tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43664200722624227822024-02-19T15:33:13.509+07:00Random ThoughtsAn American Expatriate in Asia Reflects on News of the DayMekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-65961791751794093762011-12-13T11:04:00.000+07:002011-12-13T11:04:06.547+07:00Gagging the Statue of Liberty and Skewering the Scales of Justice -- The State, 1 - Blogger, 0<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="color: blue;">The following is my response to a story I just read online,</span> <a href="http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2011/12/crystal_cox_blogger_case_sets.php" target="_blank">Crystal Cox Case Sets a Terrible Precedent with a Correct Ruling</a><span style="color: blue;"> in a blog on the </span><a href="http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/" target="_blank">Seattle Weekly Blogs</a><span style="color: blue;"> website. (Links open in a new window.) The Mr. Cartier I address is the author of the story.</span></b></span><br />
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</b></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="color: blue;">Mr. Cartier, though I'm not a lawyer, I reach a different conclusion about the law, though as a blogger myself, I understand the dilemma in defining just who qualifies as being a "journalist" when we're talking about the blogosphere and the wider Internet at large. My conclusion arises from part of the opening of the Oregon law: "No person connected with, employed by or ENGAGED IN any </span><strong style="color: blue;">medium of communication</strong><span style="color: blue;"> to the public . . ." (my emphasis).</span><br style="color: blue;" /><br style="color: blue;" /><span style="color: blue;"> The two words "engaged in" are the basis of my conclusion. Let me start with the first phrase, "connected with," however. Then I'll turn to "employed by."</span></b> <b><br style="color: blue;" /><br style="color: blue;" /><span style="color: blue;"> Who can we say is "connected with" any medium of communication. since the judge's opinion shows that he sees "media of communications" as being traditional news sources and ONLY those, I suppose that if an advertiser with, say, CNN, Fox, The Seattle Weekly, etc. also has a blog and writes something the subject of the piece feels to be libelous, and that piece is based on an anonymous source, the judge in the Cox case would rule opposite of his decision in the Cox case. After all, never mind that the advertiser, let's say, owns a furniture store, or restaurant, or -- well, *any* business that has nothing to do with news. However, such a person advertising with a medium of communication (as such is considered to be by this judge), that advertiser indeed has a "connection with" said medium.</span></b> <b><br style="color: blue;" /><br style="color: blue;" /><span style="color: blue;"> "Employed by" is a phrase with a self-evident meaning. You yourself, Mr. Cartier, are an employee of this paper in your capacity as a reporter (or so I assume). As such, presumably you receive a salary, so are employ an outfit that is clearly a news medium. However, so are the people employed to keep the premises clean, as are the security staff, advertising sales team, etc. By a literal reading of the judge's view, his own words would force him to rule they, too, could write a blog that maybe not a single person at The Seattle Weekly even knew about, a blog in which that cleaner/guard/sales staff member wrote a story based on information from an inside source that the story's subject feels is libelous. But the writer would, according to the judge, fall under the protections of Oregon's relevant law.</span></b> <b><br style="color: blue;" /><br style="color: blue;" /><span style="color: blue;"> Now we come back to "engaged in." Ms. Cox apparently has no "connection with" any news organization, nor is she employed by any. However, I am unmoved by the judge's argument that one *must* be a paid employee -- I'm willing to assume he didn't mean as a cleaner, etc., but as a reporter (though he left such a possibility open, I gather). But if she is not "engaged in" a medium of communication -- the blogosphere -- then on what grounds can anyone claim she libeled *anyone*? If she ISN'T engaged in that medium, then what is she doing?</span></b> <b><br style="color: blue;" /><br style="color: blue;" /><span style="color: blue;"> There are other contrary instances.</span></b> <b><br style="color: blue;" /><br style="color: blue;" /><span style="color: blue;"> I'm personally acquainted with a blogger who doesn't even have a formal business at all, but makes his living from the advertising he sells on his quite popular website. He isn't "employed by" his website, nor does he have any affiliation with any accredited news organization -- at all. Not as a reporter anyway. Yet in his niche, his entire website is entirely devoted to reporting news and offering commentary, sometimes scathing commentary. Clearly, he would run afoul of the Oregon law, as interpreted by this judge, were he to write a Cox-style piece.</span></b> <b><br style="color: blue;" /><br style="color: blue;" /><span style="color: blue;"> Then think of the countless free-lance journalists whose sole role is to go out entirely on their own, research some piece then offer it for sale. According to this judge's take, a free-lancer who sold just one -- but the free-lancer who hadn't yet landed his or her first sale would not, even if that person had a hundred stories on file and still up for sale.</span></b> <b><br style="color: blue;" /><br style="color: blue;" /><span style="color: blue;"> Finally, just how, in the good judge's opinion, an organization qualify for protection in the *first* place? It's number of readers, or employees, or advertisers (if any)? Some combination thereof? Or does it depend on the frequency with which it appears, or the number of stories, or, if it's a subscription-based outfit, its number of subscribers? Are words even necessary? How would he view a website or magazine that offered literally NO words at all, but only images -- without captions? True, I've never seen or heard of such a website or publication, but I can imagine one. Well, I guess at least one word would be needed -- a name for it. But it could be something completely bland one: "Pictures," for instance.</span></b> <b><br style="color: blue;" /><br style="color: blue;" /><span style="color: blue;"> No, this judge still has a very steep and high mountain to conquer before he even approaches convincing me of the validity of his view. By the way, I wonder if the jury's verdict was a *directed* one?</span></b> <b><br />
</b> </span></div>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-32718990039878506562010-10-07T16:10:00.001+07:002010-10-07T16:14:10.087+07:00Is the World Finally Waking Up To the Need to Begin Shifting to New -- and Green -- Energy Sources? A Hearty . . . Maybe.<b><span style="font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-size: large;"></span></b><b><span style="font-size: large;">Anyone who knows me knows that on the one hand I'm a pragmatist who knows we're stuck with fossil fuels for at least the next several decades. After all, the U.S. gets around half its energy from coal, while in China that figure climbs to around 70%.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">However, a realization that we need to be planning for a post-oil world is clearly spreading, partly as the acceptance that serious anthropogenic climate change grows. For instance, the respected Swedish geologist and physicist Nils-Axel Mörner long challenged the concept, often focusing on long-range forecasts of rises in sea levels. However, just within the past few weeks, Dr. Mörner has changed his stance, and now is warning against climate change, specifically the dominant warming trend. Formerly a poster boy for skeptics and deniers, Dr. Mörner's switch has been greeted so far by those skeptics and deniers with a . . . big, fat silence, at least in the many sources I regularly read.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Not that their silence os a surprise, mind you. After all, last northern hemisphere they were besides themselves with joy when a major snowstorm struck the U.S. Atlantic seaboard from south of the nation's capital north and when the non-event, as it turned out, of so-called "Climategate" hit the press, yet this just-ended northern summer, they were strangely mute as, most notably (if only because of the press coverage), Moscow suffered day after day of record-high temperatures for two months. The City of the Tsars sees an average August daytime temperature of around 72F; this summer (and not just in August, by the way), the temperatures averaged <i>much</i> higher -- from between about 20 degrees to 30 degrees (both F). Wildfires raged throughout western Russia and parts of Europe.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Other parts of the world were affected too, some with heat, others by, for example, floods. Japan, for instance, had its own weeks-long heat wave; well over <i>40,000</i> Japanese sought treatment for symtoms of possible heat stroke. Meanwhile, as much as 1/5th of the entire country in Pakistan was underwater from unprecedented flooding. I remember reading that one city received more rainfall in a single 24-hour period than it normally receives during that day's entire month. China, too, was struck by severe flooding. All of these events were caused by the same thing, a stalled high-pressure system that re-routed the jet stream, significantly affecting the weather over a vast area.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">But back to this entry's headline. As I write, China is hosting a major meeting on the climate in Tianjin, a major city, a port, southeast of Beijing. <i>China</i>. Further, as reported in the <i>New York Times "</i><span style="color: blue;">"</span><i>"</i><a href="http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/businesses-seek-clarity-on-climate-goals/" style="color: blue;">Businesses Seek Clarity on Climate Goals</a><span style="color: blue;">,"</span> a group calling itself "Business for the Environment" is holding a summit in Mexico City this week -- in part to call upon next month's U.N. meeting in Cancun, Mexico to establish a goal of cutting greenhouse emission by at least 50% -- from 1990 levels, no less -- by 2020. So, whose attending the summit in Mexico City? "<br />
blog "Green" in a story headlined "</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Among the companies attending the Mexico City meeting were global corporations including Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Siemens, and Maersk, one of the world’s largest shipping companies. Wal-Mart sent somebody for the first time," according to the article, which goes on to note, "But no one was there from any of the global energy companies. I'm particularly struck by the participation of Maersk, since shipping by sea is a huge contributor to greenhouse emissions. Good for Maersk -- and the rest of the companies participating.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Of course, the usual suspects continue their tricks. For instance, there is a proposition, Proposition 23, on California's ballot that is being strongly pushed by two Texas oil companies (Valero Energy, Inc. and Tesoro Corporation, both headquartered in San Antonio), each of which have two refineries in California, and both of which would have to take environmental measures at those refineries under California law AB32. Proposition 23, which masquerades as a job-protection bill (yeah, right), would block implementation of AB32 until after California has had four consecutive quarters with unemployment standing at 5.5% or less.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">California is currently struggling with an unemployment rate well over 12% -- around 12.5%, according to most calculations. Proposition 23 would contribute to that by threatening as many as 500,000 green-sector jobs. Further, businesses and investors have plowed billions into California, to a degree on the basis of AB32 (passed in 2006, the bill seeks to cut California's greenhouse emissions by 30% by 2020). Further, California's unemployment rate has dropped to 5.5% just three times in over 30 years, making Proposition 23's requirements unrealistic. Green jobs have been one of the few bright spots in the state's badly troubled economy.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">But companies such as Valero and Tesoro are beginning to find themselves with decreasing support, despite the tens of millions they've poured into fear-based lobbying and advertising to California. Even Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate for governor, has expressed some opposition to Prop 23 (though she still supports delaying implementation of AB32 one year to give time for a complete re-write -- read, "gutting" -- of that assembly bill). George Schulz, Secretary of State 1982-89 under President Reagan, and hardly a tree hugger, opposes Prop 23. (Schulz isn't a one-shot wonder; he served as Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of Labor during the Nixon and Ford Administrations.)</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Yes, there appears to be a <i>slow</i> drift as climate-change skeptics' and deniers' claims are increasingly debunked. But there are some who apparently won't be convinced until, for example, an island nation disappears beneath the waves. And even then, some of them will claim the islands sank, and continue to deny the seas rose.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">There's room for hope yet. . . .</span></b>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-68249728229263794822010-07-15T12:33:00.001+07:002010-07-15T12:36:22.560+07:00What Specifically Do Tea Party Members Want When They Say to "Return to the Constitution"?<div style="color: blue;">In their enthusiasm, Tea Party members may want to consider that several recent surveys found that about 1/3rd of those questioned identified themselves as either members of the party or leaning towards their views. Unless they can broaden their appeal to people from the center, they don't stand much of a chance of winning many elections. Those at the other end of the political spectrum have exactly the same problem.</div><div style="color: blue;"><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;">Also, since one of their demands is that politicians follow the Constitution, it might help to commission someone to summarize just what they want politicians to do, beyond the few specific demands they've made (such as eliminating certain government agencies); or explain how politicians are *failing* to follow the Constitution; or both. It might be helpful to keep in mind that the Constitution went into effect in 1789 -- 221 years ago. The point is that for 221 years our courts at all levels and other legal scholars have pondered the meaning of the Constitution, often arriving at very different decisions from earlier ones.</div><div style="color: blue;"><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;">That's not a political argument; the record is clear.</div><div style="color: blue;"><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;">For example, in 1857 the Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision that slaves were not citizens of the US so had no standing to sue. Further, the ruling said the Missouri Compromise and that Congress had no authority to forbid slavery. Compare that to the Plessy versus Ferguson ruling in 1896 (separate but equal) and the 1954 Brown vs. the Board of Education.</div><div style="color: blue;"><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;">Or look at the complicated history of who has the right to vote. For example, *some* free Black men could vote in the late 1700's -- though after 1810 *none* could. But they had that right, if only temporarily and only in some places, *long* before, for instance, women of any color got the right to vote. A few women could vote before 1920, but many could not until that year.</div><div style="color: blue;"><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;">So, when we say politicians should go back to the original Founding Fathers' meanings -- that would include a restriction on voting to White men 21 or older who owned property -- plus, somewhat confusingly, free Black males in certain places, too.</div><div style="color: blue;"><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;">We should go back to that?</div><div style="color: blue;"><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;">And, for that matter, to slavery? It took the Civil War and the 13th and 14th amendments to end it (1865 and 1868, respectively).</div><div style="color: blue;"><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;">Surely those aren't goals of anyone affiliated with the Tea Party.</div>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-42407728679463309972010-06-23T21:09:00.000+07:002010-06-23T21:09:51.893+07:00Be Cute When You Travel -- and Shop CUTE, Too!<div style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Just read a most excellent article by the most excellent Christopher Elliot on what to about taking stuff when you travel and how to decide what to bring home. (That's the link to the article on MSNBC above.)</span></div><div style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I especially like the part of the article about what not to bring home; it's really, well, cute. (Elliot is a really good writer as well as being knowledgeable, and an unusually effective travel advocate. For the latter, see his website http://www.elliott.org. *Any* traveler can learn a whole BUNCH there, I don't care how experienced a Road Warrior you are.) But back to this article. Elliott advocates using the "CUTE Principle."</span></div><div style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">So, just what <i>is</i> the "CUTE Principle," anyway? It's an acronym for "<b><i style="color: red;">C</i></b>an't <b><i style="color: red;">U</i></b>se <b><i style="color: red;">T</i></b>hat</span><span style="color: blue; font-size: small;"><i style="color: magenta;"> <b><span style="color: red;">E</span></b></i>ver</span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">."</span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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</div><div style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Come on -- admit it. <i>Sometime</i> or the other, you've bought and hauled home some perfectly worthless item, often putting yourself to considerable trouble because the thing was big, awkward, heavy, fragile -- or some combination of the above!</div><div style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You went all the way from, say, Dallas to Delhi, and just </span><i style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">had</i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> to have a colorful sari or two. Really, now -- how often do you think you'll be walking down Commerce on your way to the bank . . . in a bright pink sari?</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp-hEmE_n34oErMdDiZBzsvX-hWHcsGZVbulKlsEeaNzqskOPDr463Ovr2FoyFZa_PrFkxiLgB7JtqhZZ-u2cU9xn-qmHhOceuS86G-mMK1C5_woMPTilESu1l6yP4loN8YTcNoOP-ch6V/s1600/Pink_Sari.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp-hEmE_n34oErMdDiZBzsvX-hWHcsGZVbulKlsEeaNzqskOPDr463Ovr2FoyFZa_PrFkxiLgB7JtqhZZ-u2cU9xn-qmHhOceuS86G-mMK1C5_woMPTilESu1l6yP4loN8YTcNoOP-ch6V/s320/Pink_Sari.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><i style="color: magenta;"> A Little Flashy for The Bid D, Huh?</i></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Or maybe you went from Lexington to London and just couldn't <i>live</i> without your very own Beefeater uniform (if you've got a lot of money you want to spend on something really, really CUTE). Just imagine the envious stares you'll get when you and your lady land at JFK or La Guardia en route home and strol through the terminal, she in her pink sari, you, with your stiff upper lip, in your Beefeater garb:</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXf0QowTI2V4CPLIBhbdbB77nSHkvFtmdXdCLqHxx7pJuOW48ikoeKS5oBcB10OesaDHGCOD78pG83SgK4Szr_bWCPcEOXDyj8QOpaeheWARQjwJCrLVbMHxLjlj6Uwt7hKG9KlVWgK9P6/s1600/Beefeater_in_Fur_Hat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXf0QowTI2V4CPLIBhbdbB77nSHkvFtmdXdCLqHxx7pJuOW48ikoeKS5oBcB10OesaDHGCOD78pG83SgK4Szr_bWCPcEOXDyj8QOpaeheWARQjwJCrLVbMHxLjlj6Uwt7hKG9KlVWgK9P6/s400/Beefeater_in_Fur_Hat.jpg" width="287" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Talk of the Town! (And Maybe the Airport Police)</span></i></div><br />
<div style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ladies, you probably want something a little more realistic -- unless you are indeed Indian so can reasonably wear a sari, even in Dallas -- so let's check . . . China. The Chinese cheaongsam dress is very beautiful, no matter what the style -- casual (meaning short, like an ordinary skirt), semi-formal, and formal. And a lady need not BE Chinese to look quite attractive in a cheongsam. So, off you take from Boston to Beijing, and I promise you, you will turn heads back at Logan International Airport!</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiZJ-Tn4MjTA-64kThBbmVOcse1i-aUf-9D0Ev1ZJNdv2uc9BxS2TJ-MhEk64wes8fDm6wpENsP9VVm1KUbQUAIx4Bqa2F8gjyl2zGHYu6X0hXAcQH2_f_3H5BTF4jp-YkBwYtiruAIxDr/s1600/Cheogsam_Dress_Semi-Formal_Modern.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiZJ-Tn4MjTA-64kThBbmVOcse1i-aUf-9D0Ev1ZJNdv2uc9BxS2TJ-MhEk64wes8fDm6wpENsP9VVm1KUbQUAIx4Bqa2F8gjyl2zGHYu6X0hXAcQH2_f_3H5BTF4jp-YkBwYtiruAIxDr/s400/Cheogsam_Dress_Semi-Formal_Modern.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i style="background-color: blue; color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Imagine Strolling Along in This!</span></i></div><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And now, for the gents, let's see. . . AHA! A MAN'S cheongsam -- yes, there really is such a thing. That way you and your lady will be sartorially synchronized:</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEhh7RoTd7aChaLLSM9kIRXoPq4PTYiglYPbKR8kHfmcXndDCagKTIzqIzGj_e8xhieHKOo-YEcLoT4bHb5uv56Dqd5IzbCpd2uYRsxV-L-_ypwJkvGh5ZWIOcH8H4culjACrS1Bu5dl6S/s1600/Cheongsam_Man's.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEhh7RoTd7aChaLLSM9kIRXoPq4PTYiglYPbKR8kHfmcXndDCagKTIzqIzGj_e8xhieHKOo-YEcLoT4bHb5uv56Dqd5IzbCpd2uYRsxV-L-_ypwJkvGh5ZWIOcH8H4culjACrS1Bu5dl6S/s320/Cheongsam_Man's.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i style="color: #741b47; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Mmmm -- Let's Freak Them Out at the Chinese Takeaway Shop!"</i></div><div style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But hey, let's get coordinated here! Let's take a trip from Madrid -- whether the one in Maine, Alabama, New York, or Iowa -- to the better-known Madrid, majestic capital city of </div><div dir="ltr" style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><div class=" " id="tts_button" style="display: block;" title="Listen to this
translation"><object data="http://www.gstatic.com/translate/sound_player.swf" height="18" id="tts_flash" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="18"><param value="http://www.gstatic.com/translate/sound_player.swf" name="movie"><param value="sound_name=&sound_name_cb=_TTSSoundFile" name="flashvars"><param value="transparent" name="wmode"><param value="always" name="allowScriptAccess"></object></div><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title=""><i>España</i>, or "Spain." Pick up matching outfits there, and you're good to go -- no matter which "other" Madrid you're from!</span></span></div><div dir="ltr"><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title=""><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN5b6-u5z50V9rCiSOSj5dBVSd9zdWFNWZUxgTUYjxsIUbpQ-w0tXiynn25Nr47AdEU7hmSqabi4Fz2aN0fIsLh58-sGR6ADR6AEozEnUr2z3Mjrh1vY1F78Tp6AfCvd4DEgAhHYamthtg/s1600/Flamenco_Dancers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN5b6-u5z50V9rCiSOSj5dBVSd9zdWFNWZUxgTUYjxsIUbpQ-w0tXiynn25Nr47AdEU7hmSqabi4Fz2aN0fIsLh58-sGR6ADR6AEozEnUr2z3Mjrh1vY1F78Tp6AfCvd4DEgAhHYamthtg/s200/Flamenco_Dancers.jpg" width="125" /></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;"><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title=""><br />
</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: #bf9000; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><i><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title="">Imagine Tripping the Lights Fantastic at a Maine </span></span></i></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: #bf9000; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><i><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title="">Clam Bake, While You Stroll Along Alabama's</span></span></i></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: #bf9000; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><i><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title="">Madrid County Highway Towards the Florida</span></span><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title=""> State</span></span></i></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: #bf9000; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><i><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title="">Line 2.5 Miles South, Dine in Any of the Several</span></span></i></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: #bf9000; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><i><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title="">Hotels in New York with Names from Places</span></span><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title=""> in Spain,</span></span></i></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: #bf9000; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><i><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title="">or Touring the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center in Iowa(!!!)</span></span></i></div><div dir="ltr"><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title=""><br />
</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title="">I guess you expect a little explanation regarding the caption for the flamenco dancers, sigh. Okay.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title=""><br />
</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title="">Well, one entertainment activity for which Maine is very well known is its clam bakes. Okay, so that doesn't really conjure up Spain, but by wearing your flamenco outfits, you have fun <i>two</i> ways -- and, no doubt, provide the Nor'eastern men and women with untold mirth! As for Madrid, Alabama, that was a tough one. The town is in the part of the state the state tourism bureau calls "the River Heritage Region" (there are three other regions), but in the 2000 census, it boast 303 folks, so it's not exactly hopping. But that's okay, as walking towards the Florida panhandle might remind passersby of the days when Spain owned this part of present-day U.S. -- something people forget<i>.</i>Madrid, Iowa was downright fun. It was founded by Swedes in the 1840's, but renamed "Madrid" in 1882, then incorporated in 1883. Located in central Iowa, you do have wide, open horizons; there's nothing to interfere with your view until the Rockies to the west, the Hudson Bay to the north, the Appalachians to the east, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south (well, except for the Ozark Mountains). So here you are, in the middle of fields of corn and wheat farmed by hardy folks of Swedish stock but very American in a town named after the capital of Spain! Hard to get more multicultural than that!</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title="">There are, of course, countless CUTE items one acquires, not just clothes (though <i>do</i> leave that serape in San Louis! You'll look silly if your home's, say -- Tokyo). I mean, how many hotel notepads and pens, individual servings of condiments, matchbooks, paper menus, cocktail napkins -- well, you get the picture -- do you really <i>want</i>, really??? And that plaster-of-paris hound dog isn't <i>really</i> representative of Incan art at Macchu Picchu, now, is it? Iowa was fun. And how much sense do the plastic Egyptian pyramids make, anyway -- when they're Christmas ornaments, complete with snow inside (the kind people of a certain age will remember from childhood inverting then righting endless to watch the resulting "snow storm"). And why on earth take advantage of your time in Tierra del Fuego to buy reproductions of . . . Thai art???</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title=""><br />
</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title="">Well, to each his own. But don't whine to me when you approach Customs on your return, all decked out in your hula grass skirt, a serape, maybe a fake Zulu spear (plastic, let's hope!) in one hand and a statue of Shiva (Hindu God of Destruction) in the other (but NOT a plastic one -- please!), all topped off with a Thai Hill Tribe hat. And then you get pulled aside for a secondary inspection, then maybe a tertiary, then maybe . . . the nice men in white! ;-)</span></span></div><div dir="ltr"><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title=""><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfLP6CJ9z8h3VUWLt3fJy9z3kO0w-ZdepEl0eJmYCQqzA4LRw36acBWT4DhfnXvstmUBFABli5k_xxNciLyltel-Y8OYFxCre-u7t08DiVQHuoEWmV1YwaH0wwR5qvJI0mZVK0XrnE2Zh0/s1600/Shiva_Hindu_God_of_Destruction.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfLP6CJ9z8h3VUWLt3fJy9z3kO0w-ZdepEl0eJmYCQqzA4LRw36acBWT4DhfnXvstmUBFABli5k_xxNciLyltel-Y8OYFxCre-u7t08DiVQHuoEWmV1YwaH0wwR5qvJI0mZVK0XrnE2Zh0/s320/Shiva_Hindu_God_of_Destruction.jpg" /></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;"><span class="short_text" id="result_box"><span title=""><i style="color: red; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Shiva</span></i></span></span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUF2RBDFW9E7o57312mK7pVxWzjogTbVT8edJPvNKpQQ09DOqBw8lmUIFAR4mCuBJMO5hxfI0mZjjQtrirbWpGTa2CAesmVT8SxnhF9LcnXOB19ws89IYcI7BE9hfjZ3kOp8BTsOMZfqhR/s1600/Kurt_NYE_1_Web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUF2RBDFW9E7o57312mK7pVxWzjogTbVT8edJPvNKpQQ09DOqBw8lmUIFAR4mCuBJMO5hxfI0mZjjQtrirbWpGTa2CAesmVT8SxnhF9LcnXOB19ws89IYcI7BE9hfjZ3kOp8BTsOMZfqhR/s320/Kurt_NYE_1_Web.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: magenta; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>And Finally, a Thai Hill</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: magenta; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Tribe Hat -- But I Didn't BUY It --</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: magenta; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>a Friend Had It One New Year's Eve!</i></span></div>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-59564373418430574902010-05-21T09:36:00.000+07:002010-05-21T09:36:18.935+07:00Is the Clean-Up about to Begin . . . or Have We Seen Only the Prelude of Things to Come?<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">It appears the 2-month+ protests by the "Red Shirts" are over, at least for now.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Wednesday and yesterday saw a shocking amount of wanton destruction. Buildings, buses, and other places and things, were set alight by rampaging Red Shirts -- or were they? Some speculations suggest another hand, a dark one, might have been behind at least some of that.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">If I understood the TV news announcer correctly last night, the Center One Shopping Center in the Victory Monument area was so heavily damaged by fire that the owners have said it's not worth trying to repair it, even if that's possible, so they'll raze it. That report didn't indicate the plans, if any, beyond that.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Central World, a shopping icon in the heart of the business district -- and adjacent to the main rally Red Shirt site -- was largely gutted by the fire set alight in it Wednesday night. Due to sniper fire and other safety concerns, firemen had to stand off until yesterday morning, by which time much of the damage had been done. (Standing off by the fire department was pretty much the rule, and I don't blame them.)</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Both the Skytrain and subway remain closed today, as do some bus routes (that last is -- I <i>think</i>). So do a great many businesses.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">That includes some you might not expect. Last night I went about 7:30 P.M. to the 7-Eleven in my sub-soi where I live -- only to find it closed. When I thought about it, given that there was a 9:00 P.M.-5:00 A.M. curfew about to start (as it will tonight and tomorrow night, by the way), I guess it wasn't a surprise, though it did draw me up short, and still does.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Why? Well, my sub-soi is a little crooked, and though that 7-Eleven can be approached from several directions, they all feed into the sub-soi itself, and the store is located in a place it's not easily visible until you're upon it, not even from Sukhumvit Soi 22. Coming from my home, <i>I</i> can't see it until I round the bend just a few meters before the entrance. No one comes into this little private world unless they live or have business here, or happen to wander in by accident, so it remains somewhat . . . what? . . well, let me rephrase it: it gives one reason to pause and reflect to ask just how disjointed matters are.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">My soi is also lined with street vendors in the evening. There were some last night, though some regulars weren't around. Those that were open were doing a brisk business, running low on food, and clearly not planning to cook up anything else, not with the start of the curfew not so far off.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">We didn't have a curfew even during the 2006 coup that deposed then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, now a fugitive dodging a two-year prison sentence; the last curfew here pre-dates my time in Thailand, a curfew imposed almost exactly 18 years ago in May, 1992, also known as "Black May" owing to the violence and deaths at that time.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The noted Thai-American author and keen observer of the local scene S. P. Somtow has just written about the protests, though his overall focus is on the debate about the reporting by the foreign media throughout this crisis, particularly that by CNN's Dan Rivers. Somtow's piece is one of the best introductions for Westerners seeking to approach and understand Thailand I've ever read, and it's not long -- a blog entry. You can read that essay here:</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">http://www.somtow.org/2010/05/dont-blame-dan-rivers.html</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">(Somtow's homepage http://www.somtow.org is well worth bookmarking, by the way.)</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Back down to the nitty-gritty.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The troubles haven't been confined to Bangkok. Since Wednesday, at least four provincial halls in the Northeast (Isaan), from where many of the protesters come, were torched. Red Shirt demonstrations have occurred in the North as well, in Chiang Mai, Thailand's "Second City," for instance.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">A great many ordinary, everyday folks have had their lives seriously disrupted. I read an article a few days ago in which someone involved in tourism was quoted as saying he knew several people who had been involved in the industry in the form of owning private businesses, such as tourist agencies, who simply didn't have the money to continue so had folded. Closed. Gone belly up. They took a heavy blow in the wake of the invasion of the ASEAN summit and airport occupations last year, and according to this guy, these just-ended protests proved fatal.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Of course, that means their employees are unemployed, too.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I read about a boutique hotel somewhere near the main rally site; the owner said that normally they would have 85-90% occupancy this time of year -- but that at the time of the story, they didn't have even one guest, so he had locked the gate to the grounds and hunkered down for the count.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tourism arrivals are way down, though by how much is unclear. The most dramatic I've read is that prior to the start of the protests, Suvarnbhumi Airport (Bangkok International) was receiving around 30,000 people daily, but that by then that number had dropped by a shocking 2/3rd's or so, to about 10,000 daily.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Think about that: a drop of 20,000. That number undoubtedly includes people returning home, both Thais and foreigners who have settled here, but it also includes a great many tourists and business people. Visitors. Visitors who spend money, generating employment.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Gone.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Even if every single tourist who canceled a trip here was a backpacker limited -- just to pull a number out of thin air -- to spending US$20 per day, that's not an insignificant sum, especially after about 10 weeks. And you know not every tourist is a backpacker on a shoestring budget.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">As for the business folks, well, they're hardly going to be staying in a 400-baht-per-night "love hotel," are they? They're not going to be buying 25-baht servings of friend rice from street vendors, Rolex knock-offs along Sukhumvit Road or in the Patpong Night Bazaar, riding unairconditioned buses, especially long-distance buses, and the like.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Further, some of them may have been coming here to discuss investments. Serious investments. What if they advise their companies to invest elsewhere? And some news reports suggest that this is happening, or that the business people are advising at least holding off investing. And another delay day is another no-payday for locals.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Then there's the personal inconvenience. While I haven't been sitting around home grieving that getting out might not be such a hot idea -- I have been sitting home, for exactly that reason. The only two times I've left my sub-soi in the past week were last Friday, when my glasses broke and I had to get a new pair chop-chop (since I'm practically blind without glasses), then again two days ago when I had to go the the nearby Tesco-Lotus to run a can't-wait errand. I encountered absolutely no problem either time, though in the latter case, a fair bit of luck was involved. That is, I got to the Tesco-Lotus about noon, and spent about 30 minutes there before leaving. I left about 12:30 P.M.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Arsonists struck about 2:00 P.M. I hasten to add that as far as I know, no one was even hurt, let alone killed, but I am plenty happy I wasn't around when whoever started the fire arrived. (By the way, I also don't have any idea if the resulting fire was major, minor, or in-between, though the fact that I <i>don't</i> know gives reason to hope any resulting damage was minor, since had it been major it undoubtedly would be played up in the news.)</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">So, for me, the inconvenience has been, and continues to be, minor. After all, I don't work, so I don't have to worry about getting to work. And I rarely get off Soi 22 even in perfectly normal times.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">But what about the people who <i>do</i> have to get to their jobs? Of course, since some no longer even <i>HAVE</i> a job, that's not a problem now, is it???</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Along those lines, of not having a job, that is, what about, to give two examples, employees at TV Channel 3 and the Khong Toey Metropolitan Electric Authority Office? Both those were badly damaged by fire -- the picture I saw of the latter shows it as what seems to me to be gutted. Both undoubtedly will come back into service -- eventually. Will the current employees be paid while the buildings are rebuilt? Will those two operations shift elsewhere so they can get back into business as soon as possible -- and keep their employees working? I don't know.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">And that scenario is being played out in many, many places, around Bangkok, and elsewhere.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">On the macro level again, Thaksin has denied being a leader of the Red Shirts at all, and people who did lead them on the ground have surrendered (some of them) to the police and admitted, in at least one leader's case, <i>legal</i> responsibility even while denying being able to "assume" any <i>financial</i> responsibility.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Red Shirt leadership and the movement itself are clearly fractured. The rampage started when some of the leaders took to the stage at Ratchaprasong to call upon their followers to stop the protests and go home.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">That clearly displeased fom of their followers, who promptly rioted.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">A few days ago, I read an initial estimate that the Kingdom has taken a hit for at <i>least</i> 500 <i>billion</i> baht. Folks, that's a huge amount of money. It's in the range of US$ 1.6 billion -- in just 10 weeks. Well, no -- it was closer to NINE weeks when I read that story. And, to tell the truth, I'm not sure if that figure was for the whole Kingdom -- now that I think about it -- or just for Greater Bangkok.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">So -- are the problems over?</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> I doubt it. As the <i>Bangkok Post</i> says in an <a href="http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/178623/wounds-will-take-a-long-time-to-heal">editorial</a>, it may take years, or even a generation, to heal the wounds that have been opened. Reuters has a opinion, according to a <a href="http://www.tannetwork.tv/tan/ViewData.aspx?DataID=1029622">story</a> at TAN (the Thai-ASEAN News Network).</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Some of my Thai acquaintances have commented, though none have talked about these past several weeks in a political context. They've been irked, even angered, by the inconvenience, first, and to a much greater degree, secondly, by the violence, but even in criticizing the violence, they remained silent on their opinion about who was right, who was wrong, etc. They just wanted everything to <i>stop</i>.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">It's going to be awhile before we're back to business-as-usual. It will take time to repair or replace damaged and destroyed facilities, for one thing. It also will take time for those thrown out of work to find new employment, and for the government to help them survive in the meanwhile. The security forces need some time to make as sure as they can that troublemakers are at least staying low, if not necessarily cowed over the longer term.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">On the practical level, it appears we're not going to face shortages of food, fuel, etc., as the various groups involved in those areas are reportedly moving swiftly to make sure there are enough supplies on hand and that the supply chain isn't interrupted. (Maybe I can get a loaf of bread today at the 7-Eleven, if it's open!!!)</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I wish there were something I could do to help, but given the raw emotions, I wouldn't be surprised if any offer I might make might meet with a snarl at perceived foreign interference. That wouldn't anger me or hurt my feelings -- peoples' emotions are understandably very, very raw. A couple of days ago I was chatting on the phone with a Thai friend and mentioned my cable TV was out, and she snapped at me, accusing me of worrying about small stuff. Then she immediately apologized before I could even react and explained that she was watching the TV news while we were chatting and there was a story about trouble in the provincial capital near which her family lives, and she was concerned about them, especially since she had been unable to get through on the phone.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I hope the bitterness begins to go away. . . .</span></span></span>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-86936134283604759892010-03-31T02:19:00.006+07:002010-03-31T09:45:59.631+07:00Days of Rage: The Health Care Debate. (0135, Wednesday, March 31, 2010, Bangkok time and date)<div style="color: blue;">
<span style="font-size: large;">If the debate over what has been billed as "health care reform" before the House vote Sunday, March 21 was often bitter and divisive, it has, if anything, become worse in the days since.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Some of the worst excesses can be condemned and dismissed quickly. A member of Congress was sit on and called a "nigger," another was called a faggot, yet others received threatening phone calls and faxes, one Representative's address was posted on the Internet along with a message for those objecting to the legislation to drop by and "thank" him -- except the address belonged to his *brother,* whose gas line to his outdoor grill was cut, and bricks were hurled through windows. Among the worst of the worst was a threat posted on YouTube by a guy, now under arrest, threatening Republican House Minority Whip Cantor and his family with harm or death.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">All of this is despicable. Reprehensible. Hateful. In many of the cases, laws were clearly violated -- reasonable laws to most of us. And we need to utterly reject such actions, from every quarter and from whichever side of The Great Divide they come. I assume you noticed that the actions above involved targets in both parties.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now what? Well, though the House and Senate have both signed off on the legislation and the President has done likewise, the fight really has just begun. To wit: there are two lawsuits challenging it, suits filed by various state attorneys general.
Constitutionality is an issue in these suits.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">One argues that the law violates the commerce clause, which enables Congress to regulate commerce between and among states, though (according to this argument) not within a single state; medical insurance is not sold across state lines. That seems straightforward on the face of it, appearing to trump -- and invalidate -- the legislation.
However, there's apparently nothing preventing a single company setting up headquarters in, say, Chicago, then establishing branches or subsidiaries not only in Illinois (in the case of Chicago), but in any other state(s) as well. Does that make that company's business subject to the interstate commerce clause? I don't know, and apparently there is no precise Supreme Court precedent. Proponent argue that it is subject to the commerce clause, pointing out that claims are often paid across state lines.
Another component of this suit is that individuals will be required to buy medical coverage. Opponents argue that it's unconstitutional to require us, by law, to buy a product or service offered by the private sector, and further argue this has never been attempted before.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I gather both suits also argue that the legislation violates the principle of state sovereignty, a controversial issue in just about any state, though more so in some than in others. I should point out that I have to rely on news reports for my information, and I'm not clear that both suits actually involve this principle, though I'm virtually certain that at least one does.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There are some points to keep in mind as we sit here trying to peer into the crystal ball to divine how all this might come out.
First, this legislation isn't about health care reform -- it's about health care insurance reform. One's an apple and the other's an orange, though just as apples and oranges are both fruits, health care reform and health care insurance reform are indeed related, as both center on, well, health care (obviously).
Second is this business about rationing and death panels. These require some detail.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Medical care is already rationed, and long has been.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This is most obvious in times of widespread natural disaster, when there's not enough of anything to go around for all the sick and injured, and doctors (and other medical personnel) have to make triage decisions -- "who needs it the most and the fastest?"
It is also effectively the case within the medical insurance sector; adjusters decide what to pay for and what not to pay for. If an adjuster decides not to pay for something and the insured person can't afford it, then he's out of luck -- not treatment/medine/surgery/etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The government panels? They are to try to discover the most efficacious treatment. The law specifically prohibits them from making medical decision, further specifically leaving that up to your doctor. Further, nowhere is there a single syllable empowering a government panel to summon Granny to learn whether she's getting a death sentence.
There was even a case of a protester berating a guy who is apparently -- please note the word "Apparently" (I'll explain in a moment) -- a victim of Parkinson's disease. The protester has since apologized and expressed remorse, to his credit. It's still worth watching the video:
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<span style="font-size: large;">Whatever happened to the "civil" in "civil discourse"?</span></div>
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</div>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-31060729377850298532010-03-02T17:39:00.000+07:002010-03-02T17:39:11.583+07:00Reconciliation and the U.S. Congress: A Study in Hypocrisy; and other Joys<span style="font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-size: large;">Just watched a great video on YouTube about reconciliation, that legislative process through which, in theory, differences in Senate and House legislation are ironed out. While reconciliation was meant to be used only for budgetary matters, it has been used for other things.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Thing is, when the Democrats are IN of power, they *like* reconciliation, which requires just 51 votes in the Senate rather than a super-majority (as it's rather amusingly called) of 60 to ram legislation through. When the Democrats are out of power, they *hate* reconciliation. But don't go congratulating the Republicans; they're indistinguishable from their Democrat buddies when it comes to reconciliation. Just watch the video:</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><object height="525" width="660"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BprXYe8zlBU&hl=en_US&fs=1&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BprXYe8zlBU&hl=en_US&fs=1&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="660" height="525"></embed></object></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Then there's the matter of health insurance for employees of the federal government. No one will seriously dispute (I hope) that if workers in the private sector deserve I*some* sort of coverage through their work, then so do federal employees. But it sort of depends on what we mean by "*some* sort of coverage," doesn't it?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I mean, did you know that under circumstances the EX-employees of a federal employee can continue being covered. Or, more startlingly, so can -- get this (Dave Berry ought to write about this) -- so can an ex-SPOUSE.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The last time I worked in the U.S. was mid-1990, after which I returned to These Asian Climes. I can just see myself calling up my former employer in Texas and saying, "Hey, the game's changed, and I want medical coverage again from you guys. By the way, remember my wife? I want her on the plan too. What's that? No, we're not; we split in 1994 -- but I KNOW MY RIGHTS and you BETTER cover her!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It gets better (if you define "better" in a really, really weird way). I ran across the main page for federal employee health insurance. Of course, when you start following the links, things become mind-numbing. But on the main page (URL to follow) you see there are two basic groups, one by geographic region, the other by service (fee-per-service plans), and the employee can choose either approach. Fair enough. The employees are also divided within each of those groups into two sub-groups: postal employees, and non-postal ones.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I pulled up the pages for each under the geographic plans. I scrolled down to the very first listing under Texas, and saw that of a biweekly premium totaling $194.30, the part the employee pays is . . . are you ready for this? . . . $28.17. That's a princely 15%, folks -- actually, a tiny fraction shy of that. "So," you ask, "who pays the rest of the taxes?" Do you pay federal taxes! Go look in the mirror and congratulate yourself for winning the gold in the Premium-Paying event.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here are the links to the main page, then to the one where I found the above example:</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">http://www.opm.gov/insure/health/rates/index.asp (main)</span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">http://www.opm.gov/insure/health/rates/postalhmo2010.pdf (postal)</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">You might also want to look at About.com's page on Congressional benefits. While members of Congress don't get *quite* the perks some think they do; certain ones have an average retirement income from *just there government service ("service," ha-ha) of dollars shy of $61,000. That's right: 61 G-notes, more than a lot of working stiffs make at full-time jobs (if they have one, that is).</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/congresspay.htm</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I read sometime ago that members of Congress can get full medical coverage for -- as I recall -- a puny premium of $503 per year. And if a Representative or Congressman needs to have the finest heart surgeon, so be it. (A few actually refuse this benefit, to their eternal credit, in my opinion.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">A final beef, probably my personal Number 1: amendments to a bill that have ZERO to do with the bill, especially OINK-OINK-bring-home-the-PORK! amendments.I wish the Founding Fathers had written into the Constitution that if an amendment wasn't CLEARLY related to a bill, then nope, it couldn't be stuck on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Snuffle snuffle oink oink.</span>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-4679588422175948162010-03-01T15:06:00.004+07:002010-03-01T15:10:00.510+07:00President Washington and Party Politics<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">In his farewell speech September 17, 1796, President George Washington spoke some truths about, and to, the then-new country, the United States of America.</span></div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">In President Washington's mind, as he stressed in his address, he though one factor we had to guard against was sectionalism -- as he couched it, the Atlantic versus the West and the North versus the South.</span></div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Of course, anyone with even a vague knowledge of American history knows that a mere 65 years later, the North and South put that to the test.</span></div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">But what of today, when the divides aren't so much geographical -- though those do exist -- as much as ideological, reflected in the current deadlock between our two main parties.</span></div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">David Ignatius, Op-Ed columnist for the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/">Washington Post</a> (clickable link), has written a thoughtful column titled "</span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/26/AR2010022603467.html?nav%3Dhcmoduletmv">The U.S. is at a crucial point in defining its direction</a>" (clickable link). Below is the reply I posted in the comments.</span></div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: blue; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *</span></div><div class="Comments_CommentText" style="color: blue;"></div><div class="Comments_CommentText" style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">President Washington warned in his farewell address in September, 1796 against party politics coming to dominate our national political life, a warning we well could heed now, when "The Wall of Washington" -- our own version of the Berlin Wall -- dominates that life.<br />
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It would be quite salubrious for our body politic, in the form of a joint session of Congress with the President and Vice-president in attendance, along with all Supreme Court Justices, in the audience -- not on the podium, but in the audience -- to have that farewell speech read out to them. Read out as a reminder of what, supposedly, we're about. If President Washington got it wrong, well, then, there's little hope for anyone else, over 200 years after he spoke so sagely, perhaps most directly to us in this paragraph:</span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<i style="color: red;">""""The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.</i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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Well, today's parties certainly are "sharpened by the spirit of revenge," and need knocked back, slapped down, into their respective places -- i.e., necessary parts of a whole to provide a whole government for America.</span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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They've both lost sight of that; hence, the Tea Party et al.</span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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Who to deliver such an address? I would propose to invite Mr. Vaclav Havel, former C</span><span style="font-size: large;">zech dissident then President, after his country's Velvet Revolution, for a "Havel Redux," a reprise of his brilliant speech to a joint session of Congress some 20 years ago, but reading Washington's speech. The entire speech.</span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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After 9/11, we got some sense of ourselves through no small measure of the the words in "What Is an American?" that wonderfully sympathetic late 18th-century essay by a Frenchman-turned American, Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur.</span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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Sometimes an outsider can see us better than we can see ourselves.</span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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I wonder if Mr. Havel would have the stomach for it, though. . . .</span> </div><div class="Comments_CommentText" style="color: blue;"></div><div class="Comments_NestedDate" style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">3/1/2010 2:34:37 AM (time posted at the Washington Post)</span></div>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-82328264968903918682010-02-25T17:23:00.000+07:002010-02-25T17:23:51.133+07:00Should YOU get an Hybrid or Extended-Range Electric Car?<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Although I'm very much for our weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, if for no other reason than to get us out of the situation of being at the mercy of some not-very-friendly countries -- think Venezuela, for instance -- I realize two important factors when we're talking about our cars: One, fossil fuels are going to be a major, perhaps the major, source of our total energy source for some decades to come; and, two, while technology is advancing by leaps and bounds, a great many people remain skeptical of hybrid and extended-range electric vehicles, and not without reason.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">But first, definitions are in order. A hybrid vehicle uses <i>both</i> its electric motor and gasoline engine at the same time -- that is, the gasoline engine is connected to the power train so that it works in tandem with the electric motor. In other words, gasoline is being consumed all the time you're driving, but at reduced rates per mile. On the other hand, an extended-range electric vehicle works differently; the gasoline engine <i>isn't</i> connected to the power train -- its only job is to keep the battery charged.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">So, if you drive, say, a Prius, which is a hybrid car,, you are going to be burning gasoline even if you just drive a mile or two. But if you drive a Volt (once they go on the market, that is), for up to the first 40 miles you won't be burning any gasoline at all.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">At first glance, anyone who drives, say, an average of 30 miles per day may think, "Heck! All else being equal, I'll go with a Volt!" And indeed, there is something to recommend that: no expense for gasoline, and a boost for clean air.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">But no gasoline expense and cleaner air aren't all there is to the story. You have to recharge a Volt -- well, I guess you could let the battery run down and just buy gasoline, since the expected fuel tank, according to the latest I can find from GM, will have a capacity somewhere in the 6-10-gallon range, and even at, say, 25 mpg, that'll get you a ways. In contrast, a Prius drives like a "real" car -- you never have to recharge it, because the gasoline engine is keeping it recharged the whole time while helping with the driving. That's a big plus, and a big reason the Prius is so popular. People do worry about being able to recharge an ER EV (extended-range electric vehicle).</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">If you're still eager for a Volt on the basis of savings on gasoline expenses, you better hold up and think a moment. Even if your driving habits are such that you indeed never or only very rarely drive more than 30 miles per day, how much are you going to save? If your current car gets 30 mpg, you'll save, at most, 7 gallons per week -- and that's only if you drive that much every single day of the week.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">I decided to look at that number, and do some math. I just now checked online, and in the area in Texas from which I come, the median price for gasoline in the last 24 hours is around $2.60. Okay, so in a week I save $18.20, or $946.40 per year. I just checked, and the average American car buyer who buys a new car keeps it three to four years. Let's split the difference at 3.5 years. Okay, 3.5 X 946.40 = $3,312.40 saved. Let's round that down to an even $3,000, just to build in a margin of error.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Right now, there are some nice tax breaks available. If I remember correctly, you can get a $7,500 break from just the federal government alone for either kind of car. (Don't take my word for that if you decide to do some serious shopping -- check it out; a rebate I may remember correctly may have been reduced or even eliminated.) Various states give various breaks as well. But let's say you live in a stingy state that *doesn't* give *any* break.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Okay, that leaves you your $3,000 in fuel savings, in the case of the Volt, plus the $7,500 tax break from the our friends at the IRS. (You know it must since a tax collector into spasms of grief when Congress and the President gives us breaks like these!) That's a cool $10,500, which is (sort of like) extra money in your pocket when you head to the dealership. If you're a person who can reasonably afford no more than a $30,000 car, that's a lot of extra buying power. I'm assuming that a $40,000 car is almost certain to be rather nicer than a $30,000 one. Put another way, you get a $40,000 for 3.5 years instead of that relative clunker you could <i>really</i> afford.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">BUT -- the eternal "but" -- what about after the fed break <i>ends</i>? Then you'll have to fork over $36,500 for a $40,000 car. And you'll have to recharge it as long as 3-4 hours -- on a 220-240 volt outlet -- or as long as 6-8 hours on a 110 outlet every time you drive it, depending, of course, on how far you drive it.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">That's a pain in the a -- I mean neck. A Prius, on the other hand, is ready to rock-and-roll all the time, every time, unless you were a dodo and ran the tank dry, in which case I have no sympathy anyway, Dunce! ;-) Just hope your battery has enough charge to let you limp to the nearest gas station to gas up. And don't forget <i>next</i> time, okay?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now, what about a Prius, in terms of fuel capacity and consumption? I think the 2010 model holds just under 12 gallons. Let's just call it 12 gallons. It boasts a range of "more than 600 miles," which isn't very specific, so I'll assume a range of just 600 miles, since manufacturers lie through their teeth all the time. (Ditto GM, no doubt, not just Toyota -- and <i style="color: red;"><b>PLEASE</b></i> don't bring up Toyota's current recall nightmare; I imagine they'll get that sorted, eventually, and make darned sure they don't get stuck like that again!) That's 50 mpg.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Okay, that means for a 30-mile commute you'll use just 6/10th's of a gallon compared to the 1 gallon you would use in an ordinary car that gets 30 mpg. So, you're saving 4/10th's of a gallon per day, or 146 gallons per year, which I am promptly rounding up to 150 gallons a year. At that same median price of $2.60 per gallon, that means you save $379.60 annually (if you drive every day of the week, every week of the year), which I'm also rounding to $380. Compared to the Volt owner, who saves $946.40-but-I'm-rounding-it-to-$950, You Pay, in a sense, a "convenience fee" of $570 not to have to recharge your car. A little under $1.60 per day.</span></span><br />
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</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">So, which -- if either -- sort of car should you buy?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Well, that depends. If you're a typical family person in a family in which both the husband and wife work and drive 30 miles daily, including on weekends, but you're home every night and have a garage or carport in which you can recharge your vehicle, you may want to opt for the Volt. Night is when electricity rates are their cheapest, you're not going anywhere anyway, bar an emergency. However, if your driving habits vary, or if your a night worker and have to recharge during peak-rate daytime hours, maybe the Prius is better for you.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">What about the potential car buyer who would be perfectly happy with a regular car that costs about the same as either a Volt or a Prius? I guess the next consideration would be how the buyer feels about cleaner air and the like -- and I don't mean climate change, global warming, whatever you want to call it. One can wish for cleaner air without believing any of the climate change stuff. If that's important to you (as it certainly is if you <i>are</i> a believer that people are pushing the climate over the edge), then you may want to give these cars some consideration, or cars like them.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">What about people with greatly different needs -- like me, were I to move back to Texas (or anywhere in North America, for that matter)? I'm single, and there won't be any babies in this old boy's future. I suppose I might acquire a significant other somewhere along the way, in theory anyway; depends on how stiff I get -- "Do I really need a Sweetie around to go get me a beer?" Crucial considerations like that, you know.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">But back to the point.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">I'd probably take a look at some cars in the SmartForTwo class, not all of which are two-seaters, as it is. I checked a SmartForTwo, and it's near-unbeatable on price: I put together a basic coupe plus a few extras, most importantly an air-conditioner. On the company's website, the price came back as $13,530. There are quite a few choices in this class, though their prices can range above $20,000.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">A final note: ER EV's aren't for everyone for everyone. Someone who otherwise is the ideal candidate suddenly remembers, "Hey, I live on the 78th floor of an apartment tower overlooking Central Park West! Where can I plug the damned thing in???" Oops. As the tuna ad says (or used to say in my day, anyway), "Sorry, Charlie." Or Charlotte. Or whatever.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">I personally expect we'll see technology catch up sooner than we think, though building up infrastructure is going to take time since there are tens of millions of people across the country who plain don't have ready access to recharge EV's. And not everyone trusts even a Prius, though that's changing in its favor.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">And if fuel prices soar again and <i>stay</i> high, unlike when they went to over $4.00 per gallon in 2008 but now are down to well under $3.00 per gallon, anywhere in the country, my bet is that Americans' driving habits really will change, even after the economy recovers and is purring along nicely.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Feel free to leave a comment! </span></span>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-64133984267210483762010-02-20T10:24:00.013+07:002010-02-20T11:22:39.936+07:00U.S. Federal Authorities Give Arrogant Advice AND Try to Redefine an English Word<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">I've just read an extraordinary article in Newsweek about a federal case over how far the authorities can go in getting a cell phone owner's phone regards -- not eavesdropping, but the data through which they can determine where you were at a given time. The first part of the title above is a reference to prosecutors saying if a cell phone owner doesn't like it, that's easy -- you don't need to carry a cell phone. The second part of the title above refers to an, um, "novel" claim by the authorities of the meaning of the word "solely."</span><br />
<div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">You can read the article at this URL, and I hope you do so you get the full feel of what it is I reacted to so strongly:</span></div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassified/archive/2010/02/10/can-the-fbi-secretly-track-your-cell-phone.aspx<br />
<br />
<br />
</span><br />
<i><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">While there are times federal agents might need such records -- the example of the agent tracking fugitives is a good example -- even under "2703(d)" orders, the agent or other authority seeking records needs to be required to explain to a judge just exactly what connection the information might have to the suspected crime. "It might be relevant" doesn't cut it, either, though apparently that seems to have become the basic departure point for some, especially since the passage of the Patriot Act.<br />
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For the prosecutors to have written "One who does not wish to disclose his movements to the government need not use a cellular telephone" is troubling, as is another assertion they made: "The term 'solely' is not wholly prohibitive, but rather, partially restrictive."<br />
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I'll address the "unusual" claim regarding the meaning of the word "solely" first.<br />
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Not wishing to rely upon my status as a native speaker of English, nor upon my two degrees in English, nor upon my many years teaching English in universities, mostly in the context of writing to native speakers and as language to non-native speakers, nor upon the fact I'm a writer, I looked it up. My dictionary defines "solely" as "1 only, completely. 2 alone." [Just for the record, my dictionary defines "sole" as meaning "1 one and only. 2 not shared, exclusive."]<br />
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Therefore, regarding the claim "the term 'solely' is not wholly prohibitive, but rather, partially restrictive": case dismissed.<br />
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Turning to the rather arrogant statement "one who does not wish to disclose his movements to the government need not use a cellular telephone," I have a counter-proposal to those prosecutors: "one who mistakes himself as being above the law should never be a prosecutor, nor even allowed to be." And when a prosecutor arrogantly dismisses citizen concerns regarding their 4th Amendment rights by saying a citizen just shouldn't carry a cellular phone -- and makes that assertion in writing -- he/she has just proven himself/herself, by his/her own words, as unworthy of being in the noble legal profession.<br />
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Most of us don't begrudge the authorities doing what is often a difficult and thankless job, and we are supportive and appreciative, even if we're not very good about expressing those sentiments. However, it has to be a two-way street: we don't want a police state.<br />
<br />
I'll do my part now: thank you for doing your jobs. Just please give what I've written above some passing reflection.</span></i>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-8726321181346903422010-02-20T06:58:00.000+07:002010-02-20T06:58:36.990+07:00Some Oddxs and Ends of News<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Just a few bits of news to pass along this time around.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">If you're planning on being in Thailand soon, you may be concerned about the sometimes dramatic news reports about plans supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin will hold demonstrations. While the leaders of those supporters are being quiet about where they might arrange rallies, the places I've read and heard speculation about are the places one would expect, such as the Government House and Parliament.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">As always, a little common sense will go a long way. The most obvious thing is to avoid going to places where large crowds are milling around. And for heaven's sake, don't take part in any such rally unless you're a Thai national (since that's your right, of course). I personally would not even getting into a conversation; passions are reportedly high in some instances, though I've run into any of that.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">There are other steps that are advisable anytime you travel, and anywhere. For instance, it's always good to leave money, credit cards, and other valuables in your hotel, preferably one with a safe in your room. You'll have to have some money, naturally, but leave a chunk in your room, and your air ticket. What you do need to take with you, including a camera, be careful with it. I carry my cash and wallet in my front pants pockets, as it's harder for a pickpocket to fish them out of front pockets instead of back ones. Ladies, if you don't to weak slacks, at least get a bag you can strap around your waist or dangle from your neck inside your blouse or dress. Actually, that's a good idea for men as well.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Try not to walk alone, especially at night. Be wary of strangers -- Thai or foreign who try to start chatting with you for no clear reason. And for sure don't go somewhere with a stranger who approaches you -- well, okay, taxi drivers are generally okay, though do insist on using the meter if there is one.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Almost forgot: before you even leave home, list and photograph everything you'll be taking with you If you take photos with a digital camera, you can e-mail them along with the list to yourself -- that way, if you get something stolen, you'll have those to help the police. And don't forget to photograph and list your credit/debit cards, driver's license(s), etc., too.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Try to have a good idea of what goods and services should cost. I once had a taxi driver ask me for <i>5,000</i> baht to take me to Jomtien , which is about 135-140 kilometers away. At the time, the going rate was in the 1,000-1,200-baht range! I just chuckled and declined.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">If you happen to be headed to the far north of Thailand, places such as Chiang Mai, Pai, and over by the border with Burma, there was a lot of smoke a few days ago., or so I read in a newspaper and saw on a local TV news report. I haven't been able to find out if it's gone yet, but I would be surprised if it is</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Okay. Enough with the cautions.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">If you are going to be in Bangkok and are an aficionado of the "Green Demon" buses, you're out of luck. They were finally ordered off the streets effective today; the Bangkok government is phasing in brand-new bright orange buses. Hundreds of them. The green buses were notorious: surly, unsafe drivers, and poorly maintained equipment. The owners kept putting off changing the buses' engines over to NVG, and after several deadlines were extended, whoever in government who makes such decisions decided "no more!" (The new buses do run on NVG.)</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">I keep hearing that Pattaya and Jomtien are basically empty. One friend went a few days ago with the idea of staying several days, but he took the time to walk all the way from the end of North Pattaya Beach Road to its southern end then on into Walking Street, detouring a block or two up each side soi along the way, and he said many places were literally empty of any customers. So he went right back to the bus station and came back to Bangkok.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">There's a new bar in Washington Square called "Easy Bar." It's on the south (back) side to the right of the Hare and Hound if your looking at the Hare and Hound. I think they open at about midday. It's run by several Thai ladies, all well-known on the Square, so they're getting some immediate support.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Happily, I've heard of no deaths, illnesses, or injuries -- I don't count my hip, which I manged to whack pretty good on the mirror of a parked car last night, but it's not bad, if I am a little stiff!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">More irritating is I managed to lose my hand phone night-before-last. I made the rounds of my usual haunts yesterday afternoon, but it wasn't to be found. A friend came to visit today and tried to call my number several times, but calls were diverted and a message came on directing callers to use the call-back service. I haven't gone out today, but I guess in a day or two I'll go buy some low-end, cheap phone -- they can be had, new,s for not much over 1,000 baht (about US$30.00). So for now, I'm telephone-less -- my Internet line is working, but my voice one is out. TOT is responsible for the line from the soi to the office of my apartment building, and True is responsible for the line connecting from the wall box beside my desk to the phone and ADSL modem. True sent a repairman out, and he checked True's part here in my living room, then took me to the office, found the incoming TOT line, and hooked up a technician's phone to it and made a call then handed me the phone. a nice lady on the line explained to me that my apartment house is responsible for the line from the office to my desk. However, my particular apartment is owned by a couple, not by the apartment -- so *I'm* responsible. So far, the manager hasn't been able to arrange a private repairman to come replace the stretch of the line. Sigh. </span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">There's really </span><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">no news about any of the Squaronians to report that I know of. But that's GOOD news in itself!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Finally, it's getting pretty warm; the other day it was 36C/97F, which quite warm enough for me.</span>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-43510788411233441922010-02-06T10:51:00.000+07:002010-02-06T10:51:20.300+07:00The two Faces of Janus: The United States of America's CONGRESS<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>Well, the pukes we call our representatives in the U.S. Congress are up to their lying shenanigans again.</strong></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong></strong></span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>President Obama has proposed a breathtaking $3.83 <em>trillion</em> budget for the 2011 federal fiscal year. Based on a population of 307 million, that works out -- are you ready for this??? -- to a stunning <em>$1,247,557</em> for every man, woman, and child in the country.</strong></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>For just a single year.</strong></span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>Not that this kind of spending is anything new. President Bush's final budget came out to some $3.5 trillion dollars -- and that didn't include funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (I'll be coming back to that point shortly.) In fact, President Bush's last budget drove our budget deficit to the highest level, as a percentage of GDP, since 1945 -- when we were polishing off the Second World War. (Bet you didn't know that, did you?) And the Manhatten Project didn't come cheap. For you young'uns, that was the project that developed the atomic bomb, which we promptly dropped on Hiroshima then Nagasaki, bringing an end to the war in the Pacific. (The war in Europe ended three months earlier, in May, 1945.)</strong></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>Now, it's very much to the point to mention that this is an election year. Every single member of the House of Representatives, except those calling it quits, face re-election campaigns come this autumn, as do one third of our Senators. In these tough economic times, they understandably are screaming bloody murder about the President's proposed budget.</strong></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>But there are a couple of facts they don't like to mention, especially the Republican candidates. President Bush's final budget didn't include funding for the twin wars we have going on -- but President Obama's DOES include that funding, which is the major reason the budget deficit shot right straight up into the stratosphere; had President Bush's last budget included that funding, his final budget deficit would have been even <em>more</em> than President Obama's.</strong></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>They hate the phrase, those D.C. oinkers, but that is, indeed, "an inconvenient truth."</strong></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>Think of it this way: what they're basically saying is "Lookee, lookee! I have $1.000 left in my checking account" -- WITHOUT mentioning the TWO thousand dollars' worth of checks they wrote but "forgot" to write down in their checkbook register.</strong></span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>Two-faced is what they are. ALL of them, including the conservative Democrats fighting for their political lives. They're just like the Roman god Janus.</strong></span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>But it doesn't stop there.</strong></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>I imagine most of you have heard that the President has cancelled any plans for NASA to return to the Moon, although NASA does get a slight budget increase in his proposed budget.</strong></span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>This has grave implications for the manned space program.</strong></span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>I need to insert a full disclosure: I am a life-long fan of our space program, both our manned and robotic missions. It's impossible for me to be neutral. Just want to be honest about that point. I still remember, with crystal clarity, the night Dad took me out to the back yard and pointed out Sputnik 1 orbiting high above. I already had developed a deep enchantment with the night sky, and that image set that enchantment in stone for me.</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<strong><span style="color: blue;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>I mean -- who doesn't love our twin Mars rovers??? Planned for 90 days -- but six years later they're still trucking! (Well, okay, so one of them is stuck, but it still can serve as a stationary platform -- IF it survives the upcoming northern hemisphere winter, that is. Still, a damned impressive performance.) And who doesn't love the spectacular photos the Hubble Space Telescope keeps on downloading to us -- and do you realize that this coming April 24th will be its <em>20th</em> anniversary of coasting right along???</strong></span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>And those of you of a certain age or older -- I'm 58, soon 59 -- can remember the glory days of NASA, when President Kennedy challenged us as a nation to get boots on the ground, as in MOON ground, within a decade. And we beat that deadline by a couple of years or so, when Neil Armstrong climbed down the lunar lander ladder, planted his boots in the Moon dust, and spoke those immortal words: "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind."</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<strong><span style="color: blue;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>That was July 20, 1969 -- only eight years, two months, and 15 days after Alan Shepard became the first American in space in a sub-orbital flight on May 5, 1961. A humorous historical footnote about Shepard's flight: launch was repeatedly delayed, the spacecraft finally lifting off several hours later than planned. During that delay, Shepard finally needed to pee-pee -- but of course there wasn't any way for him to do so, suited up in his space suit and strapped down flat on his back inside the tiny Mercury capsule. He bitched about it, demanding to be let out -- he couldn't exit unaided -- but the space suit folks decided to tell him he couldn't come out -- but to go ahead and just whiz away in his space suit, as it wouldn't be damaged! Shepard thus became not only the <em>first</em> American in space, but the <em>only</em> American, to date, to fly floating in his own PEE-PEE!!! :-)</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<strong><span style="color: blue;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>I'll never forget the first Moon landing, either. Talk about electrifying.</strong></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>ANYway -- back to those turds in Washington. When President Obama gave his speech outlining his budget proposal, within hours, members of the Congressional delegations of Texas, Alabama, and Florida -- home, respectively to the NASA Manned Spaceflight Center (in Houston, Texas), the George C. Marshall Manned Space Flight Center (at the Redstone Arsenal, near Huntsville, Alabama), and Cape Canaveral (on Merritt Island, Florida -- betcha didn't know it's on an <em>island</em>, did you? Huh? <em>Huh</em>??? Didja? <em>DIDJA</em>???) -- were raising holy hell, whining about lost jobs, mostly.</strong></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>To be fair -- they're right. Cancelling the return-to-the-Moon program announced by President Bush in 2004 <em>will</em> cost jobs. And I, for one, am deeply distressed at the thought of cancelling those plans, and the thought of those lost jobs. Those folks are my fellow Americans.</strong></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>However -- those b*st*rds pissing and moaning now don't like to mention that just as was the case with funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, President Bush announced the <em>plan</em> for returning to the Moon-- but never requested a single <em>dime</em> to pay for it.</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<strong><span style="color: blue;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>Nor do they like to mention they never saw a piece of pork -- if it was in their home district, in the case of Representatives or in their state, in the case of Senators, they didn't like. Both my Senators (for example) were right on board the band wagon that shoved 12 extra F-22 fighters down the Pentagon's throat, even though the Air Force Chief of Staff, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, and President Obama didn't want them -- 12 aircraft costing a cool $350 million -- <em><span style="color: red;">each</span><span style="color: blue;"> -- </span></em>for a grand total of $4.2 <em>billion</em>. I don't know about you, but to me that's a fair chunk of change. Compare that to about $50 million per copy for the next-generation fighter slated to go into service, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It'll be assembled in Texas, as is the F-22 -- but $50 million per copy is a lot less PORK than the $350 million per shot for the F-22. Oink-oink-oink! Squealing in pain, those miserable oinkers. Even the more expensive STOL [short take-off and landing] and carrier-based versions planned for the Marine Corps and Navy, at about $60 million each, don't cut it, not in Oink-oink-oinkity-friggin'<em>-OINK</em> terms.</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<strong><span style="color: blue;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>There's a single word that summarizes all this, a word from Greek that you know -- betcha didn't know you know some <em>Greek</em>, did you??? That word is "hypocrisy." (It stems from the Greek word "hypokrisis," which means "acting on the stage, pretense.")</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<strong><span style="color: blue;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>Yeah. "REDUCE THE BUDGET!!!" they scream. "But not from MY budget, by god!!! -- Cut it from THAT guy's!!!"</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<strong><span style="color: blue;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>Excuse me while I go puke now. . . .</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<strong><span style="color: blue;"></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>By the way, feel free to post a comment by clicking on the link just below this post.</strong></span>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-72477961497712452142010-01-22T18:18:00.003+07:002010-01-22T18:26:15.454+07:00Google, Baidu, and Censorship in China<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Just read a really good article about the role Google plays in China in a story from AP headlined <span style="color: blue;">"</span><span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/20/AR2010012003552.html?wpisrc=nl_tech">Even a censored Internet has opened up a world for Chinese users</a>.</span><span style="color: blue;">"</span> It uses the example of doing a search for the word "Dharamsala,"which is the name of the town in India where the Dalai Lama has his headquarters, and China the Dalai Lama, of course. AP ran the word through both Google's China search engine at www.google.cn and the most popular search engine in the country, Baidu, a domestic search engine, at www.baidu.cn. AP found that Google returned 9.48 <i style="color: red;">million</i> results, while Baidu returned some 119,000 -- a relatively paltry amount compared to Google's. Put another way, for every 1 result from Baidu, there were over <i style="color: red;">7,966</i> from Google.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Curious, I repeated the AP experiment. I guess the troops manning the Great Firewall of China read the AP article I'm talking about here. Google China returned only 780,000 results -- way below 10% of what the AP got. And on Baidu, I got only about 13,200, or 11.1% of what AP got. I should point out I ran my search from Thailand. I assume -- but don't know -- AP ran its from the U.S. I also don't know if that makes any difference.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The article is well worth reading -- and I'm about to have my piece here translated into simplified Chinese (the type used in mainland China proper, but not Macau or Hong Kong) so it's more accessible to Chinese in China than would be the case were I to post this in English only.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Fun, fun, fun!!!</b></span><br />
<br />
<span id="result_box"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="background-color: white;" title="Just read a really good article about the role Google plays in China in a story from AP headlined "Even a censored Internet has opened up a world for Chinese users."">只要读一本有关谷歌在中国的角色扮演来自美联社的故事很好的标题:“即使审查的互联网上开辟了中国用户的世界。”</span><span style="background-color: white;" title="It uses the example of doing a search for the word "Dharamsala,"which is the name of the town in India where the Dalai Lama has his headquarters, and China the Dalai Lama, of course.">它使用了这样一个词“达兰萨拉,”这是在印度城市的名称,达赖喇嘛的总部就设搜索的例子,中国达赖喇嘛,当然。</span><span style="background-color: white;" title="AP ran the word through both Google's China search engine at www.google.cn and the most popular search engine in the country, Baidu, a domestic search engine, at www.baidu.cn.">美联社都贯穿着谷歌的中国搜索引擎在www.google.cn字和在该国,百度,国内搜索引擎,最流行的搜索引擎在www.baidu.cn。</span><span style="background-color: white;" title="AP found that Google returned 9.48 million results, while Baidu returned some 119,000 -- a relatively paltry amount compared to Google's.">美联社认为,谷歌返回9480000的结果,而百度产生一些119,000 - 相对微不足道的数额相比,谷歌的。</span><span style="background-color: white;" title="Put another way, for every 1 result from Baidu, there were over 7,966 from Google.">换句话说,从百度的每1个结果,共有超过7966来自谷歌。<br />
<br />
</span><span title="Curious, I repeated the AP experiment.">出于好奇,我重复美联社实验。</span><span style="background-color: white;" title="I guess the troops manning the Great Firewall of China read the AP article I'm talking about here.">我想,部队驻守的中国长城防火墙阅读美联社的这篇文章,我这里所说。</span><span style="background-color: white;" title="Google China returned only 780,000 results -- way below 10% of what the AP got.">谷歌中国只有780000返回结果 - 低于10的AP什么方式得到%。</span><span title="And on Baidu, I got only about 13,200, or 11.1% of what AP got.">和百度,我只得约13,200名,或11.1%得到什么美联社。</span><span style="background-color: white;" title="I should point out I ran my search from Thailand.">我要指出,我跑到我从泰国的搜索。</span><span title="I assume -- but don't know -- AP ran its from the US I also don't know if that makes any difference.">我相信 - 但我不知道 - 美联社从美国跑的,我也不知道是否有什么差别。 <br />
<br />
</span><span style="background-color: white;" title="The article is well worth reading -- and I'm about to have my piece here translated into simplified Chinese (the type used in mainland China proper, but not Macau or Hong Kong) so it's more accessible to Chinese in China than would be the">这篇文章值得一读 - 我要在这里有我的一块成简体中文(中国大陆的正确,但不是澳门或香港使用的类型转换),因此它更容易在中国中比在</span><span style="background-color: white;" title="case were I to post this in English only.">本案中我后只在英文本。 <br />
<br />
</span></b></span><span title="Fun, fun, fun!!!"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>有趣,有趣,有趣</b></span><b><span style="font-size: large;">!!!</span></b></span></span>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-46389876152653362562010-01-17T18:04:00.000+07:002010-01-17T18:04:09.619+07:00Will President Obama Announce We Have Contact -- and Have Had -- for Years? Some Say "YES!"<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Okay, I guess I should start by stating my own position. I believe</span></span><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">,</span><br />
<div style="color: blue;"><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">(1.) There is likely intelligent life somewhere in the universe besides Earth.</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">(2.) The most likely level of intelligence is low; the next is intelligent, somewhere on a human scale; and the least likely is intelligent beings advanced well beyond us.</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">(3.) It's conceivable Earth has been visited at least once or twice.</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">In other words, if you accept my starting point (1.), then I suppose you'll agree my view is fairly conservative, scientifically speaking. However, even that starting point is strongly challenged by some people of strong religious faith, such as members of the three Abrahamic religions, i.e., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, to name just three, though that starting point is also beyond the pale for other major and minor religions, too. I can't debate faith, so won't.</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Over the past couple of days, quite by coincidence I have run across a rash of stories on the Internet speculating that President Obama might announce sometime this year we have had decades-long contact with intelligent extraterrestrials, direct, face-to-face contact. Other stories claim we, the U.S., have bases and personnel on Mars. Still others claim inhabitants of a planet in the binary star system Zeti Reticuli have visited Earth -- and that humans have visited there. (Zeti Reticuli is in the Southern Hemisphere skies, and is part of a minor constellation, Zeta Reticulum. Zeti Reticuli's two stars are similar to the Sun, and lie "only" about 39 light years away -- practically our backyard, in galactic terms.)</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Obviously, these are sweeping claims indeed.</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">And there are other stories. For instance, there's one story that then-President Reagan secretly visited a base to see an extraterrestrial's body, perhaps from Roswell, New Mexico, when an alien disk had allegedly crashed near the town, complete with alien corpses, in mid-1947. In fact, soon after the Army Air Corps in Roswell announced exactly that -- only to have that report rebutted by the Commanding General of the Eight Air Force, who said the recovered debris came from an experimental, classified weather balloon experimental program.</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">The "Roswell Incident" remains one of the most controversial in UFO lore. For instance, no less a personage than NASA Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut and 6th man to walk on the Moon, believes an alien craft was involved. Yet Mitchell himself has been controversial since his Apollo 14 mission, after which his life changed drastically and he moved into areas of research best described as "unconventional."</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Air Force and the larger government response has been badly mishandled, at best, in a number of incidents. For instance, Project Blue Book was a formal investigation into the Air Force commissioned in the 1950-60's to investigate the UFO phenomenon, as public interest was very high at the time and the public was demanding explanations. The Air Force collected some 12,600 reports, and said most of them were, basically, cases of simple incorrect identification or outright hoaxes. However, about 700 could not be explained. The Air Force's response? It shut down the program and trying just to move on.</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">One point needs to be made: there are countless instances of people seeing UFO's -- unidentified flying objects -- every day, all over the world. But it is a mighty leap from saying "I saw a UFO" to saying "I saw a spacecraft from another world." Even experienced pilots can incorrectly identify something in the sky. But that doesn't automatically mean they saw a spacecraft from another world.</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">So, where does that leave President Obama (and any other leader)?</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Let's leave aside the obvious cases of mistaken identity and hoaxes a moment.</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Imagine this scenario: the President calls a press conference and announces we do indeed have contact with, say, Mars -- and introduces the Martian emissary.</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now -- it's not a big step to global panic, is it? If the U.S. can't protect its own skies, who on Earth can?</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">It gets worse if he says we're in contact, face to face, with representatives from Zeti Reticuli.</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">And both cases get much, much worse if humans are there -- courtesy of the advanced aliens.</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Think about the impact on religion, too. I can't think of a single one that wouldn't be greatly affected by such a revelation. <br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">Would would I do were <i>I</i> President? Well, unless I could definitively say the aliens represented absolutely no danger to us and that our military could handle them, this is what I would do: lie, loud and every time.</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">If President Obama is in possession of such information, I have no idea what he may decide to do, or not do.</span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Interesting question, huh?</span>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-82596539600169980262009-12-28T05:09:00.001+07:002009-12-28T05:12:28.949+07:00My Predictions for Major World Events in 2010<b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Just for fun, here are some speculative predictions, along with their probability ranges:<br />
<br />
- Iran's government is overtaken by events, possibly including by air strikes made by Israel. 60-65%<br />
<br />
- China openly breaks with North Korea. 50-70%<br />
<br />
- N. Korea undergoes a leadership crisis due to Kim's medical incapacitation or death. 60-75%<br />
<br />
- The PLA masses along the border with N. Korea, prepared to move in if complete collapse becomes imminent -- a strong possibility -- with international backing and blessings. 50-55%<br />
<br />
- Mexico request American military intervention in its drug wars. 50-60%<br />
<br />
_ America responds by heavily fortifying the border, ratcheting up material aid several orders of magnitude, and shares much more intelligence; lending covert units through the back door and stationing of attack and observation drons possible to likely. 50-60% (wider spread for some possibilities)<br />
<br />
- Venezuela's Chavez makes a military move against at least one other country. 65-75%<br />
<br />
- U.S. gives serious consideration to ending the Cuban embargo, but doesn't in 2010. 60-65%<br />
<br />
- Pakistan gets far more hostile towards the U.S. than it already is. 70-80%<br />
<br />
- China beefs up its South China Sea forces in direct response to Vietnam's just-announced purchase of primarily aircraft and naval equipment from Russia, including six submarines. 75-90%<br />
<br />
- Cap-and-trade is defeated in U.S. Congress. 50-60%<br />
<br />
Of course, in a year, I'll be reaching for a towel to wipe the egg off my face!!!</span></b>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-75176995309851830672009-12-27T18:06:00.000+07:002009-12-27T18:06:18.939+07:00Allowing Coments: To Let, or Not To Let; That Is the Question<b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"></span></b><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">When I first started this blog some seven weeks ago, I struggled with the question, "Should I allow feedback in the form of reader commentary -- or not?"</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">For those who might not routinely read readers' comments sometimes allowed at blogs, news stories, columns, etc., let me explain.</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes, I learn as much or more from what readers say about a particular topic than I did from the original story. But much more often, discussion threads -- the string of comments following a story -- are overwhelmed by people who fall into one, several, or -- may the gods help us -- all these catagories (in no particular order):</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"> (1.) Unwilling or unable to use logic.</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"> (2.) Unwilling or unable even to entertain another reader's logic.</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"> (3.) Has a particular agenda to push -- and does so even when it has nothing to do with the story.</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"> (4.) Is rude to another reader or other readers, resorting to name-calling and the like.</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"> (5.) Is rude to or about third parties.</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"> (6.) Refuses to stay on-topic -- i.e., to talk about the story <i>at hand</i>.</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"> (7.) Posts an commercial advertisement. ("Make <i>YOUR</i> boobs bigger today!")</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Well, you get the idea.</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Some topics seem to lend themselves to these sorts of abuses than others. Here's a partial list of examples of such topics:</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">- Where was President Obama born?</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">- Is President Obama an American citizen?</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">- What is President Obama's religion?</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">- "Renditions": are they legal or illegal?</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">- Who's responsible for the exploding U.S. national debt?</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">- What should our view of China be, and what should our relationship with it be?</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">- What is the nature of Islam?</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">- What should we do about illegal immigration in the U.S.? (Works with other countries, too.)</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">- Should we have public health care?</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">- What is the nature of climate change?</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">- What should the goals of our [U.S.] space program be?</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Anyone who hasn't been isolated deep in a cave the past year or two will be at least somewhat aware that discussions centered on these topics (and any that equally excite passions and debate) <i>often</i> get out of control and become the verbal equivalent of what military folks call "total war": completely destroy "the enemy, by any means possible, with no quarter shown."</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps my own personal most "unfavorite" approach is when someone simply refuses to use reason in his argument, or refuses to acknowledge the reason in another person's argument, or, worse still, both. I remember one time I spent about a week gathering a ton of data, including links to the sources (which were from all over the world and included public and private organizations) to refute another reader's completely illogical assertions on a certain topic. After I posted it, the person whose argument I was refuting responded something like this: "I'm not going to bother looking at all that junk. Obviously, you agree with them -- and if they support you, then they're fools, liars, or both."</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Back to my conundrum: <i>Should</i> I allow comments -- or should I <i>not</i>?</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">My natural inclinations are biased towards free speech, despite the concerns I have about some people abusing that freedom, people who apparently don't grasp the plot when it comes to understanding that with freedom come responsibilities.</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Therefore, I'm going to open up *this* entry -- only, for now -- and ask, "What do <i>you</i> think? Should I open all my blog entries to feedback and cross-discussion between and among readers?"</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">I've not advertised this blog at all, so I may not get a single reply. Will just have to wait and see.<br />
</span></b><br />
</div>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-84741194902690090082009-12-22T10:53:00.002+07:002009-12-22T10:57:21.708+07:00China to Rule the World Anytime Soon? Not.<div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>China's extraordinary development since the late Deng Xiao Ping declared the "Open Policy," as it's called in Chinese (better known in English as the "Open Door Policy") has led a great many people to assume (or fear, in some instances) that China will be a major global military power in the next one to two decades and that it will increasingly flex its muscle on a global scale.</b></span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>These predictions are based, in part, on the fact that China's economic development has bordered on the unbelievable-if-you-didn't-see-it.</b></span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b> <br />
</b></span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The apples and oranges model is useful here. Though those two fruits are distinct fruits, they both are, after all, fruits. Similarly, a strong military requires buckets of money, money that won't be there unless the economy is strong.</b></span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
</div><div style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>But a strong economy doesn't mean a strong military is an automatic result. Consider Germany, for example (ignoring the current economic crisis; I'm looking at a longer time stretch). Over the years, Germany has had an essentially strong economy, yet does not have a major military in the global sense.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Consider naval forces. China is building "rapidly," but that's a relative term. For instance, the <i>USS Carl Vinson</i>, has just completed a refitting -- it was already built. And just to get it refitted took <i>four years</i>. Building a modern aircraft carrier takes much longer than that.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Even if they could snap their fingers and have a complete fleet identical to that the U.S. has, they still wouldn't be able to project globally anytime soon. Why? Because of the human factor. It takes many years to develop qualified, experienced personnel, which in terms of projecting globally, or even just in the western Pacific and Indian Ocean, they have little of. Yes, they're participating in anti-piracy patrols off Somalia, but that's about as far as they've projected so far.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Another factor is their nuclear capability. China famously hides its military expenditures (but then we have our own black budget), making it impossible to know the precise number of nuclear weapons they possess, but the numerous expert sources I've read say they have somewhere around 200 operational warheads. In contrast, the U.S. and Russia have somewhere in the range of 20,000 nuclear weapons, counting tactical and stockpiled ones. That's 100 times as many as China has.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Not that 200 weapons is anything to shrug off, especially since some of those are ICBM's with global reach. But it would be suicide for China to launch -- and they're <i>not</i> stupid. Also, just how many of its nuclear weapons are ready to fire is unknown. I remember reading that when the U.S. spy aircraft and a Chinese fighter collided, leading the the Chinese forcing our plane down on Hainan Island, China was estimated to have only about 18 ready-to-launch ICBM's. (I think I read that at <a href="http://www.janes.com/">Jane's Information Group</a>, the world's leading source of military information such as this. That's an active link to it, by the way.)</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>My point isn't that China has plenty of economic muscle to flex; it does. But that's simply not the same thing as being able to sail fleets into San Francisco and New York at will.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Some analysts point to the U.S.'s swift ascent in every sphere between 1914 and 1945. True enough -- but that was helped along by those two dustups, WW I and WW II. That buildup was incredibly rapid, but still we're talking about 31 years -- fewer, really, since the U.S. was a late entrant into WW I. If China develops that quickly, we're talking 2040, not 2020, as I've read some claim.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>And I flat don't think they can pull it off that fast, not with their huge population and myriad social issues they're going to have to address, whether they like it or not.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Look, I'm not a China-basher; after all, I lived there about eight years (in three hitches, and if you count four years in Macau before Portugal returned the colony back to China -- I do count it, since it's essentially a Chinese city). I could happily live there again in the right circumstances, and very nearly returned there to teach last year.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>But these within-a-decade-or-so predictions strike me as fantasy.</b></span><br />
</div>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-34808920900258028942009-12-21T03:29:00.000+07:002009-12-21T03:29:10.397+07:00"The Knights Carbonic"<div style="color: purple;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>For copyright reasons, I can't simply copy and paste a wonderful piece in The Guardian I just read. It addresses the climate debate, and takes aim squarely at skeptics and deniers -- but I believe the writer means to be criticizing those who refuse to apply reason, not to those who do use reason but still stand fast.</b></span><br />
</div><div style="color: purple;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
</div><div style="color: purple;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Anyway, here's the link:</b></span><br />
</div><div style="color: purple;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
</div><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="color: blue;">http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/23/global-warming-leaked-email-climate-scientists</b></span>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-67554015208954988882009-12-20T19:34:00.004+07:002009-12-27T17:19:05.030+07:00Copenhagen 2009, or, "We Started a Joke"<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Well the climate conference held in Copenhagen the past two weeks has whimpered to its miserable end. Even those trying to find something good have to settle for a handful of straw.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Let me tell a little parable.</span></b></span><br />
<br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Two guys shared a house, although they quarreled all the time. One day Joe turned on a burner on their gas stove and made a pot of stew, which he then put on to simmer. Joe didn't know the gas pipe in the kitchen had a tiny leak.</span></b></span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Sometime later, as Joe and Sam, his housemate, sat in the living room watching TV, there was an explosion in the kitchen. They rushed to see what happened, and found the kitchen burning mightily. Joe called the fire department, though the station was at least half an hour away, even for a fire truck using its lights and siren. Then he told Sam they needed to get outside and turn on two water hoses they had so they could stand outside and spray water inside to try to impede or put out the fire.</span></b></span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Sam snarled, "No. You started it, so you put it out yourself."</span></b></span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Startled and angered, Joe retorted, "But I didn't start it on purpose, and this is your home, too!"</span></b></span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Sam still refused, angering Joe further, to the point he shouted, "Fine! I'M not doing anything, either!"</span></b></span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">They went outside as the fire spread.</span></b></span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">By the time the firemen arrived, the house was pretty much destroyed. The firemen squirted their hoses until the remains were completely extinguished and cooled. Once it was safe, the fire captain walked around the outside of the house, and we he returned, he exclaimed, "I saw two hoses already hooked up, long enough to have reached the kitchen! You could have maybe kept the fire contained to the kitchen and still have someplace to live. True, you might have to go out to eat, or maybe buy a camp stove until your kitchen could be rebuilt, but to just let the house burn to the ground makes no sense!"</span></b></span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Joe and Sam began hurling accusations at each other, each saying the other was responsible for the destruction of their home.</span></b></span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Finally, the firemen left in disgust.</span></b></span></i><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">This parable isn't a perfect one for Copenhagen, but it'll do. Joe is the U.S., and Sam is China. More broadly, Joe is the developed world and Sam is the Third World together with the developing world.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">It's true that the developed world is historically responsible for damaging the environment more than the rest of the world, if we go back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution or so, though in the latter half of the 20th century some Third World countries began rising, increasing their own contributions. The one defense of the developed world is that when people began burning coal and oil in the early part of the 19th century, no one had any idea that way down the road this would lead to trouble, potentially catastrophic trouble, for the climate.</span></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">But for the countries outside the currently accepted "developed world" to say, "You guys blew it for nearly two centuries, but that provided the engine for your economic growth, so you have no right to tell us we have to cut our emissions drastically. It's OUR turn to 'drill, baby, drill' and 'burn, baby, burn' is downright stupid.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">On the other hand, it's equally stupid of countries that are developed to childishly say, "Okay! I'm taking my dolly and going home! So there!"</span></b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">But that's essentially what happened at Copenhagen.</span></b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Complicating matters was the attitude of the "Group of 77," a loose coalition on the world's poorest and less-developed nations. Their spokesman, a gentleman from Sudan, led the charge for rich nations to promise far more financial aid than they've tentatively agreed to provide (and there is considerable justification for that complaint) -- but without any accountability or transparency.</span></b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Yeah, right. We've been down Boondoggle Road before, giving foreign aid to some banana republic's central government only to discover later it ended up in Swiss bank accounts and the like, with little, if any, of the jackpot reaching the intended recipients. I don't mind my tax money going for foreign aid -- but I mind immensely when it's stolen.</span></b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Then there's the whole debate about what, if any, role humans play in climate change. Those in the debate fall into one of two basic groups, each of those further divided into two sub-groups:</span></b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">1. Believes humans play a significant role in climate change</span></b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"> (A.) Those who have a political agenda</span></b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"> (B.) Those who believe, based on science, we do play a role</span></b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">2. Questions whether human-induced climate change is real</span></b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"> (A.) Skeptics who say "it's not clear"</span></b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"> (B.) Deniers<br />
</span></b></span><br />
</div><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">I have no time for 1. (A.) and 2. (B.) The first includes, among others, scientists on the payrolls of companies in the fossil fuel industry. They're about as trustworthy as the scientists on the payrolls of the tobacco industry who some years back swore up and down tobacco at the very least was harmless to health, and arguably (they claimed) actually <i>good</i> for it. Again: yeah, right. The second is a bit more complex. There are people in it who have listened to the arguments and sincerely concluded the evidence of a human role simply isn't there -- but the weakness of their position is they start with the intent to reach that conclusion, though they're loathe to admit it. Then there are those who come up with nonsensical arguments, such as "Look! Podunk, Somewhere had a record cold winter!" and "The climate's changing all the time and has been since the beginning of the planet!"</span></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">To argue that such-and-such a place had a record-cold winter is pointless, as undoubtedly some other place had a record-hot summer. Climate change doesn't say that every single square inch of the planet will be warming (or, in earlier ages and undoubtedly in future ones, cooling). It says the <i style="color: red;">global average</i> is now increasing, and doing so at an alarming rate, and that it's doing so because of human activity.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">As for the argument that the climate is always changing, no one disputes that. The several Ice Ages and the warmer periods in between them prove that the climate is in a constant state of flux. However, there's a difference between change over <i>millenia</i> and change over <i>decades</i>.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Now, someone's going to pop up and point out, for instance, the Mini Ice Age that lasted from about 1500 to around 1800 (estimates vary a bit) and the preceding Medieval Warm Period. Those events absolutely occurred, and evidence is available in many places around the world. And they had significant <i>regional </i>effects. They also were relatively short-lived.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">And someone's going to pop up and mention Climategate. The scientists involved claimed they were just blowing off steam in the ridicule they heaped on other scientists in their e-mails; I don't know. But it's clear that while a number of scientists were involved in this episode -- and it was an episode, not a global conspiracy involving countless tens of thousands of scientists -- the number involved was relatively tiny. Nor does it in anyway detract from the underlying science, including much derived using other data and other software, nor many <i>other</i> studies involving <i>none</i> of the scientists in Climategate.<br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">This leaves us with 1. (B.), those who believe humans are making a significant contribution to global change, and 2. (A.), those who are, we might say, straddling the fence, if leaning a bit towards disbelief in any role for humans.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Both these groups include thoughtful people, including trained scientists, though there are far fewer scientists in the skeptical group than in the group that does believe we play a significant role. Still, they merit attention. After all, climate science remains very inexact; for instance, just a few years ago, the best estimate for when the Arctic would become basically ice-free during the summer was sometime around 2100. Now, the worst-case scenario is in the next five or six years, while the most "rosy" is about 20 years.<br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Back to Copenhagen. China and the U.S. together produce about 40% of the world's greenhouse gases. If just those two countries were to join hands and actually <i>do</i> something truly significant, they would accomplish two things: (1.) start along the road towards significant efforts, and, (2.) shame other countries into following suit.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">But what have they done? China has promised to reduce it's emissions relative to each unit of production. What does that mean? It means that China's increased emissions by 2050 will be "only" around 80% (according to articles citing scientific estimates I've read) higher than now -- instead of several times that. As for the U.S., we're promising a 14%-17% reduction from 2005 levels by 2020. But consider what Japan has put on offer: to reduce its emissions by 25%-35% from 1990 levels -- not the much higher 2005 levels -- by 2020.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Kind of puts China and the U.S. to shame.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">But let's step away from the whole contentious climate change business and consider simple environmental pleasantness.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Anyone who has been to any of the world's major largest cities knows that smog is a huge problem. It affects people's health -- even China doesn't deny that (and China has more of the worst-polluted cities than any other country on Earth). Bangkok is no paradise when it comes to this, especially in central Bangkok, where on some days when the weather is itself clear, the smog is so bad you can barely see the Sun. The air stinks. And the smog contributes to polluting the soil and water. Even if climate change is an Al Gore myth or lie, I plain would like to have clean air.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Wouldn't you?</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">By the way, what are we going to say to the citizens of island nations such as the Maldives and Tuvalu as the last of their islands disappear beneath the waves? What are we going to say to people forced to move inland as the sea encroaches into the world's great coastal cities (as is happening right here in Bangkok -- I've <i>seen</i> it)?<br />
</span></b></span>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-6919066456667944832009-12-17T14:27:00.002+07:002009-12-17T15:29:16.388+07:00Islam's Cyberwar<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Well-respected <i>New York Times</i> columnist Thomas Friedman has an Op-Ed column in Wednesday's edition of the paper which he titled "www.jihad.com." It's an interesting -- if controversial -- piece, drawing 232 readers' comments in a matter of hours (and the comments section is now closed).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Friedman's basic thesis is that the cyberwar Islamic extremists are waging is more important than the "real" war in Afghanistan, and countless terrorist groups use the Internet to spread their poisonous ideas and to recruit new members. He then goes a step further and says this is about a war of ideas within Islam and as such can be waged only internally.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">I am surprised at this column, coming, as it does, from a columnist I respect and often agree with. But he's dropped the ball to considerable degree this time, a view shared by many of the other readers commenting on the column.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">First, he reduces the situation to a simplistic "us-against-them" construction. One need not be a scholar of Islam to recognize that not only is this simplistic, but dangerously overly so.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Second, he ignores the fact that there <i>have</i> been numerous calls by moderate Islamic religious leaders to resist extremists.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Third, he omits reference to the role we in the non-Islamic West have played in fanning the flames of extreme Islam.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">On the plus side, I think he's right that there needs to be more leadership from leaders in Islam, and not just religious ones but also secular ones, such as Afghanistan's President Karzai. He needs to clean up his government's act -- and his own. In other words, Islamic religious leaders' words will fall on deaf ears if their secular counterparts don't strive more to provide whatever it is their populous want -- and that will vary from place to place, though the underlying principles are the same everywhere: food, clothing, shelter, some measure of individual freedom (if not necessarily democracy per se), peace and stability, and opportunity.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Does that mean the West, particularly the U.S., has no role to play, as Friedman seems to be saying? I believe he has missed the mark and that it does have an important role to play.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">For starters, while President Obama is as constrained as any President by diplomatic demands, perhaps he could speak a little more than he apparently has been, maybe speak behind closed doors.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Second, we have some capability to wage our own cyberwar aimed at those extremist web sites. Because of alleged excesses committed in the fairly recent past by our intelligence agencies, this is a rather hard sell, but that doesn't mean it isn't necessary.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">I'm not forgetting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But I'm not sure what more we can do there. After all, we and others have brought pressure to bear for decades, with little to show for it. But I have an idea that isn't popular: make two points crystal-clear to everyone in the Middle East, namely, (1.) that a direct attack on Israel by another nation (Syria, Iran, etc.) will ensure that we give Israel full backing, including militarily, and, (2.) make clear to Israel that if it doesn't make an accommodation with the Palestinians they can swallow, it risks seeing us reduce our support, both materially and diplomatically. (This second includes making clear to the Israeli leaders that attacks on the Palestinians that aren't clearly warranted will also carry a heavy price for their country, though not an attack by us.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Friedman doesn't discuss that, either. It's an extraordinary omission.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">A point about some of the readers comments: they call for us to withdraw to our own shores and, in essence, shut out the world. That would be an unmitigated disaster. I don't want to live in a "Fortress America." That would be about the same as living in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Mao's China, and the like.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Friedman got a lot of criticism over this particular column, and much of it is thoughtful and, I believe, correct.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">But read it for yourself: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/opinion/16friedman.html.</span>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-20651302813150896862009-12-02T12:57:00.005+07:002009-12-02T13:28:38.036+07:00When Scientists Lie<span style="font-size: large;"><b>You might want to read this<span style="color: blue;"> </span><i style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/">New York Times</a></i><span style="color: blue;"> </span>editorial before reading on here: <span style="color: blue;">"</span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01tier.html?em" style="color: blue;">E-mail Fracas Shows Peril of Trying to Spin Science</a><span style="color: blue;">."</span></b></span><br />
<br />
<div style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Here's the short version: a group of British and American scientists engaged in what charitably can be called "dubious scientific practices" in seeking to promote their thesis that the planet is warming dangerously and we are contributing to it. Less charitably -- more more accurately, in my view -- they lied, primarily by omission. Further, and compounding their intellectual sin, they disparaged skeptics and sought revenge on journals and editors who gave skeptics any time and space at all.</b></span><br />
</div><div style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
</div><div style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Naturally, those who argue that global warming is a lie are reacting with glee, announcing that this episode proves it and that it further proves that the Earth has in fact been <i>cooling</i> since the late 1990's.</b></span><br />
</div><div style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
</div><div style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Well, in brief -- no, it doesn't. To say it does is akin to the "logic" critics of the Iraq war used in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, in which some U.S. military personnel grossly mistreated prisoners. That is, war critics said the scandal "proved" that all U.S. armed forces in the country wee abusive and so on. And that's patent nonsense. Further, it in no way addresses the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the war.<br />
</b></span><br />
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</div><div style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>However, it does prove this: because one group of scientists have manipulated the data with which they were working, cherry-picking from a buffet of data sources, mixing those sources, so now the entire data set needs re-checking, at least by sampling if not exhaustively.</b></span><br />
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</div><div style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>What these scientists did is this: they were assembling data to make a chart to show a sharp rise in temperatures over the last century or so, but their chart went further back than the temperature records, so they were using indirect temperature records, in this case, tree rings. However, they came to a time period covering recent years where the tree rings stubbornly indicated a different trend. So, they simply substituted direct temperature records -- but (1.) only for that part of the chart for which the tree-ring record was contradictory, and did so (2.) without indicating they had done so.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>This is reprehensible. We all know that no one climate model is perfect, and that all of them need constant tweaking. Ignoring -- even suppressing -- inconvenient contradictory data flies in the face of solid (and honest) science.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Policy makers around the globe are struggling with just how to approach climate change. Not much of anyone disputes there <i>is</i> a change in climate occurring; the only arguments are (1.) is it warming or cooling, (2.) what, if any, role people play in climate change, and, (3.) if people play a role, how great that role is.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>If policy makers are convinced that we do play a role, a significant one we can try to correct, then they will consider what to do. And whatever they decide is bound to be expensive, so they need the best, most accurate information and recommendations science can provide.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>I can understand select use of data by non-scientists, whichever side of the argument they support. For instance, the temperature in London yesterday got up to about 6 degrees C/43 degrees F, which a person who says global warming is a myth and the planet is cooling, citing the London temperature, might say. But a person who believes in global warming could snort and point at the temperature in Moscow yesterday -- which was about 12 degrees C/53 degrees F. But both are extremely localized and for a single day, so alone are worthless in trying to determine long-term, global trends.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Though the editorial I linked above doesn't mention this next point, it needs consideration. On some of the websites that seek to prove global warming is at best a myth and at worst a lie I've read that the software used to crunch the data is also flawed. It's not clear to me if that software was used only by this group of scientists or if it is widely used. In any case, now that the allegation has been made, that software needs to be examined to see if it is, indeed, faulty. And if how widely it is used isn't known, that needs to be established as well.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>There are three groups of scientists, generally, involved in this debate. On one side is that group under the sway of industry and who therefore help promote industry's political agenda. On the other side is that group with the opposing political agenda. Both these groups manipulate and massage the data dishonestly, so can be -- and deserve to be -- dismissed. The third group is made up of the vast majority of scientists who are conducting honest scientific research to determine what's going on -- indeed, if <i>anything</i> is going on.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>I feel I should say where I stand on climate change. I believe it's occurring, that it involves warming, and that humans play a significant role in that warming. This scandal alone has not changed my views. But I do hope that many teams of scientists from the third group I mentioned, i.e., those with no political agenda, re-examine the data -- and if they decide their best call is either that there is no climate change occurring or that cooling is occurring, then fine -- I will gladly accept solid, <i>honest</i> science.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>I bet that a re-examination will show that on a global scale warming is occurring and that we play a significant role in it. That doesn't mean I dismiss natural changes; after all, there have been numerous ice ages interspersed with much warmer periods since long before humans arose on the planet. Since I'm acknowledging that, you might reasonably wonder why I still suggest humans are playing a role, a significant one.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Basically, it has to do with time scales. Scientists tell us the last Ice Age took on the order of <i>4,000</i> years to end. Yet the changes we've seen just since the start of the Industrial Revolution have been on the same order as the changes that gradually came about as the last Ice Age ended. And the Industrial Revolution began under <i>200</i> years ago. In other words, same change but over 20 times faster.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>There have been anomalies.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>For example, there was what is called the "Little Ice Age." There is some disagreement about just when this began and ended, but a rule of thumb is from about the mid-16th century to the mid-19th century, with some overall minor temperature shifts.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>This followed a somewhat warmer stretch known as the "Medieval Warm Period" that covered the time span 800-1300 AD, roughly speaking. Scientists disagree over whether this and the Little Ice Age were global events or a great many regional ones. There is evidence of anomalies in different places in both the northern and southern hemispheres.<br />
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Another example is "The Year with No Summer," i.e., 1816, which followed a massive explosion of the Tambora volcano in present-day Indonesia in 1815. On the Volcano Explosivity Index, which is a scale of 0-8 similar to the Richter Scale for earthquakes, Tambora ranked 7; only five such explosions are known to have occurred in the past 10,000 years, though two more are suspected. Tambora is estimated to have ejected about 160 cubic kilometers/64 cubic miles of material -- about four times as powerful as the later Krakatoa explosion late in the 19th century. To make it easier to visualize just how much ejecta we're talking about, formed into a cube with all three sides of equal length, it would measure about 12.65 kilometers/8 miles per side.<br />
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[Note: the source I'm looking at is internally contradictory. They say 160 cubic km/38 cubic miles -- but if the kilometer measurement is correct, then that's 64 cubic miles, not 38. And if the 38 cubic miles is correct, then the kilometer dimensions are correspondingly less. However, I'm going with the 160/64 numbers because they work out more accurately than starting with the 38 number across the sources I'm reading.]<br />
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Anyway, in parts of the world, in the northern hemisphere in 1816 in the northern hemisphere summer, there was frost. Crops were lost, especially in Europe. But again, the effects, while widespread, were not truly global. By the way, some scientists, but not many, suggest Tambora was in fact an 8 -- a once-in-10,000-years blast. As I said, the VEI works the same way as the Richter Scale, i.e., a 1 is 10 times more powerful than a 0, a 2 is 10 times more powerful than a 1 (and 100 times a 0), and so on. So, whether Tambora was "just" a 7 or actually and 8, it was a major explosion.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Clearly, nature plays a role, and likely one more significant than we play.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Back to the scientists at the heart of this scandal. It's too bad there's no equivalent of a court martial in the scientific world!<br />
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</div>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-90449884819901127822009-11-13T10:50:00.000+07:002009-11-13T10:50:20.407+07:00Terrorists Denounce Terrorism<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group leadership has released a new set of guidelines for jihadi -- and they are a direct challenge to al Qaeda generally and Osama bin Laden particularly.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">There have been moderate voices raised in the world of Islam denouncing terrorism, but for the LNG to make a formal declaration is especially significant, particularly given that group's own bloody past.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">You can read the excellent CNN story here: <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/11/09/libya.jihadi.code/index.html" style="color: blue;">New jihad code threatens al Qaeda</a></span></b>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-31527077378142853822009-11-11T17:18:00.001+07:002009-11-11T17:18:53.341+07:00What's Hun Sen Thinking, Anyway???<strong><span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">Whatever anyone thinks about former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin, even his supporters must be wondering just what Cambodian PM Sen was thinking when he invited Khun Thaksin to take up the parallel posts of economic adviser and adviser to the PM.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">The question is especially pertinent now, a time when Cambodia and Thailand have a serious, ongoing quarrel about the border.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">Maybe the Cambodians have some legitimate concerns about the border issues (and maybe not), but surely the wily Hun Sen knows that appointing Thaksin is throwing gas on the fire, even if Thaksin is able to provide the guidance he wants.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">And it is an insult to Thailand. The Thai government has bent in a whole lot of ways to try to accommodate Phnom Penh's wishes, yet this is their reward.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">I know two people who personally know Hun Sen, including one who serves as an adviser to the Cambodian PM (and whose wife serves as an adviser to hun Sen's wife). They both say (my friends -- I don't know the wife) that Hun Sen comes across as a perfectly polite, likeable individual.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">I could sort of see it were Hun Sen to offer Thaksin sanctuary, given their close personal relationship (though even that would understandbly and utterly justifiably upset the Thai government, no doubt).</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">Hun Sen is difficult to pin down. A former major figure in the Khmer Rouge, he has managed to continue a prosperous (in more ways than one) political life, despite his debatable orgins.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">Anyway, now the Thai government's panties are all twisted, and I don't blame them one little bit. An honest dispute about the border is one thing; a completely unprovoked and unnecessary slap in the face -- and make no mistake, that's what this is -- is an entirely different matter.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">Some damage has been done already. I hope no more occurs, and that one damage has been done can be repaired. After all, the two kingdoms are neighbors, and it's nice for neighbors to get along. . . .</span></strong>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-11472497840724110012009-11-11T17:02:00.001+07:002009-11-11T17:03:18.307+07:00President Obama's Visit to Asia<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">U.S. President Obama is set to visit East and Southeast Asia. He will have summit meetings in Japan, South Korea, China, and in the context of APEC, Singapore.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Some regional papers are editorially questioning why the President didn't put Jakarta on his list of destinations, and there is some reason to wonder why he's not visiting (for now) the world's largest Muslim nation, one that has swiftly become a thriving democracy, and one in which he spent part of his childhood.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Well, those plaints are a bit misplaced. I'm amazed he's squeezing in as many stops and summits as he is, given the mountains of problems and cat fights he has back home. But I'm glad he's coming, and hope his entire trip turns out to have great benefits for all concerned.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">I do hope that President Obama can find time to get back out this way by mid-2010 or so. Maybe he could aim to visit Indonesia, for starters. India and Australia would be high on my list were I his trip planner. It would be nice if he could pop by Bangkok while knocking around this part of the globe, but no national leader can be gone for any truly lengthy period of time, especially not the leader of any major country, which means not just the U.S. China's President Hu can't very well go sunbathe on Bali for a month, now, can he?</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Of course, President Obama's detractors will be braying loudly, the most extreme probably set to speculate about to which country he will sign a surrender. Well, let the Mr. Corpulent Limbaugh and his ilk have their day; gets 'em good ratings from the wingnuts.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">But back to the President's trip and his omission of Indonesia from his visits. Right now, the thorny problems of the location of a U.S. military air base and the related Status of Forces agreement loom at the top of the U.S.-Japan alliance, one of the most important for us and the world, we have. Then there is the situation involving the Fruitcake People's Democratic Republic -- North Korea. Whatever else Dear Leader Kim has achieved, he sure has managed to keep attention focused on his wretched country, including that of the world's major powers, even those not directly involved in the Six-Party talks.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Further, the President can't put off making a decision about what to do in Afghanistan much longer. He asked General McChrystal for a recommendation and got one, so he'll have to decide one way or the other -- soon. Like maybe next week or the week after.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">For self-evident and not-so-self-evident reasons, I'd like to see the President visit Thailand, too. Thailand has been one of our staunchest allies anywhere for decades, most notably during the Vietnam War. Yes, the Kingdom benefitted enormously from our military presence here, not least from the soldiers who came on leave here (and many times ended up marrying a local lady, and sometimes making their lives here thereafter). But Thailand provided us a giant "aircraft carrier" from which to launch aerial assualts against the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. I feel we <em>owe</em> it to the Thai people to show them respect of a visit from my President. Of course, I'm biased in favor of the Thai people, but I'm not going to apologize for loving the country that has given me so much these past 15+ years.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">All that said, maybe Thailand can't be on President Obama's must-see list in the near future. But let's say this: "Please come <em>sometime</em> during your term, Mr. President. Even if just for a day."</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Anyway, I'm damned glad the President is tending to some important business in this part of the world, both for the bloddless pragmatic reason that we have one hell of a lot of interests here and the human reason of promoting people-to-people relationships.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Look at what President Nixon accomplished with his extraordinary visit to China -- Commie China. Who else but a staunch anti-communist could have pulled it off?</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">I applaud anytime it's appropriate, something like I salute a brave fallen -- enemy -- soldier. Not, I hasten to add, that I regard President Nixon as an enemy, no matter how much he went on to disgrace himself and his office.</span>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4366420072262422782.post-62518469122907328152009-11-11T16:20:00.026+07:002009-11-11T16:32:42.860+07:003G Services, and the Internet, in Thailand<strong><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">Read a news story today that the TOT (Telephone Organization of Thailand) is set to let five local companies launch #G services -- in Bangkok, at least -- early next month.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">That'll be great . . . <em>if</em> it happens.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">This service has met with many delays, and not just those imposed by the necessity to install the necessary infrastructure.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">More than one government agency, which the TOT is, has some jurisdiction in this, nd not all have signed aboard for the proposed service, so I simply don't know if the service will really and truly be introduced anytime soon, though I hope it is.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">One really intriguing aspect of the story is that prices could be up to 10 times less than current ones -- and current prices, especially in contrast to those of just a fes years ago are quite reasonable now, at least in my opinion. For instance, when I arrived in the Kingdom in mid-1994, the cheapest rate to call the U.S. was THB32.50 per minute, or US$1.30 at the then-exchange rate. Todfay, I can call the U.S. 24/7 for a flat THB5.00 per minute, a tiny fraction under US$.15! And the top rate way back when was a wallet-killing THB82.00 per minute, or US$3.28! Today's rate is under 5% of that previous top one. Heck, when I got my first hand phone back in the Age of Dinosaurs, I was paying THB5.00 per minute for <em>local</em> calls, so I'm sure not complaining now.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">Internet service here, however, is an entirely different kettle of fish. It's extremely uneven in terms of speed. I essentially couldn't get on anywhere without repeated efforts and, I suspect, a lot of luck. And this is in spuite of the fact that True Internet customers with a 512kbps pacjage -- including me -- got a free upgrade to 3 mbps, 6 times faster. Chucle, chuckle. Right.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">My friends who don't use the Internet (and in most cases, can't even turn on a computer) make fun of me for whining about this, pointing out that until not much more than a decade ago, we didn't even have stuff like e-mail. And that's true. But in my mind, that mockery is akin to that of someone who insisted on continuing to walk or ride a horse after the car came into use when Mr. Cowboy would mock a car-owning friend for complaining his car had some mechanical problem. In fact, it's same-same, different age.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">And, no doubt, as technology moves forward and enters into our daily lives, we'll have complaints we can't even imagine now. Sure, our friends who live in a sod hut in the middle of the prairie can laugh at us for moaning about our utility bills and so on -- but we don't freeze in winter and burn up in summer, nor do we have to walk a mile to the nearest creek to fetch water and bathe, now, do we???</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">Though Thailand is light years away from being the technology hub it would love to be, credit must be given for the almost unthinkable strides the country has made over the past decade or so. I remember when the first Internet cafe opened here in Bangkok; it caused a huge sensation. Now there are more Internet cafes than there are <em>bars</em>, and that's saying something!!!</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">So you Cave People go right ahead and laugh . . . while you're out trying to kill a bear or deer to make yourself a blanket against the winter's snow and cold - - and see who gets the last laugh! :-)</span></strong>Mekhong Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04029202047178661932noreply@blogger.com