The UN refugee agency estimates that over a million people have fled. Many of them are hiding in the jungle, and many of them have no food. However, it piously avoids saying who is fleeing whom, and why. The great majority of refugees are westernized Christians and animists fleeing Muslims with a markedly lower level …
Author: Jim
The survival prospects of democracy
Until the American Republic demonstrated impressive longevity, the conventional wisdom was that democracy was inherently short lived. As soon as the masses discovered they could vote themselves rich, it would implode. Today, we observe that if it does not fall apart immediately, the elite import cheaper votes, and then it falls apart. The latest casualty …
Consensus
When Galileo explained the scientific method, he condemned consensus: The testimony of many has little more value than that of few, since the number of people who reason well in complicated matters is much smaller than that of those who reason badly. If reasoning were like hauling I should agree that several reasoners would be …
The end is not nigh
But it is in sight. There is a lot of ruin in a nation, but we have had a lot of ruin. The US government lacks cohesion, and is insolvent. Lack of cohesion means that in a crisis it is apt to disappear, dissolve into its parts, with each part seeking its own interest. Insolvency …
Who rules the world?
Tracing rulers academic connections yields an interesting picture. Thus Mugabe, like so many third world rulers, comes from the London School of Economics, but Harry Lee Kuan Yew was educated in Singapore. And lo and behold, Mugabe was installed in power by the “international community†aka the tranzis, while Harry Lee Kuan Yew was installed …
Hide the decline, part umpteen
Stephan and Rachit cored lots of trees, to estimate weather in past years. In a cold climate, near the tree line, a tree will generally grow more if the weather is warm than if it is cold, though lots of other things affect it too. Still, if you check lots of trees over a wide …
Conservative bloggers declare victory
According to Strata and others, the outcome of the budget negotiations (to reduce by one percent spending that was recently increased by by thirty percent) was a mighty victory. By a vote of approximately ten to one, the US House of Representatives voted to continue at slightly lower speed on a course that leads to …
The shape of things to come
We are seeing a political singularity – the leftwards slide that has been under way since 1710 or so is going faster and faster. Many people have already commented on the ludicrous absurdity of calling 1% cuts in a budget that rose 27% in three years, “drasticâ€. Supposedly this makes the Tea Party not merely …
Theocracy
All Most theocratic religions are officially anti theocratic, in the sense that supposedly people believe in the official religion because it is simply the truth, not because of state sponsorship, and if anyone doubts the truth, they are supposedly seeking the power that rightly belongs to those who preach what is simply the truth, so …
Laffer curve
If the government taxes 0% of GDP, it will not get any money. If it attempts to tax 100% of GDP it will not get any money either, since there will be no above ground wealth. So somewhere between 0% and 100% is the tax that maximizes revenue. Genghis Kahn and Raffles believed that the …