Beware What you Search For!

I went onto the Internet to find the web site of the London Philosophy Study Guide. To save time I entered acronym LPSG. What I got was the "Large Penis Study Group".  Clearly, the Google search engine knows what is really important.

Lite Beer

Ever since it was first introduced, the intensity and volume of TV advertising of "Lite Beer" has been monotonically increasing. It can now properly be characterized as a public nuisance. The motivation for this obsession by the brewers is probably two-fold. Firstly, it may be cheaper to produce than beer. Secondly, it is an appeal to the increasingly large intersection of the class of beer drinkers with that of the weight conscious.


For the person who drinks occasionally and then only a bottle or two, the caloric difference between lite and regular is trivial. This difference may be important for people who drink too much at a sitting, but, these deserve what they are getting.

The fundamental problem with lite beer is that is that it does not have a decent taste. It has no body; it is thin and usually bitter. It simply is not beer. It should be poured back into the horse.

Predator Drones

In the New York Times of December 4th, there is a long report on the use of predator drones to track down and slay members of the Taliban an al Qaeda. The use of such weaponry was very disturbing to Tom Parker, policy director for counterterrorism at Amnesty International. He is reported as saying, “Anything that dehumanizes the process makes it easier to pull the trigger.” It is not clear precisely what disturbs Mr. Parker. Killing in any form has been a common human activity since Cain became annoyed with Abel.


Mr. Parker implies that anything that emotionally detaches the shooter from the shootee is objectionably dehumanizing. High-level aerial bombardment or cannonade by long-range artillery would fit his criteria for emotional detachment. Low level strafing of troops, a sniper blowing a man’s head to pieces, or a suicide bomber on a bus full of people, is the proper way to kill.

Sometime, somewhere, someone must have observed that mankind’s supreme stupidity is the practice of war. The Geneva Convention attempts to delimit both the extent of the stupidity and (if this may be forgiven) its inhumanness.



What doesn’t Mr. Parker understand about waging war? Von Clausewitz stated it succinctly, “War is the continuation of policy by other means.” History tells us that ‘other means’ entails killing. It is not a chess game in which one acknowledges defeat by resigning. The entire point in pulling the trigger of a rifle, the lanyard of a fieldpiece, or pressing a bomb release is to kill someone. The ultimate governing principle is the (apocryphal) address by General Patton to his troops, “It is not your duty to die for your country; it is your duty to make the enemy die for his.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

The New York Times, December 3, 2009,  reports that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated $50 million to be spent in China over a 5 year period to combat a variety of sexually transmitted diseases. The aim of the program is certainly laudable but is it really necessary for an American based foundation to be supporting a health program in China which has foreign currency reserves estimated to include as much as $1 trillion?  Would that money not be better spent to create jobs in Pontiac, Michigan where the unemployment rate is 33% ?

What is it that we are not seeing?

Public Editor -The New York Times

In the Sunday, December 10, 2008 issue of the New York Times, Clark Hoyt, the Public Editor agonizes over "... what to call people who pursue political, religious, territorial, or unidentifiable goals through violence on civilians." There does exist a well-established rule for deciding. It comes from Hoyle's rules for poker. Simply put, it says that cards "speak for themselves". A player may not call two-pair a full-house. By analogy, these individuals should be called what they are, homicidal sociopaths.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Several days ago I received a communication from my college alumni association (City College of New York) concerning the 70th reunion of the class  of 1940.  Some personal data was requested.  I referred to the graduation yearbook and found something that brought back very sour memories.  The yearbook bore the dedication, "To the fight to keep America out of the war."  It was prepared during the months leading up to June 1940.  This period was was squarely in the middle of the era of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  It lasted from August 24, 1939 till June 22, 1941, the date on which Germany launched its attack on the Soviet Union.   The pact established spheres of influence in Eastern Europe that led inter alia to the divison of Poland between them.

Up till the signing of the pact, Nazi Germany was anethema on campus.  The day following the announcement of the pact, communist students and their adherents had an epiphany.  The Nazis immediately became enlightened nationalists and the Jews in Germany were troublemakers and deserving of all the trouble they were having.  There was also the chant, "To hell with England; let God save the King."  The campus was plastered with posters bearing the same legend.    On June 22, 1941, there was a new epiphany. Germany reverted to its previous status of vileness and and England became noble and worthy of total support.

The comunnist cohort of students had much more influence on campus they should have.  They were vocal and well organized. There was, however,  one goup of students beyond their influence or control: The members of the ROTC.  In the class yearbook, Microcosm, the graduating seniors were grouped in separate sections according to their School: Liberal Arts, Engineering, etc.  The communists had their revenge by segregating the ROTC graduates into a separate ROTC section.

The ROTC no longer exists at City.  When it did, it was the largest voluntary ROTC in the country. 

Purity of the Doctrine

A "Committee for the Preservation Of the Purity of the Doctrine" has been established by the Republican Party. An Executive Sub-Committee comprising

Ann Coulter
Glen Beck
Rush Limbaugh
Sarah Palin
Tim Pawlenty

has ben appointed. TV Channel Fox 5, in the New York tri-state area is the sanctioned media outlet for authorized pronouncements.

The first order of business of the Committee is consideration of a proposal that when the Republican Party retakes control of the Congress, an Auto-de-Fa will be held on the mall for the purification of deviant members of the Party of Lincoln.