StructuredDream

General Wesley Clark, of the Afghanistan war: "I was one of the ones that said we should go to Afghanistan - I never had a problem with that." Is his claim accurate?  It seems incredible to me that Clark believes there is "no problem" if the U.S. orders military invasion of country that is not a threat, on the pretext it "refused to hand over Osama bin Laden" when ordered to do so by the leader of another country.  The government of Afghanistan was even told they would be given no evidence of anything: no evidence Osama bin Laden was implicated in any crime, no evidence he was ever located in Afghanistan - but they were threatened. Surely Gen. Clark knows this is illegal and immoral behavior...How could he not?

In this interview regarding the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, Mattilda Bernstein claims it is ridiculous to improve access (of LGBT people) to a monstrous, out of control threat to world stability which murders on an industrial scale.  Bernstein rightly added that this killing and destruction is overwhelmingly for the benefit of corporate profiteers, the politicians they purchase, and maintaining the systems supporting their power. West Point graduate Dan Choi argued that LGBT equality would provide greater credibility for an argument against militarism, since currently the system discriminates, undermining any greater question of militarism's morality, and making such questions moot by critics like Bernstein.  I tend to think that the defect in Choi's response might be more apparent if we apply this argument to a well understood historical example with which most Americans are familiar. If we were living in the antebellum South,...

As a systems analyst, project manager and feral philosopher of science over the past 20+ years, I’ve followed the exciting developments which are now considered foundations of complexity theory.  I had the good fortune to work at IBM during Benoit Mandelbrot’s last years there.  Mandelbrot, the inventor of fractal geometry and the Mandelbrot Set, died last month after an astounding life.  Underlying chaos theory and complex systems ideas, Mandelbrot’s discoveries are well recognized to have incredibly broad application, but to me one of the most revealing realizations of his work is the relationship between the standards and methods of measurement selected, and the results obtained relative to natural structures. Complexity theory, which could not have been developed without such concepts, deals with complex systems which come in three types: non-linear systems, chaotic, and complex adaptive.  Complexity theory evolved largely in an effort to explain recognizable st...

I just recently became aware of a film titled "Radiografia de una mentira", or "X-ray of a Lie" in English.  "Radiografia" claims to summarize the results and conclusions of a debate held regarding the "distorted version" of  facts presented by the film "The Revolution will not be Televised".  The focus and purpose of the debate: "to unravel the mechanisms of such manipulations." Although my experience with Spanish is insufficient to assess nuances of meaning, the English subtitles and much of the video clips indict the film as grossly incompetent in presenting its case, at best.  Crowd estimates do not appear supported by the videos, Chavez' resignation during a coup and while under military siege is called "voluntary", while the self-declared president (usurper?) was "forced" to resign when the lawful government was being restored.  No mention is made that Chavez was taken prisoner (or perhaps hostage...