Happy Christmas (The War [on Christmas] is Over)

As usual John Stewart ends up presenting things I would like to, and in a much better way. So, I defer to his commentary on the War on Christmas. Beyoind pointing out the obvious that Christmas is a cultural holiday (I'll save my Robert Bellah analysis for later), I would just like to emphasize that religious freedom is much better today than it was in America's past. It is this freedom and its resulting multiperspectivism that is leading to the reactionary fabrication of the war on Christmas. It doesn't really exist. The conservatives who long for the return of America's Golden Days are deluding themselves and creating some Matrix-style memory construct that isn't real for the purpose of advancing their selfish agenda. Progress makes things better. Fighting it by creating a culture war to benefit one side only leads to mess we are in (NDAA and SOPA for easy examples). So Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays. Us liberals really don't care what you call it.

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And Then There Were (Six)

I hate to jump in with 11 months to go but after tonight"s Republican debate I have to solidify my position.  As the Circus is down to six candidates (no Huntsman here), here are my reactions:
Perry: the poor man's Bush Clone.  He was an Air Force pilot, but yet doesn't know what is and isn't a Predator drone.  But then he seems confused about everything.  Not a person to have on the button.
Paul: beside being the real life version of Jeff Dunham's Walter, he seems genuine and his political theory seems consistent.  But it's not coherent.  Not with the real world. 0% taxes, yeah that's going to work.  Given his isolationist stance, I can't believe he's accepted as a Republican.  Sure, with great power comes great responsibility.  That doesn't mean we should give up our influence on the world.  As a sole superpower, we owe it to ourselves and others to do what we can when we really think it will improve the world.
Santorum: One word - santorum.
Romney: My guess for nominee.  With $10,000 to casually bet, he really showed how out of touch he is with the working class.  I wouldn't expect much out of him.  The shots taken at him about being liberal were right (for a conservative).  His healthcare law is more liberal and works better than Obama's.  That may be a plus if he wins.
Bachmann: Uh, well, let's see, she attacked Obama's tax cuts on the middle class.  Aren't Republicans pushing for lower taxes?  Not when the cuts aren't theirs. I don't recall social security being in a lockbox, so any cuts come out of the general fund, regardless of source.  Can't she just move back to Iowa, that's all she talks about anyway.  She certainly hasn't done anything for her constituents. Don't get me started, let's move on before I have an aneurysm.
Gingrich:  The only "old-school" republican left.  He showed his inability to separate theory from practice, his mean-spirited disposition and his lack of self-discipline.  As a "Reaganite he was a pain in the country's ass in 1993 and still is (see my previous remarks about him and his inconsistency following capitalist principles)  Accused of being overly academic, it's interesting that anytime a liberal proposes a solution based on real world data, they get labeled as part of left-wing academia, too smart for the country.  I think Newt's academic outlook will be his undoing, but if any Republicans actually support him, they either have to answer for their anti-intellectualism or be a (I'll let you fill in the blank).  He let's his ideology overcome knowledge and given his disposition doesn't seem to be a good choice for the button either.

I'm glad I'm not a Republican, it would be a hard choice to support any of these candidates.

Sting - 25 Years

Now that I've listened to the new box set (no I didn't personally buy it) I am convinced that it is a disappointment and quite a missed opportunity. It seems that no one took this seriously. Besides being a year late, all it amounts to is a 3 CD best of collection for $150. There is also a DVD of a performance cut down to 10 tracks, the only real new material. The Police bo set gave us five complete albums plus all the B-sides for $40, quite a difference.  The only promising material here are the remixes. The Blue Turtles tracks (Fortress, Set Them Free, Love is the Seventh Wave, and Consider Me Gone) show a considerable improvement from the original release, the bass and guitar parts are now clear and accented. The live tracks from that tour, (Driven to Tears and I Burn For You) are also much better, the remix actually making them sound live and not like studio overdubs found on the original Bring on The Night.

A Much better plan would have been something along the lines that U2 did, release a best of with a companion CD of B Side and remixes( here is my proposed tracklist).  This could have been followed up with remastered and remixed releases of each album.  The Entire Dream of the Blue Turtles album would find improvement and Bring on the Night would be a live album again and could use additional songs performed on the tour added back in (Fortress, Set Them Free, Message in a Bottle, etc).  The next three albums are probably good as they are, but his last two rock albums could use a complete makeover (the included remix of Never Coming Home is more interesting than the original release).

Along with that a lot of video could be released on DVD to make a nice overview of this 25 year span including the Tokyo 88 concert, the complete Soul Cages Live (the Peter Gabriel tracks could be included as Easter eggs), The Hollywood Bowl show from 91, a concert from 93 such as the Oslo show, and a full Broken Music show (perhaps with addition songs from other dates as this tour was fairly limited).

Fargo 2011

Fargo Airsho - 2011.08.11-12


Military acts included:
USN Blue Angels
USN VFA-122 F/A-18E Super Hornet demo
USAF Viper West F-16 demo
B-52 / KC-135 Fly-over

Statics were a bit light in the heavy area, as the C-5 was unavailable, although there was the F-15E, F-16C, F-18F and F-18C adversary along with the C-21, C-130, and E-6.  The biggest problem was the statics was that rather than an orderly line like last time, the displays were surrounded and crammed in by various activities, the Navy Band, some Guitar Hero game, information booths, etc.  This made observing and photographing the aircraft difficult and the noise made talking to the pilots difficult as well.   The lighting was a bit poor for photography, but otherwise, the show seemed to on without problems of weather, etc.

Zooropa

U2 @ TCF Bank Stadium Minneapolis 2011.07.23

One could joke that Bono even has the power to influence the weather, seamlessly integrating it with the largest concert tour in history.  The TCF Bank Stadium show in Minneapolis was a combination of circumstances that came together in a way that could never be repeated, resulting in an incredible night and show.  U2 braved the weather, performing in hard rains on a flooded stage with a massive lightning show that extended the stage lighting effects all the way to the horizon.  In addition, Minneapolis decided to set off a fireworks show, the finale of which occurred during Bono's opera part of Miss Sarajevo.  The rain only served to enhance the expressionist effects of Bono's vocals, especially when projected on the video screen.  In celebration of the twentieth anniversary the show started off with four tracks from Achtung Baby and the inclusion of One and Zooropa into the setlist further revisited the spectacle that U2 managed to create in the early 90s, only this time the result was less artificial and cynical.  This concert would have been a great opportunity to play the rare Electrical Storm, but the only real letdown was the omission of Magnificent, easily the most energetic and interesting track on their latest release and underrepresented in U2's  public image in the last two years.  It will be exceedingly difficult for U2 to top this show and tour in future endeavors, and this performance may remain a pinnacle in U2s career for many years to come.

Setlist:

Even Better Than the Real Thing / The Fly / Mysterious Ways/ Until the End of the World/ I Will Follow / Get On Your Boots /  I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For / Stand By Me / Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of / Beautiful Day (Space Oddity) / Elevation / Pride / Miss Sarajevo / Zooropa / City of Blinding Lights / Vertigo / I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight / Sunday Bloody Sunday / Scarlet / Walk On / One / Where The Streets Have No Name (Hallejulah/ Purple Rain)/ Hold Me Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me / With Or Without You / Moment of Surrender

+: Acthung Baby! Zooropa, Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me

-: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.  No Magnificent. Ultraviolet, The Unforgettable Fire, All I Want is You have all been rotated out of the setlist.

133rd Air Expo

To celebrate the 90th annivesary of the Minnesota Air National Guard, the 133rd Airlift Wing held an open house at MSP.  The show was light on combat aircraft, featuring only an A-10 and MSP's old F-16 block 15 museum display.  It would have been great to see Duluth bring down some of their latest block 50 F-16s.  The show was loaded with heavy aircraft, however, displaying all of the Air Force's lift capability with the C-130, C-17, C-5, KC-10, KC-135 and C-21. The only aerial performance was a SOCOM jump team, but the event did allow time for venturing through the cockpits, cargo holds, and refueling stations of those large aircraft.

The Next 100 Years

Last Book Read: The Next 100 Years - George Friedman

In The Next 100 Years, Friedman attempts to map out geo-politically what may happen over the next century.  Unlike most other geo-political analyzers, Friedman thinks America is headed for a Golden Age.  He argues that nations go through three stages - barbarism, civilization and decadence.  The final stage of decadence is a period of nihilism when nothing particular is valued and society becomes complacent and self-distracted and thus unproductive. As America is still young (and undisciplined) it still has yet to evolve in Friedman's view.  Given effective decisions made during World War I and World War II which minimized American casualties and cost of war, the US quickly achieved superpower status.  Wining the Cold War allowed the US to become the first sole superpower and by having complete global dominance of the oceans, it is able to easily project its power anywhere it chooses. And this power projection is unrestrained as the US is the first nation in history to achieve this global dominance.  Future wars will only increase American determination and technological advancements and, allowing the US to further gain from every conflict it fights.

Friedman has an interesting theory about American history occurring in 50 year cycles, and what works in solving one crisis will not work in the next, rather something of its opposite is required instead, For instance Roosevelt's New Deal had to be later followed by Reagan's pro-business/ lower taxes economics in the next cycle.  What worked once won't work again.  And by that logic it would seem that it's time to move away from the sacred Reaganomics.

While discussing American technological capability, Freidman makes interesting points about pragmatism and American philosophy. American culture, he states, "is an uneasy melding of the Bible and the computer." "The significance of an idea is in its practical consequences."  An idea without practical consequences, it follows, lacks meaning.  The entire notion of contemplative reason as an end in itself is excluded, as is seen in the Anglo- American philosophy that rejects European and Continental metaphysics.  Computers reduce everything to data, they embody pragmatism.  But that data, it could be argued, is information that does not include meaning.  The computer "represents the unique manifestation of the American concept of reason and reality. . . [it] represents a powerful, reductionist force."  This is why America is so focused and effective.  It also explains the differences in American thought from Old World European ideas.

I won't go into detail about Friedman's predictions, but I certainly disagree with him on some matters of military strategy.  For instance, he ignores Russia's nuclear force - one that is maintained as a matter of utmost importance precisely to counter a foreign invasion of the kind that Freidman thinks might be conventionally possible.  Furthermore, he claims Japan already has a world class Navy and Air Force.  They don't, and I don't know why he would say this. Also, he claims that the US "Battlestars" will be vulnerable to a multiple missile attack.  But, if we look at the layers of defense systems a Carrier Battle Group has, it would seem just as unlikely that a Battlestar could be destroyed with certainty as a US carrier.  With the introduction of beam weapons, defensive systems would likely be more capable.  Finally, he thinks the US force of 2050 will be only hypersonic planes, of which only a few hundred survive.  But its already clear that we will have weapon systems such as the F-35 still in use and we will just be replacing our B-2 and B-52 forces.  I imagine we will still have a vastly numerous amount of  legacy-class systems and that it is unlikely that most of them could be destroyed in one attack.

What's important here is not the details but why Freidman makes these claims.  History repeats itself, and Friedman uses this to extrapolate future data, and given that he is an advisor to the US government, what he thinks may hold considerable weight.  Most interesting is how this study shows why the US does what it does, and how this thinking extends back centuries and every historical step we take builds upon some basic thinking.  For instance, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not important for us to win by achieving specific goals.  We are fighting them simply to disrupt the Middle East so that the Muslim world (or anyone else) cannot unite to become a dominate Asian power.

Even given Freidman's optimism, it seems that the end of the twenty-first century will bring us right back to where we are, experiencing a culture conflict with the rest of the world and struggling with issues of debt and immigration.  While he may not be accurate, his thinking does illuminate the development of America and where we are in the course of that progress.

American Gods

After Minnesota's Idiot Majority Leader (who I hate) attacked Neil Gaiman for accepting a public appearance fee, this was the response I sent, as the Republican are the priests of the American God -Money- hopefully this empty-headed politican will have something to think about.

In response to your public insults of Neil Gaiman: As a Republican, I imagine you support the free market economy. If so, then you believe the market sets the price. Neil Gaiman sets his price high because there is a great demand for his time. And people pay it - simple supply and demand economics - the market regulates the price. If the Stillwater Library did not think the price was worth it, why did they agree to pay it? If you think Gaiman should donate his time for free because the taxpayers are footing the bill, why do you not donate your time for free? To suggest he should sounds like socialism to me. When you were hired, you were offered a salary, I'm guessing you didn't refuse it. It is irrelevent that he is financially successful - does that mean I should be able to download the music of successful artists for free? Minnesota government has no problem giving corporate welfare to multi-billionarie sports teams.  Compared to that, 45K is nothing.  If you don't like the tax then work to repeal it - Minnesota's sales tax is way too high for the working class. But don't attack someone for setting a price for their work and then being freely paid that rate. I believe you owe Gaiman a far deeper apology, as well as one to the library system and the state of Minnesota. I will be watching your next election with great interest.

Matt Dean: Making Minnesota Dumber

Odyssey Dawn

Unsurprisingly, the Libya conflict has resulted in outrageous political claims.  Although we have been fighting two wars for a decade, without major calls for cessation, this much more limited conflict has drawn attack from the right.  The obvious conclusion: only wars started by Republicans are acceptable, any Democratic operation is reckless and a waste of American resources.  As usual talk is the opposite of reality.  The current president hasn't started anything, certainly not three wars.  He has worked on ending one (as much as it will ever be really ended) and has joined one by request of England, France, the Arab League and the U.N.  Whatever the real political reason for confronting Libya (including the 180 turn by France and Italy since 1986), it seems that 2011 has presented real opportunities for democracy.  As Michio Kaku has recently discussed, the spread of democracy is an important development in transitioning to a Type I civilization.  This is my argument for supporting Operation Odyssey Dawn, along with the fact that the Libyan actions of the 1980s have not been fully resolved (Reagan would be proud) and I believe it will also present an opportunity to reassess military spending in more practical terms.

Parallel Worlds

I. Stephen Hawking has once again claimed philosophy is dead. On the outset he is still completely wrong. No matter what final determination science can make about the nature of reality, it still can't give us a complete metaphysical picture. It is self limiting. More importantly, it can't tell us what to do. There will always be the need for philosophy as an assessment of the world we live in.

Having said that, philosophy is killing itself from the inside. After one hundred years of positivist influence, the contemporary state of philosophy as analytic is dead, in a sense of a wider historic view rather than a narrow technical method. Analytic philosophy is good at asking questions, but as it has thrown itself at the mathematical and scientific side of knowledge, it doesn't seem to do as well at answering them. In this respect, Continental philosophy fares better, as do other humanities. For instance, these days a lot of interesting works of philosophy can be found by writers like Terry Eagleton, an English professor. The other humanities, such as English, are undergoing the same difficulties, a century of "scienceitization" and intrusion by social science. Richard Rorty has written about this reorientation in both philosophy and English. In "The Inspirational Value of Great Works of Literature", he writes about philosophical dryness, and dissertation work being done on areas like " the proper analysis of subjunctive conditional sentences," and not in the engaging areas of philosophical wisdom.  The problem with a "little" philosophy, is that it is not enough.

II. Last Book Read - Parallel Worlds- Michio Kaku

As for science and philosophy, Michio Kaku's work Parallel Worlds does offer some insight.  This book serves as a great introduction to his work, as it summarizes much of the string theory information found in Beyond Einstein and Hyperspace as well as the future technology found in Physics of the Impossible.  He also presents interesting ideas about the transition of civilization from a Type 0 to Type I and beyond, such as the establishment of the internet as a Type I communication system and the evolution from nations to trading blocks, revealing the significance of our current time in history and the future paradigm shifts. Kaku discusses surviving the death of the solar system and, more importantly, the eventual death of the universe by using technology to escape to other locales in the multiverse. After theorizing about the "theory of everything" needed to reach this technological level, he concludes that even if we can reduce all the known physics down to a one inch equation, we still have to ask "why that equation?"  "Where did this equation come from?"  At this point, it seems that cosmology and physics can't help us.  There is still the problem of meaning.  Kaku shows that in the infinite multiverse , anything that can happen does and every choice is made both ways.  There is no uniqueness to any situation, no weight or consequence of choice, no "moral sense."  Kaku's resolution to this "quantum existential crisis" is that meaning must be created by each individual.  In this way, Kaku acknowledges that philosophy must pick up where science stops.

Random Notes

So Republicans are now proposing that everything is on the table to be cut - including Medicare.  Wasn't part of the outrage directed at Obama's reform incited by the scare tactics of cutting Medicare?  Of course the conservative pawns bought right into that one.  Furthermore, Boehner response to the charge that Republican cuts will cost jobs is "so be it." This comes after two years of nonstop complaining about Obama and his weak responses to job loss.

Bullet the Blue Sky

Since every February 6th this comes up, here's my tribute to Reagan, thanks to Think Progress:

10 Things Conservatives Don’t Want You To Know About Ronald Reagan

The Tide is Turning

As usual, Stephen Colbert continues to point out the idiocracy of the media. I can't let this critique of O'Reilly go unacknowledged, as Bill proceeds to exert the single-minded, misguided, and just plain stupid fundamentalism and anti-intellectualism that goes against everything I stand for. Did Bill really never learn about gravity in elementary school? I guess he was in the super-remedial class. "Gravity?! I don't know what that means. What does it mean? F**k it! F**k gravity!"


Edit: Of course if Bill really wanted to make a useful point, instead of the usual mindless child-like useless drivel he normally pronounces, he could have discussed the anthropic principle, I.e. why do we have a moon that stabilizes Earth's rotation enough to allow life to flourish (See Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku for a discussion). The answer, however disappointing to many, is of course if we didn't live in the "Goldilocks Zone" where conditions are just right, then we wouldn't be here to question why we live here.

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