Posts Tagged ‘epistemology’

Why Knowing Stuff Matters Post-9/11

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

Doing research for an article about US-Iranian relations coming (relatively) soon to a newsstand near you, I encountered some eye-grabbing verses from the Shahnameh (”book of great kings”), the national epic not only of Persia/Iran, but the whole expanse of the Airyanem Vaejah (modern Persian: Iran-vez, whence the name “Iran”), the “Aryan lands” divinely consecrated by Ahura Mazda and civilized by Cyrus the Great (Old Persian: Kurush Xsyathiya Vazraka) and his descendants. The epic poem was composed by Ferdowsi c. 1000 years after the birth of Jesus and somewhere between 1100 and 7000 years after the birth of Zoroaster (Avestan: Zarathushtra, modern Persian: Zartosht). It includes these lines: (more…)

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(Briefly) Getting On Board The Straight Talk Express

Monday, July 14th, 2008

The fact that John McCain doesn’t know or understand, as noted below, the mechanism by which Social Security is funded, tends to vitiate whatever credit he might derive from his statement that the Social Security system is an “absolute disgrace.” (For example, since he has no rational grounds to support his view, it provides no basis for arriving at further positions of equal justificatory standing.) Nonetheless, he’s right.

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Confederacy Of Dunces and Jerks

Saturday, July 12th, 2008

For very obvious reasons, the apparent decision by smart conservatives like Amity Shlaes, as well as not smart conservatives like Fred Barnes, to double-down on Phil Gramm’s suggestion that America is becoming “a nation of whiners,” is about as execrable a political tactic as putting “tough Mike” Dukakis in a tank. (Indeed, if not for the conventionally-wise frame in which left-wing criticism of American culture is deemed anti-American or at least unpatriotic, whereas right-wing criticism of American culture can fill in the lyrics of a Souza march, we would likely have already heard a chorus of chatting heads making (spurious) comparisons between Gramm and Jeremiah Wright.) Of course, those conservatives rushing to defend Gramm are perfectly well aware that they are compounding John McCain and the GOP’s problems. The thought seems to be, “impolitic truths are still truths, and we as courageous truth-tellers won’t back down because we might offend some overly sensitive souls.”

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