• Media,  Society

    A fawning portrayal

    I read this article about Fidel Castro in the Toronto Star. I honestly don’t know how it could be more sycophantic.

    He lives to learn and to put his knowledge in the service of the revolution. For Fidel, revolution is really a work of reason. In his view, revolution, when rigorously adopted, cannot fail to lead humanity towards ever greater justice, towards an ever more perfect social order.

    His intellect is one of the most broad and complete that can be found. He is an expert on genetics, on automobile combustion engines, on stock markets. On everything.

    Combined with a Herculean physique and extraordinary personal courage, this monumental intellect makes Fidel the giant that he is.

    Those who bite the hand that feeds them will lick the boot that kicks them. 47 years of tyranny can be washed away instantly. HT: Tom Palmer.

  • Alt Energy,  Economics,  Health,  Links,  Weirdness

    Monday rapid fire

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  • Media,  Misanthropy,  Society

    Annoyances from the New York Times

    This time it’s about “Men who never marry“. It was more patronizing than usual.

    Choice Quotes

    She speaks from experience. She married her high school boyfriend right after graduation, a 2-week-old baby in arms. But her husband, who never graduated, was unemployed for most of their marriage, and the couple broke up after six years.

    Determined to find a man who had better prospects, Ms. Rudolph entered a relationship with a basketball player and had three children with him. It ended when she learned he was married to someone else, a revelation that left her badly shaken.
    ..
    Joe Callender, 47, a retired New York City corrections officer and a father of four, has had long-term relationships with two women but has never married. One obstacle, he admits, has been his own infidelity.

    Mr. Cunningham, 41, a sanitation worker, seems to defy any theory about why he is single. He has, he said, simply not met the right woman.

    He is a tall, athletic man with cropped, George Clooney-style hair who projects a kind and upbeat persona; surely a catch to some women in Fort Collins.

    When he walks in the front door after a weekend trip or a run or a bike ride, he often puts a commemorative baseball cap on his coat rack, and now, about three dozen hats cover the rack, with no apparent space for a purse or a diaper bag.

    It’s an interesting read. They start from the position that marriage is some inevitability that one must exert great effort to avoid (it’s not). They also don’t take into consideration the happy loner theory, nor active misanthropy. They all but call women genetically programmed golddiggers.

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  • GPS,  Mapping

    The Stone Mountain Punisher

    My second attempt at GeoTracking turned out much better. I mapped my usual bike route, with a bit more attention to detail. The addition of waypoints helps a lot.

    It’s called the Punisher due to the extreme hills on the route.

    Check it out

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  • Biz,  Weirdness

    A horrible dream

    Last night I had a dream where I went back to work in corporate America. It was truly horrible, oceans of cubicles, schedules and faceless (literally in the dream) drones. How does anyone stand it? It was much like my time at CMD.

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  • Alt Energy,  Tech

    Interesting

    A very good post on GeoThermal energy by Malcolm Gladwell. For a simple explanation as to what it is

    Geothermal heating and cooling is based on one simple fact: that 6 feet down in the ground the temperature is the same—between 50˚F and 60˚F- the whole year round. This means that it is relatively cool in the summer, and relatively warm in the winter.

    For geothermal cooling, all one needs to do is to circulate water in a pipe through the ground to cool it, and use this cool water to cool the air pumped through the house in the heating ducts.

    Heating is done much the same way. The numbers seem quite plausible, I wonder why it’s not more popular.

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  • Central Asia,  Islam,  Terrorism

    Thoughts on today

    Another terror plot is centered in London and Pakistan, as were the 7/7 plot.

    I wonder if the prime focus of radical Islam is not the Arab word but Central Asia. Perhaps Arab culture, for good or ill, is too strongly ingrained to be replaced by a pure (messianic cult) version of Islam. The Central Asian states, might be more pliable due to 70 years of Soviet purges weakening the societies.

    Just a thought.

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