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Category: Our World

  • Journalism’s Mea Culpa?

    George Rebane Was interested to see the nearby full-page ad in the 3jan18 WSJ.  Given that ignorance, indifference, ideology, illiteracy, … are all qualities that often decorate and distinguish their ‘factual, fair, and balanced’ work products, RR has long viewed the journalism profession with a gimlet eye (here).  But now things have apparently gotten so…

  • Scattershots – 21dec17 (updated 23dec17)

    George Rebane Shortest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere) – winter solstice, a time for all kinds of alternative belief systems to hold ceremonies honoring their deities, ancestors, dark spirits, …, and, of course, Gaia.  Here in Nevada County (lat 39.13 degrees) the sun will climb to only 27.37 degrees above the southern…

  • ‘Communism’s Bloody Century’ (Addended)

    George Rebane The titled essay (here) by Princeton historian Dr Stephen Kotkin provides an important critical review of the system of governance under which many still live and many more actively promote.  Under autocratic governments socialism’s logical terminus has been communism, as the attempt to fix socialism’s indigenous failures is always through ratcheting up the…

  • The Singularity is Nearer

    George Rebane Have you noticed over the years when we have met in these pages to talk about the Singularity, that today finally everyone is talking about it in one fashion or another.  It’s as if suddenly everyone who reads is being introduced to the newest developments in AI and the possible futures it portends…

  • ‘Is Classical Liberalism Conservative?’

    George Rebane The so-titled recent essay (here) by Yoram Hazony, president of the Jerusalem-based Herzl Institute, poses this question and sheds considerable light on the answer.  To prematurely cut to the chase, Hazony argues that modern conservatives and classical liberals have recently drifted apart in many significant ways.  In the sequel I attempt to summarize…

  • Scattershots – 14oct17 (updated 16oct17)

    George Rebane President Trump will stop subsidizing insurance companies – i.e. stop the Treasury from making ‘cost sharing reductions’ (CSRs) that allow the health insurers to reduce premium and deductible costs required to slow down the capsizing of the ACA (aka Obamacare).  The CSRs were instituted by Obama’s executive order in 2011 as one of…

  • Max Tegmark, welcome aboard!

    George Rebane The Singularity must really be near when we have MIT physicist Max Tegmark climb aboard with the spate of science and industry luminaries who have recently discovered that intelligent machines will someday surpass humans, will systemically displace human labor, and (in a TBD form) will become the dominant lifeform on Earth.  Dr Tegmark…

  • Scattershots – 7aug17 (updated 9aug17)

    George Rebane A most puzzling question – why is Putin acting as if Russia’s chances for achieving its national interests under the present US-led world order are worse than under an unknown world order that will arise when/if Putin, Islam, and the American Left successfully upsets US leadership? Absent any believable and propitious policy initiatives…

  • By Whose Rockets’ Red Glare? (updated?)

    ‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.’ George Rebane After North Korea’s demonstration of its ICBM a few days ago (here), I am more convinced than ever that China will do nothing to remove that threatening thorn from our side – it will never happen.  Bear with me as I weave some of…

  • On Responding to Russia

    George Rebane One would think that the record of these pages, which includes a considerable revelation of my background, would have cleared up any questions of how I view America’s relationship with and policy toward Russia – apparently not.  So let me attempt to spell it out.  For those expecting a simple view about Russia…

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