...I say we nuke the bastards.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is insane. He believes that the Hidden Imam, an Islamic holy figure who went into "great occultation" in the 9th century, is about to be restored to human history, will inaugurate a perfect state and perfect religion on earth, as a preface to the end of time. The advent of the Hidden Imam will be preceded by a catastrophic war which Islam will win.
This, dear reader, is why the raving lunatic wants the bomb. He's said that Bush is rare among US presidents in that he won't simply back down from conflict with Islam. Bully for him. But all Ahmadinejad has to do is wait Bush out. So he'll make a few conciliatory gestures this summer, just enough to stave off sanctions and prevent any action by the Security Council, which will give him enough time to wait for the next US president to try the "peace for our time" approach which worked so brilliantly in 1939.
I say we don't wait. I say we combine rods from god with tactical nuclear weapons and end this decisively.
The best way of solving this problem long term is to prove with terrible dedication that the cost of opposing the West is unbearable. Eye for eye isn't nearly enough. For every car bomb we need one corresponding glass pond. The retaliation needs to be so far out of proportion as to render opposition impossible. Then, and only then, shall there be peace.
There is, of course, another option. That would be to stop pretending not to be an imperial power and just annex the oil fields surrounding the Persian Gulf. I mean, if you're going to get swatted for stealing from the cookie jar, you should at least have the satisfaction of having done it. Drop a few divisions of armor and mechanized infantry, set the contractors to building a 20 foot concrete barrier, and create the 51st state. Dump all the locals across the border and seal the place off. Populate it with willing and well-paid US citizens, and start pumping oil like crazy. It's true that maintaining a border between territories is very difficult, but that's only if you allow people across. If you just close it completely it's really simple: cross this line and get shot.
Either way, I'm rapidly losing patience with the whole Iran thing. This is not a problem that can be resolved without massive cost. I'm interested in them paying as much of that cost as we can make them pay.
Foreign Affairs also has an article on the emergence of two distinct "Lefts" in Latin America:
"[T]here is not one Latin American left today; there are two. One is modern, open-minded, reformist, and internationalist, and it springs, paradoxically, from the hard-core left of the past. The other, born of the great tradition of Latin American populism, is nationalist, strident, and close-minded. The first is well aware of its past mistakes (as well as those of its erstwhile role models in Cuba and the Soviet Union) and has changed accordingly. The second, unfortunately, has not."
About Venezuela, it has this to say:
"Venezuela's poverty figures and human development indices have deteriorated since 1999, when Chávez took office. A simple comparison with Mexico -- which has not exactly thrived in recent years -- shows how badly Venezuela is faring. Over the past seven years, Mexico's economy grew by 17.5 percent, while Venezuela's failed to grow at all. From 1997 to 2003, Mexico's per capita GDP rose by 9.5 percent, while Venezuela's shrank by 45 percent. From 1998 to 2005, the Mexican peso lost 16 percent of its value, while the value of the Venezuelan bolivar dropped by 292 percent. Between 1998 and 2004, the number of Mexican households living in extreme poverty decreased by 49 percent, while the number of Venezuelan households in extreme poverty rose by 4.5 percent. In 2005, Mexico's inflation rate was estimated at 3.3 percent, the lowest in years, while Venezuela's was 16 percent.
Although Chávez does very little for the poor of his own country (among whom he remains popular), he is doing much more for other countries: giving oil away to Cuba and other Caribbean states, buying Argentina's debt, allegedly financing political campaigns in Bolivia and Peru and perhaps Mexico. He also frequently picks fights with Fox and Bush and is buying arms from Spain and Russia. This is about as close to traditional Latin American populism as one can get -- and as far from a modern and socially minded left as one can be."
Conclusion: Hugo Chavez and his ilk are megalomanical, egotistical, childish, evil men. I'll take the reformed Communists doing great work in Chile and Uruguay over these thugs any day of the week.
...it was the Iraqis.
Foreign Affairs has a lengthy piece concerning the massive disinformation campaign that was in operation inside Saddam's regime. He himself had no idea what was going on. Lest they be executed - something which happened - military commanders were spinning the 1991 Persian Gulf war as a resounding military triumph.
One commander put it this way: "If it were not for these precautions, we would have suffered great loss [in the first Gulf War], but when we compare our losses with the large number of fighter aircraft, missiles, and artillery bombing that the Iraqi army was subject to we find these losses trifling. That proved that the Republican Guards and the armed forces managed to reduce the danger from air strikes."
Translated: we got our butts kicked and it's a miracle we still have an army.
More to the point:
"Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for his use of chemical weapons on Kurdish civilians in 1987, was convinced Iraq no longer possessed WMD but claims that many within Iraq's ruling circle never stopped believing that the weapons still existed. Even at the highest echelons of the regime, when it came to WMD there was always some element of doubt about the truth. According to Chemical Ali, Saddam was asked about the weapons during a meeting with members of the Revolutionary Command Council. He replied that Iraq did not have WMD but flatly rejected a suggestion that the regime remove all doubts to the contrary, going on to explain that such a declaration might encourage the Israelis to attack."
A footnote has this to say:
"For many months after the fall of Baghdad, a number of senior Iraqi officials in coalition custody continued to believe it possible that Iraq still possessed a WMD capability hidden away somewhere (although they adamantly insisted that they had no direct knowledge of WMD programs). Coalition interviewers discovered that this belief was based on the fact that Iraq had possessed and used WMD in the past and might need them again; on the plausibility of secret, compartmentalized WMD programs existing given how the Iraqi regime worked; and on the fact that so many Western governments believed such programs existed."
The whole expose is a fascinating read. In short, Saddam jailed or executed anyone who presented bad news and was thus completely oblivious as to the state of things on the ground. He started planning for the final defense of Baghdad at the same time coalition armor was occupying the Presidential Palace.
The CIA provided faulty intelligence because their sources were themselves lying and/or deceived. You can't draw clean water from a polluted well.
I'm currently reading Introduction to Christianity by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, lately Pope Benedict XVI. It's a primer to the Apostles' Creed, and deals specifically with what it means to "believe" on an epistemic level in our modern and post-modern age.
Not only is it incredibly insightful, refreshing, and timely, but it's also beautifully written. Finding a theological worth his salt who can actually write is always a pleasant discovery, and the new pope has a way with words that I quite envy.
Some selections:
"Fastened to the cross - with the cross fastened to nothing, drifting over the abyss. The situation of the contemporary believer could hardly be more accurately and impressively described. Only a loose plank bobbing over the void seems to hold him up, and it looks as if he must eventually sink. Only a loose plank connects him to God, though certainly it connects him inescapably, and in the last analysis he knows that this wood is stronger than the void that seethes beneath him and that remains nevertheless the really threatening force in his day-to-day life."
"Christian faith lives on the discovery that not only is there such a thing as objective meaning but that this meaning knows me and loves me, that I can entrust myself to it like the child who knows that everything he may be wondering about is safe in the "you" of his mother. Thus in the last analysis believing, trusting, and loving are one, and all the theses around which belief revolves are only concrete expressions of the all-embracing about-turn, of the assertion "I believe in you" - of the discovery of God in the countenance of the man Jesus of Nazereth."
"Anyone who accepts Marx (in whatever neo-Marxist variation he may choose) as the representative of worldly reason not only accepts a philosophy, a vision of the origin and meaning of existence, but also and especially adpots a practical program. For this "philosophy" is essentially a "praxis", which does not presuppose a "truth" but rather creates one. Anyone who makes Marx the philosopher of theology adopts the primacy of politics and economics, which now become the real powers that can bring about salvation (and, if misused, can wreak havoc)."
Here's a list of "easily mispronounced" domain names.
Like therapistfinder.com. Or mp3shits.com. How about whorepresents.com.
I mean, seriously now. All you have to do is read the things and you'll now something's wrong.
Regarding various assertions that oil is going to run out someday:
This is significantly less true than previously thought, abiotic theories aside. The world has north of 6 trillion barrels of heavy oil reserves. By contrast, current light sweet crude reserves are estimated at about 1 trillion barrels (which could last for 75 years even at an average consumption of 40 million barrels/day). New technology has made the extraction and refining of heavy oil - as well as the hundreds of billions of barrels of oil trapped in oil shale and sands - commercially viable. Oil selling for $75 a barrel certainly hasn't hurt, but the cost to extract a barrel of heavy oil is now around $10/barrel, down from twice that a few decades ago.
There is plenty of oil. There's even plenty of the light sweet crude that people really want. But we haven't constructed a new oil refinery in this country in 29 years. The regulatory and environmentalist situation makes it almost impossible.
It's all their fault.
How? Well, for starters, they've mandated the use of ethanol as an oxygenator in gasoline, irrespective of the fact that it's in short supply and is currently selling for $2.77/gallon. There's also a $0.54/gallon tax on ethanol imports, which just makes things worse, because the majority of ethanol production centers in the US are in the Midwest, and ethanol is hard to transport. Talk about your artifical shortage. The ethanol lobby is threatening the seats of any member of Congress that opposes repealing the tarriff.
Then there's the fact that oil itself is becoming a scarce commodity given the surging demand by India and China combined with the fact that the short-list of oil-producing nations is also the short-list of places you probably don't want to go for summer break: Saudi Arabia (Islamo-dictatorship), Iraq (freaking mess), Iran (don't get me started), Venezuala (childish Castro-wannabe), Nigeria (it's in Africa...), etc. But does Congress allow oil companies to exploit the multi-billion barrel reserves we're sitting on? Like Alaska or offshore drilling? Hell no. Can't have that.
A plague on both their houses.
As if Mexico didn't look bad enough as it is, there are also reports that Mexican law enforcement routinely abuses, robs, rapes, and kills migrants. Illegal immigration is already a felony in Mexico, punishable by up to two years in prison. Deportation is common. They've only admitted 15,000 legal migrants in the past five years. 105 million people live in Mexico. By contrast, the US admits tens of thousands of immigrants every single year, and we're only 300 million.
I'm thinking that cooperation with the Mexican government on immigration issues is irrational at best and downright counterproductive at worst. Whatever our issues are, we should decide and resolve them without any input from Mexico City.
Thaddeus Russell, a professor of history and American Studies at Barnard has an essay in the Boston Globe suggesting that today's cartoon characters - including Bob the Builder and Spongebob Squarepants - are setting a bad example for our kids by... working too much?
Say what?
He then goes on to suggest that the fact that Americans work many more hours than our European counterparts while experiencing slower GDP growth per capita indicates that we're working harder for nothing.
Slight problem Dr. Russell. You see, if you just look at GDP growth, the US has grown significantly faster than Europe. The reason GDP per capita has been growing in Europe is that their population isn't growing. Certain European nations are actually losing people. Even a moderate GDP growth combined with flat population leads to a significant per capita increase.
What Dr. Russell also doesn't tell us is that Europe has been stuck with double-digit unemployment for the better part of 10 years. France is the worse culprit here, with youth (under 24) unemployment approaching 20-25%. French youth do indeed have things to do other than work or watch mind-numbing cartoons: riot!
That being said, I do agree that kids shows these days are for pansies. Sterile, over-protected, saccharin-laden tripe.
Hugo Chavez has blackballed 3.4 million of his own citizens for signing the petition that forced a recall election a few years back. Now these people pretty much can't work, especially considering the government holds approximately 20% of all jobs.
O God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten
Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection
delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die
daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of
his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God,
now and for ever. Amen.
Wal-Mart wants to open a bank. This is good news. Even the most screaming, spitting, flaming, cross-eyed liberal must assent to this. Why? Because a Bank of Wal-Mart would be good for consumers.
Citigroup doesn't post $17 billion profits on $90 billion revenues without gouging somebody. Even while national interest rates were less than 1%, your credit card still had interest rates in excess of 15%, 20%, up to 24-27%, depending on your card, credit score, state of residence, etc. That's a good racket.
Then there's banking fees. If you give the bank your money to hold on to and lend out to people, why in heaven's name should they charge you for doing so?! Fee-based checking? Hello? And the only people who managed to escape these fees were those wealthy enough to have $10-15k sitting in their accounts at all times. It's true that in recent years more and more banks have started offering free checking, but there's two things to remember here: 1) the only reason this has become common is that credit unions, which don't pay taxes, have started eating into the banking industry's customer base, and the bankers want to compete, and 2) this is still a selling point. And they'll also charge you to get your money back if you go to an ATM that isn't theirs. We're talking $1, $2, $2.50 just to have access to your money. Should you, heaven forbid, overdraw your account by even a buck or two, there's a $30-50 fee. Likewise should they just bounce it. They're going to make you pay for not having money. It doesn't get much more mean-spirited than that.
If there was ever an industry that was just begging to get the Wal-Mart treatment, it's the banking sector. And for once, there isn't any "local culture" or "small business" or "better service" or "better wages" argument. Banks are regional, national, multi-national affairs, and their attitude towards individual consumers has two facets: 1) give me all your money, and 2) die in a fire. Heck, most of them are only open 35-40 hours a week, and unless you're willing to plunk down five figures right away, they'll usually even charge you for the privilege of giving them your money.
Let's hear it for the First National Bank of Wal-Mart.
I'm just sick of the stuff. It's all over the place now. It's in every classroom at school. And though it does indeed kill germs - it's alcohol after all - but people don't get any less sick. Or, rather, they don't get sick any less frequently. There were kids getting sick left and right all year in my 5th/6th grade class, just like there were when I was a kid.
It's a superstition reflective of the over-protected, clingy parenting styles that are increasingly common these days. I mean, come on, we all wash our hands a few times a day anyways. We don't need this.
Strike a blow for courage, independence, and not getting your hands all sticky! Refuse to use hand sanitizer! Just wash your hands like you always do.
Oddly enough, the crime rate in London is now about seven times that of New York. Sentences are being reduced, and serious offenders (burglars, etc.) are being let off with warnings.
Weird. But where cops aren't allowed to carry guns and prisons are viewed as uncivilized, I suppose you get what you ask for. The populations of New York and London are 8 and 7 million, respectively, and while they spend comperable amounts on law enforcement, New York has 40% more cops on the beat.
Then you've got the fact that criminals seem to have more rights than victims: "There have also been numerous and well-publicized cases of people being prosecuted and jailed for defending themselves from criminal attacks. A storekeeper was knifed in the back as he tackled a gang of youths stealing wine from his Norwich store. He was arrested on two charges of assault."
Conclusions? I'd say that Rudy was right. If you want to reduce the crime rate, you probably need some kind of zero-tolerance policy, and if that means throwing thousands of miscreants in jail, so be it.
A Microsoft exec is saying that it's easier to nuke infected systems from orbit than to try and repair the OS installation. The reason he gives is that rootkits, the new weapon of choice for malware authors, are virtually if not actually undetectable, and there is no way to confirm whether or not they have actually been removed from your system.
I think this has actually been true for quite a while now, certainly long before the introduction of rootkits. Windows is a pretty opaque environment, and if something isn't working, there generally isn't a good way of figuring out why. Things incrementally get less and less stable, and cruft builds up in any Windows install. I generally reformat my drive about every 9 months as a matter of course, and I'm not even worried about virii.
This, of course, means that the OS is a fetid mass of donkey feces, but it's also the only thing that will run the software I want to run. I'm also more willing to spend 45 minutes reinstalling my OS every 6 months or so than spending hours and hours learning and relearning Linux.
But that doesn't mean I have to like it.
So, looking to get a laptop to take to law school with me.
Priority one: price. Lower is better. More than $600 for the actual machine is too much, and more than $700 for everything is pushing it. This means Macs are right out. That and the fact that NDLS uses Windows-only software to administer exams, so Windows it is.
Priority two: size/weight. Small is okay. Thin is important. Light is paramount. I am not looking for a desktop replacement, but something I won't notice after carrying it around all afternoon.
Priority three: battery life. Longer is obviously better.
Putting those together is where I'm hitting snags. There's a really nice Acer machine available for $500. Great specs, tiny, cheap. And, the battery is said to last for about 70-80 minutes. Not good. The 8-cell battery is also available, but now we're talking an extra 3 figures. I've seen the battery for $130, but that still brings the whole package to over $600 plus shipping.
I've configured a really basic Dell model for $750 that comes with two 6-cell batteries, each of which are rumored to last up to 2 hours each. A bit better, methinks.
So, my question is, does anyone know of any brand/machine that I'm missing that would meet my needs better than either of these? I really don't care who makes it. It'd be nice if it played DVDs, but it's not essential. I don't need a burner. I don't care whether or not it's won design awards. I just want something that'll survive 3 years of word processing and wireless surfing. Options?