There’s a civil war, though not a very civil one, that’s been going on in the southern Levant at least since 1948. Let’s see if we can identify the combatants. But first a disclaimer. Any attempt to define the parties… Read More ›
IDF
MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING
Occam’s Razor advises us never to multiply entities beyond what’s needed to explain what needs explaining. Is this because the simpler explanation is more likely to be the correct one? If so, what would explain that? So no. Rather it’s… Read More ›
HOBBES ON OPPRESSION AND RESISTANCE
(1) Oppression is morally indefensible. As is brutality. So(2) brutality in the service of oppression is doubly indefensible. (3) Resistance to oppression, if not morally mandatory, is certainly morally laudable. So (4) brutality in the service of resistance is at… Read More ›
FROM THE YES-BUT-DON’T-SAY-IT FILE
The core axiom driving any cognising organism is to treat like cases alike. And this, of course, requires that it distinguish between this collection of things and that collection of things. These distinctions are not always easy. Are we in… Read More ›
WHY IT’S A GOOD THING I CAN’T VOTE
The propaganda war isn’t over what we’re being exposed to. It’s over what we’re exposing ourselves to. So there’s a strong element of complicity in what we believe, be it about global warming, vaccination safety, Gaza, of what have you…. Read More ›
THE FOG OF WAR
I’m told – though this could be apocryphal – that more Indians were killed in all those Cowboys and Indians movies and TV shows than the number of Indians there ever were in the Wild West. The number of kills… Read More ›
RIGHTS-TALK AND THE CURRENT PROPAGANDA WAR
Depending on when you start counting – and depending on who’s doing the counting – Jews and Arabs have been at war in Palestine since the first implementation of the Balfour Declaration in the early 1920’s, or since the Naqba… Read More ›
STOCKHOLM SYNDROME
As of day 100 since October 7th, the Israeli government announced there were 105 hostages still alive. Probably a couple fewer today. But after all this time, I can’t help but wonder if, and if so for how many, Stockholm… Read More ›
APARTHEID AND GENOCIDE
The reason they’re called the Abrahamic religions is that Jews, Christians and Moslems share a common core conception of god. But let’s not be too quick about what follows from this. You and I might share a common conception of… Read More ›
MORE MATH AND A MODEST PROPOSAL
After seven weeks of ‘precision’ bombing, the IDF, by its own reckoning, has managed to kill 1,000 Hamas soldiers. So only another 34,000 to go. So keeping the kill rate constant, it should only take another four and half years… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 