Agnoiologist

We’re still fighting in Baghdad. Goodness, I thought the surge was supposed to end this. Instead…

Until Maliki’s push into the southern city of Basra, U.S. troops were not intensely engaged in Sadr City, a Baghdad neighborhood of roughly 3 million people that was among the most treacherous areas for U.S. forces early in the war.

But the southern offensive set off a violent chain reaction that spread quickly to Shiite sectors of the capital and has severely strained the cease-fire Sadr imposed on his followers in August and recently reaffirmed. U.S. troops, fighting at times Tuesday on foot and backed by air support, are now engaged in the kind of urban battle within Sadr’s stronghold reminiscent of the first years of the war.

Let’s repeat that. We’re engaged in the same sort of urban warfare that we were engaged in during the first years of the war. Just what have we accomplished in Iraq?

Meanwhile, we’re too busy talking about Reverand Wright to talk about the fighting in Iraq:

“Sadr City is under the American hammer and nobody is monitoring it,” said Leewa Smeisim, the head of the Sadr movement’s political bureau.

Iraq is on the brink of an all-out civil war. As I noted before, Sadr has threatened all-out war. His followers are “growing more eager for an all-out war to defend themselves,” as the Washington Post’s story says.

Here we are, in a very dangerous situation. Why doesn’t the press grill John McCain on this? Why do we focus on the Distraction of the Day?

Remember, this is why we’re voting for Obama. To end this endless war.

“Regrets are for horseshoes and handbags.” — Tracy Morgan, 30 Rock

This is amazing, check out this from Bill Kristol…

On Friday in Indiana, Obama talked tough in response to a question: “I get pretty fed up with people questioning my patriotism.” And, he continued, “I am happy to have that debate with them any place, anytime.” He’s happy to have fantasy debates with unnamed people who are allegedly challenging his patriotism. But he’s not willing to have a real debate with the real person he’s competing against for the nomination.

Hm. How about Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia? You can watch the clip of Kingston on that link. Jack Kingston thinks it’s perfectly fine to question Obama’s patriotism.

These people are not unnamed, nor are they “allegedly” challenging his patriotism. There are real Republicans out there attacking Obama on his patriotism.

That’s some real gall, but that’s the modus operandi of the Republican Party. Lie, lie, lie. Say you’re for fiscal conservatism, and yet sanction a trillion dollar, fiscally insane war. Say you’re for rugged individualism, and then get your job through nepotism. Say that no one’s engaging in those sorts of nasty attacks, and then slime slime slime.

“Physics makes us all its bitches.” - Gronlandic Edit, Of Montreal

Epiphanies never come from nowhere.

I keep journals. I log my life. I log my thoughts. I log my metaphysics.

If I ever have an epiphany, I can always look back and find the seeds of that epiphany. There are always patterns. Hidden amongst other words, between other thoughts, you will find traces of that epiphany. You’ll see it come up over and over. You’ll see the idea in several books you’ve read. In fact, sometimes you’ll find the epiphany explicitly written out, but in a different way.

An epiphany is just when you understand something in a new, profoundly meaningful way.

I find that science and nature are most helpful in creating epiphanies. Imagination is a powerful tool, but it is limited by its inputs. Nature shocks us. Many great discoveries in astronomy did not occur earlier merely because we lacked the imagination to comprehend reality. Our myths, all our great religions, never measure up. Reality is much more mind-boggling than any story. As a result, science helps me look at issues from new angles. Science provides me with new metaphors to understand my life.

The key to the ephiphany is to never give up on your most deeply held questions. Continue to examine them from every angle. Use every different discipline to view your problem through different lenses. Science, sports, martial arts, arts, business — all of these not only have different ways of solving your problem, they have different ways of comprehending your problem. But most importantly, you must stretch yourself. If you seek an epiphany, you must go beyond even where your imagination is comfortable.

Keep writing. When you write nothing down, you never progress. You’re stuck in the same position; you can’t see your problem using new viewpoints.

Themes are born. Themes die. Themes are reborn. This cycle continues until, all at once, you’ve examined a theme from sufficient angles, you’ve fleshed it out enough, to have that epiphany. Instead of disparate strands of knowledge, you have a unified solution. Instead of a jumble of feverish words, you have one profound sentence. There is your epiphany.

An epiphany is nothing altogether new. An epiphany is the result of a thousand rebirths.

In your perfect system, who will be the arbiters? Who will decide how we ought live? Who are these hyper-rational beings who will decide things based only upon logic?

Do realize that this is the road to tyranny.

We are as sure of the corrupting influence of power as we are of the pull of gravity. If indeed your arbiters are human beings, then they will be corrupted.

What human being can resist the temptation of power? What human can resist the lie for his own gain? He who sets the rules will set up rules for his own gain. He will fool the people.

If we set up multiple arbiters, we are still dealing with human beings. They will collude in order to devour the masses, or devour each other. Most likely, both will occur. When they see that much power up for grabs, they will scheme.

No human beings are exactly alike. They will have different forces of will. Factions will arise. Just as surely as galaxies gathered from the gravitational pull of mere differences in density, even if the differences are slight, factions will arise. We have different temperaments. We will like some people more than others. Any council is doomed to disagreement. And any council of arbiters with unlimited power will either explode into war or collapse into one demonic being.

The rational are easy to fool. They fail to notice the devious motivations of others because deviousness is so contrary to their own natures. The sharks easily feed on these guppies. The devious tyrant will overtake any council of rational arbiters.

Or the messianic will captivate the masses. How will you control him except by violence?

People will laugh at your rational arbiters. Any child knows that “because it’s for your own good” is not a very compelling argument. How will you control them except by violence?

The more violent you are, the more you’ll attract the wrong type of people. The more you open yourself up to a War Leader who has actually earned the respect of the masses, more so than your arbiters in their Ivory Tower.

Any system which values the abstract over the contingencies of history and the fickle nature of human beings will end up as either a tyranny or an anarchy. Any absolute system will necessarily use violence to compel the people to do its biddings. Any absolute arbiters will have people who chafe under their rule. These absolute arbiters will inevitably become corrupt.

Human experience has shown that the only way to avoid the problem of corruption is to separate and balance power, like our co-equal branches of government. You must also limit the time people can hold power. It is messy. But I much rather prefer this to rivers of rational bloodshed.

I don’t thnk I can ever be a comedian. I wouldn’t mind telling humiliating stories about myself for laughs, but I don’t have any particularly good stories. I lack the penchant for putting myself in humiliating situations.

Then again, I could always tell humiliating stories about other people.

I was thinking about something like this about a month ago. It’s a belt that goes around your torsoe and creates tactile sensations, either through vibration or heat. I’d use it to cheat on tests, by providing me with information I otherwise couldn’t memorize. (Of course, maybe all the time I spent building the belt and developing a language for that belt to communciate in would’ve been better spent studying.)

Looks as if the military’s been working on something similar for a while. Theirs differs in that they’re focusing on remote communication, not cheating on exams.

Links:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/04/darpa-wants-sol.html
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn10846-vibrating-vest-could-send-alerts-to-soldiers.html

1. I feel perpetually off-center when I’m at school, and normal when I get home.
2. Sometimes I get really paranoid that people secretly hate me.
3. I tell people that I really love pancakes, but I just think they’re okay.

Note: I debated whether to add “Because I secretly hate you” to the second one. I decided against it because 1) it wasn’t true, and 2) it sounded cliche upon second reading.

I wish I didn’t have to bring this up again, but it’s frustrating how the media buys into false campaign narratives. They pick up spin in order to make a story. I kept hearing how Obama can’t win big states.

Clinton gets to count New York as a big state, but somehow Illinois doesn’t count even though it has more delegates than Ohio.

Of course Obama couldn’t win Michigan and Florida. Everyone, Clinton included, agreed not to campaign in those states.

That Clinton’s campaign manager McCauliffe insists on counting them shows a despicable lack of regard for rules. I’d like to see what happens when Clinton comes up against laws she does not like. Will she simply spin them out of existence?

Furthermore, Obama won Texas, when you count all the delegates up.

Can we do a count again? There are seven “big” states she has claimed to have won: Texas, Ohio, New York, California, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Michigan. Florida and Michigan don’t count. New York can’t count if Illinois doesn’t count. She lost the delegate count in Texas. That leaves Ohio, Pennsylvania, and California.

There’s something seriously wrong with the idea that only Clinton can win big states if only 3 out of the 7 supposed wins are legitimate. It’s bullshit.