Israeli attacks on Gaza

I am not really that interested in the rights or wrongs of it. A plague on both their houses. But I must say I am extremely unimpressed with Norwegian press coverage of the attacks. Generally one criticises the press for giving both sides equal weight, even if the one is a raving madman. It is [...]

Symbolic gestures

So I see the Norwegian government has managed to get a WHOLE BUNCH of nations to sign a treaty banning cluster munitions, and are quite proud of themselves. Well done, pat-pat. It’s just a pity that none of the nations who both use them and actually matter are going to sign – you know, one-province [...]

I disagree with Dawkins

Edit: Never mind; I am indeed doing the man an injustice, as shown by his comments here. I’ll leave the post up anyway, because I am still making a point I believe true, even if I’m arguing with a straw man.

Difficult decisions

Congress has just made a Really Epic Mistake, or else they have shown firm courage and principle in a difficult time. I wish I knew which it is.
It does seem to me, though, that the cries of “Great Depression! Great Depression!” we have been hearing from bailout backers may be a little too pessimistic. [...]

Bombing hurricanes

It seems another one is going to hit the coast somewhere, a few days after Gustav is done. I hope nobody makes the argument that this proves global warming; hurricanes are a low-frequency Poisson-distributed process and you can’t show that their rate has increased until you’ve collected data for several years, or preferably decades. Which [...]

Another reason this is not 1938

So, as is predictable, the far right are screaming “Munich! Munich!” at the top of their lungs, the far left are screaming “OMG Bush Iraq” at the top of their lungs, and the moderates are screaming “Godwin! Godwin!” at the top of their lungs, and in the noise all parties are forgetting something rather important. [...]

Limited wars

It seems that Russia will be content to just annex the two disputed territories, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and leave Georgia otherwise intact, if chastened. (Anyway, that’s my prediction for the outcome of the peace talks.) If so, it’s an example of how limited Great Power aims are these days. The likes of Stalin would [...]

Georgia

Worrying, to say the least. Ossetia is one thing; the rights of the matter aren’t all so clear, and Russia has a reasonable case. But the rest of Georgia is something else again. It seems to me that this is not really about 60000 people and an insignificant city; it’s about Russia sending a message, [...]