Thursday, May 30, 2013
Monday, May 27, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Bully, Badger, and Berate American Success
I may be less than a committed fan of senator Rand Paul, but he has this one issue exactly right. Here we have a body of senators who have created a monster of a tax code, and today they order before them one of America's best success stories, Apple Corp., for the crime of following those very same laws passed by this congress. This type of charade is, or at least it has been. standard operating procedure for the US government. But today, at least one senator, Rand Paul, calls them out on it. This video makes for four minutes well spent.
Friday, May 03, 2013
Landing on the Moon
I just experienced what may well be the best eighteen minutes you could spend online. This website puts you in the cockpit of Apollo 11, from lunar orbit to landing. All the telemetry has been duplicated, and you can see and hear most everything.
As a youngster, the thrill of the landing was experienced by me (and the rest of the world) with merely the voices of Walter Cronkite and Mission Control along with some really crummy graphics on a black and white TV. This presentation is as close as you can get to actually being there with Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong.
This is some great stuff, if you like this sort of stuff in the first place. As I do. If all you want to do is waste your time, this is the place to go. If you wish to spend some quality time with Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, go here.
HT: Watts Up With That
As a youngster, the thrill of the landing was experienced by me (and the rest of the world) with merely the voices of Walter Cronkite and Mission Control along with some really crummy graphics on a black and white TV. This presentation is as close as you can get to actually being there with Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong.
This is some great stuff, if you like this sort of stuff in the first place. As I do. If all you want to do is waste your time, this is the place to go. If you wish to spend some quality time with Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, go here.
HT: Watts Up With That
Thursday, May 02, 2013
Is Thinking Obsolete?
Thomas Sowell is one of the finest philosophers alive today. I never miss one of his writings - own all his books, read all his columns. He is a member of the smallest and most reviled of minorities in America today - black conservatives. His column (up today) is here. I agree with him wholeheartedly.
I attended one of the finest (I believe THE finest) public high schools in the country and excelled on the debate team. One of the things that make organized debate a great preparation for organizing one's thoughts is that, after preparation, the teams are assigned sides. I found that the very best teams (my team won at state level almost every year) did better when they took the unpopular side. I am certain that I did better when I had to defend a side that I absolutely abhorred - won the state championship on the side of Hitler, and as a Jew that was a bit of a surprise. After that I attended three different universities.
This all happened in the 60s, and I can say with no doubt that the level of critical thinking at those 3 centers of "higher" learning was nowhere near what I saw in Stuyvesant. Groupthink has permeated our society, and I must agree, one more time, with Tom Sowell. Thinking has gone out of style. What we have now is tribalism, or what I call the baseball style of debate, as in, my team is better than your team, whatever your team does sucks and whatever mine does is the pinnacle of achievement. Assertion has won out over argument. I wonder if anything can be done about it.
I attended one of the finest (I believe THE finest) public high schools in the country and excelled on the debate team. One of the things that make organized debate a great preparation for organizing one's thoughts is that, after preparation, the teams are assigned sides. I found that the very best teams (my team won at state level almost every year) did better when they took the unpopular side. I am certain that I did better when I had to defend a side that I absolutely abhorred - won the state championship on the side of Hitler, and as a Jew that was a bit of a surprise. After that I attended three different universities.
This all happened in the 60s, and I can say with no doubt that the level of critical thinking at those 3 centers of "higher" learning was nowhere near what I saw in Stuyvesant. Groupthink has permeated our society, and I must agree, one more time, with Tom Sowell. Thinking has gone out of style. What we have now is tribalism, or what I call the baseball style of debate, as in, my team is better than your team, whatever your team does sucks and whatever mine does is the pinnacle of achievement. Assertion has won out over argument. I wonder if anything can be done about it.
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