Relativism, Fundamentalism and Integralism

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Thursday August 04, 2005 · 8:34 AM PDT

2005/08/04 · 08:34

cross-posted at New International Times

It might be simply the result of the predominance of a media class dominated by pseudo-intellectual journalists or, more likely, it's an effect of the fact that human beings tend to speak and write these days thinking only of the manner in which their words and phrases will be represented by the media. But, in any case, it is certain that one gets the disturbingly powerful impression these days that certain debates and discussions (even between people who may not be entirely devoid of an elementary philosophical education) increasingly resemble primitive tribal struggles in which the winner is the one who has given out the greatest number of clubbings and in which delicate terms are used as if they were bricks. Read More

Is Democracy Mathematically Impossible?

gilgamesh

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Friday May 13, 2005 · 12:26 PM PDT

2005/05/13 · 12:26

Rummaging around one day in my massive collection of Science and Philosophy magazines literally hanging off the sides of the bookshelves in my bedroom/office, I found this old gem of article from an Italian popular science magazine called "Le Scienze" (The Sciences) which is actually nothing more than the Italian version of Scientific American, containing mostly translations of SciAm articles from the English, but with the occasional outstanding contribution from some of the top matematicians and scientists working here in Italy. Read More

Latest Intelligent Example of US "Intelligence" Gathering

gilgamesh

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Tuesday May 10, 2005 · 7:25 AM PDT

2005/05/10 · 07:25

originally posted at New European Times

You've probably all been inundated by the maintream media reports hyping the Pentagon's brilliantly successful military operations which netted some 75 "enemy combatants"
north of the Euphrates on the border with Syria.

Well, as usual, the truth is that things never go quite as smoothly as the Pentagon and its bullhorns in the regular media would have you believe.

This report comes from a local newpaper in St. Louis and was picked up by Tex, a blogger over at Anti-war.com: Read More

Did US Military Errors Kill Calipari?

gilgamesh

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Sunday May 01, 2005 · 9:26 AM PDT

2005/05/01 · 09:26

Update [2005-5-2 4:2:28 by gilgamesh]:

I've updated this diary because, on further reflection, I realized I was a bit over-hasty in dismissing out of hand the possibility of deliberate assasination. But I was writing in a hurry.

I still believe it is extremely far-fetched, but the report clearly doesn't rule it out. Why did the commander responsible for coordinating Negropente's movements not bother to radio in to the troops on the ground the command to dismantle the improvised check points? We'll probably never really know.

And therein lies a broader and more fundamental lesson here: If the US really did want to assasinate Sgrena, or anyone other foreign citizen for that matter, who is going to hold them accountable? The ICC? the Italian government? The German? The French? The UN? Tony Blair??? Read More

Celebrating Abu Ghraib?

gilgamesh

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Thursday April 28, 2005 · 11:41 AM PDT

2005/04/28 · 11:41

cross-posted at BoomanTribune

When I first saw the images and read Seymour Hersh's now-legendary article describing in horrible and terrifying detail the barbarous practices that some members of the US military were carrying out on Iraqi prisoners-- as we now know and many of us even then suspected, under direct supervision of military intelligence and with the tacit, if not explict, authorization of some of the highest-level commanders in the military chain--- I felt quite literally ill.

My most immediate reaction, as I recall, was the thought that this was IT; the end of the war as well as the Bush adminitration and everything that it stood for. I felt absolutely certain that a nation like the US, which had experienced the agonies and the brutalities of Vietnam only a generation or so previously and which withdrew troops from Somalia because it supposedly "could not tolerate civilian casualties, would have had more than its fill of crude violence and wanton killing in the name of "nation building". Boy, was I wrong!! Read More

Calipari Killers Absolved; Sgrena Outraged

gilgamesh

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Tuesday April 26, 2005 · 7:58 AM PDT

2005/04/26 · 07:58

cross-posted at New European Times and BoomanTribune

The joint US/Italian commision investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Nicola Calipari, the SISMI agent awared a Gold Medal by the Italian governement for saving the life of journalist Giuiliana Sgrena, has concluded with the complete absolution of US troops and a shifting of the responsibility for the incident onto Nicola Calipari himslef.

Guiliana Sgrena's reaction is sharp and unambiguous: Read More

Action Alert: Boxer Petition Against Judicial Madman

gilgamesh

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Friday April 22, 2005 · 9:48 AM PDT

2005/04/22 · 09:48

I received this email from Barbara Boxer's PAC For a Change this morning. It regards the first of the Republicans' so-called "test cases" that will be used to challenge the Democrat's resolve in opposing the Bush administration's radical judical nominations:

A poisonous right wing infection has gotten hold of the Senate Republicans. They've got a narrow Senate majority that's not enough to get their extremist judges on the courts. So they're scheming to change the fundamental Senate rules, silence Democrats, and get their judges approved. It's an assault on the Constitution and the whole system of checks and balances that makes our democracy work.

gilgamesh

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Friday April 22, 2005 · 8:45 AM PDT

2005/04/22 · 08:45

After the withdrawal of troops from the endless blood-filled quagmire of Iraq and the revolutionary appointment of a cabinet with an equal proportion of men and women in one of the most chauvinistic societies in the world, the goverment of José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in Spain has received approval from the parliament for a law allowing homosexual marriages and adoption in defiance of the Catholic Church and the new Pope's explicit opposition. Read More

Turk's Love Bush's March Toward Freedom

gilgamesh

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Sunday April 10, 2005 · 8:42 AM PDT

2005/04/10 · 08:42

While the Bush administration and its neocon allies continue their incessant media campaign to appropriate the legacy of the late Pope John Paul II, the Turks are offering up to the world an astonishingly clear demonstration of exactly how and why the arguments and parallels that the neocons have been using to sustain their case ring completeley hollow.

From today's WaPo:

In Turkey, heralded as the model of a Westward-looking Muslim democracy, sales records were shattered this spring by a book that imagines a U.S. invasion of this nation, a longtime U.S. ally. Polls show an overwhelming majority of Turks regard that scenario as a real possibility.

gilgamesh

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Tuesday April 05, 2005 · 3:39 AM PDT

2005/04/05 · 03:39

I've just posted a diary on the Italian regional elections over at
Booman Tribune if anyone is interested.

Here are some excerpts:

Romano Prodi put it this way, according to l'Unità:

The Italian people are asking us to prepare ourselves to govern the country.

And, according to Pier Fassino (DS):

The Union has won in an incontestible manner. Berlusconi's majority is no longer recognized by the majority of Italians.

gilgamesh

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Monday April 04, 2005 · 8:22 AM PDT

2005/04/04 · 08:22

I've been sitting back and reading, and occasionally participating in, some of the innumerable threads and debates that have been generated over the course of the last few days with repect to the Pope and his legacy. This afternoon I decided it was time to offer a sort of meta-analysis and intervention of my own on the subject of the practical, political significance and implications of all this cacophanous caterwauling for the cause of progressivism.

Basically, what's happening here is absolute idiocy. Here we go again. Conservatives in the US are going to successfuly misappropriate the legacy (good and bad) of this Pope and point to sites like this one in order to demonstrate, rightly in this case, how much more tolerant and open-minded the Republican party is while lambasting the hypocrisy and hate-mongering of so-called liberals and progressives. Read More

Wolfowitz Confirmed to Head World Bank (Poll)

gilgamesh

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Friday April 01, 2005 · 7:03 AM PST

2005/04/01 · 07:03

One of the neo-conservative masterminds behind the Bush adminitsration's so-called "war on terror" and the chief archtect of its invasion of Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz, has been confirmed to head the World Bank today.
From WaPo:

The approval came two weeks after President Bush nominated Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary who played a central role in advocating and designing the invasion of Iraq. The move initially aroused shock abroad, especially in European countries opposed to the Iraq war.

Speculation arose that some member nations of the bank would try to block the nomination on the grounds that Wolfowitz would make the institution an instrument of U.S. foreign policy. But talk of opposition subsided as foreign officials grudgingly accepted Wolfowitz's assurances that he would respect the bank's multilateral nature and was not coming armed with an agenda for turning the organization upside down.

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Relativism, Fundamentalism and Integralism

Is Democracy Mathematically Impossible?

Latest Intelligent Example of US "Intelligence" Gathering

Did US Military Errors Kill Calipari?

Celebrating Abu Ghraib?

Calipari Killers Absolved; Sgrena Outraged

Action Alert: Boxer Petition Against Judicial Madman

Zapatero Continues to Lead the Way

Turk's Love Bush's March Toward Freedom

Post-Mortem on Italian Regional elections

Why Not Hate the Pope??

Wolfowitz Confirmed to Head World Bank (Poll)