tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:12:00 +0000<strong>Isegoria</strong> - From the ancient Greek, equality in freedom of speechhttp://www.isegoria.net/isegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)Blogger5000125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-7673394411525858883Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:12:00 +00002010-03-11T21:12:00.617-05:00WarWhat if World War 3 has already started and nobody has noticed it?, Richard Fernandez (Wretchard) asks: If conflict in the 21st century takes takes the form of intelligence operations and targeted assassinations is it really war any more? Maybe it’s illegal to attack a government but if you do it slowly, quietly enough, then no red lines are crossed; no Security Council resolutions are http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/what-if-world-war-3-has-already-started.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-2877353344491159299Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:28:00 +00002010-03-11T16:51:18.090-05:00MediaRodney Alcala had already had been convicted for the 1968 rape of an 8-year-old girl when he appeared on The Dating Game in 1978 — and won: Mills, who was bachelor No. 2, said he had an almost immediate aversion to Alcala. "Something about him, I could not be near him," Mills recalled. "I am kind of bending toward the other guy to get away from him, and I don't know if I did that consciously. Buthttp://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/bachelor-number-one.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-1984270838724024122Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:47:00 +00002010-03-11T13:47:00.233-05:00PolicyWarBefore backing the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion, Charlie Wilson supported the right-wing government of Nicaragua, led by President Anastasio “Tachito” Somoza: The Somoza family ruled Nicaragua from the 1930s until the late 1970s, and Tachito Somoza was effectively leader of the country from 1967. Wilson was a strong supporter of the right-wing Somoza, and felt that his http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/grope-that-ended-dynasty.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-4110059386286153277Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:32:00 +00002010-03-11T13:32:00.815-05:00WarAndrew BissetEconomicsAs a strong proponent of division of labor, Adam Smith favored standing armies over militias: Among his arguments in favour of standing armies in modern times, Adam Smith enumerates the greater difficulty of preserving any considerable degree of order and prompt obedience from the noise of firearms, the smoke, and the invisible death to which every man feels himself every moment exposed, as soon http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/invisible-causes-of-death.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-7972831975021662061Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:11:00 +00002010-03-11T10:11:00.062-05:00TechnologyTransonic Combustion has put its new fuel-injection technology into a test car, with weight and aerodynamics similar to a Toyota Prius, and the test car got 64 miles per gallon in highway driving — far more than a Prius, which gets 48 miler per gallon on the highway: The key is heating and pressurizing gasoline before injecting it into the combustion chamber, says Mike Rocke, Transonic's vice http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/transonic-combustion.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-55416047381303946Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:10:00 +00002010-03-10T16:10:00.284-05:00TechnologyWarThe Pedersen device is a fascinating footnote in the history of the modern assault rifle. In World War I, both sides used main battle rifles that resembled modern hunting rifles more than modern assault rifles — big, long rifles, shooting big, powerful rounds, very accurately, but very slowly. This would not do for storming enemy trenches: John Pedersen, a long time employee of Remington Arms, http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/pedersen-device.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-4621653266751621106Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:27:00 +00002010-03-10T14:27:00.786-05:00PolicyLee HarrisEconomicsModern Marxism, Lee Harris explains, is a fantasy ideology dressed up to look like Marxism: Marx and Engels’s wholesale condemnation of all previous socialism as utopian fantasy is the fundamental innovation of their own work. It is the basis of their claim to be taken seriously, not merely by Hoffmanesque daydreamers, but by men of practical judgment and shrewd common sense. To fail to make thishttp://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/opium-of-intellectual.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-1997806930541759753Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:19:00 +00002010-03-10T13:19:00.573-05:00PolicyWarMencius MoldbugF.A. Voigt argued that both Communism and National Socialism were revolutionary secular religions that sought to render unto Caesar that which is God's — that is, to transform religious promises into worldly reality — and that Britain had to act, within realistic constraints, to save the Commonwealth: The greatest extension of international, social, and religious peace ever achieved has been http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/unto-caesar.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-5121382634887091508Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:14:00 +00002010-03-10T13:14:00.927-05:00WarAndrew BissetEducationBefore rising to power, Oliver Cromwell attended Cambridge — and his head is now buried beneath Sidney Sussex College's chapel: It may be added here, with regard to athletic exercises, that Cromwell, when at Cambridge, distinguished himself far more at football and cudgels than at the exercises of the schools; and that he, like Marlborough, Clive, and many other great men, would never have risen http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/cromwell-attended-cambridge.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-3666643121550757742Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:06:00 +00002010-03-10T12:07:33.785-05:00PolicyEconomicsArnold KlingWhat suffered most in the Great Depression, John Nye says, was trust — impersonal social trust: The idea of impersonal social trust was the most dramatic accomplishment of industrial civilization’s rise from the 18th to the early 20th century. The greatest achievement of early modern economic growth was not the Industrial Revolution itself, but the way in which the leading Western economies beganhttp://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/western-markets-are-like-western.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-8174981515389081632Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:42:00 +00002010-03-10T12:26:05.539-05:00TechnologyPolicyBusinessAcross 500 acres just north of West Palm Beach, the FPL Group is building the world’s second-largest solar thermal plant, with 190,000 mirrors: But that is not its real novelty. The solar array is being grafted onto the back of the nation’s largest fossil-fuel power plant, fired by natural gas. It is an experiment in whether conventional power generation can be married with renewable power in a http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/solar-thermal-paired-with-natural-gas.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-7224143460118794557Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:08:00 +00002010-03-09T15:50:55.749-05:00PolicyLee HarrisDon’t blame drugs for drug addiction, says Theodore Dalrymple, in Romancing Opiates. Richard DeGrandpre makes the same point in The Cult of Pharmacology. Lee Harris offers his own perspective: If the drug induced the moral weakness, then shouldn’t we blame the drug, as the addict asks us to? If the moral weakness was already there, before the drug use began, and if it explains the addict’s http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/akrasia-and-greatest-drug-worker-in.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-4374038004005941533Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:41:00 +00002010-03-09T12:41:00.436-05:00WarAndrew BissetSome of the most extensive conquests in the history of the world have been made by nations of shepherds: An army of hunters, as Adam Smith has observed, and as we have seen exemplified in the case of the North American Indians, "can seldom exceed two or three hundred men. The precarious subsistence which the chase affords could seldom allow a greater number to keep together for any considerable http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/nations-of-shepherds.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-7030460573357735921Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:36:00 +00002010-03-09T11:36:00.495-05:00WarThe Selous Scouts of Rhodesia developed something called Drake shooting for fighting in bush country: This useful technique is based on the fact that in a close-quarters firefight, 99 percent of combatants seek to hide from incoming fire by hitting the ground and rolling into the nearest cover. Accepting this fact, the Drake/cover shoot concept requires that two rounds be fired into positions ofhttp://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/drake-shooting.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-9157013444767093546Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:46:00 +00002010-03-09T10:46:00.176-05:00PolicyMencius MoldbugA foreign correspondent — like Edgar Mowrer in Germany in the 1930s — occupies a peculiar place in the life of a country: Because he and his friends in the foreign press lead American opinion on Germany, and America is a democracy, they lead American policy toward Germany. And, naturally, they have friends in Germany, and enemies in Germany; and they feel that American policy should result in http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/foreign-correspondents.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-5174114700233046937Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:22:00 +00002010-03-09T10:22:00.608-05:00PolicyRichard Fernandez looks at The Evil that Men Do: News that one of two children who killed a two year old toddler 17 years ago has been reincarcerated has shocked advocates of rehabilitation in Britain. James Venables, now 27, has been sent back to jail for unspecified violations of his conditions of release. The BBC reported that “one of James Bulger’s killers has been returned to prison after hehttp://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/evil-that-men-do.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-4385596579058985462Tue, 09 Mar 2010 01:33:00 +00002010-03-08T20:33:00.317-05:00WarAndrew BissetFor a long time, the effectiveness of firearms was greatly exaggerated — but not by every fighting force: The Turkish infantry—the Janissaries—were permanently embodied: they appear in their manner of fighting to have somewhat resembled the Scottish Highlanders; their custom being, after firing their muskets, to draw their sabres, and rush upon the enemy, Montecuculi bears testimony to the http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/effectiveness-of-early-firearms.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-4570082518394362710Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:18:00 +00002010-03-08T20:30:37.340-05:00WarThe History Channel's recent After Armageddon looked at what might happen after a truly devastating pandemic flu crippled basic services, like water and power. Robin Hanson makes a brief appearance about eight minutes into the fifth segment (of nine) on YouTube:I can only imagine what wisdom he shared with the producers of the show — but it didn't make the cut.http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/after-armageddon.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-3783845585019730152Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:01:00 +00002010-03-08T14:01:00.167-05:00PolicyChirol may be rethinking the United States, but that involves examining the decline of the UK: Gun violence in UK up 89% since banning guns. Its amazing the false premise that guns = crime still exists when there is so much evidence to the contrary.UK most violent place in europe, more violent per capita than US. Good thing they banned those guns. Same thing plays out in US states with strict gunhttp://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/decline-of-uk.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-2749491248882167603Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:32:00 +00002010-03-08T13:32:00.050-05:00PolicyEconomicsEric the GrimReader has a favorite theme, the idea that every organizational regime contains elements of its own destruction, and that no regime is free of this: I believe that this is the fundamental fallacy with the technocratic state and is the analytical blind spot for policy wonks. They seem to believe that any imperfection may be corrected with precise policy adjustments. But at every step,http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/parachuting-cats.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-3033367355200427970Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:59:00 +00002010-03-08T09:59:00.083-05:00ScienceWhat happens when you test the IQ of a team? Robert Gordon's Everyday Life as an Intelligence Test explains: Consider an experiment by Laughlin and Johnson (1966) that induced the local equivalent of random pairing. College students were administered the high level Tern-ran Concept Mastery Test (Tern-ran, 1956) and then assigned to low, medium, and high ability groups according to their scores. http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/iq-of-team.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-142901239454425397Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:34:00 +00002010-03-08T08:34:00.735-05:00PolicyEconomicsMark Steyn argues that we're facing our own Greek tragedy; we're just a few steps behind Greece: The 20th century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of people to stick it to. In America, the feckless insatiable boobs in Washington, Sacramento, Albany and elsewhere are screwing over our kids and grandkids. In Europe, they've reached the next stage in social democratic evolution: There are no http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/our-own-greek-tragedy.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-6260653874482149338Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:17:00 +00002010-03-07T20:17:00.203-05:00PolicyWarAndrew BissetTurkey remained a succesful military despotism as long as the Sultans remained men of energy:The principal causes assigned for the decline of the Turkish power were the habit contracted by Suleiman I., towards the end of his days (he died in 1566), of no longer presiding in person at the divan, the promotion of his favourites to the first dignities of the State, the influence of the harem in http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/men-of-energy.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-8220404297862065595Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:08:00 +00002010-03-07T13:08:00.250-05:00TechnologySome solar cells, or photovoltaics, can now convert sunlight into electricity at 20-percent efficiency, but silicon nanowires promise a more important kind of efficiency — cost efficiency: “Since the fabrication technique behind this extraordinary light-trapping enhancement is a relatively simple and scalable aqueous chemistry process, we believe our approach represents an economically viable http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/trapping-sunlight-with-silicon.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-1379304834968778712Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:39:00 +00002010-03-07T10:41:22.794-05:00PolicyWarMencius MoldbugMediaHeinrich Hauser wrote The German Talks Back to explain postwar Germany to Americans — not, Mencius Moldbug explains, from the point of view of a German liberal but from that of a German national-conservative. An excerpt: The crucial test to which the American government in Germany ought to subject all claimants and lobbyists is, of course, "Just how many followers do you have? How many hale and http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/we-must-americanize-ourselves.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)