Author Archives: Peter

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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TrueCrypt is Still Safe

I want to preface this with a note from me: “Hey all, I apologize for not publishing anything recently; I’ve had writer’s block and now I’m doing research for my next big post (get ready for it!) amidst dealing with crashed hard drives and OS transfers.

But, inspired by a the comment “dude, truecrypt is dead” that I saw on IRC, I want to write a short statement about TrueCrypt. Now it’s no secret I’m a TrueCrypt fanboy so this will be a tad biased, but please hang with me.”

Since 2004, TrueCrypt has been the go to OTF encryption tool and has served probably millions of users (myself included). TrueCrypt had been in active development getting to version 7.1a when, on May 28, 2014, truecrypt.org displayed a very odd message warning of the insecurity of the software.

Although no one knows for sure why the develops suddenly stopped (although there are a few conspiracy theories), we do know that TrueCrypt is still safe.

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Bring Back The ‘Madman’

In the world today, Obama’s a jester and Putin’s the king who’s grasp in Eurasia is unchallenged. In fact, one could even say Putin’s favorite hobby (apart from kicking ass in Judo) is making the Obama administration the laughing stock of the international community.

On February 28th, Obama issued one of his usual empty threats towards Russia saying “there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine”…the next day, Russia annexed Crimea. (x) Everything the West does in an attempt to contain Russia is met with Putin laughing in the faces of NATO leaders and doing the opposite. Arms buildups. Weapons Transfers. You name it.

Hell, it’s gotten so bad that even The Onion ran an article “written by” Putin entitled, “Thanks For Being So Cool About Everything” which included this beautiful piece of satire:

To be honest, I was really dreading a whole big fight over this thing. When you first condemned the seizure of Crimea as patently illegal and in breach of the Ukrainian constitution—which it absolutely was, by the way—I feared for the worst. But then everybody stopped short of doing anything to actually prevent what was essentially a state-sponsored landgrab, and I just thought, “Wow, these guys are a pretty laid-back and easygoing bunch!” It really was a huge load off when you let everything slide like that.

But all kidding aside, it’s clear that if Russia really is the enemy and needs to be stopped[1], empty threats from Obama and NATO leaders or faux pivot attempts with no tangible backing are not the way to deter further aggression. A new strategy is needed.

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The Case Against The Legalization of Marijuana

Update 1/8/16: I no longer entirely agree with my position in this post. While I think decriminalization is a good first step, I now think that widespread federal descheduling of Marijuana is a better policy. See my most recent post entitled Legalizing Marijuana: The Road to Security South of the Border.

 

Back in 2010 I wrote a post, which is formatted horribly on my current theme, entitled Drugs Legal? Yes! wherein I argued for the complete legalization of all drugs. While I still think the argument I made is valid and impacts of illegality are real, I have changed my position. I think, at best, marijuana should be decriminalized, not legalized (I don’t know my political opinion on other drugs).

Thus in this post, I will make my case against legalization in favor of decriminalization.

Before beginning, however, it is important to establish working definitions (I quote from Auburn University and The Free Dictionary, respectively) and set up one assumption:

Legalization: a general policy orientation involves the lifting of all criminal and civil proscriptions and sanctions (x);
Decriminalization: the repeal or amendment (undoing) of statutes which made certain acts criminal, so that those acts no longer are crimes or subject to prosecution (x);
The United States federal government will not legalize all drugs anytime soon, if ever, but there is a real chance and a push for the overall legalization of marijuana. Thus the assumption that the rest of this post will work off of is that the only currently illicit drug that will be legalized (or have a serious attempt made at legalizing) in the near future would be marijuana.

So, I’ll see you after the jump!

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