A sampling:

Most of it doesn’t matter.

Waiting to do something until you can be sure of doing it exactly right means waiting for ever.

Trying to please other people is largely a futile activity.

Everything takes twice as long as you plan for and produces results about half as good as you hoped.

See also Augustine's Laws.

Things I wish I’d known when I was younger

Today, of course, the United States finds itself in much the same position as Britain in 1781. Distracted and diminished by an irrelevant, costly and probably unwinnable war in Iraq, America could ultimately find itself challenged by countries like China and India.

by

Michael Rose, a retired British Army general, commanded the United Nations forces in the former Yugoslavia from 1994 to 1995.

This is an interesting perspective on the American Revolutionary War that you don't hear often over here. Adam originally recommended it but he linked the second page, so I'm linking the first instead.

The defeat that made Britain great - International Herald Tribune

This is a really great article. Maybe the history and conclusions are already familiar to people who read MemeStreams but it wraps them up very clearly.

Today's global liberal democratic order faces two challenges. The first is radical Islam -- and it is the lesser of the two challenges. Although the proponents of radical Islam find liberal democracy repugnant, and the movement is often described as the new fascist threat, the societies from which it arises are generally poor and stagnant. They represent no viable alternative to modernity and pose no significant military threat to the developed world. It is mainly the potential use of weapons of mass destruction -- particularly by nonstate actors -- that makes militant Islam a menace.

The second, and more significant, challenge emanates from the rise of nondemocratic great powers: the West's old Cold War rivals China and Russia, now operating under authoritarian capitalist, rather than communist, regimes. Authoritarian capitalist great powers played a leading role in the international system up until 1945. They have been absent since then. But today, they seem poised for a comeback.

Noteworthy says: "I am skeptical of the idea that Russia is poised for a comeback. Putin and his government may be poised, but the people are not. Russia will have a political role, due to its Security Council seat, but economically, what does it have to offer?"

I don't agree. I think the article's analysis is right on. Admitedly, Russia and China have a long way to go before they rival the United States economically. There may be certain energy constraints that make a rivalry difficult to acheive. The core question is at what point does their economy enable them to challenge the US militarily. I don't think military challenge requires economic parity.

I would go one further than this article. I think that China and Russia are already challenging the US, and that Islamic militancy is in some respects part of that challenge. Who backs Hezbollah? Syria? Well, who backs Iran? Who is responsible for Darfur? China and Russia enable Iran to create instability in Iraq and Israel. China is the problem, and the solution can only come through China. I think its quite possible that we're not really at war with militant Islam. We're in a proxy war with China. Things are actually not that different than they were decades ago.

I also think this article underscores why what happens here is so important... Why battles over government surveillance, habeas corpus, checks and balances and the like really matter. They matter because the United States is the great liberal democratic power. There are a large number of people in this country who don't like the liberal part of liberal democracy. People who hate the constraints that the Constitution places on the exercise of majoritarian power and are eager to tear those constraints apart ... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers | Foreign Affairs

We live in an age of anxiety.

People everywhere fear the next terrorist attack. Meanwhile, we slowly grow numb to Iraq’s endless string of kidnappings and suicide bombings. Between bird flu, tsunamis, and loose nukes, our list of fears is getting longer.

So, we asked 21 leading thinkers: What is one solution that would make the world a better place?

Here are their answers.

These articles are short and to the point. A few are naive but several of them are quite good. In particular I like the Internet Security idea. Unfortunately, many require a subscription to read in full.

21 Solutions to Save the World

WASHINGTON -- In a victory for TV networks but a setback for efforts to shield children from coarse language, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that broadcasters cannot be penalized for expletives that are considered impromptu.

The three-judge panel in New York repudiated the Federal Communications Commission's recent crackdown on broadcast indecency, calling its efforts "arbitrary and capricious."

My gut reaction is that this will be overturned on appeal, but the ruling makes for VERY interesting reading if you are interested in broadcast free speech (still going through it). Also, the response from the FCC is hillarious.

One important point that is worth making is that this is NOT a reversal of the general rule regarding the use of indecent speech on the air.

Basically, it is not as simple as "you can't say fuck on the air" and it has never been that simple. (For example, can you explain the difference between profanity and indecency? The decision discusses this and its quite interesting.) Since 2003 the FCC has started enforcing a new prohibition on "off the cuff," isolated cursing that didn't exist before. This decision concerns that rule and has nothing to do with prohibitions on general indecency that have existed for decades.

Judges toss FCC rule on cursing | Chicago Tribune

Hari & Parker do Junior Big Brother. Hari and Parker are cute little toys that love to hang around.
They watch and listen – and they look great in a child's bedroom. The cute characters are in fact the speculative instruments of a government campaign to promote and encourage children to commit subtle acts of domestic surveillance.
Hari has a microphone ear and Parker a video-camera nose and fingerprint-scanner paw.

The Hari&Parker brand is instantly recognisable. Their reassuring faces can be found on toys,

"Better be nice to me, or I'll send you to guantanamo..."

The Science of Spying - Part 3

k wrote:
I want some pro-lifers who share the aforementioned mindset to square that opinion with the universal Republican tenet of personal responsibility and a federal government that provides little to no entitlement programs.

Sure, but this is why you mostly can't be a real partisan while thinking. There are plenty of fundamental contradictions on the left too (we support civil liberties but hold hearings on video game violence and offensive lyrics in rock music).

The issue is that the Republicans are a big tent with multiple conflicting interests. They've rounded up the Christian vote by being anti-abortion and anti-gay. However, they're also anti-tax and anti-welfare and anti-entitlement. Those positions are often inconsistent.

Some DO look at this from a perspective of abortion is murder so you can't do that and no we're not going to pay for medical care, life is tough, deal with it. We can force you to pay to keep Terri Shivo on life support but we will not pay for it ourselves. Not our problem. We're here to keep you from doing things that we think are immoral, and thats it. You are otherwise on your own.

However, I don't really think this perspective is widely held outside of the "I think what AM radio tells me to" crowd. Most of the anti-tax/anti-welfare/anti-entitlement people don't really care about abortion or gay rights or whatever. They just don't care either way. Its not important enough to them to let it impact their vote. They care about economic liberty, and whatever they have to have to get it, thats OK with them.

On the other hand, most of the Christian right is not really as callous as their present issue portfolio and recent leaders like Falwell would have you beleive. There are a large number of evangelicals who see the obsenity/abortion/gay morality push as insignificant in comparison to other issues such as peace and welfare for the poor which are clearly Christian values and clearly not served by the Republicans. This is actually causing some significant strategic problems for the Republicans as some Evangelicals are shifting left. While they won't get the hard bible thumping from the left and mostly have to give up on fighting sodomy, they get some of their social welfare stuff, and they get people who are more than willing to censor the media and are also willing to work on abortion reduction, which some of them view as strategically smart if less absolutist. They also get to be a bit more pacifist, which suits them better.

If there is a sudden "reformation" in the ranks of conservative christians you may see a dramatic do-see-do occur on the order of magnitude of the dixiecrat shift from the 30's, in which Rebublicans become more Libertarian and take on some of the social freedom elements of the left while Democrats become more socialist and take on the values conservative elements of the right. The real question is, who would end up winning elections in that scenario?

RE: Republican Presidential Candiates on Torture

...
Because of my recycling, the bomb squad came, then the state police. Because of my recycling, buildings were evacuated, classes were canceled, the campus was closed. No. Not because of my recycling. Because of my dark body. No. Not even that. Because of his fear. Because of the way he saw me. Because of the culture of fear, mistrust, hatred and suspicion that is carefully cultivated in the media, by the government, by people who claim to want to keep us "safe."
...

Here is the AP report.

Culture of Fear: Poetry Professor Becomes Terror Suspect

"Talking" CCTV cameras that tell off people dropping litter or committing anti-social behaviour are to be extended to 20 areas across England.

They are already used in Middlesbrough where people seen misbehaving can be told to stop via a loudspeaker, controlled by control centre staff.

About �500,000 will be spent adding speaker facilities to existing cameras.

Shadow home affairs minister James Brokenshire said the government should be "very careful" over the cameras.

BBC NEWS | UK | England | 'Talking' CCTV scolds offenders

I've known one woman to have one of these. She was very anti-choice. The baby that she so wanted was found at just under 7 months to have severe hydrocephalus and spinal bifida. She was told there was no question the child would be profoundly mentally retarded and would need life long institutional care. After a few weeks of prayer, her and her husband decided to have the procedure.

I think this is exactly the sort of realistic and difficult scenario that comes up with optional late term abortions and often isn't frankly discussed. People talk about rape, incest, and the health of the mother. There is another scenario: The baby may be broken, severely. Is it murder to abort such a pregnancy? This is going to become a vital question very soon now, and I think that searching for theological explanations is as useful here as it is in explaining the age of the planet. This is a deep moral, philosophical problem that absolutely requires an analysis of the alternatives on their impact and merit. I don't really know if anyone deeply addresses this, and I think popping out with a strict interpretation of some scriptural verse is a cop out that avoids taking this issue head-on and does not properly prepare people to handle this situation.

RE: Late Term Abortion Ban Upheld by Supreme Court