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More thoughts on London
Instapundit pretty well sums up my view of the matter, but the whole business has led a few things to come to mind:
One thing absent from most analysis of the current world situation is the far reach of the community aspect (Ummah I believe) of Islam:
It is correctly used to mean the nation of the believers (Ummah Al-Muhmini) in Islam, thus the whole Muslim world.
In practical terms it takes the form of a meta-loyalty that competes with national loyalties (probably the reason the wretched term “Muslim-American” is used instead of “American Muslim”). I suppose the nearest comparison is the affinity of many American Jews for Israel, as well as the clamor for leniency for Jonathan Pollard. It also explains the attention given to Israeli treatment of Palestinians compared to the relatively scant attention given to all of the problems in Kyrgistan, Egypt, Sudan et al (in-team vs out-team)
For the most part though there is simply no matching comparison for Americans. Islam gives many Muslims a competing loyalty which Westerners have problems understanding but seems very natural to Muslims. This “team” aspect to the religion (a horizontal and not vertical faith, I’ll elaborate on that later) gives overlap to loyalties and goes far to explain the wholly inadequate Muslim response to terrorism.
In looking over this I see I shouldn’t post at 4:00 in the morning if I want to impress people with clarity.
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Technical Annoyances
I find out through experimentation that while my UPS is in fact working, it does NOT include surge protection (like every other UPS in the world).
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Updated Mapping
I finished my Geocoder/Ajax app and now my personal GMap is more fully automated.
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New gallery!
I just uploaded all of the photos Mark and I took last night.
The photos were taken at
- Howell Mill Drive, from the parking lot of some furniture store with a great view.
- A vacant but recently graded area that overlooked the new Ikea store. The grading made everything look like the surface of the moon.
- The park in the middle of the Atlantic Steel Mill project.
- The 75/85 overpass at the corner of Peachtree and Deering.
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The Wall Street Journal echoes me
While reading the diary of Eric Hoffer I came across his account of talking an old Russian emigre who claimed that the long-term effects of Communism in Russia was biological. To wit all of the people who were naturally talented farmers, managers and such were sent to die in Siberian labor camps.
The authors of Freakonomics make a similar point when discussing abortion and the dramatic drop in crime since the early 90’s. Their argument: unwanted pregnancies become unwanted children who are far more likely to commit crimes. Seems pretty believable.
I hadn’t thought of the crime angle but I had thought that the long term effect, or the Roe Effect would be, to quote the Jargon Database
An up and coming term; is the tendency of the “pro-life” people to have more children than “pro-choice” people. Since pro-lifers tend to be politically more conservative and they pass this political outlook on to their children. There are fewer corresponding pro-choice children to acquire pro-choice (an other) values.
Rather, legalized abortion will produce people who don’t support it. It is not an Evolutionary Stable Strategy.
James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal reaches my same conclusion before I write about it. Oh well.
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LA Times echoes A-Sides
In the last 50 years, $2.3 trillion has been spent to help poor countries. Yet Africans’ income and life expectancy have gone down, not up, during that period, while South Korea, Singapore and other Asian nations that received little if any assistance have moved from African-level poverty to European-level prosperity thanks to their superior economic policies.
and
Any real solution to Africa’s problems must focus on the root causes of poverty × mainly misgovernment. Instead of pouring billions more down the same old rat holes, maybe the Live 8 crew should promote a more innovative approach: Use the G-8’s jillions 2 hire mercenaries 4 the overthrow of the 6 most thuggish regimes in Africa. That would do more to help ordinary Africans than any number of musical extravaganzas.
Oddly enough, Adam expressed the same idea, in nearly the same words last Sunday. Strange.
And as I do a spell check of this post, It tags “misgovernment” as a misspelling, and wants to replace it with “McGovern”.
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Three Things
- When all is said and done, I think the London bombers will be more in the mold of the Columbine shooters than the 9-11 attackers, just some maladjusted Muslim losers who are just “too real” for the world.
- It will be revealed that Middle Eastern countries are emptying out their prisons into Iraq both as a way to tie up US troops and purge their society of unwanted persons.
- On another note, I’m just got back from night photography with Mark as protection, we got some incredible shots, look for a new gallery soon.
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Got the I-Sticker
A few days ago I got the “i” (for individualism) stickers from this site. The sticker seems to be of good quality and is pleasantly tasteful. I have seen the counterpart of this sticker (the yellow and blue “=”) which is intended to represent egalitarianism in a subtle way. May all bumper sticker debates be this civil.The whole thing seems to be the brainchild of one Sean Rife, who evidently works in a sign shop and can produce these at a low cost and can give them away. Thanks Sean!
I see by reading his blog that he’s attending (or just finished) an IHS Seminar, which I think is one I went to in 1998. I hope he finds it as helpful as I did.
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Photo galleries now online
You can get there by clicking the “Photo Gallery” link on the right. Below is a sample from the weird abandoned (or perhaps moved) church up the street. I’ll be putting everything else photo wise on there as well.
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Thursday round up
I realize I stole the “rapid-fire” notion from Defense Tech.
- < $800 Swarmable Robots – this could be the start of something wonderful, especially in agriculture and environmental cleanup. It has Linux, Bluetooth, the works. HT: Make Blog
- Roomba API – on a similar note this could be an actually workable version of the above. I still need to get a Roomba. Or else resort to vacuuming.
- The Counter Terrorism Blog – seems fairly interesting.
- The Aristocrats is coming out soon (HT the Agitator)
- Neighbors Subdue Man Stabbing Woman on NW Street
The first neighbor sprinted when he heard the screams of a woman being slashed on his Northwest Washington street. He jumped on a knife-wielding man, and the two fell to the ground, wrestling furiously in a spreading pool of the victim’s blood.
Soon, a second neighbor joined the fight, followed by three more. The assailant kept slipping from their grip and attacking the woman until they overpowered him and held him for police Tuesday night.