Month: July 2024

Odysseus

Odysseus (wikimedia commons)

I find mythologies fascinating for various reasons the most important of which are that they help one make sense of the world and also learn how to navigate it.

Greek, Roman, and Norse mythologies are all great sources of delight and edification but the best of all is Indian mythology. Of course I am biased but it is nevertheless true that Indian mythology has no equal.

Homer’s epics Illiad and Odyssey are great mythological works but Ved Vyasa’s Mahabharata is the pinnacle of human achievement in that domain. The Mahabharata was complied between the 3rd-century BCE and the 4th-century CE. It is so good partly because it evolved over several centuries. Continue reading “Odysseus”

AMA – the Duck edition

That’s a real image. Click on it to read the story.

The wiki says that the duck test “is a frequently cited colloquial example of abductive reasoning. Its usual expression is:

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

The test implies that a person can identify an unknown subject by observing that subject’s habitual characteristics. It is sometimes used to counter abstruse arguments that something might not be what it appears to be.” Continue reading “AMA – the Duck edition”

Trump’s Inevitable Triumph

They put the “rats” in Democrats

Of late, things on the US 2024 presidential elections campaign front are getting interesting.

After the first debate between President Biden and former president Trump on June 27th, the democrats started panicking. Biden’s cognitive descent into full-blown dementia and senility became common knowledge[1] and it was no longer possible for the courtiers of the Democrats to pretend that Joe was compos mentis.

The rats started abandoning ship. Continue reading “Trump’s Inevitable Triumph”

Thomas Massie on the Tucker Carlson Network

Rep. Thomas Massie (R – Kentucky) is not just an unusual politician, he’s an unusual man. I didn’t realize how remarkable he is until I listened to a conversation he had with Tucker Carlson which Tucker published on his X account on June 7th.

In the old days before the internet, publicly available information was broadly limited to whatever the newspapers and TV chose to publish — media that were controlled by large corporations. They had the power to curate what content that the public got to read, listen to or watch. Certainly everyone had the de jure freedom of expression  but only those who owned the presses or radio and TV stations could de facto exercise that freedom. Continue reading “Thomas Massie on the Tucker Carlson Network”

Buffet on the Deficit

“There is no distinctly American criminal class – except Congress.” — Mark Twain

The US government runs up massive deficits. The US national debt is currently around $35 trillion (wiki.)

That number is too large for anyone to comprehend. Numbers in the hundreds — even in the thousands — make intuitive sense to us. But millions, billions and trillions are incomprehensibly large.

Here’s one way to see how our intuition is incapable of visualizing large numbers. A thousand seconds is a little less than 17 minutes. A million seconds is 12 days. That is easily understood. But then it gets harder to get a feel for the higher order numbers. Continue reading “Buffet on the Deficit”

Dr Moore on Climate Change

Governments Commit Crimes — and Lie About Them

It should come as no surprise that governments lie. Lying is a common human moral failing and no one is immune from it. But the average person lying causes no major harm.

However, when the powerful lie, that is a different matter altogether. Major corporations lie and cause immense harm to millions of people, and cost billions of dollars.

That’s bad for sure but nothing comes close to the harm that governments cause when they lie. That ends up causing immense loss of blood and treasure that is borne not by those who did the lying but by innocent citizens. Continue reading “Governments Commit Crimes — and Lie About Them”

Handmaidens of the Apocalypse

Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970), the British mathematician, logician, and philosopher was deeply troubled by the prospect of a nuclear war. In the event that nuclear détente fails and a nuclear holocaust is unleashed on the world, it would mark the end of civilization. He wrote:

You, your families, your friends and your countries are to be exterminated by the common decision of a few brutal but powerful men. To please these men, all the private affections, all the public hopes, all that has been achieved in art, and knowledge and thought and all that might be achieved hereafter is to be wiped out forever. Our ruined lifeless planet will continue for countless ages to circle aimlessly round the sun unredeemed by the joys and loves, the occasional wisdom and the power to create beauty which have given value to human life.

I was reminded of that quote in an episode of Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast of 5th April. In it Dan and Annie Jacobsen discuss her book Nuclear War: A Scenario, published in March 2024. Continue reading “Handmaidens of the Apocalypse”

Happy July 4th

It’s 4th of July — the birthday of the greatest country on earth. It was born 248 years ago today in 1776. At the time of its birth, it was a tiny nation with a  population of 2.5 million people. It’s come a long way.

Thomas Paine (born 1737 Norfolk, England, died 1809 New York, N.Y.) wrote, “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like me, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” The time is upon the country to undertake the fatigue of securing freedom once again. The Democrats are destroying our country. Continue reading “Happy July 4th”