tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68989642012-01-25T13:05:49.279-05:00Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.comBlogger12291100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-68288906354902818452011-08-26T04:52:00.003-05:002012-01-25T13:05:49.299-05:00

I have been in an undisclosed location for about a month with nothing but time on my hands. I have spent this time rounding out some online projects, what I am tentatively calling online book-blogs. The first is Big Dada, a lucidly discursive series of writing on narrative consciousness and meaning in the context of politics, religion and social order. The second is Boutique Revolution, a smaller

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-86118322411787593752011-04-27T13:10:00.001-05:002011-04-27T13:10:44.444-05:00

This blog is still defunct! I am working away at the tumblr site with bad (but getting less bad) art/writing. I will do some housecleaning/whitewashing here to make it easier for me to find stuff for future reference/ to make my writing less indictable when the crypto-fascist aliens from outer space take over and conduct a grand inquisition to ferret out undesirables, but no new content. I

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-65358694922309472912011-03-28T20:50:00.014-05:002011-03-28T22:55:00.197-05:00

Juan Cole has published an open letter to 'the left' - specifically those on the left that oppose the intervention in Libya and I presume the left categorization covers everyone from rank and file democrat through anarchists. Cole's letter has several aspects to it that I'd like to respond to. First, he uses manipulative language that is eerily similar to the right-wing refrain about not caring

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-48423510053369857622011-03-28T01:33:00.000-05:002011-03-28T01:33:48.143-05:00

Martyrs Of. Oil on Canvas Here is the original, not much left of it.

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-74757712729192111782011-03-25T13:31:00.002-05:002011-03-25T13:32:23.707-05:00

"Come over and help us." The First Great Seal of the Massachusetts Colony, 1629Via Jonathan Schwartz The assumptions, arguments and rationales for intervening on humanitarian grounds have been around for centuries and at least from the very beginning of the colonial era of what would become the United States. The arguments about using force to help others have been answered time and time again

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-74834924347023565182011-03-23T14:42:00.003-05:002011-03-23T15:10:43.506-05:00

As we discuss whether looting, and the application of that label in a selective manner, is a cultural phenomenon... I thought I'd mention that some influences are much more direct than culture.Of course, that could never happen in a civilized country. So, although I can easily envision money or political hay being made after disasters such as Katrina or Haiti -- (whipping up sentiment against

Thomas Daultonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253366531662635642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-51005515603919947132011-03-22T16:29:00.005-05:002011-03-22T19:24:05.955-05:00

Police in the devastated Miyagi region said 250 thefts had been reported in the 10 days since the disaster and around £75,000 worth of goods had been reported stolen. The authorities said they are determined to cut down on the growing number of petty offences and would put an extra 100 officers on patrol. Reported incidents have included men trying to break into cash machines, siphoning petrol

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-7989716893675681772011-03-22T15:33:00.009-05:002011-03-22T15:45:40.746-05:00

I love the gusting winds that sweep in off the Pacific and provide the city of San Francisco with free air conditioning and strange wind patterns. Two streets can run parallel; one is always a gusting wind tunnel, the other calm or slightly breezy. If you get around on foot or bike, you develop an overlay of wind patterns to accompany your mental map of the city streets. The winds also keep me

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-51536581673855550782011-03-22T02:25:00.001-05:002011-03-22T02:28:22.380-05:00

Still following the Fukushima story. The reports are getting eerier and eerier. First, they tried to drop sea water on the melting down reactors. That was a bit of a mess, and then once that proved ineffective, the next step was to restore power. Its taken several days, and they are almost there. "This is going to be a two steps forward, one step back evolution," said Michael Friedlander, a

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-76156591177149130632011-03-20T16:00:00.000-05:002011-03-20T16:00:02.283-05:00

Now you have to ask yourself: if the complete and total failure of a discipline to produce anything resembling a believable and empirically verifiable description of the very things the discipline purports to study does not "actually undermine the overall epistimic status of the discipline," then what would? This shit really is a religion; it literally cannot be disproven; it transcends all

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-73434446171441480022011-03-18T18:17:00.002-05:002011-03-18T18:35:36.014-05:00

This article by Glenn Greenwald... I get what he's saying about the implications of U.S. military action in Libya without Congressional approval, but, I don't. Seems like a bit of triviality at this point. The Congressional stamp of approval for military action is made of rubber. Is it better to maintain a polite fiction (or cynical exercise in mocking 'democracy') rather than the truth? What I

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-66361686748165672062011-03-18T12:43:00.002-05:002011-03-18T12:50:49.378-05:00

The United States, Britain and France pushed forward against Libya on Friday as they declared that a cease-fire abruptly announced by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s government was not enough, at least for now, to ward off military action against his forces. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, echoing remarks hours earlier by Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, said in Washington on Friday

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-60780321505280525002011-03-18T03:41:00.004-05:002011-03-19T01:38:48.929-05:00

In the wake of Japan's deadly earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant explosions, we have witnessed the almost indescribable chaos that follows a disaster of this magnitude: loss of life, severe injuries, homelessness, lack of water, food and proper medical care, the physical destruction of towns and cities, and a growing fear of radioactive contamination from power plants that seem beyond

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-74557390437959378682011-03-17T20:50:00.000-05:002011-03-17T20:50:40.558-05:00

Every time I see some privileged person protest touring, I think of Che. Every time I hear about some insurrectionists starting shit in other people’s neighborhoods, I think of Che. Every time some twenty-something white dudes audaciously roll into a room like they have all the answers – summarily dismissing the experience and knowledge of everyone else there – I think of Che.Broadsnark explains

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-67281306131294161092011-03-17T17:07:00.000-05:002011-03-17T17:07:29.489-05:00

We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers. And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-56819625062307078362011-03-17T14:46:00.002-05:002011-03-17T14:48:18.081-05:00

The crackdown placed the United States in an awkward bind. The United States, which bases its Fifth Fleet here, has struggled to balance its strategic interest in placating Bahrain and its ally, Saudi Arabia, its fears that Iran is exploiting the anger of Bahrain’s majority Shiite protesters, and American democratic principles. American officials have held off backing the protesters while urging

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-14055113507239393332011-03-17T14:08:00.004-05:002011-03-17T16:08:54.276-05:00

Nicolas Taleb's Black Swan theory is sometimes invoked as a defense against over-reaction, as in we shouldn't let a sensational low probability event deter us from making systemic changes. There have been a lot of black swans taking flight lately, the gushing well in the Gulf of Mexico, the financial meltdown of 2008, the unrest in the Middle East. The melting down Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-12303943901292828782011-03-16T23:06:00.009-05:002011-03-17T09:30:45.703-05:00

Before Justin's economic blogposts fall too far down the front page, I'll just bop out a quick post about the economics of nuclear power. I wanted to point out that the nuclear industry in America is a fantastic example of the twisted, selective use of economic thought which we had been debating last week right here.An 'Anonymous' commenter left with a parting shot that my exhortation to take

Thomas Daultonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253366531662635642noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-66894014004898886882011-03-16T20:55:00.000-05:002011-03-16T20:55:38.589-05:00

"The human toll here looks to be much worse than the economic toll and we can be grateful for that," - Larry Kudlow reacting to the earthquake and tsunami that wrecked Japan. The economy is doing fine -- it's just the people who aren't.- Brazilian Generals, describing Brazil's economyA lot of people are rightly beating up on Kudlow for his callous statement and he later issued a correction.

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-20274175536714281512011-03-16T14:58:00.004-05:002011-03-16T17:03:37.131-05:00

Japan’s nuclear crisis intensified on Wednesday after the authorities announced that a second reactor unit at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeastern Japan may have ruptured and appeared to be releasing radioactive steam. ... The possibility of high radiation levels above the plant prompted the Japanese military to put off a highly unusual plan to dump water from helicopters — a

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-17299757510243810772011-03-16T11:07:00.002-05:002011-03-16T11:11:11.810-05:00

As we wrote last week, even though the economy is finally starting to create jobs, there's growing evidence that those jobs pay less, offer fewer hours, and require fewer skills, than the ones lost during the Great Recession. Now, a new report by a progressive Washington think tank suggests that much of the problem is more deeply rooted. Despite large gains in productivity over the last two

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-46808620812795012011-03-15T14:43:00.005-05:002011-03-15T15:05:04.110-05:00

The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage... - Emperor Hirohito Official responses to calamity often downplay the severity of what has happened. Sometimes, they lie. Other times, they suffer from hubris, vastly overestimating how much influence they have over events. Any out of control circumstance is an implicit threat to authority. They may not lie or downplay every

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-87353881223722442592011-03-14T20:47:00.000-05:002011-03-14T20:47:37.180-05:00

As a debate continues over the ultimate human and ecological toll of Chernobyl, there is some scientific consensus that at least 6,000 to 7,000 excess cases of thyroid cancer have occurred in the 25 years since. Because cancer can take decades to develop, 25 years “is not enough time to see long-term impacts on human populations,” Mousseau said. The increased thyroid cancer was the result of the

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-50044114225941623042011-03-13T23:59:00.011-05:002011-03-16T15:59:28.232-05:00

Republicans Make Fozzie Bear Cry March 14, 2011|Matea Gold and Kathleen Hennessey, Variety In a restructuring move some analysts believe is intended to be an olive branch to Republican lawmakers calling for a cut to the publicly funded broadcasting corporation in the face of a growing controversy, the top paid performer Cookie Monster will no longer be a part of popular children's program Sesame

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-57535895388820380192011-03-11T15:18:00.000-05:002011-03-11T15:18:58.598-05:00

Russians, he said, “want to be able to choose their national and local leaders in competitive elections. They want to be able to assemble freely, and they want the media to be independent of the state. And they want to live in a country that fights corruption.“That’s democracy,” [vice president Joe Biden] said. “I urge all you students here: Don’t compromise on the basic elements of democracy.

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-18894396197074098832011-03-10T17:29:00.001-05:002011-03-10T17:30:55.066-05:00

In an essay published two years ago in Time magazine, the writers of The Wire made the argument that we believe the war on drugs has devolved into a war on the underclass The Arrest of Felicia 'Snoop' PetersonDavid SimonDevolved? Was the war on drugs born of a noble purpose that has since been lost? Let's go to the tapes... literally, the Nixon tapes, where we have archived recordings of Nixon

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-38927586802031708172011-03-10T16:15:00.002-05:002011-03-10T16:18:46.620-05:00

Parents who read only the data showing how expensive kids are should have responded more negatively to parenting. But in fact they idealized parenting far more than those who were also given the information about the benefits of parenting later on. Why? For the same reason you keep spending money to fix up an old car when it just doesn't work — or keep investing in the same company when it's

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-61940771704065309852011-03-10T14:27:00.000-05:002011-03-10T14:27:53.647-05:00

Lari Pittman. Untitled #2 (view from living room) As Americana veterans may remember, I like to use the occasion of numerically round numbers to highlight the work of artists that I enjoy. Last time, it was Inka Essenhigh. This time, Lari Pittman for post 1200-sorta. (I lost track of the numbers in the recent flurry of posts, so I might be off by one or two.) I love the look of Pittman's work

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-4101866097676245582011-03-10T11:41:00.006-05:002011-03-10T11:41:00.430-05:00

5 years ago, in the US, 70% of those surveyed reported that they believed that global climate change was real and caused by human activity. Today that reported number is closer to 40%. The reason often given for the change is the propaganda efforts of oil companies and other polluters, but I have another explanation. I think that, in fact, more than 70% fundamentally understand that anthropogenic

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-25396400805471726062011-03-09T16:30:00.000-05:002011-03-09T16:30:21.134-05:00

Oh, I don't think this really deserves a main post, but here is another example of econo-thought's ascendancy. State Sen. Jane Cunningham says her quest to change Missouri's child labor laws is driven by her belief that the current restrictions are "implying that government can make a better decision than a parent." ... Cunningham said that she believes it's improper to saddle schools with the

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-29874073103366308042011-03-09T14:22:00.004-05:002011-03-09T17:53:29.090-05:00

So far, I have declined a couple of requests to collate my economic rants under one blogpost heading. But more economic discussion is still coming down the pike. Meanwhile, just now I was struck by such an example of the futility of partisan politics, that I just had to start a political post.Robert Scheer used the word "reluctant" twice today, to describe some of President Obama's executive

Thomas Daultonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253366531662635642noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-31065737390759850892011-03-08T13:33:00.001-05:002011-03-08T13:40:10.646-05:00

This Stillers fan-site is taking a break from cheering for his rapey hometown team to take a swipe at David Brooks. In an ensuing discussion, commenter and fan of the Stillers bitter rival, the Baltimore Ravens, Professor Coldheart has a great idea. just for funsies I copied Brooks' column into Excel, made each sentence its own cell, and used OFFSET() and RANDBETWEEN() to string together

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-89390957175421921142011-03-07T19:39:00.005-05:002011-03-07T19:52:20.759-05:00

A couple of posts about economics got a lot of traffic here and a bunch of comments. A lot of the same points got made, over and over, points that either a.) I addressed or b.) were misreadings of what I wrote. (Ok, there might have been a few that poked some of my squishier or vagues statements.) The whole point of the religion-science economics post was to separate the scientific approach to

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-40126021089102955072011-03-06T11:51:00.006-05:002011-03-06T12:10:20.761-05:00

A little personal history. My parents divorced when I was young, mother got custody. Father was a construction worker, mother was a stay at home mom. We moved to upstate New York, mom worked as a teacher's aide. Point is, it was a struggle economically. We lived in the country, one summer, for no reason that we could tell, the gardener snake population exploded, you could hardly walk anywhere

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-90094749158179117942011-03-05T13:41:00.002-05:002011-03-05T13:45:51.046-05:00

Greenwald has done great work shedding light on what our government is doing to Private Manning and the implications of that as a threat against future whistle-blowers. Chris Floyd goes a bit further on the implications of how we define our state, calling it fascist. If we can agree that extended isolation, sleep deprivation, and forcing someone to strip and remain naked for hours are forms of

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-71591901661355581252011-03-05T13:09:00.000-05:002011-03-05T13:09:10.322-05:00

A federal operation that allowed U.S. weapons to pass into the hands of suspected gun smugglers so they could be traced to the higher echelons of Mexican drug cartels has lost track of hundreds of firearms, many of which have been linked to crimes, including indirectly to the fatal shooting of a Border Patrol agent in December. The investigation, known as Operation Fast and Furious, was

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-23956966399216182422011-03-04T20:23:00.006-05:002011-03-04T21:09:04.379-05:00

A religion is a behavioral guide that provides a set of platonic ideals for followers to strive for, even if it is understood that few can reach fully realize any of them, much less all. Let he who is without sin... They are systems meant to control behavior. Any science is a model of some aspect of the world, and is useful as tool for predicting observable phenomena. Sciences do not have

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-12621116478091146622011-03-04T14:39:00.004-05:002011-03-04T14:49:42.828-05:00

Colon, whose neighborhood had an arts festival last year, will probably avoid festivals in the future that involve street closings. "It's just something that's going to be hard from now on," he says. GriftopiaMatt TaibbiI had a side conversation with 9-2 about Matt Taibbi recently, or rather about Good Taibbi and Bad Taibbi. When Taibbi gets into his vaguely misogynist, Ivy League frat-boy voice

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-40855338151156105872011-03-04T13:08:00.002-05:002011-03-04T13:23:06.460-05:00

The ethic of efficiency has to be replaced with an ethic of efficacy. Efficiency focuses attention on selected details of a process. The most efficient way to capture the greatest amount of energy from the burning of sugar has no efficacy for a living thing. What matters for life is that the burning of sugar is integrated into a matrix of chemical reactions and pathways, interconnected and

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com62tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-72697148079656760592011-03-04T12:37:00.000-05:002011-03-04T12:37:32.118-05:00

A lawyer for Pfc. Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst accused of leaking secret government files to WikiLeaks, has complained that his client was stripped and left naked in his cell for seven hours on Wednesday. ... First Lt. Brian Villiard, a Marine spokesman, said a brig duty supervisor had ordered Private Manning’s clothing taken from him. He said that the step was “not punitive”

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-63026655395026209152011-03-03T16:37:00.002-05:002011-03-03T20:36:04.279-05:00

In discussions about ‘art’, there almost always a fault line threatening to slip and crack whatever common ground exists between parties. We carry in our heads highly personalized definitions of what we consider art, and many of us romanticize art, elevate it to a status where it is not just a question of whether something is or is not, but if it is worthy. Our definitions of art are not

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-66240539753052542372011-03-03T14:34:00.002-05:002011-03-03T14:55:24.810-05:00

This post extends a prior one, so there is going to be some overlap in the writing. Keep in mind, I am making this up as I go along, sometimes I post something and then a bunch of thoughts sprout from the first one. I know just enough about economics to be dangerous. The international economy is made of national economies, and you can subdivide those economies in several ways, by geography or

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-83948772674994712882011-03-03T00:50:00.001-05:002011-03-03T00:54:10.680-05:00

For years, whenever significant political or financial turmoil reared its head anywhere on the globe, investors would turn to the U.S. dollar as a safe haven. Yet as the chaos in North Africa has grown over the past month, investors have largely shunned the dollar and sought shelter elsewhere. They have turned to other traditional islands of stability, buying Japanese yen and the Swiss franc. ..

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-56080272076114379452011-03-02T11:40:00.000-05:002011-03-02T11:40:34.273-05:00

"We spend $500 billion on defense, and we can't take down Libyan air defenses?" [McCain] asked. McCain: U.S. 'making up reasons' to avoid action on LibyaJackson Diehl Jesus, how tenuous is the old codger's grip on reality? He's living in like 1995.

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-13494858109203544482011-03-01T13:32:00.001-05:002011-03-01T13:34:31.806-05:00

The adaptive, responsive, biologically inspired robots that Brooks and others have built may not inhabit the same world that we humans do. And to the extent that they have purposes, projects and expectations they are probably not much like ours. For one thing, although they respond to the physical world rather well, they tend to be oblivious to the global, social moods in which we find ourselves

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-30163400696200202332011-02-28T17:04:00.002-05:002011-02-28T17:10:02.716-05:00

Afghan investigators said Sunday that they were convinced that NATO forces killed 65 civilians in airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan this month, a charge that, if true, would be one of the worst civilian casualty episodes of the war. ... “Those who succeeded in reaching the trenches were killed when the trench collapsed after it was hit by rockets or bombs being fired from coalition helicopters,”

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-26741774335172491622011-02-28T16:38:00.003-05:002011-02-28T16:42:14.145-05:00

For nearly two decades, the leaders of Al Qaeda have denounced the Arab world’s dictators as heretics and puppets of the West and called for their downfall. Now, people in country after country have risen to topple their leaders — and Al Qaeda has played absolutely no role. As Regimes Fall in Arab World, Al Qaeda Sees History Fly By New York Times The revolutions sweeping through the Middle

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-12348787999277884092011-02-28T15:26:00.008-05:002011-03-01T13:22:00.080-05:00

Via David Seaton We are taught in school, and have it endlessly drilled into our heads lifelong, that America is a nearly perfect democracy dedicated to promoting the general welfare of its citizens. Perhaps though, in reality, it is a nearly perfect regime dedicated to promoting the interests of tiny, deeply entrenched, oligarchy and no matter how obvious that is, it appears that nothing

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-6411664324904687612011-02-27T19:27:00.002-05:002011-02-27T22:30:00.961-05:00

Working with ink is fast becoming addictive. The chase is trying to make sure that every mark does exactly what is asked of it, no more, and no less. A misplaced mark describes less of the form than what was intended, this creates an imperfection in the drawing. Enough misplaced marks and the imperfections tangle into an unintelligible mess. A mark that does more than is asked is a mark that

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-79785792053673329092011-02-25T17:14:00.001-05:002011-02-25T17:16:06.265-05:00

When protesters descended this week to oppose a bill that would weaken collective bargaining for public workers, Elaine, a cashier at a Dollar Store in a crazy quilt of strip malls in southern Columbus, had little sympathy. “Adults acting like children down at the Statehouse,” she said, ringing up a customer’s paper plates. “The unions are getting a little bit out of control.” ... In interviews

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-22429521566380374472011-02-25T17:04:00.000-05:002011-02-25T17:04:31.150-05:00

“If you continue to stay with the status quo, where will you be a year from now?” General Campbell said. ... Ultimately, the decision to withdraw reflected a stark — and controversial — internal assessment by the military that it would have been better served by not having entered the high valley in the first place. “What we figured out is that people in the Pech really aren’t anti-U.S. or

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-44879631879082397652011-02-24T17:39:00.001-05:002011-02-24T17:40:18.321-05:00

As I am in the midst of posting a few illustrated short stories, (the second one is in progress, hopefully by the weekend it will be done), now is as good a time as any to mention the Bechdel Test. Here is how it works. 1. Is more than one character female. 2. Do those characters have names. 3. Do they talk to each other about anything other than men or reproduction. The last story as well as

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-43369135608566089092011-02-23T16:25:00.001-05:002011-02-23T16:28:45.157-05:00

Mr. Fixer So this is the third re-work of this painting going back 3 years, and the one that has given me a 4 week headache that I referred to the other day. (I know, don't oversell the work.) One day I'll get this damn thing right, I really must believe that, but probably not before it is out of my possession.

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-37275353632218892912011-02-23T12:24:00.001-05:002011-02-23T13:00:11.785-05:00

This is very closely based on an autobiographical story. The email is real and I aliased my friend's real name using an anagram of my name and changed some minor details about geographical locations. I drew most of this while battling a nasty sinus infection/cold, I have no idea if that had any affect on my process. Now I have to learn how to color these things using software... the illustrated

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-48517470938780425082011-02-22T18:11:00.002-05:002011-02-23T10:22:33.144-05:00

A simple approach to understanding how we appreciate art is to define art in two dimensions. One dimension describes your emotional, gut level reaction to a work. Your emotional response to a work is dependent upon many internal and external factors, of course, but I am only speaking to the feelings that arise from this web of mental impulses. Without delving into cultural, political or any

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-18062142606863616302011-02-22T14:44:00.003-05:002011-02-22T14:49:46.767-05:00

The late Chalmers Johnson laid out a dilemma every empire eventually faces. The costs of maintaining and holding onto a global hegemony eventually surpass the economic benefits that initially justified its existence. Consider the size of the American empire; roughly 1000 bases in over 100 countries, along with two military occupations that are approaching a decade, military expenditures that

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-68277505961752995352011-02-17T10:51:00.001-05:002011-02-17T10:52:31.710-05:00

Asked about how he felt as the bodycount among of countrymen mounted and Iraq descended into chaos, Curveball shifted uncomfortably in his chair, then said: "I tell you something when I hear anybody – not just in Iraq but in any war – (is) killed, I am very sad. But give me another solution. Can you give me another solution? "Believe me, there was no other way to bring about freedom to Iraq.

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-72252456834991713072011-02-15T14:52:00.004-05:002011-02-15T17:16:10.896-05:00

I haven't posted any paintings in awhile. The last one I worked on was a complete remake of Mr. Fix-it that is an improvement on the previous two iterations, but left me frustrated and depressed so I haven't posted it. By the way, when I do these remakes, like Commitment to Sparkle Motion, its done right over the old image. I don't have multiple copies of these laying around. Anyway, I decided

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-19447976741989232282011-02-15T10:50:00.004-05:002011-02-15T11:05:46.319-05:00

Yesterday's post. - I talked about arctic drilling, inflationary effects of energy and economic dislocation in post peak oil, the dangers of nuclear waste, and the history of Chevron-Texaco in Ecuador as a cautionary tale about what happens when we pursue oil at all costs. Ok, so here are the Times links. 1. Russia Embraces Risky Offshore Arctic Drilling “The future is on the shelf,” Mr.

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-66984887231656822282011-02-14T17:29:00.005-05:002011-02-14T17:47:45.404-05:00

I’ve been down – but not out! – with a nasty cold for the past week. Never gonna give you up! Never gonna let you down! Never gonna desert you! Sorry, I still have a bit of a fever, and sometimes I channel Rick Astley in this hellish state of wounded body and mind.  About the only thing I can do when sick is watch movies, reading gives me a headache, creating art leaves me exhausted after a few

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-24426658494568998922011-02-09T22:15:00.002-05:002011-02-09T22:23:22.910-05:00

My last post was about Peak Oil, and here comes another update...Wikileaks -- Saudis Running Out of Oil"According to al-Husseini, the crux of the issue is twofold. First, it is possible that Saudi reserves are not as bountiful as sometimes described, and the underlying timeline for their production not as unrestrained as [Saudi oil monopoly] Aramco and energy optimists would like to portray," one

Thomas Daultonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253366531662635642noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-73644429255311416522011-02-09T16:38:00.004-05:002011-02-09T17:02:58.508-05:00

Greetings HBGary (a computer "security" company), Your recent claims of "infiltrating" Anonymous amuse us, and so do your attempts at using Anonymous as a means to garner press attention for yourself. How's this for attention? You brought this upon yourself. You've tried to bite at the Anonymous hand, and now the Anonymous hand is bitch-slapping you in the face. You expected a counter-attack in

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-2810325569017721682011-02-08T14:41:00.000-05:002011-02-08T14:41:07.880-05:00

One of the more preposterous claims floating around out there is that social media have played a significant part in the recent spate of uprisings in the Middle East, that they have enabled repressed populations to band together and revolt where they could not do so before. To wit, This story is now larger than Egypt and the Arab world, as international news coverage and social media has

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-31315702406702117702011-02-07T14:34:00.002-05:002011-02-07T14:35:10.062-05:00

Hand-Picked What the hell was Clinton thinking? -AtriosI don't know! Isn't that just crazy and nonsensical given our understanding of who she is and what role she plays as executer of American empire? I would think she'd send someone like Jon Stewart, or, at worst, maybe Samantha Power. The Hillary Clinton I KNOW would never rely on cynical, back-room power brokers. In any case, it's hard to

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-44276757365591942612011-02-05T11:36:00.000-05:002011-02-05T11:36:59.531-05:00

As a way of viewing art, Art Project has definite downsides. The pieces that work best when viewed in this context are the iconic pieces, the pieces we’ve seen thousands of times before as JPEGs; what I see in the top image is Starry Night and Sleeping Gypsy, rather than anything to do with paint or canvas or technique or presence. That’s not a new problem, of course – people have been

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-45033873841821724622011-02-03T15:35:00.002-05:002011-02-03T15:36:56.859-05:00

Dear Everyone, There is a way to write about how events taking place elsewhere in the world will affect us without falling into total self-absorption. Here is an article making the rounds whose author's staggering self-regard bleeds through almost every line, most especially in the opening paragraph. The Egyptian revolution is sure to have a great victory within days: the ouster of Mubarak. But a

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-30050788316099749292011-02-02T13:45:00.012-05:002011-02-02T14:52:00.744-05:00

When introducing one made man to another, the phrase "a friend of ours"[4] is used, indicating that he is a member and business can be discussed openly with him; however, when introducing an associate or civilian with whom business should not be mentioned, the phrase "a friend of mine" is used. Made men are the only ones who can rise through the ranks of Cosa Nostra, from soldier to caporegime (

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-5661826412695499112011-01-31T13:00:00.001-05:002011-01-31T15:35:04.717-05:00

I was talking the other day with a near and dear friend who recently went through the law school thing and is trying to work her way out from under a mountain of law school debt. In the process of trying to get her legal career rolling, she has taken a temp legal job doing low level discovery work classifying documents relevant/not relevant to the case. She tells me that next month will be her

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-87633476132516647082011-01-30T11:14:00.001-05:002011-01-30T11:15:35.919-05:00

Sharon Romey, who lives on a ranch in South Dakota, cannot help but worry about her son, Kade Klippenstein, a college freshman, who is stuck in Cairo. But even as images of violent protests flash across the television screen, she said, she felt that he was safe and that he was getting an extraordinary history lesson. “Of course it’s worrisome, to have your child away,” she said by telephone on

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-12581299203214557362011-01-29T13:15:00.002-05:002011-01-29T13:18:41.088-05:00

Image SourceThe videotape record of those moments shows the ambulance passing the unmanned UN checkpoint.... It was then that Abbas Jiha heard the women in the back of the ambulance shouting at him. "One of them was crying out to me: 'The helicopter is coming close to us - its chasing us.' I looked out the window and I could see the Apache getting closer. ... the Israeli helicopter pilot fired

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-83819740356339854502011-01-28T20:51:00.002-05:002011-01-28T21:06:42.467-05:00

The reason behind these conflicts is simple enough: people who are ruled by their passions and appetites can be ruled just as efficiently by any political system willing to pander to those things, while those who control themselves can’t reliably be controlled by anyone else. The Power that RemainsArch Druid ReportI read that a few days ago, and its still with me. I have a bit of a personality

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-4358238398265866562011-01-28T15:04:00.012-05:002011-01-28T19:03:24.914-05:00

*Image courtesy of The Consumer Trap, originally here That is an American advertisement from the 1970s, I assume it ran in Massachusetts, but I recently saw an ad for a bike lock on the BART telling me that Detroit was the number one bike theft city, so who the hell knows. At the time this ad ran in America, several factions in the U.S. government argued on behalf of the Iranian nuclear energy

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-85298715179908746632011-01-26T16:08:00.001-05:002011-01-26T16:12:32.189-05:00

So [the U.S. government] is proceeding gingerly, balancing the democratic aspirations of young Arabs with cold-eyed strategic and commercial interests. That sometimes involves supporting autocratic and unpopular governments — which has turned many of those young people against the United States. A Region’s Unrest Scrambles U.S. Foreign PolicyNew York Times. 25 January 2011I love this excerpt. It

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-57459338691521382042011-01-26T14:39:00.008-05:002011-01-26T16:17:19.716-05:00

"Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." - Israeli aphorismFor decades, the prevailing narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has started from three assumptions: 1. Israeli are defensive and accommodating in word and deed 2. Palestinians are aggressive, irrational and uncompromising in word and deed 3. The U.S. is an objective mediator in the dispute and is

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-25862812314933491072011-01-25T23:28:00.020-05:002011-01-26T02:37:30.933-05:00

Gypsy Davey with a blowtorch he burns out their camps With his faithful slave Pedro behind him he tramps With a fantastic collection of stamps To win friends and influence his uncle. ... Where Ma Raney and Beethoven once unwrapped their bed roll Tuba players now rehearse around the flagpole And the National Bank at a profit sells road maps for the soul To the old folks home and the college. -

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-9071466065082112932011-01-24T14:53:00.001-05:002011-01-24T15:31:24.747-05:00

Shouldn’t we struggle against Facebook? Everything in it is reduced to the size of its founder. Blue, because it turns out Zuckerberg is red-green color-blind. “Blue is the richest color for me—I can see all of blue.” Poking, because that’s what shy boys do to girls they are scared to talk to. Preoccupied with personal trivia, because Mark Zuckerberg thinks the exchange of personal trivia is what

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-71755591183452048112011-01-19T22:45:00.005-05:002011-01-20T02:54:00.457-05:00

Untitled. Oil on Canvas. This photo is a little glare-y and its been sitting in my garage for awhile, but I wanted a cleanser as I head out of town for a few days, so this bit of dumpster diving will do in a pinch. This kind of painting is the direction I trend toward quite often when I relax any sense of discipline and is probably most satisfying to my eyes, but I have this sick feeling that I

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-79782734863673735522011-01-17T16:37:00.013-05:002011-01-17T17:16:11.639-05:00

No parent who is raising a black teenager and trying to get him to read serious fiction for his high school English class would ever argue that “Huckleberry Finn” is not a greatly problematic work. But the remedy is not to replace “nigger” with alternative terms like “slave” (the latter word is already in the novel and has a different meaning from “nigger,” so that substitution just mucks up the

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-48975911616493667912011-01-14T17:24:00.004-05:002011-01-14T17:37:14.354-05:00

There are few things I like better than standing in a hole-in-the-wall bar and listening to some totally unknown band, who is actually playing good music. (Naturally, one has to wade through an awful lot of bad music before reaching that point.)But one of the few things I like better than discovering some talented local band, is when I send the music to one of my friends, and they tell me "

Thomas Daultonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253366531662635642noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-53786689784825715362011-01-13T18:51:00.002-05:002011-01-13T19:11:19.919-05:00

I just finished reading Obama's Tucson speech. I really must go further than Digby and declare it was not only the best speech Obama has given since becoming president, but also one of the greatest speeches given by any sitting president. It was heartfelt, eloquent, beautifully written and paced, and deeply personal while calling all of us to realize a larger purpose: the national goal of

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-61074397405492877432011-01-12T13:53:00.007-05:002011-01-12T14:03:24.084-05:00

I'm feeling drunk, juiced up and sloppy Ain't touched a drink all night I'm feeling hungry, can't see the reason Just ate a horse meat pie Yeah when you call my name I salivate like a Pavlov dog Yeah when you lay me out My heart is beating louder than a big bass drum, alright Rolling Stones, BitchOn January 6, 2011, a Boston area police SWAT team raided a residential home looking for

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-88279961617530756082011-01-11T14:26:00.002-05:002011-01-11T14:29:23.032-05:00

Power Party. Inka Essenhigh Periodically, I like to highlight the work of an artist whose work I find compelling. Last time, we saw the narrative silhouette work of Kara Walker. For post 1150, Inka Essenhigh. Essenhigh paints images that appear to be influenced by cartoons, but her paintings are not cartoony. That is a very difficult blend to pull off, and I think she does it beautifully. If

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-74814895116898999562011-01-11T13:41:00.002-05:002011-01-11T15:06:43.104-05:00

Dear Anne, My father travels a lot for business and when he returns home he always brings arm loads of gifts for me and my sister. However, I've noticed that his clothes are usually stained with blood and he smells like sulfur and ash. I think he may be a serial killer. Any advice? sincerely, Concerned CitizenAlmost 11 years ago, I was driving somewhere on a traffic clogged highway in Atlanta

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-59038349892201658252011-01-10T13:13:00.005-05:002011-01-10T13:20:27.147-05:00

I had not planned on saying anything about that AZ shooting, and I still don't have much to say. But I do have to say something about what others are saying about the AZ shooting - beginning with David Frum, whose article has to be in the early running for most aggressively stupid attempt to exploit the AZ shooting for political purposes. After horrific shootings, we hear calls for stricter

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-62592809823853076242011-01-08T20:25:00.004-05:002011-01-08T20:48:52.236-05:00

Commitment to Sparkle Motion. Oil on Canvas. 48"x60" That's right, dear reader, I am giving up painting(s). This painting is a gift for my friend, Michael and I hope to give up many more paintings in the coming months. The first section of this write-up is a brief autobiographical sketch intended to explain why I am happy to give away any of my art to those who ask for it and I very strongly

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-89338895194954024242011-01-08T15:09:00.003-05:002011-01-08T20:33:41.840-05:00

1000 Blackbirds. Oil on Board. 16"x20"

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-87157490949272298262011-01-08T12:23:00.002-05:002011-01-08T12:33:53.624-05:00

Over the past three decades, productivity per worker has soared while income has stagnated or even gone down. Productivity won't get you a raise. It may not even let you keep your job. So if working harder and doing more means less pay or, at best, no difference in pay, then why should anyone want to work harder? Playoffs and Rocking ChairsSlacktivistI’ve previously referenced Venkat’s ‘Gervais

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-57211077156546238292011-01-08T09:41:00.000-05:002011-01-08T09:41:07.300-05:00

[W]ars undertaken for perfectly good reasons of collective self-defense can swiftly turn into situations that require post-conflict stabilization. North Korea might attack South Korea in a way that demands response, and the response could well lead to the collapse of the DPRK state requiring the victorious allies to administer former DPRK territory. So it’s not smart to just say “COIN is bad, so

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-48348380207975895822011-01-07T20:37:00.002-05:002011-01-07T20:56:59.590-05:00

Somewhat apropos of Justin's previous post, and my comment under it:In the comments section of another blog, I was asked to justify my statement that "all that's keeping the American economy from collapse at this point is pure balance-sheet fraud and government handouts".We found out recently that the Fed spent $3.3 Trillion during the Great Bailout.They also lent out an additional $8 Trillion,

Thomas Daultonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253366531662635642noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-3144582707366264582011-01-06T17:44:00.004-05:002011-01-06T20:35:15.592-05:00

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Acme Cardboard company plans to create 6,000 new jobs in the next year, the cardboard manufacturer said Monday. The increased hiring is part of Acme's plan to open 20 new plants during the year and offer point of sale packages to individuals as well as companies, the company said in a statement. The manufacturer said the hiring is the latest phase in its ongoing expansion

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-274563492424830622011-01-04T16:32:00.006-05:002011-01-04T16:41:08.527-05:00

Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents. Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-36229952309560463762011-01-04T15:38:00.005-05:002011-01-06T14:33:37.778-05:00

De-commissioned oil tankers in mudflats of Bangledesh. Photo by Edward Burtynsky In economic theory, Jevon’s Paradox predicts that as the use of a resource becomes more efficient due to technological gains, use of that resource increases. The most obvious example of this in practice was seen in the 1970s, when the sudden spike in oil prices put the nail in the coffin of the lumbering, fuel

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-65305018496296460172011-01-04T11:11:00.000-05:002011-01-04T11:11:08.891-05:00

Iran has invited Russia, China and several European Union members to visit its nuclear facilities this month, but pointedly snubbed the United States, European diplomats said on Monday. Tehran confirmed on Tuesday that it had offered the invitation to show what Ramin Mehmanparast, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, called transparency and “Tehran’s goodwill” on its nuclear program. The

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-49612601793562291072011-01-03T20:41:00.004-05:002011-01-03T20:45:42.374-05:00

The last time I remember doing NYE somewhat big was a few years ago in Atlanta with some friends. We went out to some club and at the end of the night, between the 6 of us, we could not put together enough brain cells to remember where the car was. We wandered around in a chemical amnesia for a time until we accidentally found it. That night was the first and only time I tried Ketamine, and one

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-62657358059900305542011-01-02T05:18:00.000-05:002011-01-02T05:18:56.242-05:00

Abstract I. Oil on Canvas

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-20242911226562835092010-12-31T16:46:00.008-05:002011-01-01T18:15:16.898-05:00

I was involved in an online discussion about feminism and anarchism a few weeks back. There was some back and forth between two parties about feminism. One side held that feminists were a few steps closer from anarchist conclusions than unreconstructed chauvinists. The other side scoffed at this, pointing out that what many feminists agitate for is an equitable share of the power structure, and

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-59115028001949768862010-12-29T11:14:00.001-05:002010-12-29T11:16:31.347-05:00

Don’t be fooled by the skyscrapers, the roads clogged with the latest luxury cars or the high-tech gadgetry in pockets and purses. This country of 65 million people has embraced modernity, yes, but many Thais will tell you that ghosts and spirits still wander the streets and inhabit buildings. Important business decisions often require consultations with a fortune teller. Cabinet ministers and

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-20067250217419219432010-12-28T14:59:00.002-05:002010-12-28T15:38:12.024-05:00

I’ve added some new sections to the site links. First, you may notice that I have added a set of links to some of Thomas Daulton’s other writing. These are short pieces. My collaborator writes fiction, which near as I can tell is scattered around the web. It occurs to me that I’ve never explicitly told him that he is welcome to post fictional stories here if he wants, and it is kind of weird to

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-22783113592182283062010-12-27T15:51:00.004-05:002010-12-27T15:57:30.009-05:00

And those supplies aren’t keeping pace. Conventional oil production has been flat for four years; in that sense, at least, peak oil has arrived. True, alternative sources, like oil from Canada’s tar sands, have continued to grow. But these alternative sources come at relatively high cost, both monetary and environmental. The Finite WorldPaul Krugman. December 2010.A pretty weak editorial on

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898964.post-67870559955016949062010-12-27T14:57:00.002-05:002010-12-27T15:13:14.779-05:00

The social security issue would be a great first lesson to anyone who doubts the capacity of the nation's elite for deception and avarice. Unlike many other disputes over policy and political philosophy, very few of the facts about social security are subjective; the finances of the program are very easy to understand and all of the projections from the CBO are just as easy to understand. There

Justinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02924326177370725150noreply@blogger.com1