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Another article that is well worth reading
From John Robb who predicts a coming privatization of security and the basic functions of the modern state
Security will become a function of where you live and whom you work for, much as health care is allocated already. Wealthy individuals and multinational corporations will be the first to bail out of our collective system, opting instead to hire private military companies, such as Blackwater and Triple Canopy, to protect their homes and facilities and establish a protective perimeter around daily life.
Read the whole thing.
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The funniest thing I’ve read all year
French marchers say ‘non’ to 2007
Parodying the French readiness to say “non”, the demonstrators in the western city of Nantes waved banners reading: “No to 2007” and “Now is better!”
The marchers called on governments and the UN to stop time’s “mad race” and declare a moratorium on the future.
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Apocalyptic reading for the Tech Crowd
When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth
That’s the fiction reading of the new year – for the disturbing nonfiction reading check out North Carolina Woman Charged With Malicious Castration After Attacking Man’s Genitals. It’s disturbing mostly in that there are other kinds of castration in North Carolina.
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Short 2006 best of list
- Best New Movie – The Departed
- Best Book – Truth Imagined by Eric Hoffer
- Best TV Show – The Shield
- Best Old Movie Seen For the First Time – Tie – The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman) / The Testament of Dr Mabeuse (Fritz Lang) / The Big Sleep (Bogart/Bacall). Only The Big Sleep is in English, where as the other two are probably much better off being subtitled. All three are from the 30s and 40s.
- Best New Gadget – Garmin Street Pilot – I never get lost anymore
- Best New General Interest Site – DamnInteresting.com
- Best Concert – Prince – though to be honest I didn’t see that many in 2006
- Best New Band discovered – Freakwater – I have no idea how I managed to not know about them until this year, they’re perfect for me.
- Biggest physical accomplishment – Biking the entire Silver Comet Trail – 126 miles – in one day with no rest and very few stops for water and such. It did take forever
- Biggest professional accomplishment – staying in business for another year I suppose
- Biggest artistic accomplishment – successfully finishing two whole songs, and actually doing open mic nights
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Sunday rapid fire
- RFID Digital Door Lock – this looks very cool, a totally key less lock system.
- The RFID Superstore
- MyPhotoPipe.com – a very large format printing service, run by a blast from the past
- What would Genghis Khan do in Iraq – an interesting article The Mongols also immediately executed the caliph and his sons on charges that they spent too much money on their palaces and not enough defending their nation.
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Quote of the moment
From this post at Jane Galt’s
No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens –Abraham Lincoln
The commentor was dubbed “Occam’s Beard” which is a name I like.
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Everyone should read this
Dan Habbot over at TDAXP has the single most informative article on the difference between Sunni and Shia Islam I’ve ever read.
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A vanishing meme
One pleasantly departed meme is “War is good for the economy”. While never true (you can’t destroy human and physical capital and have a net increase in the economy) I haven’t heard it that much in the past few years.
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More on the Libertarian Party
A very well written post on the LP over at the Volokh Conspiracy, to wit:
Some LP defenders argue that even if the Party doesn’t have any chance of winning, it can at least help educate the public about libertarian ideas. However, there is little if any evidence that the LP has actually had any success in this task over its 35 year history. Those libertarians who have succeeded in spreading libertarian ideas – people like Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, and the Cato Institute – have done so without any LP affiliations, and indeed have tried hard to work with the two major parties. Whether fairly or not, the mainstream media and academic world are not going to pay much attention to ideas emanating from a tiny third party that has no chance of winning any elections; therefore, the LP’s educative potential is unlikely to be much greater than its electoral potential.
If we had a proportional representation electoral system, like many European countries and Israel, a separate libertarian party would make excellent strategic sense. The party (if better run than the dysfunctional LP) could command 10-15% of the vote, thereby winning roughly that percentage of legislative seats, and would be a potential part of a ruling political coalition. A libertarian party might also make sense if one of the major political parties were on the brink of collapses and the libertarian party stood a chance of taking its place (as the Republican Party displaced the Whig Party in the 1850s). However, in the real world, the US is unlikely to move toward proportional representation and neither major political party is likely to collapse anytime soon. Therefore, the cause of libertarianism will be better off without a separate Libertarian Party.
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A good article on the most recent conflict
Time has a nice synopsis of the current war between Ethiopia and Somalia.