CapitalistImperialistPig

E. J. Dionne is a normally bright WaPo columnist, but this column is from outer space. President Bush's critics have him all wrong. They think of him as an anti-intellectual, opposed to theory and disdainful of grand ideas. To the contrary. George W. Bush's spring of discontent arises from a fact that no one dares to notice: George W. Bush is an egghead. An ideologue, or in thrall to ideologues, yes - an intellectual never. As the economist J M Keynes wrote: The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I believe Bush is more correctly described by the final sentence than ...

Lumo seems seriously preoccupied with string theory these days. I suppose that's not too surprising, but a little dissappointing to me, since I usually don't understand those posts and I'm often amused and infuriated by his often eccentric posts on other subjects. My dark suspicion is that he might have gotten caught in a PC violation in the Summers Affair, forcing him to do a T reversal to save his Lorentz invariant m ass.

Watched the Prez's press conference. Arghh! Not sure if he only let idiots ask questions or if they are all idiots. A couple of people tried to ask somewhat pointed questions (not very successfully), but most were strictly Roland Hedley. Some questions that didn't get asked: a)North Korea built 1 or 2 nuclear bombs during your father's administration. Clinton reached an agreement which kept them from building anymore. You ostentatiously cancelled the agreement and refused bipartite talks while North Korea built 6 more bombs. How can you call that a success? b)You want us to worry about a 200 billion a year shortfall in Social Security 20 or 40 years from now, but you created and are ignoring a $600 billion/year shortfall (the current account deficit) right now. How can that make sense? c)You took us to war in Iraq under false pretenses, and now 1500 Americans and many tens of thousands of Iraqi's are dead. How is this not a huge failure? d)Whenever asked about so...

Ed Witten filibusters at the Frist with Griffith's Elementary Particles . Picture here (via Josh Marshall ).

Kevin Drum is asking his readers to define liberalism pithily. LIBERAL PRINCIPLES....What do liberals stand for? My take: Defending individuals against the power of government, church, corporation and economic oligarchy. Individual worth and individual freedom. These principles are hardly adequate to define a program, so I would supplement them with some notions that I think are compatible with more than one philosophy of government: a)Government should only do for the people what they can't do better for themselves. (Lincoln) b)We need to be good stewards of our country and planet. c)War is a terrible evil, and should only be undertaken as a last resort. d)Do onto others as you would have them do onto you. e)A people can only be free if they can know the truth. Secrecy in government is a positive evil. Since many of Kevin's commenters took advantage of his invitation to post crude parodies of liberalism, here's my version of contemporary Republican conservatism: a)Governme...

Joel Achenbach has a speed of light post in his Column/Blog in the WaPo . My editor, Tom, whose last contribution to the blog brought him only misery and derision, has hit me with an imponderable speed-of-light question, to wit: "According to Einstein (I think), the velocity of light is the one constant in the universe, and everything else, including time, is relative. But isn't velocity a function of time? You can't say what the velocity of anything is without using units of time. So if time is relative, how can velocity be absolute? OK science wonks, and I know you are out there, let the savaging begin!" I have to confess that the question makes my head hurt. Just like Tom's editing. It would take me several hours to put together an answer for Tom, and then it would be wrong, and I'd have to call up Brian Greene, who probably has better things to do than be pestered by the likes of me. Well Joel, rather than bother Brian, or inflict your nonsensical musings...

Relativism seems to be a big bugaboo for Pope Benedict XVI. I'm not sure what he means by that, but I was briefly tempted to try write a humorous post where angry Catholic protesters picket Relativity conventions, or maybe fanatical RC suicide bombers crash their cars into Cosmology Caravans. Unfortunately, it's too sick and too real to be funny. So what is the Pope really upset about? To me his real concern is people no longer believing that the Church has a monopoly pipeline to God. That's always the crucial issue, especially for the Catholic Church. Don't bother to read your Bible, Catholics have been told, we will tell you what to believe. I wouldn't want to shut up before I do a little Protestant bashing too, though. Anybody know how much money Dobson, Robertson, and other evangelical leaders have tapped thier flocks for? I have no idea, but my guess is that they aren't living like monks. My suspicion is that not many could slip that camel through ...