Comments Posted By michael reynolds
Displaying 91 To 100 Of 839 Comments
REFORM IS A TRIUMPH OF PROCESS OVER PRUDENCE
He is a reckless, arrogant ideologue who is so concerned with his legacy and his place in the history books, that he is willing to foist this very bad bill on the American people and damn the consequences.
You are so hopelessly clueless in your read on this guy that it's no surprise you're so often wrong in your broader analysis.
You're seeing what you want to see and need to see for ideological reasons, not what's there.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 21.12.2009 @ 16:44
UNITED STATES OUT OF THE UN -- NOW
I'm for replacing the UN with a Facebook group.
Every nation would be "friended." They could all therefore have their say on any issue they chose: hating Israel being of course the number one issue, followed closely by hating the United States, with third place going to squeezing cash donations from the developed nations. Two hates and a gimme.
Then we take that lovely waterfront property in New York and sell it to developers. We spend the proceeds on treating AIDS in Africa, on disaster relief in South Asia, and so on. Net plus all around.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 20.12.2009 @ 13:13
EARTH LIKE PLANET FOUND CLOSE BY
John:
The narrative is lacking for Mars. People need a story not a science puzzle. And a good story inevitably involves characters. We've taken character out of the story -- no astronauts, no potential aliens -- and made rational choices involving machines and action at a distance.
People won't spend billions on a story about how some guy at an observatory saw something through his telescope and sent a hi-tech Roomba to look at it. Not unless the end of the story is: we build a big-ass spaceship an go there ourselves.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 19.12.2009 @ 14:42
How cool is this?
We have needed a new frontier for a long time. Americans kind of suck at stasis and need expansion and challenges and possibilities. Granted 42 light years is a bit of a haul. But it's not the thousands of light years it might easily have been.
The answer to life the universe and everything = 42. Who knew Douglas Adams meant it literally?
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 19.12.2009 @ 11:39
Demonstrating the art of droll understatement:
-- one might legitimately question their commitment.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 16.12.2009 @ 15:50
ABOUT MY DECISION TO LEAVE THE RIGHT
Please, please, please … everyone! Take a break, willya? Lighten up. Smile a bit. If life were as serious as you are making it out to be, I would have committed suicide 30 years ago.
Stop and smell the roses! Stop the world I want to get off! All we have to fear is fear itself!
Rick either got laid or bought a lucky scratch ticket.
At my age, the former would be more remarkable while the latter perhaps more welcome.
ed.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 14.12.2009 @ 14:27
Stop picking on Rick. Comedy is hard.
Let us never speak of this again.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 14.12.2009 @ 12:17
IN DEFENSE OF HOWARD ZINN - SORT OF
Interesting post.
It's good to see the trees and not just the forest. But at the same time the forest is real.
On British Men of War the sailors were typically pressed -- very much against their will -- and most often subjected to very harsh discipline that could include a hundred lashes. Those same British warships helped put an end to the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
History does love a paradox. I think the juvenile mind fastens on hypocrisy as though it was the only thing worth seeing. And of course ideologues almost by definition are people who are incapable of seeing nuance. The US is the greatest engine for freedom ever to exist, and the US perpetuated the cruelest sort of slavery. Both statements are true, paradoxical, but true.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 13.12.2009 @ 10:39
IS OBAMA GROWING INTO THE JOB OF COMMANDER IN CHIEF?
Apparently, a class in learning how to understand thinking was “unclassifiable”
I've seldom seen a statement that so perfectly delineates the line between tragedy and comedy.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 12.12.2009 @ 22:00
Busboy:
That's their narrative and they're sticking to it. "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest," as Paul Simon pointed out.
The percentage of people -- especially people on the extremes -- who will fit narrative to facts rather than the other way around is disappearingly small.
As I point out from time to time we badly need education in basic philosophy, particularly epistemology. Chances of that happening? Zero.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 12.12.2009 @ 10:54
