Category Archives: Politics

Climate Denial and the Death of Rationality – Part 2

It always makes me sad when I have to write these posts again because it means that more and more public stupidity is on display, and this time it’s people in real power. Post November 4th midterm elections, the United States now has a slew of non-scientists in positions where scientific decisions are made. For example, the Chairman of the Environmental Committee is a fine individual who blatantly ignores all the evidence to the contrary.

In this short post, I just want to provide a brief update to the article I wrote a couple months ago called “Climate Denial and the Death of Rationality” because some new and very interesting data have come out that brings the hammer down even harder. So join me after the jump! Until then, enjoy some Colbert.

 

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‘Hostis’ vs. ‘Inimicus’ – An Etymological Analysis

This post will be of a little different flavor than my usual posts because here, I won’t strictly be advocating anything, rather I will be tracing the history of two words and their Latin equivalents as used in Schmittian theory and misused in post-Schmittian theory.

The two words are “enemy” and “foe”, or “hostis” and “inimicus”.

To spare any of my blog’s casual readers, the etymological analysis will be after the jump.

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Ferguson as a Datapoint – The Trend of Police Militarization

It’s no secret that the situation in Ferguson, Missouri at the moment is a mess, to say the least. It’s also no secret that race has played a huge role in the escalation of a tragic instance of police violence into pseudo-martial law in a small town. What has been kept under the radar, for the most part, until a week ago was the slowly expanding and militarizing police force.

I want to take the events in Ferguson and step back for a moment and analyze the broader picture. You see, to be frank, I don’t care about the killing of Michael Brown anymore than I do about the killing of Keith Koster. I don’t care about the killing of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. anymore than I do about the killing of Troy Geske. Why? Because these are four people amidst the over 400 who are killed annually. In fact, new studies indicate that the number of people killed by police, not only may be much higher annually, but in the past decade has surpassed all the Americans who died in Iraq (evidently, police kill 8 times more people than terrorists do).

When I turn on the TV or log on to the internet, I don’t see individual instances, rather a growing trend towards militarization and unwarranted aggression, and it is this trend, not any racial or socioeconomic element, that I want to explore after the jump.

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Why I Do Criticize Israel – A Response to Sam Harris

A few weeks ago, prominent author and skeptic Sam Harris, recorded a podcast entitled “Why Don’t I Criticize Israel?” wherein Harris made a case for Israel as a state and tried to preemptively attack some claims made by modern critics of Israel.

Given the nature of this blog and my views on the subject, I figured that a response to Mr. Harris is in order. However, I thought I’d change it up a bit and record my own little podcast. Please take a listen and I ask that you forgive any cuts that are still audible – this was 20 different takes with different thoughts compressed into one version I think I like.

So, without further ado, I give you Why I Do Criticize Israel:

Here is Asmaa al-Ghoul’s piece entitled Never ask me about peace again.

Arm Iran – The Case for the Nuclear State

With the Middle East being as contentious as it is now and the fact that the only state in the region that has nuclear weapons also happens to be the one that is most hated and refuses to sign arms agreements (Israel), a different approach is needed. I argue that Iran, the state Israel is so deeply afraid of, should acquire nuclear weapons and be the regional counterbalance.

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