When Peggy Noonan's good, she's real good. (Emphasis mine)
This was a real wakeup call for us," someone named Robert M. Duncan, who is chairman of the Republican National Committee, told the New York Times. This was after Mississippi. "We can't let the Democrats take our issues." And those issues would be? "We can't let them pretend to be conservatives," he continued. Why not? Republicans pretend to be conservative every day.
Check out the whole read here: http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Friday, May 16, 2008
Six ways the GOP can save itself
There's an article about six ways the GOP can save itself here: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10370_Page2.html
The first one has promise -- "Get a Clue" but they go downhill from there.
Here's my suggestions for how the GOP can rescue itself without becoming liberals or Dems-lite.
1. Get a Clue. That's good advice. It means recognizing that the party has strayed badly off track and that it needs to jettison Bush and his baggage.
2. Renounce torture. It taints everything else, directly or indirectly. A government that tortures and a party that supports torture can never win over the American people, who are, at heart very decent.
3. Rediscover the virtues of limiting government. Not just the government's ability to harass businesses but also the government's ability to bother private citizens, snoop into their affairs and abuse their rights. Tort reform and torture reform are not opposing principles.
4. Don't cut taxes without cutting spending. Don't spend for things we're not willing to pay taxes for. Borrowing to pay for routine government activities in nonsense.
5. War. End this one and don't look for any new ones.
6. Remember that American values are accessible to all ethnic groups, all races, both genders, any age, an income and any sexual orientation. Any party that identifies itself primarily with affluent white males has no future. Adjust your message until it starts to make sense to everybody.
The first one has promise -- "Get a Clue" but they go downhill from there.
Here's my suggestions for how the GOP can rescue itself without becoming liberals or Dems-lite.
1. Get a Clue. That's good advice. It means recognizing that the party has strayed badly off track and that it needs to jettison Bush and his baggage.
2. Renounce torture. It taints everything else, directly or indirectly. A government that tortures and a party that supports torture can never win over the American people, who are, at heart very decent.
3. Rediscover the virtues of limiting government. Not just the government's ability to harass businesses but also the government's ability to bother private citizens, snoop into their affairs and abuse their rights. Tort reform and torture reform are not opposing principles.
4. Don't cut taxes without cutting spending. Don't spend for things we're not willing to pay taxes for. Borrowing to pay for routine government activities in nonsense.
5. War. End this one and don't look for any new ones.
6. Remember that American values are accessible to all ethnic groups, all races, both genders, any age, an income and any sexual orientation. Any party that identifies itself primarily with affluent white males has no future. Adjust your message until it starts to make sense to everybody.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Almost extinct? Implications for SETI
According to some recent research, modern humans may have been close to extinction 70,000 years ago, reduced to a few as 2,000 individuals.
See http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D908GE800&show_article=1
for details.
There's a lot to chew on here, but one thing I think this illustrates is that the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) may be up against longer odds than may be supposed at first glance.
I think it will turn out that life is pretty common in the universe. Indeed, given the right conditions, it's probably an inevitable natural process.
What is not inevitable is that "intelligent" life will involve. And especially the peculiar kind of intelligence that will result in a "civilization" that might leave detectable traces for outside observers.
This news suggests that Earth came within a hairs-breadth of losing the one species it spawned in 6 billion years capable of such a civilization in a drought 70,000 years ago. Had those few thousand individuals been a little less lucky than they actually were, Earth would, right now, still be thinly populated with roving bands of primitive hominids and some marine mammals with reasonable intelligence but no "civilization." That state of affairs had already lasted many millions of years and could last millions more without change. There's no reason to think that Neanderthals or Homo Erectus populations already existing would have made the same cultural leaps that Homo Sapiens managed since the near-extinction event. There's quite a bit of mystery involved even in the Homo Sapiens cultural explosion that started about 30,000 years ago, and if we ever understand that it may turn out that it turned on some fairly subtle development that was no sure thing, either.
My point is that, while life is common, and "intelligent" life not exceedingly rare, "civilized" life (not meant in any pejorative sense at all) may be very rare indeed. The universe is so vast I think it would be presumptuous to declare that it has happened only once (here) and no where else. But I don't think it's off the mark to suggest that it happens so rarely that the civilizations are too far apart in space and time to ever make contact.
See http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D908GE800&show_article=1
for details.
There's a lot to chew on here, but one thing I think this illustrates is that the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) may be up against longer odds than may be supposed at first glance.
I think it will turn out that life is pretty common in the universe. Indeed, given the right conditions, it's probably an inevitable natural process.
What is not inevitable is that "intelligent" life will involve. And especially the peculiar kind of intelligence that will result in a "civilization" that might leave detectable traces for outside observers.
This news suggests that Earth came within a hairs-breadth of losing the one species it spawned in 6 billion years capable of such a civilization in a drought 70,000 years ago. Had those few thousand individuals been a little less lucky than they actually were, Earth would, right now, still be thinly populated with roving bands of primitive hominids and some marine mammals with reasonable intelligence but no "civilization." That state of affairs had already lasted many millions of years and could last millions more without change. There's no reason to think that Neanderthals or Homo Erectus populations already existing would have made the same cultural leaps that Homo Sapiens managed since the near-extinction event. There's quite a bit of mystery involved even in the Homo Sapiens cultural explosion that started about 30,000 years ago, and if we ever understand that it may turn out that it turned on some fairly subtle development that was no sure thing, either.
My point is that, while life is common, and "intelligent" life not exceedingly rare, "civilized" life (not meant in any pejorative sense at all) may be very rare indeed. The universe is so vast I think it would be presumptuous to declare that it has happened only once (here) and no where else. But I don't think it's off the mark to suggest that it happens so rarely that the civilizations are too far apart in space and time to ever make contact.
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