| Wednesday,
January 16, 2007 Subject: More
apprentices, not more scholars
A well-known English chef, Jamie Oliver, has started
calling for more apprenticeships and less scholars, and is doing something
about it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/
news/news.html?in_article_id=428596&in_page_id=1770
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/
live/live.html?in_article_id=428387&in_page_id=1889
--Gary Pavek
It could work...
===========
Subject: This sounds familiar
http://www.canada.com/components/
print.aspx?id=736673da-3f2b-4025-8c1a
-dce0c04eaee5
Timoid of Angle
It does, doesn't it...
========
Observations, but no good
solutions.
1. I'm not yet ready to say that invasion of Iraq and
removal of Saddam from power was not justified. NOTE: an invasion may be
justified but still not a good idea for other reasons; this is embellished a
bit below. But the bottom line remains that based on data available both to
the Bush Administration and to the Clinton Administration before, removal of
Saddam was determined to be justified. There is no need to rehash the pro
and con arguments here, except that -- such being the nature of classified
information -- I am confident that there is information still classified
that supports that justification. Not that I would expect the Main Stream
Media (MSM) to care about that.
2. It is indisputable that things have not gone as
planned, and that manpower and manpower distributions have been part of the
problem (beginning with the failure to secure safe access through Turkey
prior to the invasion, but certainly continuing as a matter of strategy,
policy, and political correctness since).
3. That said, I personally believe that the point the
"war was lost" was when April 1, 2004 dawned over Iraq with the city of
Fallujah standing more or less intact. The bottom line remains -- you can
conduct a successful campaign, or you can conduct a "politically correct"
campaign by the rules of the MSM and the liberal branch of the Democratic
party, but you can't do both at once and have any hope of winning the
conflict. And I would still be willing to see appropriate changes (e.g.
those mentioned in Article Three, Section Three of the Constitution,
presuming that Ex Parte Bollman and other relevant charges can be found to
apply to any of the cases of "Aid and Comfort" so referenced). Everything
since then has been a holding action against forces that know they can get
away with anything as long as they spend most of their time out of line of
sight of our troops. Note also that I recognize said razing would have been
a turn down the path that would surely have ended any hope of resurrecting
the Republic.
4. More troops might be the answer, and probably is
the best answer that has a chance of salvaging the current situation, but I
am currently convinced 20,000 is grossly insufficient; 100,000 might be
minimally adequate. Again, there may be no solution that preserves the
Republic.
5. At this point, the Democratic Congress has given
Bush only one other way to protect the US and preserve some semblance of
civil liberties within our borders, in the form of a decree that goes
something like this:
A. The United States is withdrawing from the city and
environ of Baghdad. Solve the problem yourselves.
B. The United States Army is being redeployed to
secure international access to petroleum from the Persian Gulf ports of
Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. We will not allow anything to interfere with
that mission of maintaining petroleum supplies to the US and its allies. We
are prepared to capture the ports of Iran as well if necessary to the
achievement of this objective.
C. The United States as a country is committing
all necessary resources to terminate its dependence on imported oil within
six years. This solution will of necessity include the use of nuclear energy
and the drilling of ANWR and of costal natural gas resources. Political
opponents to this policy must realize that it is the essential corollary of
the policy their actions have forced on us in Iraq. If they don't like it,
they are invited to please volunteer for the Army to support the mission of
Paragraph B. There are NO other choices on the timeframe we have to act in.
Withdrawal of the troops outlined in Paragraph B will not occur until the
United States has fully met its internal energy needs without imports of
petroleum for a period of six months. All energy production technology is
now declared protected under the International Trade in Arms Regulations.
D. If any American forces, civilian population,
business interests, or property is attacked by terrorists employing
conventional weapons, conventional explosives, chemical weapons materials in
quantities less than 3 liters, radiological weapons deploying less than 1000
curie-hours of total dose potential, or biological toxins in quantities less
than 300 milliliters, we will eradicate the population which attacked us
within 48 hours. If our intelligence proves to have been wrong after the
fact, we will apologize, but only after correcting our error. For the
purposes of this and the following clause, "chemical weapons materials"
includes Chemical Weapons Convention Schedule chemicals and any industrial
or agricultural chemical or mixture of chemicals (whether carried separately
or together, but provided by a coordinated operation) with an Immediately
Dangerous to Life and Health vapor, dust, or aerosol concentration less than
300 milligrams per standard cubic meter of air.
E. If any American forces, civilian population,
business interests, or property is attacked by terrorists or military forces
employing nuclear weapons of any magnitude, live agent biological weapons of
any magnitude (whether directed against population or agriculture), or
chemical, radiological, or biological toxins in excess of the quantities
named in Paragraph D, then the following cities will be immediately
destroyed by nuclear attack: Pyongyang, Islamabad, Kabul, Tehran, Baghdad,
Fallujah, Damascus, Riyadh - and Mecca; said list subject to change as
circumstances change. Secondary targets will then be identified and targeted
by nuclear and/or conventional weaponry based on intelligence assessment of
each target's contribution to the attack and the proper strategy for
operation in the affected region. Countries which oppose this policy are
reminded that this is NOT a first use policy, but a response technology
aimed at countries which have the potential to conduct such attacks. should
note that they are assumed either part of the solution, or part of the
problem, and react accordingly. What this means is, in simple terms, police
yourself or die. What this means to downwind neighbors of the affected
countries is, police your neighbors or be seriously inconvenienced.
Terrorist attacks of this class which are successfully interdicted will be
treated as attacks defined by Paragraph D.
F. Paragraphs D and E apply equally whether the attack
is against a single individual American, or any larger population of
American civilians or forces. Paragraphs D and E also apply to countries
which allow or encourage their populations to enter the US by other than
legal immigration procedures. What this means is, police your own borders
and the smugglers corridors on your side of the border to keep terrorists
out of the US. And expect us to pay a lot more attention to your nominal
citizens; if your borders are penetrated, or if your indigenous population
is corrupted by terrorists and used in attacks, your country will be
considered a secondary target as defined above. For the purposes of this
clause, narcotic drugs in quantities in excess of 10 liters are considered
chemical weapons as defined in Paragraph E.
If none of the above is observed, then I must
recommend that citizens resume investment in nuclear bomb shelters,
radiation protection suits, gas masks and appropriate PPE, and similar civil
defense measures. Oh, and guns, lots and lots of guns and ammo. The best
defense has always been a good offense, which was at the end the fundamental
reason for Iraq; but if we can no longer use the best defense, we're left
with what we can get.
Jerry, I'm very much afraid that we are headed down a
path that can only end in Empire, or Subject status, and have been ever
since November 4, 1979. All things considered, I think I would rather live
as an Imperial citizen in an empire that preserves some democratic and
humanitarian norms for its citizens, than as a Christian subject under
Sharia law (or under some form of government that calls itself communist,
which is an option not yet completely off the table).
"Anon"
Given the choice of an American Caesar and
living in dhimmitude under sharia, I would certainly choose Caesar. Whether
we have come to that point or not is not clear. The hour is certainly late.
But if we are to be an empire, can we not
be a COMPETENT empire with a competent emperor?
===========
Subject: The Hidden War,
When I read articles like the one below, I remember a
20-year old warning made by a friend who was a terrorism expert: The Muslims
would be the world's biggest threat and a difficult foe to contend with
internationally.
The note with the information below came from a high
school classmate of mine.
Sue
* * * * * * *
..well, in the UK, perhaps they are
beginning to wake up to the Islamic threat. Britain's Channel 4 presents
a video report that resulted from a four month undercover investigation.
Click though on the link to access the report in three 10-minute
segments, as reported by the Observer (UK) and the NYSun:
http://www.shinesforall.com/2007/01/video_dispatche.html .
The report ran on UK Channel 4 last night.
As reported in the Observer (UK):
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1984530,00.html
Revealed: preachers' messages of hate
Muslim worshippers are being urged by
radical clerics to ignore British law
Jamie Doward Sunday January 7, 2007
Observer
An undercover investigation has revealed
disturbing evidence of Islamic extremism at a number of Britain's
leading mosques and Muslim institutions, including an organisation
praised by the Prime Minister.
Secret video footage reveals Muslim
preachers exhorting followers to prepare for jihad, to hit girls for not
wearing the hijab, and to create a 'state within a state'. Many of the
preachers are linked to the Wahhabi strain of Islam practised in Saudi
Arabia, which funds a number of Britain's leading Islamic institutions.
===========
Subject: Mind Games,
Jerry
Now the tinfoil hat people are organizing. Literally:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
content/article/2007/01/10/
AR2007011001399_pf.html
It is schizophrenia, of course. These experiences
predate the development of electronics. Very sobering, though.
Ed
But you must not listen to Art Bell. The
UFO's had electronics all along. And of course the USSR was beaming
microwaves at our embassy in Moscow...
==========
Subject: There's an echo in here
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=
110009531
&mod=RSS_Opinion_Journal&ojrss=frontpage
Timoid of Angle
==
The article's title speaks for itself, but I think
you'll enjoy knowing you're not alone, shouting in the wilderness.
http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009531
Cheers!
Doug Hayden
Charles Murray can use anything I have
said any time with or without attribution. But it's nice to see other people
beginning to say this.
=========
Subject: Genius at Work
An alternate view on art, to contrast with the recent
article by Fred.
http://www.fastcompany.com/online/17/genius.html
Mike 'Z' Zawistowski
=========
Overt Mexican casus belli.
http://www.azcentral.com/12news/news/
articles/borderstory0104-CR.html
- Roland Dobbins
========
Subject: copyright thoughts
In your last column of 2006, you asked for discussion
on copyrights and intellectual property in general. Let me give a bit of
input from two tangents.
The first tangent: I think that one important
principle that has been forgotten (or deliberately ignored) by the lawmakers
is this: while it is right and proper for the government to regulate what
happens in the town square, the government has no business trying to control
what I do in privacy.
If I take great pleasure in intricate programming, why
shouldn't I crack a copy-protection scheme? If I do this at home, affecting
no one else, why should anyone care. Of course, if I start distributing the
result, it's a different matter - a straightforward case of copyright
infringement, for which the old laws were perfectly adequate. But the DMCA
is not really about copyright protection, but rather about coming into my
living room and telling me what I can and cannot do on my own computer.
The second tangent: a fundamental principle of our
legal system is that we are to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. And
yet, on every DVD-recorder, on every copy machine the purchaser pays a fee.
This fee is supposedly to recompense artists for copyright infringement. If
you purchase such a device, you are presumed guilty. You cannot possibly
prove yourself innocent - you must pay the fee!
There is now serious talk (at least here in Europe -
if it's not in the Status, it will be soon), that there should be similar
charges on any device capable of storing and replaying music or films. If
this presumption of guilt is not offensive enough, think of the
counterproductive effect. Imagine: if a teenager pays a $40 per gigabyte fee
(that's the proposed amount) on a new MP3 player, said teenager is going to
be damned sure to pirate at least $40 worth of music!
To summarize: my suggestion for copyright law is
simply this: the law - and enforcement of the law - should respect our basic
rights. In particular:
1. Privacy. As long as our activities do not directly
impinge on others, they should be of no interest to the law. In my own
house, I should be able to do anything I like with copyrighted material:
copy it decrypt it, encrypt it, nail it to the bathroom wall. As long as my
activities remain private, they are of no interest to anyone but me.
2. Innocent until proven guilty. No law or regulation
should presume that we are going to behave illegally. We should pay no fees
for infringement we haven't done. Content providers should not prevent us
from making private copies (i.e., DRM) without notifying us in advance on
the outer packaging so that we can choose not to buy their product. Our
computers should not be able to disable our hardware because some hacker
somewhere pirated content using the same model.
3. A fine but important point that follows from both
of the above: merely possessing illegally copied material should not be
punishable, beyond demanding that the material be destroyed. It certianly is
not criminal. The punishable activity is the distribution: the person who
copied and passed out the material. Too many end-consumers have been sued
for downloading something in good faith - this should not happen.
Cheers,
Brad
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