Tom has had enough of Bush’s pathetic “leadership”: “Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.” Read the… Continue reading

Remember that spooky thrill when the Borg were first introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation? They were built up as being the ultimate enemy, or at least an enemy that might be too tough for the starship Enterprise. And they were scary. They lived in a giant flying cube and operated as a collection… Continue reading

Here is an interesting essay by David Brooks which argues, with some supporting data, that globalization isn’t the big causal force most of us take it to be. What’s really changing the manufacturing landscape is technological innovation — jobs are being shifted because of new and better machines and processes. It is the “cognitive age,”… Continue reading

Here in the NYT, by Roy Blount, Jr. Sounds like an uneven collection of things found in Kurt’s desk — but with enough jewels to make it worthwhile. Continue reading

Confession time. Here, in order, are the movies that make me laugh like a hyena: 1. Norbit 2. Honey, I Shrunk the Baby 3. Monsters, Inc. 4. Toy Story II I’ll add more as I remember them. Continue reading

The International Crisis Group recently offered an assessment of Iraq’s progress, somewhat rosier than one might otherwise expect. Here is the good news: “The Sunni insurgency has been seriously weakened. Previously marginalised Sunni tribes found in the U.S. a new patron and turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq. Increasingly divided and with several important groups co-opted… Continue reading

We just watched In the Valley of Elah last night. It stars Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron (both great actors) and is a kind of murder mystery which brings out the ways that war can twist a young mind. Really well made — patient, exciting, intelligent. Jones probably should have been nominated for some… Continue reading

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“It is not about adding more for the sake of more. Nor is it a minimalist, ‘less is more’ attitude. It is about allowing the end-user to decide how to use a creative work, and providing the opportunity to assimilate it to some extent; to make it one’s own. But assimilation is not the final… Continue reading

I think I have finished “Act II” of the Nietzsche book. (So, there is an “Overture,” an “Act I” which covers The Birth of Tragedy and Untimely Meditations, and “Act II” which covers Human, all too Human). Next will come “Act III,” where I’ll try to take on Thus Spake Zarathustra. It intimidates me; there… Continue reading

My family and I just had an 8-day vacation in Costa Rica. Great time: stayed in a deluxe treehouse, explored the rainforest, swam in the ocean, crossed the jungle on hanging bridges, floated down a river, saw an erupting volcano, met lovely people and ate great food. Then a “pure life” experience: my daughter was… Continue reading

I won’t be checking in at huenemanniac for the next couple weeks. Will resume April 21! Continue reading

Lately I have been encountering many different expressions of just how different our world today is from anything we have faced in the past. For a review of the geopolitical situation, see Tom Barnett’s short lecture here; for an update on genomics, look here; and for the classic “Shift Happens” presentation, look here. The upshot… Continue reading

That “Back to Nietzsche” post set off a firefight (a philosophically friendly one, I hope), and one of the issues that came up has to do with the relation between naturalism and metaphysics. “Naturalism” can mean many things, but one widespread meaning in philosophy is this: naturalism is the view that contemporary science is (roughly)… Continue reading

Here is a “jaw-dropping” short lecture by Craig Venter on what’s going on in contemporary genomics. Fascinating stuff, especially to me, since my wife Jeannine just got a job with a genomics center on campus. (We say she’s working on the “Huenemann Jeanninome” project.) Looks pretty clear that creating artifical life isn’t too far away. Continue reading

Provocative passage from Nietzsche, Human, all too Human: For this reason a higher culture must give to man a double-brain, as it were two brain ventricles, one for the perceptions of science, the other for those of non-science: lying beside one another, not confused together, separable, capable of being shut off; this is the demand… Continue reading

See his reasoning here. Compelling (though I was pro-Obama to begin with). Continue reading

Here’s a different analogy, meant to be a little closer to the truth than the last one. Imagine a tough neighborhood, say in the Bronx. The police are all on permanent holiday. Chaos ensues — rioting, looting, etc. — but eventually a few gangs emerge as dominant, and one in particular is truly Dominant. They… Continue reading

I have been reading Tom Barnett’s latest book, Blueprint for Action (see his blog here). He is much more hawkish than I have been, but then again knows a helluva lot more than I do about the international situation. It’s forced me to try to educate myself a little bit about foreign policy matters —… Continue reading

I’m pleased to report that Understanding Rationalism is now in the top 409,000 in sales at amazon.com! Woo-hoo! When will the movie be out?! Continue reading

I have been looking for a site that provides meaty information about Presidential candidates’ views, and this might be it. You can see the voting records and summaries of remarks made by each candidate on various issues. Be sure to scroll toward the bottom of each candidate’s page, since there is a useful summary of… Continue reading

The Nz book is coming along. I have a draft of the “Overture,” which is an overview of his life and philosophy; a draft of “Act I,” which is about the misty romantic metaphysics lying being Birth of Tragedy and Untimely Meditations — roughly, the idea is that Greek drama and Wagnerian opera both have… Continue reading

Once there was a man in a forest with a hammer, nails, and 23 pieces of lumber. The forest was thick and it was hard to see through it. So he started hammering some of the lumber onto a nearby tree, and made a ladder. He used up all 23 pieces, and wasn’t very far… Continue reading

Here is an interesting review of a book which links up to the question of culture. Apparently, the book claims that academics in cultural studies have brought a kind of “democracy” to the study of culture, which is good in some ways, since no one is likely to get excluded, but bad in some ways,… Continue reading

Mike asked about my view regarding Nz’s view toward other people. (Or “the Other” as some people like to say, but I’m not sure what that means if it doesn’t means “other people”). So here goes. Biographically, Nz wasn’t always a loner. He had a small circle of friends in high school, joined a fraternity… Continue reading