Ah, yes. One of my favorite passive-aggressive gambits. Insult Criticize someone in a comment to a different poster. When the person criticized respon...
More murderous than WW1, WW2, the 100 Years War, the 30 Years War, the Mongol invasions, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Khmer Ro...
Definition of "heap" - a disorderly collection of objects placed haphazardly on top of each other. Definition of "collection" - a group of things or p...
The foundations of much (most?) of the trouble we see in the world today were built by the actions of colonial nations in the 18th and 19th centuries ...
Baloney. The US browbeat our allies into grudgingly going along with our shenanigans. How many of those 35 countries do you think still supported the ...
I don't see that it's cynical or condescending at all. If it's facile, explain the more nuanced view you prefer. Much of the history of the world is m...
No matter how wonderful and nice Iraq was before Hussein and no matter how terrible it was afterwards, it's just none of our damned business. It's not...
Yes. I think this provides the best explanation of how we stepped in the Iraq dog do. Dog doo? Dog due? Dog dew? Dog d'oh. I don't know if this policy...
I agree with much of what you say, but I think the war would have been wrong even if we did have the expertise you discuss and, more important, the wi...
Of course it is, although, as you noted, the sanctions were not effective. We probably should have gotten rid of those too. As everyone knows, Iraq wa...
Both the Gene Wilder "Willy Wonka" and "the Wizard of Oz" are mainstream fantasy movies based on famous books. Not weird at all. And they are both won...
No, Saddam Hussein did not have to go. The world is full of dictators. It's not our job to get rid of them all. It's not in our national interest. It ...
I agree, but I don't think "familiarity" is the right word. I think it's something more deep-seated. I think that's the reason it's a tougher argument...
You and I agree on this, but what gives me pause is that some divisions do seem more "natural" than others. A bunch of sand may or may not be a heap, ...
Criticizing the words and actions of Donald Rumsfeld and recognizing the consequences of those actions is not the same thing as gloating over his deat...
I think this is really wrong-headed. When I say "hello" to someone on the street, when I open the door for someone, when I speak calmly about importan...
First off, I don't judge Rumsfeld as a person at all. I do judge him as a Secretary of Defense - very bad. War criminal? Maybe. I take no pleasure in ...
Yes, our friend Banno can be a pain in the ass. I have no objections to you giving him a hard time, it's certainly something he likes to do to others....
I wasn't questioning your usage, I just wanted to make sure I understood. In the good old days, it was after the marriage had been "consummated." Wink...
A bunch of sand with a million grains, or a trillion or a quadrillion, would not be a heap if they were spread out on a surface a single grain thick. ...
This is what Wikipedia says about "essentialism." Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity....
Following the Clark method, developed by philosopher T Clark in 2021, there would be a way to determine when a single grain turns a non-heap into a he...
If we cared enough, which we don't, we could set up a method for determining the meaning of "heap" the same way they measure the toxicity of a substan...
I don't think there is any good reason to fiddle around with "heap" to make it more precise, but if there were, this would be a good way of going abou...
I feel differently. I don't think things exist as phenomena separate from the undifferentiated world until someone like us brings them into existence ...
Since you were here, the population of seals has grown dramatically because of restrictions on killing them. That would be fine, but there has also be...
I like oysters a lot, but I always eat them raw. The flavor of these oysters as compared to our Wellfleets, for example, is like the difference betwee...
Oddly enough, "Kropsua" also means "Dutch baby." It looks really good, maybe like a popover, which is universally acclaimed as the best food in the hi...
I would also like to say that the Netherlands is my favorite country that I've visited in Europe. It's just about a tie with Germany, but that's becau...
I think the name is more in reference to the fact that the land is low in relation to sea level, but, since the purpose of this whole discussion is to...
I don't think I understand what you mean by "worldly" or "phenomenological" in this situation. "Heap" is a label we put on a phenomenon we observe in ...
I said the distinction between what is considered a heap and what isn't is arbitrary. Maybe I used the wrong word. The line we draw between heap and n...
It's always seemed to me that the real issue with the so-called "Sorites paradox" isn't that the idea of a heap is vague so it's hard to know what is ...
And do you know American's idea of the Dutch? Nothing. We know nothing about the Netherlands. We don't know any famous Dutch people. Hans Brinker I gu...
You should read the original paper too. It's well written and clear and is available on the web. The first couple of pages are simple and straightforw...
For non-fiction, very often when I look at original sources I find unexpected and surprising information. Examples: Special relativity - "On the Elect...
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