Nine myths about the deficit...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lynn-parramore/the-deficit-nine-myths-we_b_553527.html
 

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

Bon mot from Evo Morales: "Coca cola is the poor man's Draino..."

The article below from Time magazine is a bit more sympathetic toward a South American leftist (Morales) than U.S. media usually is--but: 

 

I don't have a settled opinion whether or not reparations to the developing world for the effects of climate change would be an adequate or even a Good Thing, the remark  that $400 billion is an "unrealistic" figure for Third World activists to demand is, I think, way wrong. 

 

Our "crackpot realists," to use C. Wright Mills phrase, are forever trying to postpone the absolutely necessary by smearing it as "unrealistic"--whether reparations is a good idea or not, $400 billion may be more than a drop in the bucket for the developed world, but it's hardly more than a puddle, especially considering the costs of inaction about climate change...

 

R.

 

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100423/wl_time/08599198406400
 

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

The Dalai Lama is one of--well, some of us...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_socialism

 

The Dalai Lama's remarks are particularly interesting in the light of Tibet's quite legitimate quarrel with China...
 

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

Panspermia--the manifesto (for anybody who cares)

N.B.  The position neither rules out nor rules in metaphysical or religious presuppositions.

 

http://www.panspermia.org/intro.htm
 

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

Keep Business's Dirty Hands Off the Guvmint!

Particularly the student loan program:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/us/politics/11loans.html
 
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Higher Dimensions

Looking forward to reading Harvard physicist Lisa Randall's new book called WARPED PASSAGES.       It's about gravity and string theory. 

I doubt if I will understand much of it--I didn't her first--but I do remember one thing about the first.  She argued for the possibility that some of the unperceived dimensions as per string theory might actually be rather "large"--instead of being tiny and coiled up, which is how they are usually posited by them such as make such theories.  Hers is the one I want to believe since it seems to invite the possibility that perhaps one day we will really have "warp speed" a la Star Trek, and intergalactic civilizations & stuff as per the science fiction of my youth.  

I particularly like the universe as envisioned by James Schmitz.  See the WITCHES OF KARRES and his short story, "The Second Night of Summer" which for some reason is my favorite sci fi short story of all time. 

R.
 
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Sympathy for the Tea Party

I don't like the Tea Party and I don't like Wal-Mart,  and it is a good turn of phrase (below) but having the Tea Partiers dissed by effete, snobby pseudo-intellectual  David Brooks is one thing that gives me a little tingle of sympathy for the Tea Party folks...

David Brooks: Tea Partiers are 'Wal-Mart hippies'

Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks assailed the Tea Party and the extreme nature of today's Republican Party Tuesday on ComedyCentral's The Colbert Report.
"The Tea Party is where the money is at, baby," said Stephen Colbert. "Why aren't you saying crazy stuff your in columns and if you pardon the expression, put some asses in the seats?"
"Well, the Tea Parties they're like the hippies," Brooks responded. "The hippies wanted to stick it to the man and they were anti-establishment. So the Tea Parties are like the Wal-Mart hippies."

Colbert jested that Brooks should be less moderate and shun news organizations that aren't sufficiently conservative.

"You go on PBS," noted Colbert. "That's the enemy camp. You cannot be friends with these people. Okay?"

 
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