People need to understand that you can not use the road in disasters. This rant demonstrates why.
Rant of the Week: 10/21/07-10/27/07
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Monthly Archives: October 2007
Essay of the Week: 10/21/07-10/27/07
The study of history is indispensable to the understanding of the present. How many people understand that Turkey has Kurdish problem because of how they did away with the Armenians?
Spengler’s essay entitled Turkey fears Kurds, not Armenians is an excellent example of the type of historical analysis that you should see more often. How many other discussions of Turkey’s “Kurdish problem” in the newspapers make reference the devils bargain that the Turks made with the Kurds in 1915?
The only problem with Spengler’s excellent essay is its conclusion. Spengler has long argued that that America should embrace the instability in the Middle East and use it for its own ends. In past essays, Spengler has held up as his model for American actions the British Empire’s method of playing tribe against tribe and nation against nation to secure their own ends.
But I think that Spengler “realism” is a fundamental misreading of history. It is true that the British often played a Machiavellian game. But the British goal was always the creation of stability. They wanted the competing powers to balance each other out so that they could play the broker. By definition, you can not control chaos.
It was chaos that eventually destroyed the British system. It was the uncontrolled fighting between Hindus and Muslims in India. It was the fighting between Jew and Arab in the Middle East. It was the fighting between blacks and whites in Africa. The effort to maintain stability became more then British people could bear and their empire fell apart.
With chaos threatening to sweep through the Middle East; with Russia in the middle of a demographic death spiral and sitting on one of the largest stocks of nuclear weapons in the world; with China one serious economic crises away from military adventuresome (how else would the goverment maintain legitimacy?); the US is faced with the prospect of so much chaos that its super power status will cease to have any real meaning.
It does not do you much good to be captain of a sinking ship or a superpower in world without stability.
SIV's honestly explained.
Knowing my love of a certain type of British humor, The Silverware Thief sent me this link. Then shortly after that, Calculated Risk brought this video to my attention. The coincidence of two different people calling to my attention a similar type of humor one video was to much to be ignored. So I have elected share the Calculated Risk link with you all as it is the most relevant. (Though in a way, the clip on Foopaux is just as relevant).
What does success mean?
While Corbusier and I have some similar criticisms of New Urbanism he takes issue with my statement that New Urbanism is doomed to failure. He argues that New Urbanism should be considered successful because of its commercial success. As he puts it…
Although I’ve expressed skepticism on some of the results promised by proponents of New Click Here to continue reading.
A.W.O.L.
I’ve kind of been Absent Without Leave, haven’t I? Though I prefer to think of it as M.I.A. (Missing In Action), because just because I haven’t been writing doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing things and thinking things. I was doing so well, for a while there, keeping up on posting once a week. But Click Here to continue reading.
While I have been away, the world has been ending.
While I have been taking a break from posting, the world has been ending. There is nothing really new in that so I don’t know if I should make a point of recapping what these pages have missed. But just in case you are interested….
Macro Man says “Bloody Hell…..”
That is generally how a lot of people reacted to this week. It was the TIC data for august that had Macro Man all excited but most of the excitement has been centering on the structured investment vehicles of this world (other wise known as SIV’s). All anyone really knows for sure is that something is really wrong with the SIV’s of the world.
We know this because the Treasury department and Citigroup (the largest bank in US) have been banging heads together to try to create one big bail out fund. Seeing as how Citigrou’s own personal pet SIV demons have it on the hook for about 100 billion, the suspicion is that this is a plot to bail out Citigroup. But seeing as how even SIV’s that are not associated with Citigroup are starting to go bankrupt, I think that it is safe to say that this problem is broader then just Citigroup.
In other news, oil has almost managed to break $90 a barrel.
Observations on a poem
Every now and again, a poet will ask his audience for thoughts on his poem. This has always struck me as a vaguely indecent proposition. It’s rather as if someone stood before you fully clothed and asked for a commentary on their body. Technically all modesty is preserved, but it’s still a rather awkward request.
My Click Here to continue reading.
Mirror Practical Joke
I found this video of a very elaborate practical joke via Dark Roasted Blend. Identical twins trick numerous passers by into believing they cannot see their reflections. Most of them seem very disturbed by this trick. I only wish it was in english, or had english subtitles so I could hear what they were saying.
Siteswap
I had to write a report in Microsoft Word for a computer course I’ve been taking. I’m sufficiently technically advanced that an assinment on Word provides little to no learning, so to keep it from being any more mind numbingly boring than it had to be, I decided to write a paper on juggling pattern Click Here to continue reading.
Mirror Practical Joke
I found this video of a very elaborate practical joke via Dark Roasted Blend. Identical twins trick numerous passers by into believing they cannot see their reflections. Most of them seem very disturbed by this trick. I only wish it was in english, or had english subtitles so I could hear what they were saying.