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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.
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Quote of the moment
I think my life will run out before my work does.
Townes van Zandt -
Overstreet at the Overlook
The fiddle series continues. On this particular occasion I got the lighting on most of the shots wrong, but some of them turned out well nice. Check out Overstreet at the Overlook, featuring the lovely and talented Michelle.
I came across an interesting Sin City effect with levels in, as seen below.
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Photo stragglers
This guy was on my screen door on Thursday and Friday
An ordinary stairway. There were some nice lines here. I decided to make it creepy via the use of Photoshop Curves. It’s an interesting effect.
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Darfur
It escapes me how anyone expects the “Rock for Darfur” campaign to do any good. The conflict in Darfur is an ethnic and territorial war that isn’t based on any sort of historical misunderstanding or trivial difference. It’s also true that anything the US or any major power would do would wind up looking like Iraq. The duke of Wellington’s adage “For a great power there are no small wars” is being proven true everywhere.
So then what? Another adage “If a problem seems insolvable, enlarge it”. In this case, don’t act as a great power, or more specifically, use small powers, like private military companies, like Blackwater et. al. The money could be raised privately, they’re relatively cheap by military standards, and it wouldn’t require a massive US commitment.
There are massive legal and oversight problems involved with using PMCs, but using private means for what are essentially humanitarian efforts seems far better in every way than making a national commitment.
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Semantics
I’ve always rejected the notion of Iraq being in a civil war due to the notion that a civil war requires two clearly defined sides and usually territories, be it Davis and Lincoln or Lenin and Kerensky.
While the two defining concepts in Iraq, Sunni and Shia, are clear, the fighting seems to be split up into 14-20 (from what I’ve read) different parties. Also, the fighting does not seem to be for control over the country, but rather ethnic cleansing of the classic variety, that is removing one group from a particular chunk of land.
What do you call that? It’s not quite anarchy, malignant diversity? Failure of integration? What?