Tuesday, February 16, 2010

HOT5 Daily 2/16/2010

1. "Clinton gets it wrong on Iranian nukes" Is there anything the administration is right about on Iran?

Representative Sample: her assessment of the potential threat to the U.S. does not comport with the evidence on Iran’s ballistic missile programs. Many U.S. facilities and thousands of American personnel are of course already within range of Iran’s short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, which Director of National Intelligence Adm. Dennis Blair recently testified (pdf) are “inherently capable of delivering WMD.”

2. "The tryanny of dreams" The dangers of utopianism.

Representative Sample: Socialist Utopian Robert Owen advocated, what he called" the scientific arrangement of the people." In such Utopian visions people are tools to be used, clay that formed at the hands of the visionary to fit his ideals. It is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The road to tyranny is similarly paved.

3. "Stuck On Stupid, Still" I have a visceral sympathy for this sort of view, but I don't think the overall situation lends itself to a maximum violence solution. Plus there's no way we have the political will in either party to carry out such a policy.

Representative Sample: I’m tired of our spineless government wasting our blood and treasure to fight the most minimal possible conflict. F*** that. Blow the living sh** out of everything and anything until there are no more enemies. Then come home. If this is how this “necessary war” is to be fought, tuck in your ties and bring our guys home. The 5000 years it will take to achieve any semblance of victory this way is not worth the price we will be forced to pay.

4. "O Death Penalty, Where Is Thy Sting?" Death penalty = way too slow and badly managed in almost every way possible.

Representative Sample: If we are to have the death penalty in this country, the system needs to be thoroughly reformed to prevent the gaming of it that has rendered the system absurd. A big part of the problem here, of course, is the duel sovereignty of the states and the federal government. Appeals bounce back and forth between the two justice systems with agonizing slowness.

5. "The raw face of the Death Star moon" That's no moon. Oh wait, actually it is. Includes images.

Representative Sample: Of all the moons in the solar system, Mimas is one of the most recognizable. And new pictures from Cassini show us again just why.

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