I'm listening to Philip Greenspun talk to Doug Kaye. (Transcript)#

Now, I'm listening to Episode Two of The Whole Wide World with Christopher Lydon.#

Is there a way to define or rationalize conflict and war in the global era? Is there a way to think about the world in a new century that might prevent it?

The Cold War imposed a kind of logic on the world -- a superpower symmetry that seemed to promote restraint and peace. Relative to now anyway. 911 unleashed new forces, new misunderstandings and instabilities that the world is still grappling with. And the war on terror designed to confront them is now in the shadow of an unfolding war in Iraq and a possible blueprint for war in North Korea.

But does anybody really know what the world is fighting about? Is it about regime change in Iraq or installing democracy in the Middle East?. Is it about weapons or resources -- oil, water, diamonds or timber? About civilizations clashing or new empires ascending? Or freedom or religion, or identity, or terror, or land or peace or security or nation building?

A comment from Chalmers Johnson:

CJ: War now, in the period after the Cold War, seems much more likely. We have lost the constraint that the existence of the Soviet Union imposed upon us toward at least elementary prudence. We have begun to become hubristic and to talk about odd and inflated terms like "civilization" and "clash of civilizations" and to denigrate the cultures of other people, when it is almost impossible to imagine that one culture is superior to another. I mean, that's one of the things that is bedeviling the Bush Administration. It loves clichés about evil people or other such things, which are instantaneously used by Putin over the Chechens or by the Indians and the Pakistanis, who have hated each other for a very long time and both have nuclear weapons, used by Ariel Sharon to now say that he is the world's greatest student of George Bush and he is punishing terrorists who are evildoers. These kinds of things lead on toward anarchy and chaos. That is why I would say it is no time to envy the young. Those of us who are getting closer to the end of our lives must look back on a period of peace. It would be wise to try and avoid these wars, but talking about "clashes of civilization" is assuredly one of the worst possible ways to do it.

ScrappleFace has news from John Kerry.#

Sen. John Forbes Kerry, the presumptive Democrat nominee attempting to become the nation's second Roman Catholic president, yesterday said, "Jesus Christ would have been saved from the agony of crucifixion if abortion had been legal and affordable in the early part of the first century A.D."

The Devil writes about why Dungeons and Dragons doesn't work with video games.#

Tyler Cowen links to Classical Music's Ten Dirtiest Secrets:#

This knee-jerk habit of affecting a "beauty pageant smile" at all costs even affects criticism. Sure, we don't always like the performance or recording in question, but that's only because the music is so incredibly great that either (a) it's almost impossible to play perfectly, or (b) the performer in question has no business even attempting it. And then there are those many occasions where we try to make the best possible case for music which is—to put it delicately—of less then first rank and therefore unknown for very good reason.

Richard commits a "rookie mistake."#

I deleted a bunch of emails from a friend who I had crushed on—I'd like to call the crush a rookie mistake, but that was not the case—and a year or so later looked back thinking they were still there. Before that I burned every note and card my ex gave me, because I didn't need the reminder of not only how bad it was, but how good it was.

Burning the notes and cards and deleting the emails happened so long ago that I don't remember whether or not I regret doing either.

Glenn Otis Brown linked to Building on the Past. Cool.#

Faré writes about mathematical models and free will.#

Actually, what libertarians completely miss out is the notion of relevance. The utterly unspeakable is utterly irrelevant. But to be fair, it seems that DCD is unable to articulate it either, though he doesn't contradict it. Determinism is irrelevant to the nature of the universe, because it is a feature of models of our universe that isn't intrinsic to the universe itself. We can know the universe but through interaction. Any modelling in terms of something lower-level than interaction is but a matter of convenience for symbol-manipulation; it doesn't reflect the structure of the universe, but provides a tool for the mind to manipulate more easily; if it reflects the structure of anything, it is the structure of the minds that build the models.

I'm reading Philip Greenspun's FAQ on Israel. It has many insights and explanations, mixed with a bit of humour.#

Why do Muslims hate the United States?

As with the preceding question we should step back and ask the more general question "Why does everyone hate the United States?" Everyone hates the U.S. because everything that goes wrong in the world today is the fault of the U.S. Our military consists of 1.5 million highly trained people and tens of thousands of machines capable of getting them very quickly to where they are needed. Yet though we claim to be interested in justice and human welfare we generally don't bother to act to protect non-citizens. For example, impending genocide in Rwanda elicited the following quote from then-President Bill Clinton: "... I mention it only because there are a sizable number of Americans there and it is a very tense situation. And I just want to assure the families of those who are there that we are doing everything we possibly can to be on top of the situation to take all the appropriate steps to try to assure the safety of our citizens there." In other words "We could use all of our airpower and troops to stop the Hutus from killing the Tutsis but instead we're going to airlift American citizens out and then move on to the next issue." An estimated 1 million people died.

Nobody is going to blame the Rwandan genocide on Ireland. They've only got 17,000 troops and a limited number of ships and cargo planes. Nobody is going to blame Denmark, with its 35,000 troops. But the U.S. military is strong enough to intervene anywhere in the world. People can blame, with some justification, anything that makes them unhappy on the U.S.