Saturday AM

Who lost Iraq? Sen. Graham blames Obama. The NY Times and even CNN ( to a lesser extent) agreed, in facts checks after a 2012 Obama-Romney debate, that Obama was scarcely energetic in negotiating a residual US troop presence.

The NY Times had a long, detailed account of the Status of Forces negotiations which made Obama's lack of commitment very clear. Time and memory permitting, I will find it [Michael Gordon, Sept 22 2012, "In U.S. Exit From Iraq, Failed Efforts and Challenges"].

And somewhere, Gen. Petraeus wrote an op-ed responded to written questions noting that Obama's critics are are engaging in speculation and that the prospective benefit of a US residual force was an untested hypothesis. But he seemed to be disappointed.

Some snippets:

You oversaw the gains of the surge in 2007-08. How does it make you feel to see what is happening today, with ISIS having taken over more of Iraq than its predecessor, AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq], ever did?

What has happened in Iraq is a tragedy — for the Iraqi people, for the region and for the entire world. It is tragic foremost because it didn't have to turn out this way. The hard-earned progress of the Surge was sustained for over three years.  What transpired after that, starting in late 2011, came about as a result of mistakes and misjudgments whose consequences were predictable. And there is plenty of blame to go around for that.

...

What went wrong?

The proximate cause of Iraq’s unraveling was the increasing authoritarian, sectarian and corrupt conduct of the Iraqi government and its leader after the departure of the last U.S. combat forces in 2011. The actions of the Iraqi prime minister undid the major accomplishment of the Surge. [They] alienated the Iraqi Sunnis and once again created in the Sunni areas fertile fields for the planting of the seeds of extremism, essentially opening the door to the takeover of the Islamic State. Some may contend that all of this was inevitable. Iraq was bound to fail, they will argue, because of the inherently sectarian character of the Iraqi people. I don’t agree with that assessment.

The tragedy is that political leaders failed so badly at delivering what Iraqis clearly wanted — and for that, a great deal of responsibility lies with Prime Minister Maliki.

As for the U.S. role, could all of this have been averted if we had kept 10,000 troops here? I honestly don't know. I certainly wish we could have tested the proposition and kept a substantial force on the ground.

...

Where I think a broader comment is perhaps warranted has to do with the way we came to think about Iraq and, to a certain extent, the broader region over the last few years. There was certainly a sense in Washington that Iraq should be put in our rearview mirror, that whatever happened here was somewhat peripheral to our national security and that we could afford to redirect our attention to more important challenges. Much of this sentiment was very understandable given the enormous cost of our efforts in Iraq and the endless frustrations that our endeavor here encountered.

In retrospect, a similar attitude existed with respect to the civil war in Syria — again, a sense that developments in Syria constituted a horrible tragedy to be sure, but a tragedy at the outset, at least, that did not seem to pose a threat to our national security.

But in hindsight, few, I suspect, would contend that our approach was what it might — or should — have been. In fact, if there is one lesson that I hope we’ve learned from the past few years, it is that there is a linkage between the internal conditions of countries in the Middle East and our own vital security interests.

Well, Petraeus is being diplomatic in saying that "...the way we came to think about Iraq and, to a certain extent, the broader region over the last few years. There was certainly a sense in Washington that Iraq should be put in our rearview mirror...". Obviously, Obama and his progressive supporters felt that way. However, abandoning Iraq in order to prove that the war opponents were right all along was less of a priority for many Republicans.

Comments

[peter]

Every once in a while Nancy Graham gets his skirt untwisted and is right. This is such an instance.
Had such a great evening last night. Went to the junior sailing awards dinner at the local yacht club where my son was awarded a "most improved skipper" trophy. Granted, it is a little bit Woebegone-esque, but happy for an introverted 15 year old to find the will to participate and thrive. Then came home and watched the Yankees come from behind and beat the Toronto BlueJays who were on an eleven game winning streak since picking up Troy Tulowitsky and watching an epic at bat by Tulowitsky finally end as a strike out after what seemed like a dozen foul balls.

[peter]

oh, and first

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Peter, it's not polite and in most circles is considered downright rude to publicly root for the Yankees.
Please have a little consideration.

[peter]

Iggs, please excuse me the faux-pas.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--the prospective benefit of a US residual force was an untested hypothesis--

Well, it's certainly been tested in other countries and found to be effective. That it wouldn't be tested in Iraq was a campaign promise of the Geek in Chief.

What has been tested is the prospective benefit of removing a residual force, which has given us the prospect of an entire region dissolving into inchoate savagery and the strengthening of our enemies while our nicely pants creased, clean and articulate chief executive traitor pats himself on the back.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

It's OK peter. Next time perhaps a letter to Miss Manners or a review of Emily Post before commenting.:)

[henry]

Ig, don't forget that our chief executive traitor is importing a residual force of savages so we can enjoy future barbarism here.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

I suspect it will be very hard to forget what he's done for us in the coming years, henry.

In the parlance of your industry we elected a Trojan.
A used one.

[peter]

and if he's still around 35 years later like Carter, I'll puke.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

The Week in Pictures
The Hayek quote was particularly stimulating.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

If, like me, you haven't been to the People's Cube in a while do so and laugh it up.
The guy is endlessly creative.

[Janet]

It'd be cool if we could get some local news stations to go to their local PP "clinics" & ask if THEY are selling baby body parts.

[Janet]

PP said only a few are selling baby body parts...but how do we know? Are we just taking their word for that?

[Old Lurker]

If your secret long term goals were empowering and strengthening Iran, how could you do much better than 1) giving them access to $150B of cash and unfettered trade in the future, 2) giving them the ability to go nuclear in about ten minutes, and 3) giving them the control of Iraq that they were unable to win after ten years of fighting Saddam?

And they say Obama does not plan ahead...

[Miss Marple]

Indiana sent Board of Health to inspect all PP sites in Indiana (I think there were 4-5).

They were in compliance with state law, which I think included prohibition on body part selling.

Indiana has also instituted a new law in which aborted fetuses/babies must be either cremated or released for burial, depending on mother's wishes. No other choices.

[Ouch]

"Carly Fiorina as a boss: The disappointing truth (8/14/15)

She’s running for President on her track record as CEO of HP, but if that’s the case, Fiorina might want to rethink her strategy.

Sure, she doubled revenues—through a massive, ill-conceived, controversial acquisition of Compaq Computer in 2002—but Fiorina did nothing to increase profits over her five-year term, with the S&P 500 showing net income across enterprises concomitantly up 70%. Furthermore, shareholder wealth at HP was sliced 52% under her reign against the S&P, which was down only 15% in that bearish period.

The lost shareholder wealth and lost strategic direction at HP are only part of Fiorina’s legacy. Also lost during her reign were 30,000 U.S. tech jobs, the company’s revered employee morale, and the egalitarian, humble HP way culture.

Despite such carnage, Fiorina pocketed over $100 million in compensation for her short reign—including a $65 million signing bonus and a $21 million severance. I have studied comebacks from adversity, but she’s not shown the required contrition nor earned the needed exoneration, and she’s not served as a CEO since. Upon leaving Taiwan Semiconductor’s board, the firm disclosed she only attended 17% of the board meetings. Under Meg Whitman’s brilliant leadership, HP’s character and performance have recovered, but we have not seen Fiorina’s parallel resilience just yet."

http://fortune.com/2015/08/14/carly-fiorina-president-2/

Author: Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is Senior Associate Dean for Leadership Studies at the Yale School of Management and Lester Crown Professor of Management Practice

[Miss Marple]

Just like clockwork!

[Rick Ballard]

Janet,

Perhaps Dr.Carson could help the BLM troops understand they should be standing outside the Baby Butcher shops? That's supposing they actually gave a damn about black lives, not a proven hypothesis at all.

[peter]

At the LUN, winners of the Margaret Sanger award, handed out by the butchers at PP. Did you know that Martin Luther King was on the list? and of course, Hillary, and Nancy Pelosi.

[matt]

NYT, WaPo and all the rest Masters of the Obvious regarding Iraq.

[squaredance]

More like Masters of the Oblivious.

[narciso]

I posted the crux of beldar's explanation of the semiconductor industry at that time.

[Rocco]

Former Intel Chairman defends Fiorina's tenure at HP.

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_14819426?nclick_check=1

[narciso]

Odierno as well was forced to modify his previous statements.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

An entire state attempts to price itself out of the market.
Unfortunately it will probably succeed.

[henry]

Crap Ig. An exodus of deranged progs will flood, then destroy all in their path as they flee their own policies. I bet all that environmentalism gets tossed as soon as CA reverts to a Mexican province.

[DrJ]

WSJ:

Clinton: Email, Benghazi Inquiries Part of GOP ‘Politics’

Hillary Clinton sought to portray criticism over her email practices as part of a larger pattern of Republican attacks intended to keep her and a “progressive agenda” out of the White House.

Typical. Attack the messenger, ignore the the substance. Straight out of the playbook.

[jimmyk]

Getting caught up...

sbw from the last thread, about Dondi:
Did he ever make it clear? Did he ever say why the issues are different from others with similar problems?

I happened to be watching when he was on. He seemed to be talking about interactions with the police, saying there were real issues for blacks and hispanics. But in what I saw of it he did not mention specifics, nor did he acknowledge the disparities in criminal activity and in situations where force is justified. Not an encouraging performance from him, to say the least. As has been pointed out, the BLM people and other SJWs are never going to vote for him no matter how much he sucks up to them, so best to speak truth to power.

[clarice]

Do the folks who hire trolls realize that any sentient person will ignore posts made anonymously?

[narciso]

An argument could be made that the disenfranchisement of the Sunni is responsible, but in every uprising go
Back the 30s, that have been on charge.

[jimmyk]

And I have to address this, also from the last thread, from Iggy (I presume left-handed):

Of the 10,000 people surveyed, 86% of left-handed people reported being “Extremely Satisfied” with their sex lives, compared to just 15% of righties.

So, apparently, lefties have lower standards. NTTAWWT.

[clarice]

Janet, there may well be few selling baby parts, but the national PP office had to know from the revenue reports which ones were and they apparently did nothing to stop it.

The trick is to hire pretty heads of the op, dress them in pink and have them use the right language to obfuscate what they do.

[narciso]

The same credentialed idiot gave aphid a b+ in keeping his promises in 2010.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--So, apparently, lefties have lower standards. NTTAWWT.--

Well actually an even worse reading of the data suggests that, since sexual satisfaction is presumably more dependent on the receiving than the giving, one could plausibly conclude righties are much better lovers than lefties and in proportions not far different than their respective make up in the general population.

[Jane]

I just watched Hillary's press conference with Tom Harkin at the Iowa State Fair.

No worries. She never sent or received any classified email. It's just politics by the republicans who started the Iraq war and don't care about Benghazi. She is not the least bit worried about it.

[narciso]

Yes the harf strategy, tell them nothing and they won't know what to ask.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Do the folks who hire trolls realize there are probably few more effective ways of turning people off to their viewpoint?

[narciso]

Right, that's why hums hired McBride fmr deputy in Alexandria,'nothing to see here'

[narciso]

What was the size of the crowd, doc brown has for 3x as many.

[Jane]

Hillary's crowd? I never looked up. But all applause was an afterthought and barely audible.

[Sue]

Who is doc brown?

[narciso]

Sanders, see the resemblance.

[Man Tran]

Had a small epiphany while reading the Wehner article in the last thread. Given that all life is a variation of Jr. high, it hit me that when the bully that takes your lunch money is suddenly beating up the kuwl kids who look through you, you suddenly find yourself cheering him on. In Trump's case, he wasn't stealing our lunch money, except maybe in the serial BKs.

It's definitely a gut reaction that doesn't have to pass through the brain.

[Some Guy]

The following involves two things many of you hate -- deflategate and lawyers -- so please skip the rest if you aren't interested.

If you read the NFL brief it can be summed up as 'Roger can do whatever he wants', and rather pointedly telling the judge that he's not allowed to question the commissioner's ability to do whatever he wants under the CBA.

Which is all well and good. It's their best legal argument, as well as the only position that the NFL can really defend.

Is anyone else struck by the irony that the NFL is filing a brief telling the judge this is none of his business in the District Court they filed suit asking the judge to affirm the arbitration?

[Miss Marple]

Good observation, Man Tran.

That explains why I am getting extremely tired of Rick Wilson and Wehner and Williamson.

Wait a minute, they all have names that start with W! What does that mean? LOL!

[Miss Marple]

Air traffic control down in DC due to a computer problem. No flights in or out of Reagan, Dulles, or BWI, per CNN.

[clarice]

Hope it's fixed soon. I'm scheduled to leave for a week very early tomorrow morning,

[clarice]

Possibly Noonan's best in years:http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-three-presidential-primaries-1439499962

[Rick Ballard]

"It's definitely a gut reaction that doesn't have to pass through the brain."

ManTran,

The lack of neural impedance among feelers is the driver behind the Turtle Strategy as well as the reason Carson and Fiorina are both considered dangerous by Fascists. Feelers, whether howlers or sobbers, have been rather carefully conditioned to specific symbols as triggers. Carson does not trigger howlers and Fiorina does not trigger sobbers. The Fascists know it and unleash the trolls.

Carson and Fiorina are particularly dangerous because they're both parked very close to the 99th percentile and quite capable generating appropriate responses without the aid of incompetent consultants.

[rse]

Eldest at hartsfield and they pulled them off plane to say whole eastern seaboard is down indefinitely.

[rse]

That the problem is faa.

[clarice]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422587/hillarys-emails-benghazi

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

The Death of Culture as chronicled by Mario Vargas Lhosa.
The left understands the power of culture which is why they try above all else to destroy it.
The right seems to think it's a by product of freedom and prosperity rather than its incubator, which presumably is why so many on the right answer right of center cultural warriors with "go away kid, you bother me", either not knowing or not caring that they cannot win a lasting victory without them.

[Jane]

Where ya going Clarice? Any place good?

[clarice]

Glacier National Park.

[lyle]

That certainly counts as "good," Clarice. Spectacular, even. Enjoy.

[clarice]

Thanks.

[Miss Marple]

Glacier is my favorite national park. It is just spectacular.

[squaredance]

The decimation of standards Vargas Llosa so laments, and which has made such commitment impossible, has its roots in the postmodernism of French philosophers like Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Derrida, all of whom advance some version of the claim that reality is subjective; objective reality, or truth, is either unknowable or impossible.

Unfortunately, it goes back much farther that Foucault, et al.

Culture is the pursuit of excellence, and in the West deeply tied to Christianity.

Turn from God and ultimately what you get is frivolity and spectacle. Then comes the tyranny. From our time, we see that people like Eliot and Chesterton were inspired prophets with vision far in advance of their times. But even by the time they were writing, the disease was already deep in the blood.

All this shows how shallow the Left is at root. They think that they can rule over us in a civilization more or less the same while at the same time gutting it.

They are barbarians.

Incidentally I met Derrida in the early 70s when he was at my campus as a visiting scholar. This was when he was just coming up as an academic celebrity, and known in the USA more for his earlier linguistic work than his full blown "deconstructionism" (though he was pointedly pushing the latter). There was a symposium that had such serious philosophers as J. Searle and Herbert Dreyfus there, and they were dealing a lot with cognition, phenomenology, etc, and how it might pertain to Artificial Intelligence. It was not a technical forum, it was about actual underlying ideas and limitations--something we do not do much anymore.

Excluding Derrida, the intellectual power, depth, range and shear erudition in the room was intense, formidable, and world class, and people were expected to defend their ideas rationally without rhetorical dodges or posturing. It amounted to a 3 week debate, and the audience was a tough as could be.

Derrida came off as a pretentious nincompoop and fake, way over his head, and shocked to actually have his "ideas" questioned in a sharp and critical intellectual manner by extremely smart, cultured and educated people who held the highest standards. He lost argument after argument yet would never admit it. It was quite embarrassing. He also was rather foppish.

It always left a mark on me, how intellectually shallow, narrow and incompetent under fire he was. As time went on and he became and idol of the Left, and his cant became near holy writ in the Humanities, I marveled and the stupidity and the malevolence of it all. This trend toward barbarism, not Dirreda in particular, would eventual lead me to leave academia.

It is the true that the Left wants to destroy culture to destroy our civilization, but I think that they also want to destroy it merely because they are not up to the standards that must obtain to preserve it. They are not up to it, and this is deeply humiliating to them.

Though clever in the conception and execution of their schemes against us, they are essentially not serious people at all.

They think that they can chatter away in their institutions forever, even after they have destroyed them. This will not be.

[narciso]

Have a great trip, caprice.

Is that their case against khattalah, it's as bad as the Goodell brief. He was a button man previously used to take out general younis, but he could barely tie his sandals if he wasn't prompted.

[rich@gmu]

here's something for the lonely hearts club ...

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/blame-these-people-for-americas-snacking-frenzy-2015-08-12

another unexpectedly bit of bad news from the Obama economy.

[rich@gmu]

guess I ought to enjoy these last few warm days as the dreary, bleak, cold rolls in ...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OLD_FARMERS_ALMANAC?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-08-15-12-01-46

someone should let the global warmists know!

[Jmaack is Back!]

Sitting in the Lufthansa lounge at JFK getting ready to fly off to Brussels and 2+ weeks in Belgium, France and England. Mrs. JiB and I will be playing in the prestigious Verellen Cup golf tournament at Royal Antwerp Golf Club on August 26th. Its prestigious sincei is named for her late Mother who had me go to a shop in Brasschaat to by the first trophy 10 years ago.

The trophy shop was adorned with large photographs of local Flemish baseball teams. Baseball! The owner was a bigger baseball nut than TM or peter or JamesD. For years he listened to the Yankees and Red Sox games on short wave radio. He probablly live streams them now.

Its a family affair and you have to be a Verellen (her Mother's maiden name) or married into the family. They were cigar makers but recently sold out the business. Just a great bunch of americaphiles and golf nuts. Plus Mrs. JiB's dad is 89 and we need to make the most of his time with us.

So don't be surprisd to see me posting on GUS time:)

[Jane]

Clarice,

Have a wonderful time, I assume the Wolverine is going too.

You too Jib.

[DrJ]

I note that Searle and Dreyfus are/were Philosophy profs at Berkeley. My ex got her UG in that department (about a decade after SD's remembrance), and I got to know it a bit through her. FWIW, she loved both of them, and the rest of the department too.

I knew a number of people in the department, and all have gone on to do great things. The training was rigorous, far-ranging and challenging.

I wonder how it is these days.

[peter]

enjoy, JIB

[Old Lurker]

Safe travels, guys.

[sbwaters]

It always left a mark on me, how intellectually shallow, narrow and incompetent under fire he was.

Glad to hear that about Derrida. I’m no academic, but I've read enough to know what he spouted was non-useful.

Thanks for the anecdote, squaredance.

[clarice]

No.The wolverine is in Hawaii with her parents and some friends this week--learning how to surf. She's an adrenaline junkie and the Ocean and Bay circle their house so I expect to have many scary moments in store.

We made friends a few years ago on a cruise and they are fortunate enough to have inherited an inholding on Lake McDonald. we are fortunate enough to have made their friendship and to be invited guests.

[Buckeye]

JiB

Be prepared to use your CAP LOCK.

Are they flying again?

[rich@gmu]

safe travels and hope you have a wonderful time clarice. the views will be spectacular.

[Jmaack is Back!]

rse,

No problem at JFK. Everything is on time. We saw that driving here that there were problems but its not affecting the New York area airports.

[Rocco]

Lake McDonald live webcam.

[Miss Marple]

Just listened to Sanders at Iowa State Fair.

Just a short clip, but in less than a minute, he promoted free tuition to all state-supported schools, cutting interest on student loans to 2%, and "Medicare for all" aka Single Payer.

Lord knows what I missed. Chicken in every pot, free cars, mandatory vacations for all, who knows.

[rich@gmu]

wish everyone were here. made a pan of lasagna and some grilled asparagus.

looks so good and smells so good.

[Marlene]

Enjoy your trips,clarice and Jack!

rich,we're sitting here on the cabin porch enjoying a warm summer day and I read the Almanac prediction to hubby a few minutes before you posted.I said,thank goodness we're going to Florida for three months.Here it is August and I'm already dreading winter.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--The wolverine is in Hawaii with her parents and some friends this week...learning how to surf--

Glad she's getting it in while young before surfing too presumably becomes impossible in the Sandwich Islands.

[Man Tran]

CH,

I think it was you mentioning the season change a few days ago. I have always wondered why we are 'forced' to acknowledge the seasons with a six week phase shift. What little I've read about the old ones (Druids,&c), they weren't so clueless. They maintained eight points to the calendar with our residue holidays, like Halloween, Groundhog Day, May Day, (your Aug. Day) anchoring the corners of the seasons.

The most obvious obvious example is my Norsk relatives still celebrating Mid-Summer on June 21st.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--It is the true that the Left wants to destroy culture to destroy our civilization, but I think that they also want to destroy it merely because they are not up to the standards that must obtain to preserve it.--

Almost undoubtedly. They don't hate free competition because it's unfair but because it's fair.
They're either losers or perceive themselves as losers and so seek to replace a meritocracy with a system in which one either doesn't have to compete or the special ones like them are granted dispensations by the state to compete on a tilted field.

[squaredance]

Drj: Another luminary there at the time was Paul Feyerabend, the noted critic of empirical method as practiced in the modern world. (note, he was not a participant in the symposium Iwas talking about before.)

Note: I was not in the philosophy dept., but it is as abiding interest of mine, and I hung out there a bit (my office was not far from there). I have no idea what it is like now, but surely these people are retired by now, or soon to be so,

I think it was a "Golden Age" for that Dept. then, and people knew it at the time.

What was interesting is that they were very engaged in practical, modern topics, particularly in philosophy as it relates to the sciences as a practical and critical support.
(and I think that this is extremely important in some areas of Computer Science and Biology, were the practitioners have such narrow educations--the machine learning/AI crowd, for example, have so many poorly examined assumptions about very basic ideas. These days it has descended into some really preposterous silliness)

These pholosphers were quite comfortable in the sciences; I have found this quite rare in academic philosophers.

J. Searle was/is beyond a doubt the most erudite and broadly knowledgeable person I have ever met. While not a scientist or a mathematician, he is perfectly fluid in mathematics or physics, and would have excelled in those fields as well. I have laughed many times when some technical person thought they could snow him with technical knowledge only to find that he knew th subject better than they did.

He was less technical knowledgeable in the arts and letters, but still had much more knowledge than most, and had much to say that here that was worth listening too.

When he discovered that he did not understand something, he would do his homework and not try to BS his was around it.

Not that I agree with a lot of what of what he believed--in fact I disagree with most of it--but if every professor was like him (or the others I have mentioned) the Academy would be an altogether different place, and would be earning its keep.

[Frau Edith Steingehirn]

Rocco @ 12:07 - thanks for the 2010 opinion piece. Unfortunately, Pitzer people are not chosen for reading comprehension skillz.

[Marlene]

MM,I was going to listen to Sanders,but from your report,no surprises!
Vermont attracted more hippies(now aging)than NH or Maine.There are lots of Yankee farmers spinning in their graves knowing what has happened to northern New England.

[Marlene]

Man Tran,the northern Maine towns of Stockholm and New Sweden have a Midsommer celebration every year.

[Marlene]

*Midsommar*

[MarkO]

Check out the picture of Hillary on Drudge.

[Miss Marple]

I hate to think about winter. Ugh.

Daughter is looking for an apartment and hopes to be moved by November. I told her NO ONE will want to help her move if it is cold and snowy!

[rse]

SQ-Dreyfus is the one who dev'd the paradigm of overturning th west's historic emphasis on the rational mind.

what he hoped for in the 80s is now being realized under the common core. I actually have the book because it was what was cited as the support for the desired shift.

I listened to a video of Searle several years ago when I was researching what was really going on with deconstructionism.

[Extraneus]

AP: Challenge stops confederate statue move at Univ. of Texas

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The University of Texas on Friday abruptly canceled weekend plans to relocate a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis after a legal challenge from the same group that recently lost at the U.S. Supreme Court over rejected Confederate license plates.

The cancellation was announced a day after new University President Greg Fenves said he would uproot the century-old statue away from the center of campus, but leave statues of other Confederate figures untouched.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans, which says it seeks to celebrate Southern heritage, filed for a temporary restraining order Friday but has not yet received a decision from a judge. However, university spokesman Gary Susswein said the school agreed to wait until a court can review the challenge, all the while expressing confidence that the Davis statue will ultimately be relocated to a museum.

"We are confident we will move ahead with these plans," Susswein said.

[Jmaack is Back!]

If I was going to one up the Marxist redistrbutioinists like the Dem party, I would propose not only free college but paying every student there $2,000 a month to cover car fare, pizza and beer. I mean while you are in a robbery mode why not reach for all you can get. The Koch brothers can afford it as well as Scaife and fellow travelers.

Forget the concept of the Obama phone and free money, how about the Sanders car or the Clinton 1st class air fare?

Really, those crooks and liars are not giving enough thought to all the possibilities.

[Jane]

So Rocco that means we can spy on Clarice for a week. How fun for us!

[Captain Hate on the iPad]

Man Tran, I can't argue with the rationale of marking when the sun is directly over the equator and at the furthest point north and south, but it's probably more appropriate to use each month or so as having a characteristic weather profile than each season.

[sbwaters]

all of whom advance some version of the claim that reality is subjective; objective reality, or truth, is either unknowable or impossible.

And rather than deal with it, they threw a half-century temper tantrum.

[Jack is Back!]

Lots of Chinese airliners now taxing and taking off. The take the high polar route, not over the pole but just south of it and far north of Alaska. 14.5 hour flight. Sleep well.

We are boarding soon. See you in the morning Belgium time GMT -1

[Rick Ballard]

SBW,

You have to take the view of a grotto dwelling fig eating ape to fully comprehend the success achieved by Derrida and his ilk. Take a look at the current inhabitants of the White House for further confirmation.

[sbwaters]

Yes, Rick, but setting people up to defend against Derrida takes us back to the 1500s when we adopted the current subject-oriented teaching structure where they assume students who study subjects will learn to think.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Forest Service budget for fire suppression more than half its budget for for the first time.
Now, commie dickweeds will say it's because of climate change.
Rational people will note the portion of the budget dedicated to actual forest management is much smaller than it used to be because the Forest Service doesn't actually service forests much anymore. They will also note that the problem of growing fire damage is much more closely correlated to the decline in logging and thinning than temperature.

[cathyf]

...it's probably more appropriate to use each month or so as having a characteristic weather profile than each season.

For the Weather Service, winter is Dec/Jan/Feb, spring is Mar/Apr/May, summer is Jun/Jul/Aug, and fall is Sep/Oct/Nov. If you were to take average temps for each date you could of course see a clear periodicity, and you could exactly center four equal time periods, and different places would have slightly different "natural" seasons. But the NWS rule is pretty close -- and awfully convenient!

[squaredance]

rse:
I think you mischaracterize Deyfus here.

First U would say he was q quite useful critic of AI (the wiki article on this, here, is surprisingly good). He turned out to be quite right.

Second, I think what you may be referring to is his attempts to explicate Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, etc. to those in what is called "Analytic Philosophy. Now I find this less useful and less interesting as these poeple do not interest me, but outside of his AI work, this certainly is what he is known for.

He has gone through periods were he had strong alignment whit Heidegger, and some periods where he was quite critical of him.
What he has done is try to map Heidegger's language to transitional (that is, Cartesian) metaphysics and ontology, and show the alternative Heidegger "proposes" or at least is discussing.

This hardly amounts to "overturning the west's historic emphasis on the rational mind", and in fact Dreyfus in nothing but rational. I would say he is more expanding metaphysics/ontology rather than "overturning" anything.

It may be that later Education and soft science types seized upon Deyfus as his work was co-opted by the hermeneuticss/semiotics tribe (particularity the litcrit and sociology branches), and misuses him.

I do not think that he "hoped for" anything in the 1980s, and certainly not in educational policy, and I wonder if someone misunderstands what he was saying.
(I grant I could be out of date because hermeneuticss/semiotics does not interest me at all, but you are talking about the 1980s here, so I do not see this at all.)

Are you referring to he and his brother's notion of skills training. If so, and I am not trying to put words in your mouth, all they are saying is that experience plat a large part than heuristics.

Perhaps he changed later in his life, but I do not agree with you characterization of him, and would posit that he was talking about quite specific things. I could see where lesser minds in the educational establishment might misuse him.

I can assure you than when I knew him he certainly was not about discarding the rational mind (of Western Civilization) nor would he think much of common core--I think he would see it for the Marxist, anti-western assualt it is.

[DrJ]

This is an amusing article by Joe Queenan (WSJ) on the state of today's spelling and language usage:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/our-epidemic-of-misspelling-1439478950

I don't know if it is behind the paywall or not.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Excellent essay on the circle of life death that runs from the eugenicists of a hundred years ago directly to the babymongers of PP's present day butcher shops.

A society that not only allows this to happen but defends it and cheers it on deserves to be dismembered itself.