Slack request.

Slack request.

     I have actually heard comparisons to 9/11. That event killed 1000s of times more people and did 1000s of times more economic damage.

     Another talking head or government official (Guiliani?) was talking about how a lot of Chechens got training in Afghanistan, which is true.  But clearly not these guys, since that training happened mostly back during the Russo-Afghan War of the 1980s.

     I support secession, even for seemingly stupid reasons, if enough of the population supports it.  South Ossetia and Abkhazia, in the same mountain range as Chechnya, want to break away from Georgia, moving them closer to Russia, and Russia supports that.  When the Chechens want to break away from them, they attack.

     Personally, I would tend to side with the people in those provinces, on what they want to do.  It's clearly not a passing fancy in any of these cases, as these situations have been ongoing since roughly 1991.

     The Tsars seem to have killed or expelled, maybe, NINETY PERCENT of the Chechens.

     Stalin forcibly relocated them all, ONE THIRD TO HALF DIED before they were allowed to return, decades later.

     And now it seems Yeltsin/Putin/Medvedev have killed AT LEAST TEN PERCENT MORE.

     Now, it's up to you, but you might consider cuttin' them some slack.

Quote from Towers of Stone, by Wojciech Jaglieski

     An account of the politics, and his travels, in Chechnya.

     The [Soviet] Empire's last leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, never found many supporters outside of the Slavic regions.  He announced the need for progressive reform in Moscow and Russia, but remained dead and insensitive to the requests of the Russian colonies in the Caucasus and in Asia.  The freedom he promised was reserved exclusively for Russians, Slavs -- white people.  From this point of view, Gorbachev in no way differed from his predecessors.  Totally absorbed by his ambitious plans for the reform of the empire and focused on the applause coming from Europe and America, he had neither time nor patience for the Caucasus and Asia.  He was irritated by their sluggishness, their distrust of anything new, their slavish attachment to the past.  He needed quick solutions and quick results.  He had no intention of digging through labyrinths and complexities.  With an arrogant certainty typical of revolutionaries, he believed he woud solve the Asian problems with progressive decrees.  He committed mistake after mistake, blunder after blunder, thus speeding along his own inevitable downfall.

     His successor, the provincial dignitary Boris Yeltsin, promised everyone freedom and ended up dissolving the Empire for the sole purpose of taking Gorbachev's place in the Kremlin.  In this struggle for the power he stirred up Gorbachev's vassals: "I'm telling you all, take as much freedom as you can handle!"  When the gullible Chechens tried to taste their freedom, however, Yeltsin -- by now the lord of the Kremlin -- sent his army after them.

     For the Russians, the collapse of the Empire was not viewed as a joyful or even a reluctant freedom, it was a humiliating degradation.  They jealously and vindictively sowed the seeds of war amidst their recent subjects, whose freedom was born to the accompaniment of machine-gun salvos and bomb explosions.  Russia repaid its subjects' treachery and defiance with war.

     The provinces of the Empire nearest to Europe were the only one spared the conflagrations and chaos: Slavic Ukraine and Belarus, and the Baltic states.  The Russian-fueled civil wars devastated and tore apart the Caucasus and Centra Asia into regions that refused to recognize one another, and Kremlin-supported conspirators toppled their presidents.

     "You are not and never will be our equals," the Russians said. "Nor will we ever allow you to go free."

     The war took Russia up against the Chechens to repay them for having adamantly chosen freedom ended up cursing the Caucasian highlanders of their inferiority complex towards the Slavs.  And the faith in Allah that they had been ashamed of for so many years suddenly became their bedrock.  They stopped their helpless squirming and were no longer tormenting themselves with the question of who they were.

     "We're Muslims," they now proudly replied to the Slavs.  "That means we're different from you."

How They Used 9/11 to Sell Iraq

     Here.  There is a good graph a few pages into the PDF.

     It's like there was a day, "Today we start talking about Iraq Day!"

     On what day was that day picked? To think it wasn't picked is to think that, spontaneously, Bush decided to make Iraq an issue one day in the summer of 2002.  So, one day, there was a meeting where they decided "That day we start talking about Iraq Day!" and I would like to know when that meeting was, and who was there.  I suppose that is hasty, because it is obvious who would have been involved.  Oh, to have audio of that meeting!

Perhaps there will be more medical stuff, from now on.

     Science says, elevate only the forearm, not the whole arm, unless one is attempting to discourage bleeding.

     [cite]

Aliens aren't Christians

     I've never met an alien, but I can tell you one thing about any and all aliens who arrive here on the planet.

     They are not going to be Christians.  They are not going to be Muslims.  They are not going to be Hindus.  They are not going to be Buddhists.  They are not going to be part of any religion that has something from Earth in it.

     They are not going to be Quakers.  But we can hope that's not too far off.

     They might be animists, and worship the natural, physical world.  Hmmm.  Maybe our move is to become animists, in case they are animists, because our piety might then be used as a defense.

     Similarly, they might be like Taoists, and worship an energy beyond science.  If we make a big deal about our planet's energy, they might think there is some reason for it.

     The other thing to know, about any aliens that might arrive, other than their complete lack of adherence to any Earthbound religion, is that they are going to be more technologically advanced than us. So, whatever ideas they have probably start at an advantage. Perhaps it will come down to both sides pulling out their collection of Zen-like koans, to see who has the best set.

     But there is simply and absolutely no way they worship a guy, like Yeshua ben Yosef, born on Earth.  I suppose it is possible that, in their religion, their deity manifested itself similarly, and so Jesus, and their guy, might be accepted as half-brothers.

More News Like This! More News Like This

     From ThinkProgress.

Some Great Quotes from a paper by Paddy Ireland

    
Quoted in Limited liability, shareholder rights and the problem of corporate irresponsibility by Paddy Ireland, published in the Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2010.

JSCs are Joint Stock Companies, much like any modern company with publicly traded stock:

JSC shareholders, The Times complained in 1840, wanted to "enjoy the profits of trade consistently with the luxury of being sleeping partner[s]". They wanted "to be able to embark in business without being a man of business; to be able to share in the profits of trade without knowledge of trade, or any education in it; without abilities, without character, without any attention or exertion … ". JSCs were "a means or making money in idleness, in compulsory idleness."

This quote is very well done, if you ask me. Edward Cox was the editor of the Law Times:

… that he who acts through an agent should be responsible for his agent's acts, and that he who shares the profits of an enterprise ought also to be subject to its losses; that there is a moral obligation, which it is the duty of the laws of a civilised nation to enforce, to pay debts, perform contracts and make reparation for wrongs. Limited liability is founded on the opposite principle and permits a man to avail himself of acts if advantageous to him, and not to be responsible for them if they should be disadvantageous; to speculate for profits without being liable for losses; to make contracts, incur debts, and commit wrongs, the law depriving the creditor, the contractor, and the injured of a remedy against the property or person of the wrongdoer, beyond the limit, however small, at which it may please him to determine his own liability (Cox, 1856, pp. i–ii)

Moving

     At least for the nonce, I'm going to pare it back to this blog.  I'll probably move again later since "brilliant-blue" is a color but also sounds, yeah.

    

Ultra-Serious Post, Watch Now!

    

Lots of Republicans Want the Current Administration to Fail

     Adullamites:

Wikipedia definition: "[I]t has come to mean someone who is plotting against the established leadership of a political party or other group, a group of such plotters being called a Cave of Adullam."

Cornford definition: "The Adullamites are dangerous, because they know what they want; and that is, all the money there is going. They inhabit a series of caves near Downing Street. The say to one another, 'If you will scratch my back, I will scratch yours; and if you won't, I will scratch your face.' It will be seen that these cave-dwellers are not refined, like classical men. That is why they succeed in getting all the money there is going."

Parliamentary Government, Unasked For Advice

     The Czech Republic won't have a government till sometime this Summer, the Likud Party in Israel joined in a coalition with Labor (traditional rivals) in order to form a government, and Belgium lacked a government for more than three months just last year. What's going on?

     In modern Parliamentary democracies, the majority party doesn't get to become Prime Minister automatically, instead they need to form a coalition of parties that forms at least half the Parliament.  This is daft, and "not having a government for months on end" is just one of the problems.

     The vote of "no confidence" is how these types of governments usually end.  It is a way of saying "No" to the current leadership without saying "yes" to any new leadership.  A better way exists.  Instead of "no confidence" votes, the Parliament should hold a new election for the PM job. Now, of course, you might ask "But if every party votes for their own leader, and no party has more than half the seats, don't you have the same problem?"  Not if you use NOT BRAINDEAD STUPID voting systems like we have here in the "Greatest Country On Earth". 

     Real voting is Cloneproof, Monotonic, and Condorcet, although the absolutely best voting system I haven't had time to prove, I have presented other people's work which shows that Schulze and Tideman are really good.

     Come to think of it, in a body as small as the Israeli Parliament (in any body small enough that the members know each other and will have to continue to work together) the Borda system can be even better, and maybe even the Borda-variant known as "Range Voting."

     Either way you get continuity of operations in the Parliament.

WTF, Obama

     Obama's first appointment to the Federal Bench has an UNQUALIFIED rating from the ABA?  Thanks, Obama. Way to set the bar low.

One of my Favorite Speeches of All Time

     American Interests in the Cuban Revolution, Stephen Grover Cleveland's State of the Union for 1896.

Cuba and Israel: Get Them To Fight?

     El Salvador and Costa Rica have ended their economic embargo/sanctions against Cuba.  That means America is the only country left on Earth to have such a position.

     In the United Nations, only one country on Earth stands up for Israel, and that is America.

     For over a century Cubans in America have been agitating for America to take an active interest in that country (see Grover Cleveland's 1896(?) State of the Union address for an example).  This interest, at all times, comes with a cost.  Much the same can be said for Israelis in America, except the timeframe is only half as long. 

     Cubans and Israelis are fighting over scarce resources.  If we get them to fight it out, they can become each other's worst enemies, saving rational people the effort of having to point out how stupid America is being in both instances.

     Cubans Against Israel is a real group that I just made up that thinks U.S. Foreign Policy towards Israel is shameful, and Israelis Against the Cuban Embargo is another radical fringe element (which I just made up) who thinks economic sanctions against the Castro regime are getting America nowhere, and so the effort shouldn't be wasted.

My post on Credit Default Swaps (the stuff that continues to sink AIG)

     From April of 2008...

    
Are any of you homeowners?
Even if you aren't, you all know about fire insurance.
If your house burns down,
  and you didn't do it,
  a fire insurance policy is worth money.

What jumps to your mind
  when you hear
  about someone selling their fire insurance policy?
Only one things jumps to my mind,
  maybe I've just listened to too many 1940s and 50s radio dramas,
  insurance fraud.

That's exactly what the credit default swap market is all about,
  a stock market for insurance policies.
It's a little more sophisticated,
  as if you could divide up your fire insurance policy
  and sell little bits to different people.
But what's more amazing than that,
  this has to take the cake,
  you can sell as many copies of your fire insurance policy as you want!

Instead of being about a house burning down,
  it's about the value of a bond going down,
  something the banks call a "credit event,"
  like a rating agency downgrade,
  or outright default.

The banks who sell these policies,
  like I said,
  can sell as many copies as they want.

I don't think it takes a supra-genius
  to figure out what will happen
  if everyone in town
  stands to profit
  if your house burns down.

Extra Fact: 13% of all the people buying this excess "insurance" are unknown, their names are simply unreported.