Category Archives: Social Commentary

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Huntsville Reality-Distortion Zone

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This isn’t new, but I don’t think I linked it at the time. Eric Berger reports on the people working SLS:

May turns the cost issue around.

“My question would be, how could we afford not to do this?” May asked. “Great nations explore. Great nations push their boundaries. And this country has continued to the limits of what we know and learn for a generation, and I think we’ve got to continue to explore.”

And in the larger perspective, he argues, SLS does not cost that much. NASA spends about $1.6 billion a year building it, less than 9 percent of the space agency’s total budget, he said, which is itself less than one half of one percent of the federal budget.

“I think it’s a relatively small amount of money to set the leadership for the world in space exploration,” he says.

Count the number of logical fallacies in just those four grafs.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Phony Scandals And Election-Year Demons

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Very few are buying the IRS’s fairy tales:

In fact, an objective assessment of the Republicans conduct over more the course of the 14 months since this scandal broke has been relatively apolitical, especially considering that the IRS is charged with executing a partisan vendetta against conservatives. By and large, members have avoided bombast and overreach in pursuit of the facts surrounding the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups. The Republicans’ prudence in concert with the IRS’s improbable self-defense has resulted in a great majority of the country backing the GOP in this matter.

Republicans and Democrats, women and men, blacks and whites, the rich and the poor, the old and the young; according to a recent poll, the vast majority of the public across the political spectrum believe this matter deserves a thorough investigation – one which results in accountability.

Accountability to these people is like a cross and garlic to a vampire.

And no, it’s not the IRS that’s the victim here:

Specifically, says NOM, the group’s 2008 tax return and donor list was turned over to activist Matthew Meisel, who then gave it to the Human Rights Campaign which distributed it to the media.

Not surprisingly, since the leaked information was used against their last presidential candidate, Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee took an interest in the case. Congressional pressure may well have induced the IRS to surrender, admit error, and turn over a little cash it mugged from other taxpayers to make nice with NOM, but it couldn’t get the Department of Justice to take an interest in the case. Shocker.

“The DOJ’s refusal to take any action to protect taxpayers demonstrates why this Committee, and the American people, cannot trust their supposed investigation into the IRS targeting, let alone the protection of the constitutional rights of conservatives,” complained House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) the day the settlement was announced.

Well, same as it ever was. The IRS has never been a safe tool in any administration’s hands. It never will be, so long as it remains such a tempting weapon for whoever wields its excessive power.

Camp wants a special prosecutor to look into the IRS’s behavior. But that behavior is inevitable, so long as a government body as dangerous as the IRS is allowed to exist.

People need to be jailed for this.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Obama Scandals

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…and media bias:

Historically, reporters and editors have believed that their job is to disseminate news. That is no longer true. Now, most reporters and editors believe that their principal function is to prevent people from learning things they are better off not knowing. Day after day, they run interference for their party, the Democrats. Blockading inconvenient stories from making the news is job number one.

Yes. As he notes, if the parties were reversed, there would be non-stop coverage until the Republican president was hounded out of office.

[Update a few minutes later]

Joe Scarborough went on a similar rant:

“You know, if George W. Bush or any Republicans had an IRS member that went after Democrats and then there was an internal investigation launched, you would not have time or space on the front page to talk about [other] issues,” Scarborough said. “This really is a scam!”

“Scam” is far too kind a word for it.

Mathematics, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Heidegger

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Since we were discussing philosophy the other day, Lileks has some thoughts:

The article concerns the anti-Semitism of Heidegger, and how the publication of recent texts the philosopher intended to be the capstone of his output reveals that he didn’t have the easy, lazy cultural anti-Semitism of the era, but really, really thought hard on how the Jews were putting the stick to the decent noble Volk. Not just any kind of Jews, though: worldwide jewry! It’s the richest kind.

..Anything that starts out with “Russia and America are the same” is the product of a mind so high in the clouds it cannot tell the different between red and black ants. But while Russia did indeed have “unrestricted organization of the average man,” an inevitable consequence of the state’s politicization of the entire society, you could say Germany under Hitler had a smattering as well. Or a gerschmatturung, to use Heidegger’s word. Just kidding; he doesn’t. But the article is full of German words intended to set off a Concept, as though expressing a concept in a train-wreck of consonants makes it important. I suppose the point is to be accurate, use the terms the author uses so there can be no misunderstanding. But for my part that would require anything close to comprehension, and I cannot grasp a lot of what Heidegger is talking about, perhaps because there seems to be no point in understanding what he’s saying.

Philosophy isn’t useless, but some philosophers are. Or worse than.