Thursday, March 31, 2005

I noticed some interesting license plates today. 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:12 PM

911 tape 1.zip 2.3MB (via Opinion Journal)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 6:33 PM

Eat Please 

When you go to a southerners house at supper time expect to be asked to join them for supper. And when you are asked--Do NOT decline the offer. If you do decline then the whole family has to wait for you to leave before they can eat--it would be impolite to eat in front of company!
Do not ever sit down at the table with your hat on or without a shirt-- that's disrespectful to your hosts and sends a message to the cook that her food is not that special!
Eat till you are full then take a couple of extra bites for good measure. And if you really wanna rack up points--ask if there are any leftovers for you to take home! The cook will be so proud of herself that you will instantly be made a friend for life!
When you are done, sit back and groan about how much you ate and how bad you feel--relax a bit but don't stay too long--ya don't wanna wear out your welcome!
Last but not least---don't ever show up unannounced again--it's rude! - evstorm

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:29 PM

Cows hold grudges, say scientists 

ONCE they were a byword for mindless docility. But cows have a complex mental life in which they bear grudges, nurture friendships and become excited by intellectual challenges, researchers have found.

Cows are capable of strong emotions such as pain, fear and even anxiety about the future. But if farmers provide the right conditions, they can also feel great happiness.
The findings have emerged from studies of farm animals that have found similar traits in pigs, goats and chickens. They suggest such animals may be so emotionally similar to humans that welfare laws need to be reconsidered.

The research will be presented to a conference in London next month sponsored by animal welfare group Compassion in World Farming.

Christine Nicol, professor of animal welfare at Britain's Bristol University, said even chickens might have to be treated as individuals with needs and problems.

"Remarkable cognitive abilities and cultural innovations have been revealed," she said. "Our challenge is to teach others that every animal we intend to eat or use is a complex individual, and to adjust our farming culture accordingly."

Her colleague John Webster added: "People have assumed intelligence is linked to the ability to suffer, and that because animals have smaller brains they suffer less than humans. That is a pathetic piece of logic."

The Bristol researchers have documented how cows within a herd form friendship groups of between two and four animals with whom they spend most of their time, often grooming and licking each other. They will also dislike other cows, and can bear grudges for months or years.

Donald Broom, professor of animal welfare at Cambridge University, will tell the conference how cows can become excited by solving intellectual challenges.

In one study, researchers challenged the animals with a task where they had to find how to open a door to get some food. An electroencephalograph was used to measure their brainwaves.

"The brainwaves showed their excitement; their heartbeat went up and some even jumped into the air. We called it their Eureka moment," Professor Broom said.

The assumption that farm animals cannot suffer from conditions that would be intolerable for humans is partly based on the idea they have no sense of self. Latest research suggests this is untrue.

"Sentient animals have the capacity to experience pleasure and are motivated to seek it," Professor Webster said.

"You only have to watch how cows and lambs both seek and enjoy pleasure when they lie with their heads raised to the sun on a perfect English summer's day. Just like humans." - Jonathan Leake Copyright 2005 News Limited. [See the Fair Use Notice, below.] (Via MARTY)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:57 PM

It's all sex and lies. 

Everything. The debt bubble. The real estate bubble. The trade deficit bubble.

Why is there a $600 billion trade deficit? Because Americans want to buy things they can't afford. Why do they buy things they can't afford? To pretend to be richer than they are. Why do they want to be appear richer than they are? Because it gives them higher social status. Why do they want higher about social status? So they will have better access to the opposite sex.

We are back in the United States after an absence of several months. Suddenly, the roads are crowded with Hummers. Why would anyone want to drive around in a big, awkward, ugly, expensive car when a small, cheap one would get him where he was going just as well? Because they want to "maximize their inclusive fitness" say scientists. They want as many of their genes floating around the gene pool as possible. The Hummer is like long, bright tail feathers on a bird. Or a big rack of antlers on a deer. From a utilitarian point of view, they are worthless. Worse than worthless, as a matter of fact. They increase the risk that rivals and predators will notice the animal. They take energy to carry around. And they slow the animal down, making it hard for him to maneuver in a fight or to get away.

The huge cars are only useful, near as anyone who thinks about such matters can figure, as conspicuous consumption; they wink to the opposite sex that the animal is game for a little hanky-panky. If he can carry around all that extra baggage and still survive, he must be tough. So, too, if a person can live in a McMansion and drive a Hummer without going bankrupt, he must be a good prospect for a date.

But it's all relative. If everybody on the block buys a Hummer and puts in a swimming pool, the man who has those things already loses his edge. He has to spend even more - bringing himself even closer to bankruptcy - in order to show off. What can he do? Write poetry and put a feminist bumper sticker on his old Hummer?

"Forget sensitivity," said a woman over dinner last night. "The man must show that he's capable...that he's strong...that he knows what he's doing."

"Yeah," said a divorced friend who has been studying dating strategies, "you have to be 'the man with the plan.' You signal to the woman that you've got it figured out...that your time is valuable...and that, if she wants to hook up with you, she can to so, but only on your terms. What you don't want to do is to take her out on a date and spend a lot of money on her. You have to show that you have a lot of money, but you don't want to give her the impression that she'll be in charge of how it is spent. That would start the relationship off on the wrong foot."

Women aren't stupid, of course. They know you can move into a McMansion with no money down and no money anywhere else. They know you can lease a Hummer and buy an Armani suit with credit cards. They try to find out if the man really has money or not. It is the beginning of the battle between the sexes. The man tries to deceive the woman about his fitness for procreation. The woman tries to detect the deception, while deceiving him - with make-up and various artifices - about her own attractiveness. The poor man has to show more and more evidence that he's really the one with the large rack and the bright feathers. He has to take on more and more expensive burdens. Second and third houses...European vacations...a home theatre...cosmetic surgery. The schmuck needs to spend, spend, spend - or he's going to be spending his nights alone.

You might say that a "smart" woman would see her way through the foolishness of it all and prefer a man with no desire to show off - maybe a good, solid schoolteacher who cares about the environment and drives an old Pinto. But if she mates with such a man, she dooms her offspring, say the scientists, for the man is likely to father sons much like himself - men who are only attractive to smart women. How many of them are there? Her own genes will find fewer opportunities for reproductive success, in other words...and what's so smart about that?

In order to spread her genes as widely as possible, a woman needs offspring, particularly males, who are "high ranking," - that is, those who can carry around gaudy expenses without going broke. Her best strategy is to make with a high ranking male. Her good fortune would be to have many sons with him - high ranking boys who would find many mates of their own. And for that she must make herself as desirable to him as possible. This, too, begins with deception and often ends in disappointment. She must spend much of her time and money as though she were a candidate for public office - that is, deceiving people about what she is. The scientists call it "impression management." She must appear high ranking - by wearing expensive clothes instead of cheap ones...by driving an expensive car, rather than a cheap one...by living at an expensive address...eating in expensive restaurants...going on expensive vacations and sporting expensive jewelry. She must also appear as physically attractive as possible. Remember, it's all about sex.

Meanwhile, driven by these ancient impulses to sexual reproduction...and chauffeured by the Fed...Americans arrive at the cusp of bankruptcy. - The Rude Awakening

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:11 AM

My life in splints 

Well, this blog is taking a turn away from patio decoration. Yesterday I was told I had (among other things) carpal tunnel syndrome. So I went to my local CVS and purchased wrist splints, which I am supposed to wear 24/7 for 6 weeks. I don't know that anyone really recovers from CTS, I think the docs just try to get the pain and hand use manageable. Alas, years of data entry have taken their toll, but that's another posting. Therefore, my newest obsession is finding out which things are harder with wrist splints and which are easier. Here's the list so far:

-Wiping after bathroom use - definitely harder.
-Petting cats - less enjoyable, since I don't feel the plush fur against my palm.
-Holding babies up for feeding - much easier! The metal bar in the wrist brace is enormously useful for holding up these enormous babies! However, for burping I can only use my fingertips.
-Driving stick shift - not much change. Pretty easy, like before.
-Possiblities for self-defense - much better. Splints hold the wrist straight for punching. Metal bar can be used to side-swipe opponent's head. Metal bar extends into palm for an even more deadly palm strike (as a martial artist, I think of these things).
-Typing (and hence, writing on this blog) - harder. Previously I could type with my eyes closed, in the dark, etc. I could even reach, by touch, that elusive nub where my cat broke away the "-" key on this laptop. Of course, it doesn't help that I usually type in the recumbent position.
-Eating - harder. Wrist splints could be the next big diet fad. Relieve CTS and lose weight at the same time! Brilliant! (Hat off to Guinness beer)
-Sleeping - first night with them on, I was so tired it was a non-issue.
-Folding laundry - somewhat harder.
-Washing dishes - my hands fit inside the glove without them. Mostly a good excuse to get someone else to do dishes!

This is only Day 2 of 42 days in wrist splints. I'll see how it goes. - junebee

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:38 AM

California Lottery 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:26 AM

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

What a day... 

So I am in the van going to my Unkle Bill's funeral, (He kicked the bucket inside a Walmart which apparently is A): further proof that Walmalt sucks, and B): has prices so low they can cause an embolism/ aneurism or whatever the hell it was and C) I will probably consider still shopping there despite the fact they killed my unkle, they suck and the threat of severe immediate health risks.

But I digress. So I am in the Van with my laptop and to kill time (NO PUN INTENDED... REALLY) I watch Finding Neverland, which without ruining the movie I can tell you Kate Winslet DIES and that she is a widow raising four young boys after the DEATH of their father.

We get through the funeral do a little visiting, got to see alot of family and friends I haven't seen in a while. I come home. I decide to get a movie off cable and rent Around the Bend which was in the Indie section of the options. It has Christopher Walken (Whom I think is great).

I am positive their are snuff films that have less to do with death than this movie.

Thats just the kind of day I'm having. But BOTH films I would very highly recommend.

The whole funeral thing kind of creeps me out. I am not and have never been a terribly religious person, so all the hymns and the stand now, kneel now, etc. I just don't get it. And mind you I have nothing against those who are religious. More power to you. I wish I had your... well FAITH... I just don't.

Anyway, when I go I want as little fanfare as possible. Maybe just have one of those Irish type wakes where you leave on the table while you have a party. Then you can chuck me in the dumpster with all the empty beer bottles.

And if I HAVE to be buried than I want my gravestone to say "He went to Hell and all he got was this stupid gravestone" - Evil Genius

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:12 AM

Defending Asian Seas from Marauding by Pirates 

It goes without saying that the Japanese economy cannot function without trade. Some 95% of Japan's merchandise exports and imports are shipped by sea. As a maritime state, Japan must give thought to the safety of the seas. In this essay I will examine the issues of piracy and maritime terrorism, which present threats to the nation's trade.

The Japan Coast Guard is the primary agency responsible for implementing the Japanese government's antipiracy policies, which begin with proposals presented by the Nippon Foundation and other actors in the private sector. Japan at present is seeking to develop a model for international measures to combat piracy, especially in the maritime Asian region. The nations of Asia are now engaged in building a solid framework for cooperation in thwarting piracy. Since 2000 they have been holding a meetings of experts to discuss antipiracy measures, with such countries as Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore hosting the gatherings in turn.

White-hulled patrol boats depart from Japan to participate with other coastal states in patrol and seizure exercises, especially in waters around the Strait of Malacca. The countries of Asia are eagerly seeking the cooperation of the Japan Coast Guard in such joint exercises, which have thus far been conducted with six countries including India. In the response to piracy and also to maritime terrorism, there is much that the JCG can do.


The dangers of piracy and maritime terrorism

In September 2003 a maritime interdiction exercise was held in the waters off Australia as part of the multinational Proliferation Security Initiative. The JCG sent its helicopter-equipped patrol ship Shikishima to participate in this exercise, which was named Pacific Protector. The exercise was organized to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction and keep them out of the hands of terrorists, and the navies and coast guard agencies of several participating countries took part.

In October 2002 a small craft rammed the large French tanker Limburg and exploded while the tanker was lying at anchorage off Yemen, killing 1 crew member and injuring 17 others. This bombing, which is reported to have been perpetrated by the terrorist organization al Qaeda, highlighted the threat posed by maritime terrorism and underlined the need for an immediate response. The pirates infesting the waters of the southern Philippines and the western sectors of Indonesia and the Strait of Malacca are thought to have ties with radical Islamic organizations. Those belonging to the Free Aceh Movement (GAM, from Gerakan Aceh Merdeka) are equipped with automatic rifles and rocket launchers, and on one occasion they assaulted a small tanker and held its crew members hostage for ransom.

There are many points in common in the acts of pirates and sea terrorists, and at present the response to maritime terrorism is being developed as an extension of the countermeasures for piracy. Both the pirates and the terrorists have armed themselves with weapons of war, and both endanger the safety of ships at sea.


The rise of modern piracy

In October 1999 a band of pirates seized the Japanese freighter Alondra Rainbow in the Strait of Malacca. The captain and chief engineer of the vessel were Japanese. To many in Japan, this incident was a rude awakening to the fact that piracy is not just something in fairy tales?that it is still going on even in modern society.

Piracy is said to be a crime older than written history. In the centuries before the Common Era, pirates infested the waters of the Aegean Sea, and they posed a headache for the Phoenician merchants conducting trade across the Mediterranean. Around the time of the tenth century, Vikings based in Scandinavia set out in boats to maraud all around Europe. The European wars of the Middle Ages marked the advent of privateers, government-commissioned war vessels often used for piracy, and pirates operating over vast areas made their appearance. After the discovery of the New World, the treasures coming out of Latin America attracted the pirates known as the buccaneers, who turned the Caribbean into a lawless sea. Capable of turning up wherever they are least expected, pirates have staged operations in all the seven seas.

According to data compiled by the International Maritime Bureau, an international organization working to deal with piracy, as many as 445 cases of piracy were recorded around the world in 2003. Piracy emerged as a growing menace in the second half of the 1980s, especially in the Asian region. At the urging of marine transport companies, insurance firms, trading houses, and other member organizations concerned about the losses piracy was causing, the IMB in 1992 set up the Piracy Reporting Center in Kuala Lumpur to collect information, issue reports, and plan countermeasures.

The worst year for piracy thus far was 2000, when 469 incidents were reported. Indonesia's coastal waters presented the most dangers, accounting for 119 of the piracy attacks, and the Strait of Malacca (including the Strait of Singapore) came next, with 80 attacks.

With 75,000 large ships passing through it yearly, the Strait of Malacca is one of the most congested bodies of water in the world. No country makes more use of it than Japan does; Japanese companies are the owners of some 14,000 of the ships, close to 20% of the total. About 80% of the oil supporting the everyday lives of the Japanese is routed through the strait, which is called Japan's lifeline on this account. It is in these very waters that piracy is rampant today. Obviously this is an issue of vital concern to the people of Japan, and we must come to grips with it as quickly as possible.


Hijacking in the Strait of Malacca

The Strait of Malacca is a narrow body of water with many shoals and reefs, and the presence of numerous sunken ships adds to the difficulty of navigating it. To prevent accidents, the International Maritime Organization has demarcated separate zones for traffic and places limits on ship depth and the speed of large vessels.

Ships are required to sail within designated lanes and have no way of avoiding places where piracy incidents are common. And scattered within the strait are islands that give pirates excellent places to hide. Tankers that load oil on the Arabian Peninsula and set off for Japan can avoid the Strait of Malacca by sailing south of Sumatra and passing through Lombok Strait between the islands of Lombok and Bali, but this route adds three days to the transport time. Not surprisingly, shipping companies make little use of it.

The aforementioned Alondra Rainbow had loaded 7,000 tons of aluminum ingots in Kuala Tanjong Port, Sumatra, and embarked for Miike Port, Fukuoka Prefecture. Pirates attacked it in the Strait of Malacca one hour after its departure. The crew were transferred to another ship and confined for several days, then set adrift in a lifeboat. A fishing boat rescued them off the Thai island of Phuket 11 days later. The pirates in the meantime had sailed off with the Alondra Rainbow and its cargo.

Piracy incidents have been frequent in the Strait of Malacca in recent years. Vessels operated by Japanese shipping companies have been among those attacked, and the marine transport supporting the Japanese economy is being affected. In 1998, a year before the Alondra Rainbow incident, pirates seized another Japanese ship also carrying aluminum ingots. This was the Tenyu, owned by a shipping company of Hyogo Prefecture. The ship was later discovered at the port of Zhangjia in Jiangsu Province, China, where it was at anchor under a different name and had a new crew of Indonesians. Its original crew members (2 South Koreans and 12 Chinese) have never been found. The aluminum ingots had by then been unloaded from the ship, which was found carrying palm oil.

In February 2000 pirates seized the Global Mars, a small tanker owned by a Tokyo shipping company, in the northern part of the Strait of Malacca. The crew members were placed aboard a boat and safely rescued.


Kidnappings and robbery at sea

The types of piracy in the seas of Southeast Asia have been changing over the years. Hijackings and robberies organized by international crime syndicates were common in the second half of the 1990s, but recent years have witnessed an increase in kidnappings at sea by antigovernment groups, which hold the captives for ransom. In regions where civil wars, religious or ethnic conflicts, or independence movements lead to weapons trafficking, moreover, the pirates are becoming more heavily armed. Frequent reports are coming in of merchant vessels coming under attack from pirates armed with machine guns and even rocket launchers.

Since early 2002 there have been increasing cases of kidnapping by piracy for financial gain along the coast of Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra. The pirates have generally set their sights on small tankers, freighters, and fishing boats with few crew members and no means of defending themselves. The Indonesian authorities report that ransom money is used as a funding source for Islamic groups fighting against the government. Many cases of demands for ransom go unreported out of concern for the safety of the captives. These pirates have hit upon a clever means of exploiting a weakness of their victims. The coast guards on both shores are being hard pressed by the changing nature of the piracy in the Strait of Malacca. They find themselves needing to use larger, more heavily armed patrol boats.

Robbery at sea is another form of piracy, and it is occurring frequently in Indonesian waters. Often a small fishing craft will drawn close to a ship under sail, and the robbers will sneak on board and make off with valuables. Within the Strait of Malacca, the waters around the Karimun Islands not far from Singapore are reported to be particularly difficult to pass through safely. In June 2001 a buoy tender?a ship assigned to inspecting and repairing navigational buoys?operated by Indonesia's marine transport authorities was boarded by pirates while sailing in the vicinity of Karimun. In the course of the robbery one crew member was seriously injured, and one of the thieves was apprehended before he could flee. The buoy tender had a crane on its deck, making it resemble a freighter, and the captured thief confessed that this had caused them to mistake it for a Chinese freighter and target it for robbery.

The leaders of this band of robbers make nearby Batam Island their headquarters, and they pick up members among jobless fishers and others who are struggling to make ends meet. Thirteen band members took part in the robbery, eight of whom were Karimun fishers recruited for the job. The Batam-based thieves are thought to have been members of one of the pirate groups that a few years earlier had been carrying out hijackings.

With the increase in the number of cases of piracy and ship robberies in recent years, the Strait of Malacca has come to be branded the “Strait of Piracy.”


A downturn in cases of damage to Japanese ships

In 1999, upon learning of the hijacking of the Tenyu, the Nippon Foundation conducted a survey of the damages being suffered from piracy. The foundation had been receiving reports for some time on the rise of piracy in the seas around the Strait of Malacca, and it had become concerned about the impact on Japan.

An inquiry put to the Ministry of Transport (now part of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport), whose jurisdiction extended over oceangoing ships, elicited the reply that there were two reported piracy incidents in 1998. But as the person in charge of this field in the Nippon Foundation at the time, I had received word of more than 10 incidents.

Before antipiracy measures could be formulated, we obviously needed to get a better grasp on the actual conditions. Toward this end, we conducted a questionnaire survey of some 200 Japanese shipping companies, and we also held interviews with the responsible officials in the seven major overseas shipping firms. Through the questionnaire survey, we learned of 20 cases of losses suffered during 1998.

In the world of shipping, the nationality of ships (the flags they sail under) is frequently a flag of convenience, one of a country with low taxes and few crew regulations. For this reason many of the vessels owned by Japanese shipping companies actually sail under the flags of other countries. Japan's oceangoing commercial ships in 2002 numbered 1,988, but of them only 110 (5.5%) were of Japanese nationality. It is not possible for the government to ascertain the full circumstances of the ships that are not of Japanese nationality.

In 2002 there were 16 cases of damage from piracy affecting all Japanese ships. The worst year thus far was 1999, the year of the Alondra Rainbow incident, when 39 cases of damage occurred. One reason that can be given for this apparent trend of decline in piracy losses is the voluntary defense measures that Japanese ships have taken.


An international response to a multinational problem

Upon the release of the survey results by the Nippon Foundation, the nation's shipping firms turned their attention to what could be done to counter piracy. When the foundation held a seminar for shipping company personnel concerned with piracy affairs in July 1999, as many as 160 people attended. Reports were presented on the activities of pirates worldwide, the response of the IMB, and the antipiracy measures we learned about in the interviews of Japan's major shipping companies.

The second half of the 1990s saw an increase in piracy attributed to international crime syndicates. The pirates would arm themselves with guns and knives, commandeer ships under sail, and make off with the ships and their cargo. The crews would be set adrift on the sea or stranded on an isolated island. Commonly the pirates set their sights on tankers carrying gasoline or light oil, since such refined petroleum products leave little evidence behind; later they shifted their focus to more valuable cargoes, such as aluminum. Making use of the black market, they would convert whatever they stole into cash.

The ships seized by pirates are turned into “phantom ships,” vessels that have been changed in appearance by repainting their hulls and giving them new names. Commonly they are used as smuggling boats. The pirates operate over broad spheres encompassing the territorial waters of multiple nations and the open sea. As a result, policing operations need to draw in personnel from multiple countries in cooperative international efforts.

In April 2000 an international conference on combating piracy was held in Tokyo under the title “Asia Anti-Piracy Challenges 2000.” The Japan Coast Guard, which became actively involved in the antipiracy offensive subsequent to the Alondra Rainbow case, was the prime mover behind this gathering. A preparatory meeting for the conference was held in March in Singapore. The Nippon Foundation planned this meeting and provided funding for it, and it proposed Singapore as the venue in view of its proximity to the Strait of Malacca.

The pirates make devious use of the jurisdictional limits of the concerned counties in their territorial waters and the open sea, and the situation is further complicated by the multiple nationalities and flags of convenience of the vessels attacked. The Alondra Rainbow, for instance, was a Japanese-owned ship sailing under the flag of Panama with a crew of Japanese and Filipinos. It embarked from Indonesia and was recovered in India, in between which the fleeing pirates took it into a Malaysian port and secretly sold its cargo in the Philippines. The crew, meanwhile, was rescued in Thailand, bringing to seven the number of countries that became enmeshed in the affair. Clearly the issue of piracy requires an international perspective. Information most be exchanged on an international basis.


A lead role for Japan

I have taken part in numerous international gatherings dealing with piracy, and I have found that people everywhere are keenly hoping that Japan will play a pivotal role. The nations of Asia are currently striving to equip themselves with the kind of coast guard setup that Japan has put into place. The Philippines has already separated its naval and coast guard forces, and it is receiving cooperation and advice from the Japan Coast Guard. Malaysia plans to set up a coast guard in 2005, and Indonesia is considering whether to follow suit. Apprehensive about military conflicts, these and other Southeast Asian nations with bordering territorial waters are seeking ways to bolster their coastal security. Training personnel to serve in their coast guards is sure to assume increasing importance henceforth.

Voluntary defensive moves by the owners of ships are also important. After ascertaining the views of ship crews, the Nippon Foundation devised a piracy-warning system that could be easily and cheaply installed on ships. The blueprints for the system were made available to shipowners, and they inform me that well over 100 ships now have this system. The major shipping companies are making efforts of their own to give crew members special training and develop better shipping movement supervision systems. Providing ships with defensive armaments is not a possibility in the case of Japanese ships. Ingenuity must be exercised to find other ways of thwarting piracy.

In the pursuit of profits, shipping companies in general use flags of convenience and hire foreign workers to crew their vessels. But this makes it difficult for the state to provide adequately for security. It is even possible that Japan could suffer from critical shortages of both ships and crews if some unforeseen situation developed, such as a conflict between countries in waters of concern to the nation, and the result could be delays in the import of needed materials.

The Japanese government must consider this matter seriously. It should give thought to improving the tax system and other institutional arrangements in preparation for emergencies so that shortages of ships and crews can be avoided. Shipping firms as well need to adopt a long-term perspective in their management, conducting their corporate operations with a proper sense of their social responsibility.

The response to piracy and maritime terrorism must be based on cooperation between the public and private sectors. In its capacity as a bridge between the two sides, the Nippon Foundation intends to continue presenting proposals and conducting activities. In the sphere of maritime security, “Japanese dynamism” supported by public-private cooperation can guide the way for the nations of Asia. - Yoshihiko Yamada

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:10 AM

Leather headband and tooth necklace good. Political office bad. 

MATT 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:58 AM

IRIS 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:35 AM

The Rude Awakening
 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:01 AM

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Which Way for Liberty? 

An interview request from a famed center-left publication allowed me to put together some further thoughts on the rise of red-state fascism in America, and the libertarian response. So here are my notes on the topic, prior to publication.

Our times are much like the 1930s, when it was widely assumed that there are only two viable ideological positions: communism or fascism. Liberalism of the old school was considered to be a failure, and not even worth considering.

Why does libertarianism never entirely disappear, despite every attempt to kill it? In part, because a strain of American ideology from the colonial period to the present supports it. Murray N. Rothbard's 4-volume Conceived in Liberty demonstrates that the theory and practice of radical libertarian thinking can even be thought of as the very core of American political values.

Just to cite one case, the preachers and religious leaders who spoke out prior to the American revolution were knowledgeable of and friendly toward the liberal tradition. They cited Locke as freely as they cited the Bible. Americans of all classes resented the smallest intrusions on liberty and property as tyranny itself. After the revolution, we enjoyed some 10 blissful years of near-anarchy under the Articles of Confederation.

This is our heritage. It is also why every president appeals to libertarian ideals to gain public backing. Clinton did, and Bush does as well. They all invoke Jeffersonian rhetoric. The problem is that the middle class continues to be bamboozled by this rhetoric, even as the power elite continues to conspire for ever more money and power.

The interests of all classes, not just the middle class, are for liberty. The heartland bourgeoisie is the most supportive of libertarian economics, but it is also the most easily distracted by nationalist and cultural appeals. These days, they tend to back the Republicans. For this reason, they don't notice that the Republicans are actually worse than the Democrats when it comes to expanding government power and shredding all sorts of liberties, including the economic ones.

Rethinking the Left, for Now

The extent to which the Bush regime owns the conservative middle class is a wonder to behold. Again, it is probably for cultural and nationalist reasons, and not because the typical American household is for slaughtering foreigners, suppressing free speech, and bankrupting the country.

These days you are far more likely to find libertarian sentiments expressed on the left-side of the political spectrum: outrage about what's happened to civil liberties, truth-telling about the war, and even disgust at the spending and regulating machine of the Bush regime.

Some of the strongest resistance to American fascism right now comes from African-Americans, who have suffered disproportionately in this war. Polls from a year ago show black support for the war dipping below 20%; today it must be even lower. Defense Department studies have expressed alarm that 41% fewer blacks are willing to sign up to be fodder, which is why the Army is behind in its recruiting goals.

Women too provide strong resistance to war fever. As more women are drawn to the expectation of a full-time professional life, women voters are also going to increasingly develop a commercial-class consciousness concerning taxes and regulations. The victim mentality that agitates for privilege in the workplace could give way to a free-market feminism. If this is united to a consistent anti-war view, resistance against the state could increase among women.

Also, libertarians increasingly find themselves in sympathy with a range of interest groups they would otherwise oppose.

Many people find themselves in circumstances, for whatever reasons – whether personal difficulties, life choices, and other factors – that bring about associations that fall outside the Bush-approved bourgeois family arrangements. No libertarian can support federal penalties against such people. Freedom of association is a first principle of civilization, and it is a disgrace to see that principle attacked in the name of family values.

Also, the Bush administration wants to feed tax dollars to private schools, religious charities, and hand-picked mutual fund companies. Even if the teachers unions, the religious left, and the AARP oppose these plans for different reasons, we can't but cheer them on.

I used to complain about the universities and their indoctrination of students in leftist theory. But these days, one has to be grateful that there are at least some pockets of resistance remaining.

It is no accident that both parties make an appeal to libertarian notions about the dangers of power. Love of liberty is what unites us as Americans. Our most important job right now is to work to show how nationalist warmongering, cultural agitprop, and government belligerence of all sorts work at cross purposes with libertarian ideals.

Also, the left needs to learn a lesson from the Bush regime: the answer to fascism is not socialism but freedom itself. They need to lose whatever romantic attachments to power they still have.

Cooperating With the State

I've been asked many times about the role of a leading DC libertarian think-tank and its unfortunate cooperation with the Bush administration. I've always declined to comment, but this interviewer convinced me that it can't be ignored.

The problem is this: In the hours and days after 9-11, the cause of liberty cried out for defenders to stand up and say: this crime is not a license for government to grab power.

Instead, and notoriously, this libertarian think-tank went the other direction and backed the wholly unwarranted invasion of Afghanistan and otherwise offered only utilitarian cautions about the creation of massive new bureaucracies.

To some extent, I can understand the fear factor. In those days, sedition trials didn't seem out of the question. One wrong word and you risked destroying every relationship with government you had worked to achieve for 25 years. But even then, was it really necessary, two months later, for a think-tank spokesman to say that increased public support for the federal government "makes sense" since it is "concentrating on protecting individual rights"?

This was one of many such pronouncements in which this think-tank made it clear that it would not stand in the way of what the Bush administration planned. In the meantime, of course, they have further speeded the revolving door between their offices and the government. This is hardly unusual for DC think tanks, but it is especially injurious given the source.

People look for libertarians to provide a principled alternative. When they do not, the perception is that there are no legitimate reasons to resist the state. What's more, the state knows that if the libertarians are not making trouble, the regime can pretty well do what it pleases. It is in the state's interest to keep a tame libertarian wing alive and thriving for precisely these times. It is for the same reason the state has always courted the church: it needs moral cover from a credible source.

Log-rolling with the state also does intellectual damage and harms recruitment among students. It is as if some libertarians want to live up to the leftist caricature of capitalist intellectuals in league with the state, cheering on war and imperialism, and taking money from Wall Street to back corporate boondoggles such as Social Security privatization.

Libertarians Contra Fascism

It is as important for libertarians to be anti-socialist as it is for them to be anti-fascist. But first we need to recognize that fascism is a reality, not just a smear term.

What began as expedience in the Bush administration has turned, over time, into a full-blown program. Militarism, of course, is an old Republican standby, useful, for example during the Cold War to keep the masses distracted from noticing what was happening to their liberty. What makes it different today is how it is united to an overarching ideology, a distinctly right-wing form of central planning, which takes careful thought to understand.

The ideology of the late Bush regime is nationalist and culturally conservative. It is consistently anti-leftist in the sense that it rejects egalitarianism, cultural toleration, free speech, and overt appeals to socialist envy. It is religious and Christian in rhetoric. It makes an appeal for family, country, patriotism, and traditional American values. It is pro-business. It is anti-intellectual. It backs middle-class welfare to the hilt.

Behind the rhetoric you find the iron fist of the state, forcing conformism and regimentation. Bush-style fascism has created a kind of cult of personality too, in which the public is led to believe through hints and nudges that the president has a direct line to God. More than any president in my living memory, he peppers his speeches with personal pronouns: "I will defend America."

What the Bush regime has taught us is that there is a difference between being anti-leftist and being pro-liberty. They have demonstrated that the threats to liberty emanate not only from leftist thought but also rightist thought in which the state is used to impose a particular view of the good at home and abroad. I don't think the US has ever had a left-wing president as convinced as the Bush administration of the ability of government to work miracles.

The confluence of these ideological factors and their success in appealing to the middle class can only prompt us to look at history to find its predecessors. Where do we find right-wing central planning, right-wing war mongering, right-wing justifications for cracking skulls on a global scale? The 20th century offers many examples of dictatorial anti-left regimes. It is not a stretch to call these fascist or national socialist.

Just as socialism is different in every country, so too is fascism. We don't see the appeal to racial solidarity of the Nazis at work here. The Italian and Spanish cases of interwar right-wing dictatorship come to mind, but there are differences there too. In the case of Chile or pre-Castro Cuba, you had business working with government to monopolize the economy.

So while the Bush case borrows from all of these, it is its own unique variety of fascism: evangelical Christianity and a global crusade, with anti-leftist but pro-statist policies that show complete contempt for individual liberty at home and abroad.

The Bad Seed on the Right

How did conservative intellectuals and activists go from hating big government in the 1990s to loving it and celebrating it today? There is a bad seed in the ideology of American conservatism that spawns power worship. If you can get a group of people to pledge the government flag and sing the murderous Battle Hymn of the Republic in their churches, and to take a position on war that is Mark Twain’s War Prayer come to life, the rest is just a mop-up operation. The Germans too were a very religious and conservative people.

There is also an American precedent. Reagan played the war card to great effect, and Nixon manipulated the cultural issues to his advantage. FDR, Wilson, and Lincoln demonstrated that presidents can ignore the Bill of Rights in wartime, and historians have faithfully celebrated their legacies. Bush invokes this American tradition and thereby taps into the form of patriotism inherent in conservative ideology. It is as cynical as it is effective.

We will have to wait to see what follows the Bush regime to discover the closest historical analogy. Is he a Nicholas II who will inspire a bloody backlash of leftwing dictatorship? Will his successor be even worse? Or is he a Pinochet who inspires revulsion against militarism and dictatorship of all sorts, so that his rule will be eventually followed by normalcy, liberalism, and peaceful commercialism?

The Role of the Neoconservatives

I'm actually of the opinion that the "neo" part of conservatism has been overplayed. The problem is really just plain old conservatism. But speaking as a matter of history, the neoconservatives made two unique contributions to conservative ideology. They convinced conservatives and Republicans to make their peace with the domestic welfare and regulatory state. And they convinced the same groups that democracy represents a political ideal that can and should be imposed on the world.

American fascism doesn't need these two additives to exist and thrive, but the inclusion of them helped round out the ideology, and helped it become particularly dangerous for the world.

More and more, I fear that the Bush administration is doing terrible ideological damage, demolishing what remained of the old liberal impulse in the middle class and shoring up support for imperialist practices in the post-Cold War world.

The allure of Bush has corrupted evangelicals, homeschoolers, the pro-family movement, the pro-life movement, the tax-cut lobbies, the gun lobbies – all these groups that hated Washington only the day before yesterday are suddenly the storm troopers of the regime. Every day that goes by, the resistance to power on the right weakens, even as it strengthens only marginally on the left.

Future Prospects

The libertarian tradition stretches from the ancient world through the middle ages to our own day. But I do think we are living through a high point in intellectual development and recruitment. The body of theoretical work is vast and the intellectuals are hardened and ready for battle. The web and blogosphere give us the means to compete in the world of ideas as never before.

There is no sure blueprint for success other than for libertarians to do what each individually does best, whether that means teaching students, organizing antiwar rallies, writing large books on technical economic topics, or tirelessly managing a compelling blog.

I'm wary of all formal alliances but I do think libertarians need to be strategically flexible and entrepreneurial in finding intellectual allies, even if it means admitting that far better arguments are being made by CounterPunch than National Review.

What desperately needs to be rethought is this tendency of libertarians to avert their eyes from the reality of what's going on at places like National Review. Their main dishes consist of calling for ever more war, approving the killing of civilians, backing the surveillance state, and even torture. Libertarians have traditionally provided the side dishes that call for petty deregulatory measures and tax cuts. This really must stop.

The libertarian revolution will come when we least expect it, and it will unfold in a way we cannot fully anticipate. In the mid 1980s, everyone assumed that the Soviet empire would last forever. Five years later, it was gone without a trace. So too, the expectation of eternal world rule by Washington, DC, could evaporate very quickly. - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. Copyright © 2005 LewRockwell.com [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 2:50 PM

Monday, March 28, 2005

The Proletariat is aflap over Camilla Parker Bowles being called the Queen, instead of the Princess Consort, once the cocoon splits, and she emerges as the self-actualized Mrs. Charles. You, too, can obtain a royal title for yourself, and you don’t have to marry Charles to do it! I’ll never forget the time Prince Charles and I had a conversation. Well, he spoke – I didn’t have to. Every word of this is true. It happened sometime in the early mid-eighties, and I was in my mid late-teens. Charles and Diana were in town for some gala as part of their tour. I was headed to my job at a local McDonalds that summer, scrimping & saving my pennies for university. It was about 8:30 a.m. and I was completely alone on a street corner, waiting for the light to turn. There was NO traffic, but I couldn’t make a break for it because a huge limo was pulling up to the light, which was going amber... Instead of speeding through, the limo suddenly stopped and I was just standing there, tired, picking the gick out of my eyes and directing my best Plebeian Gaze into the black, one-way glass.

So suddenly, the window rolls down with that little automatic “bzzzzz” and there is Prince Charles staring straight at me. Beyond him, I saw no Diana, Queen of Hearts. Perhaps they traveled in separate cars. I don’t know. Charles was not more than five feet from me and we were the only two people around. He looked me up and down with a flicker of appraisal, then smiled, nodded, and said, “Good Morning.” I immediately rammed my finger deep into my nostril and twisted it about, pretending to dig for an elusive nugget. I then pulled it out and examined it carefully in the sunlight. The look on His Highness’ face was priceless. Utter disgust and confusion passed across his face and then the composed smile returned. He nodded and the black glass slid back up. The car pulled away.

I don’t know what prompted me to such a grotesque and immature gesture before the future King of England ( I was young, remember ), but it was truly an unforgettable moment.

I only lasted at McDonalds for two weeks. One day, someone smeared feces all over the bathroom and the supervisor told me to go clean it up. I smiled with Princely composure and walked out of the restaurant, never to return. I always wondered if somehow, Charles had managed to mastermind his revenge. - Citrus

posted by George Thomas Kysor 4:40 PM

Homeland Insecurity 

The real annoying thing is that there is no way the system can really work at stopping terrorists, unless they are already *known* to be terrorists.
I personally spoke with a large software firm about this very issue -- how can such a system keep the false positives low to nill while catching the ocassional needle or two in a very large haystack, and they waffled on the question. Considering the number of terrorists are extremely small with regards the rest of the population, how can you possible have enough data to be statistically significant? Again, they waffled on the question, giving a half-baked "executive response" rather than anything concrete.

The real truth is we are far more likely to die in a car crash than to die at the hands of a would-be terrorist. Yet, billions are being poured into Homeland Insecurity and the TSA efforts, and what do we have? High false positive rates, millions of needlessly harrased travelers, and it's hard to get a fix on the false negative rates since terrorists are so rare to begin with.

In short, the entire approach makes no sense.

But try explaining this to the general public, who tend to be dumb as boards when it comes to basic statistics and probabality.

90% of the public is simply unable to think, but merely jumps from one belief pattern to another. That my friends is the problem. - Fred [scroll down]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:51 AM

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Looking for Wind Power & Public Relations 

Web logs could feature rants and ravings about a brand a public relations practitioner is trying to sell. So why are so many companies “wary of putting their brand on such a new and unpredictable medium”? In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Jessica Mintz treads into the uncharted and unclaimed territory of the blogosphere as it relates to advertising like a soldier going ahead of the main company to pave the way for them by building roads, ditches, bridges and other constructions. But PR is not advertising.

Mintz writes in the March 25 article: “blogs are an advertiser’s dream: the diary-style Web sites that feature running commentary and reactions are tightly targeted niche markets where avant-garde enthusiasts regularly return to read, post and send in tips.”

However the piece lists companies that pull out after only days and companies that are chary, fussily concerned of positioning their brand on the spanking and capricious communiqué form.

But I’ve got nothing to lose. As a class assignment in a public relations course at a Massachusetts state university, I will try it out for public relations. She points out Wonkette, “Mr. Denton’s high-profile inside-Washington blog…got 2.2 million ‘page views’ last month.”

According to the WSJ article, Henry Copeland, Blogads.com founder, said that advertisers need to think like bloggers. My class is a public relations class and as a temporary practitioner, taking the course in an online journalism program, I think that I can think like a blogger. So maybe it will work for me. See, I’ve already done 255 words of ranting about blogs and public relations as a online journalism student.

Copeland describes blogs as an ongoing conversation (not on my blog, no one’s going to look at it as with my other—real—blog). Incorporating links that “fit the blog’s general tone, is another suggestion by Copeland, and thus, I have.

“Above all,” said Copeland, “they should stop hitting readers over the head with giant logos.” Done.

Most blogs don’t have any ads, he said according to the article. Nearly eight million blogs are written by lounger critics and observers using the medium to express their feelings. Done, again.

Then I got curious about other blogs.

I started clicking through the “Next Blog” button on my blog and found Watcher, a blog site on how to detect propaganda. This blogger’s number one warning is to watch for the “name calling (sic) device” which “makes us form a judgment without examining the evidence on which it should be based. Here, writes Watcher, “the propagandist appeals to our hate and fear. He does this by giving ‘Bad Names’ to those individuals, groups, nations, races, policies, practices, beliefs, and ideals which he would have us condemn and reject.”

Not on my blog watch.

But this blog on propaganda might have some interesting ideas that I think that I will look into more in the future.

(If I fail to, feel free to remind me, as I have a terrible memory about the many things I think that I should spend more time on...tomorrow!)

So I added a comment to Watcher's blog and continued.

I kept clicking the "Next Blog" button and found Belle-T about her or his power skills shortage in Australia and thought it might be interesting to write to him or her, too, but this time about wind energy. Maybe he or she will respond.

Regardless, I have started my public relations blog about wind power. I don't know if it will continue to be on wind energy, but we'll see. Who knows what tomorrow brings--as a student.

(If I didn't already say it, my assignment is to create a public relations blog on wind power--specifically, and later--about the wind farm proposal on Cape Sound, Massachusetts, U.S.A. And thus I have completed my first assignment. Blog-style with rants and raves.) - Civic Connections

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:54 PM

This week's lesson--Don't volunteer 

Friday was hell. I should have known it would be but I have this strange optimistic side that seeps out randomly and ruins my normally pessimistic mood.

It's my own fault. I broke the cardinal rule of survivng military life--don't volunteer.
Several weeks ago pity overtook me and I volunteered to be on a committee to plan 1st Sgt. PT. This moment of weekness was preceeded by 5 minutes of silence during a squad meeting at which my squad leader asked for volunteers for said committee. Being new, and wanting to end the uncomfortable silence I raised my hand like the smuck I am. Little did I know that the Army, like every other organization/company/school that I've worked for, is full of ineffieciency.

I spent the next 5 weeks worth of Mondays going to pointless meetings discussing things that could have easily been resolved in just 1 (yes one) meeting. Maybe I'm being too harsh--but I hate people and even more than that I hate working with people. I'm anal. I like to work alone. Most people just get in the way and half-ass everything.

So I got put in charge of the tug-of-war event. I had to (with the help of an NCO from my platoon) run the event completely on my own. Long story short--said NCO did jack and I spent the entire event being forced to listen to the not-so-kindly-meant advice from junior NCO's who are for the most part several years my junior. After getting yelled at by a group of these lovely individuls(at which point my squad leader interviened on my behalf) over a call I left alone in tears, as the results were being read, dragging the world's heaviest tug-of-war rope across the football field. One of the more annoying of these NCO's who had given me a pre-event lecture on "being-in-charge" caught up with me as I was turning the rope in. He called my name repeatedily, knowing full well that I was trying to ignore him. Once he "caught" my attention he shook my hand and said, "It's hard being in charge--isn't it?" Had I been a civilian I would've told him were to go. All I could do was turn and walk away.

I left the gym, and after I'd turned the corner I squated near the building and let my self cry. I've never had a panic attack before, but I'm sure that's what it was, as I struggled to regain my breath.

This would never had happened the way it did had I already not been on the end of my very, very short rope. The stress of this program is really getting to me. I'm over half way through and still have a year left in AIT status. I feel so tired all of the time, no matter how much sleep I get. In class I feel like I'm getting further and further behind. It's so bad that before all of this, I had brought my husband some Chinese for lunch. He asked me how my day was going and I just broke down.

I feel a little better now--the weekend was wonderfully unexciting. Friday afternoon my husband rubbed my back and I went to bed at 7:30. I blew off most of Saturday and spent Saturday night watching a fun, mindless Indian movie at the house of one of my friends. Then this morning I got up early and went to a sunrise Easter service. It was beautiful and cold and everyone was kind.

Had I to do all over again, I'd do as the military commands and follow the example of the wonderful NCO that was suppose to help me and bail out as soon as possible. I should have known it would be but I have this strange optimistic side that seeps out randomly and ruins my normally pessimistic mood.

It's my own fault. I broke the cardinal rule of survivng military life--don't volunteer.
Several weeks ago pity overtook me and I volunteered to be on a committee to plan 1st Sgt. PT. This moment of weekness was preceeded by 5 minutes of silence during a squad meeting at which my squad leader asked for volunteers for said committee. Being new, and wanting to end the uncomfortable silence I raised my hand like the smuck I am. Little did I know that the Army, like every other organization/company/school that I've worked for, is full of ineffieciency.

I spent the next 5 weeks worth of Mondays going to pointless meetings discussing things that could have easily been resolved in just 1 (yes one) meeting. Maybe I'm being too harsh--but I hate people and even more than that I hate working with people. I'm anal. I like to work alone. Most people just get in the way and half-ass everything.

So I got put in charge of the tug-of-war event. I had to (with the help of an NCO from my platoon) run the event completely on my own. Long story short--said NCO did jack and I spent the entire event being forced to listen to the not-so-kindly-meant advice from junior NCO's who are for the most part several years my junior. After getting yelled at by a group of these lovely individuls(at which point my squad leader interviened on my behalf) over a call I left alone in tears, as the results were being read, dragging the world's heaviest tug-of-war rope across the football field. One of the more annoying of these NCO's who had given me a pre-event lecture on "being-in-charge" caught up with me as I was turning the rope in. He called my name repeatedily, knowing full well that I was trying to ignore him. Once he "caught" my attention he shook my hand and said, "It's hard being in charge--isn't it?" Had I been a civilian I would've told him were to go. All I could do was turn and walk away.

I left the gym, and after I'd turned the corner I squated near the building and let my self cry. I've never had a panic attack before, but I'm sure that's what it was, as I struggled to regain my breath.

This would never had happened the way it did had I already not been on the end of my very, very short rope. The stress of this program is really getting to me. I'm over half way through and still have a year left in AIT status. I feel so tired all of the time, no matter how much sleep I get. In class I feel like I'm getting further and further behind. It's so bad that before all of this, I had brought my husband some Chinese for lunch. He asked me how my day was going and I just broke down.

I feel a little better now--the weekend was wonderfully unexciting. Friday afternoon my husband rubbed my back and I went to bed at 7:30. I blew off most of Saturday and spent Saturday night watching a fun, mindless Indian movie at the house of one of my friends. Then this morning I got up early and went to a sunrise Easter service. It was beautiful and cold and everyone was kind.

Had I to do all over again, I'd do as the military commands and follow the example of the wonderful NCO that was suppose to help me and bail out as soon as possible. - just_a_girl

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:33 PM

Wife Beating Instructions for University of Houston Students 

Today I am sending the following email to some important women at the University of Houston:

Dear University of Houston: Executive Director of the Board of Regents; Assistant Dean of Students; Student Women Leaders,

Recently while reading an article on the website Islamonline, I noticed that the website was linking to religious Fat'wahs from the UH website. Since UH is a public institution, that raised my curiousity enough to visit the Muslim Student Association website at www.uh.edu/campus/mas . I was surprised to discover that, besides using a government funded website to promote a religion, the MSA is also public spirited enough to provide a link to instructions on the proper way to beat one's wife. Go to http://www.uh.edu/campus/msa/articles.htm and click on "How to Make Your Wife Happy". Scroll down to Item 17.

I am not associated with UH, nor am I a citizen of Texas. I just thought I'd take the time to bring this interesting situation to the attention of some influential women at UH such as yourselves.

I wonder if anything like that is happening in our UNC System? Hmmmmm...... - baldblog1

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:28 AM

1-hour discourse on Simulation, Agents & Accelerating Change by John Smart (via Slashdot)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:03 AM

What a girl needs....

Earlier today I went with some girlfriends of mine to the movies to see "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" and "Guess Who?". Both movies we're quite amusing and at some points were hilariously gut-busting. But I found that both movies addressed a few relationship issues that I find myself currently dealing with. My recent inner battle surrounds the topic of wants vs needs. I have no problem identifying and satisfying my wants. And for the most part I get what I want out of my relationships.
However, only recently have I finally been able to pinpoint what I need. And that discovery has changed my views on toward certain people in my life dramatically...and it's scary. Knowing what I know about my needs is forcing me away from relationships I once felt comfortable in. Issues, personality types, and attitudes that I used to tolerate are no longer acceptable. Mediocrity isn't enough for me anymore. I can't be complacent with the bare minimum of someone's time and effort. I need more, and when it comes to love I require so much than a couple of "I luv u's". I've discovered through time and experience that the initial passionate blaze of love simmers down at some point, and if not watched can be completely snuffed out. The kisses eventually become bland...the sex becomes routine....the conversations that used to last for hours are now down to a few minutes of vague phrases and so on.
However, I honestly believe that it's intimacy that keeps love sexy, spicy, exciting and fresh! If you're someone who expects alot out of life...your relationships should be no exception. But therein lies the dilemma. You may want the best relationship with the best man available on today's market, but the reality is normally in order to get the best....you gotta wait for it. Patience is a virtue that I struggle with. Personally everything I want and need outta life I wanted yesterday. But time favors no one and 24 hours is just as long for me as it is for you. So what are my options? Get what I want now? Or get what I need later? I've made the decision that my need for intimacy outweights anything I can have at this moment in my life.
It's a hard decision, but God knows I continually strive to grow and mature as a woman. That can't happen if I don't set boundaries for myself and dedicate myself towards reaching a level of happiness and love that seems to elude most people. Love is a wonderful thing. And no matter how many times my heart has been broken, I'm still optimistic. I still see the beauty and am always in awe at how love can transform someone down to their soul. Someday soon I'll have both my needs and wants satisfied by my relationships and I refuse to let my impatience ruin the blessings that are waiting for me just around the corner. :) - Sony

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:14 AM

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Transparent Screens (via Slashdot)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:34 PM

Surprise! 

...thus spoke raoul
 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 5:12 PM

Friday, March 25, 2005

Starve a Cow, Feed a Fever
"A Cabot [Vt.] farmer convicted of starving his cows to death has begun serving a reparative sentence imposed by Washington County prosecutors as part of a plea bargain," reports the Barre-Montpilier Times Argus:

Christian DeNeergaard pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty in January. He received a suspended one-year sentence as well as 30 days of work crew assignment as part of a deal with prosecutors. DeNeergaard, 47, may not own or possess livestock during his year of probation and must also undergo alcohol-abuse counseling.

In October, then-Washington County State's Attorney Tom Kelly said he would seek at least some jail time for animal neglect, which claimed the lives of at least 11 cows.

"We think some jail time is appropriate," said Kelly in an October interview. "The cows suffered tremendously."

Even though DeNeergaard won't be behind bars, every American can sleep easy knowing that we live in a society that does not tolerate a man starving a cow to death. - JAMES TARANTO Copyright © 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:18 PM

Romance and A Lure 

Last month I turned 30 and finally had an epiphany about relationships: romance, as it turns out, is not that hard. It’s just confusing.

I’m not saying it’s easy for women, but I will opine that men have it a bit harder, since we are born without certain important relationship genes, such as the one that says women don’t care about how accurate our Chewbacca impression is, and the one that says a dirty shirt worn inside out is still dirty, and the one, finally, that explains romance. If romance involved baiting a hook and catching a 20-pound sea bass on 5-pound test, then women would be the happiest species on the planet. Alas, women could care less about such an endeavor. (Yes, guys, it’s weird but it’s the truth).

But we know we must do something on Valentine’s Day, and so make a valiant attempt. Generally, we hand over trite gifts wrapped in newspaper, or stuffed in plastic shopping bags, and own up to the fact that we have no idea what we are doing when it comes to sentiment, but that if they’d like to learn how to reel in a mako, we’re their man. Such acts perpetuate because women have had centuries to get used to the disappointment, so that forgiveness is now a part of their relationship genes.

Why do men fail at these endeavors? The answer’s two-fold. One: Hollywood has led women to believe that men are latently romantic, that they will fabricate a night of romance to rival even the sappiest Hugh Grant film, complete with sky rockets, a balloon trip over Paris, and matching socks. When this doesn’t happen, they think their man is lazy and boorish. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Because two: men are like monkeys, we do what we see. And we don’t pay attention to Hugh Grant movies, even when we see them. What we see around Valentine’s Day are advertisements for chocolates and roses, so that’s what we give. (It should be noted that the whole gift thing just confuses us. Why must we ensure a catch stay caught? Have you ever seen a wide receiver score a touchdown and then continually offer gifts to the endzone to keep the points?) And women know, deep down, that candy and roses are nice thoughts, but they’re not romantic.

Romance, as far as I have discovered, is not about gifts or moments culled from films. It’s about creating togetherness in a moment. A special moment. A unique moment that comes from the giving of oneself. All the chocolate and all the roses cannot add up to two people on the same page, actually listening to each other, and not only listening, but being generally interested in one another. Candy and roses are America’s commercial method of creating that fusion, but at the end of the day it’s really just a way for these companies to make money. It is not togetherness.

Don’t ask me how I came to this epiphany, it’s a wonder I can find my shoes most mornings. I believe it was because I had forgotten to make Valentine’s Day reservations at a nice restaurant (did I mention the remember-to-make-reservations gene? We’re missing that one too) and was forced to get creative — fondue and wine from Vons, pajamas from the mall, a RomCom from Blockbuster, and a carload of pillows from Ikea to transform the living room into one giant bed. If only I’d known it could be so simple.

So dig deep this Valentine’s Day men, be spontaneous and unique and if you have to, forget to make reservations somewhere. Remember, it’s about togetherness — gifts too — but togetherness first. And women, be patient, remember that males are still evolving. Albeit slowly. Because there’s a game on and evolution is actually in the kitchen trying to open a beer bottle with its teeth.

By the way, women, a 20-pound fish caught on 5-pound test is way cooler than you think. Happy Valentine’s Day. --Ryan Thomas

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:39 AM

Thursday, March 24, 2005

First sign of spring by Jeanie

As I was strolling down the path in campus the other day, surrounded with lush green grass, a bright morning sun and the soft breeze blowing by, I almost shouted out in glee when I saw something incredible... the first sign of spring! It was undeniable! Irrefutable! Undebatable! It was one of the most lovely sights that I have ever seen in a long long time.. (It has been a long, dreary winter.. sighh...)

I rushed over to pet them, to talk to them, to shower them with undying gratitude and although they couldn't say it, I knew that exactly what was on their mind.. Spring is here!!!! I knew that what they really wanted to do was to tell me that they were happy to see me too, that they were overjoyed that there existed people who were truly enthusiastic to see them and that they have thus, fulfilled their life's purpose.

I walked home that day with a huge smile plastered across my face, feeling incredibly uplifted. Suddenly there was hope in our lives.. It was almost as if with that one sign, we know that there will be better days to come. We know that we can actually overcome the harsh cold that winter so surely promises and that we can survive long enough to see the warm glow of the sun. We know that if we can survive that, we can most certainly live through anything that life decides to throw in our faces. We know.. that life continues.

Hope.. such a simple word that brings so much meaning to each and every one of us. What would we be without hope? Where could we go without hope? How can we ever survive if it wasn't for the glimmer of hope that we so desperately cling on to, no matter what we do? What is life without hope, for the homeless ones living on the street, for the weary ones battling cancer in the hospital, for the orphaned ones longing for a new life and most of all, for all of us who just want to live..

Personally, the last few months have not been very encouraging for me and as a result, I have been suffering from a combination of lack of motivation, self-confidence and all that kinds of crap. But seeing this beautiful sign reminded me that no matter what lies ahead, crappy as could be, there is much to look forward to. Living is worth looking forward to, no matter what happens. For that, I thank them. I applaud them for their courage to fight the cold, I look up to them for their valour to defy winter but most of all, I am grateful to them for reminding me of what beautiful things lie ahead.

I'd like to propose a toast....

posted by George Thomas Kysor 3:33 PM

to daffodils!!!  

Springtime last year.. :) - JEANIE
 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 3:09 PM

Eliazar Velasquez, inset, says he hid behind a wall to get photos like the one above, showing Central High School principal Elaine Almagno having a smoke outside a school door. Smoking wihtin 25 feet of a school violates state law. - The Providence Journal
 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:02 PM

Mr. S. 

Jesus Reporting,

This is about surrogate. And it's so condensed that it may not make sense, but maybe it will explain his strong feelings about the Terry Schaivo case.

When surrogate and his wife moved into their family's home in Michigan, the first day they were settled in, he and his wife came home from work to new flowers planted along the front porch and a hot dinner waiting for them sitting, wrapped carefully along with a card, next to their front door welcoming them to the neighborhood.

As the years went on, the neighbors who'd shown this initial kindness became very important people to surrogate and his wife.

At the time, Mr. and Mrs. Simpson were in their mid seventies. They had no children, but adopted, in spirit, not only nieces and nephews, but quite a few of the kids in the neighborhood.

By the time Mrs. Simpson died in 1987, for surrogate and his wife, it felt like they were losing a member of the family.

After surrogate's divorce, he and his son occupied the family home. surrogate continued to visit Mr. Simpson daily, joining him at his dining room table which for years had been Mr. Simpson's watch post for keeping an eye on the neighborhood, gleaning more information than one would have thought possible just from his constant vigil, which he loved to share.

"The Clarks got a new dishwasher today. I figured they would be getting something new soon, the repairman's been there twice in the last week."

"Larry started a new shift. He always left at exactly 8:30, but now he's home till after noon."

Never gossip, really, just informational tidbits that kept him in touch with the world he knew. And it was Mr. Simpson that kept surrogate from going any crazier than he did after his divorce. But Mr. Simpson was failing. He'd fallen a time or two, and he almost started a fire with one of his 80 daily cigarettes. At 91 years old, he figured he was entitled to his single vice. His smokes, and his home. He hated doctors almost as much as he hated the idea of not dying at home.

On a beautiful crisp Thanksgiving morning in 2001, surrogate walked the mile or so to Mr. Simpson's house, surrogate and his son having moved a few months earlier into an apartment. surrogate let himself into the house and found that Mr. Simpson wasn't up yet so he busied himself doing up some dishes, and straightening up and then sat watching parades on T.V. waiting for Mr. S. to wake up.

At about 11:00 a.m. surrogate walked into Mr. S's. bedroom and discovered him lying in his bed looking like he'd been shot, drying blood covering his whole face and pillow.

He'd fallen in the night on his way to the bathroom. A deep gash ran from his forehead to his chin, just missing his eye. surrogate never did figure out what he'd hit his head on and Mr. Simpson couldn't say, but surrogate knew something had to change.

Six weeks after Mr. S. moved in with surrogate and his son, he became completely bedridden. For the next thirteen months he slowly declined. Doctors actually made house calls and hospice stopped by to say it was too early yet for them to be involved but gave invaluable advice to surrogate on ways to keep Mr. S. comfortable.

That year was in some ways a wonderful experience for surrogate and his son. Mr. S. loved being there and actually quit smoking about three months into his stay after succumbing to the chastising of just about everyone who came to see him. surrogate used to tease him that he looked silly smoking in the hospital bed anyway.

But he was slowly fading. His ever-present smile was still there, but his enthusiasm for telling stories and joking slowly disappeared till by the next Thanksgiving, he was a shadow of himself.

Christmas day he ate a little dinner, but not much. He just didn't want to eat. New Years Day 2003, Mr. S. stopped eating altogether. He'd had it. He'd smile and shake his head, even to his favorite dishes. His voice was by now, nonexistent too. surrogate would try to at least give Mr. S. water and keep him hydrated by using little chips of ice on his lips, and then try to sneak them into his mouth.

The last real reaction surrogate got out of Mr. S was a sly smile and a shake of the head after one of these ice chip insertion ploys.

surrogate called hospice again. They were wonderful. They came and said that yes, he was going and that it was quite normal for people who are shutting down to discontinue taking nourishment before they die.

Two days later, January 9, 2003, Mr. S. died. He was 93 years old and he was loved.

Death is simply part of life. - surrogate

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:48 AM

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

The average Chinese worker still costs his employer less than $1 per hour. The cost in America is over $20 per hour. This 20-to-1 advantage is hard to beat. But China is now moving into areas where labor costs are not necessarily the key element. As the Chinese learn new skills, they become better able to compete with high-tech industries in the West. Chinese universities turn out 350,000 new engineers each year. Now, Chinese entrepreneurs are moving into biotech, communications technology, and many other high-tech areas. As a result, even in technology, America runs a $37 billion trade deficit with China. - The Daily Reckoning March 22, 2005

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:18 PM

The Rude Awakening 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:54 AM

I have a couple of political beefs to get off my chest. by Jessica 

First, eminent domain. The taking of private property for use by private individuals/businesses. I did a research paper last term on this very thing and it's a frightening violation of private property rights. No one cares. I keep hearing "the government has that right". Bullshit, they don't have that right to take MY property and give it to someone else to build a Wal Mart, auto parts store, or condos!

Second, the case of Terri Schiavo. Yes it's Terri SCHIAVO, not Terri Schindler-Schiavo. BTW, use of her middle name hypenated is an attempt by the liberal press to lend credence to her parents fight to keep her on the tube. I feel for Terri, I can't imagine what it's like for her. Is there anything left of her brain that allows her to know what's going on? Is she trapped inside this body and can't even scream out at us? OR is she really gone? All I know is that while I feel for all involved, the federal government just can't come in and trample all over state's rights. We fought a long and bloody war over this very thing called state's rights, let's not have another war like that one. Sure, the 14th amendment ensures states cannot violate the rights granted by the Constitution but are her rights being violated? Has Terri been denied due process? Twenty judges (or damn close to it) have ruled in this case. How long must it go on? Let the woman go, let her spirit rest.

I find it amazing Congress can rush their fat lazy asses back to debate this bill in the middle of the night and Bush can exit Crawford faster than he can say Nuk-u-lar. Where are these people when a real crisis hits? Doesn't the need of the many outweigh the needs of the few anymore? This is political grandstanding if I ever saw it, shit they aren't even trying to hide that fact. The GOP (yes I voted for Bush and I am an independent!) NEEDS this case, they need their conservative constituents back. So many are disillusioned with the GOP because of their lackadaisical attitude on things like gay marriage and illegal immigration.

Third, why is Congress involved in the Steroid issue? I don't know much about baseball's whole anti-trust thing but I have enough common sense to know Congress has a shit pot load of other things they need to be concerned with. It's nice to know they've solved the social security crisis, fixed the illegal immigration issue, gotten rid of terrorist cells in our country, secured our borders, you know, the important stuff.....

And speaking of illegal immigration.........

that's my fourth and final point. There are 11 million illegal aliens here and more coming each year. And no one's doing a damn thing about it.

Maybe once Congress has solved the steroid issue and fixed the Terri Schiavo situation to their liking, they can take some time to work on it. - Jessica

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:28 AM

Birch Grove Park, Northfield, NJ 

- DAN MYERS 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:14 AM

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

A carp with a face resembling a tiger swims in the Wulong Pool at a park in Jinan, east China's Shandong province February 25, 2005. The strange fish was found by local residents and has drawn hundreds of visitors in the past two days. Staff at the park said some fish-lovers even called the park and offered a high price to buy the fish. REUTERS/China Newsphoto

 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 4:46 PM

Jim and Terry by Mark 

In October of 1999, several fireman paramedics in West Haven, CT were treating the injuries of an eight-year-old girl who had been hit by a car at her bus stop. One of the fireman was an experienced paramedic but a rookie to the fire company. His name was Jim, and he was doing his job to help stabilize the patient in the back of the Rescue Truck as they sped toward the hospital.

The fire department vehicle was 30 seconds away from the Emergency Room when an airport shuttle ran a red light and plowed into the side of it, knocking the rescue truck over and across the intersection. Everyone was severely injured. Jim suffered massive injuries, including broken bones, a ruptured spleen and bleeding on the brain. It was his second day with the fire department.

Jim is my big brother, and he has been in a coma ever since.

Like Terry Schiavo, his eyes are open when he is awake, and he sometimes responds to people around him. Jim sees, he hears, he closes his eyes when a nurse arrives that he doesn’t like, and he feels pain when something is wrong. He is not on life support, but he does have a feeding tube because he can’t feed himself.

As you read this, liquefied nutrients are sustaining Jim’s life. As I write this, Terry Schiavo is slowly starving to death. A judge agrees with her unfaithful husband that her life isn’t worth sustaining any more.

I heard a news commentator say today that a certain “orthodox” religious group has declared that Terry Schiavo should never have been given a feeding tube in the first place because it “tampers with death.” The doctors, they say, should have let her die because she couldn’t feed herself anymore. 2/3rds of Americans, it is claimed, agree with them.

When my son was a newborn, we had to feed him constantly. Did our bottles and midnight feedings “tamper with death"? Were all those jars of baby food denying his “right to die"? Of course not, we all agree, because there is hope for a baby, if allowed to make it out of the womb alive, to have a high “quality of life.” There is no guarantee, no promise… just hope.

The message in our culture: Life with reasonable hope, or not too much inconvenience, is worth sustaining. Life without sufficient hope can be cast aside.

I had a friend named Danny who was a paraplegic due to a muscular disease. He was effectively paralyzed from the neck down for many years, during which his family and friends lovingly fed him. We didn’t have much hope for Danny’s future; his twin brother had died from the same condition. And yet, there was the present: Danny was a hilarious guy who loved life and made my life richer for knowing him. One time I had the privilege of feeding him his cheeseburger and fries at Burger King. Did I “tamper with death” by feeding Danny that night? I just remember good food, good conversation, and the chance to show a friend I loved him.

I marvel at how easy it is for everyone to pontificate about “right to life” and “right to die” when they have never looked into the comatose eyes of somebody they love. There are no easy answers. Do I want this quality of life for my brother? Do I want him to suffer? Never in a million years. But neither am I willing to starve him to death so I don’t have to watch him suffer. The neurologists say there is no reason to hope Jim will ever recover. I don’t care; I’m hoping anyway.

Like Terry, Jim didn’t leave a living will, so my family will probably never know what he would have wanted. He could have died a dozen times over from everything that comes from being in hospitals for so long, but he has survived time and time again. And so we visit him, and pray with him, and bribe the doctor into letting him taste a little chocolate cake on his birthday.

As long as Jim keeps on fighting, we’ll be by his side, and we’ll give him all the support - and food - he needs. When he and our Lord decide its time to meet face to face, we’ll kiss Jim goodbye, let him go, and whisper some see-you-soon’s.

Terry’s parents just want to do the same. Can you blame them? — Mark (via Wacko!)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:27 PM

Bridge/Tunnel 

The bridge (or should it be called tunnel) goes under water to allow movement of ships. In order for ships to pass, this bridge is half under the water. You drive down in the water and then come out on the other side. Truly a marvelous piece of engineering! This bridge is between Sweden and Denmark . Picture taken from the side of Sweden. (via email)
 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:20 AM

Monday, March 21, 2005

The Anarchist Inside 

It's often observed that the state, having established its monopoly on public life, moved on to the personal – and that, having conquered the personal in general, now seems resolved to conquer it in detail.

From “public” roads and rules for using them to drivers' licenses to mandatory seatbelt laws requiring airbags and regulating the miles per gallon a car must have before it can be sold to you.

From decentralized defense to standing army to mass recruitment to draft registration.

From regulating medicine to the war on drugs to “Know Your Customer” to random urinalysis of just about anyone dealing with government in more than the most incidental way.

We are, as Proudhon said, “watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated, regimented, closed in, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, evaluated, censored, commanded . . . noted, registered, entered in a census, taxed, stamped, priced, assessed, patented, licensed, authorized, recommended, admonished, prevented, reformed, set right, corrected . . . subjected to tribute, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, pressured, mystified, robbed . . . repressed, fined, despised, vexed, pursued, hustled, beaten up, garroted, imprisoned, shot, machine-gunned, judged, sentenced, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and to cap all, ridiculed, mocked, outraged and dishonored . . . .”

These incursions into the most personal areas of our lives are daily more visible, and while one might at first mistake them as the random writhings of a monster looking for new space into which a sprouting tentacle might comfortably fit, it seems more likely to me that we've passed the point beyond which the logic of George Orwell's 1984 applies.

IngSoc, the government of Orwell's Oceania , operates on fear. Not on fear of riot or uprising, but fear that so much as a molecule of potential for such might be left in existence. The superstate is not safe so long as anything – anything-- remains beyond its reach. And fear, in turn, is also the superstate's weapon: It is used to preemptively snuff out those inconvenient, kindling flames of individualism.

That's why I'm optimistic.

Yes, I just said what you thought I just said.

While some would hold (incorrectly, I maintain) that the stateless society is an unachievable goal, how much more unachievable is the elimination of every last vestige of human independence?

Look around you. If you meet a hundred people today, 99 of them will, upon close examination, prove to be anarchists.

Yes, I just said what you thought I just said again.

There's the guy whose plates are expired . . . and which won't be renewed until and unless he gets pulled over and receives a ticket – if even then.

There's the lady who's using her roommate's leftover antibiotics to fend off a sinus infection instead of getting a prescription.

There's the family man who works a second job for cash on the barrelhead – no W-4s and no mention on the 1040.

Did I mention the pot smokers, the Sunday night poker players, the part-time “escorts,” the security guard with the unregistered small-frame 9mm pistol tucked in his sock?

They're anarchists. They don't know it, and they may never know it. They're just doing what comes naturally -- carving out stateless reservations in their own souls and in their own lives. Those reservations don't need fences or “No Trespassing” signs because they are, by their very nature, usually invisible. The keepers of those reservations do not fear the state – or if they do, that fear is insufficient to keep them from living their lives, their way, if only in one small area.

That refusal to bend to fear, in whatever small way -- that anarchist impulse inside each of us -- is the last, invulnerable redoubt of freedom. The tide of liberty may rise or fall. The dream of the stateless society may advance toward, or drift away from, realization. The state may become more powerful, or it may briefly disintegrate, only to reform and once again launch its assault on freedom. But so long as humans remain humans, ultimate victory remains forever outside its grasp.

Time is on our side. - Thomas L. Knapp, publisher of Rational Review.

posted by George Thomas Kysor 4:31 PM

Real Bharath Rathna 

If any one asks me about my reading habits, I will say reading newspapers forms very important part. Wait! Please don’t rush to think about me as a person with great general knowledge. I don’t know much of the happenings in europe and even in united states. Even national news, political leaders do not catch my attention much. Always I get admired by normal people whose names never make in the newspaper's front page, but whose honesty and will power to fight their way out in corrupt country like ours. So I read more about regional news especially my hometown madurai news. Sometimes ago, I read about a murder which raises so many questions in my mind till date. Let me tell the news.
It was about a "pookari" (flower vending lady), who sold flowers in the bus stand. Once she happened to witness a gang rape by a group of thugs. During investigation she stood up to the task and gave her testimony as witness in the court. These thugs were released on bail after "Charge sheet" was filed. They threatened the "pookari" to retract her statement else had to face dire consequences which included "raping her teen age daughter" or "Killing the pookari".
She was adamant and eventually she was killed by the thugs. It was reported in lesser number lines in a regional newspaper.
Now, these are the questions I have in my mind.
1) How many of us will dare to fight for justice like that great lady?
Mind you injustice was done to a unknown person. She just witnessed it.
2) Apparent assumption of her less or no literacy, I see she was very selfless and brave. As far as I know, no educated person, including myself will be that daring. What good is this education for?
3) The country worries a lot if Sachin gets out on wrong "Decision" or a "Kavarchi Nadigai's" dog dies. Here the great lady was killed, not even a single eye drop shed. Why so much indifference and hopelessness when seeking justice is concerned?
4) Does she not deserve bravery award?
5) As long as we don’t respect people who fought for justice, leave alone we taking the fight by ourselves, we will be fast loosing that brave race . Is that not what we see from their dwindling numbers?
"Dharmo Rakshathi Rakshanath"
Righteousness protects those who protect it. - Muthukumar Puranam

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:14 PM

A Modest Proposal, Pt. II 

It’s so simple, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. I have the solution to the gas guzzler crisis. I call it the You Go Get It Doctrine, and I think it’s truly a fair way to allocate resources. It’s also democratic, in that you have to pay to play.

Basically, you can own any vehicle you want, just like you can right now. However, for every mile-per-gallon below 15 that your daily driver gets, either you or one of your offspring must commit to one year in the National Guard. For example, if your Yukon gets 13 mpg, you’ll have to sign your son up for a two-year stint in the guard division of his choice. That way, you can have your gasoline, but your kid’s going to have to go get it. See?

Sure, there are still some details to be worked out, like the mileage calculations. Would we be talking about combined city/highway driving averages, would the EPA calculations be considered official, etc? There would also be a yearly mileage exemption—for example, the vehicle in question would have to be driven at least, say, 3000 miles per year, so we avoid an undue burden on the collector car hobby. Finally, we’d have some oversight to make sure that campaign contributions to the head of the EPA don’t suddenly result in Hummers getting 28 miles to the gallon.

But overall, I think this would be a great way to encourage more fuel-efficient vehicle purchases without imposing restrictions on the marketplace. It would also help to ensure that wars aren’t fought over oil. Not that that’s ever happened, of course, but just in case. - ARS

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:07 AM

Till Death Do Them Part? 

Congress has granted Terri Schiavo a reprieve. In an extraordinary midnight session, the House voted 203-58 to approve a bill to restore her feeding tube--removed last week by order of a Florida judge--and grant the federal courts jurisdiction over her case. The Senate had earlier approved the measure on a voice vote, but some Democrats obstructed the effort to pass it the same way in the House, forcing Republicans to assemble a quorum for a roll-call vote. President Bush, up well past his bedtime, signed the bill into law just before 1:30 a.m.

Supporters of Michael Schiavo's effort to end his wife's life have asked how conservatives, who claim to believe in the sanctity of marriage, can fail to respect his husbandly authority. The most obvious answer is that a man's authority as a husband does not supersede his wife's rights as a human being--a principle we never thought we'd see liberals question.

But why do those of us who aren't right-to-life absolutists side with Mrs. Schiavo's parents, who want to keep her alive, over her husband, who wants her dead? It's a fair question, and it raises another one: What kind of husband is Michael Schiavo?

According to news reports, Mr. Schiavo lives with a woman named Jodi Centonze, and they have two children together. Surely any court would consider this prima facie evidence of adultery. And this is no mere fling; a sympathetic 2003 profile in the Orlando Sentinel described Centonze as Mr. Schiavo's "fiancée." Mr. Schiavo, in other words, has virtually remarried. Short of outright bigamy, his relationship with Centonze is as thoroughgoing a violation of his marriage vows as it is possible to imagine.

The point here is not to castigate Mr. Schiavo for behaving badly. It would require a heroic degree of self-sacrifice for a man to forgo love and sex in order to remain faithful to an incapacitated wife, and it would be unreasonable to hold an ordinary man to a heroic standard.

But it is equally unreasonable to let Mr. Schiavo have it both ways. If he wishes to assert his marital authority to do his wife in, the least society can expect in return is that he refrain from making a mockery of his marital obligations. The grimmest irony in this tragic case is that those who want Terri Schiavo dead are resting their argument on the fiction that her marriage is still alive. - JAMES TARANTO Copyright © 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:43 AM

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Riding the boom-bust train

So you're about to graduate from university (and if not pay attention anyways) and move on with the rest of your life. Well, if you're in geology things must be looking up. You've finally got that shiny new ring you worked so hard for. $40,000 could have bought you a pretty nice car, but instead you've got a little silver ring with a rock hammer on it.

Many of my friends, those I've spent the last 4 years suffering through classes with, are graduating this year. I however am not, but the lessons I'm learning this spring will help me not make an ass out of myself next year. Because I'll be honest, graduating out of geology right now is not what I expected the end of university to be. Oil Companies, Seismic Companies and Mining/Exploration Companies are picking up graduates as fast as they can. For example, a certain wireline company had 40 positions to fill with new grads. 3 people applied for the interviews. It's getting to the point where someone of my fellow classmates are getting 2 or more contract offers and comparing between the two.

"Well this one pays me more, but this other company will give me a free truck."

Welcome aboard the Boom-Bust train ladies and gentlemen. Next stop, total and absolute crushing reality. We should be arriving in 5 to 10 years...

I don't know about you, but when I hear of people 3 years out of university getting $100k per year contract offers, I begin to get worried. Sure I'd love to make that kind of cash. Going from barely being able to pay my utilities to owning my own house would be a nice change. But I know that for every boom in the industry, there's an equally devistating bust.

Should I be worried for my classmates, the ones who are moving to Fort Worth, Texas at the beginning of June to start their new lives as Petroleum Geologists? Yeah, I probably should, but I'm more worried about still being employable 10 years down the road. There's more to life than being rich meth addicts working up north on the rigs. And I'm planning on being more than an one skill type of worker. Everyone needs to have goals. Something to strive for, even if that goal is just to not end up in jail. I've been thinking carefully about how I'm going to enter the work force next year.

In a perfect world this is what I'd like; to work as a hydrogeologist and to consult as a petroleum geologist. It's possible that I could do both, because I've been trained as both here in university due to the classes I've taken. But I'm not too sure how likely it is that I can get work, switching from one to the other, because companies generally like people who are at one particular thing, not fairly good at a few different things.

I'm aware that if I actually want to have a life outside of work, consulting is probably the way to go. A number of different people have told me that getting roped into a contract with a big oil company can completely take over your life. Because I'm sure it's cool to fly to indo-china once, and not cool to fly there every other week. All I really want is a job, and the ability to not have to be on call 24 hours a day while I live out of a trailer doing wellsite geology.

I'm slowly working out where I want my life to go. Because I don't want to be blinded by the new trucks, big salaries, and no job security that some of my friends have choosen. I just know Ryan's going to buy a hummer, he's got to keep oil consumption up to keep his new job. - Hydrass

posted by George Thomas Kysor 6:15 PM

Social Observations

To begin, I would first love to mention something that I have noticed; Every single child has, to some degree, ADD.

Okay, anyway...

I can think of no better environment for observing the social interactions of teens than at a school dance. Last night I had the pleasure of attending the Lip Sync dance at school. By the time I arrived, the dance was in full swing; an entire 50 kids in the hot, loud lower gym of Joel Barlow. They were all in various states of confusion, uncertainty and awareness that, at any moment, they could make an ass of themselves. Thank god it was the Lip Sync Dance where everyone makes an ass of himself.

The first group to perform was a trio of freshman girls; your average, seductive, rather slutty dance. They were followed by the dance team. Dance team? I didn't know we had a dance team, and I guess the fact that these girls didn't know how to dance would make that understandable. Third up was another frosh duo in which Meredith Loesch really strut her stuff- all of her stuff- for the entire audience. I'd say this was the dance that kept everyone's attention the best, but the dance that got the most laughs was definitely the last one in which three members of the sophomore class council reenacted the dance from A Night at the Roxbury. All of this, however, is relatively unimportant to the study that I was performing.

Everyone who takes biology will eventually learn how species interact within an ecosystem. Predator/prey, tertiary consumers- the whole bit. I have yet to see this aspect of the world played out more perfectly in one location than at one of these dances. Watching bacteria in a petri dish can't compare.

The first thing to notice when walking into the gym is how everyone is arranged. Clusters of kids dot the floor, standing relatively close together, and these smaller groups are centered around one area, making one big group with lots of little spots. The next aspect you see is how the order of these small groups fluctuates every second. One kid will be talking in one group, then suddenly hustle away, perhaps doing a little dance, some 'ghetto' hand movement or a skip along the way, before breaking into another group. It's like watching a bee go from flower to flower, and seeing the bee spasm midair before landing again. For those individuals who came to a group too late, after it had already formed, they would stand awkwardly outside, attempting to find a way in or else they would have to leave for another group.

At these social events, it is inevitable that the smaller groups will eventually merge for some common purpose. Last night, there were three such instances. The first one was, during any rap song, a group of us would stand in a circle, pull our hoods over our faces, and bob our heads to the music, never looked up. The next time we ordered ourselves in a long line, crossed our arms, and whenever the words "Lean Back" were said in the song, we would all tilt our bodies back and to the right. I can only imagine what someone from another culture would think of this. Then one kid got the idea of making a "wave" of this motion and would point to us individually down the line. Then Pearl got the idea that it would be fun to join in, so she took control. The third was, of course, the Macarena.

Overall it was an entertaining night. But right now, my ADD is kicking in and I'm off to watch TV. - Samuel Barberie

posted by George Thomas Kysor 2:45 PM

Sherry Rauh
 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:12 PM

Lincoln as a Writer [excerpt]

During the Mexican War, in 1848, he had eloquently staked out the moral high ground for rebellion: "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better." If Lincoln had been asked to explain these words in 1862, Gore Vidal pointed out, "Lawyer Lincoln would probably have said, rather bleakly, that the key phrase here was 'and having the power.' " - Douglas Harper (via HANG)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:55 AM

Sometimes I don't realize really how much I love Daein. After a while you forget the butterfly feelings in your stomach, the sparks that made you know that love was on fire, the poetry that would flow off of your lips when you least expected it.... It fades slightly with time and I got caught up in everything around me. I used to turn everything into poetry and I pretended I lived in a fairytale love story... I've become to cynical and have let some of my childish fairy tales feelings go. Not on purpose, but am just now realizing that I've been in the adult world of reality, where dreams and fairy tales don't exist for long.... And maybe it's not growing up and becoming more mature.... it's just becoming side tracked with everything that life has dealt me....

I think seeing my guitar again after so long reminded me of sitting down in the tall grass and writing songs of love and hope and dreams. It reminded me of the poetry that once overflowed in my heart and the dreams that once drowned out most of the depression and hurt.... The dreams that gave me hope to follow this road I'm on. I forgot that just because your dream comes true, doesn't mean you should stop dreaming...

I've gotten lost in all that has been happening.... Life is what happens when you're not looking.

Sometimes it takes not being able to sleep and thinking about life that brings back old feelings. I've just been so content and happy with Daein that I haven't needed to rely on the dreams I once had to make me happy... My love and relationship with Daein has had it's own poetry to it that is unspoken. The looks that pass between us, conduct their own symphonies. His silent kiss that creeps up and captures me softly speaks mountains of poetry and is it's own love song. But just because life turns into a fairytale, doesn't mean we should forget to dream.

Love is a banquet on which we feast. It fulfills those dreams and hopes that once cluttered my mind and enabled me to survive each day. Each day I can look forward to another day being in love with Daein. I find myself falling in love with him over and over again. And if I could have the chance to meet and choose from any man on the face of the earth, I would still choose Daein, because he is my soul mate. No one understands me like he does. No one loves me as much as he does. No one makes me feel the way he makes me feel.

He makes every day better just because of who he is. I thought that nothing could change me, but he manages to soften my heart when I am mad, make happy times even better, and he makes loving him so easy. I feel so different now that he is in my life. There is so much freedom in loving him, that I did not expect. There is only one time that I am glad that I didn't listen to my mother. I thought she knew better than me and knew what was best for me, but she didn't. No one can know what is best for someone else. Only I can be the judge on who I can live with the rest of my life. I am so glad I made the decision to continue my relationship with Daein, even though my mother forbid it. It wasn't Daein that she didn't want.... it was any man. She wanted to keep her baby girl. And I can understand it and I am sure I will feel the same way when I have a daughter who falls in love. But now I know what not to do.... You can't hang on to your babies... they have to grow up. You train them to fly and then you let them go. You can't keep them forever.... And I am glad I have learned that so that I do not make the mistakes that my mother did with me. Nobody is perfect and no parent can do everything right. It's just a part of life and learning.

I can't wait to see what wonderful things life has in store for Daein and I. Sometimes I still sit and wonder what our kids will look like... what their personalities will be like.... what will make them laugh and what will make them cry.... I know God will bless us in so many ways.... And I know that life won't be easy and that there will be hard times, sad times, angry days and arguments, but we will get through it. We will work together and get through it, just like we do now....

If I could give anyone in a relationship advice, I would have one word for them... "COMMUNICATION" !!! When Daein and I talk about everything and don't keep anything from each other, we work things out so much better. There isn't anything we keep from each other. And when we have a problem, we spit it out and talk about it. We work through all of our problems like that and we come out stronger and closer in the end.

I just know that I've never felt like this and I know it's because he is in my life. I can't imagine loving anyone else the way I love him and I am so glad that God brought and kept us together through everything. Daein is the biggest blessing in my life and I thank God every day for him. Most people search for a love like this and never find it and have to settle for something less than what they've always wanted. But not me. I was blessed with a man that was better than I ever imagined. I didn't know how much love and security I would feel. It wasn't apparent at first glance, but the longer I know him and love him, the more I discover all that he is capable of and it blows me away!! He is everything I will ever need or want.

God works in mysterious ways.... - Sarah-Jean

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:22 AM

STOP THE PRESSES!!!

Vleeptron now features its own built-in EASTER SUNDAY DATE JAVASCRIPT CALCULATOR!

This remarkable faith-based computational Engine brought to you courtesy of mega-bored Mike.

Jarkko Oikarinen, the Suomi dude who invented Internat Relay Chat (IRC) at the University of Oulu, Finland in 1988, says he wrote it because he was bored and had lots of time on his hands at a summer job at the computer center.

The Deville makes work for Idle Hands.

-- New England Primer

* * *

This is too much fun to keep burying in the Comments. I have reason to believe that an English class of Portuguese high-school students is reading this blog, so in case some have lingered after the Required Reading (the obit of the Amnesty International founder), it is my World Youth Educational Duty to drag this Easter Date discussion into the light.

Having spent a lovely year on a Navy base, ordinarily I would not trust the U.S. Navy to find its own ass, but the U.S. Naval Observatory (even when Dan & Marilyn Quayle were living on the grounds) is a Very Different Story. I found the USNO's Easter Date Calculator Site, which spares mere mortals from having to re-compute the Clavius-Lilius Algorithm step by step. And Lo! The U.S. Naval Observatory validates Mamagiggle!

It's charming, really. During the Middle Ages, practically the only use Christendom had for mathematics was to compute the date of Easter Sunday. Now our tax dollars pay Navy Astronomer Web Geeks to program and provide precisely the same information.

(Does this violate the First Amendment's separation of church and state? Is the USNO running a faith-based initiative?)

But the Clavius-Lilius Algorithm ... I dunno ... it taught me a word, "epact," which I think is every goddam bit as classy and hi-tone and uptown as "millefleurs." I am going down to Hugo's Tavern tonight, blizzard or no, and dropping "epact" into some idle conversation.

Hugo's is Northampton's sort of Disney Biker Bar, full of faux non-threatening seedy alcoholic people and Smith College sweeties with fake i.d.'s. Smith women have a long tradition of trading smiles and tee-hees for free beer at Hugo's.

mmmmmmmm Perl!!! Thank you, Mike, for Classing Up this blog with your very spiffy Perl proggie!

I will be happy to send any Trusting Soul my very spiffy, colorful and informative Easter date proggie EASTERX.EXE (pronounced "Easter Eggs") as long as I don't have to divulge the name of the programming language I writ it in.

BUT WHY SHOULD I BE ASHAMED????? There's a buzz going around Earth that our digital computers are filled with more lines of code in This Lingo than in any other. And when extra-galactic sentients finally pop the hood on our Voyager probes, I've heard they'll find this lingo (NOT that verdammt C++!!!) in the ROM.

Speaking of what we sent Out There in Voyager ... have you heard that NASA finally decoded the FIRST MESSAGE WE HAVE EVER RECEIVED FROM ALIEN EXTRATERRESTIAL INTELLIGENCE??? It took three years of intensive supercomputer analysis, but here's the message:

SEND MORE CHUCK BERRY

I lost a bundle betting on Forth, and I'm still cheering for LisP, but alas that most uninteresting and uninspiring of all languages, C++, seems to be winning the High-Level Language Race. What's everybody studying and using in industry these days? I barely got beyond removing the shrink-wrap from VisualBasic, and recoiled in horror.

I admire Java and think I'd like to learn it. My first project: a Virtual Web Slide Rule. (I don't care if there are already fourteen of them on the Web.)

(Please send all of grandma's discarded attic Slide Rules to ME!) - Bob Merkin

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:06 AM

Friday, March 18, 2005

Welcome to Canada by Matt Labash (via email)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:03 PM

Enviro-Jihad [excerpt] 

Last Week's WSU class covered Environmental Revolution. I had "faced" the "instructor" before. In a seminar on Eco-terrorism she had justified spiking trees and burning down sky lodges by claiming that 100 species a day are going extinct. I had asked her to name the last species which had become extinct. She said she didn’t know. I asked her to name any species which had gone extinct since the passenger pigeon. She could not. She said these lists were kept somewhere. Where? I asked.. She sugested the web sittes of several activist groops. My son later explained to me how environmentalists come up with the estimated "100 species a day extinct" number. They dig through the ruins of a harvested rain forest tree and see how many creatures they can discover that they don’t have a name for. They then assume these were new and unique species and that now their tree is gone they are extinct. Multiply that number of species by the number of trees cut down a day and you come up with the per-day number of species becomeing extinct. Weard isn’t it!?!

This week the professor unleashed her assault on America and modernization. An attack which probably goes over wonderfully well with the entranced "tweens" of her WSU classes. There were many flashes in the running two hour battle that the “discussion” developed into. Here I note only the climax. She handed round a “quiz”. It was a Sierra Club survey from the January/February 2003 Sierra magazine. It claimed to be able to determine how many acres of land one requires to live. No effort was expended in explaining the rational behind any of the formulas: – vegens are scored at 0.46 while those who almost always eat meat get a 1.14, a person who eats unpackaged local food is graded at 0.69 while those who eat out of package imports rate a 1.1. Then these numbers are run through a mysterious formula Q1 X Q2 X 5.5 = the number of acres required to provide your food. Other factors including shelter and mobility are cranked through equally obscure formula and in the end one’s total “foot print” on the earth is established. Though no questions could get the professor to justify the math; she boldly claimed that the average American exploits 24 acres in living while there are only 5 acres of land per person in the world. Her conclusion: the rest of the world cannot develop the standard of living that Americans enjoy. Her implication: Americans use more than their fair share - therefore it is OK to hate them. The Sierra Club’s quiz culminates with this ominious perdiction: “Population growth will reduce resources available to each person in the future.” -- Oh yah, there was a special “TAKE ACTION note” “ . . . go to the Sierra Club’s Web site at www.sierraclub.org/footprint . . . A second section invites you to "become a member of the Sierra Club’s activist network. It’s one good way for busy people to work for changes that will reduce everyone’s footprint. – K. T.” The Professor went on to list a host of ecological disasters: deforestation, shortage of fresh water, global climate change, depletion of the ocean fisheries, the continued production of DDT. She said that it was impossible for the people of the Africa to ever live at the standard of living that “we here in the US enjoy.” I asked her how her predictions of gloom and doom differed from those of Malthus from the 19th century. She replied that Malthus may well have been right – that the earth will someday reach its carrying capacity. I pointed out the technology had trumped Malthus, She said she preferred the word postponed. I asked here if she was aware of the aqua farming that was producing the endless supply of seafood Americans now consume at the Sizzler’s all you can eat buffet. She said that there are reports that indicate there are higher levels of Mercury in Farm Razed fish. I replied if such was the case – surely that could be fixed. She said she didn’t want to live in a world were there were no wild salmon. I said if it came down to African people having a decent standard of living or maintaining populations of wild salmon; I was for the Africans. She said it didn’t have to come to that. I said, that I knew that and that people say these things just for political purposes. Realizing that the discussion had led her in the opposite direction from where she had intended the class to go, she ended her lecture. - Lysis

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:08 PM

Ron Paul discusses a constitutional budget in this video. (via Lew Rockwell)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:53 AM

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Attack Donkey 

These pics came from a guy in AZ. Yes, the mule killed the mountainlion. The lion had been stalking them for the better part of the morning, onthe way out to a hunt. They were pretty sure it was after one of the dogs. The cat ambushed them, and the mule pictured tossed its rider and went into attack (defense) mode, the horses scattered and shots were fired but no one was sure if they hit the cat or not. Unfortunately, it wasn't until it was almost over that one of the guys started snapping pics. The mule finally stomped the cougar to death after biting and throwing it around like a rag doll. The dogs wouldn't even come close until the mule settled down. 1.The cat was still alive here and trying to fight back. 2. The mule stomped the cat then pinned it to the ground and bit the heck out of the dead cat several more times. 3. The cat was pretty much dead by now then mule picked up the cat again whipped it into the air again... 4. ...then stomped the dead cat again for good measure! Note the dog audience. - Mecdrox




 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:56 PM

Thanks for your kidney, darling, I'm leaving you for my mistress. [excerpt]

When Carol Jewell donated a kidney to save her dying husband, the operation was such a success that he felt like a new man. Unfortunately for her, he also felt like a new woman.

When he recovered from his ordeal he left his wife of more than 30 years and ran off with a lover.

Four years ago, John Jewell, 53, was on the verge of death with kidney failure and was told that without a transplant he could die.

Dutifully Mrs Jewell, who is the mayor of Woodley, a small town on the edge of Reading, Berks, risked her own life and agreed to the operation.

It was a natural decision for a faithful wife of 33 years, who for more than a quarter of a century had worked alongside her husband at the University of Reading and on the town council where they both served as Liberal Democrat councillors. They also had two grown up children.

But after Mr Jewell recovered from the operation he met Marilyn Edmeades, a Conservative candidate on neighbouring Bracknell council, and began an affair.

Even when his wife discovered that she had breast cancer, it made no difference and the senior technician left to start a new life in Sherborne, Dorset. He also resigned from his post on the council.

Mrs Jewell, a researcher, is now in remission from the cancer but there was no celebration for the 53-year-old. Yesterday she said that she was trying not to let the betrayal get her down.

"I'm not vindictive towards him at all,'' she said. ''I'm more upset than anything else and I try to look forward and not look back. Life's too short so I try not to be bitter about it. We were married for 33 years and you can't change that. I'm a very positive person, I think that's why I got over cancer. If you can do that, you can do anything." - Richard Alleyne (via Thor)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:49 PM

In Defense of Freedom

Arthur Schopenhauer once wrote a marvelously cynical manual of eristics called The Art of Always Being Right. The philosopher advised his readers against resort to logic; ad hominem attacks and other plays upon the passions could be much more effective. Put the opponent’s argument in some odious category, he urged.

Conservatives are long accustomed to residing in such a category: as their enemies would have it, conservatism is the ideology of the rich, the racist, and the illiterate. That this caricature bears no resemblance at all to the philosophy and social thought of Edmund Burke or Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver or Robert Nisbet, is irrelevant. The stereotype endures not because it is true but because it is useful.

Sadly, a few conservatives seem to have learned nothing from their experience at the hands of the Left and are no less quick to present an ill-informed and malicious caricature of libertarians than leftists are to give a similarly distorted interpretation of conservatism. Rather than addressing the arguments of libertarians, these polemicists slander their foes as hedonists or Nietzscheans. In fact, there are libertine libertarians, just as there are affluent and bigoted conservatives. But libertinism itself is as distinct from libertarianism as worship of Mammon or hatred of blacks is distinct from conservatism.

Libertarianism is a political philosophy, not a complete system of ethics or metaphysics. Political philosophies address specifically the state and, more generally, justice in human society. The distinguishing characteristic of libertarianism is that it applies to the state the same ethical rules that apply to everyone else. Given that murder and theft are wrong—views not unique to libertarianism, of course—the libertarian contends that the state, which is to say those individuals who purport to act in the name of the common good, has no more right to seize the property of others, beat them, conscript them, or otherwise harm them than any other institution or individual has. Beyond this, libertarianism says only that a society without institutionalized violence can indeed exist and even thrive.

For some exceptionally Christ-like people no demonstration of feasibility is needed. Doing what is right is enough, regardless of whether it brings wealth or happiness or even daily bread. But most people are not like that; they want security and prosperity—they ask, not unreasonably, not only “is it right?” but “can it work?” Following upon this is a tendency to deny that necessary evils are evils at all. Yes, the state seizes tax money and jails those who do not pay, actions that would be denounced as gangsterism if undertaken by a private organization. But if the only way life can go on is to have the government provide defense and other necessities, such expropriations might have to be called something other than robbery.

Moderate libertarians say just that. They propose that the state should do those necessary things that it alone can do—and only those things. Radical libertarians contend there is nothing good that only the state can provide—even its seemingly essential functions are better served by the market and voluntary institutions. The differences between thoroughgoing libertarians and moderates are profound, but the immediate prescriptions of each are similar enough: cut taxes, slash spending, no more foreign adventurism.

Discovering just which functions of government are necessary, or showing how life can be led in the absence of institutional coercion altogether, is no easy task. Any power that the state assumes typically comes to be seen in retrospect as absolutely essential. America long got by well without a Federal Reserve or a Food and Drug Administration, yet today it is almost unthinkable that they could be abolished. Coercive and grandiose statist solutions to problems real or imagined have the effect of crowding out voluntary approaches, so that sooner or later the government fix comes to seem the only one. Even the most statist conservative in America today does not call for nationalizing health care. Yet in every country in which a national health service is a fait accompli, conservatives do not dream of abolishing it—certainly Britain’s Tories, even under Thatcher, did not. The public in such countries takes socialized medicine for granted; the alternative is practically pre-civilized.

Once, conservatives really did intend to repeal the New Deal. Now a Republican president talks about saving Social Security—albeit with a phony “privatization” plan—as if society would collapse in the absence of mandatory savings or government social insurance. Conservatives complain about the media’s erstwhile tendency to label Soviet hardliners as Russian “conservatives,” but it’s hard to escape the conclusion that if Communism were a government program, the Republican Party would be trying to save it, too. Consider the about-face that conservatives in this country have pulled with respect to the Department of Education—one could name other departments as well—which once was targeted for elimination and now is funded more generously than ever.

Economics is of some help here, showing both that government is not necessary for prosperity and that in fact state intervention into the free market hurts the very people it’s supposed to help. Rent control makes affordable apartments scarce. The minimum wage exacerbates unemployment. And a basic law of economics is that you get more of what you subsidize: doles encourage unemployment. Economics suggests ways in which services now provided poorly and counterproductively by government can be made available without coercion.

The limits of this are worth keeping in mind, however, and are kept in mind by libertarians. Economics is not psychology; study of production and exchange does not tell a person what he should buy. Relative valuation of goods—without which there can be no economics, since exchange only takes place when each party values what the other is offering more than what he himself is selling—does not imply a relativistic ethics. The ethical assumption of libertarianism—that it is wrong to murder and steal—is absolute, and other values may be absolute as well.

Libertarians are not wholly dependent on economics to show how freedom works, however. From Lord Acton onward, libertarians have taken a keen interest in history, and noncoercive institutions have a long established empirical record. Conservatives should be aware of the evidence. Over the past 200 years the power of the state has grown exponentially: in earlier eras private initiative and civil society provided most of the goods that the state now pretends to supply.

Indeed, as libertarian historian-theorists have noted, as state power grows so civil society proportionally diminishes. Before Social Security, families and churches cared for the elderly. Now it is easier for young people to forget their parents and grandparents in old age; let the government take care of them. Social networks decay when they aren’t used, and the state crowds out civil society.

There is something rather counterintuitive—or just plain nonsensical—to the belief that bureaucrats and politicians care more about the elderly than families and communities do. The same holds true for the notion that the state upholds the interests of children. No, libertarians do not want to see youngsters emancipated from their parents. The family is natural and is not upheld, even allowing for corporal punishment, primarily by force. The power of state over individual and society, on the other hand, is rather different. Government is nobody’s parent, and the idea that President Bush would be in any sense the father of citizens who are wiser and more just than he is perversion. When the state treats adults as children, infantilizing its subjects, the more prudent and older becomes subservient to the more reckless and younger, for society antedates the state.

Social conservatives have long faced an apparent paradox. No matter how Christian the president and members of his party claim to be, no matter how many “solid” conservatives are elected Congress, the fabric of the social order continues to fray. At some point the question must be asked, is this because there still aren’t enough good people in government?—how many would ever be enough? Or is it because the state by nature, far from buttressing the organs of civilization and the way of life dear to conservatives, instead undermines those very things? As Albert Jay Nock once observed, sending in good people to reform the state is like sending in virgins to reform the whorehouse.

The free market sometimes involves things that conservatives dislike, such as pornography. What should be considered here, however, is not how the market performs relative to some idealized abstraction of the state run by wise and pure censors, but how a specific market compares to a particular state. If there is a market for pornography there is sure to be a constituency for it, too. Moreover, the state produces far worse depravities of its own: Playboy may be bad, but one is not forced to subsidize it, unlike public-school sex ed, Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” (funded by the National Endowment for the Arts), and Lynndie England’s S&M jamboree with Iraqi prisoners of war. One can avoid pornography on the market, but everyone pays for the depravities of the political class.

That is not about to change. The state, since it acts by compulsion, cannot inculcate real virtue in anyone but only a hypocritical and ersatz kind. One can compel action but not belief. No wonder then that as the scope of the state has grown, patriotism has degenerated into warmongering and religion has succumbed to politicization and scandal. The moral muscles atrophy in the absence of personal responsibility. That some self-identified conservatives cannot seem to tell the difference between self-responsibility and compulsion, or between the standards of civil society and those of the state, demonstrates just how thorough the process of crowding out genuine virtue with the coercive counterfeit actually is.

Consider the involvement of the state in marriage. Presently the state defines marriage for all, and there is considerable angst among traditionalists that government will redefine the institution to include homosexual unions. This concern is not misplaced: if gay marriage is given state sanction, the force of law will support demands by wedded homosexuals to receive the same privileges from civil society—including churches and religious charities—that married heterosexuals receive. In the absence of state involvement in marriage and in telling businesses and nonprofit organizations whom they can hire, however, individuals, churches, and businesses could make up their own minds as to which marriages they considered legitimate and could act accordingly.

This is not a matter of imposing on anyone; libertarianism allows different standards to prevail in different places rather than dragging everyone down to the level of the state. The libertarian rests content to let Utah be Utah and San Francisco be San Francisco—and to let Iraq be Iraq. If the property owners of a neighborhood wanted to establish a certain set of common moral standards, they could do so. Other places could do differently. Libertarianism thus responds to the reality of difference, including profound cultural and religious difference, much better than other political philosophies, which are left trying to smash square pegs into round holes.

Libertarian societies in all their variety would not be utopias, of course. Libertarianism does not propose an end to evil or even to coercion, but only the flourishing of civilization in the absence of institutionalized coercion. Crime would not disappear, poor taste would still exist, and even conservative communities would remain beset with imperfection. Removing the privileges of the state would make these evils smaller, less centralized, and more manageable, however. This picture is no abstraction or economic construct; it arises from the practice of actual institutions. The record of civil society and the free market is as old as the human race.

The libertarian idea of society would hold true even if a degree of coercion were absolutely necessary and ineradicable: the more authority residing in civil society rather than the state, the better. But there are at least a few prima facie considerations that lend weight to so-called radical libertarianism. The most widely agreed upon of all so-called public goods, national defense, is not what it seems. The mightiest military on earth failed to prevent the atrocity on 9/11. On the contrary, U.S. interference in the Middle East and support for thuggish regimes has endangered Americans. Is a country ripe for invasion without a standing army? The last 200-odd years have shown many instances, including our own Revolutionary War, where guerrilla forces have been more effective than regular armies. Nor is there any need for conscription when people want to defend their homes; conscription is what states need to make people fight for causes in which they don’t believe.

A libertarian order is not coming any time soon, but it should be plain to anyone who undertakes the investigation that the solution to war, bureaucracy, taxation, personal irresponsibility, and the rot of culture is not more government, it’s less. - Daniel McCarthy Copyright © 2005 The American Conservative [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:58 AM

Google is obviously an Irish word meaning that which enables users to search the Web. 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 7:40 AM

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Coming to Terms With China [excerpt]

I recall forty years ago, when I was a new professor working in the field of Chinese and Japanese international relations, that Edwin O. Reischauer once commented, "The great payoff from our victory of 1945 was a permanently disarmed Japan." Born in Japan and a Japanese historian at Harvard, Reischauer served as American ambassador to Tokyo in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Strange to say, since the end of the Cold War in 1991 and particularly under the administration of George W. Bush, the United States has been doing everything in its power to encourage and even accelerate Japanese rearmament.

Such a development promotes hostility between China and Japan, the two superpowers of East Asia, sabotages possible peaceful solutions in those two problem areas, Taiwan and North Korea, left over from the Chinese and Korean civil wars, and lays the foundation for a possible future Sino-American conflict that the United States would almost surely lose. It is unclear whether the ideologues and war lovers of Washington understand what they are unleashing – a possible confrontation between the world's fastest growing industrial economy, China, and the world's second most productive, albeit declining, economy, Japan; a confrontation which the United States would have both caused and in which it might well be consumed.

Let me make clear that in East Asia we are not talking about a little regime-change war of the sort that Bush and Cheney advocate. After all, the most salient characteristic of international relations during the last century was the inability of the rich, established powers – Great Britain and the United States – to adjust peacefully to the emergence of new centers of power in Germany, Japan, and Russia. The result was two exceedingly bloody world wars, a forty-five-year-long Cold War between Russia and the "West," and innumerable wars of national liberation (such as the quarter-century long one in Vietnam) against the arrogance and racism of European, American, and Japanese imperialism and colonialism.

The major question for the twenty-first century is whether this fateful inability to adjust to changes in the global power-structure can be overcome. Thus far the signs are negative. Can the United States and Japan, today's versions of rich, established powers, adjust to the reemergence of China – the world's oldest, continuously extant civilization – this time as a modern superpower? Or is China's ascendancy to be marked by yet another world war, when the pretensions of European civilization in its U.S. and Japanese projections are finally put to rest? That is what is at stake.

Alice-in-Wonderland Policies and the Mother of All Financial Crises

China, Japan, and the United States are the three most productive economies on Earth, but China is the fastest growing (at an average rate of 9.5% per annum for over two decades), whereas both the U.S. and Japan are saddled with huge and mounting debts and, in the case of Japan, stagnant growth rates. China is today the world's sixth most productive economy (the U.S. and Japan being first and second) and our third largest trading partner after Canada and Mexico. According to CIA statisticians in their Factbook 2003, China is actually already the second-largest economy on Earth measured on a purchasing power parity basis – that is, in terms of what China actually produces rather than prices and exchange rates. The CIA calculates the United States' gross domestic product (GDP) – the total value of all goods and services produced within a country – for 2003 as $10.4 trillion and China's $5.7 trillion. This gives China's 1.3 billion people a per capita GDP of $5,000.

Between 1992 and 2003, Japan was China's largest trading partner, but in 2004 Japan fell to third place, behind the European Union (EU) and the United States. China's trade volume for 2004 was $1.2 trillion, third in the world after the U.S. and Germany, and well ahead of Japan's $1.07 trillion. China's trade with the U.S. grew some 34% in 2004 and has turned Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Oakland into the three busiest seaports in America.

The truly significant trade development of 2004 was the EU's emergence as China's biggest economic partner, suggesting the possibility of a Sino-European cooperative bloc confronting a less vital Japanese-American one. As Britain's Financial Times observed, "Three years after its entry into the World Trade Organization [in 2001], China's influence in global commerce is no longer merely significant. It is crucial." For example, most Dell Computers sold in the U.S. are made in China, as are the DVD players of Japan's Funai Electric Company. Funai annually exports some 10 million DVD players and television sets from China to the United States, where they are sold primarily in Wal-Mart stores. China's trade with Europe in 2004 was worth $177.2 billion, with the United States $169.6 billion, and with Japan $167.8 billion.

China's growing economic weight in the world is widely recognized and applauded, but it is China's growth rates and their effect on the future global balance of power that the U.S. and Japan, rightly or wrongly, fear. The CIA's National Intelligence Council forecasts that China's GDP will equal Britain's in 2005, Germany's in 2009, Japan's in 2017, and the U.S.'s in 2042. But Shahid Javed Burki, former vice president of the World Bank's China Department and a former finance minister of Pakistan, predicts that by 2025 China will probably have a GDP of $25 trillion in terms of purchasing power parity and will have become the world's largest economy followed by the United States at $20 trillion and India at about $13 trillion – and Burki's analysis is based on a conservative prediction of a 6% Chinese growth rate sustained over the next two decades. He foresees Japan's inevitable decline because its population will begin to shrink drastically after about 2010. Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs reports that the number of men in Japan already declined by 0.01% in 2004; and some demographers, it notes, anticipate that by the end of the century the country's population could shrink by nearly two-thirds, from 127.7 million today to 45 million, the same population it had in 1910.

By contrast China's population is showing signs of stabilizing at approximately 1.4 billion people, and is heavily weighted toward males. (The government-imposed one-child-per-family policy and the availability of sonograms have resulted in a ratio of 129 boys born for every 100 girls; 147 boys for every 100 girls for couples seeking second or third children.) Chinese domestic economic growth is expected to continue for decades, reflecting the pent-up demand of its huge population, relatively low levels of personal debt, and a dynamic underground economy not recorded in official statistics. Most important, China's external debt is relatively small and easily covered by its reserves; whereas both the U.S. and Japan are approximately $7 trillion in the red, which is worse for Japan with less than half the U.S. population and economic clout.

Ironically, part of Japan's debt is a product of its efforts to help prop up America's global imperial stance. For example, in the period since the end of the Cold War, Japan has subsidized America's military bases in Japan to the staggering tune of approximately $70 billion. Refusing to pay for its profligate consumption patterns and military expenditures through taxes on its own citizens, the United States is financing these outlays by going into debt to Japan, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and India. This situation has become increasingly unstable, as the U.S. requires capital imports of at least $2 billion per day to pay for its governmental expenditures. Any decision by East Asian central banks to move significant parts of their foreign exchange reserves out of the dollar and into the euro or other currencies in order to protect themselves from dollar depreciation would produce the mother of all financial crises.

Japan still possesses the world's largest foreign exchange reserves, which at the end of January 2005 stood at around $841 billion. But China sits on a $609.9 billion pile of dollars (as of the end of 2004), earned from its trade surpluses with us. Meanwhile, the American government and Japanese followers of George W. Bush insult China in every way they can, particularly over the status of China's breakaway province, the island of Taiwan. The distinguished economic analyst William Greider recently noted, "Any profligate debtor who insults his banker is unwise, to put it mildly. . . . American leadership has . . . become increasingly delusional – I mean that literally – and blind to the adverse balance of power accumulating against it."

The Bush administration is unwisely threatening China by urging Japan to rearm and by promising Taiwan that, should China use force to prevent a Taiwanese declaration of independence, the U.S. will go to war on its behalf. It is hard to imagine more shortsighted, irresponsible policies, but in light of the Bush administration's Alice-in-Wonderland war in Iraq, the acute anti-Americanism it has generated globally, and the politicization of America's intelligence services, it seems possible that the U.S. and Japan might actually precipitate a war with China over Taiwan.

Japan Rearms

Since the end of World War II, and particularly since gaining its independence in 1952, Japan has subscribed to a pacifist foreign policy. It has resolutely refused to maintain offensive military forces or to become part of America's global military system. Japan did not, for example, participate in the 1991 war against Iraq, nor has it joined collective security agreements in which it would have to match the military contributions of its partners. Since the signing in 1952 of the Japan-United States Security Treaty, the country has officially been defended from so-called external threats by U.S. forces located on some 91 bases on the Japanese mainland and the island of Okinawa. The U.S. Seventh Fleet even has its home port at the old Japanese naval base of Yokosuka. Japan not only subsidizes these bases but subscribes to the public fiction that the American forces are present only for its defense. In fact, Japan has no control over how and where the U.S. employs its land, sea, and air forces based on Japanese territory, and the Japanese and American governments have until quite recently finessed the issue simply by never discussing it.

Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, the United States has repeatedly pressured Japan to revise article nine of its Constitution (renouncing the use of force except as a matter of self-defense) and become what American officials call a "normal nation." For example, on August 13, 2004, Secretary of State Colin Powell stated baldly in Tokyo that if Japan ever hoped to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council it would first have to get rid of its pacifist Constitution. Japan's claim to a Security Council seat is based on the fact that, although its share of global GDP is only 14%, it pays 20% of the total U.N. budget. Powell's remark was blatant interference in Japan's internal affairs, but it merely echoed many messages delivered by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, the leader of a reactionary clique in Washington that has worked for years to remilitarize Japan and so enlarge a major new market for American arms. Its members include Torkel Patterson, Robin Sakoda, David Asher, and James Kelly at State; Michael Green on the National Security Council's staff; and numerous uniformed military officers at the Pentagon and at the headquarters of the Pacific Command at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

America's intention is to turn Japan into what Washington neo-conservatives like to call the "Britain of the Far East" – and then use it as a proxy in checkmating North Korea and balancing China. On October 11, 2000, Michael Green, then a member of Armitage Associates, wrote, "We see the special relationship between the United States and Great Britain as a model for the [U.S.-Japan] alliance." Japan has so far not resisted this American pressure since it complements a renewed nationalism among Japanese voters and a fear that a burgeoning capitalist China threatens Japan's established position as the leading economic power in East Asia. Japanese officials also claim that the country feels threatened by North Korea's developing nuclear and missile programs, although they know that the North Korean stand-off could be resolved virtually overnight – if the Bush administration would cease trying to overthrow the Pyongyang regime and instead deliver on American trade promises (in return for North Korea's agreement to give up its nuclear weapons program). Instead, on February 25, 2005, the State Department announced that "the U.S. will refuse North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's demand for a guarantee of ‘no hostile intent' to get Pyongyang back into negotiations over its nuclear weapons programs." And on March 7, Bush nominated John Bolton to be American ambassador to the United Nations even though North Korea has refused to negotiate with him because of his insulting remarks about the country.

Japan's remilitarization worries a segment of the Japanese public and is opposed throughout East Asia by all the nations Japan victimized during World War II, including China, both Koreas, and even Australia. As a result, the Japanese government has launched a stealth program of incremental rearmament. Since 1992, it has enacted 21 major pieces of security-related legislation, 9 in 2004 alone. These began with the International Peace Cooperation Law of 1992, which for the first time authorized Japan to send troops to participate in U.N. peacekeeping operations.

Remilitarization has since taken many forms, including expanding military budgets, legitimizing and legalizing the sending of military forces abroad, a commitment to join the American missile defense ("Star Wars") program – something the Canadians refused to do in February 2005 – and a growing acceptance of military solutions to international problems. This gradual process was greatly accelerated in 2001 by the simultaneous coming to power of President George Bush and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Koizumi made his first visit to the United States in July of that year and, in May of 2003, received the ultimate imprimatur, an invitation to Bush's "ranch" in Crawford, Texas. Shortly thereafter, Koizumi agreed to send a contingent of 550 troops to Iraq for a year, extended their stay for another year in 2004, and on October 14, 2004, personally endorsed George Bush's reelection.

A New Nuclear Giant in the Making?

Koizumi has appointed to his various cabinets hard-line anti-Chinese, pro-Taiwanese politicians. Phil Deans, director of the Contemporary China Institute in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, observes, "There has been a remarkable growth of pro-Taiwan sentiment in Japan. There is not one pro-China figure in the Koizumi Cabinet." Members of the latest Koizumi Cabinet include the Defense Agency chief Yoshinori Ono, and the foreign minister Nobutaka Machimura, both ardent militarists; while Foreign Minister Machimura is a member of the right-wing faction of former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, which supports an independent Taiwan and maintains extensive covert ties with Taiwanese leaders and businessmen.

Taiwan, it should be remembered, was a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945. Unlike the harsh Japanese military rule over Korea from 1910 to 1945, it experienced relatively benign governance by a civilian Japanese administration. The island, while bombed by the Allies, was not a battleground during World War II although it was harshly occupied by the Chinese Nationalists (Chiang Kai-shek's Guomindang) immediately after the war. Today, as a result, many Taiwanese speak Japanese and have a favorable view of Japan. Taiwan is virtually the only place in East Asia where Japanese are fully welcomed and liked.

Bush and Koizumi have developed elaborate plans for military cooperation between their two countries. Crucial to such plans is the scrapping of the Japanese Constitution of 1947. If nothing gets in the way, Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) intends to introduce a new constitution on the occasion of the party's fiftieth anniversary in November 2005. This has been deemed appropriate because the LDP's founding charter of 1955 set as a basic party goal the "establishment of Japan's own Constitution" – a reference to the fact that General Douglas MacArthur's post-World War II occupation headquarters actually drafted the current Constitution. The original LDP policy statement also called for "the eventual removal of U.S. troops from Japanese territory," which may be one of the hidden purposes behind Japan's urge to rearm.

A major goal of the Americans is to gain Japan's active participation in their massively expensive missile defense program. The Bush administration is seeking, among other things, an end to Japan's ban on the export of military technology, since it wants Japanese engineers to help solve some of the technical problems of its so far failing Star Wars system. The United States has also been actively negotiating with Japan to relocate the Army's 1st Corps from Fort Lewis, Washington, to Camp Zama, southwest of Tokyo in the densely populated prefecture of Kanagawa, whose capital is Yokohama. These U.S. forces in Japan would then be placed under the command of a four-star general, who would be on a par with regional commanders like Centcom commander John Abizaid, who lords it over Iraq and South Asia. The new command would be in charge of all Army "force projection" operations beyond East Asia and would inevitably implicate Japan in the daily military operations of the American empire. Garrisoning even a small headquarters, much less the whole 1st Corps made up of an estimated 40,000 soldiers, in a sophisticated and centrally located prefecture like Kanagawa is also guaranteed to generate intense public opposition as well as rapes, fights, car accidents and other incidents similar to the ones that occur daily in Okinawa.

Meanwhile, Japan intends to upgrade its Defense Agency (Boeicho) into a ministry and possibly develop its own nuclear weapons capability. Goading the Japanese government to assert itself militarily may well cause the country to go nuclear in order to "deter" China and North Korea, while freeing Japan from its dependency on the American "nuclear umbrella." The military analyst Richard Tanter notes that Japan already has "the undoubted capacity to satisfy all three core requirements for a usable nuclear weapon: a military nuclear device, a sufficiently accurate targeting system, and at least one adequate delivery system." Japan's combination of fully functioning fission and breeder reactors plus nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities gives it the ability to build advanced thermonuclear weapons; its H-II and H-IIA rockets, in-flight refueling capacity for fighter bombers, and military-grade surveillance satellites assure that it could deliver its weapons accurately to regional targets. What it currently lacks are the platforms (such as submarines) for a secure retaliatory force in order to dissuade a nuclear adversary from launching a pre-emptive first-strike.

The Taiwanese Knot

Japan may talk a lot about the dangers of North Korea, but the real objective of its rearmament is China. This has become clear from the ways in which Japan has recently injected itself into the single most delicate and dangerous issue of East Asian international relations – the problem of Taiwan. Japan invaded China in 1931 and was its wartime tormentor thereafter as well as Taiwan's colonial overlord. Even then, however, Taiwan was viewed as a part of China, as the United States has long recognized. What remains to be resolved are the terms and timing of Taiwan's reintegration with the Chinese mainland. This process was deeply complicated by the fact that in 1987 Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists, who had retreated to Taiwan in 1949 at the end of the Chinese civil war (and were protected there by the American Seventh Fleet ever after), finally ended martial law on the island. Taiwan has since matured into a vibrant democracy and the Taiwanese are now starting to display their own mixed opinions about their future.

In 2000, the Taiwanese people ended a long monopoly of power by the Nationalists and gave the Democratic Progressive Party, headed by President Chen Shui-bian, an electoral victory. A native Taiwanese (as distinct from the large contingent of mainlanders who came to Taiwan in the baggage train of Chiang's defeated armies), Chen stands for an independent Taiwan, as does his party. By contrast, the Nationalists, together with a powerful mainlander splinter party, the People First Party headed by James Soong (Song Chuyu), hope to see an eventual peaceful unification of Taiwan with China. On March 7, 2005, the Bush administration complicated these delicate relations by nominating John Bolton to be the American ambassador to the United Nations. He is an avowed advocate of Taiwanese independence and was once a paid consultant to the Taiwanese government.

In May 2004, in a very close and contested election, Chen Shui-bian was reelected, and on May 20, the notorious right-wing Japanese politician Shintaro Ishihara attended his inauguration in Taipei. (Ishihara believes that Japan's 1937 Rape of Nanking was "a lie made up by the Chinese.") Though Chen won with only 50.1% of the vote, this was still a sizeable increase over his 33.9% in 2000, when the opposition was divided. The Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs immediately appointed Koh Se-kai as its informal ambassador to Japan. Koh has lived in Japan for some 33 years and maintains extensive ties to senior political and academic figures there. China responded that it would "completely annihilate" any moves toward Taiwanese independence – even if it meant scuttling the 2008 Beijing Olympics and good relations with the United States.

Contrary to the machinations of American neo-cons and Japanese rightists, however, the Taiwanese people have revealed themselves to be open to negotiating with China over the timing and terms of reintegration. On August 23, 2004, the Legislative Yuan (Taiwan's parliament) enacted changes in its voting rules to prevent Chen from amending the Constitution to favor independence, as he had promised to do in his reelection campaign. This action drastically lowered the risk of conflict with China. Probably influencing the Legislative Yuan was the warning issued on August 22 by Singapore's new prime minister, Lee Hsien-loong: "If Taiwan goes for independence, Singapore will not recognize it. In fact, no Asian country will recognize it. China will fight. Win or lose, Taiwan will be devastated."

The next important development was parliamentary elections on December 11, 2004. President Chen called his campaign a referendum on his pro-independence policy and asked for a mandate to carry out his reforms. Instead he lost decisively. The opposition Nationalists and the People First Party won 114 seats in the 225-seat parliament, while Chen's DPP and its allies took only 101. (Ten seats went to independents.) The Nationalist leader, Lien Chan, whose party won 79 seats to the DPP's 89, said, "Today we saw extremely clearly that all the people want stability in this country."

Chen's failure to capture control of parliament also meant that a proposed purchase of $19.6 billion worth of arms from the United States was doomed. The deal included guided-missile destroyers, P-3 anti-submarine aircraft, diesel submarines, and advanced Patriot PAC-3 anti-missile systems. The Nationalists and James Soong's supporters regard the price as too high and mostly a financial sop to the Bush administration, which has been pushing the sale since 2001. They also believe the weapons would not improve Taiwan's security.

On December 27, 2004, mainland China issued its fifth Defense White Paper on the goals of the country's national defense efforts. As one long-time observer, Robert Bedeski, notes, "At first glance, the Defense White Paper is a hard-line statement on territorial sovereignty and emphasizes China's determination not to tolerate any moves at secession, independence, or separation. However, the next paragraph . . . indicates a willingness to reduce tensions in the Taiwan Strait: so long as the Taiwan authorities accept the one China principle and stop their separatist activities aimed at ‘Taiwan independence,' cross-strait talks can be held at any time on officially ending the state of hostility between the two sides."

It appears that this is also the way the Taiwanese read the message. On February 24, 2005, President Chen Shui-bian met for the first time since October 2000 with Chairman James Soong of the People First Party. The two leaders, holding diametrically opposed views on relations with the mainland, nonetheless signed a joint statement outlining ten points of consensus. They pledged to try to open full transport and commercial links across the Taiwan Strait, increase trade, and ease the ban on investments in China by many Taiwanese business sectors. The mainland reacted favorably at once. Astonishingly, this led Chen Shui-bian to say that he "would not rule out Taiwan's eventual reunion with China, provided Taiwan's 23 million people accepted it."

If the United States and Japan left China and Taiwan to their own devices, it seems possible that they would work out a modus vivendi. Taiwan has already invested some $150 billion in the mainland, and the two economies are becoming more closely integrated every day. There also seems to be a growing recognition in Taiwan that it would be very difficult to live as an independent Chinese-speaking nation alongside a country with 1.3 billion people, 3.7 million square miles of territory, a rapidly growing $1.4 trillion economy, and aspirations to regional leadership in East Asia. Rather than declaring its independence, Taiwan may try to seek a status somewhat like that of French Canada – a kind of looser version of a Chinese Quebec under nominal central government control but maintaining separate institutions, laws, and customs.

The mainland would be so relieved by this solution it would probably accept it, particularly if it could be achieved before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. China fears that Taiwanese radicals want to declare independence a month or two before those Olympics, betting that China would not attack then because of its huge investment in the forthcoming games. Most observers believe, however, that China would have no choice but to go to war because failure to do so would invite a domestic revolution against the Chinese Communist Party for violating the national integrity of China.

Sino-American and Sino-Japanese Relations Spiral Downward

It has long been an article of neo-con faith that the U.S. must do everything in its power to prevent the development of rival power centers, whether friendly or hostile. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, this meant they turned their attention to China as one of our probable next enemies. In 2001, having come to power, the neo-conservatives shifted much of our nuclear targeting from Russia to China. They also began regular high-level military talks with Taiwan over defense of the island, ordered a shift of Army personnel and supplies to the Asia-Pacific region, and worked strenuously to promote the remilitarization of Japan.

On April 1, 2001, a U.S. navy EP-3E Aries II electronic spy plane collided with a Chinese jet fighter off the south China coast. The American aircraft was on a mission to provoke Chinese radar defenses and then record the transmissions and procedures the Chinese used in sending up interceptors. The Chinese jet went down and the pilot lost his life, while the American plane landed safely on Hainan Island and its crew of twenty-four spies was well treated by the Chinese authorities.

It soon became clear that China was not interested in a confrontation, since many of its most important investors have their headquarters in the United States. But it could not instantly return the crew of the spy plane without risking powerful domestic criticism for obsequiousness in the face of provocation. It therefore delayed eleven days until it received a pro forma American apology for causing the death of a Chinese pilot on the edge of the country's territorial air space and for making an unauthorized landing at a Chinese military airfield. Meanwhile, our media had labeled the crew as "hostages," encouraged their relatives to tie yellow ribbons around neighborhood trees, hailed the President for doing "a first-rate job" to free them, and endlessly criticized China for its "state-controlled media." They carefully avoided mentioning that the United States enforces around our country a 200-mile aircraft-intercept zone that stretches far beyond territorial waters.

On April 25, 2001, during an interview on national television, President Bush was asked whether he would ever use "the full force of the American military" against China for the sake of Taiwan. He responded, "Whatever it takes to help Taiwan defend herself." This was American policy until 9/11, when China enthusiastically joined the "war on terrorism" and the President and his neo-cons became preoccupied with their "axis of evil" and making war on Iraq. The United States and China were also enjoying extremely close economic relations, which the big- business wing of the Republican Party did not want to jeopardize.

The Middle East thus trumped the neo-cons' Asia policy. While the Americans were distracted, China went about its economic business for almost four years, emerging as a powerhouse of Asia and a potential organizing node for Asian economies. Rapidly industrializing China also developed a voracious appetite for petroleum and other raw materials, which brought it into direct competition with the world's largest importers, the U.S. and Japan.

By the summer of 2004, Bush strategists, distracted as they were by Iraq, again became alarmed over China's growing power and its potential to challenge American hegemony in East Asia. The Republican Party platform unveiled at its convention in New York in August proclaimed that "America will help Taiwan defend itself." During that summer, the Navy also carried out exercises it dubbed "Operation Summer Pulse '04," which involved the simultaneous deployment at sea of seven of our twelve carrier strike groups. An American carrier strike group includes an aircraft carrier (usually with 9 or 10 squadrons of planes, a total of about 85 aircraft in all), a guided missile cruiser, two guided missile destroyers, an attack submarine, and a combination ammunition-oiler-supply ship. Deploying seven such armadas at the same time was unprecedented – and very expensive. Even though only three of the carrier strike groups were sent to the Pacific and no more than one was patrolling off Taiwan at a time, the Chinese became deeply alarmed that this marked the beginning of an attempted rerun of 19th century gunboat diplomacy aimed at them.

This American show of force and Chen Shui-bian's polemics preceding the December elections also seemed to overstimulate the Taiwanese. On October 26 in Beijing, Secretary of State Colin Powell tried to calm things down by declaring to the press, "Taiwan is not independent. It does not enjoy sovereignty as a nation, and that remains our policy, our firm policy… We want to see both sides not take unilateral action that would prejudice an eventual outcome, a reunification that all parties are seeking."

Powell's statement seemed unequivocal enough, but significant doubts persisted about whether he had much influence within the Bush administration or whether he could speak for Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Early in 2005, Porter Goss, the new director of the CIA, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and Admiral Lowell Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, all told Congress that China's military modernization was going ahead much faster than previously believed. They warned that the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review, the every four-year formal assessment of U.S. military policy, would take a much harsher view of the threat posed by China than the 2001 overview.

In this context, the Bush administration, perhaps influenced by the election of November 2 and the transition from Colin Powell's to Condi Rice's State Department, played its most dangerous card. On February 19, 2005 in Washington, it signed a new military agreement with Japan. For the first time, Japan joined the administration in identifying security in the Taiwan Strait as a "common strategic objective." Nothing could have been more alarming to China's leaders than the revelation that Japan had decisively ended six decades of official pacifism by claiming a right to intervene in the Taiwan Strait.

It is possible that, in the years to come, Taiwan itself may recede in importance to be replaced by even more direct Sino-Japanese confrontations. This would be an ominous development indeed, one that the United States would be responsible for having abetted but would certainly be unable to control. The kindling for a Sino-Japanese explosion has long been in place. After all, during World War II the Japanese killed approximately 23 million Chinese throughout East Asia – higher casualties than the staggering ones suffered by Russia at the hands of the Nazis – and yet Japan refuses to atone for or even acknowledge its historical war crimes. Quite the opposite, it continues to rewrite history, portraying itself as the liberator of Asia and a victim of European and American imperialism.

In – for the Chinese – a painful act of symbolism, after becoming Japanese prime minister in 2001, Junichiro Koizumi made his first official visit to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, a practice that he has repeated every year since. Koizumi likes to say to foreigners that he is merely honoring Japan's war dead. Yasukuni, however, is anything but a military cemetery or a war memorial. It was established in 1869 by Emperor Meiji as a Shinto shrine (though with its torii archways made of steel rather than the traditional red-painted wood) to commemorate the lives lost in campaigns to return direct imperial rule to Japan. During World War II, Japanese militarists took over the shrine and used it to promote patriotic and nationalistic sentiments. Today, Yasukuni is said to be dedicated to the spirits of approximately 2.4 million Japanese who have died in the country's wars, both civil and foreign, since 1853.

In 1978, for reasons that have never been made clear, General Hideki Tojo and six other wartime leaders who had been hanged by the Allied Powers as war criminals were collectively enshrined at Yasukuni. The current chief priest of the shrine denies that they were war criminals, saying, "The winner passed judgment on the loser." In a museum on the shrine's grounds, there is a fully restored Mitsubishi Zero Type 52 fighter aircraft that a placard says made its combat debut in 1940 over Chongqing, then the wartime capital of the Republic of China. It was undoubtedly not an accident that, in Chongqing during the 2004 Asian Cup soccer finals, Chinese spectators booed the playing of the Japanese national anthem. Yasukuni's leaders have always claimed close ties to the imperial household, but the late Emperor Hirohito last visited the shrine in 1975 and Emperor Akihito has never been there.

The Chinese regard Yasukuni visits by the Japanese prime minister as insulting, somewhat comparable perhaps to Britain's Prince Harry dressing up as a Nazi for a costume party. Nonetheless, Beijing has tried in recent years to appease Tokyo. Chinese President Hu Jintao rolled out the red carpet for Yohei Kono, speaker of the Japanese Diet's House of Representatives, when he visited China in September 2004; he appointed Wang Yi, a senior moderate in the Chinese foreign service, as ambassador to Japan; and he proposed joint Sino-Japanese exploration of possible oil resources in the offshore seas that both sides claim. All such gestures were ignored by Koizumi who insists that he intends to go on visiting Yasukuni.

Matters came to a head in November 2004 at two important summit meetings: an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathering in Santiago, Chile, followed immediately by an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting with the leaders of China, Japan, and South Korea that took place in Vientiane, Laos. In Santiago, Hu Jintao directly asked Koizumi to cease his Yasukuni visits for the sake of Sino-Japanese friendship. Seemingly as a reply, Koizumi went out of his way to insult Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Vientiane. He said to Premier Wen, "It's about time for [China's] graduation [as a recipient of Japanese foreign aid payments]," implying that Japan intended unilaterally to end its 25-year-old financial aid program. The word "graduation" also conveyed the insulting implication that Japan saw itself as a teacher guiding China, the student.

Koizumi next gave a little speech about the history of Japanese efforts to normalize relations with China, to which Premier Wen replied, "Do you know how many Chinese people died in the Sino-Japanese war?" Wen went on to suggest that China had always regarded Japan's foreign aid, which he said China did not need, as payments in lieu of compensation for damage done by Japan in China during the war. He pointed out that China had never asked for reparations from Japan and that Japan's payments amounted to about $30 billion over 25 years, a fraction of the $80 billion Germany has paid to the victims of Nazi atrocities even though Japan is the more populous and richer country.

On November 10, 2004, the Japanese Navy discovered a Chinese nuclear submarine in Japanese territorial waters near Okinawa. Although the Chinese apologized and called the sub's intrusion a "mistake," Defense Agency Director Ono gave it wide publicity, further inflaming Japanese public opinion against China. From that point on, relations between Beijing and Tokyo have gone steadily downhill, culminating in the Japanese-American announcement that Taiwan was of special military concern to both of them, which China denounced as an "abomination."

Over time this downward spiral in relations will probably prove damaging to the interests of both the United States and Japan, but particularly to those of Japan. China is unlikely to retaliate directly but is even less likely to forget what has happened – and it has a great deal of leverage over Japan. After all, Japanese prosperity increasingly depends on its ties to China. The reverse is not true. Contrary to what one might expect, Japanese exports to China jumped 70% between 2001 and 2004, providing the main impetus for a sputtering Japanese economic recovery. Some 18,000 Japanese companies have operations in China. In 2003, Japan passed the United States as the top destination for Chinese students going abroad for a university education. Nearly 70,000 Chinese students now study at Japanese universities compared to 65,000 at American academic institutions. These close and lucrative relations are at risk if the U.S. and Japan pursue their militarization of the region.

A Multipolar World

Tony Karon of Time magazine has observed, "All over the world, new bonds of trade and strategic cooperation are being forged around the U.S. China has not only begun to displace the U.S. as the dominant player in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation organization (APEC), it is fast emerging as the major trading partner to some of Latin America's largest economies. . . . French foreign policy think tanks have long promoted the goal of ‘multipolarity' in a post-Cold War world, i.e., the preference for many different, competing power centers rather than the ‘unipolarity' of the U.S. as a single hyper-power. Multipolarity is no longer simply a strategic goal. It is an emerging reality."

Evidence is easily found of multipolarity and China's prominent role in promoting it. Just note China's expanding relations with Iran, the European Union, Latin America, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Iran is the second largest OPEC oil producer after Saudi Arabia and has long had friendly relations with Japan, which is its leading trading partner. (Ninety-eight percent of Japan's imports from Iran are oil.) On February 18, 2004, a consortium of Japanese companies and the Iranian government signed a memorandum of agreement to develop jointly Iran's Azadegan oil field, one of the world's largest, in a project worth $2.8 billion. The U.S. has opposed Japan's support for Iran, causing Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) to charge that Bush had been bribed into accepting the Japanese-Iranian deal by Koizumi's dispatch of 550 Japanese troops to Iraq, adding a veneer of international support for the American war there.

But the long-standing Iranian-Japanese alignment began to change in late 2004. On October 28, China's oil major, the Sinopec Group, signed an agreement with Iran worth between $70 and $100 billion to develop the giant Yadavaran natural gas field. China agreed to buy 250 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Iran over 25 years. It is the largest deal Iran has signed with a foreign country since 1996 and will include several other benefits, including China's assistance in building numerous ships to deliver the LNG to Chinese ports. Iran also committed itself to exporting 150,000 barrels of crude oil per day to China for 25 years at market prices.

Iran's oil minister, Bijan Zanganeh, on a visit to Beijing noted that Iran is China's biggest foreign oil supplier and said that his country wants to be China's long-term business partner. He told China Business Weekly that Tehran would like to replace Japan with China as the biggest customer for its oil and gas. The reason is obvious: American pressure on Iran to give up its nuclear power development program and the Bush administration's declared intention to take Iran to the U.N. Security Council for the imposition of sanctions (which a Chinese vote could veto). On November 6, 2004, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing paid a rare visit to Tehran. In meetings with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, Li said that Beijing would indeed consider vetoing any American effort to sanction Iran at the Security Council. The U.S. has also charged China with selling nuclear and missile technology to Iran.

China and Iran already did a record $4 billion worth of two-way business in 2003. Projects included China's building of the first stage of Tehran's Metro and a contract to build a second link worth $836 million. China will be the top contender to build four other planned lines, including a 19-mile track to the airport. In February 2003, Chery Automobile Company, the eighth largest automaker in China, opened its first overseas production plant in Iran. Today, it manufactures 30,000 Chery cars annually in northeastern Iran. Beijing is also negotiating to construct a 240-mile pipeline from Iran to the northern Caspian Sea to connect with the long-distance Kazakhstan to Xinjiang pipeline that it began building in October 2004. The Kazakh pipeline has a capacity to deliver 10 million tons of oil to China per year. Despite American bluster and belligerence, Iran is anything but isolated in today's world.

The EU is China's largest trading partner and China is the EU's second largest trading partner (after the United States). Back in 1989, to protest the suppression of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the EU imposed a ban on military sales to China. The only other countries so treated are true international pariahs like Burma, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Even North Korea is not subject to a formal European arms embargo. Given that the Chinese leadership has changed several times since 1989 and as a gesture of goodwill, the EU has announced its intention to lift the embargo. Jacques Chirac, the French president, is one of the strongest proponents of the idea of replacing American hegemony with a "multipolar world." On a visit to Beijing in October 2004, he said that China and France share "a common vision of the world" and that lifting the embargo will "mark a significant milestone: a moment when Europe had to make a choice between the strategic interests of America and China – and chose China."

In his trip to Western Europe in February 2005, Bush repeatedly said, "There is deep concern in our country that a transfer of weapons would be a transfer of technology to China, which would change the balance of relations between China and Taiwan." In early February, the House of Representatives voted 411 to 3 in favor of a resolution condemning the potential EU move. The Europeans and Chinese contend that the Bush administration has vastly overstated its case, that no weapons capable of changing the balance of power are involved, and that the EU is not aiming to win massive new defense contracts from China but to strengthen mutual economic relations in general. Immediately following Bush's tour of Europe, the EU Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, arrived in Beijing for his first official visit. The purpose of his trip, he said, was to stress the need to create a new strategic partnership between China and Europe.

Washington has buttressed its hard-line stance with the release of many new intelligence estimates depicting China as a formidable military threat. Whether this intelligence is politicized or not, it argues that China's military modernization is aimed precisely at countering the Navy's carrier strike groups, which would assumedly be used in the Taiwan Strait in case of war. China is certainly building a large fleet of nuclear submarines and is an active participant in the EU's Galileo Project to produce a satellite navigation system not controlled by the American military. The Defense Department worries that Beijing might adapt the Galileo technology to anti-satellite purposes. American military analysts are also impressed by China's launch, on October 15, 2003, of a spacecraft containing a single astronaut who was successfully returned to Earth the following day. Only the former USSR and the United States had previously sent humans into outer space.

China already has 500 to 550 short-range ballistic missiles deployed opposite Taiwan and has 24 CSS-4 ICBMs with a range of 13,000 km to deter an American missile attack on the Chinese mainland. According to Richard Fisher, a researcher at the U.S.-based Center for Security Policy, "The forces that China is putting in place right now will probably be more than sufficient to deal with a single American aircraft carrier battle group." Arthur Lauder, a professor of international relations at the University of Pennsylvania, concurs. He says that the Chinese military "is the only one being developed anywhere in the world today that is specifically configured to fight the United States of America."

The U.S. obviously cannot wish away this capability, but it has no evidence that China is doing anything more than countering the threats coming from the Bush administration. It seeks to avoid war with Taiwan and the U.S. by deterring them from separating Taiwan from China. For this reason, in March 2005, China's pro-forma legislature, the National People's Congress, passed a law making secession from China illegal and authorizing the use of force in case a territory tried to leave the country.

The Japanese government, of course, backs the American position that China constitutes a military threat to the entire region. Interestingly enough, however, the Australian government of John Howard, a loyal American ally when it comes to Iraq, has decided to defy Bush on the issue of lifting the European arms embargo. Australia places a high premium on good relations with China and is hoping to negotiate a free trade agreement between the two countries. Canberra has therefore decided to support the EU in lifting the 15-year-old embargo. Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder both say, "It will happen."

The United States has long proclaimed that Latin America is part of its "sphere of influence," and because of that most foreign countries have tread carefully in doing business there. However, in the search for fuel and minerals for its booming economy, China is openly courting many Latin American countries regardless of what Washington thinks. On November 15, 2004, President Hu Jintao ended a five-day visit to Brazil during which he signed more than a dozen accords aimed at expanding Brazil's sales to China and Chinese investment in Brazil. Under one agreement Brazil will export to China as much as $800 million annually in beef and poultry. In turn, China agreed with Brazil's state-controlled oil company to finance a $1.3 billion gas pipeline between Rio de Janeiro and Bahia once technical studies are completed. China and Brazil also entered into a "strategic partnership" with the objective of raising the value of bilateral trade from $10 billion in 2004 to $20 billion by 2007. President Hu said that this partnership symbolized "a new international political order that favored developing countries."

In the weeks that followed, China signed important investment and trade agreements with Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, and Cuba. Of particular interest, in December 2004, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela visited China and agreed to give it wide-ranging access to his country's oil reserves. Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter and normally sells about 60% of its output to the United States, but under the new agreements China will be allowed to operate 15 mature oil fields in eastern Venezuela. China will invest around $350 million to extract oil and another $60 million in natural gas wells.

China is also working to integrate East Asia's smaller countries into some form of new economic and political community. Such an alignment, if it comes into being, will certainly erode American and Japanese influence in the area. In November 2004, the ten nations that make up ASEAN or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam), met in the Laotian capital of Vientiane, joined by the leaders of China, Japan, and South Korea. The United States was not invited and the Japanese officials seemed uncomfortable being there. The purpose was to plan for an East Asian summit meeting to be held in November 2005 to begin creating an "East Asia Community." In December 2004, the ASEAN countries and China also agreed to create a free-trade zone among themselves by 2010.

According to Edward Cody of the Washington Post, "Trade between China and the 10 ASEAN countries has increased about 20% a year since 1990, and the pace has picked up in the last several years." This trade hit $78.2 billion in 2003 and was reported to be about $100 billion by the end of 2004. As the senior Japanese political commentator Yoichi Funabashi observes, "The ratio of intra-regional trade [in East Asia] to worldwide trade was nearly 52% in 2002. Though this figure is lower than the 62% in the EU, it tops the 46% of NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement]. East Asia is thus becoming less dependent on the U.S. in terms of trade."

China is the primary moving force behind these efforts. According to Funabashi China's leadership plans to use the country's explosive economic growth and its ever more powerful links to regional trading partners to marginalize the United States and isolate Japan in East Asia. He argues that the United States underestimated how deeply distrusted it had become in the region thanks to its narrow-minded and ideological response to the East Asian financial crisis of 1997, which it largely caused. On November 30, 2004, Michael Reiss, the director of policy planning in the State Department, said in Tokyo, "The U.S., as a power in the Western Pacific, has an interest in East Asia. We would be unhappy about any plans to exclude the U.S. from the framework of dialogue and cooperation in this region." But it is probably already too late for the Bush administration to do much more than delay the arrival of a China-dominated East Asian community, particularly because of declining American economic and financial strength.

For Japan, the choices are more difficult still. Sino-Japanese enmity has had a long history in East Asia, always with disastrous outcomes. Before World War II, one of Japan's most influential writers on Chinese affairs, Hotsumi Ozaki, prophetically warned that Japan, by refusing to adjust to the Chinese revolution and instead making war on it, would only radicalize the Chinese people and contribute to the coming to power of the Chinese Communist Party. He spent his life working on the question "Why should the success of the Chinese revolution be to Japan's disadvantage?" In 1944, the Japanese government hanged Ozaki as a traitor, but his question remains as relevant today as it was in the late 1930s.

Why should China's emergence as a rich, successful country be to the disadvantage of either Japan or the United States? History teaches us that the least intelligent response to this development would be to try to stop it through military force. As a Hong Kong wisecrack has it, China has just had a couple of bad centuries and now it's back. The world needs to adjust peacefully to its legitimate claims – one of which is for other nations to stop militarizing the Taiwan problem – while checking unreasonable Chinese efforts to impose its will on the region. Unfortunately, the trend of events in East Asia suggests we may yet see a repetition of the last Sino-Japanese conflict, only this time the U.S. is unlikely to be on the winning side. - Copyright © 2005 Chalmers Johnson [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:40 AM

The Rude Awakening 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:02 AM

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

The sun is the only safe enough nuclear reactor for us.
Malcolm Maiden in the Sydney Morning Herald of 14.3.05, p. 36, writes in the headline of his article: “How safe is nuclear? BHP needs to decide.”

Why only BHP or the Federal Goverment? Why not all Australians?

We constitute one of the most citified nations on earth. Thus half a dozen hydrogen bombs could wipe out 90% of the population immediately and most of the rest later, as a consequence of their dependence on the output of cities and of the resulting radioactive pollution.

In the hands of criminal governments nuclear reactors are used as nuclear bomb factories. Even democratic ones have so used some of their reactors. It was a democracy that used the first 2 nuclear “weapons” and it is democracies that hold most of the remaining ones. Terrorists and criminal governments are itching to get their hands on such anti-people and mass murder “weapons”. With nuclear “weapons” one cannot prevent them from gaining them. Thus, should not the targeted people have the ultimate say on this matter? Let us have a referendum on nuclear reactors, nuclear weapons, their stationing, uranium mining and also alliances with nuclear “powers”.

Among the nuclear “weapons” “powers” it should also be the people themselves, who ought to have the last say on them. Not any politicians.

After all, nuclear “weapons” are just conveniently small, cheap and portable extermination camp packages. Do we want to use them against the people in any city of the world?

Do we want them used against us? Should we then console ourselves with the thought that their raw materials were “made in Australia”?

As for energy production: Under the usual government mismanagement only a small fraction of all alternative energy options have so far been utilized.

The decommissioning of such plants, after their useful lifespan, does not cost very much more than their building and thus they can be economical compared with nuclear reactors - when all the costs of the latter are taken into consideration.

Transmission costs are anyhow the major cost factor in providing electricity from power plants to the consumers.

What fraction of e.g. all the sun-, wind-, wave-, ocean temperature differential, geothermal and tidal power that Australia could utilize has so far been exploited, argriculturally or industrially?

Coal, oil and gas are much too valuable as chemical and biological raw materials to merely burn them for energy production.

All the sun energy that could be captured, directly or indirectly, on the surface of this planet is only a fraction of the sun energy that could be captured in space and transmitted to Earth.

The sun is the only safe enough nuclear reactor for us.

In the hands of any government or its privileged contractors all nuclear reactors on earth and those placed on satellites, put all of us at risk, at least in the long run.

We should also dissolve targets, motives and financing options for nuclear “weapons” by replacing territorial sovereignties with involuntary members by voluntary communities confined to exterritorial autonomoy under personal laws, just as we have done, with great success, in the sphere of religion.

Thus the motives of terrorists would also be undermined. They would become free to do their things for and to themselves, independent of the opinions of temporary and territorial majorities. Free competition for the provision of governmental & societal services! Consumer sovereignty towards them! - John Zube (via email)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:27 PM

Manliness in danger of extinction 

I pump iron, because iron-pumping is manly.

I returned to Oxford after a long winter break to find that my gym had been taken over by idiots. Every January these collar-popping pansies pollute my gym in hopes of gaining last-minute beach muscle in time for spring break. Then, by March they’re gone. This futile attempt to reverse a semester of binge drinking is turning my palace of testosterone into a combination of TRL and the Mickey Mouse Club, this annual phenomenon also illustrates the general lack of manliness in today’s society. Kids these days lack the sufficient couth, persistence and sportsmanship to maintain a grueling, manly year-round workout. These girly-men need to get the hell out of my gym.

I miss days of our grandfathers, back when men were real men.

Back then the game of dodgeball was played with rocks and the game of dodgerock was played with knives. I miss the days when everyone was a badass.

Somehow between then and now fate decided to take a steaming hot dump all over Darwin’s grave as a generation of salty war veterans gave way to a generation of scarf-wearing vaginas.

It hurts me to think that for years society stands idly painting its fingernails while icons like Clint Eastwood are replaced by wieners like Ryan Seacrest. If these generations of manly men were still alive they would spit tobacco juice in Ryan Seacrest’s face and then make him wash and wax their Trans Am.

Back in the good old days things were much simpler. Back then you could walk into a café and not be totally confused. This is because back then it didn’t matter if you were trying to order, cappuccino, mocha latte or espresso they were all called the same thing — scotch.

Back then four out of five doctors recommended smoking. This isn’t because of doctors’ ignorance to the dangers of smoking. This is because lungs used to be much more manly. Lungs used to be a manly shade of black instead of a girly shade of pink. But these days our lungs have devolved into an advanced state of weenie-ism making us incapable of enjoying rich tobacco goodness.

When manly men aren’t eating pieces of s*** like you for breakfast they’re eating sausage wrapped in bacon, wrapped in more bacon and topped with a fried egg, and they wash it down with a glass of bacon grease, topped off with a doctor recommended cigarette.

Look at any grumpy old man and the first thing you’ll notice is that he smells like a medium-sized pile of garbage that is sitting on top of a large-sized pile of garbage. This is because of years and years of stink that has built up from a combination of bare-knuckle boxing and bare-knuckle lumberjacking.

Wimps, weenies and vegetarians are ruining our great nation. America is on a downward spiral, we’ve got a fever and the only prescription is scotch, red meat and lumberjacks. - Zach Parks (via Worst Weather Ever)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:03 PM

'klop.geest [fotolog]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:48 PM

Today I noticed some interesting plates 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:27 PM

Monday, March 14, 2005

An eye, a cellphone, and 33mm [excerpt] 

Photographing is weird. It doubles up life by creating an imperfect image of it. Is all perception a collage of tiny photographs?

Here's what I do to get another perspective on life - a limited one, but a very engaging one. I take out my T-mobile, and snap on. Or I just look at life through the lens. It is an addiction.

When I am not studying how light bounces off my hands, I spy on certain colors. My favorite game is catching Red. I snap on red signboards, cars, houses, dresses. Generally, I am open to anything that fascinates me. It's all about seeing "more out of the same." I am beginning to note things that I never noted before. What a great feeling it is! Makes me want to go through life with a heightened pleasure and involvement. - Ramla A.

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:16 PM

Re: the "Patriot Act" [excerpt]
I'm sure there are many here who are scared enough of Osama to sell out their civil rights on the chance it will make them a little safer. It's the price we all pay for the general ignorance of history. - Slashdot post #11933517

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:38 PM

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Tibet_Bhoe 

It was one of those experiences that I never thought would happen to me. That experience was going to Tibet for the first time as a Tibetan born in-exile. For many of us our image of Tibet has always been through the movies/documentaries, pictures and the stories of our parents and grandparents. So the idea of seeing this land in person was just a dream until Dec. 2004. The following are my images and personal impressions from my journey. - tenzing

posted by George Thomas Kysor 6:21 PM

The Gold Phone 

A man in Topeka, Kansas, decided to write a book about churches around
the country. He started by flying to San Francisco, and started working east
from there. Going to a very large church, he began taking photographs
and making notes. He spotted a golden telephone on the vestibule wall and
was intrigued with a sign which read "$10,000 a minute."
Seeking out the pastor he asked about the phone and the sign. The
pastor answered that this golden phone is, in fact, a direct line to Heaven
and if he paid the price, he can talk directly to God. The man thanked the
pastor and continued on his way.

As he continued to visit churches in Seattle, Salt Lake, Denver,Chicago,
Milwaukee, and around the United States, he found more phones, with
the same sign, and the same answer from each pastor.

Finally, he arrived in Alabama. Upon entering a church, behold, he saw
the usual golden telephone. But THIS time, the sign read "Calls: 25 cents."

Fascinated, he asked to talk to the pastor. "Reverend, I have been in
cities all across the country and in each church I have found this
golden telephone and have been told it is a direct line to Heaven and that I
could talk to God, but, in the other churches the cost was $10,000 a minute.
Your sign reads 25 cents a call. Why?"

The pastor, smiling benignly, replied, "Son, you're in the South now, and it's a local call." (via email)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 3:22 PM

My japanese name is 吉国 Yoshikuni (good fortune country) 海斗 Kaito (big dipper of the ocean).
Take your real japanese name generator! today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

(via Esther)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 2:11 PM

Saturday, March 12, 2005

My brush with Individualist(s) 

"If you fail to rise above the mediocrity, you risk losing your individuality". I came across this statement when I was surfing blogs and being an ardent fan of Ayn Rand I more than eagerly agreed with it but what ticked me was would too much individuality or a drive to develop a sense of individuality, numb you and the people around you.

A wise dude once told me "You can do different things but dont try to do everything differently". Unless you are an entrepreneur, a journalist, a researcher or a job that uses up every ounce of your creative juice, take it easy on you and others guys. What pisses me off is that many of these individualists are invariably blind to their shortcomings. It is not surprising in that case that many of the individualists repeatedly fail to accept their misgivings but instead portray their inadequacies as the very quality that makes them unique. Fellas, just because its unique and nobody else does it it necessarily need not be cool.

It is funny how people view being unique, being different as something to be proud of rather than an inherent quality. For many people including me embracing ones identity is a metamorphosis that might take up the best part of a lifespan. Heres to those who feel constantly reinventing oneself is the only way of living.

Be open to views, opinions and ideas because I strongly believe that the next inspiration might be just around the corner and in the most unattractive package. A lot of lessons I learnt were not from books and word of mouth rather from the people Ive interacted with. Over the years every person Ive known or remembered have taught me very many things, more importantly how to be and how not to be. It is hardly surprising to me that many individualists often fall in the latter bracket.

Which brings us to the next group of people who form a subset of individualists, the self made man. To me the phrase self made man is full of contradictions quite like the quintessential honest politician. I believe that our idealogy is often built based on events we encounter or on our perception of these life altering events. So essentialy, our views and opinions are based on events affecting and not because one fine day we choose to be that way.

Finally, to all the individualits out there embrace your individuality and let others embrace it, dont thrust it upon them. I like to think that every person is a book waiting to be read, re-read and analysed but to all you individualists and self made men I have one piece of advice, nobody wants to read a comic in hardcover!!!!! - sensiblystoned

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:29 AM

Was George Bush Right? [excerpt]
I've been wrong many times in my life, and I've never found it difficult to acknowledge my mistakes – even in public, if appropriate. But not one thing has happened so far to give me the slightest doubt that I was right to oppose the killing of 100,000 Iraqis, to oppose the killing of thousands of Afghans merely to turn the country back to the war lords, to oppose the imprisonment and torture of Americans and foreigners who have never been tried or even indicted for anything, or to oppose the many steps taken to turn America into a police state. - Copyright © 2005 Harry Browne [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 7:38 AM

Friday, March 11, 2005

Tie--Dies: Judge Calls Terri Schiavo "Out" 

When I was younger and played softball it was a rule of thumb that "tie base goes to the runner." The idea is that it's harder to get a hit than to make an out so the more difficult of the two gets the nod.

With Terri Schiavo, however, the judge handling her case seems to feel that a "tied case goes to the grave." As I ponder the evidence in this case it is not clear whether Terri is conscious or not. Tie. It is not clear whether she expressed a desire to not be subject to life support. Tie. It is not clear whether she would have been able to respond to rehab treatment. Tie. It is not clear that she is subject to life termination under the law. Tie. And, it is not clear whether her brain damage was from a natural cause or from a physical assault (ie. choking). Tie.

So far as I can see there is no overwhelming case for either side...especially when so many of the questions cannot be answered because normal and acceptable medical care has not been provided for Terri by her husband.

So it is up to the umpire--oops, I mean judge--to make the call. He can choose to either let her live or to allow her to be killed. The husband wants her dead and her family wants her to live. Another Tie.

It seems not only reasonable but compulsory under these circumstances for the judge to rule for life. It is easy to kill someone. It is more difficult to give them life. Life, once taken, cannot be restored. Life, once given, can still be taken at a later time if circumstances become clearer in the future.

If it was not very clear that the overwhelming evidence in a capital murder conviction proved the defendant guilty would a judge issue a death penalty? Certainly not. Conviction by a jury requires "beyond a reasonable doubt" and a sentence of death normally must exceed even that requirement.

Terri Schiavo's circumstance does not qualify for even the simplest level of "beyond a reasonable doubt."

The saddest part of all this is that the judge has never seen the "play" and has refused to even review it. Although urged to go by Terri's family, he has never gone to visit Terri and see for himself what her condition is, nor has he ever allowed her to be present in the courtroom where he is passing judgment on whether she will live or die.

I feel as if the judge was making his calls from a different rule book than everyone else.

When a baseball game is over the losing coach can raise a protest flag so that the reason for the protest can be reviewed.

When Terri's feeding tube is pulled next Wednesday millions of her supporters will join her family in raising the protest flag one last time. But this time, when it comes time for the review, the game will be over for Terri.

In the Olympics, when a competition ends in a tie, both participants are declared to have won and each receives a gold medal. It does not look as though Terri will be getting a gold medal from the judge next week. - Bird of Paradise

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:15 PM

An overseas sting operation 

A Yemeni Sheik, Mohammed Ali Hassan Al-Moayad, and his assistant, Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, were found guilty yesterday in a Brooklyn court of accepting an FBI undercover agent's offer in Frankfurt Germany to funnel $2.5 million to al-Qaida and Hamas for a 10% commission. (See here and here.) The Sheik and his assistant were arrested by German police and extradicted to the US.

What the news reports didn't explain: (1) Why conversations held in Germany are violations of US law. (2) Why private conversations can be illegal when there are no consequent actions. I will post here all concise & logical explanations sent to me!

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:52 AM

Photo taken at Martinez, CA.  

posted by George Thomas Kysor 7:25 AM

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Today I noticed some interesting license plates. 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 5:06 PM

The Rude Awakening
 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:24 AM

Bunny Suicide 

I recently purchased the book "bunny suicide' by Andy Riely on amazon, drawings of a bunny killing itself in various ways. Somebody decided to post all the pages of the book here. It reminds me of the REM series from L.Faraday. - mcpheelife

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:16 AM

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Rogue State 

"DU is more of a problem than we thought when it was developed. But it was developed according to standards and was thought through very carefully. It turned out, perhaps, to be wrong" — Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to President George H.W. Bush.

The photographs are gruesome beyond description (those who wish may see them here)

They are newborn Iraqi babies, born without heads and limbs, sometimes they are blood red, sometimes black, sometimes covered in an unknown white film, sometimes with gaping holes in their torsos that expose their internal organs.

They are, say doctors in Iraq and international experts from Europe, Japan, and the United States, the result of the United States’ heavy use of weapons made of depleted uranium in Gulf War I and Operation Iraqi Freedom, which have left densely populated parts of Iraq a radioactive toxic wasteland, where adult cancer and childhood leukemia rates are soaring.

During a presidential campaign where abortion at home and the American military occupation of Iraq are pivotal issues before the electorate, there ought to be a serious public discussion on the morality of weapons used in Iraq.

"This is such a serious issue," said Dr. John Hittinger, a professor of philosophy at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit and a nationally recognized expert on moral issues related to the military and warfare.

In a recent telephone interview, The Wanderer asked Dr. Hittinger, who previously taught at the United States Air Force Academy, if the use of depleted uranium in Iraq (as well as in Bosnia and Afghanistan) constituted a war crime and genocide.

He was reluctant to say it was, explaining that to meet the definition of genocide in international law, one has to establish a "deliberate and systematic intent to eliminate a people."

But, he added, "I don’t say that to clear our conscience. We can’t hide behind the doctrine of double-effect, or legalisms, and we need to face squarely the indiscriminate effect on Iraqi civilians.

"This has the beginnings of a genocidal effect, so serious questions need to be raised. Although this is not a deliberate, direct, planned attack on the unborn of Iraq, it is such a serious matter because we are attacking the sources of life in Iraqi men and women. There is a potential here for a genocidal effect."

Dr. Hittinger has impeccable Catholic credentials: a cum laude graduate of Notre Dame University, he earned his doctorate from the Catholic University of America; he is a former managing editor of the Review of Metaphysics; he was the first civilian professor of philosophy at the Air Force Academy; he is writing a book on the morality of warfare; and he is an internationally recognized authority on Aquinas and Jacques Maritain.

He told The Wanderer that it "is time for the Catholic bishops and the informed Catholic laity to revisit the whole ‘war and peace’ issue," which, he said, "is necessary now that the Cold War is behind us and a protracted ‘war on terrorism’ is before us.

"We need a whole new debate and new parties to the debate," he added, "in light of the breakdown of the international system."


A Controversial Issue


The United States’ use of depleted uranium weapons has sparked international outrage around the world. After the Gulf War I, thousands of returning war veterans claimed exposure to DU weapons was the cause of debilitating illnesses.

The Pentagon has routinely insisted, from then until now, that exposure to DU poses no threat to American soldiers. In a $6 million, five-year study released October 19, the Pentagon again insisted that DU is not radioactive or toxic enough to harm U.S. soldiers.

According to a report by Matthew L. Wald for The New York Times, published October 19:

"The conclusion, said Dr. Michael E. Kilpatrick, deputy director of the Deployment Health Support Directorate of the Defense Department, is that ‘this is a lethal but safe weapons system’."

But soldiers of Gulf War I, and returning soldiers from Operation Iraqi Freedom, have a different story.

In April 2004, New York Daily News reporter Juan Gonzales broke a story on how soldiers from the New York National Guard, recently released from Iraq, tested positive for radiation poisoning. And on September 29, Gonzales reported that one of those soldiers, Gerard Darren Matthew, recently became the new father of a deformed baby girl. Matthew also suffers daily from severe headaches, blurred vision, painful urination, and extreme lethargy, according to this report.

In "Committing a War Crime," Michael Jansen, Middle East reporter for the Irish Times, wrote on September 30 about the growing fear throughout the entire region that depleted uranium dust from exploded weapons is spreading far beyond Iraq, into Jordan, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.

DU weapons, reported Jansen, "scatter fine radioactive particles which are carried by the wind and ingested by human beings, animals, and plants. The indestructible particles last forever. Therefore, the areas where DU munitions have been deployed — the Middle East, the northern Indian subcontinent, and the Balkans — have been contaminated with endlessly destructive radioactive dust. . . .

"The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimated that half a million people would die by the end of the 21st century due to radioactive debris and dust left in Iraq, which makes its way into the rivers, lakes, and seas of the world and the atmosphere which surrounds it.

"While Jordan has expressed concern about possible contamination by airborne particles escaping from Israel’s nuclear reactor, there is a far greater danger from DU dust blown across the desert from Iraq.

"Doug Rokke, ex-director of the U.S. Army’s DU project in 1994 and 1995 and a former professor of environmental science at a Florida university, said: ‘They’re using it now, in Fallujah; Baghdad is chockablock with DU — it’s all over the place.’

"An Iraqi doctor specializing in blood disease at one of the capital’s universities told this correspondent that thousands of Baghdadis had developed cancer since 1991 and warned that incidence of the disease will rise due to the use of DU munitions during the 2003 war. Dr. Jenan Ali, a senior specialist at the Basra College of Medicine, said that in the decade after the 1991 war there was a 100% rise in child leukemia and a 242% increase in all cancers in the region.

"Birth defects are also much higher than normal. Malignancies and defects have also soared in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S. war, but no statistics are available in that chaotic country.

"While the Pentagon uses DU munitions to save the lives of its troops, DU may be killing more than the number who would have died if this munitions had not been deployed. The use of DU in 1991 and 2003 is also considered responsible for malignancies in U.S. veterans and birth defects amongst their children. While only 467 U.S. troops were wounded during the 1991 war, of the nearly 600,000 discharged personnel one-third are receiving disability compensation and another 25,000 cases are pending. The figure does not include those who have died. Amongst the 169,000 veterans of the current conflict, 16% had applied for treatment by July 2004. . . .

"According to an August 2002 UN report, the use of DU munitions breaches the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter, the Genocide Convention, the Convention Against Torture, the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980, and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907."


Just The Facts


One pertinent web site on problems caused by weapons made of depleted uranium is www.idust.net, operated by the International Depleted Uranium Study Team. It contains a library of news reports and editorials from the world’s press on the consequences of exposure to DU weapons. Others are part of the University of Wisconsin’s depleted uranium project, www.uwec.edu/grossmzc/belowmc.html, and www.citizen-soldier.org; they document the illnesses of Gulf War I and Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans and the Pentagon’s refusal to acknowledge veterans’ illnesses. The Deerfield, Mass.-based Traprock Peace Center (www.traprock
peace.org) has an extensive library on DU-related media reports and scientific and legal studies.

The following historical information on the use of DU weapons is taken directly from citizen-soldier:

"The American and British militaries first used DU weapons during Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf in 1991. Army and Marine M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks fired 120mm rounds that each contained 10.5 pounds of depleted uranium. The M1 and M60 model tanks fired a 105 mm round with 8.5 pounds of DU in each shell. The Pentagon later estimated that 14,000 such rounds were expended during the war; 7,000 were fired in Saudi Arabia during target practice, 4,000 were used against Iraqi forces, and another 3,000 were consumed by fires or other accidents.

"Another 940,000 30mm DU rounds were fired by A-10 ‘Warthog’ jets in support of their ‘tank killing’ operations during the brief war. All told, the Pentagon has estimated that 320 tons of depleted uranium was fired by U.S. and UK units. As of today, not an ounce of this toxic residue has been removed by either the U.S. or any other agency.

"Months before the Gulf War, the Army’s Armament, Munitions, and Chemical Command published the following warning: ‘Following combat, the condition of the battlefield and the long-term health risks to natives [sic] and combat veterans may become issues in the acceptability of the continued use of DU for military applications.’ The report added that DU has been ‘linked to cancer when exposures are internal’. . . .

"[T]he Army is clearly aware that environmental concerns could eventually undermine support for these dangerous weapons. Not long after the Gulf War ended, an Army colonel stationed at the Los Alamos National Labs wrote to a subordinate: ‘There continues to be concern regarding the impact of DU on the environment. If no one makes the case for the effectiveness of DU in battle, DU rounds may become politically unacceptable and be deleted from the arsenal.’ His memo ends with the following: ‘I believe that we should keep this sensitive issue in mind when "after action" reports are written.’

"In the first years after the Gulf War, thousands of vets began to experience some chronic health problems and many of them sought evaluation and treatment at either VA medical centers or military hospitals. They reported some or all of the following symptoms: neurological problems, chronic skin rashes, respiratory problems, chronic flu-like symptoms including severe body aches, immune system disorders, severe fatigue, joint pain, gynecological infection, bleeding gums and lesions, and unexplained rapid weight loss.

"Eventually, about 186,000 Gulf vets were examined medically at a VA or military medical facility. Virtually all who reported health problems were eventually told that they suffered from ‘undiagnosed illness.’ Very few have received disability payments for service-connected illness. Despite the large number of sick veterans, the Army surgeon general continued to tell Congress and other investigators that only a tiny number of these cases (where vets had been struck with DU shrapnel) could be attributed to depleted uranium exposure."


The Toll On The Unborn


A handful of American reporters have tried to alert the American public to DU, including The Chicago Tribune’s Robert C. Koehler, who in a March 25, 2004 report, headlined, "Silent Genocide," wrote:

"This will not be easy to read, especially if you’ve projected evil out of your own heart, into some cave in Afghanistan or a spider hole in Iraq, reduced the age-old question it inspires to this one: How can we bomb it off the face of the earth? Before the damage we inflict grows greater, before history’s judgment gets worse, before we contaminate the whole world — even before we vote in the next election — we must stop what we’re doing. We must stop now.

"It’s time to listen for a moment not to defense analysts, briefing officers, pols or pundits, but to people like Jooma Khan, a grandfather who lives in a village in Laghman Province, in northeastern Afghanistan. Surely he deserves 30 seconds of our undivided attention.

" ‘When I saw my deformed grandson,’ he told an interviewer in March of 2003, ‘I realized that my hopes of the future have vanished for good. [This is] different from the hopelessness of the Russian barbarism, even though at that time I lost my older son Shafiqullah. This time, however, I know we are part of the invisible genocide brought on us by America, a silent death from which I know we will not escape.’

"We’re waging war-plus in Afghanistan and Iraq — in effect, nuclear war, with our widespread use of depleted-uranium-tipped shells and missiles. . . .

"And DU dust is everywhere. A minimum of 500 or 600 tons now litter Afghanistan, and several times that amount are spread across Iraq. In terms of global atmospheric pollution, we’ve already released the equivalent of 400,000 Nagasaki bombs. . . . The numbers are overwhelming, but the potential horrors only get worse. DU dust does more than wreak havoc on the immune systems of those who breathe or touch it; the substance also alters one’s genetic code. . . .

"This ghastly toll on the unborn — on the future — has led investigators to coin the term ‘silent genocide’." - PAUL LIKOUDIS (via Lew Rockwell)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 7:33 PM

Spring Break '05 (Day 2) 

Today was a busy day. I woke up at 9:30, then we drove to my grandmother's house to take her to the senior center while my grandpa sneaked to do some shopping.
For almost fifty years now, my grandmother has done his laundry, cooked for him, cleaned the house. A couple years ago, my grandfather started having heart problems.
His illness sent my grandmother into a terrible depression. She was constantly tired,anxious, often complaining of stomach pains although the doctors found no diagnosis.
Recently, her illness has progressed quickly. My grandfather does most of the cooking and cleaning these days. He doesn't complain. He loves his wife.
In the mid-nineties, my grandfather wanted to install a dishwasher in the kitchen. Of course, my grandmother was against the idea. The secret shopping today was to find a dishwasher, he and my uncle are going to install it Saturday, as a surprise.
So, we headed off to the senior center. My grandparents have been going there regularly, they thoroughly enjoy it. The center has exercise machines, serves lunch, and of course~ other seniors. I think the socialization is probably very beneficial for my grandmother.
Her favorite exercise machines move for you. The first one she showed me operated such that the user lies on her back, and the machine moves side-to-side, exercising the waist area. While she was using this one, I climbed onto the one next to it. I positioned my shoulders on a mechanical "pillow" that moves up and down, as if to give a nice shoulder massage. This machine is also operated with the user lying on her back. Then the funniest thing happened. I was watching my grandmother, and talking about what a great shoulder massage I was getting. A little lady with curly white hair, wearing a pink monogrammed sweatsuit, with pink lipstick and joyous laugh lines walked up to me. She bent over, and said in a quiet voice, "Yes, that does feel good. But I think it would feel better if you lied on your stomach and it were a bit lower." She grinned fully and tossed her head back in a tinkling laugh. My mother, overhearing the comment, said, "Yes, I think it would," also laughing. I was shocked. Then it was all I could do to stay on the machine. A deep, hearty laugh welled up from my stomach. Tears formed in the corner of my eyes, and I looked over at my mother, catching my breath. "Did you just-" I lowered my voice to a whisper. The little pink lady had walked away and climbed on a crosstrainer. "Did you just hear that," I said, still giggling. I'm pretty sure my grandmother heard, too, because she wasn't laughing, but she was wearing a mischevious little grin.

There was a gentleman there named Russell. I would guess he is about 70 years old. He has several tattoos on his arms, very old ones, I suspect he was in the navy at one time. He has a full head of wavy white hair, and sparkling blue eyes. Today, he was making rounds, talking to friends, in between breaks from volunteering in the kitchen. When he introduced himself, and my mother introduced me, I shook his hand and noted a tattoo on the inside of his right arm. A voluptious lady with long, flowing hair in a bikini. I grinned and his eyes sparkled. He walked around, making jokes with people, inspiring laughter. He even took a little time to tease my mother and me.

There is so much life there. The lunch discussion ranged from places people have lived, and what they liked about them, to activities of children and grandchildren. We talked about the heaping serving of spaghetti, the wholesome goodness of chocolate milk, and the delights of sherbert icecream. Everyone was friendly, laughing, the conversation was positive.

We left to meet my grandfather at the hospital around 12:45. My grandmother was already becoming anxious that we needed to be there by 1:00, although the hospital is less than ten minutes away. My mother volunteers at the hospital most Tuesdays and Thursdays, and my grandfather was to meet us as we dropped her off. The grandparents took me "loafing," we went to Tamarack and looked at the artwork, investigated the interesting arts and crafts there, until it was time to return to the hospital for my grandfather's apointment. Grandma and I sat in the waiting room while Mom escorted him back. She wasn't up for much conversation, so I just sat beside her, watching her. I let my eyes follow the lines of her face, her hands. If I want to memorize her, I have to practice every chance I get.

After the appointment as we were saying good-bye to them, my grandfather told us a story. Grandma has been having very vivid nightmares lately. She talks in her sleep, and often is very childlike. It began a few years ago with some light flailing around, but these days, the movement is much more exaggerated, and she will hold entire conversations. So, my grandfather said,
"Last night, she was digging in bed. Just digging, and digging and digging. I asked her what she was digging." In the childlike voice that she sometimes adopts, that my grandfather is very adept at immitating, she replied, "A hole."
"Well," he said, his interest piqued, "What are you going to put in the hole?"
With a defiance only my grandmother has, she said shortly, in the same voice, "You." My grandfather laughed heartily as he finished the story, and my grandmother smiled at him, although she looked as though she might wish he hadn't told the story. - SunGrooveTheory

posted by George Thomas Kysor 5:01 PM

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

White House Admits First Blogger to Briefing...
In a first, and what I think is the shape of things to come, the White House issued the first-ever press pass to a blogger [and here]. From the story:

Garrett M. Graff, 23, writes Fishbowl D.C., a Web log about the news media in Washington. He decided to see if he could get a daily pass for a briefing after a recent controversy raised questions about White House access and who is a legitimate reporter.

Just wondering if the rest of the White House Press Corps will launch an immediate investigation into the life of Garrett M. Graff, including any times he may have shaken down lunch money from a dweeb or didn't turn in his library book on time.

Because, as we all know, only credentialed, objective reporters such as Jayson Blair or Dan Rather belong at the round table that is the Washington Press Corps.

So, suffice it to say that the elite members of Fourth Estate will be dutifully performing their job protecting their readers and listeners by exposing these johnny-come-lately charlatans, even if it means ignoring the plank in their own collective eye. - Psycmeistr

posted by George Thomas Kysor 3:27 PM

Flat-tax movement stirs Europe 

BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA – A few years ago, Martin Bruncko studied the flat tax at Harvard University. Today, the 28-year-old is flying to European cities to promote the idea, which he made a reality in his native Slovakia.
"In theory it was interesting, but we never thought we could do it in practice," says Mr. Bruncko, recalling class discussions at the Kennedy School of Government. "So it was fun to see that you actually can do it."

What flat-tax advocates like Steve Forbes and the Hoover Institution's Alvin Rabushka have been pushing in the United States for decades, Bruncko and a team of Western-educated wunderkinds in this country of 5 million achieved in one year.

Last January, Slovakia became the sixth Eastern European country to adopt a flat tax, which means all income-earners pay the same rate. Since then, Romania and Georgia have followed suit, creating a global proving ground for the concept. In the process, flat-taxers have moved Eastern Europe from a Communist backwater to an investment spring - pressuring its higher-taxed Western neighbors to adapt to the new environment.

US conservatives, meanwhile, hope the experience of flat-tax countries like Slovakia - which the World Bank named top economic reformer last year - will persuade President Bush to implement a flat-tax of his own.

Mr. Bush praised Slovakia's tax-reform efforts during a trip there last month. "I really congratulate ... your government for making wise decisions," he said.

Western Europe feels differently. To support large governments and sizable welfare payouts, many Western European countries impose a triple-tiered tax regime of Value-Added Taxes (VAT), akin to a sales tax, high taxes on corporate revenue, and personal tax rates that can exceed 50 percent. Eastern Europe's cheaper labor market and growing reliance on flat taxes leave Western European economies struggling to compete.

"I believe it is putting some pressure on some of these countries and I think ultimately that pressure comes through competing economies," says Kevin Waddell, vice president and director of the Boston Consulting Group in Poland.

Leaders such as Chancellor Gerhard Schröder say that the Eastern European countries steal business with their low tax rates while at the same time benefiting from European Union (EU) aid.

Last year, former French Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said that if the new states were "rich enough" to introduce a flat tax they wouldn't need EU funds. France and Germany want to harmonize tax rates within the EU, and bring flat-tax rebels under a unified code.

With such heavy budget obligations, countries such as France and Germany reject flat taxes because they wouldn't be able to afford a cut in their tax revenues, says Wolfgang Wiegard, chairman of the German Council of Economic Experts.

Last summer, Mr. Wiegard's council, dubbed the "wise ones" in Germany, recommended that the government introduce a flat tax of 30 percent to replace the country's average rate of 38 percent. Such a system would make Germany "internationally competitive," he said.

The government ignored the advice, preferring Wiegard's alternate recommendation of a system that would tax capital income and labor income differently.

Much of Western Europe has likewise spurned flat-tax proposals, but some nations have chosen to follow, rather than beat, their flat-tax rivals.

Austria, whose neighbors include Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, lowered its rates from 50 percent on corporate and personal income to 34 percent this year. Britain, mindful of Ireland, another low-tax haven for companies, and Spain are reportedly mulling over the same. But the prospect that more countries will follow suit is less likely.

"The challenge that Western Europe has is that you have a lot of entrenched interest groups," says Waddell. "When you try and put in place a flat tax, you take something away from somebody else."

Like most Eastern European countries, Slovakia looked west when developing its tax system after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The resulting five-bracket system featured deductions for everything from home ownership to computer purchases.

"It was not a stable system, and super complicated for small and medium-sized companies," says Bruncko.

Flat taxes used to be the norm in Western countries. But in the 19th century, Communism founder Karl Marx listed a "heavy progressive" tax as a top priority. Soon, higher income-earners were being taxed at higher rates around the world. The irony today is that every flat-tax country (except Hong Kong) is a former Communist nation.

Since the flat-tax took effect last year in Slovakia, rich and poor alike pay a 19 percent tax on their income. A corporate tax and VAT of 19 percent is also levied. A percentage of the tax is deducted from paychecks every month, and there are only two exemptions: one for pensions and one for contributions to Slovakian NGOs.

Flat-tax advocates - and there are many here - say the reform has encouraged tax compliance and added to the flow of foreign investors. But a small chorus of critics here worries that the uniform rate will mean less money for social services and make it difficult on the working class.

"I'm not sure it's fair to those people," says Pavol Pasca, an opposition member of parliament from the eastern Slovakian city of Kosice, where he says wages are 40 percent of the EU average. "Maybe it's fair in a more-developed country with a bigger middle class."

But Mr. Pesca, like the rest of Slovakia's opposition politicians, has few concrete arguments against the flat tax. In fact, he agrees with the government's argument that the simplicity of the new code has led to more transparency and less tax evasion. It has become one of Slovakia's best selling points.

"We did heavy marketing of it, and explained it to business people," says Bruncko, who became the finance minister's chief economic adviser shortly after graduating from Harvard in 2003.

"We have a much cleaner system," says Ivan Kocis, cochairman of the Euro Valley Industrial Park, which lies on the highway to Prague, a half hour out of Bratislava.

The park, situated in the valley that separates the Alps from the Carpathian mountain range, is a symbol for the future that Slovakia would like to see. Italian tire-maker Pirelli and multinational steel concern Arcelor are building facilities here. And last month, a joint venture between a German transmissionmaker and Ford Motor Company announced a $395 million investment in eastern Slovakia.

The flat tax is "a very important factor," for these new companies, says Kocis.

Trade experts say foreign investment has been flowing into Slovakia at a higher rate since the tax reform.

In 2003, the government's trade development agency, SARIO, brought in 22 investment projects that created 7,500 new jobs. In 2004, it brought in 47 projects worth more than 12,700 jobs.

Bruncko is gratified by Europe's shift toward lower rates, but says the flat tax is not a panacea. "It's a good and necessary basis for fast growth," he says. "But you lose the advantage in the long term."

For now, it appears to be helping Slovakia. After months of talking to business leaders across Europe, Bruncko had to cancel trips to Lisbon and Madrid last month. Word on his country's tax reform, it seems, had already spread. - Andreas Tzortzis (via Freedom News Daily)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:01 AM

Monday, March 07, 2005

Lake George, before the restoration 

Enviro whackos!!
they're everywhere, they're everywhere.
When I and my then-toddler son first arrived in St. Cloud, Minnesota 12 and a half years ago, one of the first features of the town to capture my eye was Lake George. At first glance, Lake George looks like a man-made lake. Not much bigger than a couple acres in size, it used to be a centerpiece of the city. At night a multi-colored fountain in the center of the lake reflected off the water, making it a true show piece. Well-groomed banks along the lake made for inviting places to sit on the shore to skip stones and to watch the geese, blue herons and other waterfowl cavorting about. Paddleboats were available for rental, and for fun kids used to paddle the boats through the fountain for an icy summer cool-off. In short, Lake George was a grand place to spend a summer's day.
 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 5:55 PM

Melanie Boike, NRCS Soil Conservationist, weeding the area planted in the spring of 2002. 

Around five years ago the environmentalists at St. Cloud State University took it upon themselves to remake our beloved Lake George in their own image . Gone are the inviting well-groomed banks to while away a summer's day. Gone is the beautiful multi-colored fountain. Enter a glorified drainage ditch. Weeding the area? How does one "weed" amongst weeds? Lake George has turned from what was a well-manicured centerpiece and an attraction to an eyesore and a liability. Thanks so much, enviroweenies. - Psycmeistr

 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 5:54 PM

"Do You Agree That a Coporation is a Person?" 

It was time for me to serve on jury duty again. It's easy to get out of jury duty but frankly I think the jury system is the backbone of America. Serving on a jury is the most patriotic thing I can do -- aside from protesting election fraud.

So there I was in the courtroom. Jury selection. "This trial is a civil trial. A corporation is suing a corporation. Does anybody have trouble with the belief that a corporation is a person?" There were 58 people in that jury pool. Not one of them raised their hand. Except for me. I went OFF on that poor sweet judge.

"What do you MEAN that a corporation is a person! A table is not a person. A chair is not a person. And a corporation is not a person either!" Me and that guy on "Law and Order". I was on a roll.

"Your Honor!" I expounded. "In 1886, in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, a lowly LAW CLERK by the name of J.C. Bancroft Davis -- a former employee of a railroad, mind you -- SNUCK a headnote into a decision, saying that a corporation is as good as a person. That headnote was not legally binding! And for the last 118 YEARS, America has been PRETENDING that corporations were living, breathing persons! Your Honor! That's just wrong."

I paused for breath. The judge paused for the bailiff. The Plaintiff looked worried and the Defendant looked worried too -- but by golly I was going to have my day in court! "No judge has ever ruled on this issue. You can't even cite case law on this. Can a corporation die? Can a corporation father a child?" And can a corporation receive welfare? Don't answer that.

I find it very hard to believe that every day, across this great nation of ours, thousands -- if not hundreds of thousands -- of perspective jurors are being asked this very same question and yet the whole nation-wide jury pool hasn't stood up in open rebellion when asked this stupid, cheesy question. "Does anybody have trouble with the belief that a corporation is a person?" What are we? A nation of sheep?

Needless to say, I was excused from jury duty. A corporation, however, did not step up to take my place. Why? Because a corporation is not allowed to serve on juries. Why not? Because at least someone somewhere has the good sense to realize that A CORPORATION IS NOT A PERSON!

PS: Even if this case hadn't been a legal battle between two corporations, I still wouldn't have been able to serve because the trial would have taken place during the exact same three weeks as the Girl Scout cookie selling season! My daughter's troop takes cookie selling very seriously. They have already sold 50,000 boxes and need to sell 5,000 more boxes this year.

"Your Honor, I need to be excused," I could have said, "so I can stand in front of the Berkeley Bowl for three weeks and sell Girl Scout cookies." Your Honor! It's the law! SOMEBODY has got to keep UC Berkeley students supplied with Samoas, Tagalongs and Thin Mints! - Jane Stillwater (via Information Clearing House.)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:58 PM

Craigslist: Not just one in a million...one in 3 million! (via dpnation.net)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:52 AM

Lehrer's Painful Pain Example
On Certain Doubts, Jon Kvanvig has recently posted Keith Lehrer's pain / itch argument against the thesis that we cannot be mistaken in our beliefs about the content of our own minds. Here is Lehrer's argument:

"You go to the doctor complaining of an itch. He listens to your complaint, observes the location of the itch, writes down how the problem started, and the details about physical symptoms including duration and intensity of the experience. Then he tells you that he thinks he knows what the problem is. He tells you that it’s not really an itch, but a pain. People have confused these two in the past, but we now have a well-confirmed theory that distinguishes the two in a slightly different way than "the folk" do. The theory has led to two technologies. One is a machine for distinguishing the two underlying states, and the other is medicine for treating the two conditions. Your doctor tells you that one of the medicines will solve the problem if you’re experiencing a pain, but not the itch; and the other medicine will have the alternative results. You insist that you’re experiencing an itch, but he uses the machine and shows you the results: you’re in pain, it says. If you still insist, he’ll give you the itch medicine. You do, and he does; you return two weeks later, still suffering, and ask for the pain medicine. You take it and get well. So you say, 'I guess I was wrong. It was a pain, not an itch, after all!'"

Like Kvanvig's son, I am "completely unimpressed with this example"; in fact, I actually experience a bit of pain in the form of a headache whenever I attempt to understand how this argument by itself could possibly convince anyone (Thus the title of my post). Here is my response to Lehrer's argument:

First, I want to clarify that we are speaking about beliefs about first-person experience - e.g., B: "I feel an itch." I think that it is intuitively obvious that Lehrer is wrong. Try to imagine the situation as Lehrer depicts it: You feel an itch; thus, you believe B. The doctor says, "No; bad news! I just ran the info through the pain/itch machine and it turns out that you actually are feeling pain." Doesn't it seem obvious that you would just know that the doctor is wrong? How would the doctor have calibrated the machine or tested its accuracy in the first place - presumably by matching its results with the first person reports of test subjects! What kind of info would the doctor plug into the machine in order to get results? - "How the problem started" and "physical symptoms"? But even if this info makes it immensely probable that you have a condition that would put you in pain, it is still the case that if you are experiencing an itch, then you feel an itch - not pain. Pertaining to the meds, as I ponder the situation, if the itch eventually was vanquished with the aid of pain medicine, I certainly would not thereby conclude that I must have had a pain because the pain meds worked. I would think, "thank goodness the itch is gone...that's funny that the pain medicine took it away and the itch medicine didn't." Again, how would the medicines have gotten their respective names originally; presumably by matching which medicine relieves which first personal experience.

Second, I have no problem allowing that people can sometimes confuse itches with pains - or other experiences; however, this does not establish Lehrer's thesis that we can be mistaken about the contents of our minds. If I do state that I have an itch when I actually have a pain, my mistake reflects a mislabelling of that which I am experiencing; my mistake does not reflect the fact that I was actually experiencing pain although my first person experience was of itchiness. Thus, contra Lehrer and Timothy Williamson, simply pointing out that people have confused labels of mental content is not the knock-down argument against the view that we can have certainty about our mental content itself. Perhaps it is best to restate this point using the idea of indexicals: I cannot possibly be mistaken in my beliefs of the form, "I am experiencing this now." When one begins to attempt to label the "this," he may run into mislabelling problems; however, this does not mean that he is thus uncertain that he is experiencing the "this."

By the way, I have posted a similar response to Lehrer in the comments section of the certain doubts post. Check it out here. - Jonah

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:05 AM

Sunday, March 06, 2005

Somewhere in China...
Somewhere in China a woman is giving birth. As the labour progresses, she becomes more and more anxious. Her husband looks in with a worried expression. Their gaze meets and she knows his thoughts. Her sister, who is assisting with the birth says the time is close. The mother to be closes her eyes as the pain increases. She whispers a silent prayer...not that the baby will be healthy, but that she won't have to part with it. She prays for a boy.

Late into the night, a cry is finally heard. The husband rushes in as the sister holds a perfectly formed baby girl, naked and wet. His eyes are fixed on the miracle of life before him for a moment and then he turns away, knowing he will never see his daughter again. The new mother weeps as she holds the newborn to her chest. They finally fall asleep in the moonlight as the infant nurses hungrily.

For two days, mother and baby rest in the little hut. Each hour is more painful as the bond between them grows. She knows she will have to leave soon. No one will ask where she went. No one will ask about the baby. Everyone will know. The pain in her eyes will tell the story of her baby girl.

The day arrives. She knows it is time. She dresses the infant in layers and wraps her in a red blanket. The mother leans over and kisses the tiny head as a tear falls. She hastily puts on the baby's bonnet and places her in a basket. Mother and baby leave the tiny village and board the bus to the city. Old ladies look into the basket and coo at the baby. No one asks whether it is a boy or a girl. The mother is relieved. The bus finally pulls into the city. She has timed it perfectly. It is late and no one is around.

In a dirty, dark alley, the new mother crouches down, nursing her baby for one last time. She must be well fed, for the wait may be long. She doesn't touch the baby's head as she feeds. It is mechanical now, for her own sanity. This baby is no longer her own. Quickly, she tucks the little one back into the basket and pins a little paper with the birthdate on it to the red blanket. She can see the orphanage through the opening to the alley. No one is in sight as she runs over to the steps and leaves her precious package on the concrete steps. Tears streaming now, she runs back into the alley and watches. She sobs now for the first time and prays for her little girl. Soon she sees one of the nannies come down the steps, pick up the basket, look around and then go back through the gates.

This little baby is my niece. Just about now, somewhere in China, this drama is being played out. My second little Chinese niece is being born. My brother and sister in law are going to pick up a little one year old next spring. For all who read here, please pray that this little baby, so recently born and abandoned, like thousands of other little girls, will be healthy and happy until her mom and dad can come to get her. Please pray for all the Chinese mothers who are forced to abandon their baby girls and last of all, pray for China....pray that the country will change their policies...that the love of God would spread and that all life, regardless of gender, would be valued. - gorillasinthemist

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:34 PM

Today I noticed some interesting license plates. 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:11 PM

The Sixth Dimension, a science fiction (free) online book (just released in paperback at Lulu Press) by Lee Pletzers can be read (and/or purchased) here. (via Bill Czolgosz)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 2:35 PM

Yo, 50 Cent... 

Yo, 50 Cent-

Fiddy, I know I am just a white boy, but I totally have got your back. You have had that beef with Ja' Rule for so darn long, and now you are beefing with Fat Joe and Jadakiss and, like shit, The Game got dumped from G-UNIT. So, who has your back? I do, that's who.

Sure, I am not exactly knowledgeable in the use of firearms. Actually, to be honest, I have never even fired a gun, let alone busted a cap in a deserving fool. But, I assure you, I am a quick study.

Let's face it, the preponderance of your fan base is white, like me. So with me up there, watching your back, just think of how you will connect with the kids on the streets. No, not out on the streets of Jamaica, Queens. I think you have that covered. More like the streets of Newport Beach, California. Coincidently, I was born there. And if your entourage makes a stop in the vicinity, I could give directions, as I know the streets fairly well.

No need to buy any extra bulletproof vests, either. I have been hitting the gym rather often and am confident I could fit in one of your spares. That's right, 50, I am totally ripped now. If we go in 'da club and the stripping off of tshirts is required, I will not disappoint. Of course, with my pale skin a little baby oil or such will be needed to highlight my new found definition. Bet I could even score you some shorties, given the opportunity.

Please be aware that I have graduated from college and thus am entitled by dint of my education and experience to a higher base salary than many of, um, your associates. But it is an investment well made and will likely reap the benefits of improved safety, a new found level of comfort with your white fan base and of course, more white honeys. And isn't that why you wanted to be famous in the first place?

Word,

Craig Fairwether - carbamazepine

posted by George Thomas Kysor 2:11 PM

Those ribs we ate... Were my sister's!
Dear Ady,

Last week, I was playing Hide-and-go-seek with my sister. I told her to go hide somewhere really good, and to trick her, I went to watch TV after pretending to count. She turned up missing, and so we sent out search parties - right after the new episode of Jeopardy. The search parties were to no avail, and so we finally gave up. We were devastated though, and I am so sad. The following Saturday we had a neighborhood Barbeque, and as I opened the grill to put on the ribs, I saw the mangled remains of my sister! It is a sight that will haunt me forever! I do not know how to tell the family that it was all my fault. When we were playing Hide-And-Go-seek, she hid in the barbeque! I'm afraid if I tell them this, I will spend many years in prison!

Please help,
Sulky-and-sad-Suzie.

Dear Suzie,

I cannot believe the grief you must be going through. I hope you get through it okay. There is only so much advice I can offer you, but I will tell you this: Scrub the barbeque clean! I can only immagine what a dead body would do to your steak! You must confess to what you did. You will go nowhere with your consience haunting you with this guilt (Of course in "going nowhere" I guess that also means jail!).

Hoping you a guilt-free life (in, or out of jail),
Ady Advice.

P.S. (Were the ribs good?)

P.S.S. (Vinegar and water really does the trick for washing the barbeque!)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:16 PM

This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I'm an ex-mayor. Los Angeles is sun kissed, mountain touched and a magnet for people from all over the world. Some of them run for public office. Inevitably some of them stray from the golden rule and rule for those that have the gold. That's when I go to work. My name is Yorty. My partner's Bill Parker. I'm a dead pol. - Mayor Sam

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:53 PM

Saturday, March 05, 2005

The Syrian Hoax
All Things Considered, March 2, 2005 · Robert Siegel talks with Imad Moustapha, Syrian ambassador to the United States, about Syria's intent to withdraw troops from Lebanon. He also responds to accusations that his country has harbored terrorists. (via Harry Browne)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:01 PM

XingHua XiangQi 

XingHua XiangQi is a variant of Chinese Chess or XiangQi variant. XingHua XiangQi follows International Chess rules. Objective is to enable Chinese Chess (XiangQi) players to learn XingHua XiangQi so that they will be able to play chess internationally. It is also very easy for non-Chinese International Chess players to play XingHua XiangQi. XingHua XiangQi can be converted to Blindfold Chess by flipping over the pieces. - XingHua XiangQi
 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:30 AM

I take pictures of personlized license plates and post them - VAN-T-P18

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:09 AM

Friday, March 04, 2005

The apple that tastes like Concord grapes. 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:41 PM

The Wal-Mart cheer 

When I was in high school I had a slew of odd jobs. Well, actually they weren't really odd just crappy. I worked at Culvers, taught dance to 3 year olds, worked on a cranberry marsh, and for 2 years I worked at Wal Mart. I started out as a cashier and then transferred to Softlines (aka clothing), then transferred to jewelry where, at 16, they let me pierce peoples' ears.

Some nights when we closed we would hear our store manager get on the PA and call everyone to the Customer Service counter. He would tell us about what we sold, company changes/goals etc. But on even rarer nights he would say "Who would like to lead us in the Wal Mart cheer?!" And some geeky band chick (ok, it was me) would say "oooh I would!" That person would get on the PA and stand on top of the service counter, got everyone to start clapping and yell "GIVE ME A W..." the rest of the stock boys and cashiers would groan and say "w...," then I would say "GIVE ME AN A.." and they would half-heartedly say "a" then "GIVE ME AN L..." pause "l" then my favorite part "GIVE ME A SQUIGGLY..." This is the part where all of the employees would have to pretend like they were the dash of Wal - Mart and shake their asses down to the the ground like they were doing the chicken dance meanwhile chanting back "squiggly...". The cheer went on and everyone pretty much bolted after it was over and hung their heads in shame for the rest of the night, but I loved it. - Princess Sophia Banana-Hammock

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:46 PM

Who Is Happier?
I think there's some truth to this story:

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.

"Not very long," answered the Mexican.

"But then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the American.

The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.

The American asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

"I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs. I have a full life."

The American interrupted, "I have a MBA from Harvard and I can help you. You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the revenue, you can buy a bigger boat. With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middleman, you can negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge enterprise."

"How long would that take?" asked the Mexican.

"Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years," replied the American.

"And after that?"

"Afterwards? That's when it gets really interesting," answered the American, laughing. When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!"

"Millions? Really? And after that?"

"After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your grandchildren, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife, and spend your evenings drinking and playing the guitar with your friends!"

I think the Mexican got it right from the beginning. - Fayrouz

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:06 AM

Thursday, March 03, 2005

(via The Rude Awakening)
 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:59 PM

You know you're an adult when...your back goes out
Yesterday I suddenly became 80 years old. It takes me about 30 seconds to transition from standing up to sitting down, and a minute-plus to make it from sitting down to standing up straight. Getting in and out of my car just about kills me. This morning I had to apply some strategic problem-solving skills to put on my socks. ("OK, so the immediate goal is to get all of my toes into the top cuff of the sock. If I can accomplish that, I think I'll be able to figure out a way to get the sock pulled up over my foot and ankle.") When I drop something on the floor, I spend a few moments debating whether or not it's worth the trouble of picking it back up.

I don't know why my back has suddenly gone into spasm. I wish I did, because then I could ensure that I wouldn't do whatever it was again. I guess I'll just have to plan on doing preventative maintenance-- As soon as ski season is over, I'm going to sign up for yoga or Pilates classes.

Getting old sucks! I'm not mature enough to be old! - knwd

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:30 AM

Michele is photoblogging his experiences in Singapore here. 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:21 AM

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

A terrible day in Lextown 

Today I went to work early. The day shift officers were overwhelmed by the high number of calls for service they were getting.

The big reason is that there was a murder today. A murder that was not necessary, and brutal. The Dairy Mart on New Circle Road at Bryan Station Road was robbed early this afternoon. The clerk, by looks of the video was completely compliant, doing everything that was asked of her.

The suspect, carrying a sawed off shotgun, and hiding behind a mask, took the money, then took the wallets of everyone else in the store. He then ordered everyone back to the cooler/freezer where he shot the clerk in the back. The shot went through the clerk and into another person near her. She died, the other victim received minor injuries. The other captives ran out the other side of the cooler, which, unknown to the robber, had another door. They escaped, barely with their lives, his intent was to kill the all.

Later that evening, we received a tip from a neighbor that stated that he knew who he thought the suspect was. We went and found that the person had a warrant, and arrested him on such. We questioned him while waiting for a search warrant to search the home. Of course all of this is the condensed version of chasing leads that went nowhere. Anyway, the search warrant was signed, we executed it, and found the sawed off shotgun, wallets, and cash, as well as the clothing that was used in the robbery. The suspect lawyered up quick and denied any part of the robbery/murder, but it doesn't matter, he hasn't a chance in hell of beating this rap, the evidence was strewn all through his house.

I'm upset at the brutal nature of this crime, it is fine if you want to rob the place, but why kill an innocent person who is working a shitty job for shitty pay, just because you want to. There was no reason for it, but I feel somewhat releived that he his off the street, he would've killed again. I also am thankful that the crime, while being a terrible as it was, was not worse. - nezcro

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:28 PM

College Democrats, Part 1 

Before I start, I will state that my current political stance would be that of Classical Liberalism, based on the ideas of many 19th century British philosophers, economists, and politicians. Men such as Jeremy Bentham, William Gladstone, Adam Smith, Edwin Chadwick, and Edmund Burke, who have had extensive influence on how we have [based our government].

Having not cared about politics for a good year or so, I have decided to attend College Democrats and College Republican meetings for the rest of this year. Since I have never been to a meeting where there was a singular dominant political leaning, this exploration into the world of college politics will be quite educational, as well as entertaining. I am really looking forward to going to the College Democrats meeting tomorrow for a variety of reasons.

The sheer size of the College Democrats is a huge drawing point for me. While the logic of attending a meeting for such a large organization goes directly against the fact that I haven't been one for mass politics. However, while the campus might be rated to be highly liberal, there will always be more politically apathetic persons than active ones. Therefore, the College Democrats, while much larger than the College Republicans, is not a monolithic political organization that dominates political thinking across the student body, which I could imagine occuring at a very singular-minded school. I am truly looking forward to the largest gathering I've been to at NYU that is dedicated to a single, pointed aim, that being of supporting the Democratic party.

Also, I am wondering how a Democrat would react to my set of political beliefs and reactions to the current administration. For what I'm hoping for (but not quite expecting), I will go back to a conversation I had last Friday, at a 21st birthday party for my friend Amy. Her membership in the College Democrats, and subsequent befriending of many in the organization, led to much of the crowd to be much more liberal than my tastes. Of course, I had a great time hanging out at the party, and when it came time to discuss politics (which I had so strained to avoid, simply because it was Friday night and I'd rather not have to think for once), I was almost vilified for my beliefs and, especially, actions during the 2004 Presidential election. Now, whenever I tell a left-leaning person that I did not vote in the election because I did not feel compelled to vote for any candidate, at least 90% of them would say I wasted my vote. Now, if I did not like anyone running for president, then wouldn't voting for anyone really be the waste? I have a right to express my views through voting, and my abstaining from voting, I am declaring (at least within myself) my own lack of desire for either candidate. Voting would cheapen my vote and opinion. Well, after I explained all that to the incredulous liberals, they could only nod in agreement, as I continued to blather about some sort of political ideology and economic thought, and Amy sat next to me drunk out of her mind, being superflirty. Quite the awesome juxtaposition. In any case, I just feel that there will definitely be a thing or three that any Democrat would not like about me, and I really want to see what happens when they see those faulty beliefs.

I also want to simply compare the College Democrats and College Republicans as a sort of field study analyzing two groups of politically charged and diametrically (or so it would seem from the rhetoric launched at debates between the two). In essence, it will be like observing natives in their own environment, under the guise of being one of them. I like the idea of being that sort of colonial overseer, watching from my high and mighty throne of self-described enlightenment because of my non-party political leanings. More like I want to feel better than either group by sounding extremely flowery about my political stance, but whatever. In any case, I really want to take in the various ideas that have been and are being propogated by each youth party, then accept or reject them based on whether they seem sound to me.

So, I really feel that going to these meetings will help me fully understand where I stand politically. Since my re-entry into political thinking, I have been wrestling with exactly what I believe, especially since there seems to be very little to hold onto in terms of political thought today. However, I am confident that I will find gems within both parties that will appeal to the rational, Benthamite side of me.

One last note...there are hot girls in the College Democrats. - Riazul Islam

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:50 PM

Roper v. Simons 

The U.S. Supreme Court decided yesterday that executing persons for crimes committed when they were juviniles (defined as under 18) is unconsitutional, based on the Eighth Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment. Justices Kennedy, Ginsberg, Stevens, Breyer, and Souter--formed the majority, while Justices Rehnquist, O'Conner, Scalia, and Thomas dissented.

The Eighth Amendment prohibiting "Cruel and Unusual" punishments have always presented a logical problem with the Court. Does it only prohibits punishments that are both cruel and unusual or does it prohibit both cruel punishments and unusual punishments? On surface, it appears the former interpretation is correct, since the Eighth Amendment clearly is not meant to prohibit a punishment merely because it is unusual--a punishment can be unusually lenient, for example. However, requiring both cruelty AND unusualness presents a fundamental challenge because an unquestionable act of cruelty can be widespread. For example, let's assume--after a couple of 9/11 like domestic terrorism--that the American People came to widely regard severe torture as an acceptible means of extracting information from unconvicted suspects. Let's assume further and say that these are Stalinisque hard-core tortures that everyone would accept as cruel--after all, more pain makes more efficient torture. Clearly, insisting on both prongs of "cruel and unusual" means that the Eighth Amendment would not be available to protect the tortured Americans in this instance, although the very purpose of the Amendment is to prevent exactly this sort of governmental abuse of power. In other words, insisting on strict literate interpretation creates the danger that the Eighth Amendment will erase itself should the need for it seriously arise.

To rub in the point, think Nazi Germany that had the nation-wide policy of segregating and exterminating Jews, Gypsies, mentally disabled, and criminals. Let's take the Jews and Gypsies out of the picture--to avoid getting the Fourteenth Amendment involved--and just say only the disabled and criminals were gassed. Would the Eighth Amendment prevent this from happening in America? The answer, likely, would be no IF both prongs were strictly required. I don't think most Americans would be comfortable with that notion.

Regardless, the Supreme Court has traditionally read both requirements pretty strictly, at least since the days following the Warren Court. The hook that drags the Eighth Amendment into the public conscience has been the death penalty. Because it is pretty undisputed that putting a person to death is "cruel," the focus has been on the "unusual" prong. How unusual is unusual?

To answer the question, Justices have considered the practice of states and attempted to judge where the trend is heading, with exception of Scalia, who would presumably just let the states decide--raising the question when the Eighth Amendment would ever operate. The "trend" method, while imperfect--a skyrocketting trend, for example, would make it inoperative--at least keeps the Eighth Amendment relevant.

But the trouble with reading trends, if they exist at all (like statistics, trends are often in the eye of the beholders), is that a short term trend is not a guarantee of the long term tendency. Trends often reverse themselves. In fact, there would be no need for the Court to rule against a dying practice, unless it was unsure whether the practice was truly dying. Hence the "trend" test appears to give the majority justices essentially a free hand (subject to political pressure) in determining which punishments to prohibit and which ones to not prohibit.

Is this prospect alarming? Only to the most hard-core anti-judiciaries. I don't reject the prospect of a strong, independent judiciary in our Government (although I do wish it was less ideologically appointed). What's the alternative? The "historical" interpretation of the Constitution, which would allow all sorts of governmental abuses, except those punishments explicitly prohibited by the the Founders? An absolute rule by the legislatures, otherwise known as lip-servicing politicians with 99% reelection rate who don't bother reading legislations before they are passed? Or Busho? Please.

What do I think of the decision itself? As a basic principle, I oppose the death penalty. Not from the moral but from the logical point of view: the legal system, a human institution, is not infallable--therefore, it should not be able to hand out irreversible punishments. A truly humane government, I think, should be willing to acknowledge that it makes mistakes. The arguements in favor of the death penalty are also generally weaker in case of juveniles, who are younger and more elastic than adults and therefore possess a higher possibility that they will ultimately reform and turn into good citizens. However, I have always felt that the American definition of adulthood (18 years) is a bit too high. I think sixteen may be a better age. - S

posted by George Thomas Kysor 3:07 PM

The Spencer Adventure Photoblog 

Since we were in Tennessee we had to go to "Dollywood" in Pigeon Forge. They had as many live shows as they did rides. Lots of deep fried food and colorful buildings. - Kathy & Dale
 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 2:37 PM

Teacher gone mad? 

Stuart Mantel, a high school teacher and wanna-be drill sergeant in Brick, New Jersey, was recently filmed flying into a rage when one of his students failed to stand for the national anthem. The episode ended with Mantel yanking a chair out from under the student.

"The teachers and school principal wanted him (Mantel) to press charges against us...they tried to blame it on us like it was premeditated, like we did it just to get him on tape, which is false. We knew he was gonna go nuts because he frequently used to," said Corey [the student who filmed the incident]. - SG

 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:46 PM

Budding Jordan cyber love ends in divorce 

A budding romance between a Jordanian man and woman turned into an ugly public divorce when the couple found out that they were in fact man and wife, state media reported.

Separated for several months, boredom and chance briefly re-united Bakr Melhem and his wife Sanaa in an Internet chat room, the official Petra news agency said.

Bakr, who passed himself off as Adnan, fell head over heels for Sanaa, who signed off as Jamila (beautiful) and described herself as a cultured, unmarried woman -- a devout Muslim whose hobby was reading, Petra said.

Cyber love blossomed between the pair for three months and soon they were making wedding plans. To pledge their troth in person, they agreed to meet in the flesh near a bus depot in the town of Zarqa, northeast of Amman.

The shock of finding out their true identities was too much for the pair.

Upon seeing Sanaa-alias-Jamila, Bakr-alias-Adnan turned white and screamed at the top of his lungs: "You are divorced, divorced, divorced" -- the traditional manner of officially ending a marriage in Islam.

"You are a liar," Sanaa retorted before fainting, the agency said. - Albert Wu (via Yahoo News)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:13 AM

My Life: It'd Be Funny If It Wasn't Happening to Me... 

I've had such a fun life- Got to fly an F-15 over the China Sea, retraced the path of Geronimo, learned how to decoratively fold napkins, was in the Air Force for 8 years, volunteer as an EMT, teach snowboarding on the weekends... I've lived all over the world and managed to come back relatively unscathed... This blog basically details my dating experiences - or lack there of -- interspaced with a few random thoughts and pictures. Also check out my super cute Jeep :-) COMING SOON: I'll be heading off to medical school - stick around to hear what will ineveitably be a very interesting next few years... - EmGee
 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:50 AM

Corporate media dumbs down the news [excerpt] 

Do you remember the good old days when journalists acutally worked to inform the public instead of pushing corporate agendas? I do, and so does Michael Buerk, a former BBC journalist who spoke to journalism students at Ryerson University. Antonia Zerbisias covered the talk, and provides us with a glimpse of a man who comes from the old school of journalism.

For nearly two hours at Ryerson University, he shared his views on today's news media, and in particular TV news, which he dismissed as "coarser, shallower, more trivial, more prurient, more inaccurate, more insensitive, with each passing year."

Buerk, 59, comes by his jaundiced eye honestly. He is a distinguished foreign correspondent who has reported from more than 50 countries, including a four-year assignment in South Africa from which he was asked to leave by the apartheid government.

This side of the Atlantic, he is best known as the journalist who alerted the world to the Ethiopian famine 20 years ago.

More recently, he served as one of BBC's main anchors on its flagship evening program, The Ten O'Clock News. He stepped down in 2002 but he continues to report for BBC's radio and TV networks.

Now he's promoting his lively — and often haunting — autobiography, The Road Taken.

But mostly, he laments the state of journalism in an age of 24-hour news, increased competition and corporate control, which puts financial interest ahead of public interest.

Buerk has little respect for the bottom-line journalism practiced today, as opposed to the old style journalism where people actually went where the news was happening.

But today's corporate media are not interested in serious and significant news, said Buerk. Instead, they're churning out "childish" news, dumbed down for numbed out audiences.

"A lot of thought seems to be going into making it thoughtless," he observed. "It seems to be getting both thick and thin."

The "essential paradox," he explained, is that, while readers and viewers are better educated than in the past, the media are lowering the IQ of their output.

"The new, wider definition of news embrace(s) the cult of celebrity with enthusiasm," he said. "The question (is) no longer does it matter but is this what people are talking about?"

In the end, he fears, we will be a woefully ignorant populace, unable to choose and check leaders.

"A flawed media, I suggest, leads to a flawed democracy," he warned. "Ill informed citizens cannot make proper judgments about their leaders' actions, about the actions that take place in their names, about the laws that govern them. The media matter."

Indeed they do. A flawed media is a major part of why the United States is in such a mess these days. Their corporate media whores for Bush shamelessly, pushing his lies about weapons of mass destruction, distorting the facts on social security, and willfully ignoring the incompetence and dishonesty rife within his adminsitration. - Timmy the G

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:21 AM

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Is this false advertising or a stupendous bargain? 

Screen capture 

$500.00
New Seller: willco170 (Safe buying guarantee)
Rating: (Seller Profile)
Availability: Item usually ships in 1-2 business days; Ships from TX, United States.
See shipping rates

Comments: Sharp LC-37GD6U 37" AQUOS LCD Flat Panel TV with Built-In HDTV Tuner
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$500.00
New Seller: vitalem7 (Safe buying guarantee)
Rating: 5.0 stars over the past twelve months (1 rating). Seller has 1 lifetime rating.
Availability: Item usually ships in 1-2 business days; Ships from PA, United States.
See shipping rates

Comments: Brand New
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

$600.00
New Seller: vaomor_seller@yahoo.com (Safe buying guarantee)
Rating: (Seller Profile)
Availability: Item usually ships in 1-2 business days; Ships from OH, United States.
See shipping rates

Comments: BRAND NEW item, sealed in the factory box with the full accessory kit and warranty for the next 2 year.

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:28 PM

Screen capture 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:04 PM

Photo Blog 

Milan Perveze
 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:11 AM