India's Walled Cities

See the picture in the article? Our private hotel was maybe 50 meters from there when we went to India back in 2004. And yes, the contrast was pretty mindblowing.

Yin/Yang

PowerLine makes a case that the offensive against Islamic fanatism has indeed helped. Notice that we don’t hear a lot about Iraq in the news anymore. No blood means no story, no story means no eyeball, no eyeball means no advertising sales.

We need to be careful, however, to avoid throwing out the baby with the bathwater. For an excellent — and chillingly believable — extrapolation of what can happen if we let our desire for security override our freedoms, read Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother novel (which you can download for free on the author’s site)

Matrixation

This is what I consider the most likely solution to the Fermi Paradox. Alien societies reach this perfect virtual reality stage and just turn inward. (I actually used this in the backdrop of DP9’s CORE Command RPG).

News Sell Drama

Seth Godin is one of the current gurus of marketing — my boss at Airborne, Andy Nulman, swore by the man, and with good reason. Seth’s blog is full of good ideas and thoughful remarks (even when I don’t always agree).

In a recent post, he discuss how the mass media sells drama, not news.

I’ve been saying this for years.

"My God, It's Full of Star..."

Or at least I hope it is for him. Noted science-fiction author and scientist Arthur C. Clarke is dead at 90. Another one that I will never have the chance to meet, alas.

UPDATE: You can find a lot more coverage right here, including a review of his life and books, and yet more links.

Nice!

This article is the sort of story that helps you restore some amount of faith in the human race.

Bravo!

Ye-ouch!

The President isn’t pulling punches in his last State of the Union address:

…Others have said they would personally be happy to pay higher taxes. I welcome their enthusiasm, and I am pleased to report that the IRS accepts both checks and money orders.

Talk about telling socialists to put their money where their mouths are!

Also, he will hopefully come through on this:

…So this time, if you send me an appropriations bill that does not cut the number and cost of earmarks in half, I will send it back to you with my veto.

And both right at the start of the address, too. Though I have my doubts that any president will manage to cut down the bloated government to size. The Iron Law of Bureaucracy remains strong and true…

So Much for Global Warming

It’s snowing in Baghdad.

Future of Flying

If we’re not careful, getting a flight to somewhere might look like this dystopian little number in the future.

Sure, the story’s exagerated. But I remember flying back in the 1980s, and it wasn’t nearly as complicated as today.

Ouch

It’s kinda deserved, though: the Canadian DMCA version of the national anthem.

As a content creator I’m all for strong copyrights, but they shouldn’t be a license to exploit customers. As Heinlein wrote:

“There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.” (Lifeline, 1939)

Left/Right

An oldie but useful one: Jerry Pournelle makes the case that the modern Left-Right political spectrum is a poor representation of reality.

I have to agree with him: though I espouse many positions on the “Right,” I also fully support many cherished ideas of the “Left.” What does that make me?

Media Musings

Is it just me, or is the stock price of the New York Time inversely matching the prosperity/security of each year?

Check how the stock laid low during the DotCom boom, then went up during the DotCom Bust, then climbed up further after September 11 and the subsequent conflict, only now coming down as the war slowly wraps up.

It might be anecdotal, but I think that it matches my usual hypothesis: mass media thrives on bad news. This explains why they will never hesitate to manufacture some if need be — gotta keep those revenue levels up! (Not that it’s working really well, mind you…)

Six Years

That’s how long it’s been. If we could go back in time and tell ourselves, on 9/12, that six years later most of the problems would be political, not military, non one would believe us. But that’s how wars go in the Internet age, where memetic weapons are often more powerful than the metal kind.

Case in point. One has to wonder, in the face of so many hard facts, why so many people still hold the opinions they do. Bill Whittle has an hypothesis that makes a lot of sense.

This is Sad

Talk about completely missing the point.

If someone steals all their cash, or there’s a disaster that removes meaning to money, those families are most likely done for. They don’t appear to be able to be able to do anything by themselves, especially not stuff that might bring discomfort.

Death of the Middlemen

This interesting pair of letters, carefully annotated by a leading editor for context, showcases the death rattles of one of many types of middlemen, in this case, booksellers. In an age of Internet marketing and sales, threatening your suppliers to increase your own profit margin is not very bright, especially when you’re bringing less and less to the equation.

(Closer to home, I hope gaming distributors and stores are taking notes. More and more game publishers are bypassing them because they’ve stopped bringing value to the system.)

Technical Stupidity

Reading this article about Germany banning “hacker tools” made me think of Richard Stallman’s 1997 short story The Right to Read. Scary as heck.

More of the Cyberpunk Future

It can’t all be cool stuff, alas. The FBI is already being used as a corporate enforcement agency, protecting megacorps’ bottom lines.

Don’t get me wrong – as someone who relies on copyright to make a living, I’m all for catching genuine pirates. That priority, however, ranks well below catching pedophiles, kidnappers, murderers, mafiosos…

Poor People

Or not.

Sorry, but I have no sympathy at all for these people. Boohoo, woe me, I only have a $1.3M paid-off house overlooking the Pacific. I need to work 12-hours days because “$10M don’t go as far as they used to.”

Listen, buddy, maybe you should examine your life a little. Why is it so important to you to compare yourself to your neighbors? I think if you did think about it a little, you’d realize you’re trying to fill the void in your soul with material goods. That is very sad.

(Personally, I’d love to have $10M in the bank and a paid-off house. We could live off the interests, raise rescued dogs, blog all day, build models, travel…)

End of an Era

The Weekly World News is stopping publication — where else will we find our news of the weird and improbable, conveniently sold at the supermarket checkout line?

A friend and I once tried to send them submissions (me writing, him on Photoshop), but they didn’t deal with outside sources, alas.

Living the Cyberpunk Future

Following on this previous post, here’s more!

Holograms? Not quite, but close enough for now!

A prosthetic foot that replicates the functions of a human one, much like the i-Limb hand.

(Mis)Quoting

This article explains why I try to avoid talking to journalists. I was misquoted in a major way when interviewed over my high school’s gaming club, and I never got over it.

Never forget that the media isn’t there to tell the truth — their purpose is to attract eyeballs. Always follow the money!

This is Why I Don't Like to Fly Anymore

Not only do the screeners lack the training to recognize a harmless device (and thus probably cannot spot a harmful device, either), but they ignore another piece of luggage completely while working the guy over.

They rely way too much on trying to get a guilty reaction out of people, and not enough on using their heads. Psyching people out only works if you have the proper training, like the El Al folks do.

Dr. Death

Two of the five terror suspects being held in the wake of the failed car bombings in London and Glasgow are hospital doctors working in the UK.

Guess we can rule out poverty and oppression as motives, yes?

UK Attacks

Nope, no Islamic terrorism problem in the West. Just the odd crazies that just happen to all hail from the same cult.

Left-leaning sites are either ignoring the attacks or saying it’s a government psy-op. Uhu. Occam’s Razor, which is more likely:

1) A conspiracy involving several bureaucrats and government officials, who somehow manage to keep everything hidden from other government officials and an inquisitive press (and bloggers!) that would like nothing more that to blow the whole thing open (showering any snitch with tons of money in the process), or:

2) A bunch of openly murderous fanatics that are already killing people worldwide (do a search for Indonesia and Thailand, not to mention the Middle East), and who openly wish to take down Western society?

And of course, it’s all our own fault, in the end. Never mind that the violence started well before any Western involvement in the Middle East, let alone the Afghan/Iraq invasions…

Business Suicide

If Prince wants to give away his latest CD, I don’t see how it’s the record stores’ business.

The middlemen have gotten too big for their breeches. They used to control access to the market; new technologies mean they don’t, anymore. Now, they’ll have to justify their percentage of the sticker price like everyone else. If they don’t bring anything to the table, why should they get a share of the pie?

Bots on The Ground

Here’s an interesting article about combat robots and the soldiers that use them.

If Project 5 ever gets off the ground in game form, I’ll have to include some form of morale rules for this.

Seeing The Unseen

Bill Whittle is at it again with another long essay. This time, he tackles the 911Truthers and other conspiracy theorists, wielding Occam’s Razor with great skill.

Memetic Warfare 2

Another article on the subject, making links between the Cold War’s Stalinist dezinformatsiya and the modern Left. Very interesting hypothesis.

UPDATE: Interesting comments on the post — the memes are powerful because they are partially true.

Gathering of Eagle

There was an anti-war manifestation in the U.S. capital yesterday. Not hard to know, it was well covered by mainstream media.

However, there was also a counter-demonstration in favor of the war. Apparently, that second group was larger and better organized, yet there was virtually nothing in the papers about it. Why is that?

Theory #1: Journalists are incompetent. They missed it.
Theory #2: Journalists are trying to shape the narrative. They don’t want you to know about something that goes against their script.

The funny thing is, in both cases there is zero reason to keep following the mainstream media. Let them go out of business, replaced by someone else who will report truthfully on the world, regardless of their own personal views.

Why the Media Passes Off Bunk as News

This is why I don’t trust the media. They’re not in the news business anymore, they’re in the advertisement business. Whatever attracts the eyeball is good, even if it’s not true.

We're Living The Future Already, Part 2

Armored clothing is a staple of near-future science-fiction, especially in gaming (our Cyberpunk 2020 characters used to wear multiple layers of bulletproof T-shirts, vests, dusters…).

And now it’s here for real. Trippy…

We're Living The Future Already

An AI (well, more of an expert system) has been busted for practicing law without a license.

That’s the kind of stuff that used to pop up in cyberpunk and transhumanist litterature. And now it’s here for real. Cool.

Faith and Science

See the difference between the two, as exprimed through a flowchart.

(Via BoingBoing)

A Pack, Not a Herd

Passengers subdue an armed hijacker who obviously didn’t get the memo: you can’t hijack planes anymore, at least not without killing the entire crew and passengers first.

(The title of the post is from a common Instapundit saying; people working together, defending themselves, are a pack. A herd, those waiting on authorities to save them, are defenseless. We need to be packs, not herds.)

Weird: Zeus is Back

Apparently, the cult of Zeus is making a comeback in Greece. This is especially weird since I just finished reading Olympos by Dan Simmons.

The Year in Review

At Pajamas Media, a blog consortium. As always, Caveat Emptor.

Singularities And Nightmares

Well-known scientist and SF writer David Brin posted a long article about two possible futures: Special Report: Singularities and Nightmares. Long but worth the read.

I labelled that one “Society,” because even though it’s mostly about science, the coming technological developments will affect the lives of all of us.

Hypocrite

This is exactly why I wince whenever U2’s Bono asks Western nations to contribute more to the cause du jour.

“Do as I said, not as I do.”

I see no problem with trying to reduce one’s taxes by following the law — we all do it. It’s the nerve to ask people to do something he himself is not willing to do, even though it’d certainly be easier for him than most us.

The Rules MUST Be Followed

Even if they don’t make any sense.

Jobsworth or CYA? It’s hard to tell sometimes.

Shootings

Another school shooting where the attacker ordered some people out of the room before killing the rest (and himself, of course).

I wonder if people are going to start thinking that, just like for airplane hickjackings, the best possible course of action for survival is no longer to comply with an attacker’s orders but to outright fight back right away?

UPDATE: seems I’m not alone — other people are also wondering what the future holds, following these incidents.

Dawson

I started to write an entry about today’s Dawson College shooting, but then I decided not to post it. What’s the point? People convinced that gun control is the ultimate answer are never going to be swayed, no matter how good the arguments.

It’s an emotional thing, not a logical one.

And a personal thought: I wish the bastards stopped offing themselves before we have a chance to get medieval on their asses. It happens virtually every shooting, dammit.

fifth anniversary

Already. Some things have improved, others have worsened. I don’t know whether it’s because I’ve grown older or more mature, but I’ve sort of accepted the world in its new state.

I wish solving this was as simple as turning the channel, as we did tonight instead of watching the 9/11 remembrances. But it’s not. On the other hand, there’s little I can do about it all but live my life fully, work out, keep an eye out for trouble, and hope for the best.

In short, what most human beings have done for countless millennias.

A thousand years from now, when sentient starships and their post-human crews cruise the stars, all this will be a dimly remembered speedbump on the road. Between life and death, hope and despair, liberty and slavery, the former always win in the long run. I’m a patient man.

(Like previous years, no open comment because it’s not a topic I want to discuss.)

Crickey!

It had to happen at some point. Steve “Crocodile Hunter” Irwin has been killed in a stingray attack while swimming off the coast of Australia.

Sooner or later, the odds always catch up on you.

Godspeed, mate.

it had to happen eventually

Jihadi-style videos have been found online, only this time it’s Britons threatening Muslim beheadings in the footage.

If people feel threatened, and they perceive that their government is not doing its #1 job (protecting the governed), some are going to take the duty into their own hands. And they may choose to fight fire with fire.

The 21st century is going to be ugly, folks.

Racial Divide

This can’t end well.

Who’s bright idea was it, anyway?

Propaganda

News agency Reuters has been caught red-handed photoshopping news pictures.

This is why I prefer to rely on blogs and local Web sites for news. They also have agendas, but at least they are honest and upfront about them.

UPDATE: Here we go again, though no Photoshop is involved this time. Only Lebanon’s Busiest Rescue Worker™ (AKA Green Helmet Man) and the usual contingent of conveniently placed corpses.

UPDATE 2: Reuters is in full damage control mode. A good start, but I don’t think it will be enough to save their credibility. And in the news biz, credibility is everything.

The monster's dead

The deed is done. al-Zarqawi is dead. There’s a little bit less of evil on this planet today.

Of course, both the Left and the MSM will yell that they were waiting for the right moment to kill him, in this case to cover up the Haditha affair.

Well, let them say what they want. The chief headchopper is gone, and the world is a better place for it.

Great, they're homemade now

A terrorist ring was just smashed in Toronto. They possessed three tons of explosives, enough to blow up a big building. Rumors go that their target was the CSIS main office, near the CN Tower.

Maybe this will wake some people up around here. I hope it won’t take the tower coming down to do so.

News doctored for gains? say it ain't so!

The UK Times has used pictures from a terrorist attack to create a more gripping report in the Haditha coverage.

And journalists everywhere wonder why circulation is down and they’re losing respect. Hint, folks: stop lying to us. Print the facts, and only the facts. If you screw up, be honest about it.

Not that hard, is it?

(Previous entry on the Haditha affair.)

The Big Picture

I see that people are incensed at the possibility that US marines may have killed civilians in Iraq. As well they should.

But when they use this to tar the entire army, they’re missing the big picture. Warriors everywhere have always committed atrocities; in fact, to the civilians of old, there was often little difference between the treatment they got from the enemy and from their guys on their own side.

We should rejoice that now, not only are fewer soldiers than ever implicated, but they’re being called on it by their own forces. When’s the last time an Al-Qaida operative or a Baathist officer got a murder rap for killing civilians?

Leave it to the so-called ”progressives” to see a glass almost full (whereas it was nearly empty before) and put a negative spin on it.

Interesting times

I’m looking at stuff like Ayaan Hirsi, a moderate Muslim, being forced to leave Europe and take refuge in the US, Iranian imams openly preaching the use of ABC weapons, and now the US Senate proposing to accept 100 millions immigrants over the next 20 years*, and it seems it’s time for me to again take a vacation from the news.

May you live in interesting times, say the old Chinese curse. Don’t you miss the 90s?

—-
*That’s 25% of the current US population, virtually impossible to assimilate in that short time. In effect, creating a country within a country — a non-violent conquest with the collaboration of the invadees.

Some Warrior Culture you got there, fanboy

I think even I, an untrained nerd, was more “soldiery” when I played paintball.

I guess that largely explains why they stick to ambush and IEDs rather than face professional soldiers on the field, though.

Evil is stupid

For a terrorist mastermind, he could at least learn to work a gun properly. Guess it’s just easier to lay down an IED or saw off a bound man’s head. Some warrior culture you got there, yessir.

(Nice respect for the gun safety rules, too - he points a gun right at a subordinate while turning.)

OpFor

The Officer’s Club military blog is no more. They have moved over from the free Blogspot service to a site sponsored by Military.com under the brand new name of OPFOR.

This is an interesting blog to read because the writers are a group of soldiers, many fighting overseas. Get your news (good and bad) from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

Yuri's Night

I couldn’t access the Movable Type control panel yesterday, so I’m a day late posting this:

45 years ago today, on April 12th 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to reach space. Two decades later, astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen rode America’s new Space Shuttle into orbit. Tonight, people everywhere will be celebrating human space travel with Yuri’s Night space parties!

(via BoingBoing)

Cartoon Wars, Part II

So Comedy Central caved in and didn’t show the second part of the Cartoon Wars episode. Well, they did, but they obscured the image of Mohammed, apparently on purpose. No real matter, it works with or without — the message comes out strong (I especially liked the disbelieving look President Bush gives the press gallery when they ask “First Amendment? What’s that?”).

The funny thing is, CC have shown a South Park cartoon with Mohammed in the past (The Super Best Friends episode) - he’s right behind Jesus in the picture.

Of course, five years ago no one threatened to cut off heads if a mere cartoon was published.

Gaming the System

BoingBoing just published a list of the best-paying Google ad-words for the time being. Interesting: they seem to be divided into three gross categories, mesothelioma, mortgage, and (of course) lawyers.

According to Wikipedia, mesothelioma is an uncommon form of cancer, usually associated with previous exposure to asbestos. The latter means that someone can be sued for it, which probably explains the word’s ranking (especially coupled with lawyers). Mesothelioma usually occurs in the lungs, but can happen in the abdominal cavity (peritoneal mesothelioma).

The second category is loans and mortgage, which is not surprising considering how debt-driven our consommation society has become. The links will tell you how to consolidate loans and other related financial stuff, such as refinancing mortgages. There’s money to be made “helping” people who are down on their luck. Again, the greedy are circling (I’d say vultures but I like the critters too much).

And speaking of bottom-dwellers, the rest of the most popular keywords are, of course, links to tax attorneys and car accident lawyers. Ugh.

All those links are probably going to be clicked by people down on their luck or in trouble, maybe even desperate. Kinda sad, but that does explain the high rates… The returns are probably even better. In the United States, the average mesothelioma-related settlement was $1 million, for example, and up to $6M if won in court. Worth paying for the exposure.

UPDATE: A reader emails to say that some of the links that now appears in the sidebar refer to the topics above. But when clicked, they lead to custom-made pages with, you guessed it, more sponsored links, not any actual data! Those really are valuable words. The mind boggles.

Disturbing

Okay, everyone who knows me know that I’m pretty pro-American overall. They’re loud, they can be obnoxious, but overall they’re good folks. I like having them as neighbors.

But this is going a bit overboard. These folks don’t just try to hit emotional and patriotic buttons, they mash on them. Repeatedly. With a hammer. Two-handed. Leaning into the blows, even.

Quiet strength, dudes. Quiet pride. A little less jingoism goes a long way…

(Via coworkers)

The Ant and the Grasshopper

The post-modern, socialist version of the fable, of course.

(From Damocles Society)

We'll Always Have Paris 2

I’m just glad my wife got to see Paris before they burn it into the ground.

Hopefully we can salvage the good stuff unharmed, like the Mona Lisa. Pity for the rest, though.

Civil War in Iraq?

Not quite, sorry. But it’s not like the mainstream media hasn’t been fervently wishing for it since the end of the original invasion.

I’m not surprised, personally. Bad news sell more than good news. And when’s the last time someone won a Pulitzer with an upbeat story?

(I write that last line knowing full well someone will hit Google and prove me wrong within seconds. [sigh])

Happy News

I can’t believe it took that long for something like this to appear.

I’ll have to add it to my daily bookmarks.

Bio-Terror

InstaPundit has had several posts recently about the possibility of terrorist bio-attacks (see also the DefenseTech article). While I agree that the means to do so are becoming more widespread and accessible, I worry about it a lot less than he does.

I believe that if just one group uses a bio-weapon, we’re going to see a manhunt of epic proportions against all terrorists, because everyone is at risk if such a weapon gets out of hand (viruses don’t respect frontiers or ethnic group). It’s similar to the reaction versus hijacking a plane — people now react at the slightest threat with overwhelming force; you simply cannot take the chance.

We can try to ignore the bad guys when they blow up people halfway across the world. When they start pissing in the common pool, however, they seal their doom, and I think that even those crazed theocratic fools are aware of this.

And Now, the News...

More often then not, it seems to me that [the Media] are either making the news, sexing up the news, or just making shit up.

Great quote. The rest of the article ain’t bad either.

Revisiting the Crusades

Here’s an article on the real history of the Crusades. What most people believe was a series of holy wars between fanatics turns out to be more of a desperate defense against an expansionist new faith. Interesting stuff which ties in with a lot of today’s issues.

Oscar Night

No, I won’t be watching it. Got better things to do with my time than watch a bunch of pampered, self-important actors pull a muscle patting themselves on the back.

Plus, apparently this year all the winning movies are going to be the ones with “important social messages.” I wish Hollywood would remember the words of one of its founding fathers, Samuel Goldwyn:

“Pictures are for entertainment, messages should be delivered by Western Union.”

No wonder box-offices are down across the continent.

Fight Fire with Hotness

Now this is more like it.

That’s the real way to fight terrorism — make our side so appealing that the bad guys won’t find anyone to carry their bombs for them.

Actually, considering how dreary Wahabism is, that’s not hard to do. We just have to, you know, actually do it.

Toonophobia

Basically, an irrational fear of blasphemous line drawings.

(From the always excellent Cox & Forkum site.)

Sweden Switching?

Well, well, well. Seems like our Swedish friends are starting to figure out a few things about how the real world works.

It’s a little early for Schadenfreude, but it’s going to be fun discussing politics with leftists when one of their favorite examples comes over to the dark side.

The End of the Gun Registry?

There’s serious talk about cancelling the Canadian gun registry.

Goodbye and good riddance. The only thing I want to see is an investigation on where the $1B budget went - there’s only so much paperwork, computers and staffers you can get, where did the rest go? (My first suspicions are the Liberals’ pockets, but it would be nice to confirm it.)

That thing never served any purpose. Criminals don’t register guns! About the only thing it’s good for is to find out who was the original owner of a stolen gun. As in “let’s find a scapegoat for that crime since we can’t put our hands on the real culprit.” It’s always easier to look for one’s lost keys under the street lamp, after all.

Cartoon Wars

I’ve avoided talking about the Danish cartoons because, frankly, there isn’t much to add that hasn’t already been said elsewhere.

(For an historical perspective, zombietime.com has a compilation of images of Mohammed from both the Islamic and non-Islamic world that shows the hypocrisy in the current outrage.)

I think we are moving ever faster toward an inevitable cultural confrontation. We can live with them, but they can’t live with us. Dr. Sanity articulates why.

Trigger Happy

This sort of thing is why I’m usually nervous whenever there’s policemen nearby. I know they are here to protect us, and that most of them are good guys, but I can’t help to think that one of them could shoot me in cold blood and walk away unscathed.

(In fact, it happened here in Montreal, a few years’ back. A young shoplifter, under arrest on the ground, got a bullet in the head. “Trigger slipped,” they said. Right. I think the policeman is still on the beat. The shoplifter is still dead, of course.)

Election Day in Canada - 7

A few days ago, during the elections, I mentioned a hypothesis that I’ve read elsewhere: people in the very large cities voted (Libs/NDP) because they were used to depend on the government more than the people in rural area.

Small Dead Animals posted a different but related hypothesis today. Basically, people in the city tend to rent rather than own, and also to call on others to fix stuff for them. When people own more (house, responsabilities, etc.), they come face to face with the true cost of things and tend to become more conservative. Anyway, that’s a gross simplification of the argument — please read the full entry.

It certainly worked that way for me. The older I get and the more bills I pay, the more I drift to the Center/Right. Thoughts?

Happenins'

In between taking care of the dog and its teeth, I’ve been reading political blogs all night (such as andrewcoyne.com and Angry in the Great White North). Things are definitely happening up here. Too bad I don’t follow politics closely enough, I don’t even have a potential cabinet to pitch like other bloggers… And they’ve already analyzed the election results in depth, so nothing to do there either.

In the meantime I’m also getting a little Schadenfreude going over the Palestinians’ plight. Talk about making your bed and lying in it!

Google in China

You may have heard that, in order to gain access to the huge Chinese market, Google has agreed to censor their search results to hide things the ChiComs find distasteful. Pretty bad.

But blogger Rebecca MacKinnon notes that apparently, each blocked search will also include the line “some search results are not displayed according to local policies.”

So at least the Chinese will know that they are being blocked, and maybe they’ll get pissed about it. Anything that gives a black eye to their oppressive government can only be good, in my eyes…

UPDATE (via Vodkapundit): Oops. They’re new at this “evil” business, aren’t they.

Biais in the Mainstream Media?

You don’t say. In other news, dog bites man, sun rises in the morning. Special dispatch: the sky is blue.

I have long blamed the Nixon-Watergate affair, myself. When journalists started to want to change the world rather than just report on it, the media as a whole became suspect.

Not because of the biais itself, mind you — all humans have opinions, and they’ll show through the work no matter what. No, because the media continue to assure us they are impartial, when they clearly are not.

Who Watches the Watchers?

Bloggers do, apparently. I’ve been following the story of Cory Maye at the Agitator for the past few days.

Short story: while researching an article, the blogger came across the case of a man who shot a police officer during a drug raid and was condemned to death for it. The only problem is that the man had no prior record, was not named in the warrant, was not a drug dealer, and basically just shot – in self-defense — a black-clad intruder who broke down his door in the middle of the night. The more bloggers dig, the more this sounds like sloppy policemen covering themselves and exacting a little revenge. Ten years ago, the man would be toast. Today, he has at least some hope.

I once read an essay that said mankind is made up of sheeps, sheepdogs and wolves. Sheeps are most everyone: happy, productive, non-violent. Wolves are the bad guys: terrorists, criminals, gangbangers. Sheepdogs are the policemen and soldiers: good people like the sheeps, but they share some traits with the wolves that allow them to effectively deal with the latter. The sheeps don’t much like the sheepdogs, because they look like wolves and are often scary (they bark to keep the sheeps away from the wolves), but sheepdogs keep them safe.

Sheepdogs are sometimes tempted not just to bark warnings at the sheeps, but also give them a little nip with their teeth to get them back in line. It’s easier and faster. But it’s also wrong. In my eyes, no matter how well intentioned, the sheepdog that bites a sheep has crossed over to the wolves and needs to be taken off guard duty.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this…

Anti-Speeding Devices?

Good luck trying to install one of these devices in my wife’s car.

Or any Montrealer’s car, for that matter.

A (Very) Bad Mood

While I’m not as pissed as this guy, I can certainly understand where he’s coming from. Still, yee-ouch…

Inspired by Cato the Elder, I’ll say: Delenda Est Islamism (Islam itself can stay if it learns to play nice with others).

Terror in Jordan

There has been a triple terror bombing in Jordan. Jordan is a fairly modern Arab country, the only one that has a peace treaty with Israel. Now they’ve become victims of the Islamists as well.

I think it shows how much progress we’ve been making in this war. The beast is now lashing blindly in fury, damaging people that are nominally on its side. Like the Iraqui and the Lebanese before them, the Jordanians are pissed now, and are moving toward the good guys’ side.

Not the smartest move, these bombings. More proof that we’re dealing with sociopaths, more interested in killing than actually spreading their ideology.

Pay the Danegeld...

…the Dane never goes away.

French Prime Minister announces raft of measures for riot-hit poor suburbs.

It’s obvious that guy never owned a dog. “Bad puppy, crapping all over the living room. Here’s a bone.”

So, same time, next year?

Paris is Burning

I’ve been to France several times in my life. I was in Paris not a month ago, and it pains me to read how the riots are spreading across Europe. But it’s a classic case of reaping what you sow.

The original idea was to get fresh young workers (since the French stopped making babies) who would take the blue collar and service jobs, supporting the “civilized” natives who would get the cushy office and management jobs. Obviously, it didn’t work as planned. For one, the French forgot that people want hope and upward mobility in their lives, especially if they see others having it better than them. It doesn’t matter being poor if you live in the slums, where everyone’s poor, but when the neighbor has a shiny new Mercedes… But the French kept looking down on immigrants, and worst yet didn’t force them to assimilate. As long as they spoke “civilized” (i.e., French), that was enough. They ignored the imams’ sermons, the formation of ghettos, the lack of Western values.

I don’t like Islam. I don’t hide it. I think its worst sects are a memetic infection in Mankind’s collective psyche, and one that puts the future of this species at risk. An incoming asteroid won’t care that you made your pilgrimage to Mecca or that you can recite the complete Koran by heart — the only way to affect it is whith hard science and harder work.

Now, because Europe refused to sterilize the tip of the limb because it wouldn’t look good and it would sting, they now face the possibility of having to amputate. We must eradicate the infection, but I keep hoping that we can save the limb. Under the hatred and the fanatism, those Muslim youths are still human beings, after all.

In the end, though, we might have to face the hard choice, and accept the scar.

UPDATE: An interesting point-by-point comparison of Islam to cults, including brainwashing, leader worship and so on. Placed side by side, the data is frightening.

What Do You Call This?

Progress.

(You know, I used to have a lot of respect for the UN — read Jovian Chronicles, for example. That was before I learned about the genocides, the rapes, the Oil-for-Food affair… heck, I could be here all night.)

Piglet Time

Sounds like it’s time for some guerilla marketing in the UK.

Buy some pig-shaped stickers and leave them everywhere.

Buy some cheap plastic pigs, leave them on high walls, shelves, behind windows, any place that is hard to get to.

Stencil the words “pig”, “pork”, “bacon”, etc., in chalk on the sidewalks.

Heck, if a pig farmer is willing, “accidentally” let loose a whole troop in the neighborhood. Those truck latches just ain’t sturdy, you know…

The Blogging Tide

How do you know you scare someone? They try to undermine you.

Unfortunately for the journalists, smeared interviewees can now fight back with at least as much exposure. Having been a victim of agenda-driven journalism in the past (back in high school), I can only wish I had a blog and the Web as a forum back then.

News from Over There

Michael Yon has a new report from Mosul, with particular emphasis on how the Iraqi forces are doing. It’s news from someone on the ground — not someone holed up in the Green Zone’s Hilton buying staged propaganda pictures from terrorist-associated freelancers.

Information Wants to Be Free

Apparently, the UN and EU want to take over the Internet, saying that it’s an international resource. Of course, the real question is: what would they change, if they were in charge? Why not just go through the actual process at ICANN, to make said changes? What exactly do they want to do, that ICANN won’t let them?

As one guy said on Slashdot: China wants to take down Tibetan and Falun Gong Web sites. Germany wants to ban neonazis from the Internet. Arab nations want to kick off Israel until it “fulfils its international obligations” (whatever that means). Etc. Information is power — control it and you control the people.

Sorry, folks, you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Mankind is at last breaking free of the chains put on it by kings, priests and warlords.

We’re not about to let you re-weld the shackles, eh?

The Death Impulse

I’m reading about the (suspected) suicide bomber at UO, and it got me to thinking.

A gene set which told an animal to eat its youngs in order to avoid starving would go extinct in short order. It rewards the wrong behavior.

The more radical sects of Islam have the same problem. Plenty of oppressive rules, and all the rewards are found after death. So not only do they cut off a major part of their productive potential (the women), but they also discourage work, efforts, innovation and upkeep. Why bother? The Koran is perfect, and beyond praying little of what you do here on Earth matters. (And while prayer is surely good for morale, it has never built a house or a computer.)

Islam, in its radical forms, is going to go the way of the dodo no matter what. We just have to be careful not to be dragged down with it.

Better All the Time

Sure, there are always bad news, but you can’t let it drag you down.

Now when a better tomorrow is just around the corner. And I do mean very near the corner, right in our lap in some cases.

You Can't Make That Stuff Up

Yahoo News post this Associated Press report:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - More than three dozen Palestinian police officers broke into the parliament building in Gaza City on Monday, firing in the air to protest a lack of bullets and equipment in what they said was a humiliating confrontation with Hamas.

(Emphasis mine.)

Memetic Warfare

One of the concepts often seen in the newest descendant of the Cyberpunk movement (the “Post-Singularity” movement) is that of memetic warfare. That is, conflict conducted not with weapons, but with words, publications and ideas. For futuristic examples in written fiction, read Fairyland (where nanobots literally implanted new behaviors in its victims) or Snowcrash (where primitive words had the power to scramble minds).

From the comments at LGF, I came across an interesting look at current memetic war effort. The author proposes that most (if not all) of the world’s current issues come directly from Stalinist info-warfare going back as far as the 1930s. Chilling and all too believable.

The question is, how do we cure the infection?

I Kinda Like this Picture

Really, that poster just says it all.

Not sure the other side quite understood the message, however. They are getting very good at ignoring facts that don’t fit their worldview.

(But like I always say, “wishes in one hand, crap in the other, see what piles up first…”)

Missing Boys

Instapundit wonders why there are fewer and fewer men in higher education than women. I have a few theories (in no particular order):

1) Men (and masculinity in general) have a bad reputation. We’re the “oppressors,” the ones who get all the breaks in the patriarchal society. Therefore, we don’t get any help when things get hard.

2) Many of the traditionaly masculine jobs (engineers, etc.) are moving overseas or seeing increased competition from immigrants and women. Why spend years in college when the job won’t be there?

3) The breakdown of the nuclear family. Girls get drafted to help the single mother, the boys get left to themselves. Without parental supervision, they may not develop the required discipline. And, of course, single-parent households may not have the money to send their boys to college.

4) Lack of proper role models. Being a star athlete or a rapper is seen as a valid career, the fast-track to fame and riches. Being an engineer? Not as cool. (Especially since the end of the Dot.com boom.)

5) The learning format may not be suited to men. Too many discussion workshops, not enough lab sessions. Men learn best by doing, but with today’s high technology, this is not always possible. In the old days, you could learn engineering by tinkering with a car. Not so today.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Don’t be afraid to discuss this in the comments — the above is meant as a discussion starter, not necessarily hard-held opinions. And thanks for dropping by!

Sad State of the Fourth Estate

Jeff Goldstein shows, with much proof and citations, why the modern media are either incompetent or untrustworthy, and probably both.

Four Years

It’s the fourth anniversary of 9/11 today.

We’re making huge progress, but the job isn’t done by far.

Ghouls

So I hear that CNN sued to show bodies from the hurricane. Apparently, the people need to see grotesque decaying corpses on prime-time TV.

Funny, they didn’t want to show bodies on 9/11.

The media is supposed to be impartial, reporting only the facts. They are becoming increansingly politicized, and this is going to hurt them in the long run.

UPDATE: Instapundit writes: The press wants to show bodies from Katrina. It didn’t want to show bodies, or jumpers, on 9/11, for fear that doing so would inflame the public. I can only conclude that this time around, the press thinks it’s a good thing to inflame the public. What could the difference be?

What, indeed?

New Orleans Outpost

The Interdictor is blogging daily from his post at the last functioning ISP in New Orleans, in one of the skyscrappers. Plenty of pics, too. More instructive than any official news outlet.

New Orleans Flood Help

Here are some places you can donate to Hurricane Katrina relief (from Instapundit — I can’t vouch personally for any of them except the Red Cross):

The American Red Cross (not to be confused with the International one).

Catholic Charities is involved, and probably has lots of resources to draw on in the heavily Catholic New Orleans area.

Austin Bay is recommending Episcopal Relief and Development.

Liz at Rightalk suggests that animal lovers donate to the Humane Society (low priority, folks).

Here’s a link to Mennonite Disaster Services. The Sanity Inspector says they’re highly efficient.

Instapundit reader Peter Viditto recommends The Mercy Corps.

Here’s the link for Methodist Relief.

The Salvation Army does good work. (WalMart just gave them a million dollars, but that’s just the barest beginning of what’s needed.)

Hugh Hewitt recommends Samaritan’s Purse.

Scott Ott recommends Southern Baptist Disaster Relief.

Instapundit reader Jay Allen has a further suggestion: “I would suggest people donate through their companies whenever possible. Most major corporations offer matching funds to the dollar for charitable donations. Find who’s collecting money for relief efforts, then file for a match through your employer instead of sending to the agency directly.”

Chuck Simmins is tracking corporate donations.

Technorati Tags: flood aid, Hurricane Katrina

An Interesting Comparison

I came across this picture the other day. Sadly, it remains very accurate.

Why aren’t feminists all over this?

Courage

As Discovery orbits above our head, the first time a shuttle has flown since Columbia, please take a moment to read about Courage.

Not too Bright, are They?

If the Islamists thought they could reproduce their success in Spain in the UK, it has backfired badly.

Citizen Journalists

With relatively high-resolution cameras and the associated digital storage becoming standard on more and more cell phones, we’re going to see this happens more often. And that’s a good thing: it removes some power from the media, who have gotten too big for their breeches ever since Watergate (which taught journalists it’s easier and better to make the news than just report it).

As it happens, I just purchased a brand new Motorola V635 phone, which does include a still/video camera. Great phone, if only I can get it to talk to my PC.

Heinlein Quotes

Someone gathered a collection of quotes from Robert A. Heinlein’s novels.

There plenty of nuggets of common sense wisdow in there. I especially liked the definition of love (from Stranger in a Strange Land), but the rest is very good, too.

New Whittle!

Just about to go to bed, and mechanically scrolling through my bookmarks. And what do I see?

A new Eject! Eject! Eject! essay by Bill Whittle! Joy!

Go and read. Bill’s stuff is few and far between, but it’s a textbook case of quality over quantity.

The Starship Intercom

One of my favorite SF writers is Spider Robinson. He once wrote a series of opinion columns for a Canadian newspaper, which he called “The Crazy Years” (based on the entry for the 1980-2000 years in Robert Heinlein’s future history).

One of the columns is called “And Now the News…” It says that all of us are living in one great big starship, called Earth. The media are the intercom. Unfortunately for us, all we seem to get are damage reports. After a while, it gets to you, since you have your own local issues to deal with, and can’t afford to run to the other side of the ship to help out. And this grates on you, and weights you down.

I’m starting to think that all people holding center or right-wing opinions should just board great big arks and leave the planet altogether. We’ll come back when all the fanatics have destroyed the naive, the righteous, and the philosophers. Then we’ll just have the fanatics to wipe out, which shouldn’t be hard since they will all be living at the 7th century level.

So I need to find a way to shut down the intercom for a while. Just a while.

Aufmerksamkeit! Papiere gefallen!

With Canada going down the crapper, it’s important to have an escape route. Now even this is about to go crashing down.

The U.S. Senate is set to vote on a bill to implement a national ID card for Americans. Not only will this not work (all 9/11 attackers had valid papers, after all), obligatory internal passports are a hallmark of totalitarian states. They are used to control the movements of people, who they can associate with, and how they make a living.

But it’s not the worst. What will happen if someone starts to hack into the database? If a politician uses his contacts to add false charges to an opponent’s file? Will you be arrested if you forget your wallet at home?

If you’re an American, help stop this madness now, while you still have the chance. If you don’t do it now through democracy, you might have to undo it with firearms tomorrow.

Late Blogging 1

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: we need to get unions under control. They are mafia-like and are slowly destroying the economy.

(Trust me, I know what I’m talking about — I worked in an union shop once.)

The Next Failed Nation State?

Austin Bay offers a rather bleak view of the possible future of Canada as a country. I just hope his vision doesn’t come to pass.

Gated Communities

Instead of bitching against gated communities, this group of “artists” should ask themselves why people are increasingly moving into these safer neighborhoods.

Could we do the same for Adscam?

Cable company Adelphia will pay $715 million to settle fraud charges. The founder and his son agreed to pay back the money they stole to avoid criminal charges, nearly 95% of their family fortune. (Note that they will probably get to keep a few millions, so it’s not that big a punishment.)

Do you folks think we could do the same here? I’d love to confiscate the properties of most Liberal politicians. We could also try to get money from Power Corps, which seems to be behind a lot of shady deals as well.

A guy can dream, no?

No Pain, No Gain

Richard D. Lamm puts into words something that I’ve long said: it’s not racism or lack of opportunity that’s holding down most poors, it’s a lack of work-related values. When a black kid is told by his friends to “stop acting white!” because he received good grades in school, we (as a society) have a major problem on our hands.

(It’s no surprise that the man’s university refused to have that article published. All good Liberals/Leftists know that poverty is caused solely by The Rich White Man. Just ignore those poor immigrant families who came here with nothing and were millionaires a decade later, and pass another grant for “studies of racism and discrimination in mid-20th century gardening literature” or somesuch.)

Red Ensign Standard is Up

The 19th edition of the Red Ensign Standard is now up. This massive report provides numerous links to right-leaning Canadian blogs like mine.

Check it out.

Good Things

Good things are happening in Iraq these days.

Funny how the cries of “quagmire!” and “illegal war!” sound hollow when faced with hard facts on how the country is getting better.

Going Bananas

The Attorney General (we have a Canadian AG?) is trying to decide whether to prosecute the Canadian bloggers for openly saying — or linking(!) to — things that are already public knowledge.

Yet it’s plainly evident that our government is corrupt to the core.

Nice priorities. I always suspected that our country was turning into a Banana Republic, but I was wrong.

We already live in one.

Why?

Reading this sad affair, I can’t help but ask the question:

Why do we let individuals such as this man walk our streets freely?

A first offense might be a lapse in judgment. You punish, admonish, and hope the accused has learned his lesson. Two offenses, it’s a serious warning flag. You punish again, and this time you keep an eye on him/her.

Third offense, that person is obviously incapable of living in a civilized human society. Kick them out right away, before they can do more damage.

Mmmm, meat

Today is International Eat an Animal for PETA Day.

We’re having steak for supper tonight. You know, from an animal. That was killed.

For its rich, delicious meat.

[Homer]
Mmmm, steaaakkk… [droooool]
[/Homer]

Happy St-Patrick's Day!

I don’t know why, I like the Irish. We have a big community here in Montreal and every year they have this huge parade downtown.

On the downside, the parade’s route was between the condo and the breakfast restaurant, so a six-minute ride became a half-hour trip. Good thing the food was worth it.

The Good in 2004

Sometimes, I read the news, or some blogs, and I get discouraged at the state of the planet.

Then someone puts it in perspective by using data from various sources, and you realize that things are not going so bad after all.

It’s like I always say to my co-worker James: the world may look like crap right now, but every day is a little bit better than the one before. We just need to hang in there and do our part to keep building a better world.

Which reminds me, I need to write down my objectives for 2005. One of them is to become more involved in politics and social issues.

Spam Drop?

Is it just me, or am I getting less and less spam these days?

I get none at work; I get a little on my Hotmail and Gmail accounts, and all of it goes to the “Junk” folder.

Isn’t it great, or what?

EDIT: No sooner have I posted this that I notice spam messages in my comments. Hubris?

I have deleted the comments and added the various IP addresses to the banned list, but I’m afraid it won’t help much. Since each comment was from a different IP range, it’s probably zombie PCs at work.

Anyone knows a good way to punish the online gambling Web site that did this? A way to cancel their net connection, make them lose their URL, or something?

Grrrr…

Tsunami Disaster

The always excellent Belmont Club has several posts on the devastating tsunami that ravaged Asia on the 26. The one linked to above features an animation of the wave as it moves through the ocean.

If you can give a bit of money to a charity, please do so. If everyone gave just a couple bucks (the price of a latte), we could amass hundreds of millions of dollars for relief efforts virtually overnight.

Deterrence

Bill Whittle is back with a new long essay titled DETERRENCE. It’s mainly inspired by the first presidential debate, and while Bill has always been a passionate writer, he seems really pissed now (and with good reasons).

Check it out.

The Last Priests, Part 3

Remember when I said the media are the modern equivalents to priests?

Apparently, someone else thinks so, to. And, as is common in the blogosphere, he makes the case a lot better than I did.

Ad Astra Eternae, Part 2

I told you all, in the previous post, that having a team winning the X Prize would be the start of a great adventure.

Now, the X Prize is evolving into an annual competition. This means that all the other teams, like Armadillo, Da Vinci and Canadian Arrow, have another go at it. And another. And another.

Until someone finds a way to get us up there cheaply, quickly, and safely.

I’m sooooooo moving to the Moon in my old age.

UPDATE: Another space-oriented blog has a long discussion on commercial space projects, both future and in the works, along with links.

Ad Astra Eternae

I chose t