• China,  Economics

    China

    Tyler Cowen shares my concerns about China, namely that they can’t take a punch, or in this case, an economic downturn.

    If you are not convinced, raise your right hand and repeat after me: “China in the 20th century had two major revolutions, a civil war, a World War, The Great Leap Forward [sic], mass starvation, the Cultural Revolution, arguably the most tyrannical dictator ever and he didn’t even brush his teeth, and now they will go from rags to riches without even a business cycle burp.”

    It’s worth reading the whole thing.

  • Biz,  rants,  Tech

    Rage

    Take
    1 stressful week
    Add
    5 ongoing projects
    Mix in
    3 last minute projects
    Pour Over
    2 deadlines
    Blend in
    1 newly configured (by someone else) server
    Sprinkle in
    2 foreseeable changes
    Garnish with
    1 instance of Microsoft Content Mangement Server

    And you get a newly reached level of anger and frustration. About two hours ago I heard a strange noise and realized that it was me. Growling.

    I turned into the Incredible Hulk for about 10 minutes, I really did.

    I’m better now.

  • Kerry,  Politics,  Weirdness

    Quick round up

    • Blogs to Riches – a good article on the major blog players. I’m not mentioned for some reason.
    • Signs That the United States is About to Bomb Iran – it’s more of what the signs would be more than an indicator of occurrence.
    • Bikers roll to military funerals to oppose anti-gay protests

      They call themselves the Patriot Guard Riders, and they are more than 5,000 strong, forming to counter anti-gay protests held by the Rev. Fred Phelps at military funerals.

      Phelps believes American deaths in Iraq are divine punishment for a country that he says harbors homosexuals. His protesters carry signs thanking God for so-called IEDs — explosives that are a major killer of soldiers in Iraq.

      A good article on some fairly spontaneous action against Phelps and his loathsome cadre. Supposedly their intention is to provoke either the police or the military into assault to they can sue.

    • In the footnotes of this post, Jane Galt puts it very well with

      My favorite moment in the debates came at the “town hall” style one, where Kerry told a pro-life questioner that while he personally agreed with her that abortion was murder, he couldn’t legislate his morality. Pro-choice readers should substitute the words “lynching” for “abortion” and see if this position would overcome their reluctance to vote for a Dixiecrat

      That was what turned me off of Kerry too. At that time I was somewhat open to voting for him. Since the course in Iraq is set, I think the president and congress fighting all the time and getting nothing done would be a wonderful thing. Then he said that.

      I would imagine his actual position on abortion is more in the middle, most likely mirroring my own strong disapproval, but that statement lost me forever. My original thought on that debate was a bit different. He prefaced that comment with a statement of his Catholicism. My thought was “that’s like saying you’re a vegetarian that eats veal”. But Jane’s remark was much better.

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