Life as I see it

Oh please...

2009-01-05T21:24:00.001-05:00

A friend's facebook status says, "How can a country kill 500 people and get away with it? With other countries backing them? What kind of world do we live in?"

Huh, how bout I ask a few questions myself? "How can a group of people launch missiles at random (not caring who they kill) from a heavily populated area? How can a group of people do that and then be outraged at the civilian deaths that happen when the retaliatory strikes come? How can people launch attacks from populated areas with the understanding that the civilians are a shield? Do they expect to be able to launch attacks with impunity? No, they don't, and no, they aren't surprised with the casualties. They expect them, that is what is so repugnant to me. If you want to die for a cause, well then fine, but do not put other people in the firing line!

This is a war, people are going to die. I'm not trying to make light of the problems over there, people dying is never good. I do object to the one sided approach that a lot of people have when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians. We also need to keep things in perspective. If there was a clash in Africa with this many people killed, it might make the news, but there would not be any outrage to speak of. Why is that?

For the record, I think both sides perpetuate this, but that's what the politics dictates. Neither side can be seen as being weak, so violence begets violence. Neither side has the right to be outraged, both sides knew exactly what was going to happen.

When a tax cut isn't a tax cut...

2009-01-05T20:52:00.001-05:00

I've heard that Obama wants to use "tax cuts" in order to stimulate the economy. That's sound enough, when people have more money they either spend it or save it. Either way is good for the economy. When the government has it, it tends to get wasted. In addition to that, it is not spent in the ideal way by the people that make the money. In other words, let's say that person x really wants to take a trip to Hawaii, but since he has to pay income taxes, he can't do it. This may not sound like a big deal, but if that money is not supporting Hawaian tourist services (i.e. something that people actually want) and is instead supporting, say, Lockheed Martin, that's quite a distortion. That also goes for charity BTW.... Multiply that by 200 million or so and you can see how screwed up the distribution of money is...

So OK, tax cuts are a good thing, so what's the big deal? Here's the big deal, it is only a tax cut if you both cut the taxes people pay AND lower spending. You see, every dollar the government spends it gets through taxes. So any deficit the government runs is really just deferred taxes. It sounds as though Obama wants to cut taxes AND raise spending. That is, effectively, a tax INCREASE. Any additional deficit spending is an increase in taxes at some point. It will have to be paid back at some point. And yes, inflation isn't technically a tax, but it might as well be, it has essentially the same effect...

Sports Jerseys

2009-01-01T21:31:00.001-05:00

There is something evocative about classic sports jerseys. Baseball has the Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Dodgers. Classic and iconic. Basketball jerseys have never been anything special, and football uniforms have always been dominated by the helmets. The Actual football jerseys are either no big deal or silly looking... Don't get me started on soccer jerseys, they look like race cars with all of their ads...

The one sport that doesn't get enough credit for classic looks is hockey. My team, the capitals, have a pretty tacky jersey IMO, always have... But there are some classics. The number one, the most iconic perhaps in any sport (certainly in Canada) is the jersey (or sweater as they call it in hockey) of the Montreal Canadiens. Check it out...

The current version dates from the 1950's. In the hockey world, this team is the king. They have more championships than any other professional sports team in North America. To me, it is a graphic masterpiece steeped in history. Another from that era is from Chicago...

This one also dates from the 50's and was recently worn in the "Winter Classic" today. This one has the same iconic look, but it also, as my dad noted, looks tough. There is also a newer jersey with the classic look, this one is from the Minnesota Wild.

After looking at these a little more, I wonder if my impression of "toughness" comes from their similarity to some rugby jerseys I've seen.

In any case, I would wear any of these even though I'm not a fan of any of those teams. There is something very graphic about them and they are tied to a feel from the sport that I like. So why is my team's jersey so bad in comparison?

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T07:21:00.001-05:00

I'm up early this new year for some reason, guess it's as good a way to start it as another. Like every year of my life, I'm looking forward to this one. I don't have any resolutions other than this, I resolve to let things go. By that I mean that I am not going to allow myself to become depressed over the economy and people's beliefs in how to fix it. It has been too easy to get angry over the disconnect between what people think the problem is and what they think the solution is. I can't do anything about the political/economic machinery churning away and people's blind faith in it despite what I see as its obvious failings. All I can do is try to make the most out of what I've got. I am resolving to regain my optimism. It has faded a bit over the last 6 months. I think having too much extra time to think about things is mostly to blame for that. Well, it's time to get busy with life again...

Oh, I'll still rail against what I see as obvious problems, don't worry about that! I have to keep in mind that all I'll be able to do is educate people. Things will turn out the way they will, bad policy will have bad results... In the same vein, bad habits will have bad results as well. I need to take care of the things that I can do and ensure that what results from my activities is good. Insha'alla I will remember this throughout the year and keep my sanity intact.

In some ways all years are basically the same. All that really changes is what we think of them. Here's to a good attitude for the rest of this year and for all the years to come. Happy new year!

The bailouts and inflation

2008-12-27T22:52:00.001-05:00

You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear people ask, "Where are we getting the money for all of these bailouts?" The government has several options when it wants to pay for something. In an ideal world, they would pay for things as they came up. You know, stay within their budget... In that world, if they wanted to spend more, they would have to raise taxes in order to pay for it.

As we all know, that has no relationship to our reality. Our government uses deficit spending in order to pay for damn near everything, and these bailouts are no exception. So how are we going to pay for them? Well, they could simply raise taxes and pay off the debt. Not only is that not politically viable, I believe that every man, woman, and child in this country would have to pay upwards of $400,000 each in order to erase the current debt. Not very realistic... So the government simply pays over time. In other words, they pass the payments onto future generations.

There are two other possibilities. They could simply default on the debt. Congress could decide to declare the debt null and void and that would be that, a new start! Of course there would be some really serious consequences to that action. Among other things, they would have trouble borrowing again with bad credit...

The last thing is probably the most likely. Seignorage is a time honored technique with national accounts. What is that? That is paying for things by printing money. Great! Problem solved, right? Just print more money! Well, there are some big problems in doing that. In fact, it is essentially the definition of inflation. As the government prints more and more money, the more it devalues it. In other words, it takes more money to buy the same things. The things themselves have the same value, it just takes more monetary units (dollars, riyals, etc.) to buy them.

How does this work to pay off debts? Imagine that you take out a loan for $50,000. Now imagine that hyperinflation sets in and price levels rise very quickly. Before long, you're making $7000 an hour. Why? The price of labor is just another price. It will rise along with the inflation rate or lag just behind it. It will take no time at all for you to pay off that loan.

All of this is totally opaque to the guy on the street. Rising prices are a mystery, they have no idea that the central bank is the culprit. Because of this, it isn't as easy to pin it on someone. People get upset, and they think something should be done about it, but they don't know who is to blame... Because of all of this, it is the most likely avenue the government will take to pay off this incredible debt. It may be the only way to pay it off...

Precious metals have long been considered a haven for people who want to avoid their savings dropping in value (think of it as the opposite of the loan scenario above). It isn't that gold, silver, platinum, palladium, etc. are actually worth more, but the value of the currency is dropping with inflation. Traditionally, the metals maintain their value while the currency devalues. So if the bailout continue, look into the metals!

Vanity Fair econ... ugh.

2008-12-27T15:59:00.001-05:00

A friend asked me what I though of this article in Vanity Fair. My basic thought is that you find what you look for. Everything he mentioned reminded me how much the government had screwed up. He enumerated all of the things that the government did or had power to do (Alan Greenspan, various legislation, etc.) and how disastrous they were and then concludes that "anti-regulation fanatics" were to blame for the current mess. Huh?

I think a more reasonable way to look at it is that the government either shouldn't have the power it does (via the fed) or should stop trying to compensate for its market distorting reactions to other market distorting legislation (like Sarbanes Oxely etc.). Instead of picking out one fed chair and (rightfully) complain that he screwed some things up, why not ask why a person or board has that kind of power in the first place? Instead of complaining about the repeal of Sarbanes et. al, why not ask what the markets were reacting to that made that legislation first attractive and then unattractive? I'm willing to bet that it was a reaction to some sort of legislation that caused that law to be "needed" in the first place. I'm also willing to bet that both in the enactment and the repeal of that law, they got it wrong...

His sneering at self-correcting markets is especially galling, how would he know how well they work? First off, they don't exist in the financial world. On top of that, they are never allowed to correct. No one ever claimed that perfection would result from totally deregulated markets, but they do indeed "correct" themselves. I'm ignoring the strawman that people have been chomping at the bit for totally deregulated markets. As far as I can tell, people have wanted less regulated markets, or at least minimally regulated ones.That's not the same thing at all... Anyway, it is the attempt to mitigate these corrections that causes so much widespread trouble. Trying to "fix" the result of markets only leads to other consequences. Markets only work well if the negative things are allowed to happen. Stupidity and excessive risk taking should be their own punishment....

How people can propose more regulation to fix problems that have government's fingerprints all over them really confounds me. Why does he think it is possible for effective legislation for such a complicated issue to come out of the political process? Why does he not think that even if we did get the most brilliant economists (even by his standards) running things via regulation that they would be replaced by other people eventually? If you give power to people to regulate things, the political process will make a hash out of the best intentions.

So I'm not going to attack his econ cred. I'd look pretty silly with my several semesters worth of econ vs. his nobel prize... I have no reason to disbelieve his analysis of cause and effect. I am attacking his myopic view of what regulation is capable of and of the process that creates that legislation. There isn't any reason to think that different regulations wouldn't cause other problems. This is, in a nutshell, why the vast majority of professional economists drive me crazy. They know their models well, but they confuse those things with economics.

The main point that I got out of it was "The party I don't like made some decisions that had bad consequences, so they're all stupid." His juvenile worship of the philosopher/economist technocrat getting things right blinds him to the reality of the political process. Unfortunetly, this idea of "If only we had the right people administering the right laws, everything would be fine," is probably the most widespread view out there. Sigh.... Freer markets are by no means perfect, but they are a hell of a lot more democratic. In a totally free market of exchange, the damage caused by bad decisions are mostly limited to the people involved in that exchange. In his world, if all of the politicians involved in his regulating efforts aren't blessed with perfect foreknowledge of all consequences for years to come from their regulations, we all feel the effects of their decisions.

The mess in Gaza

2008-12-27T14:22:00.001-05:00

Wow, the Israel/Palistine conflict never ceases to amaze me. I like to think that most Americans think the say way I do about this, namely that both sides are a bit crazy. The Palestinian authority, Hamas, Arabs, and Muslims in general seem to react with shock and dismay when Israel attacks Gaza after rockets launched from Gaza had been raining down on Israel. Israelis and their supporters don't understand what all of the anger is about after they kill far more civilians than combatants... The cycle never seems to end, part of me wonders if they want it to end...

I was reading through some of the reactions from official spokesperson types and feeling even more angst about the situation. Predictably, there was a lot of empty talk about how Hamas needs to stop attacking Israel and how Israel needs to stop being so heavy handed. Of course, there was also the blanket condemnation of Israel (without acknowledging any of the mitigating circumstances) from the usual suspects.

The best reaction, IMO, was from the Vatican. "Hamas is a prisoner to a logic of hate, Israel to a logic of faith in force as the best response to hate.
"One must continue to search for a different way out, even if that may seem impossible."

It does indeed seem impossible...

Total.. Geek... Out...

2008-12-27T14:13:00.001-05:00

Christmas was great! I saw a bunch of people I don't usually get to see, ate really well, and generally had a great time. As usual, people were way too good to me. Not that I'm complaining about gifts, but wow! Luckily, everyone seemed to like the gifts I got them... My gift giving was a wee bit sparse this year, I really hate not having a job!

I have spent the last couple of days geeking out with my computer. I got the latest version of the operating system for Mac. Yes, I know the new one is going to be released in the not too distant future, but I really wanted to take advantage of the automatic back-up feature. I also got a hard drive with one terabyte of storage! It's amazing, I was able to consolidate all of my drives onto one. Believe me, that makes a huge difference. Last night, I went out and bought another terabyte drive so that I could back all of that stuff up.

I also went through the various gift cards I got. There were some books, Amy Winehouse songs (shut up, I like her!), the last Wilco album, and underwear. Funnily enough, I actually asked for underwear but didn't get any for Christmas! LOL... I'll be getting my Bastiat collection (yes, I'm an econ geek) thanks to a gift card...

Anyway, a great Christmas, it's good to be back!:-)

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-24T09:56:00.001-05:00

And by that I mean Merry Christmas to my Christian friends, Happy Chanukah to my Jewish friends, and a belated Eid Mubarak for my Muslim friends. If you don't fall into any of those categories, then enjoy the time off!:-) My facebook friend list has gotten too big to be useful for these sorts of things, so this is as good as I can get for a mass email... LOL. Enjoy!

Isaac

Geek alert...

2008-12-20T00:29:00.001-05:00

Sorry, a lot of you won't get this at all... Is John Pertwee the best Doctor? I can take or leave the first two, and Baker is certainly a classic, but I am really warming up to the third one. He's the only one that didn't mind doing a little hand to hand combat. Plus, he wore a cape, how great is that? I've only encountered one truly dreadful episode from him so far (Ambassadors of Death) and he has always entertained me...

I know, in the end I can't really say I have a single favorite. There's going to be a group... The third, fourth, and tenth are probably the best ones but I haven't seen a lot of the others (other than the first). I guess all I can do is keep watching so I can find out.

Out of work

2008-12-17T15:13:00.001-05:00

This is the first time I have ever been out of a job when I wanted one. Not only that, this is the first time I have ever had to go on a job search. I have always figured out which job I wanted, then I went and got it. I have never applied for more than one job at a time before. So I'm in new territory for me.

Yeah, I could have gone back to Penn, but I'm trying to make a clean break. And I really believe that I would have gotten the job at Apple (and I still may) but for that hiring freeze of theirs. I'm seriously thinking about going back to school, perhaps getting my masters in econ. I'm still technically in the program at GMU (I think), and that with my experience in Yemen could lead to some rewarding jobs, rewarding in all ways....

Anyway, I'm looking at options. The beginning of the year is when I get serious about job searching. Honestly, I've been too out of it physically to really feel comfortable doing a job. I think that's mostly behind me now, so after the first of the year, I'll hit the ground running Insha'alla...

Hockey as you've never heard it before...

2008-12-14T12:18:00.001-05:00

Quick! Can you name the third and fourth most commonly spoken languages in Canada? The first two are easy enough, English and French. The language in third is Chinese (including all sorts of dialects) and the fourth is... Punjabi! That's pretty amazing really... But being Canadiens, the generations of Punjabis born in Canada are hockey freaks. So the CBC is now broadcasting Hockey Night in Canada (HNC) in Punjabi!

Listening to the few clips I can find, it reminds me a bit of listening to other sports in Spanish. The broadcasters don't seem to be as reserved. They defiantly add a level of excitement that the English ones seem to lack.

Anyway, it's great to see more cultures embrace Hockey. It's a great sport and this shows it can have universal appeal...

Technorati, no content

2008-12-13T00:02:00.001-05:00

Technorati Profile

Baseball and outrage

2008-12-12T18:45:00.001-05:00

People are twittering over the Yankees signing C.C. Sabathia to a $160 million dollar contract over 7 years. "How could they be so caviler when the economy is so bad? How can they spend that kind of money when there are people out of jobs and losing their houses?" It's pretty simple, signing him will make them money. If a company purchased a piece of machinery for that much money, who would complain? The Yankees aren't "showing off" or spending money for the hell of it. They aren't some spoiled rich kid spending like an idiot, they are a business and they think they are going to make money by spending this money. What's so hard to understand?

Reality is not optional

2008-12-12T14:08:00.001-05:00

The more I hear, the more I shake my head. The big three auto companies' problems are not a sudden catastrophe that can actually be avoided. Many people in DC seem to think that with just the right shuffling of money, things could be very different. They say we need to do something in order to "save jobs" and prevent a plunge in the economy. They act as if those are things a maniacal evil genius is cooking up, as if those things are something that might happen for no reason at all...

Folks, those jobs being lost and those companies' financial troubles aren't random. They reflect the way things actually are. What the people up in DC are trying to do is to change the underlying reality of things. It ain't going to happen. Those companies have already failed, those workers that are going to lose their jobs are already not needed. A prosperous economy is not based on jobs being kept alive by government fiat, it is based on people providing goods and services that are wanted by consumers. Consumers have been telling the Detroit automakers what they think for years via car sales. If those companies aren't giving people what they want (both in product and price of that product) then they aren't contributing to a prosperous economy, they are a drag on it. WHen those companies go under, or at least scale back, all sorts of resources will be freed up to go towards things that will contribute to our economy. Steel, rubber, labor, etc. will be able to be used much more efficiently.

It'll take a little time, especially in the case of the labor, but it will get sorted out. The longer we prolong the process, the more pain that will be inflicted. Let things go on their natural path, it's the only way to allow an economy to be prosperous.

Gratified and disappointed

2008-12-12T11:17:00.001-05:00

The Senate wasn't able to come together and pass the auto bailout package. For that, I'm happy. We'll see if Bush caves and appropriates money, he better not since the legislative body didn't...

I was a little disappointed that none of the objections to the bill (that I could see) were on general principle. Instead, everyone disagreed on how budgets should be cut at the companies. Some said union contracts need to come down now, some were saying executive compensation needed to come down, there were talks about how much they should guarantee their bonds, etc. Is there anyone out there that believes that the congress and the senate would make good micro managers of any business? All of those things might be needed, but the congress is that last body you want making those decisions. It looks like all of those things will happen in bankruptcy, if we're lucky...

Bailout predictions

2008-12-11T23:09:00.001-05:00

I have to say that I continue to be amazed that there is legitimate resistance to the auto company bailout. As free as both houses have been with money, I figured that this current thing was a done deal.

As you might imagine, I am no fan of this thing. There is zero chance that any sort of government appointed car czar will have a good impact on those companies... I have no idea of the bailout will squeak through the Senate or not. I hope it doesn't and it looks like there will be some sort of fight for it at least... I wonder what will have to be thrown in to sweeten the deal enough to bring enough people over to get it passed like the last bailout bill was...

Anyway, here are my predictions. If the bill passes, this will only be the first of several requests for money. Those companies are bleeding money at an amazing rate and the government is going to show them how to be fiscally responsible? It will be good money after bad and the companies will have to completely reorganize anyway.

If the bill doesn't pass, the companies will have to file for chapter 11 and they will reorganize. They will reduce their capacity, restructure union contracts, and lay off a ton of people. All of these bad things will be blamed on the lack of bailout money and not on the incompetence of management...

It has been pointed out that this is a bit of a "prisoner's dilemma." There is a ton of excess car manufacturing capacity worldwide. That excess needs to go away in order to make the industry profitable and competitive. The trouble is that every country wants the other country's capacity to shrink, so they will bolster their own. The result? All of the car manufacturers do poorly because of the excess capacity. By moving to prop up the industry, the whole thing stays bad. Yet another chapter of massive distortions caused by government. When will they learn?

Gustatory lows and highs

2008-12-08T14:20:00.001-05:00

I decided I wanted chicken palak (an Indian spinach dish I grew to love while I was in Yemen) while I was in the gym on sat. This had been an ongoing wish from me, I had been looking at various recipes for a while. So I stopped by the store on the way home to pick up the ingrediants. Got home and realized that I had forgotten the onions and garlic. DOH! It was too late to go back to the store and have any chance of eating it for dinner.

So the next morning I went to the store, got the rest of the ingredients, and set about making it. The sauce looked good out of the blender, but I could never get it to taste right. Not only that, I couldn't get it to the point that I wanted to eat it... I think the problem was that I was way out of my depth using spices like that. If I were cooking pork chops, I'd have a pretty good idea of what is going to work and what isn't. Combinations of cinnamon, cloves, bay leaves, red and green chilies, cardamon, and ginger? Not so much... I've bookmarked an Indian cooking cookbook for rank amateurs on my Amazon wish list that I will get after the holidays. I need some real guidance before I try tackling that again...

Later that night, Dad, Butler, and myself went down to VA Beach to go see Nathan. He had picked out a restaurant that he had wanted to try for a while called The Terrapin. I ordered a salad, and when I got it, I said, "OK, here we go..." It was the classic teeny-weeny thing that looked nice, but on first sight looked silly because it was so small. Well, it was tasty, and Nathan's appetizer of their fancy mac and cheese made me hopeful. The entrees were hits for all of us. They all had some sort of fish dish, I got a chicken thing. They were all decently sized and cooked to perfection. For dessert, I had a sampling of three freshly made ice creams and sorbet. Their berry sorbet was amazing....

I don't usually drink alcohol, but I do have a weakness for Cognac. I might have one for brandies in general, but so far I have only sampled some cognacs... Luckily for me, I only crave them after a really good meal, and last night was one of those times.

I ordered a Remy Maitrtin VSOP. Oddly, the waiter asked me if I wanted it on the rocks. Huh? Do people really do that? What a waste that would be.. Anyway, one of the delights of drinking that stuff is smelling it. We've all seen the brandy snifters, the proper technique (as far as I can tell) is to hold the glass in your palm to warm it and swirl it around in order to get the most out of the olfactory experience. This was the first time that I had been given a slightly warm glass, I put my nose down to smell and WHOOOSH! It was like huffing Cognac... Quite a bit more intense than I was bargaining for. I'm not saying it was unpleasant, but wow...

Anyway, it was a nice ending to a great meal. As badly as my day started off food-wise, it ended that well. Great company and great food is as good a way to end an evening as I can think of.

Most interesting sentence I read about Obama today.

2008-12-05T22:02:00.001-05:00

"I believe the Obama years will cause a crisis for progressivism roughly comparable to what the Bush years have brought upon libertarianism."

That's Tyler Cowan over at Marginal Revolution. Tyler is pretty influential in the blogosphere, and he's an astute commentator on economic issues. I think he has a decent chance of being right.

There could be a couple of reasons his thought might come to pass. None of them involve Obama not wanting to help people. Good intentions and governments do not usually make for a good combo. The most likely problem will be the typical political/bureaucratic one. The program will be founded on all the best intentions but the political process in getting it passed and the actual running of it make a mess out of it.

Even if by some miracle a program is not plagued by those problems, you can bet our old friend "unintended consequences" will rear its ugly head. See the Ethanol program for an example of that...

So as usual, I anticipate whatever government programs that come out of the next administration will be, at best, too expensive. At worst, they will inflict significant damage to the economy or to the people that the program is aimed towards. It won't be because Obama is a democrat, because he is stupid, or because they will be pursuing something evil, it will be because they used the wrong tool to get the job done. It will be because they tried to make the government responsible for things that it can't be responsible for. I can only hope that this crisis in progressivism comes soon...

Hockey and values

2008-12-05T19:47:00.001-05:00

In case you missed it, a hockey player in the NHL (Sean Avery) said a rather crude thing about his ex on TV and now has been suspended for 6 games because of it. Keep in mind that this sort of thing wouldn't have made people bat an eyelash in any of the other sports. Sure, it would have gotten some press and people would have been pissed, but nothing would really happen to them. To me, this shows what a difference there is between hockey players and all of the other players of sports in the US. A football player is in big legal trouble over an illegal gun, basketball players are constantly getting in trouble, baseball had its drug issues, etc. In the NHL, if you say something nasty on TV, you're in trouble.

"Yeah, but c'mon, those guys beat each other up all the time! The NHL thinks it's Ok for a guy to give a beat down to someone, something that would be considered assault anywhere else, but you nail him for saying something about his ex? That's insane!" Well, yeah, it is a little odd, but there is an explanation. You see, when guys fight in the NHL, it is almost always about a character issue. If you go after a smaller, talented player, the big boys will come back and beat the crap out of you. If you hit the goalie, whoever is closest to you from the other team is honor bound to start pounding on you. Occasionally, the bruiser from one team will start a fight with the thug on the other side just to get people fired up, but usually, there is a sense of justice involved in the fights. You are expected to be a stand up guy and play clean. If you're not, you're going to lose teeth...

And really, if you are going to do things like hit a goalie, make cheap shots, spear someone, or even crosscheck someone, maybe you need some sense beaten into you. The violence is almost (almost) always in response to other violence. I don't know if it is a result of the justice system in hockey or not, but hockey players are angels off the ice as compared to other sports. They are held to a very high standard by the league. So when someone does something really objectionable on the ice, the "correction" is usually pretty swift in coming. But what to do about a guy that does something nasty off the ice? You can't go jump the guy, so you suspend him and fine him to within an inch of his life.

Say what you want about the sport, but the NHL has its act together. I just wish the other leagues would learn something from them...

Funny, but not 100% correct... (Daily Show)

2008-12-04T13:36:00.001-05:00

Here's the Daily show's take on the Mumbai mess (at the end, don't know why there's so much space...)I think that's hilarious, I really do. John basically summed up my feelings when I was watching that on the news, I was yelling along too. There's only one little problem, this violence was not about establishing a world wide caliphate. This was about Kashmir.

Usually, when something big like this happens, there are political motives rather than religious ones at play. The Kashmir issue is a political one although the parties involved are split along religious lines. The same could be true of the day to day demands and goals of Al-Queda. They want foreigners to leave the Saudi peninsula, they want the US to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, etc. Those are all political issues. They use religion to attract and recruit people for political ends. We shouldn't fall into the same trap.

There is indeed religious violence in the world. Men killing woman because they aren't wearing hijab, wackos blowing up abortion clinics, etc. are all examples. Perhaps the attackers in Mumbai were indeed personally motivated by religious extremism, but the aim of the operation was to try to cause a conflict in Kashmir.

Here's my bet. I bet that if these people were referred to as Kashmiri separatists instead of Islamic extremists, we in the US would not have heard nearly as much about it. We're more willing to stomach political violence than religious violence. That's why Hitler is so universally reviled while Stalin, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-il and Mao are not thought about in the slightest.

Whenever we hear the media trumpet religious violence, we should take a step back and ask ourselves if the aim of that violence is actually political in nature. Violence should always be decried of course, but let's blame the right problems, shall we?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mumbai Tragedy

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Another crazy dream. Or maybe not that crazy...

2008-12-02T11:57:00.001-05:00

Last night, several of my friends and I were being greeted as the newest foreign members of parliament in England. Te dream was mostly about the pomp and newness of being in that sort of position.

Well, that's stupid, right? You're right, my high school and college friends would never be elected... Oh, you mean the bit about foreigners being in a legislative body? I dunno, that doesn't seem too outlandish to me. If you think about it, the reason we don't want to have foreigners in our congress is because they might pursue actions that would be detrimental to the US. How is that different than what our congressmen and senators do every day?

Let's ignore the really big things for a sec. Let's just consider the typical, run of the mill appropriations bills. How often does a senator sponsor a bill that uses federal funds to pay for things in his state? How often do our elected representatives pursue federal policy that would benefit certain businesses? You can be sure that if something is good for a particular business, it's bad for another. And any time federal funds are used for something in one state, all of the others are paying far more than that particular state.

In short, I don't see how foreigners in congress would be any more damaging than the people we already have. As a matter of fact, I can imagine that having a representative of any country that we are about to do something with (invade, trade issues, etc.) could actually help. It'll never happen of course, but trying to see the difference between "them" and our current people we've elected isn't as obvious as you might think...

Intense dream

2008-11-29T23:02:00.001-05:00

It isn't every night you have a dream about jumping into a black hole, meet a preadolescent gate keeper named Michael living in a studio apartment, jump into an icy blue sea, and end up getting reduced to component particles (possibly smaller than quarks). Woosh! It was the most vivid, intense dream I have had in recent memory, possibly ever. It was def. a sci-fi masterpiece with amazing effects, told in the 2nd(!) person, and with enough weirdness to inspire days worth of symbol grasping... Can't say it was enjoyable, I awoke with a start after I had been dematerialized. On the other hand, I was never afraid, just had a ton of adrenaline coursing through me... Here's to a good night's sleep tonight...

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T00:44:00.001-05:00

The title pretty much says it all. If things go well, I'l have two this year! That will partially make up for me missing the last two over in Yemen... I hope I'll be able to button up my pants by the end of the weekend!

So you want to shoot a video... Information across the generations

2008-11-27T00:04:00.001-05:00

Recently, I had gotten some inquires from a local museum wondering if I wanted to do a video project. When I asked what it was, I kept getting told that it was an oral history project. That sounds good, but it was a little vague. Still, the idea of shooting a documentary, however short, was appealing. I was finally directed to another museum's site to see what had made everyone so excited about getting this underway.

I quickly decided that this is yet another generational issue involving technology and information. The clips are just that, clips of people talking. Apparently, they are shown, "multi-media" style at the museum using a touch screen interface. This really impressed the people that saw this display. Here's what I saw... I saw some rather amateurish looking clips put into categories depending on what they were talking about. There was no narrative, there was no coherence, and I don't think there was much point.

When I got to sit down with one of the board members and tried to figure out what it was they wanted to do, I was amazed. They wanted to hire me (or this other guy) to run the camera and edit the footage. They also may have needed me to do the "multi-media" installation at the museum. Ummm, what decade are we living in?

I had to break it to them that it doesn't take much of a genius to record people talking, or even to string clips together. Just as digital photography has made acceptable looking images easy to get, digital video cameras have made it really easy to get acceptable looking video without knowing much.

Of course, if I shot the stuff for them, it would look much better. That's still the difference between a hack and someone that cares. Lighting and composition will always separate the men from the boys. Of course she didn't really understand what it was you need to pay for when it comes to video production like this. Like I said, shooting it is a piece of cake, editing is always work, but it wouldn't be too bad for a project like this. What you end up paying for is the ability to organize images and sound in order to tell a story, or in this case, history.

This had never crossed anyone's mind as far as I can tell. They were ready to pay me money to simply record stuff. They were then going to take those clips and put them on a screen via a touch screen interface. Like I said before, I think there is a generational gap at work here. What role do documents and information in general play in learning history? And where does that information belong?

To many people, especially older ones, the act of getting information transferred into bytes is an amazing and unknowable process. The fact that it happens at all is seen as a miracle. In their world, you need to have lots of arcane technical knowledge to do that, that's why you have to pay people for that. To people that are comfortable with these things (like everyone under the age of 25 and some of us older folks), it is as normal as putting on our shoes. For us, getting the footage or image is understood. What we want to know is what are you going to do with that info?

If teaching history is the main reason for recording this stuff at all, why are you going to stick it in a museum? A museum in Mathews county of all places... Once again, for people in the younger generations, information does not belong in a building where it is subject to opening and closing hours. It is not meant to have limited access. If you want information to be useful, put it on the web so that anyone can have access to it. At one time, museums were very good for that. Nowadays, they are much better suited for showing objects and hosting educational activities.

So I am going to speak to the board in December. I'm hoping to be able to explain the difference between recording data and using data to create something useful. I'm also hoping to convince them that any of them can run a video camera. No, it won't look as good, but it will be a hell of a lot cheaper. Sometimes quantity is more important than quality... If they do want that data to be made into something useful, the last thing they want to do is limit access to it. I will try to introduce them to the internet...

That's not really fair, they do know what the internet is, but they seem to have a very limited view of what it is. Older people tend to see the internet as something akin to TV. You tune it in and see what's on. It doesn't occur to them that they should contribute. I do wish that people would stop being afraid of technology. I'll try to do my part in a couple of weeks and hopefully if they ever want to do an actual documentary, they'll call me...