Links Archive

Jul 4, 2008

Known Unknowns→

Matthew Yglesias asks Kevin Drum how he knows that the Bush administration isn’t using their domestic wiretapping program in a manner any different from that of the Nixon administration. Not surprisingly, there’s evidence that this has happened. (Via Edge of the American West.)

I also thought this was a great comment on EotAW:

But can he claim it with certainty? Can he rule out that he’s a brain in a vat?

That kind of behavior does not give philosophers a good reputation.

Bryan Klausmeyer

Jul 4, 2008

Preparing the Battlefield→

Seymour Hersh has written a an extremely thorough and insightful article on the Bush administration’s ongoing effort to start a war with Iran in the New Yorker, detailing the covert actions undertaken by the White House against Iran over the past year or so, as well as Congress’ capitulation to the GOP war machine. Highly recommended reading. (Via 3 Quarks Daily.)

Bryan Klausmeyer

Jul 3, 2008

Laruellian / Lacanian Clones→

An interesting take on Lacan’s borromean knot and the notion of “cloning,” taken from the non-philosophy of Francois Laruelle. I’m not totally sure how reading Lacan through speculative realism (or vice versa) illuminates anything in particular, but then again I don’t think I quite understand what the author is getting at. It’s definitely an article worth reading though.

Bryan Klausmeyer

Jul 3, 2008

YouTube Users, Meet Your Big Other→

Some stupid judge has recently ordered that all of your (yes, you! the one in TIME’s shiny magazine reflection!) YouTube histories are now the property of the giant asshole company known as Viacom, even though this ruling explicitly violates the Video Privacy Protection act. But when have laws ever mattered when it comes to multi-billion-dollar media conglomerates? GO RON PAUL!!!!!

To celebrate this stupendous achievement of individual rights, I’ve decided to publicly air my latest YouTube viewing habits to the public in an act of exhibitionism that will surely echo throughout the black hole that is the Internet:

Bryan Klausmeyer

Jul 3, 2008

The Trouble with Anti-Elitism→

I agree wholeheartedly with Yglesias’ points, but I would add that the first people to scream J’accuse! are often themselves the elitists.

Bryan Klausmeyer

Jul 3, 2008

From Triumph to Torture→

It’s a tragedy that any government is allowed to do something like this and get away with it, and I wouldn’t consider myself a committed partisan in terms of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but if Israel is trying to make itself appear as a victim of Palestinian terrorist aggression, things like this are certainly brutal reminders of the truth. (Via Lenin’s Tomb.)

Bryan Klausmeyer

Jun 29, 2008

The Possibility of Time Travel→

I just ran across this interesting article on time travel published by BBC News. The basic idea is that there are essentially two formulas: (a) time travel is not possible (ostensibly because we have never encountered its affects in the present) or (b) time travel is possible, but something is preventing it from changing the present. As the article points out, option (a) seems more intuitive, but option (b) is certainly plausible insofar as Einstein’s general theory of relativity points to a space-time curvature in which time loops back over itself (and, derivatively, that quantum physics does not distinguish between moving back and forward in time).

In attempting to articulate a more cohesive materialist formula for examining history, I thought this passage was particularly interesting, especially in regards to its Hegelian flavor:

It is as if, in some strange way, the present takes account of all the possible routes back into the past and, because your father is certainly alive, none of the routes back can possibly lead to his death.

I think it’s also worth pointing out, at least humorously, that the entire article is postulated around the murder of one’s father, which will no doubt elicit a smirk from psychoanalytically-informed readers.

Bryan Klausmeyer