Today’s broadsheet from the FM website pressroom. There are four sections, all with hot news.
- Links to interesting news and analysis
- Today’s special item
- News about themes from posts past on the FM website
- Lifted from the comments of the FM website
(I) Links to interesting news and analysis
- “Barack Hoover Obama: The best and the brightest blow it again“, Kevin Baker, Harper’s magazine, July 2009 — A look at Hoover’s impressive but inadequate accomplishments. Will Obama follow in his footsteps? I strongly recommend reading this, hidden history to most Americans.
- “How they are turning off the lights in America“, Edwin X Berry (PhD Physics, Meteorologist; bio here), posted at Climate Physics, October 2009
- “Studies ‘overstate species risks’“, BBC, 6 November 2009 — A rare note of sanity amidst the green hysteria.
- “The lost generation“, Paul Krugman, blogging at the New York Times, 7 November 2009 — The sad reality that economic growth in the developed world peaked during the 1960’s, and has slowed every decade since.
- “Reagan! Reagan! Reagan!“, Paul Krugman, blogging at the New York Times, 7 November 2009 — The sad reality that US economic growth was slower by almost every metric from 1950-1980 than 1980-2007.
(II) Today’s special item
Observation of the day: “There are families not eating at the end of the month … literally lining up at midnight at Wal-Mart stores waiting to buy food when paychecks or government checks land in their accounts.” — Stephen Quinn, EVP of Wal-Mart.
(III) Updates from posts past on the FM website
(a) “Why won’t Obama give you a job?“, Washington Post, 8 November 2009 — Nice discussion of the different forms of stimulus programs, and the limitations of each. It also shows how the government is paralyzed by ignorance forgetting much of what has been learned about economics during the past 80 years. For more information about this see:
- Dr. Bush, stabilize the economy – stat!, 7 October 2008
- Everything you need to know about government stimulus programs (read this – it’s about your money), 30 January 2009
(b) “Does Biased News Have a ‘Time Bomb’ Effect?“, Miller-McCune, 9 November 2009 — “A European study shows that, over time, even the most sophisticated readers can be manipulated.” For more information see the articles listed on the FM reference page:
(c) About the Fort Hood killer (breaking news added)
- “On War # 321: 4GW Comes to Ft. Hood“, William S. Lind, DNI, 10 November 2009 — His usual excellent analysis. Looks at this in terms of 4GW theory in the light of a era in which nation-states are declining — coming to conclusions similar to mine.
- “The Mystery of Maj. Nidal Hasan’s Powerpoint“, by Charles Cameron (an expert on forensic theology), posted at Zenpundit, 11 November 2009 — He is a former Senior Analyst with The Arlington Institute and Principal Researcher with the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston U.
- On the FM website: Update about the killings in Texas, perhaps another crack in an Army near the breaking point, 6 November 2009
A note about #2: what is “forensic theology”? From Google I found the following:
- “Follow the Mullahs“, Stephen Grey, The Atlantic, November 2004 –“With theologians at the center of terrorist strategy, “forensic theology” is rapidly becoming a valuable intelligence tool”
- Forensic Theology Resource Center — provides law enforcement, health care professionals and public safety agencies with research and training regarding unfamiliar religious groups and practices.
- See the other entries here.
I know nothing about this field or its practitioners. But it reminds me of the “experts” that appeared in the 1980’s on satanic cults and recovered memory syndrome. I suggest caution.
(IV) Lifted from the comments of the FM website
Steel Rain asked an interesting question here (as usual for these belligerent folks, he’s never responded to my reply — except with more insults): “have you ever linked to a pro-war/pro-american website?”
This website does provides both analysis and advocacy, so there is no pretence of balance. Rather the opposite, as the material here often attempts to show the rest of the story — the side less shown by the mainstream media.
But the answer is still definitely yes. Here are a few examples:
- Bernard Finel’s blog (12 posts)
- Registan(5 to the site, plus 18 to Joshua Foust — a strong advocate of the Af-Pak war who writes there),
- Stratfor (54 posts), and
- The Zenpundit (10 posts)
These (and others) have been recommended on this site many times (the links go to articles on the FM site, as evidence). All have had their pro-war articles excepted here, with varying degrees of criticism.
More importantly, this website’s primary source of information about our wars is also most important and valuable of the pro-war sites: the US government.
More broadly speaking, this site has linked to most of the major pro-war voices, with long excepts and links. For example:
- Max Boot (3 posts),
- Andrew Exum (7 posts),
- David Kilcullen (18 posts),
- John Nagl (17 posts), and
- Ralph Peters (16 posts)
Readers of this site have been exposed to the writings of the war’s advocates. What pro-war websites do your read, and can you say the same about them? For example, most of the comments on that thread come from those reading the Instapundit, which seldom shows criticism of the war.
Afterword
Please share your comments by posting below. Per the FM site’s Comment Policy, please make them brief (250 word max), civil and relevant to this post. Or email me at fabmaximus at hotmail dot com (note the spam-protected spelling).
Reference pages about other topics appear on the right side menu bar, including About the FM website page.
Breaking news added to this post!
Section III.c About the Fort Hood killer
What is “forensic theology”? From Google I found the following:
* “Follow the Mullahs“, Stephen Grey, The Atlantic, November 2004 –“With theologians at the center of terrorist strategy, “forensic theology” is rapidly becoming a valuable intelligence tool”
* Forensic Theology Resource Center — provides law enforcement, health care professionals and public safety agencies with research and training regarding unfamiliar religious groups and practices.
* See the other entries here.
I know nothing about this field or its practitioners. But it reminds me of the “experts” that appeared in the 1980’s on satanic cults and recovered memory syndrome. I suggest caution.
Hey, Paladin Press! When are you ever going to send my secret decoder ring?
The Forensic Theology Resource Center provides law enforcement, health care professionals and public safety agencies with research and training regarding unfamiliar religious groups and practices.
The organization was created by Tony M. Kail who is an as author as well as trainer for numerous regional, state and federal agencies. Kail has twenty years experience in research, writing and training on deviant religious groups. He is the author of A Cop’s Guide to Occult Investigations (2003 Paladin Press)…”
http://www.cultcrime.org/aboutus.html
Forensic Theology, eh? I would have thought a Forensic Theologist was someone like this guy:
Although “theology” is commonly stretched to include the study of religion, it more properly refers to the study of the nature of God, which implies a faith on the part of the practitioner, and is something not particularly amenable to the techniques of forensics. More correct would be Forensic “Pisteology” (study of faith)!
Etymological quibbles aside, though, item III.b is interesting but not surprising. For instance, everyone says “I don’t pay any attention to advertising” but it wouldn’t be a multi-trillion dollar industry if it didn’t work. What we think of as our rational consciousness is but the tip of a very large iceberg. Much of the time it works hard generating rationalizations for decisions made much further down . . .
Not eating? Hm. I’m sure that this temporary decline in the demand for food, can be corrected by a F … FR … say it with me now … FRRRRR … come on, EVERYBODY …. FREEEE MARKET! Bada bing!
The sad reality that economic growth in the developed world peaked during the 1960’s, and has slowed every decade since.
One of the big problems of the post-60’s is that exploration of the moon, the planets, and outer space generally has turned out to be such a dud. ( Yes, discovery of distant planets is interesting, but we can’t get there. Discovery of massive black holes is even more interesting, but we don’t want to go near there. )
This concludes the Westward Ho! impulse that has been such a feature in our civilization. What do we do for an encore?
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FM reply: Exploration generates no economic returns. Look at the many expeditions to the poles. Settlement produces gain. The fatal error was made at the inception of the Apollo project, when the NASA configured it as a race to the moon — instead of the next frontier. There was just one-shot disposable craft, with no construction of infrastructure that would facilitate the next wave. A miscommunication between the politicians and the engineers, one of the most serious errors in all of history.
Eventually, like Hiro’s steam engine, we (humanity) will go to space again. The right way, and the gains will be beyond anything we can imagine today.
I always liked the pyramids :)
Hay! You can’t blow up the earth. That’s where i keep all my stuff.
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