Month: February 2011

Tim Lee defends academia:

My own tentative theory is that the primary function of an undergraduate education is to allow the student to join a scholarly community, and in the process to soak up the values and attitudes of that community. There are a variety of character traits—intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, self-direction, creativity—that are best learned by being immersed in a community where those traits are cultivated and rewarded. They’re not on the formal curriculum, but they’re implicit in much of what happens on a college campus.

Brian Fishman contemplates al Qaeda's tone-deaf responses to the recent revolutions in the Arab world:

The successes in Tunisia and Egypt have inspired political movements across the region, but not all will be so successful. In the wake of failed mass mobilizations, jihadists will argue that peaceful dissent is a fool's errand and that violence is the only effective and religiously sanctioned form of protest. Likewise, if the government that comes after Mubarak does not deliver real economic and social benefits to Egypt's people, al Qaeda's pitch for deeply conservative Islamic law might find an audience.

The danger is not that al Qaeda will come to control or dominate contemporary opposition movements in the Middle East. Its ideas and murderous campaigns are too radical for that. The real danger from al Qaeda is on society's fringe. That good news is also why al Qaeda cannot be dismissed completely. The vast majority of reformers in Algeria, Egypt, and Yemen will never turn to violence no matter how slow reform actually occurs. But a tiny percentage might, which is one more reason why it is important to remain vigilant, support substantive and successful political change in Egypt and Tunisia, and encourage real reform elsewhere when the people demand it. 

(Photo: A general view shows the City of the Dead in Cairo on February 15, 2011. In a sprawling cemetery on the edge of Cairo, where thousands of Egyptians inhabit the tombs of bygone nobles in a City of the Dead, the promise of a revolution is haunted by the spectre of poverty. By Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images)

Jim Behrle prays for a human win tonight:

It's bad enough that computers are better at everything that humans do already: mowing lawns, pleasuring women, spelling shit right, math, distributing porn, opening garage doors, killing people. Have you ever seen a Science Fiction movie in which having Computers be smarter than Humans ended up being a good thing? (Barbarella? And 2069, naturally.) Usually it's two steps to Doomsville for the Human Race after we teach the machines how to do stuff better than us. I've never understood this impulse. I don't have any (human) children. But if I ever do, why on Earth would I want them to be smarter than me? If they're smart won't they grow up to betray and abandon me? Keep 'em nice and dumb and they always come back and say "Hey, Pa. I got two quarters and three dimes, how much is that?" It's good to be needed.

Because you're dying to know:

"I really don't believe in abortion," Bieber says. "It's like killing a baby?" How about in cases of rape? "Um. Well, I think that's really sad, but everything happens for a reason.

On his radio show, Sean Hannity hosted a surreal segment in which Frank Gaffney makes the case that the conservative movement has been infiltrated by Islamic extremists. Here's the audio:

Naturally, Breitbart's site is on the story:

"Big Peace has covered the issue of the infiltration of the conservative movement by people like Khan and others who attempt to silence criticism of Islam on national security grounds as 'Islamophobia.' If conservatives can’t talk about these things – and take the threat seriously– who can?"

It's darkly amusing to see foot soldiers in the conservative movement claiming that their own side is being taken over by the enemy. Then there are people like Breitbart who can't defend Gaffney's work, but has no problem publishing it. When David Frum criticizes fellow conservatives  for being insufficiently serious about public policy the right goes apoplectic. Who cries foul when Andrew Breitbart publishes allegations that the conservative movement is being infiltrated by Islamic extremists?

Mulling commercial applications for the Jeopardy robot, John Rennie thinks small and suggests that Watson's technology might provide relief from "automated help-line hells":

Machines capable of Watson-level general knowledge may remain out of many company’s budgets for years, but that may not matter. To play Jeopardy!, Watson needs a strongly diverse base of knowledge in history, literature, science, the arts and so on. The automated systems of most businesses would not. My travel agency’s automated booking system, for example, wouldn’t need to know the poems of Emily Dickinson or the date of the Norman conquest; it would need to know geography, vacation packages, airline schedules, my travel history, visa and vaccination requirements and the like.

A reader writes:

I want to call a potential hypocrisy timeout on the O'Reilly post.  I watched his re-explanation for how the tides work (i.e. who put the moon there?) and wondered how you, as a man of faith, would counter his argument exactly.  His belief is (and I'm paraphrasing): "It requires more faith to believe this was all luck than it does to believe in God". 

Do you disagree?  If so, how?  I'm curious as to how you can justify using an example of someone invoking god to explain something they don't understand as a way to demonstrate their ignorance. Or are you simply disagreeing with Bill on this point and willing to agree with him on questions humans haven't yet answered?

I do not believe that God "put the moon there". That kind of specificity, when science can easily explain how all this occurred, is not orthodox Christianity. If O'Reilly meant that there is a profound mystery about our existence and consciousness in the universe(s) that we inhabit, and that that mystery cannot be explained by science alone, I'm with him. It's just so depressing to see Christianity represented by someone who sounds like your uncle after too many drinks at Christmas.

Nothing like a little heavy-metal Lego action to blow off some steam: