El Predicto strikes again

I think it, someone else makes it.

Priceless?

• Election stolen in 2000 - painful
• Election stolen again in 2004 - shameful
• Five years of "War on Terror" - pointless
• Taliban endorsement of "wise judgement" by American voters in '06 - priceless?

Fair plays dirty?

When FAIR runs a story claiming large corporate advertisers are boycotting liberal Air America it seems to me they are being unfair if they don't mention, or bother to research if those advertisers also boycott right wing radio stations and shows. Of course I don't know for sure if they do, but I have a gut feeling that some corporations just want to steer clear of any vaguely controversial media show - it doesn't matter if its Air America, Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern. Perusing the list of 90 something corporations that wont advertise with Air America I see REI Sporting Goods - I somehow doubt if they particularly singled out a "left wing" radio station, I think the same probably applies to Epson, Sony and Microsoft.

When cartoon worlds collide

One of my favorite comic strips (okay, so its my only comic strip) is Dilbert. As Dilbert readers will know during the week there is usually a continous theme to the strips. This last week (and apparently for the next week too) he's been doing the Dilbert equivalent of "Too Much Coffee Man" who is another comic hero that I briefly got into (I have a TMCM mug and used to have a T-shirt as well). I'm not a big comic or cartoon fan, but I knew a friend of the TMCM creator and as people who know me know, I have a strange ability to suck down too much coffee at all hours of the day. Mmmmm, coffee.

Coincidentally travelling

Some people see coincidences as more miraculous than they are. I say take 6 billion people, shake-em all up and let them rip for 70 years or so and they well see coincidences a plenty, more than there are constellations in the sky.

So today (well yesterday and today) I flew from San Francisco to Chicago and then to London and met up with some old friends in London tonight for dinner.

Coincidence number 1 - my seat neighbor from Chicago to London was a young woman on route to Beirut (that's Lebanon folks). She'd never been there but was meeting someone who was flying in from Saudi Arabi there. So guess what kind of restaurant my friends in London had arranged for us to go to? That's right, Lebanese - I've never been to a Lebanese restaurant but it was pretty tasty. As Ben would say "I'm only here for the burned meat" and really can't go wrong with burned lamb. Mmmm.

Coincidence number 2 - my Beirut bound seat neighbor happened to have started her journey in Madison Wisconsin where she lives, and Madison is also where my dos amigos Erin and Dave hail from. And of course they also just happen to have moved to Chicago which is where that leg of my flight started.

Coincidence number 3 - sitting at SFO the gate next to mine had a last boarding call for passenger Colin Smith which is the name of someone I once worked with at a former company. Mr Smith never showed up but at dinner with my friends who were also from that company his name came up randomly. I haven't seen Colin in years, I think he's at Google now - sure would be nice to hear from him.

Coincidence number 4 - traveling from SFO to Chicago my seat neighbor was a former Vietnam vet who spent his time taking photos hanging from helicopters, in observation planes etc. He is now a consultant specializing in teleprescence and autonomous systems, something me and my business partner are both interested in. After further discussion we turned out to have a lot of interests in common - when someone can list a bunch of pretty obscure books and you've read them all you know there has to be some commonality to explore.

Coincidence number 5 - okay this is kind of weak but as you may of noticed I managed to find out a bunch of stuff about my seat neighbors. I usually try to bury my head in a book or put on the 'phones and tune out the world. Probably the last time I ever talked much to a seat neighbor was a guy who noticed I was reading a book on religion and proceeded to try and proselytize about his particular religion for the next two hours, hence the headphones. However this time I feel I lucked out sitting next to not one but two interesting people with something to say, dare I say - "It sure made the time fly" ???

Urban cleansing for the soul

Yesterday and last night we had our first rain in a long time. I went and checked - not a drop has fallen since May 21st, that's pretty much four and a half months without rain. Even then it was less than a half an inch for all of may - you have to go back to April to find any real rain.

I must say it was quite refreshing, and I was out in San Francisco coming home as it really got started, the streets were pretty deserted and a lot of folks were scurrying around because they were completely unprepared. It doesn't rain here just long enough that you really get used to it and when it comes it is a surprise, even if they tell you before hand. This morning the sidewalks are cleaner, my car is cleaner (but you probably wouldn't notice) and the air is cleaner - big booming cumulus clouds indicate the skies are sucking moisture up into the sky everywhere.

I've heard there was snow abot 8,000 ft in the Sierras - time to start thinking about the snowboarding season....

Lucky to be alive

Some of you may have read about the Boeing 737 that went down Sunday in Brazil with 155 lives lost. What was amazing was that the reason the plane went down was rapidly discovered - it had been in a mid-air collision with a diminutive executive jet, that sustained damage but managed to land with all seven on board safe and sound. Even more amazing was that a New York Times journalist was on board and his story is now online Colliding With Death at 37,000 Feet, and Living. I have to admit a mid-air is not something I ever worry about when flying, at least not in commercial planes.

What would Jesus blog?

I'm sure if there was a guy alive today like the biblically portrayed character of Jesus then he would have a blog because you know he would have to speak the language of the people to get his message across (and maybe do a bit of spamming bulk mail too). On his blog he would probably relate every day things to some eternal after life to help everyday Homo erectus get a grasp on the concept. Apropos this and my experience of flying this weekend I feel sure that Jesus on his travels would surely one day blog something like this:

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a traveler to enter the airline security zone.

Justice for Privacy Pretexters

I don't know about you but every time I hear the word "pretext" bandied about I keep thinking of something that teens do before they start txt-ing on their phones and not doing something on a pretext. Oh well, its probably just me.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when HP Chairman Patrician Dunn said how she knew nothing about the pretexting investigations and everyone told her everything was kosher. Then she went on with a bunch of her cronies to take the fifth to avoid incriminating herself, I mean take the fifth, WTF? Don't tell me... you were doing it on the advice of your lawyer. Maybe Ms Dunn if you've really nothing to fear you should start taking some advice from your conscience?

I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of people working for HP who have nothing to do with this and are deeply disgusted by the hijinx of their board. After all lets not lose site that someone was actually leaking information here - just following examples from the White House no doubt. Anyway, I'm not going to be buying an HP computer any time soon, maybe next time there is a snitch on the board someone might actually take a principled stand and call their board on a principle of ethics... if they have ethical leg to stand on.

And by the way - hasn't anyone at HP heard of anonymous Internet protocols - they are ideal for leaking confidential documents, no strings or pretexts attached!

Franklin Diplomacy

Today I was just heading off to work when I got stuck in my local streets behind one of those big ass SUVs I love to bitch and moan about. I think it was an Escolade but really the point was it was crawling along the street, stopping, crawling, stopping and I couldn't get around it. Then it stopped stayed there and I figured he must be about to park so I backed up enough so I could see his driver side mirror clearly and waited. Then I noticed his reverse lights came on so I started to back up, realized there was someone coming up behind me so I laid on the horn.

SMACK

Oh well, there goes my third collision in that car in 13 years. One a hefty rear-ending (sufficient to give me whiplash for about a day) from a big Cadillac that didn't notice the light was red (or that I was waiting at the light...). I cut the guy a break - although my car was almost new the rear is actually very sturdy and all I had was some small imprints from his big wide front fender. It was actually pretty dumb because the whiplash could have ended up being much worse. The next collision was a front ender as I slid on a wet road into the back of stopped traffic on the notorious Hwy 17. Having a low front my car slid under the rear fender and it bent my hood somewhat and screwed up one headlight to point down too far. On reflection I really should have got that one fixed - it was the beginning of a steady decline in the exterior appearance, within a few more years it was already looking like a junker.

So enter the second front ender from my reversing friend in the SUV. Well after the guy behind me stopped honking (oh I was so tempted to reverse right into him...) the other guy parks and gets out. I get out and he just looks at my car. I look at my car. It took me a while before I noticed anything had changed. Basically he whacked my fender real hard (and dented it - big deal) on the right side and just about evened it up in the process since the first front ended had been on the left side. I think he dislodged another fog lamp but those hadn't worked in years and the other one was loose anyway. His monster seemed to have a smattering of my red paint over it but I couldn't really see that it was dented and he didn't even look.

Well I was about to say "Don't worry about it" when he thrusts two Franklins at me (you know $200) and says, "here I tell you what, have two hundred". So that was about it - Franklin diplomacy. I got more than I wanted, he got to keep his insurance clean and really my fender got straightened up.

Of course I really should have insisted on exchanging details - the $200 might have gone away then - later on I realized I didn't check my hood and sure enough its much harder to open now. However before it seemed to be barely closed, you could almost lift it up without the hood release being pulled. And I guess it was entirely possible he could have knocked my frame out of whack but it really didn't seem that hard - the fender took it and the first front end was much worse and had no effect. Ultimately if I'd gone the insurance route its anyone's give if I would ever have gotten any money since it would have been easy for them to argue the damage was already there since some of it has been there a looooong time and its hard to tell old and busted from new and busted. Plus they might have wanted to know just why my car is looking like such a wreck in the first place.

Next time I swear, I'm going to get a phone number - actually I did that once with my other car when it got rear-ended by a girl driving her mothers brand new Saturn. Made a real mess of her hood and I got $500 for scratches on my fender which no, I never took care of. Really, you couldn't see it for all the other scratches - that is what fenders are for. They should just put peel off layers of plastic coating on them or something.

Anyway, I feel like Ben Franklin just gave us some payback for that forged note we got passed the other day. Found money is all good as far as I'm concerned.

Not your soldier - anti-war for GENERATION TXT

I came across a flash movie called Not Your Soldier, it is aimed at young voters - those most likely to great drafted for Iraq. It is encouraging to see someone is thinking about getting the message across to "generation text" (as I'm going to call them - see the video to find out if you don't get it) which I suppose should be written typed as "GENERATION TXT" (or is it GNR8TN TXT?)

Yes I thought the chances of me actually coining that phrase were slim. A quick search proved me right. See the BBC page on Generation Text.

Flying on 9/11

Last week I flew to Canada via Las Vegas on September 11th. I didn't even think about the date until that morning but when we got to Oakland airport it was obvious it had had an effect on the flying public. We drove directly to the terminal drop-off point and parked with no waiting at all, something I haven't done there except very, very late at night. Then I went straight to the check in desk where the guy told me they had had only about 50 customers since the afternoon. I walked straight to the security check with not a soul in front of me. In fact I got there so fast I completely forgot to take my shoes off. Still the security guys were making full use of the extra time - I was given a complete shake down - they X-rayed my checkin baggage separately (don't they do that anyway?), poked my feet presumably to make sure they weren't fake, and searched all my bags. Once onboard although I had almost the worst seat on the plane - non-reclining last row seat next to the toilet - there was fortunately about twenty empty seats in front of me. All that made for a pretty relaxing flight into Toronto and I didn't once think about the plane being hijacked and crashing into a building...

Definition of a Terrorist

This is rather incoherent but...

I know Bush and other leaders of nation states get labeled as terrorists, and not only by the people they themselves label as terrorists. In my opinion it doesn't seem that unreasonable to me - often the only distinguishing feature between actions of "classic" terrorists like bin Laden or Hezbollah, and the nation state leaders is a matter of how well armed the people are, and whether they are a leader of a recognized nation state.

Well just now I read Howard Zinn's article "War-Mongering America Terrorizes the World" which seems to refine the problem of "What is a terrorist". Basically Zinn concludes if your actions inevitably lead to civilian deaths then you are ipso facto, a terrorist. I'm going to add that your actions must be intended to further some cause or other, presumably of some political nature - unless we want to allow for corporate terrorists (people who inevitably cause deaths due to known deficiencies their product in pursuit of profit).

I think Zinn's definition isn't quite there though, because basically almost any military action even in this day and age of "smart bombs" will inevitably lead to civilian deaths. So basically Zinn labels anyone participating in war, even between nation states, as a terrorist which doesn't seem very useful to me. I suppose you could ask the question "well did the action specifically target civilians?" but that also seems to have the flaw of "what is a civilian?".

In Iraq the US conveniently labels anyone who opposes the American occupation as "insurgents" so they become, in Bush's eyes, legitimate non-civilian targets and hence targeting them wouldn't be a terrorist act. In other peoples eyes they are still just civilians who oppose the military overthrow of their country. As another example in occupied France the allied forces would call the people who opposed German occupation "resistance fighters" or perhaps now "freedom fighters". We would certainly cringe at the thought of them being targeted and executed by the Germans. Yet really the Germans were just eradicating World War II "insurgents" something the US now legitimizes. This even seems to be happening at home, you don't even need to raise a weapon to be labeled as a terrorist, or a terrorist organization and lose all your civilian rights without recourse. Other people might just think you are legitimate dissenting civilians.

I wonder if 9/11 had only targeted non-civilian targets - like US Army bases would that have made Osama any less of a terrorist? Would he have instead been waging war against the US instead of terrorizing us? Would it have made the Bush rampage in Afghanistan and eventually Iraq any less inevitable?

Really I don't have a good definition of terrorist, but I do a) feel like the term is often applied for convenience to label anyone that is subjectively bad, b) our nation (and others) do knowingly engage in actions that inevitably cause civilian deaths, either directly or indirectly, and as such has lead to the "terrorizing" of people not directly and presently raising arms against us. As Zinn points out, this is at least immoral, if not as good as being a "terrorist" itself.

A year of rare piano performances

So far this year I've managed to catch both Keith Jarret and Oscar Peterson in concert. Jarret almost never does concerts and as for Peterson, well I have to admit I didn't even realize he was still alive and it was a super treat to walk down to Yoshis and see him right in my 'hood! It really doesn't get much better than this.

The real 9/11 conspiracy

9/11 conspiracy theorists and politicians should be watching Nova's Building on Ground Zero. Not only does it get a hell of a lot closer to providing a plausible explanation of the WTC collapses but also exposes an even more plausible conspiracy - that of government inaction to do anything about the lessons learned form the collapse and failure to implement improvements in building codes recommended by NIST. This includes really obvious stuff like wider stairways for escape, designing escape systems for full rather than partial evacuation so you can actually get people out before the structure exceeds its maximum fire rating, better fireproofing for steel that wont be damaged by maintenance or blown off in an explosion, and redundant critical systems.

What is driving that inaction? Well money of course, construction people, the government and others claim it would cost "millions of dollars in extra cost for each building" which is somewhat ironic when the government wrote a blank check in 2003 to invade Iraq that cost us hundreds of billions - a fraction of which would have paid for thousands of safer skyscrapers... If 9/11 had just lead to a big fire and a few hundred deaths do you think we would be in Iraq now?

Toward the end "Building on Ground Zero" focuses in on a new building in Shanghai destined to be the tallest in habited building in the world. The Chinese are proving to be anything but fruggle in that design - massively redundant structure, multiple reinforced safe havens accessible from stairs, interior and exterior elevators available for rescue to name but a few. The also mention the improvements used in the WTC 7 rebuild - far beyond code. So obviously some people get it, so why not just make all this mandatory and not leave the choice to be frugal and put lives at risk in the hands of penny pinching developers?

Think globally, entertain locally

I just returned from a weekend trip to Las Vegas which was my first trip back there since, well, last century - something like 1997 as best I can figure. Last time I had a lot of fun, this time it was mostly ho-hum. Could have been last time I was with a big group who were partying - this time my gal was busy with a convention and I was marooned in a hotel that offered little more than gambling, gambling and more gambling. Could also be that last time I won around $1,000 playing roulette and this time the machines, well they just sucked and sucked at the dollars in my wallet. Well more fool me. It was mildly entertaining I guess - but I suppose if they could just told me ahead of time how much I'd lose (or win) I could have stayed up in the room with a good book.

Perhaps the worst part was arriving - it really put a downer on the event from the start. You would think that Vegas with almost all its entertainment and accomodations arrange conveniently along the strip could manage a decent transportation system. You'd have thought that at the airport you could just jump on a train of some sort and be whisked at high speed towards the money pit. Oh no. Instead we spent 45 minutes waiting for baggage in what must be one of the worlds biggest baggage halls, and then 15 minutes wandering round like lost sheep trying to find our hotel shuttle - they don't have one after 10pm - and then a shuttle of any sort - they don't go to our hotel because its in the wrong direction.

So then we go look for a taxi find the worlds longest taxi line. It must be 50 yards long, perhaps even closer to 100. But wait, there's more... it goes to then end, and back and to the end and back, and... you get it. Standing out in the heat (even though its 11pm) we shuffle back and forth like some rats trapped in a maze designed by Escher. After a total of seven times we finally get to stand by our numbered post and wait. All this took an hour. A entire hour waiting for a taxi, seriously we could have walked half way there in that time and if you add in how long it took to get our bags and find the taxi line we actually spent 2 1/2 hours getting to the hotel after landing - the entire flight from Oakland only took an hour and a half!

So, you know me, I like to rant and rave but seriously, Vegas is one f**ked up place when it comes to getting around. I really can't imagine any European city managing to be so transportationally dysfunctional.

So we end up on the strip the next night (a $30 taxi ride each way from the South Coast Hotel) and have a fantastic meal at Bouchon which also takes us a half hour to locate in the hotel. You actually have to enter the hotel from the strip, walk out into the garage and take an elevator from there. But after the meal wandering along the strip I just couldn't help but wander at the inefficiency of dragging tens of thousands of people there every day from all over the country, or even the world just to shove them into a big air conditioned warehouse full of slot machines. No wonder the US is against internet gambling - we could all just sit our lazy asses on the couch and lose our money.

Sure you don't have all the shows to go watch on your couch but you know what, once apon a time people toured - in fact I think they still do. Where's the efficiency of dragging you entire audience to one fixed, hot and over air conditioned location vs. taking the entertainer to the people?

Personally I think Vegas really exists because Americans don't have enough leisure time. They just want to get the feeling of going away and have everything they want in one place - as one taxi driver put it - the "three gees" (gamble, get drunk, get laid). Above all it should all be doable in one weekend, or at most one week. I mean why bother fly to Europe to see Venice, Paris and great fountains when you can just go to the desert and do it there? (Okay I admit, the Belagio fountains are pretty dammed amazing)

Evolution stamps on mutant creationist thinking

What does evolution say about intelligent design supporters running schools? Begone fools, your line of thinking is an evolutionary dead end that would have lead us all from an overpopulated hell straight back into the muddy slime of polluted oceans. You evolved a brain to think - now use it or loose it.

Choosing not to work

There is an interesting NY Times article about more and more men over 30 choosing not to work after unemployment where previously it was assumed all men would try to get back to work. I note it mentions the unemployment rate being very low but that unemployment figures do not include those no longer actively seeking a job. So, as this article has indicated there is an awful lot of people, increasingly men, out there who have stopped bothering to look for jobs that is hiding the true decline in the workforce. Those figures are available (I haven't dug them out for a couple of year) and I'm sure they are illuminating.

Faith based initiative

I'm on Greg's mailing list, you know Greg, the one who researched and whistle blew the Florida voting scandal in 2000 - likes kick up a stink over voting fraud and political shenanigans, that's right, Greg Palast. Unfortunately the US media didn't report it until way too late (doubting the credibility of your electoral system is unpatriotic right?) so only the Brits got to hear about it while it still could have made a difference to the 2000 election.

Anyway, Greg is like a dog with a tasty bone and just wont let go of anything in the least bit related to Bush, Republicans and the whole screwed up nature of this country (which is probably a relief for other countries he might otherwise have time to criticize). Hi latest little tid bit was Bush's boner for cutting inheritance taxes (wrongly labeled "death taxes"). A few years ago I heard a talk about this lead by Bill Gates Senior, just Billionaire Bill's dad. He had joined forces with several other very wealthy people and stood against Bush's tax cut plans. Unfortunately it didn't work.

Hence Greg's latest bash against Bush goes like this: Congress' vote last week would eliminate only 74% of the taxes on America's wealthiest. Our President is not satisfied. Mr. Bush will not rest in peace until we emulate one of the only nations on the planet without any death taxes, Saudi Arabia. There, our president could point to the example of the billionaire bin Laden family, whose scion, Osama, unburdened by estate taxes, has donated his entire inheritance to "faith-based initiatives."

Its typical Pallast writing, hold no prisoners, punch bellow the belly, etc. But my point is nothing to do with inheritance taxes - Greg just gave me the most extreme example of a faith based initiative. I mean flying a plane into a building because you want to hang out with a bunch of virgins in heaven - that really is putting your faith ahead of everyone else's right to live and believe whatever they want to (or not) to the point of exclusion of all others.

I'm going underground!

Thanks to John Ottesen for a link to London Underground History which has a lot of cool subterranean photos that reminds you of American Werewolf in London (which in turn reminds me of Jenny Agguter getting her kacks off...)

When my oldest brother was a college in London he got together with some people who did some underground exploring of their own. They had maps of many underground passages in central London and did all kinds of exploring - I think I heard only the half of it. I doubt if such things go on now - if you were caught they'd probably send you off to Guantanamo as a terrorist or some other exotic destination for "rendering".

Still, my bro' will have some cool "when I were a lad" type stories to tell when he's about ninety and college kids wont even be let out of their virtual reality dorms for a pee. Exploring underground tunnels in London will sound about as far fetched as "licking road clean with tongue". Aye lad, them were the days!

An open letter to the Internal Revenue Service

Dear Internal Revenue Service (aka "The Man"),

For many years now I have been electronically filing my taxes via the Internet, in fact I believe I've been doing it since this option was first made available, even though it typically costs me some money. It saves me time, you money and a whole bunch of trees every year - that's a win-win-win right? Yes, a win, win, win - that's as American as apple pie!

However in April 2005 you decided to block my electronic filing - you had instantaneously determined that my tax return contained an error, apparently someone had already claimed on of my dependents as their dependent. Because of this I had to print a big stack of paper and run to the post office (I agree that's my fault for procrastinating).

Fast forward to July 2006 when I receive a fat envelope from the IRS. That's someone no one wants to see, and even though I've never had one before I knew it was bad news. Imagine my surprise, and mostly shock, that you said I made an error by not reporting sale of a stock and you wanted me to pay you over $15,000 including over $2,3000 in penalties and $1,200 in interest payments for the 15 month period since my taxes were filed.

How is it that when I come to file my taxes you can instantaneously check my return for accuracy, yet it takes 15 months to tell me something that could ultimately net you a windfall of $3,500 in interest and penalties???

Guess what, you included a handy list of Frequently Answered Questions - gosh, you guys are really with it, maybe next year you'll just put "FAQ" then I'll know that you truly are a hip and trendy Internets friendly organization. And guess what the number one questions is "Why did it take IRS so long to contact me?". Hmmm... Well you claim "Tax years generally end of December 31, be we may not receive complete information from employers, banks, businesses, and other payers until much later".

I say "Hooey!"

It turns out all the institutions involved in your dispute had filed their information on time and well before I even filed my taxes. There was no late filing of information by institutions and you could easily have checked my return at the time of filing or before you paid me my 2004 refund (which you did).

I say you guys deliberately let this one slide for an extra year so you could pick up another $1,200 in interest in a year when tax receipts are down yet again from Bush's projections. I'll be willing to bet that it was IRS mandated policy to be as tardy as you damn well please with this kind of notice and its been sitting in a computer file for at least 12 months. In fact I'll wager you had flagged my file back when you first wrote me my 2004 tax refund. Nothing like giving a guy a refund to make him feel like everything is copasetic with "the man", then sticking it to him a year later with a $15,000 demand.

Understand this, I'm not a survivalist libertarian who hates government - I had until this time been pretty cool about paying my taxes, in 12 years I'd only once filed late, and have never had an error against me. I even cough up for nice software and e-filling to make it easier for you to process my returns. Paying taxes is paying the man, and "The man" is myself I told myself ergo paying taxes is good (thanks Josh Kornbluth for teaching me this).

So dear IRS - next time you even suspect there may be a huge error in my tax return, just tell me ASAP okay? I don't care if you're waiting on some institution for information to positively confirm this - just call me okay? You have my number, you know where I live, heck you even know who I work for so its not a problem. If someone is late filing their institutional information let me go kick their butts and make sure they send it to you. After all, anyone who is 15 months late filing their information is someone I don't want to do business with anyway.

I suspect this year you have sent similar demands to thousands, if not millions of American tax payers. I expect not all were as fortunate as me to discover this time the IRS had made an error, consequently you are now sitting on a very substantial pile of interest payments because you just took your own sweet time to let them know. I expect the person who decided to add a few months here and there (maybe years - who knows how long you guys stretch it out - you might have socked this one to me on my death bed for all I know!) will get a big fat raise and maybe a promotion from his boss this year.

Let me remind you of one thing - you guys are the man but you also work for the man and guess who "the man" is? Yeah, that's right - its us, you work for us. So just be careful because sooner or later enough of us are going to notice this late payment interest penalty boondoggle and do something about it. It may take us years and years because sometimes institutions do not provide complete information "until much later". Yeah, you know how those freedom of information act filings can take forever to get fulfilled - sometimes a whole presidential term comes and goes... But when they do you, and we find there was a systematic policy of sending demands as late as possible, well, lets just say at the very least you guys may be getting a very large demand for return of late payment interest and oh yes, interest on that interest!

Yours faithfully,

A tax payer (aka "A man")

Wal and Peace

The title is a jibe at how long the article The Case for Breaking Up Wal-Mart is, although it appears to be full article from Harper's so I'll excuse you for experiencing ADD after hitting Page-Down a few time. However the meat of the article is interesting and at least now I know what monopsony and the waterbed effect are but I wont tell you - you'll have to read the article to find out.

I especially liked the little twist right at the end, clearly designed to sell bringing anti-trust actions to the libertarian and republicans, however I doubt many are reading Harper's or would make it to the end of the article. The jibe about Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott's efforts to use anti-trust against other companies is even funnier... I guess they'd love to do that until they are the only Mart in the world.

Reading this article, I realized it does not mention anywhere Wal-Mart's recent efforts to paint itself as a "green" company. It's not really relevant to the title but I got to wondering if this monopsony effect applies to its green (or green-wash, depending on your perspective) activities. I could only conclude it must do. I just wonder whether that is a good or bad thing for the eco-market. Probably, since the move of a 600lb gorilla move into the market will inevitably dictate and squeeze supplier profits (I give in, that's monopsony) it will stifle innovation and investment in this area preemptively. Furthermore Wal-Mart will be able to dictate which green ideas flourish independently of their worthiness or eco-friendly qualities. So if hydrogen power is dictated as the be-all and end-all of power sources by the Republicans, then Wal-Mart will surely jump on that wagon and by its might alone dictate that to be a market winner, regardless of its dubious credentials as a green energy source (when generated via fossil fuels vs. renewables).

Peak Peak Oil?

No, that's not a typo, I really did mean to type "Peak Peak Oil". For a while it seemed that the media chatter about "Peak Oil" theory had calmed down a bit (or maybe I wasn't pay as much attention). Anyway, I recently came across this rather level headed Australian documentary called Four Corners that is a good primer for all those who have not already got their head around this concept.

One consequence of Peak Oil that I haven't heard in a while is what happens when every nation starts ramping up home grown, often synthetic alternatives to oil as mentioned in Four Corners - like synthetic bio-oil, coal liquefaction etc. etc. and selling that on the world market, if they have any to spare that is. Are those countries really going to want to keep selling it priced in US dollars, an increasingly weak and poorly managed currency?

They day they decide "No" will be the day the US gets a double whammy from the Peak Oil effect that will have even more impact on our country than dry gas pumps - it'll be dry greenback pumps as foreign investors pull out their massive and cheap supply of investment capital. Spiraling interest rates will follow as the country futilely tries to maintain the flow of dollar investment and that ain't gonna be pretty at home. As Four Corners points out, a 1930s depression, or worse could easily be just around the corner as the entire global economy takes a "correction" for its last 50 years or so of massive over extension.

Finally, the other thing I didn't hear was that oil is used for far more than for driving and flying our fat globe-trotting asses all over the shop. No, actually a huge amount of that oil is turned into plastic, fertilizers, and any number of chemical products that our entire society has become dependent on, even more so than oil. Switching our cars to electric or electric-hydrogen systems is a no brainer, but we should really be doing RIGHT NOW regardless of whether there is oil still left in the ground because when there isn't, synthesizing all those plastics, and other petro-products from corn and cow poop is going to be a darn sight harder and expensive than using an electric motor to power our cars right now. Of course you could just argue we can ditch plastic all together and go back to wood which would be rather nice for our little carbon-dioxide problem.

Maybe in 50 years time everyone will be rushing to replant the Amazon Rainforests to make a quick buck? One thing is for sure, as we rush to push land back into natural production of materials powered by that big-ole free energy source in the sky known as the sun there will be quite the rush on real estate and squeeze to pillage our national parks to make a buck. Lets hope sanity will win the day and people will finally figure out the way to solve the supply and demand problem is not more supply but less demand. Yes folks, less growth, even decline can be a good thing. For once economists have to learn to start fearing increases in demand, increases in output, increases in consumption and lets face it, increases in population. Remember folks - being child free is patriotic - we're saving the world one less consumer at a time!

And finally finally (again intentional because I already had a "finally...") if you want a bit of balance from someone who thinks there is no impending doom you can read Confessions of an ex-doomer at Peak-Oil Debunked. Actually I never said there is going to be an impending doom, a long hard recession is hardly doom, even global war over resources is hardly the end of the world (in an extreme peak-oil scenario do we even have the cheap oil to afford anything other than lobbing missiles around?), but lets face it, just like with global warming without some vision of impending doom to galvanize the population, the switch to alternative and more energy efficient technologies will take a lot, lot longer. Some people will argue its all market driven - ie. no matter how much doom mongering people will just follow the dollar and buy everything while its cheap. I'm sure that's partly, even mostly true - high prices have certainly kicked off all kinds of expensive oil production schemes, but I happen to believe that doom mongering has helped create a market too as Bush has shown more than adequately in their selling of fear and loathing via the never ending fight against doom also known as "war on terrorism" (because lets face it, the "war on drugs" just didn't cut it for oppressing an entire nation, only 2% of it). For once its nice to think a story of doom might be working for the good of the country...

Remember kids, as I mentioned already: "Sovle the oil crisis - reduce demand - wear a condom", its the ultimate act of patriotism.

Six degrees of separation debunked?

The latest reports flying round seem to be saying that "six degrees of separation" theory has been "debunked". When I read the original BBC story I have to say I was less than convinced. Basically the new chatter is based on the fact that theory was tested by getting people to try and communicate to a distance person via a chain of mailed letters, and that very few of those letters (less than 10%) ever reached their target.

Big deal.

I'm going to call Foul! on this supposed debunking because the test of the theory was a pretty lame one and prone to errors. For instance what if the person just doesn't bother to send the letter? My high-school statistics seems to indicate that if just 1/3 of people receiving a letter didn't bother to mail it on then with a chain of six that would yield only a probability that only 8% of letters actually reached their target.

More important, think about if someone was connected to another by one and only one chain of six people - the test presupposes that each person in the chain knows the ideal person at each step to contact. The likelihood of that being true is unimaginable. What actually happened, I expect was people just forward to someone in another city closer to the target person and by chance the connection was found - there was certainly no rigorous exploration of connections. All things considered a success rate of 10% or even less seems very high to me and I would actually guess that the results point to people being even more connected, on average, than one might imagine - maybe only three or four degrees in many cases.

I hope someone else is able to point this out - I doubt if anyone will notice my protests. But perhaps by the theory of the fundamental interconnectedness of all things mine will reach someone with enough clout to quash the debunking theory. As far as I'm concerned there are people out there like Google, Friendster, Yahoo and others (even phone companies) who, by using their databases to analyze social networks and patterns of communication could easily measure with much greater accuracy the n-degrees of separation. In fact I would be willing to guess that the CIA and others have already done this - they just aren't telling us about it yet.

Dance

You know I knew there was a reason for me to run into John O again... a little dance therapy does wonders for the soul.

Tea

Here's an entertaining tea-time rap courtesy of a couple of lads from the UK... Narnia

PS. Jack and Chicken, you guys are so busted!

Another faux-steak in the wall

There's another article about lab grown meat in Alternet today, this time its a little fish fillet they breaded up and did a smell test on. For whatever reason they didn't actually eat it, but I'm sure someone has done. I don't know where all the characterisations of this as ghoulish and nightmarish come from, sounds like a bad place to start marketing this.

Is it because they are culturing cells in the lab? Well if its plant cells being cultured then no one blinks an eye.

Is it because they are cells someone might eat? Well if its bacteria in yoghurt, or for other macro-biotic brews then no one blinks and eye.

Is it because its actual animal cells being cultured? Well if its a skin graft then no one blinks an eye.

So what is it? Beats me - shut up your whining and eat your meat!

Seriously though, the only qualm I have about this is just how much energy it might take vs. pasturing an animal out on the range, and just what the unknown consequences of giant mono-culture meat labs could be. Could they end up causing a virtual extinction of the domesticated animals we currently eat - like sheep, pigs and cows? Could they also be the perfect host for some new super virus that, because there is no genetic variety in the food system any more, will wipe out all the meat cells in no time at all?

El Predicto strikes again

Reading the Wired news this morning I spotted a story on manufacturing meat in a laboratory. Three years ago I wrote about this and now I guess some Dutch guys are working on it for real. There will be no steak for a while, but manufactured ground meat may not be too far off.

Double blogginess

Once apon at time some friends of mine announced to me they had started a blog. I was pretty curious about blogs - I'd heard of them but hadn't actually become a regular blog reader, actually mostly I was interested in becoming a blog writer. Fresh into my anti-coporate personhood jag I think I thought I had something to tell the world. Anyway, suffice to say that The Long Dark Tea-Time was born shortly afterwards.

Although this blog is barely sipping at the tea these days its still ticking along after three years. I think I even have a few regular subscribers out there - although writing about the stuff I do I get a ton of hits purely from search engines. For a while my Iraqi Flag image was the number one Iraqi Flag image on Google.

Then one day because Blogger doesn't have post categories and because I was trying to remain mostly anonymous but wanted to blog about mainstream tech stuff, I started another tech focused blog. For obvious reasons I wont give its name or a link here, but it wouldn't be hard to guess, so now I had two blogs. For a while I was even contributing to a group blog called Johnnytheo (either Johnny Theo or Johnny The O, I can't remember which).

But today I'd like to give special mention to the blogopshere's newest recruit, someone who I've said always should be blogging about her day to day experiences. Yes my partner and packing and shipping savant (also refered to as "Agent J") has finally got her own blog. Unfortunately I'm not going to give you the link here since being in retail if all my friends end up knowing about it someday soon so will some of her customers. Then one day someone will come along and notice that their bad behavior at the store has been publicised and will bring a big fat lawyer to the party. So if you happen to know "Agent J" in person I'll let you bug her in person for the link, or wish that her blog will become so famous that you will get to read it anyway. Until then good luck finding it and welcome to the Blogosphere Agent J!

The History of Oil

Thanks to Tree Hugger I came across a great potted history of oil by comic Robert Newman. A video of his performance is available for free from Google Video. When he started talking about the coincide of Iraq and Iran switching to trading oil in Euros and its impact on US deficit spending I could have wept since I blogged about this theory way back in 2003 before the US even stepped foot in Iraq. I believe this theory then and I still believe it now. I don't think it was the only reason the USA went in, but I think it was definitely contributing factor. Believe me, with China alone holding 1 trillion in US dollars imagine what would happen if everyone stopped needing greenbacks to buy oil. It would be like switching from gold to leaves as the backing for currencies - good bye bullion hello deforestation!

9/11 Conspiracy doing the rounds again

I just received an email from someone who doesn't normally circulate me anything spam or urban myth flavored. However this one was about the #1 movie on Google Video - apparently its 911 Loose Change which is yet another 9/11 conspiracy theory. Actually when I checked now its only at #13, with the number one spot held firmly by a Japanese commercial for a seemingly translucent bra (followed closely by a promotional spot for The Naked News).

Anyway, I did watch "Loose Change" and I have to say my mind has not changed since I last dug through all the conjecture at sites like 911review.com and its ilk. Basically I think Bush and Cheney could only dream of pulling off such an elaborate stunt but they simply couldn't. And if they really did need and want to risk such a major hoax and an excuse for empire building they could and I believe would have choosen a much simpler plan - just fly one or two planes into buildings, or simply blow them up and blame the terrorists.

When "Loose Change" starts delving into notions that it was all done to claim a few billion in insurance and gold, well its just beyond belief. There are far easier and legitimate was to cream off a few billion from the economy. The bigger deal here is that Bush actually got away with all the crap he did and got himself (re)elected in 2004. That required no conspiracy, no drone planes, no pre-planted charges - just a ready and will nation of dumb and dumber voters who think happiness can be delivered by killing terrorists.

Clownification

Right on the heels of my "Bread and circuses" post comes an Alternet story on the Clownification of America. Listen up bozos!

"Bread and Circuses"

I'm guilty of many of the circus distractions Tony Long lists in his rant What If They Gave a War...? but I know how he feels. I marched my ass off protesting Bush's calls to war, didn't make a damn bit of difference, now I'm feeling pretty apathetic about the whole shebang - they didn't have to ignore me for long to grind down my spirit. I expect many people are far easier victory.

My theory has always been most people will take pizza, cheap beer and Monday night football without so much of a thought before having to make much a sacrifice to keep it. Now most of the people out there making sacrifices never really had much of a choice about it - pretty much like those drafted for Vietnam - as is witnessed by the ever more frantic efforts to get people to sign up voluntarily for service (which recently included free iPods, messages on pizza boxes and more).

I gave up trying to read all the responses (mostly negative) responses it caused but clearly an awful lot of people have fallen for the circus act hook line and sinker.

Transhuman Olympics

Today I heard someone on the radio concuring with my idea that there should be a completely drug free olympics and then a separate event for those that have "augmented" their capabilities. In particualr the radio guest was talking about "trashuman" athletes which might include those with not just drug based therapies but also genetic or even physical (think "bionic") ones too.

While I doubt I was the first person to suggest such a thing it was good to hear it come out of someone elses mouth. However, as I heard it I realised there was a big problem... If sports people were given free run at drug or physical augmentation that event would quickly fragment into many factions depending on which particular line of augmentation they had persued. Would genetically engineered athelets then want to compete with steroid or other drug enhanced ones? Should "bionic" atheletes (think Tour-de-France type "blood boosting" and mechanically reinforced bones and muscles) be allowed to compete together? Or is it just a free-for-all of anything goes?

Ultimately I would say the only thing that is meaninful is an athelete that has been drug and therapy free from day one. Anything else will quickly go to the lowest common denominator and become just a showcase for the drug companies.

The Real World - Star Wars

Couldn't resist posting this Robot Chicken episode - reality based Star Wars if George Lucas had a sense of humor.

The Florida no-go zone

With AllState and other insurance companies cancelling insurance policies up and down the Atlantic Coast and refusing to write new ones in other states I wonder what effect this will have on Florida and others who are due to get whacked by hurricanes with increasing frequency. Is there a chance that people will start to leave those areas for safer places? But where can you go in the US that isn't subject to hurricanes, tornados, winter storms or earthquakes?

If nothing else this just goes to show that insurance companies never write a policy they think they might actually lose money on. It brings to mind the idea of communities self insuring - a policy (no pun intended) that might actually encourage greater honesty in claims. It could also avoid the problem of greedy insurance companies that dump their filty lucure into investments that loose when the economy crashes and then pass back to their customers.

I think it is only a matter of time before someone figures out how to use the Internet to collectively write insurance policies for the lowest possible premium. The big problem would seem to be who polices the claims?

GPS is Darwin's friend

This article of people driving over bridges that aren't there just goes to show that in the absence of natural foes, technology can steep right in to be Darwin's friend. I can see the bumper sticker now - "When you drive with GPS you ride with Darwin". I don't suppose this would be a good time to suggest if someone really wanted to do some damage to the US all it would have to do would be to hack all the GPS network and start sending more than cars off bridges.

All quiet on the tea-time front

Yes I know its been over a month since I last posted here - I'm not entirely sure why - partly apathy and partly an overload of things to post led me to the conclusion there just wasn't time to post any of them. Beside's I'm way behind on a million little tasks, and just rescued a cat that had been hit by a car. All I can say is thank goodness for tax filing extensions...

Do androids dream of.... electric carp???

Is it just me, or has the world suddenly developed and unhealthy obsession with electric animals? Be it robo-dogs from Sony that go "wrrr, wrrr, wrrrr", robot sharks that keeps aquarium visitors enthralled, or now, robot carp. I thought it was bad enough to work in an office where they don't even have real plants - there's something decidedly creepy about recycling dead trees, in the form of oil, back into plastic trees. But now I have to contemplate the true reality that the fantasy portrayed in Phil K. Dick's novel "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" might actualy come to pass.

Be cool, be very cool!

So I read this article on how air conditioned seats could result in a 7.5% saving in car air condition fuel usage which is 522 million gallons of gas a year. Say what! Five hundred and fify-two million gallons? That means Americans are wasting almost 7 billion gallons of gas a year just air conditioning their ride, let alone actually driving it. How about we all just crack the window open instead of cranking the A/C ???

Fungibility of Oil

A while back I found an article about how hybrid car buying consumers were delluding themselves about what impact their purchase was making on the world. The argument went something like "when you buy a hybrid the associated drop in oil demand has no real effect on the world's oil buying habits because the cheapest gas always sells first so the oil you don't buy will just get bought by someone somewhere else". So, the argument goes, just because you personally have bought one less gallon of gas from, say Saudi Arabia (insert your evil oil selling empire here), just means there will one more gallon of oil for them to sell (cheaply) to, say, China. In effect you have increased the availability of cheap gas to the rest of the world.

To further compound the problem, because countries like Saudia Arabi produce the cheapest gas - as I've pointed out before, so cheap that it's still pint for pint cheaper than buying clean water - you've effectively prolonged the amount of time those countries will be in business making money from selling oil cheaper than the good guys like Canada and Venezuela.

That was, how shall I say it, a bit of a blow to my Hybrid lusting ego. It turns out it was basically a restatement of the fact that oil is a fungible commoditiy - one barrel of oil is pretty much (except for issues of "sweetness" and "lightness") the same as any other and can be traded on the open market as such. Of course it overlooks the fact that regardless of reduce oil consumption's impact on short term oil sales by the likes of Saudi Arabi, it does mean that, in the long run oil supplies will last longer, that there will be fewer carbon emissions and that the US, as a whole, can, in theory, reduce its consumption of oil. I say "in theory" because following the above argument, one could argue that it will just help keep gas prices low and as we should all know, low prices fuel increased demand demand and consumption.

Interestingly the article I read suggested that what environmentalists should be doing is promoting, buying and driving the most gas guzzling behemoths they can afford. In so doing they would help decrease the supply of cheap gas, drive up prices and hasten the switch to more fuel efficient cars and energy generation globally. If you want to wean the world off cheap gas just put your money where your mouth is burn it up, burn it all up!

I never got around to writing about that article until today - in fact I even lost the original reference so I can supply a link to it. The reason I decided to write about it today was that not only did The Economist have an article on the issue of fungibility of oil, but also today's Dilbert cartoon was also about it, specifically the futility of buying a hybrid.

Personally I don't care, I'll still lust after a hybrid or the cleanest, leanest fuel burning car I can buy next time I'm putting dollars down for a car. My purchase will just be a personal investment in encouraging car manufacturers to build more fuel efficient technology - technology that can be used the world over. If Americans can help Toyota get the bugs out of systems to use 50% less gas then that same technology can be sold to countries like China where their reduced consumption will have an even greated effect.

So my next car could be a hybrid, it could be an electric car, or it could be just a clean diesel using all that cleaner low-sulphur fuel that will be coming out in 2007. Yes did you know that in 2007 the US will switch the European standard for diesel fuel which has much less sulphur in it and hence can run with much lower emissions. Lower emissions means less emission control equipment which means higher efficiency. It also means that suddenly there will be a flood of small efficient European diesel cars available for sale in the USA. The only fly in that ointment is that the dollar is globally weak especially in Europe so importing anything from the Euro-zone wont be a cheap proposition and I don't see anything changing by 2007.

New bumper sticker

After today's news about Cheney's little hunting accident I can see the new bumper sticker already:

GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, VICE PRESIDENTS DO

Except of course the guy didn't actually die, but having been shot in the face he might easily have done, especially if there hadn't been secret service all around and an ambulance on call.

I'm sure that the gun control lobby is having a field day right now, given that the Vice President just handed some of the sweetest ammunition they ever got. After all if a gun accident can happen to the second most protected man in the world it can happen to anyone, and its not just drunk-off-your-ass hunters that do dumb things like this. Unless of course he was... in which case you might be telling yourself "too bad he wasn't out hunting with Bush"

Hmmm, maybe Cheney is actually a sleeper agent and was just practicing for "accidentally" shooting #1. Anyone want to bet that Bushie just cancelled all his hunting trips with Cheney?

Cheaper, stronger, longer

Shocker, Americans are being short changed yet again. Angry Bear deals the dirt on healthcare in countres that have a single payer system (read, "socialized healthcare") compared to the USA. While not all countries have lower costs, have better results, and shorter waiting times - not all do. In fact quite a few countries have nationalize health care, spend less per capitra, have lower infant mortality rates, have citizens who on average live longer, and spend less of their lives in poor health and they have no significant wait for treatments.

On Filibuster

So some Kerry and Kennedy hasve pledged to filibuster against Alito's Supreme Court nomination. Not being an American and having only recently become at all interested in politics I thought I should look up exactly what a filibuster is. It turns out that the Senate website has a nice background article on it, and the related "Cloture", a two-thirds majority vote that can cut off a filibuster debate.

It doesn't ellude the record for number of times various parties have used the filibuster which is unfortunate, because I have a feeling that Republicans, fond that they are for threatening to "go nuclear" and pass rules to outlaw filibuster completely, are actually those most likely to use it. If I come across such statistics I'll let you know. However the Senate article does highlight the record holder for the longest filibuster in the house:

The record for the longest individual speech goes to South Carolina's J. Strom Thurmond who filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Way to go Strom, I bet he must have been proud of that record to his dying day.

Gore on Bush

No, this time not Al Gore, but Gore Vidal. Here is his article on how Bush is like Jonah, bringing bad luck on our good ship USA, and needs to be tossed to the whale so we can remove the hex. My favourite part is his tirade against Bush's penchant for faith based nationhood. Quoting Morris Berman:

"If a nation is unable to perceive reality correctly, and persists in operating on the basis of faith-based delusions, its ability to hold its own in the world is pretty much foreclosed."

He also includes a handy summary of increasing American ignorance of anything that happened more than five minutes ago, or going on in reality - that world right outside their TV window, if they'd only care to take a glance:

Meanwhile, millions of adult Americans, presumably undrugged, have no idea who our enemies were in World War II. Many college graduates don't know the difference between an argument and an assertion (did their teachers also fail to solve this knotty question?). A travel agent in Arizona is often asked whether or not it is cheaper to take the train rather than fly to Hawaii. Only 12% of Americans own a passport. At the time of the 2004 presidential election 42% of voters believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. One high school boy, when asked who won the Civil War, replied wearily, "I don't know and I don't care," echoing a busy neocon who confessed proudly: "The American Civil War is as remote to me as the War of the Roses."

Finally on the dimishing role of freedom in Bush's America, Vidal cites the "State of the First Amendment Survey" conducted by the University of Connecticut in 2003:

Meanwhile, the indoctrination of the people merrily continues. "In a 'State of the First Amendment Survey' conducted by the University of Connecticut in 2003, 34 percent of Americans polled said the First Amendment 'goes too far'; 46 percent said there was too much freedom of the press; 28 percent felt that newspapers should not be able to publish articles without prior approval of the government; 31 percent wanted public protest of a war to be outlawed during that war; and 50 percent thought the government should have the right to infringe on the religious freedom of 'certain religious groups' in the name of the war on terror."

Which nicely shows that people really are succefully being indoctrinated to the belief that "freedom" in America really means you're free to do anything you want, just so long as its support by the whims of the government d'jour. As one reader of LDTT points out "This country is so brainwashed and poised for dictatorship, it just seems inevitable. Hang on that British passport!! Wish I had one meself."

However I have to say that even my British passport may not be quite the get out of jail free card it looks like. At a party of the New Years I was harangued by a fellow countryman her on vacation, who bemoaned my lost English accent and implored that for the new year I resolve to return to Britain "because she needs you". The poor chap, sozzled though he was seem quite put out by the state of the United Kingdom and its continued butt-sniffing attitude to everything American. Which reminds me that I am actually also a member of that set of people known as "Europeans" and my British passport give me free reign to reside, work and play in any one of its 25 nation states.

Lunch is up!

Lets just say having watched this video collage (oh it sounds so arty!) aptly dubbed "birth control" I'm filled with shock and awe. Clearly George Bush has figured we don't need an army to defend ourselves against terrorists, we just need more projectile vomiting babies on the front line.

Another brick in the wall for peak oil theory

Apparently Petroleum Intelligence Weekly has said that Kuwait is about to halve its estimate of remaining oil reserves, thus knocking 5% off world oil reserves remaining.

Read it and weep

The Big Picture says Joseph E. Stiglitz says the war (read unilateral invasion) in Iraq will cost America around $2 trillion. You could say "its only money", but do ever think anyone would have got behind Bush's little power play with that kind of price tag?

Many Americans thought "kicking ass" in Iraq was some kind of pay back for 9-11, but what if someone told you the cost of the pay back would be $700 million for every person who died that day? Or almost $7,000 for every man, woman and child in the country? Does anyone seriously think that Saddam Hussein or Osama bin-Laden could have inflicted $2 trillion of economic damage on the USA single handed? Thanks George - you really helped them oops I meant US, out.

Not to mention if you put $2 trillion as the price tag on three thousand American lives, what is the cost you put on 30,000 or more Iraqis who have died courtesy of the civil war you brought down on in their own country? At some point you will no longer be able to claim you are causing less deaths than Saddam was, that is the day you become the evil dictatorial leader who needs to be deposed.

So George, next time you have a bright idea, why not just stay home and clear some bush? I've heard its hard work, just like being President.

Interlude: White men can jump!

I came across this Russian video which dispells the myth that white men can't jump. And I always thought that climbing up walls by bouncing off them thing was a movie special effect... The question is are these guys human chimps or just out of work Olympic gymnasts?

UPDATE: thought I'd add this mid-air dancing movie just for kicks. I love it when the guy in the middle falls to the ground and rolls around laughing.

Peak oil evidence starting to appear?

Interestingly this week produced evidence that one country at least either hit a major glitch in the oil production or reach that previously mythical status of "peak oil". Of course one country reaching a peak does not a world peak make - that was figured out in the seventies. But one wonders just how much longer the Kingdom of Saud can continue to "keep it up" and pretend its actually got lots more oil production capacity in reserve.

Tree huggers 1: Tree Killer 0

This article goes to show, if there's one thing people can't stand more than smelly hippy tree huggers - its squeaky clean white collar tree killers.

Good night and good luck

I watched "Good night and good luck" last week and like many I was just enthralled to realize the parallels you could draw between the media then - too cowed and timid to speak out against McCarthism - and the media now - too sold out and dummed down to speak out against Bushism.

If you felt the same, whether you saw the movie or not, you might enjoy reading The Failures of Post-9/11 Media an interview with Kristina Borjesson the author of a new book called "Feet to the Fire". Her comments are at once inciteful, enlightening and occasionally hopeful. That there are still a few principled reporters out there on a quest for truth is good to know, that someone like Borjesson is working to promote their work is even better. Now if we could only actually see some of these people in the "mainstream" media, but unfortunately by very definition until the mainstream picks itself up by its collective shoestrings and hauls itself out of the quagmire of mediocrity, propoganda and just plain bold-faced lies. Just don't hold your breath waiting for that day...

In the mean time I enocurage you to go seek the good stuff direct from the source wherever you can find it. One such source which actually miracuously makes it into the NYT, is Paul Krugman. I have to say I hadn't heard of him until reading the Alternet article - but now I have. Unfortunately you'll need an NYT subscription to read his columns that dish the dirt on Bush's economic war on sanity, you can however buy his book "The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century" recently updated in paperback. Also recommended is Juan Cole's Informed Comment blog on the Middle-East, history and religion.

Middle class angst

Check out the article 'Strapped' for Adulthood - not the article itself, but the comments. Here's real evidence of that 50% of all Americans who are worse off in real terms than they were in 2001.

A dysmal prediction to start the year

I had this vague notion that perhaps 2006 could be better than 2005, then along came Clusterf**k Nation. It's a magnus opus of predictions of doom and gloom from James Kunstler pretty much along the lines of current "peak oil theory" predictions. As I've mentioned before I'm generally a believer in that theory even though there is a growing number of people claiming its basically a conspiracy by oil companies to drive up prices while they sit on vast untapped reserves.

My usual response to conspiracy theories (including 9/11 related ones) is "its a possible but not probable theory - they could only wish they were smart enough and organized enough to pull of such a stunt in complete secrecy". I think that pretty much applies in this case but it doesn't rule out, as in the 1970's oil crisis, an as yet undiscovered reserve or set of reserves being taped to fill the gap.

However it'll be interesting to review Kunstler's predictions a year hence and see how many he got right. If, that is, I haven't sold out and headed for a log cabin in the woods north of the border (Canada).

Follow your dreams - the smaller the better

I used to think that sailing across an ocean, not even single handed, would be a fun kind of adventure. Being in the middle of an ocean, hundreds, if not thousands of miles from land, surviving on just what you have with you... well something about that appealed to me and I actually thought I might do it one day. Then I actually did some sailing and got my ass slammed around a bit in the swell outside of the Golden Gate (admittedly notoriously rough even without bad weather) and that dream went out the window like a piece of gum from a speeding car. Swooosh!

It wasn't actually the sea sickness (I think I'm above average in resilience to that malady - but certainly not immune), more the feeling that at any moment any one of the pieces of the boat could spontaneously fail (as they often do) and leave me alone and helpless. Add to that actual bad weather, towering seas, freezing cold and the odds really start to stack against you. I have no doubt that surviving such conditions would be "character building stuff" of a "the journey is the reward" type, but lets just say when it comes to wind, waves, freezing cold and daily risk of drowning without a chance of rescue (which I've almost done twice) I'm chicken shit.

So it goes without saying that while I'm envious of those who have actually followed their dreams and made such a voyage I'm also not about to follow in their footsteps any day soon. If you could transport me to the middle of the ocean, guarantee benign conditions, maybe even warm seas for a swim and good food and company I'd be up for it in a flash. Until then I'll stick to more trivial pursuits and perhaps a bit of day sailing on the Bay where a nice chastisers rescue vessel is just a radio call away.

However I can report that Sebastian Naslund wins my prize for ballzy adventures on the ocean. He built his own 14-foot boat and sailed it across the Atlantic from Norway to South America, up the US Atlantic Coast and back again. If don't know much about sailing let me assure you that a 14-foot sailboat is a tiny vessel. It helps that it's built like a lifeboat but lets just say I'm "dead impressed" with what he did. In fact there is even a name for it - "microcruising". Although the photos of Sebastian's voyage are impressive they don't quite win the all time prize for microcruising shock and awe.

That prize goes to Ashley Coulston who sailed the 8-foot G'day-88 4280 miles on the Tasman sea between New Zealand and Australia. After being dismasted he actually abandoned ship on the initial W-E crossing but G'day 88 later washed ashore and it was refitted and sailed back E-W some 2705 miles in 65 days. Bizarrely Coulston was later charged with the execution style killing of three people in Victoria and is now serving a life sentence for the crime.