I do not directly invest in the stock market. I do not have the knowledge to do so nor sufficient interest to invest the time to study how it works to make the kinds of informed decisions that are required. Of course, my retirement money is invested by others on my behalf but that goes on automatically without any involvement on my part. I have no idea what is going on. [Read more…]
Thanks to a link provided by commenter Marcus Ranum, I want to bring to readers’ attention this gripping account by Adam Curtis of the of the twists and turns of post-World War II Syrian history, and how it interweaves with the histories of Iraq and Egypt. I am reposting it here because it deserves a much wider readership. [Read more…]
As the congressional debate on whether to authorize military action against Syria gets under way, we will hear endlessly from the war hawks who have predictably started salivating at the prospect of more killing by the US military about the need to uphold US ‘credibility’ and that in the highly unlikely event that Congress votes down the resolution and the administration abides by their decision, US credibility will be seriously damaged. As numerous commentators and commenters to this blog have pointed out, ‘credibility’ has now become narrowly identified with the willingness of the US to carry out a threat, whether or not that threat was wise or even reasonable. [Read more…]
Via Gawker, I read this story and watched this news report.
I then watched an interview with the young men. The whole thing is quite heartwarming. [Read more…]
Now that president Obama has decided to refer the Syria issue for Congressional action, while reserving the right to ignore them if they don’t agree to what he wants to do (this is how democracy now operates in the US), here is the text of the Authorization to Use Military Force resolution that president Obama is sending to Congress. [Read more…]
The serious problem of football players suffering brain damage from repeated concussions is becoming a big issue. The National Football League has managed to strike a deal with the players union that temporarily takes it out of the courts and as hard as it may be to imagine in these days when football is so popular, I think it is only a matter of time before we begin to view it that same way we now view gladiatorial contests of the past. [Read more…]
Recall that it was a mere ten years ago, when the French declined to sign on the Iraq invasion in 2003, that they were derisively referred to as ‘cheese eating surrender monkeys’ and some members of Congress, in an example of incredible childishness, renamed the French fries in the Congressional cafeteria as ‘Freedom fries’. At that time, England was America’s best friend. [Read more…]
The debate over Syria in the US, such as it is, seems to center around whether chemical weapons were used in Ghouta and by whom. The Obama administration says it is convinced that they were used and that the Syrian government did it and that this justifies military action against the Syrian government, though what that action will be and what it seeks to achieve has not been clearly articulated. Furthermore, even if what they say is true, that does not make a US attack on that country legal. [Read more…]
I have been fascinated with the research on the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of human beings ever since I read the research of Joseph Chang et. al. that suggested that that person could have lived as recently as about 50 CE or so, around the time of Jesus. (See here, here, and here for my previous posts on this topic.) [Read more…]
In a move yesterday that few expected, president Obama announced that he is going to refer the Syria matter to the US Congress for deliberations before taking any action. It is a telling indicator of the state of the times that an action that should be normal was so unexpected. [Read more…]