I dream of living in ... a World Without Dictators! I'm a Libertarian Paternalist in Slovakia - Freedom with Responsibility - 10% of income into your own Pension; Tax Loans for education, health, housing; now supporting Employment Maximizing Companies!

blog posts on immigration at The Truth Laid Bear

God might exist more than people

Brendan Loy (of Katrina fame) has a great post on Planck distance and a bit on Planck time:
The notion of consciousness, a.k.a. the soul, as a Planck-scale structure, a creature of the ultra-small world that supposedly underlies and determines the very structure of the universe, raises all sorts of compelling questions and issues.

Great ideas, Brendan.  I have been thinking about Norm Geras's atheist question about God "either he exists, or he doesn't". (Here's a link to a recent anti-atheist intolerance piece that is fine Normblog)
But I'm not sure we humans can define existence adequately, and this note is excellent about it.

Here's an amusing thought about Planck-time.  Say that "time" exists in (10)-44 intervals, discretely.  But 'God' exists continuously. 
Now we see movies at 35 frames/second.  If they are slower, like 22 frames per second, they are choppy.  But we don't notice much improvement at faster rates.
What if our perceived reality/ existence is a "frame", in 1 every (10)-44 seconds.  Yet somekind of incomprehensible, outside of time God is there both in the frame, mostly not-acting, as well as outside the frame.

One might well think God doesn't "exist", because he doesn't as we do, yet he is more real, and eternal, than our material macro selfs.

Posted by: TomGrey at 05/31/07 00:01 | link | comments (1)
blogs, christianity

Captain Furat -- I am Iraqi

Via The Redhunter, I learned about Captain Furat (in Wash Times) and his determination. 

I wish him luck with the US, and with Iraq.

Posted by: TomGrey at 05/23/07 04:36 | link | comments (4)

Jew hate in Egypt

Scaramouche has a truly terrible story about the culture of Jew hate in Egypt, thru movies as noted in FrontLine:
A jumble of anti-Semitic tropes, the film revolves around a conspiratorial plotline: A Jewish family vacationing in the Sinai hides the fact that they are Israeli, while at the same time conspiring against Egyptians.  Each of the family members plays their respective sinister role.  Thus, the sexually promiscuous daughter seduces “good” Egyptian young men, while the son rapes the fiancé of an Egyptian.  The father, who is made to look like a pimp, works to further Israel’s interests.

The US and the Western media need to be more aware of Jew hate.

Posted by: TomGrey at 05/23/07 04:31 | link | comments
israel palestine

Win slowly in Iraq over time

PowerLine Forum is back up, so there is a popular thread about Republicans not willing to raise taxes to WIN in Iraq, ShrieK and Run.

It takes 40 years for a new maple tree to be mature enough to give sap for syrup -- many things take time.

Only Iraqis can win in Iraq, like only Vietnamese could have won in S. Vietnam.  In 1975, two years after the Paris Peace Accords (73), the Dem controlled cut funds for the pro-democracy but corrupt, inefficient, and cowardly S. Vietnamese -- who promptly lost to the embolded N. Viet commies.  And the Cambodia domino then rapidly fell to the Chinese supported Khmer Rouge evil commies -- the Dems voted IN FAVOR of genocidal Killing Fields.

It will take time, not money, for Iraq democratic society to mature and protect its new freedom for itslef.  How much money does it take for an 8 year old to be like an adult?  NO amount of money does it -- too much money might even hurt.


I think Bush should clearly state he's against raising any taxes, and will veto any tax increase EXCEPT a gas tax / carbon tax.  It's the hysterical Dems who fail to support any gas tax increase.

The current deficit is going down.  The more important long-term issue of debt is also going down.  Sending "paper" (money) to China, in retun for cheap Big Box Mart (see JibJab!) T shirts, is a pretty good deal for T shirt buyers.  If the Chinese won't increase the value of their currency, the value of the US Dollar will drift down -- but this means that the US debt, in Euros (constant value!), has hugely decreased under Bush.

The US should scrap all Farm Support, even before raising gas taxes; and then push Europe to scrap their even worse Common Ag Policy.


We can't decide to win in Iraq, only to keep fighting.  Or to stop fighting, and lose. 
Fight or lose are the actual two choices.

Posted by: TomGrey at 05/23/07 04:06 | link | comments
iraq

Right in Iraq -- DeBaath & disband Army

L. Paul Bremer writes in WaPo:
US DeBaath plan was good, but Iraqis extended it.
Disbanding the army was not really a choice, it was already done.
(via RedHunter)

I agree that Bremer made other, more important mistakes.

Posted by: TomGrey at 05/21/07 01:17 | link | comments
iraq

Leaving Iraq -- so the Sunnis receive genocide?

Michael Totten points to Fred Kagan's fine post on why we should not give up Iraq.

While I fully agree with Kagan's point, I think he's wrong on most of his history.
1) Abe Lincoln (who never fought) lost TOO MANY Americans fighting to "save the Union" and end slavery.  A peace with the South, allowing slavery, would not have been a disaster -- perhaps blacks AND women would get the vote at the same time, 50 years later or so.  Brazil ended slavery w/o a civil war. Morals changed.  The immorality of slavery was fighting against the S. elitist economic interest, as well as the racism.

2) Without attacking the Nazis, the US could have continued to support the USSR, and our big WW II ally Joe Stalin -- the world's most known mass murderer as of our 1942 alliance.  We could have fought and defeated Japan sooner, blockading them AND blockading Nazi Europe w/o a D-Day invasion in 44.  And waited for us to get the bomb while the National Socialist killers fought our International Socialist killer allies.
Probably FDR (who never fought) could have made "Poland would be a democracy after the war" a condition of any risky, high-cost invasion -- but didn't seem to.

FDR & Truman might well have required France to give up the Indochinese colonies they had already lost to the Japanese, as well-- that alone would have saved the US from Vietnam.

Nixon won Vietnam in Paris, 1973 -- but the Dem Party voted to lose in 1975, by cutting funding.  Too bad Kagan doesn't mention that the anti-Shah folk had learned how to beat America by watching the US vote in favor of losing.  (Though the USSR also decided to enter the quagmire of Viet, er, Afghanistan because of the same lesson.)

With the current Dem Party defeatist talk, those Majority Shia Generals know what it means if the US leaves.

It's ... genocide time.  For minority Sunnis.  Any remaining will be executed or become about as oppressed by the Shia as the Shia had been oppressed by the Baathists. And the US can apologize like it did for Cambodia? Or Rwanda?  Or is waiting for the (so slooowww Arab killers, can't they do anything right) Darfur genocide to end so they can promise "never again", again.

We are fighting to save the Sunnis from genocide.  It's noble and good, but it truly might not be worth it, if they don't recognize their own peril.

The US should have a special Guest Worker program for non-Baathist Sunnis of Iraq, and the 3-5 million (NOT Baathists nor immediate family) Iraqi Arab Sunnis, especially in Baghdad, should be offered GW visas for 4 years.  And start evacuating, now.

It's a VERY hard choice ... turn in your Sunni neighbor who is harboring a terrorist, or be quiet.  If you turn him in, and the AQ moles in the gov't identify you, you and your family might well be murdered.  If you don't turn them in, the terrorists will murder innocent Shia, and the death squad militias will be looking for justice, for the guilty.  And you, who knew, are not innocent...

The evacuation message to the other Sunnis will be "humane" limited action that the US can take that will most likely induce the local Sunnis to stop the Sunni terror killings.  Their choice must be known to them, stop Sunni terror or face Shia death squad genocide or run away. 

The saving lives with money is a silly illusion -- those countries with poverty are poor because of the terrible gov't, like ex-Rhodesia Zimbabwe.  More money won't end the poverty, but might well make the corruption even worse.

One reason America haters hate so much is that there is a mix of capitalism hatred.  Capitalism allows honest peaceful people to create wealth, but such creation is not equal.  Few Arab, or other poverty filled countries have any real capitalism, and "aid" doesn't encourage it. 

US "aid" in Iraq should have been loans, only -- under Iraq authority and responsibility.

Posted by: TomGrey at 05/21/07 00:03 | link | comments (2)
iraq, islamofascism

What Bush should have said

Don Surber does a great job on what Bush should have said:

I wish Bush had said, "We have difficult work to do in Iraq."

I wish Bush had said, "We're bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous."

I wish Bush said, "Our mission continues. Al-Qaida is wounded, not destroyed. The scattered cells of the terrorist network still operate in many nations, and we know from daily intelligence that they continue to plot against free people."

Of course, that is exactly what President Bush said on May 1, 2003.

Read it all

Posted by: TomGrey at 05/08/07 04:48 | link | comments
iraq, blogs

Does Neoneocon shave her legs?

Neo writes about human adjustment, and even mutilation.

C'mon Neo, I'll bet you've been turning yourself into a sex object for years as well --
by shaving your legs.

When I married my wife in 1994, she didn't; and I was happy.  But then she went to int'l conferences, like the big UN women's conf in Beijing in 1995, and she found out that most civilized women laughed at those women who didn't shave their legs.

So she started shaving, which is also OK, and I'm still happy. 


But it was women's nasty comments, not her husband, that made my wife want to shave.  I'm pretty sure some US friends didn't realize that my wife didn't shave when they made their honest, but insulting against non-shavers comments.

It's women that enforce the fashion norms.

Possibly even Golde Meir, a famous non-legacy female leader, recently mentioned on Michael Totten's blog, too.  I think this fits under my category "unreal perfection".

Posted by: TomGrey at 05/05/07 23:44 | link | comments
unreal perfection

A Hot Libertarian Mensa Babe-a bit bitchy

Yes, I mean JMPP - Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey.  Added to blogroll.

Clearly an Ayn Rand sort of superior woman, who apparently was overweight but changed her life.
(Change your life, change your wife, change into a 9 year old Hindu boy ... Tom Waits, sort of reminds of Kim)

I think I need a bit wider view of life than just politics.

But then again, maybe not.

Posted by: TomGrey at 05/05/07 23:20 | link | comments
blogs