DrTdaxp

Jeffrey, why?

Jayson, fascinating!

Michael,

Nothing positive about another country having problems, whatever ones political background or “nationality” if one is into such things further instability is the LEAST one should wish for in ones own region or in other parts of the world.

PEACE!

The VoidMan
The World Would have BEEN a better place without NATIONS, TRIBES, RELIGION and whatnot!

Voidman, I'm not rejoicing in Lebanon's difficulties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lopez_Watson

Is this the Watson you are talking about?

“Ignorance of science and the preference for confirming “evidence” is widespread.”

Of course, but this case is one of a kind since Thorpe managed to catch these guys red handed when a simple Google search to confirm the names of people and institutions alone could have sufficed to disprove the paper.

Tell me this ain't agreat idea!

http://www.tankmagazine.com/tankbooks/

Via

http://www.goodmagazine.com/section/Marketplace/these_can_be_yours_007

Yeah, the micro-posts on the RSS feeder are annoying. Your articles are always thought out, but the two sentences don't reflect this at all.

@Dan, re: rss feed and links.

Damn but what a runaround! I've contacted Feedburner and have, through correspondance, narrowed the problem down to that of blogger. Via feedburner, my feed setting was set at “partial” so only a paragraph (and no links) shows up in a reader. The pain here is that the feed has always been set to that of full. So now I await the blogger Gods almighty advice.

I wonder what effect a promise of citizenship to Palestinian refugees would have on the stalemate?

One the one hand, it would legitimize Hezbollah as a political party. On the other, the militancy of Hezbollah wouldn't be as needed because the Lebanese state as a whole would protect them against Israel– room would open for other parties to represent individual Lebanese Palestinians, notably the parties pushing for the citizenship.

Jeffrey,

Certainly a striking ad…

To tie it back to a focus of this blog, we need some form of universal health insurance. A major function of government is pooling risk. This is the whole idea behind having a police and army, for example. That we do not pool risk against health mishaps makes little sense in this day…

Jayson,

While I don't smoke, the “Truth” ads are so poorly done, that I imagine getting addicted merely to foil their clumsy propaganda campaign…

For those of you whose psyches were irretrievably shattered by Black Eyed Peas “My Humps”, healing is at hand: Alanis Morissette did a parody.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W91sqAs-_-g

On the Pakistan article: I think I was intrigued more by the audacity than the potential. I agree with making peace with India, but the others assume more power and/or more benevolence than most dictators have.

D'oh! I totally forgot you'd already seen it– probably because I wasn't in a position at the time to see it myself:P

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/11/10/160/92202

http://www.desmogblog.com/spoof-website-touts-global-warming-death-were-you-duped

http://lowcarbonkid.blogspot.com/2007/11/that-geoclimatic-studies-hoax-and-what.html#links

What can I say? LOL and LMFAO! This is just pure fucking genius.

Whaaa…? Where did you see that?

http://kotaku.com/gaming/halo-3/buy-a-360-get-halo-3-for-free-323892.php

Jeffrey,

Ignorance of science and the preference for confirming “evidence” is widespread. We saw that during the attack on James Watson, where ludicrous claims on racial identicality were made in the mainstream media. We see a more fringe version of this in the story you link to above.

(A note: I realize that profanity is used as a rhetorical device on Kos and other blogs. I discourse such discourse.)

Michael & Jayson,

The collapse of Islamic civilization, which appears to be occuring in the continuous belt from the Pillars of Hercules to Turkestan, is a problem I do not know how to fix.

Catholicgauze & Jay,

To the extent that Islamabad focuses on stability, it needs to re-establish the status quo ante of “home rule” in the tribal areas. To the extent that it is an ally in the war of al Qaeda, it needs to route al Qaeda out of those areas. The Pakistani Army, an arrogant but thoroughly defeated force on every other front, may not be up to the task.

Jay@Soob,
Warizistan may not have a history of being controlled by the Pakistani government, but there is a huge difference between local tribal control and one of a Taliban and al Qaeda (expansionist) control.

Dan, the “funny” thing (well, at least *one* of them) is that the “memory palace” is an old thing that has a strange kind of cultural staying power, even though the concept has rather declined since the advent of the modern age.
Partly, it's because of what you said–it “works”; but there seems to be more to it.

My interest was re-awakened by mention of “augmented reality” during a discussion of future technology on a sci-fi list.

On a whim, I googled around for memory palace, and came across this *recently* published novel:

http://www.seasonofthewitch.com/books/sotw/synopsis/index.php

Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but its premise seems interesting….

Hmm….Well, I got dozens (maybe even hundreds!) of things to say, but, one must be orderly about it. There's only so much one can ask/answer/opinionate/bloviate/etc.

Jeffrey,

Catholicgauze has an excellent summary. [1] Pakistan's two westernized factions, the elite and the military, are turning on each other at their weakest moment while the Islamists sit back and see who remains. The collapse of Islamic civilization generally since the World War, and of Pakistan particularly, is breathtaking.

Jayson,

Remembering is improved the more mental structures are related to each other. Memory palaces, which also enable the use of the visuospatial sketchpad of working memory [2], would seem to be a neat trick to do this.

[1] http://catholicgauze.blogspot.com/2007/11/martial-law-in-pakistan.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baddeley's_model_of_working_memory

“…Islamists sit back and see who remains.”

Somehow, I thought this would all work out to be in Waziristan's favor. So, what to you think about the present security and future security of their nuclear stock?

Getting the Chinese into Africa in a political way is the one thing I would change for Africa…. [1]

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2007/11/28/if-i-could-change-just-one-thing-per-continent.html

The author describes inventiveness in the narrow terms of engineering. There is nothing wrong with this per se, but it is deceptive. Take America and Japan. For a variety of reasons, including a more open economy and greater tolerance for failure, the U.S. is the undisputed leader in business process innovation. Whereas, Japanese creativity (outside of consumer electronics) is largely focused on quality improvements. Both of these are forms of creativity, but insisting that only R&D focused on engineering leads to innovation is odd.

Why is it, with so many people giving up landlines altogether for cell phones, that my provider no longer carries phones with batteries that can be charged separately from the phones?

Dan,

Seeking opinion:

http://feedjit.com/

Would like your opinion on this; was actually thinking of trying it. What do you think?

Would it be something you'd try?

Hey Dan, here's something up that might be up your alley–

ANNEXING MEXICO Solving the Border Problem Through Annexation and Assimilation
by Erik Rush

http://www.erikrush.com/booklink2.htm

Only stumbled across this site recently.

Looks like you're not alone.

Apparently a new book–Amazon only carries 3 customer reviews, but at least they're all positive.