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Quick rapid fire
I hope to have my election predictions tommorow, but in the meantime…
- Robotic sentry that shoots real bullets
- Mapped Up – good idea, good execution
- This is a fine epitaph
- Whipping therapy cures depression and suicide crises
The professor used the self-flagellation method to cure his own depression; he also recovered from two heart attacks with the help of physical tortures too.
Only the Russians would come up with this. Actually this would explain the flaggelants of the middle ages, as well as the Puritans scourging themselves.
- Victim’s cousin charged with tattooing killer
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Two things
Whilst listening to left wing radio today I heard two notable things, which struck me as totally wrong.
- The claim that over 50% of all discretionary government spending is spent on the military. While true, the weaselly use of the “discretionary” modifier makes it meaningless. To declare that some percent of the budget “must” be spent on programs, when they have the full power to change any law making them spend it on said programs is downright silly.
- The left wing (usually uttered by baby boomer types) screed that it is wrong not to show caskets of dead soldiers and marines as they arrive back in the states. This is usually followed by something like “if we could only see the human pain of this war, we wouldn’t be there at all.” Then it occurred to me that we all watched 9-11 happen and then three weeks later we were bombing Afghanistan, and 18 months later we invaded Iraq. The sight of dead Americans seems to make us more aggressive, not less.
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More Iraq
Coming Anarchy has an excellent post on the future of an independent Kurdistan. It fits in nicely with my thoughts about the coming partition of Iraq. I think that will be upon us before we realize it’s even on it’s way. To wit, who will want to be the last Shia in a Sunni area, or the last Sunni in a Shia town?
My brain is fried, what I mean to say is the the rate of segregation will increase over the coming year.
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Giving credit where credit is due
After the 2004 election I was quite vocal about wanting a viable second party. I will say the Democrats have come quite a long way since then. If you take the new blood on the scene in Jim Webb and Harold Ford you will find very little of the baby-boomer narcissism and navel gazing that affected most of the 2004 candidates.
There is starting to be a concensus plan on Iraq among Democrats as well, in the form of partition. I think that is the option we will take (along with looking the other way on ethnic cleansing) once all the others are exhausted, which should be in around 10 months or so.
All that being said, none of them are any closer to me ideologically (except for the partition, which I do like) than the Republicans but new blood will probably not be as talented at corruption as the current folks.
Not that I think the dems will take the House or Senate, but I do think they will take some seats.
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My contest entry
More blogging while uploading. I entered this contest recently. I submitted the first photo listed, though now I kind of wish I’d used the other one.
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Eating the elephant
The more I think about it, I think the GTD “Open Loops” theory of anxiety is true. Which is why one eats the elephant one bite at a time I suppose.
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Aspects of the conventional wisdom
- Oil is the lifeblood of the Global Economy – I remember paying 94 cents a gallon in October of 2001, to $3.05 this summer, to $1.98 today (yes I realize that the price of oil does not track gas exactly, but it’s close). Given that the economy of the oil consuming world has growing mildly (Europe), moderately (the US), and highly (China and India), it would seem that this is simply not true, or if true, not meaningful.
- The invasion of Iraq will turn the Muslim world against the US. Given that it’s been three and a half years, and all of the opposition is still based in Iraq (with some degree of foreign investment in people and capital) this would seem not to be meaningful.
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This is quite clever
Web 2.0 validator, or as they put it:
Web 2.0 Validator : We’re the dot in Web 2.0 -
Line of the moment
The message you get when one is about to delete something in BlinkSale
This action is wholly irrevocable and utterly non-undoable.
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Blogging will be light
For the next ten days or so. I’ve got a crushing workload until then.
Also, I apologize if I’ve been rude or distant or anything like that lately. Everything is getting to me more than it usually does.