question from American high-profile interviewer Larry King, Putin said the "deep-cover agents" did not damage U.S. interests and would only have been activated in a crisis. Before the interview aired, The Washington Times journalist Bill Gertz published a report sourced to a retired intelligence official that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) was undergoing a counterintelligence investigation linked to Russians who were charged with acting as undeclared agents of a foreign country. In the murky world of state espionage, both countries are playing games of deception. " At StratFor on December 3, 2010.
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U.S. Calls On China to Rein in North Korea - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...s_calls_china_rein_north_korea geopolitics
shared by anonymous on 02 Dec 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 02 Dec 10
     
    "U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen called on Wednesday for China to "step up" its efforts in handling of the latest crisis on the Korean Peninsula in a speech at the Center for American Progress. Mullen specifically dismissed China's offer to host a new round of consultations among the six parties involved in Korean peninsular affairs, saying that to do so would merely reward North Korea for its "provocative and destabilizing" behavior. His comments echoed rejections of China's offer by the South Koreans, Japanese and even the North Koreans." At StratFor on December 2, 2010.
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Attacks on Nuclear Scientists in Tehran - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...acks_nuclear_scientists_tehran geopolitics iran
shared by anonymous on 02 Dec 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 02 Dec 10
     
    "On the morning of Nov. 29, two Iranian scientists involved in Iran's nuclear development program were attacked. One was killed, and the other was injured. According to Iranian media, the deceased, Dr. Majid Shahriari, was heading the team responsible for developing the technology to design a nuclear reactor core, and Time magazine referred to him as the highest-ranking non-appointed individual working on the project." By Ben West at StratFor on December 1, 2010.
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Central European Fears and the German 'Question Mark' - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...fears_and_german_question_mark geopolitics germany fsu
shared by anonymous on 01 Dec 10 - Cached
  • But in 2007, NATO’s purpose was “for the newer European and Baltic members, given their fear of Russia, ‘rational or not’ — to keep the Americans in.” Araud added: “For other members, NATO provides a way to meet their defense — without having to pay for it.”
  • The Wall Street Journal reported that Russia had moved ground-based tactical nuclear warheads to its borders with NATO member states sometime in the spring.
  • Russian plans to deploy the nuclear-capable Iskander-M (known as the “Tender”) short-range ballistic missile throughout the country. While The Wall Street Journal report is likely referring to this missile system and therefore does not expose a new threat, the timing of the report is very telling. It comes mere hours after Russian President Dmitri Medvedev warned in his State of the State address that if an agreement with the West was not reached on ballistic missile defense, the world would “plunge into a new arms race.”
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • First, Poland and Sweden continued their diplomatic pressure on Ukraine, a key border state that is firmly in the Russian sphere, but that Sweden and Poland want to target as part of their jointly coordinated European Union Eastern Partnership initiative.
  • Second, Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo was in the United States on Tuesday for a weeklong visit, during which he will meet with his U.S. counterpart and the United States will stress network security.
  • Romanian President Traian Basescu said he saw Moldova becoming part of Romania within the next 25 years. This comes after Moldova held contentious elections over the weekend that have seen its pro-Western factions fail to strengthen their position against the pro-Russian Communist Party.
  • owever, specific to the Central European fears — and a reality that is rarely spoken publicly in Central Europe — is the fact that Germany is becoming unhinged from the Cold War-era institutions. Russia may be the obvious security threat, but it is Germany’s evolving role — and, crucially, its warming relations with Moscow — that troubles Warsaw and other Central European capitals, most precisely because it is unclear which way Berlin is heading. Or, as Araud put it in 2007, Germany may have been “America’s model ally” during the Cold War, but it is quickly becoming “a question mark.”
  • anonymous on 01 Dec 10
     
    "Perusing the collection of U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, we came across what we at STRATFOR consider a gem of recent history. Gerard Araud, now the French permanent representative to the United Nations, briefed several U.S. officials in late February 2007 on the difference between the purpose of NATO in 2007 and during the Cold War. Recounting an adage, he said that during the Cold War, NATO was supposed "to keep Germans down, the Russians out and the Americans in." But in 2007, NATO's purpose was "for the newer European and Baltic members, given their fear of Russia, 'rational or not' - to keep the Americans in." Araud added: "For other members, NATO provides a way to meet their defense - without having to pay for it." "
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Why I Love WikiLeaks - 0 views

www.slate.com/2276312 politics geopolitics
shared by anonymous on 30 Nov 10 - Cached
  • The recent WikiLeaks release, for example, shows the low regard U.S. secretaries of state hold for international treaties that bar spying at the United Nations. Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, systematically and serially violated those treaties to gain an incremental upper hand. And they did it in writing! That Clinton now decries Julian Assange's truth-telling an "attack" on America but excuses her cavalier approach to treaty violation tells you all you need to know about U.S. diplomacy.
  • Is it because our schooling has left us hopelessly naïve about how the world works? Or do we just fail to pay attention?
  • We shouldn't be surprised by the recurrence of scandals, but, of course, we always are. Why is that?
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • But if you want to dismiss him just because he's a seething jerk, there are about 2,000 journalists I'd like you to meet.
  • The idea of WikiLeaks is scarier than anything the organization has leaked or anything Assange has done because it restores our distrust in the institutions that control our lives.
  • Rather than defending their behavior, they'll imitate Clinton and assail Assange's methods and practices.
  • Assange and WikiLeaks, while not perfect, have punctured the prerogative of secrecy with their recent revelations. The untold story is that while doing the United States' allies, adversaries, and enemies a favor with his leaks, he's doing the United States the biggest favor by holding it accountable. As I.F. Stone put it, "All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out."
  • anonymous on 30 Nov 10
     
    "International scandals-such as the one precipitated by this week's WikiLeaks cable dump-serve us by illustrating how our governments work. Better than any civics textbook, revisionist history, political speech, bumper sticker, or five-part investigative series, an international scandal unmasks presidents and kings, military commanders and buck privates, cabinet secretaries and diplomats, corporate leaders and bankers, and arms-makers and arms-merchants as the bunglers, liars, and double-dealers they are." By Jack Shafer at Slate on November 30, 2010.
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Theme is Not Meaning (Part I) - 0 views

www.designer-notes.com/?p=237 gaming videogames evolution
shared by anonymous on 29 Nov 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 29 Nov 10
     
    "This disconnect leads to some interesting questions. Does a game's designer have the right to say what a game is about if it doesn't match what's going on inside the players' heads? And if the designer doesn't have this right, then does a game's official "story" ever matter at all because it can be invalidated so easily? Isn't a game about what one actually does during play and how that feels to the player? Ultimately, designers need to recognize that a game's theme does not determine its meaning. Instead, meaning emerges from a game's mechanics - the set of decisions and consequences unique to each one. What does a game ask of the player? What does it punish, and what does it reward? What strategies and styles does the game encourage? Answering these questions reveals what a game is actually about."
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The Top Ten Daily Consequences of Having Evolved | Science & Nature | Smithsonian Magazine - 0 views

www.smithsonianmag.com/...quences-of-Having-Evolved.html layscience science evolution
shared by anonymous on 29 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Perhaps a billion years ago, a single-celled organism arose that would ultimately give rise to all of the plants and animals on Earth, including us. This ancestor was the result of a merging: one cell swallowed, imperfectly, another cell.
  • Hiccups no longer serve a function, but they persist without causing us harm—aside from frustration and occasional embarrassment. One of the reasons it is so difficult to stop hiccupping is that the entire process is controlled by a part of our brain that evolved long before consciousness, and so try as you might, you cannot think hiccups away.
  • Then, for reasons anthropologists debate long into the night, our hominid ancestors stood upright, which was the bodily equivalent of tipping a bridge on end.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Every so often, our intestines find their way through these holes—in the way that noodles sneak out of a sieve—forming an inguinal hernia.
  • As a consequence, in those moments in which the epiglottis does not have time to cover the trachea, we choke.
  • anonymous on 29 Nov 10
     
    "From hiccups to wisdom teeth, the evolution of homo sapiens has left behind some glaring, yet innately human, imperfections "
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Have Physicists Found Echoes From Before the Big Bang? - 0 views

blogs.discovermagazine.com/...comment-page-1 layscience
shared by anonymous on 29 Nov 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 29 Nov 10
     
    "The Big Bang was not the beginning, Roger Penrose believes. The eminent Oxford physicist has long advocated the wild idea of "conformal cyclic cosmology," a cyclical universe without beginning or end in which the Big Bang 13.75 billion years ago was simply one of many. This month, Penrose pushed his idea further: His team says it has detected a pattern in the cosmic microwave background-radiation left over from just after the Big Bang-that represents the echo of events that occurred before the Big Bang itself."
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Are the WikiLeaks Actually An American Plot? - 0 views

nationalinterest.org/4487 privacy politics
shared by anonymous on 29 Nov 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 29 Nov 10
     
    "The Obama administration is busily denouncing the WikiLeaks. Spilling secrets is a bad thing, we're told, for American national security. Relations with friendly leaders will be jeopardized. And so on. But is it true? Or are the leaks, in fact, part of a carefully orchestrated plot by the American government?" By Jacob Heilbrunn at The National Interest Blog on November 29, 2010.
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