Osler's Razor

Re: Georgia and Russia

Neither of them are the US, so intervening in other nation's business clearly isn't something they're authorized to do. Only we have the power to step in and say who gets to be free and which despots get toppled years after we helped them get in to power. America giveth, and America taketh away.

Also, on totally unrelated notes, I must congratulate you on a job well done. Your ceaseless insistence on me learning how to give an effective closing statement helped me win my first jury trial on Wednesday.
 

Seriously I usually can follow Thursdays on the Razor a LITTLE....

This time I have NO IDEA what you are talking about.

But you're still a nice person.
 

Seriously, if Georgia in not in the US, then it is darn close by. A lot of people go by there on their way to Florida and I know that Florida is in the US because the news stations have been reporting on a biblical deluge conjured by the ghost of Tammy Feyee.

On a side note, I am relieved to hear that Poland, Ohio will finally be receiving some protection from those industrial age ruffians in Pittsburgh!!!

A Baylor Student
 

The whole "unidentified woman" thing, and the fact she appears a bit younger than the Foosball Wizard, does smack of a paper unwilling to report real news and, instead, seeking to create some local chatter. The real question, however, is why did FW drive into a street covered with water? Don't they (the local TV news) say over and over and over never to do that?
 

First off, best interview question from yesterday:

"What Kung-fu skills do you have?"

If my firm ever makes the poor decision of letting me interview I'm totally going to ask that question.

Second, Christine asked a question regarding my lake/ocean theory. It is not about where you grew up or where you live, it is a matter of which one you prefer. You may be forced to live in Kansas and therefore rely on lakes for your water sports, but if you would prefer oceans that is the key.

Third, I disagree with Osler about the importance of the story in the Trib generally. I mean, a virtual flood situation in Waco seems like a reasonable story to make the front page. However, the story was written rather poorly, and seemed to focus more on Bates/unidentified woman than it did on the flood generally. So, I don't think this is indicative of the media's general focus on tabloid stories, just the fact that this particular reporter was having an off day.

However, it was pretty funny if you looked at it objectively. Unintentionally funny, yes. But my man Larry Bates, unidentified woman, flood....a better comedy setup I have seldom heard.

Fourth, this quote makes me sick to my stomach:

"Neither of them are the US, so intervening in other nation's business clearly isn't something they're authorized to do. Only we have the power to step in and say who gets to be free and which despots get toppled years after we helped them get in to power. America giveth, and America taketh away."

This is the view of America that says "everything we do is wrong." Noam Chomsky is an idiot, and regurgitating his drivel just proves that you need to read better books. You're probably one of those people that feels like he wants to apologize to all of the cheese eating surrender monkeys for how "embarrassing" our foreign policy is, while forgetting and allowing them to forget that if it wasn't for us they would all be speaking German right now. We've never done anything right, huh? Liberating Europe? Rebuilding Europe? Liberating China and various pacific islands? Massive foreign aid? Being the only friend to Israel? The only country that has shown any interest in Africa outside of colonizing the continent? We aren't perfect, but we are unquestionably a force for good in this world. We have made many mistakes, but let the country/government/nation that has not sinned cast the first stone.

Oh, and Kosovo and Georgia are different. I didn't think we should've intervened in Kosovo. Did we do a good thing, maybe. However, Georgia is an ally of the United States, a likely future member of NATO, and a strategic partner in Eastern Europe. Part of being an ally means that we will take their side and protect their interests. That doesn't make us evil, it makes us a good friend and a good strategic partner.

And I'm sure some hippy, I'm looking in your direction Lane, will say that my attitude and opinion is militaristic and creates the kinds of threats we are attempting to solve. But we don't live in Candyland, this is the real world, and being nice to everyone and ignoring geopolitical conflicts/threats is not a realistic position for a global superpower to take.
 

I live in Candyland, on Gumdrop Lane.
 

Re: the Waco Tribune-Herald. Two weeks before the 2006 midterm elections, the Waco paper ran a front-page story, "JAIL BIRD: Elm Mott Man Busts Local Cockfighting Ring."

Full election coverage ran on p. 4.
 

OK, rrl, you're militarist. That kind of "American can do no wrong" jingoism creates more problems than it solves.
There! Feel better?
 

Awww, I'm hardly a hippie. My hair is short, I don't own any tye-dye, and I'm more apt to be at a Socialist Worker's Union meeting than living on a commune in Oregon. I actually find Chomsky to be distasteful both in politics and philosophy. I have no comment on his skills as a linguist.

See, you're broadly stereotyping me as a typical American leftist, which is wrong, because I'm just not. The American Left is a gaggle of assorted moderates that lack any truly radical views, and I'm all about truly radical views. My problem with the view of American hegemony is that it's... well, stupid. We think that fierce nationalism, factionalism, and protectionism are good things when the US does them, but when other nations try the same things, they're "rogue states" or "terrorist sympathizers." Like when we invade a country and the locals have the temerity to defend that country. Or when we think the leader of a country is a Bad Man, but the people don't, we automatically assume that the rest of the world is crazy because they don't adopt the same viewpoint we do.

Look, I like living in the US. I even like most of my fellow citizens, and that says a lot, because I live in Texas. But that doesn't mean I have to like the US, what it does, or what it has come to stand for.

I'm not saying that everything the US does is bad, just like I'm not saying everything it does is "good." I don't even look at it in such ethical terms... there's just "better things to do" and "worse things to do." The problem is the US's insistence that everyone else in the world march along in step to its grand design. We think we're top dog in this outfit, and that view of the world is what sickens my stomach.

Also, sprach ich Deutsch jetzt. Bin ich terroristen? Oder einfach ein Wurstessen Französiche-erobern kriegsaffe?
 

rrl said:
Second, Christine asked a question regarding my lake/ocean theory. It is not about where you grew up or where you live, it is a matter of which one you prefer. You may be forced to live in Kansas and therefore rely on lakes for your water sports, but if you would prefer oceans that is the key.

I happen to like both equally. That's why we are installing a waterfall at our landlocked, out in the middle of no where home in Durham, NC. REAL WATER is just too far away now, except for vacations.

On the topic of trashy tabloid media...
I suspect your Waco paper will have better things to write about, once the current resident of the White House moves back to Crawford. They can report on his brush cutting and bike riding.The Raleigh and Durham papers improved significanly with the Edwards affair a few weeks back. They were in a sesrious drought after the Duke / Lacrosse and the Guiliani/ Golf team items died.
 

Forget Kosovo, it is the US's policies in regards to the Middle East and Iraq which has emboldened Russia to invade Georgia. How are their actions different?

We have punted our moral authority and I find that infuriating. On what grounds can we say that Russia should stay out of Georgia when Russia can rightfully turn around and accuse us of meddling in Iraq (and Iran)?
 

The WacoTrib is written for people that make comments like:

"I to have seen some of the most stupidest ppl come from Baylor. I'll give it to them, they may be book smart... but they just don't have any common sense."

"I will admit I am so much more book smart than the average joe . . . ."

"For a Religious Supposed to Be College... It is full of idiots and ppl with no morals."
 

Here is what I want to know, was the innertube guy drunk?
 

As we discovered last week with Julia Child, the CIA has a history of recruiting high profile secret agents-enter Larry Bates. Anyone trained in military intelligence can clearly see that the trib article is laced with messages only a trained eye could discern...i.e. that snorkel guy means they are attacking by sea
 

I just like it when somebody says something that is generalizing and stereotypical of the radical left, and then when you connect them with the radical left they say, "hey man, I'm not with those guys.". Ok, your not a hippie or a democrat or a liberal, but you sure do talk like one.

Alright, so there is no right and wrong. Every issue has two sides. I get it. You're all about moral equivalence. All that, "one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter" nonsense.

I happen to be naïve enough to think that there is a right and a wrong in moral and political terms. For instance, the US was right and the Soviet Union was wrong. The colonists were right and Britain was wrong. The South was right and the North was wrong. Etc. The Allies were right and the socualists in Italy and Germany were wrong. So, while the US has certainly made mistakes, those mistakes were made pursuant to a positive goal.
 

Wait - You think the Tabloid Media is trashy?

I think that is an unfair assessment. How else are people supposed to learn about Rachel Ray's feud with Oprah, that Dick Cheney is a Robot, and how to lose inches on the Bigfoot Diet?

I think it is unfair to target tabloids as bad journalism. I don't see any other papers getting these stories, and frankly if these reporters have the courage to be out there on the front lines, reporting on the sea monster that lives in Lake Erie, the Bat Child that the FBI captured, and that Hillary Clinton secretly adopted and alien baby, then more power to them.

I don't see you out there doing all the research needed to prove that Abraham Lincoln was really a woman, or that Bigfoot really did keep a lumberjack as a love slave.

I thought you of all people would keep an open mind.
 

Okay, RRL, you are not going to get away with "the South was right and the North was wrong" without some 'splainin to do. And I'm a Southerner, too, but I ain't with you on that one.
 

I agree with the scope of coverage in the Trib as of late. For instance, why wouldn't "Unidentified woman" identify herself? Why was she with this Prof? Will her parents ground her for sneaking out after curfew? These are the things that Waco needs to know. The Trib in failing to dig deeper and ask the tough questions fails this community and its responsibility to good journalism.
 

I was on my way to the gym that same evening. I drive a low car similar to Bates and the rain came down so fast and so hard there was almost nothing a person could do if they were in a low lying area.
 

RRL, you don't know what the radical left is like. You think American liberals are "left," but in Europe they'd be more moderate. In political theory, a liberal is someone more along the lines of Rawls or Mill. The left traditionally designates socialists, Marxists, communists, etc. They have real left in Europe and other nations, but not here, because we're still living under the stigma of McCarthyism. Even now, educated people, people with college degrees, look at me askance when I mention my socialist sympathies.

And when I speak of no right and wrong at the national level, I'm just limiting the field of ethics to human relations. The same standards that govern how you and I ought to act toward each other don't apply at the national level is all I'm saying. While there might be good things I could do, or bad things, those don't apply to nations because human ethics are judged by human rationality. Nations and countries aren't autonomous individual beings like us, and so aren't subject to the same ethical rules. So I'm not going to say that there is some objective standard against which we can judge the actions of nations. We can just say that some actions are better or worse than other actions a nation could take in the same circumstances.

Part of the reason for this is that it's hard, very hard, to separate our own interest and our own perspective from what we think nations ought to do. People in the US like the US's foreign policy because we use our superior strength of arms and military might to enforce our will in other parts of the globe. We're on top, and so we get the lion's share. So people in the US support that; but people elsewhere in the world, the ones on the receiving end of the US's military force, probably see that differently than a US citizen might. To them, we're not a "liberating force" coming in to dislodge a rogue government; we're foreigners invading the country to overthrow their leader. Think how you'd feel if Germany invaded the US to remove Bush. You'd probably take to the streets with guns, like many other people would, to defend their home territory. And I certainly wouldn't blame you for it. But neither do I blame an Iraqi insurgent for attacking an invading force in his own country: to him, that's his sovereign territory, an independent nation under foreign occupation by an unwanted and un-asked for foreign nation.

Your examples further prove this: why was the Soviet Union "wrong?" Or the fascists in Italy (I presume you're referring to Mussolini, in which case socialist would be the exact opposite term for what you wanted)? Or, God forbid I actually ask this, the South? Why were they right?
 

Lane and RRL can't you go duke it out on Lane's blog or some place else, or at least make your comments more concise- we need to know about "Unidentified girl" not this Georgia Russia stuff.
 

Brevity has never been my strong suit. :)
 

It is my goal to canoe/kayak/float 5th Street through campus when it flash-floods before I graduate.

I totally envy the inner tube dude.

Hook a sister up.

Thanks,
Stef (Coco's Roomie)