Occam's Razor -- and Einstein's Caution

"All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best." --William of Ockham (with apologies)

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." --Albert Einstein

"Don't tell them, then it will not exist" --Goebbels

Debates Ignore Questions About Presidential Power and Civil Liberties

A new study by the watchdog group Media Matters has found that Democratic and Republican candidates have been asked few questions about their views on executive power, the Constitution, torture, wiretapping, or other civil liberties concerns during the first 17 presidential debates. According to Media Matters there has been only one question about wiretapping. Not a single question about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or renditions. The words "habeas corpus" have not once been spoken by a debate moderator. Candidates have also not been asked about whether telecoms should be granted immunity over their role in domestic spying. Last week's debate ended with Senator Hillary Clinton being asked whether she preferred diamonds or pearls. The question was asked by a UNLV student who has since said that she was forced by CNN to ask that question instead of a pre-approved query about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. --Democracy NOW! November 20, 2007

The ULTIMATE Mockingbird

William Arkin in the online Washington Post, Feb. 1, 1999, described a voice-morphing technology developed at the government’s Los Alamos laboratory. Arkin reported that digital morphing, including appearance, “has come of age, available for use in psychological operations.” --Why Were The Tapes Destroyed?, By Paul Craig Roberts, 04/02/08 "ICH"

Operation Mockingbird was the seminal PsyOps (psychological operation) instigated on the U.S. public beginning in the early '50s, and a natural evolution of war induction and maintenance which officially began in the U.s. with President Woodrow Wilson's creation of the "Committee on Public Information"

The REAL Enemy?

"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it." --Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, THE MATRIX

Epitaph?

"To grasp the horror of military Keynesianism, consider this statistic: By 1990, production for the Department of Defense amounted to 83 percent of the value of all manufacturing plants and equipment in the US. Only 17 percent of the US manufacturing base actually made products not meant to kill."--Trends for Downsizing the US: The Bright Side of the Panic of ‘08, Sunday, 27 January 2008, Christopher Ketcham

Monopoly buster

... the monopoly of the use of force [by government] is a European concept. It’s not an American one. A State Monopoly in violence is explicitly forbidden by the 2nd Amendment, just as a State Monopoly on press, assembly, or church is forbidden by the 1st. --Dan tdaxp, Ungoverned Megacites, 03 Nov 07 at 9:57 pm,

Pots & kettles

What exactly does it mean when the biggest bully on the block -- the U.S. Government, for example -- calls someone else a "troublemaker?" --L. Reichard White, Oct. 28, 2007

Assassination Politics, Part 23

My mysterious tipster tells me that there is a rumor inside the Beltway that during a recent PDB, or Presidential Daily Briefing, the subject of Ron Paul was raised. The rumor goes that President Bush made a comment about Ron Paul becoming President, and Vice President Dick Cheney snapped, "If he gets too close, we will just kill the son of a bitch." --http://www.freedomscribe.com/

The Technique of Inflation

"The technique of inflation demands that governments and their agencies shall continuously deceive the public about the fact, the speed and the duration of inflation intended. Ministers of finance have no option but to employ what has been called 'the necessary untruth'." Professor W.H. Hutt, quoted by Mogambo Guru, Cheaper to Freeze to Death, Oct. 23, 2007

Standard deviation

MBAs were all doing the same thing, all evaluating these [financial market] vehicles the same way. Partly as a result, we have a 25 sigma event -- which should happen only once every 10,000 years -- and now they had one every day for three days in a row. --CNBC guest, 3:52 PM 10/23/2007

Krauthammer's razor

I fall back on Krauthammer's razor (with apologies to Occam): In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit. My opinion Charles Krauthammer: Pelosi should concentrate on modern-day genocide, azstarnet.com, Published: 10.20.2007

Nemesis

Chalmers Johnson has written a book: "Nemesis. The last days of the American Republic." In it he compares present day American Imperium with the Roman Empire. At the height of its power it had 38 military bases around the world. Today USA has 737. Military expenditure has cost America two thousand billion dollars and bankrupted the country. The only thing keeping the economy going is the investment money pouring in from Japan and China. If that dries up, total economic collapse. China is already starting to direct its money towards the Euro. I have heard mutterings lately that Saudi Arabia is wanting to price its oil in Euros. If that happens Chalmers predicts America will collapse within 24 hours. --john leleu, Sat, 20 Oct 2007 14:58:53 +1000 (EST)

God said it, I believe it, and that ends it.

OK, if God said it I'd believe it too. But why do you believe the guy who told you God said it? --L. Reichard White

Protected My Ass; The Series

Warren v. District of Columbia: In the early morning hours of March 16, 1975, two men broke down the back door of a D.C. townhouse in Northeast and began raping a woman on the second floor. Her two roommates, hiding one floor above, called the police. According to the court’s opinion, a squad car responded, and the officer failed even to exit his car before leaving. The two women, listening to their roommate scream, called the police again. This time, an officer went so far as to knock at the door, but then left without further inspection. The women sued the District of Columbia, which argued that “a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen.” The District won the case based on what is actually a long-standing legal principle. David Freddoso, Just Stand There While I Die, The D.C. government has that right, and exercises it frequently, October 10, 2007 6:44 AM

Heretic?

"The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures," [highly respected hurricane forecaster] Dr Gray said.

He said his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science.

"It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants." Gore gets a cold shoulder, Steve Lytte, The Sydney Morning Herald, October 14, 2007

Follow the "leader?" Anti-war Democrats

"We have to make responsible decisions in the Congress that are not driven by the dissatisfaction of anybody who wants the war to end tomorrow," Pelosi told the gathering at the Sofitel, arranged by the Christian Science Monitor. Though crediting [anti-war] activists for their "passion," [U.S. House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi called it "a waste of time" for them to target Democrats. "They are advocates," she said. "We are leaders." ...It seemed that only the antiwar advocates had the power to wipe the smile off Pelosi's face. Smile, Though Your Head Is Aching, Dana Milbank, Wednesday, October 10, 2007; Page A02

The GOOD guys?

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - In December, the United Nations took up a resolution calling for the abolition of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for children and young teenagers. The vote was 185 to 1, with the United States the lone dissenter. NYT, Wednesday, Oct 17, 2007

Ticking time bombs and other fairy tales

I've looked at every instance of a ticking time bomb that's been proposed in the war on terror. ...basically there is never a circumstance where you know that a particular prisoner has a particular information and will yield with a particular amount of pressure. In fact, gathering intelligence is a matter of pulling information gradually from a number of sources, who you recruit through rapport building.

One of the fascinating things about the ticking time bomb scenario is that it has elicited bad information, which has sent our troops on dangerous and fatal missions... --DR. STEVEN MILES, Democracy NOW!, Friday, September 28th, 2007

Are you an extremist?

Moderation in the protection of liberty is no virtue; extremism in the defense of freedom is no vice. --Barry Goldwater

Fear the followers!

Authoritarian followers [who do the violent bidding of Authoritarians] score highly on the Dangerous World scale, and it’s not just because some of the items have a religious context. High RWAs are, in general, more afraid than most people are. They got a “2 for 1 Special Deal” on fear somehow. Maybe they’ve inherited genes that incline them to fret and tremble. Maybe not. But we do know that they were raised by their parents to be afraid of others, because both the parents and their children tell us so. --The Authoritarians, Bob Altemeyer, Associate Professor Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, Copyright ©, 2006 by Bob Altemeyer