Fascinating and horrifying

I recently read this interview with a terrorist recruiter in the UK Prospect. It's quite long but worth reading. The recruiter is some unassimilated Pakistani Brit who seems quite terrifying in his certainty. It brought to mind two things.

1. It is uncanny how accurate Eric Hoffer was in describing this sort of person in The True Believer as rootless, no strong family, no national identity, no sense of self etc.
2. The current situation seems to be similar to the international(ist) unrest Trotsky had in mind before he was forced out by Stalin. That is to say; having active agents throughout the world with no strong connections to the center of the movement. The Global Guerillas blog calls this Open Source Warfare.

And now I see this article on the French deporting radical Muslim clerics. Hmm.

New Gallery

Gallery Update

I've finally updated my gallery area to get rid of the pop-ups and added a back and next button, which will hopefully make that area a much more useful area.

Enjoy

Coolness

I find it really cool that my grandfather has his own letterhead and envelopes.

Thursday rapid fire

• Reveal Microsoft product keys - could be quite handy, from LifeHacker
• Create a VodCast - kind of cool I suppose.
• Jury Nullification - from The Agitator
• Wireless Jammers - inevitable I suppose
  

Odd from Microsoft

You now have to "validate" your software to use Windows Update. Hmmmm.

Adventures in stereotyping

I'm sure by now all of you have heard my "balloon" anecdote, which was the origin of my useful description of someone as a balloonist (someone who is more concerned with assigning blame than solving problems, often to the point of bringing in third parties simply to have someone to blame.

I now get a new one. For people who are perfectionists in dealing with other people, let us call them teleporters. The source of all this was a discussion of the LP's recent date with reality regarding Iraq. From Men's News Daily, via Q and O, in response to something by Lew Rockwell.

Let's instead scrunch our eyes tight, stick our fingers in our ears, and wish really, really hard. Then we can magically teleport to where we want to be instead of doing actual work to get there. And even better, if someone takes a step towards a freer society, let's kick his legs out from under him rather than have the ideals and purity profaned by anything resembling an interaction with real life.

Perfectly put. To paraphrase Hoffer, most people would rather have a perfect excuse than an imperfect accomplishment.

Teleporter has a nice ring to it doesn't it?

I see the Luxury Kings rehearse and

All I get was one good picture out of 15. Oh well.

On another note, the photo framing (or treatment technique anyway) is called Southern Preserve Plaquing (where the photo is mounted on beveled black wood and then coated with a non-gloss protective coating). Has anyone heard of it?

Nighttime thinking

It's probably meaningful that I come across this article on Urban surveillance networks and this article on profiling on the same day. Both of them are worth reading.

Consider the following statement.

An overwhelming majority of Americans think that racial profiling is wrong. A lesser number think that racial profiling is not worth doing under ordinary circumstances, a smaller number think it's not worth doing under any circumstance.

The above is an accurate description of public sentiment when 100% of the factor is race. Gender and age are usually thrown in as well. The above still holds true.

But what happens when race is one factor of 50 and the profiling is being done by a computer? Assume a surveillance server can determine, height, weight, approximate age, race, gender, posture, gait, clothes, et al. Does it become acceptable at that point?

This line of thought reminds of the last Supreme Court affirmative action decision where it was said that it was wrong for people to discriminate, but fine for computers to do so.

Random things

Mapbuilder is way cool (HT: 5150)

Sometime over the past week Drex messed up my rear derailer on my bike so now the gears won't shift.

I happened upon the Wikipedia entry on ethnic slurs and my current favorite is Chernozhopiy, which is "a person possessing a black ass" in Russian.

Curiously Russians seem to use this to indicate all non-Europeans, not exclusively black people. Very strange. Also strange is the fact that most of the Asian countries have a term that literally means "White Ghost". Also Criminal -(UK & NZ) an Australian (see also convict)

Irritating

I finally see something I want on E-Bay, and it is very nicely integrated with both Paypal and G-Mail. So far so good.

But, for no good reason, neither Paypal nor E-Bay are talking to each other, therefore I can't get the book I want. A pox on thee E-Bay.

Podcasting

As some of my few readers know, I'm lukewarm on the notion of Podcasting. Then along comes this post from Marginal Revolution on the Economics of Podcasting. Good stuff.

I visit the Commuter Art Gallery

I visited Clark Ashton's Commuter Gallery today. I'm somewhat happy with the pictures, realistically most of them should have been shot as landscapes, not portraits (which is why most of them are focused the way they are). On the whole I don't think I did it anywhere near justice. Some of them are good I suppose.

I also got some nice shots of Clark's neighbors Chevy Newport car, which is a mighty sweet ride.



See the whole thing

Lenses

I got the Olympus lens in the mail today and I have to say it doesn't seem like it was worth it. I'm considering getting this (assuming it turns out to be compatible.

In the meantime, here's a close-up photo

Friday Rapid Fire

Since I'm stuck on a JavaScript bug, I'll post some thoughts and links

• Good Idea - In your cell phone address book, type ICE (in case of emergency) in front of someone's name so paramedics can know who to contact. HT: Marginal Revolution
• uncertainty - I'm not sure that this (and it's natural conclusion) is a good idea, though I do support the sentiment, I think.
• Backstoke of the West - Star Wars translated into Chinese, then back into English, perhaps Engrish would be a better word.
  

Saw Sin City again

At the Fox Theater no less, and it remains very good.

On an odd note, I recently (yesterday) ordered a lens adapter, telephoto lens, and a gig of memory from buy.com for the Mighty Olympus C-8080 and for no reason that I can tell it's coming in 3 shipments. Very strange. I've been extremely happy with the C-8080 so far.

Thought of the moment

A random notion I had while walking Drex (and mind you this just throwing out an idea)

Three True Points:

• The internet has made educational material very, very cheap, realistically the only cost is time.
• The return on human capital (brains) is at an all time high and climbing
• It is easier to learn points of fact via the web than it is to learn matters of mathematical principle and logic
  

Therefore we should stop teaching the following in the lower grades:

• History
• Literature
• Anything labeled "Social Studies"
• Applied Science

Why not concentrate the classroom time into learning grammar, logic/science and math? The student has due incentive to learn all of the subjects excised from the classroom, and it would not be filtered though our complicated education bureaucracy.

Thoughts anyone? I do realize that this would not be an issue if education were properly privatized.

Thoughts on the current state of the two party system

As I put in my earlier conversation with Eric:

Each party has no fixed position, but two definite constituencies:

• The people who will vote for the party's candidates
  
• The people who will contribute money to the party

For the Republicans the ideology of the median contributor is fairly close to the ideology of the median voter. For the Democrats, the median contributor seems to be farther left than the median voter. This pushes the party ever leftwards (and indirectly pushes the Republican's leftwards as well).

I suppose the question is: Is this an evolutionary stable strategy? Time will tell I suppose.

Thoughts on the Supreme Court selection

I think it's tactically brilliant. By nominating a qualified but recordless (where did he find this guy?) judge he puts the Democrats in a very difficult position.

Bush will probably have 3 opportunities to nominate judges. The Democrats have a limited amount of resources to expend fighting the nomination. If they adopt a scorched earth policy on Roberts they will have nothing left PR-wise should Bush nominate a more naturally appealing candidate (i.e. black/female, aka Janice Rodgers Brown) as his next nomination.

Most likely they will play this one very mellow and save all their capital for the next fight.

Good times a-coming

The more I think about the Wilson Affair the more I like it. Throw in three Supreme Court nominations (possibly four) and the political class will be fully occupied with partisanship and self-absorption, leaving no room for Bold New Ideas.

Which is the way it should be.

Digital photo phun

Now that I've taken and modified around one hundred photos I encounter the time saving force that is Photo Blog 2.0. A very useful tool I think.

Perfectly put (again)

By the wonderful Dr Sowell.

Many people are so preoccupied with the notion that their own knowledge exceeds the average knowledge of millions of other people that they overlook the more important fact that their knowledge is not even one-tenth of the total knowledge of those millions. That is the crucial fallacy behind the repeated failures of central planning and other forms of social engineering which concentrate power in the hands of people with less knowledge and more presumption.

New Gallery

From last Friday night at the Freedom Parkway/I-75 area.

Saturday Rapid Fire

• How to make your own Google Earth Movies
• Build your own personal 17' windmilll/Turbine
• An office Trebuchet
• As if on cue, LifeHacker has a digital photo roundup.
• Tour de France meets Google Earth
• The future economics of Poker
  

We welcome Dave Henson to the blogosphere

At DaveHenson.com. He is one of the few folks I know who actually has a print following.

UPDATE - just added Dave to the Blog Roll (on right)

Morning thoughts

So this is what 7:30 looks like!

I wake up to find the Plame affair has gotten much more interesting. It now seems that Robert Novak was the source for Rove! And Wilson says that his wife was not a covert operative at the time of the incident! One more weird fact and we have vaudeville.

I suppose this would explain why the democrats haven't jumped on this sordid affair as much they could have. At this point, Wilson seems like a bit of a liar and drama queen who does not want a closer look at the facts of his involvement in the early part of this, and if Rove did in fact learn from Novak, then he's clean on every possible count.

Of course the next obvious question is: Who is Judy Miller's source in all this? Since she's in jail now it would seem logical that her source was not Rove, Wilson perhaps?

Vaudeville, Vaudeville I say!

---

Also, headlines like Muslims are urged to help find the bombers are good to see. HT: Q & O.

I like Rehnquist

From CNN

"I want to put to rest the speculation and unfounded rumors of my imminent retirement," Rehnquist said in a statement released through his family. "I am not about to announce my retirement. I will continue to perform my duties as chief justice as long as my health permits."

He wants to go out on his shield, how cool.

Yet more London

I came across an interesting column in the Times of London, specifically The act of small-time losers by Anatole Kaletsky. Similar in some ways to my earlier thoughts on the matter, different in others. Specifically

In this sense, the most useful analogue for last week’s outrage in London may not be September 11 or even the bombing of Madrid last year, but the worst act of terrorism in postwar Western history before September 11: the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people in 1995. Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrator, was, like the London bombers, a small-time loser who felt he was acting out of intense ideological and religious motives. He was a fervent white supremacist and belonged to an extensive network of neo-Nazi fanatics who are generally believed to number many thousands across the US. His commitment to an essentially religious doctrine — that a global Jewish conspiracy, using African-Americans as their subhuman foot-soldiers, was taking over the world and preparing to exterminate or enslave all white Christians — was every bit as sincere as the faith and “piety” of many jihadist terrorists.

...

It certainly did not occur to anyone after the Oklahoma bombing to apologise for the racial desegregation which had provoked the American neo-Nazis and their ideological antecedents, the Ku Klux Klan. Nobody suggested abolishing affirmative action or banning Jews from public office on the grounds that racial mixing and the prominence of Jews was angering white supremacists and acting as “a recruiting sergeant” for more neo-Nazi terrorists who might copy McVeigh.

Should the political sensitivities and religious aspirations of jihadist killers be treated with any greater respect? The answer is clearly, no.

and

Just as conservative America totally isolated the white supremacists and neo-Nazis after the bombings in Oklahoma, the rational Muslim community in Britain must be forced to reject completely the small minority of Wahhabi fanatics who boast that they “love death”. Only then can there be any hope of restoring respect for human life in the Islamic community and reducing the concept of martyrdom to what it really amounts to: a sad, lonely and utterly futile suicide.

While the entire column is well worth reading I do object to a few points. The final paragraph can easily be taken to mean that white supemacists and neo-Nazis were an integral part of conservatism in America, which hasn't been true in my lifetime (outside of Mississippi I suppose). The second point is that it ignores the proportions and locations.

The Wahhabi fanatics are part of the Muslim community in Britain, probably a very small percentage. For a round number, call it one percent. Compare that to the percentage of neo-nazis in the white community, where I would imagine it is less than one percent of one percent. Also, from what I've read British Muslims are concentrated in cities where the intimidation power of a commited minority is likely to be greater. The likely "conservative white" (to follow Kaletsky's logic) supporters were more suburban and rural where I would imagine the power of a commited minority is lessened by distance.

Got the print

I got the photo at the right in the mail today from Kodak, and I have to say, I'm absolutely thrilled with the quality. It would seem that an eight megapixel camera is capable of taking a fine 20 by 30 inch photograph. Now I just need to find somewhere to frame it.

Thursday Rapid Fire

The rapid fire is almost a daily feature now.

• Belkin I-Pod Microphone
• 142 arrested in antiterrorism sweep - Why isn't this bigger news? It happened in a major US ally (Italy) and is a staggering number for a Western country
• Pet Robot Housekeeper - or something like that from Japan
• Rove Free Zone - Thoughts from the left coast on the Wilson - Plame affair
• Annan urges U.N. expansion, reform - It's hard to believe that was actually said out loud. And what's been happening to the Oil For Food probe anyway? That's been in a black hole for two months.
• Quote of the Day - "When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice." Marquis de la Grange

More Eric Hoffer

I don't remember the exact quotes but the both these are from The True Believer (I think)

• It is inherent in totalitarian societies to hide weakness and project strength, whereas free societies inherently project weakness and hide strength. ConvertToSteve(This will forever cause misjudgment and bizarre decisions to be made when one deals with the other.)
  
  
• American can never hate foreigners because they feel sorry for them.
  

Repeating News

This is now the third appearance of the Muslim vs. teh Unclean meme, this time taking the form "Calif. Nat'l Guard Sorry About Pig-Blood Flier". Oddly enough I've seen it about the same time every year.

The gist of the story is that mixing suicide bombers blood with an "unclean" animal would discourage the suicide bomber from killing people. For example, a bus in Israel could have a bucket of pig's blood on board. Were the bus to explode the unclean blood would forever taint the suicide bomber's final remains, and therefore, no paradise and 72 virgins for him.

Naturally, Snopes has an article on this. Short summary, it's a very improbable solution.

The desire for simplistic solutions to complex problems has spawned several widely-circulated messages of late which seek to transform a fight against terrorism to the easily-manageable level of a horror film or a comic strip. Today's popular notion is the concept that a pig is to a Muslim as a crucifix is to a vampire — simply arm yourself with a porker, and you can use it to render even the most fanatical terrorist helpless, sending him cowering in fear lest he come into contact with anything porcine.

Such notions reduce an extremely widespread and diverse religion — and the people who follow it — to a monolithic entity with a single set of beliefs and rules to which everyone adheres. Islam has a variety of sects and sub-sects just as Christianity has a multiplicity of denominations; assuming that all "Muslims" believe and behave identically is like assuming that all Catholics and Baptists believe and behave identically because both of the latter groups are "Christians." In one sense, messages such as the ones quoted above could be considered as silly as Muslims' proclaiming that a good way to throw the USA into disarray would be to "bomb" America with juicy steaks on Fridays, because "Americans are Christians," and "everyone knows Christians who eat meat on Fridays go to Hell." Never mind that not all Americans are Christians, that not all Christians are Catholics, that not all Catholics believe in exactly the same things, that not all Catholics are equally religious or faithful, and that even the "rules" of Catholicism have changed over time.

I would quibble over the user of the term "simplistic" when what is actually meant is "simple". Of course people would want simple solutions over complicated ones.

Then again, as I prowl the Snopes site, I see this legend, marked true: "An article from The Jewish Journal describes Israeli doctors' providing blood to Palestinians who were injured at Jenin but refused to be given "Jewish blood.""

Wednesday Rapid Fire

• The DefenseTech "Iraq Dairy" blog is quite good.


• Thoughts on Roomba - I still need to get one.


• The long awaited car computer is almost here


• Global warming and it's effect on celebrity reasoning.


• Southern English

Trotsky

In one of life's better ironies, the ice axe used to murder Leon Trotsky might be for sale:

But tests that could prove the weapon's authenticity have been delayed by a dispute between the ice pick's owner, who is shopping it around, and Trotsky's descendants, who want it donated to a revolutionary museum -- proving that the struggle between socialist ideals and capitalism is continuing.

The ice pick is in the possession of Ana Alicia Salas, whose father apparently removed it from an evidence room while serving as a secret police commander in the 1940s.

She is toying with the idea of selling the foot-long, sawed-off ice ax, though she says she hasn't decided how much it's worth.

Just a few blocks away, Trotsky's grandson, who keeps the revolutionary flame alive by maintaining Trotsky's home as a museum, says he wants the pick.

Trotsky helped lead the 1917 Russian revolution, but split with dictator Josef Stalin and fled to Mexico in 1937, accusing Stalin of having betrayed the revolution.

Stalin is widely believed to have arranged Trotsky's murder, in which a young man posing as a sympathizer sneaked up behind Trotsky and sank the ice pick into his skull. Trotsky died the next day.

In this story you have state murder, theft, corruption, and media pretension all in one story, which is a very fitting coda for the Soviet experiment.

What gets me is the insinuation "Stalin is widely believed to have arranged Trotsky's murder" when it is established fact that he ordered it. Oh well.

And get your "Axe Me About Communism" shirt here.

Telluride

I have now been downloading the Telluride bluegrass festival (a legal download) for a day and a half now. It's a legal download off of BluegrassBox.com. I'm surprised that someone offered it in it's entirety this way.

More thoughts on London

Instapundit pretty well sums up my view of the matter, but the whole business has led a few things to come to mind:

One thing absent from most analysis of the current world situation is the far reach of the community aspect (Ummah I believe) of Islam:

It is correctly used to mean the nation of the believers (Ummah Al-Muhmini) in Islam, thus the whole Muslim world.

In practical terms it takes the form of a meta-loyalty that competes with national loyalties (probably the reason the wretched term "Muslim-American" is used instead of "American Muslim"). I suppose the nearest comparison is the affinity of many American Jews for Israel, as well as the clamor for leniency for Jonathan Pollard. It also explains the attention given to Israeli treatment of Palestinians compared to the relatively scant attention given to all of the problems in Kyrgistan, Egypt, Sudan et al (in-team vs out-team)

For the most part though there is simply no matching comparison for Americans. Islam gives many Muslims a competing loyalty which Westerners have problems understanding but seems very natural to Muslims. This "team" aspect to the religion (a horizontal and not vertical faith, I'll elaborate on that later) gives overlap to loyalties and goes far to explain the wholly inadequate Muslim response to terrorism.

In looking over this I see I shouldn't post at 4:00 in the morning if I want to impress people with clarity.

Technical Annoyances

I find out through experimentation that while my UPS is in fact working, it does NOT include surge protection (like every other UPS in the world).

Updated Mapping

I finished my Geocoder/Ajax app and now my personal GMap is more fully automated.

New gallery!

I just uploaded all of the photos Mark and I took last night.

The photos were taken at

1. Howell Mill Drive, from the parking lot of some furniture store with a great view.
   
   
2. A vacant but recently graded area that overlooked the new Ikea store. The grading made everything look like the surface of the moon.
   
   
3. The park in the middle of the Atlantic Steel Mill project.
   
   
4. The 75/85 overpass at the corner of Peachtree and Deering.
   

Check it Out

The Wall Street Journal echoes me

While reading the diary of Eric Hoffer I came across his account of talking an old Russian emigre who claimed that the long-term effects of Communism in Russia was biological. To wit all of the people who were naturally talented farmers, managers and such were sent to die in Siberian labor camps.

The authors of Freakonomics make a similar point when discussing abortion and the dramatic drop in crime since the early 90's. Their argument: unwanted pregnancies become unwanted children who are far more likely to commit crimes. Seems pretty believable.

I hadn't thought of the crime angle but I had thought that the long term effect, or the Roe Effect would be, to quote the Jargon Database

An up and coming term; is the tendency of the "pro-life" people to have more children than "pro-choice" people. Since pro-lifers tend to be politically more conservative and they pass this political outlook on to their children. There are fewer corresponding pro-choice children to acquire pro-choice (an other) values.

Rather, legalized abortion will produce people who don't support it. It is not an Evolutionary Stable Strategy.

James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal reaches my same conclusion before I write about it. Oh well.

LA Times echoes A-Sides

From Max Boot in the LA Times

In the last 50 years, $2.3 trillion has been spent to help poor countries. Yet Africans' income and life expectancy have gone down, not up, during that period, while South Korea, Singapore and other Asian nations that received little if any assistance have moved from African-level poverty to European-level prosperity thanks to their superior economic policies.

and

Any real solution to Africa's problems must focus on the root causes of poverty — mainly misgovernment. Instead of pouring billions more down the same old rat holes, maybe the Live 8 crew should promote a more innovative approach: Use the G-8's jillions 2 hire mercenaries 4 the overthrow of the 6 most thuggish regimes in Africa. That would do more to help ordinary Africans than any number of musical extravaganzas.

Oddly enough, Adam expressed the same idea, in nearly the same words last Sunday. Strange.

And as I do a spell check of this post, It tags "misgovernment" as a misspelling, and wants to replace it with "McGovern".

Three Things

1. When all is said and done, I think the London bombers will be more in the mold of the Columbine shooters than the 9-11 attackers, just some maladjusted Muslim losers who are just "too real" for the world.


2. It will be revealed that Middle Eastern countries are emptying out their prisons into Iraq both as a way to tie up US troops and purge their society of unwanted persons.


3. On another note, I'm just got back from night photography with Mark as protection, we got some incredible shots, look for a new gallery soon.
   

Got the I-Sticker

A few days ago I got the "i" (for individualism) stickers from this site. The sticker seems to be of good quality and is pleasantly tasteful. I have seen the counterpart of this sticker (the yellow and blue "=") which is intended to represent egalitarianism in a subtle way. May all bumper sticker debates be this civil.

The whole thing seems to be the brainchild of one Sean Rife, who evidently works in a sign shop and can produce these at a low cost and can give them away. Thanks Sean!

I see by reading his blog that he's attending (or just finished) an IHS Seminar, which I think is one I went to in 1998. I hope he finds it as helpful as I did.

Get your stickers here

Photo galleries now online

You can get there by clicking the "Photo Gallery" link on the right. Below is a sample from the weird abandoned (or perhaps moved) church up the street. I'll be putting everything else photo wise on there as well.

Thursday round up

I realize I stole the "rapid-fire" notion from Defense Tech.

• < $800 Swarmable Robots - this could be the start of something wonderful, especially in agriculture and environmental cleanup. It has Linux, Bluetooth, the works. HT: Make Blog
  


• Roomba API - on a similar note this could be an actually workable version of the above. I still need to get a Roomba. Or else resort to vacuuming.
  
  
• The Counter Terrorism Blog - seems fairly interesting.
  
  
• The Aristocrats is coming out soon (HT the Agitator)


• Neighbors Subdue Man Stabbing Woman on NW Street
  

  The first neighbor sprinted when he heard the screams of a woman being slashed on his Northwest Washington street. He jumped on a knife-wielding man, and the two fell to the ground, wrestling furiously in a spreading pool of the victim's blood.

  Soon, a second neighbor joined the fight, followed by three more. The assailant kept slipping from their grip and attacking the woman until they overpowered him and held him for police Tuesday night.

London

I think, when all is said and done, that the body count was low compared to what it could have been (FoxNews now claims that they found two unexploded bombs) Considering it has a population of seven and a half million, the casualties seem thankfully low.

From the Belmont Club

From the amount of damage caused, the explosive devices used appear to have been in the tens, rather than the hundreds of pounds. This is good news. It also means that the enemy has not grown in overall capability since the days of 9/11 and 3/11.

I wonder if the time was selected to coincide with the G-8 meetings, presumably a lot of the British security people would be concerned with that this week.

Wednesday Rapid Fire

• Yahoo News with Yahoo Maps - I'll give Google 5 days to do this too. HT: Make
• Google Maps with Transparencies - HT: Make


• A glut of flat screen technology - which would be cool.


• Google Maps Walking Distance


• New MS Money


• Mencken
  

  "All the extravagance and incompetence of our present Government is due, in the main, to lawyers, and, in part at least, to good ones. They are responsible for nine-tenths of the useless and vicious laws that now clutter the statute-books, and for all the evils that go with the vain attempt to enforce them. Every Federal judge is a lawyer. So are most Congressmen. Every invasion of the plain rights of the citizens has a lawyer behind it. If all lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones sold to a mah jong factory, we'd be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half."



• Tom G Palmer has some nice words about Admiral Stockdale, clearly the classiest guy to run for national office in quite some time.


• Yet another review of Freakonomics, this time by James Q Wilson, the authors are on the Charlie Rose program tonight. Money quote
  

  "...quoting someone whose name I have forgotten: social scientists should never try to predict the future; they have trouble enough predicting the past."

Any dog in a storm...

I get back from the Luxury Kings show last night and find out that Drex has had a .... strong reaction to being alone when there's thunder outside. It is a nice picture of the two of us together. Note the hole in the wall (about two thirds of it was already there, but still, this was a bit excessive.) There are new teeth dents in the doorknob too.

Live 8

A very good post from the Agitator about this current foolishness

It's all the more perverse when you consider that corporate farms in Europe, Japan, and the U.S. are a big reason why Africa remains so poor. In heavily subsidized crops like cotton and corn, farmers in these countries can sell their crop on the international market for less than what it costs them to grow it. There's simply no way poor farmers in emerging economies can compete with that. So lavish subsidies in rich countries keep poor countries from competing, which in turn keeps them poor. The rich countries feel guilty, so they sap taxpayers to come up with aid projects that don't work, and really only benefit the exact same industries that benefit from the subsidies. All the while, each time public aid does fail, it makes private donors think Africa's a lost cause, and therefore makes them less likely to give. Which is tragic, because private aid does seem to work. It's more likely to find its way around the corruption, and hit the people who need it.

Which brings us back to Live 8. The whole purpose of the event, Geldoff kept telling us, was not to raise private funds for Africa. Rather, it was to encourage the citizens of developed countries to lobby their governments for more public aid. Oh, and also to make spoiled rock stars feel better about their respective social consciences.

There is also this very good post from Josh Trevino who's reporting on the G-8 protesters

But the true believers exist, and they are capable of organizing themselves. A counterintuitive thing, one would think, but the anarchist/hard left capacity for assembling at set times and doing set things is a well-proven one. Just like libertarians availing themselves of public services, the contraindicating intersection of reality and ideology is often employed, but never acknowledged. As at Seattle, DC, and Genoa, so too Edinburgh: the city is overrun in a well-planned influx from across the developed, Western, wealthy world to protest developed, Western, wealthy things.

An Evening at Blind Willie's

Where surprisingly few photos turned out that well. Here is one.

A backyard fourth

Random shots from the Ettel's backyard.

More Photos

I went to the A-Sides show last night, and afterwards went out to my favorite skyline place, at Freedom Parkway and 75 at 3:00 in the morning for the optimal mix of ambiance and safety...

Ghost Adam


Atlanta at Night

Feeling the Burn

Today Mark, Emily and I rode at little over 30 miles in the 90 plus heat. While it was a good and needed ride it was very taxing on the system and produced a very dramatic sunburn (happily only on my arms).

The Wrist



The Elbow

First Photos

The new digicam is quite something I do have to say. Something complicated anyway. Here are the first decent photos I've taken with it.



and here is the second



Happily Olympus has some free online lessons. I'm going taking some cityscape shot tomorrow, we'll see how that goes.

Flagrant gadgetry

• Navicore Personal GPS - it wirelessly turns your bluetooth phone in to a GPS device. Very cool, but it seems to only be available in Europe, though I imagine that will change soon. HT: Gizmodo.


• 10 Million Candlepower flashlight - with built in recharging! And only $49 bucks too. There's a 15 million candlepower for sale too.


• The Pain Ray - Not really a gadget, but cool in a creepy way. It uses microwaves to heat nerve endings. Supposedly for security and crowd control.
  

Random thoughts

• A pretty significant alliance between the US and India. You would think that this would be much bigger news, especially given the rivalry between India and Pakistan and India and China.


• Convictions in the East St Louis voter fraud trial - no surprise there really (it was all on tape). That also should have been much bigger news.


• In South Korea (the most web connected country in the world), a woman doesn't clean up after her dog and achieves blog infamy within one day. Start the link chain here.


• The Rhode Island Legislature has voted to legalize medical marijuana, without even the pressure of a voter initiative. One wonder when principal-agent theory becomes something the media talks about.


• Free Individualist Stickers - I'm pleasantly surprised by the move to brevity in bumper stickers as seen in the gold and blue "=" stickers one can see on cars in my neighborhood. The guy linked is giving out free "i" stickers (for individualism). Judging from his blog he's a Randian of some sort and a fellow IHS seminar attendee.


• Exposure Manager (run by a Winds of Change blogger apparently) is offering a deal to Instapundit readers.