Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Poverty Does Not Create Terrorism
Everybody says poverty creates terrorism. However, studies of terrorists show they are rarely from poor backgrounds. This article, from Fortune magazine, lays out the arguments.
I'm Off to San Diego
Tomorrow I fly to San Diego to attend the annual meeting of the South Western Academy of Management. If I run across any fascinating new management insights, I'll be sure to blog them, either while there or after I return home.
I serve as the Newsletter Editor for SWAM. We do an email newsletter and you can find recent issues of it on the organization's website (www.shsu.edu/~mgt_swam/).
I serve as the Newsletter Editor for SWAM. We do an email newsletter and you can find recent issues of it on the organization's website (www.shsu.edu/~mgt_swam/).
Good News, Guys
The Los Angeles Times reports that a new study has found that obese men have a much lower risk of suicide. Published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the study reported that overweight men were 42 per cent less likely to commit suicide than those at the lower end of the normal weight range. So when your significant other suggests you lose weight, reply that you don't want to increase your risk of suicide.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
W Is Not Incompetent, Exactly
Today, Michael Novak writes to defend the President, also appearing in the Wall Street Journal's online Opinion Journal. He argues that W hasn't done badly, given the situations with which he has been faced. He makes much of the President's sort-of successful State of the Union speech in January. His view is also worth a look.
Is W Incompetent?
An angry conservative, Joseph Bottum writes in the Wall Street Journal's online Opinion Journal that in his view President George W. Bush has conservative principles but is essentially incompetent in their execution. In his words, "The problem isn't his lack of conservatism. The problem is his lack of competence." You may or may not agree with him, but the article, entitled "The Conservative Case Against Bush," is a very interesting read.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
DrC on Defections
Former Iranian Deputy Defense Minister Ali Reza Asgari has disappeared while in Turkey. He is rumored to have defected to the United States. It is likely he is being asked many detailed questions by the Central Intelligence Agency. If this is true, it is certainly good news from a region which produces little of it.
This defection raises an interesting point. Many more people defect to the United States than from the United States. As long as this is true, the U.S. is probably still on the side of the angels. If we hear that a U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense or a general has defected to Iran or North Korea, it will be time to worry. I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to happen.
This defection raises an interesting point. Many more people defect to the United States than from the United States. As long as this is true, the U.S. is probably still on the side of the angels. If we hear that a U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense or a general has defected to Iran or North Korea, it will be time to worry. I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to happen.
Friday, March 9, 2007
The Libby Verdict
Charles Krauthammer has an interesting take on the Lewis "Scooter" Libby guilty verdict. As is often the case, Dr. Krauthammer hits the nail on the head (pun intended, of course). He demonstrates that several witnesses in the trial suffered memory lapses with no penalty. Libby, on the other hand, faces up to 25 years in prison for what may have been similar lapses.
The most fascinating thing about the Wilson-Plame affair is that the release of Plame's identity as a CIA employee was not a crime. Richard Armitage of the State Department is the self-admitted leaker of the information and he is charged with nothing.
Libby, on the other hand, has been convicted of covering up the facts of a non-crime that needed no cover up. If there is a lesson in this it is that one should never testify about one's behavior or activities without a guarantee of immunity from prosecution.
The most fascinating thing about the Wilson-Plame affair is that the release of Plame's identity as a CIA employee was not a crime. Richard Armitage of the State Department is the self-admitted leaker of the information and he is charged with nothing.
Libby, on the other hand, has been convicted of covering up the facts of a non-crime that needed no cover up. If there is a lesson in this it is that one should never testify about one's behavior or activities without a guarantee of immunity from prosecution.
Why Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism and the Military
I just read an interesting article mulling over the reasons why many intellectuals oppose capitalism and the military. The essence of the argument is that intellectuals get used to being the best while in school. They then are offended by institutions which reward skills and behaviors other than those school rewarded. Capitalism and the military often reward courage, daring, and single-minded effort; on the other hand school tends to reward inherited intellect (high IQ).
Studies have shown that college grades generally do NOT predict future success in business. I'm not aware of studies focusing on grades as predictors (or not) of success in the military, but perhaps a reader may be able to suggest a source.
Full disclosure: I am an intellectual and I favor both capitalism and the military. However, I realize that, among intellectuals, I hold minority views on capitalism and the military.
Studies have shown that college grades generally do NOT predict future success in business. I'm not aware of studies focusing on grades as predictors (or not) of success in the military, but perhaps a reader may be able to suggest a source.
Full disclosure: I am an intellectual and I favor both capitalism and the military. However, I realize that, among intellectuals, I hold minority views on capitalism and the military.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Thoughts About Antarctica
Somehow I managed to tell you about going to Antarctica in one post and coming back from Antarctica in another without telling you anything about Antarctica itself. With this post I remedy that shortfall.
When going to Antarctica, getting there is not half the fun. In pre-Panama Canal days, the seas around Cape Horn were called "the roaring forties." Today the 500 mile belt of rough water between Cape Horn and the Antarctic Peninsula is called the Drake Passage. "The Drake" is some of the roughest water in the world. Furthermore, expedition ships tend not to be stabilized because stabilizers would not survive encounters with ice. So, the water is rough and the relatively small ships pitch and roll for a day and a half in each direction. Passenger injuries are not uncommon and deaths are not unheard of. A woman on my ship dislocated her elbow in a fall. She and her husband were taken to a Chilean base for medivac home.
Once you get across the Drake the seas calm and the neat part of the adventure begins. I expected to see thousands of penguins and plenty of seals and sea lions and some whales and many flying-type sea birds. We saw all of these and more. The penguins are charming and unafraid even if they do smell pretty fishy. We saw several species of whale, and several of seal. We went ashore 8 times by Zodiac and also took an hour and a half Zodiac ride in "Iceberg Alley."
What I didn't expect is the natural beauty of the region. Somehow the Antarctic documentaries I'd seen on TV didn't convey its stunning scenery. Sharp, jagged mountains soar out of the icy seas with glaciers hanging from them. Icebergs erode into fantastic elaborate shapes. My overwhelming impression of Antarctica is of its scenic beauty. While the weather can be nasty even in summer, we had quite good weather for most of our stay.
On board ship we had a geologist, a marine biologist, an ornithologist, and a historian. They gave talks on their specialties that were well attended and appreciated. Once we got into calm waters along the Antarctic Peninsula meals were well attended as well. On our final day in Antarctica we visited Deception Island which is a six mile wide volcanic caldera into which our ship sailed. Hot springs there make swimming along the shore possible and perhaps a third of our party donned swim suits and went in the water. All too soon our tour of Antarctica was over and we had to face the Drake again.
With this entry travel blogging is over for the next six weeks or so. Now it is back to the management thoughts, domestic politics and world affairs we usually cover.
When going to Antarctica, getting there is not half the fun. In pre-Panama Canal days, the seas around Cape Horn were called "the roaring forties." Today the 500 mile belt of rough water between Cape Horn and the Antarctic Peninsula is called the Drake Passage. "The Drake" is some of the roughest water in the world. Furthermore, expedition ships tend not to be stabilized because stabilizers would not survive encounters with ice. So, the water is rough and the relatively small ships pitch and roll for a day and a half in each direction. Passenger injuries are not uncommon and deaths are not unheard of. A woman on my ship dislocated her elbow in a fall. She and her husband were taken to a Chilean base for medivac home.
Once you get across the Drake the seas calm and the neat part of the adventure begins. I expected to see thousands of penguins and plenty of seals and sea lions and some whales and many flying-type sea birds. We saw all of these and more. The penguins are charming and unafraid even if they do smell pretty fishy. We saw several species of whale, and several of seal. We went ashore 8 times by Zodiac and also took an hour and a half Zodiac ride in "Iceberg Alley."
What I didn't expect is the natural beauty of the region. Somehow the Antarctic documentaries I'd seen on TV didn't convey its stunning scenery. Sharp, jagged mountains soar out of the icy seas with glaciers hanging from them. Icebergs erode into fantastic elaborate shapes. My overwhelming impression of Antarctica is of its scenic beauty. While the weather can be nasty even in summer, we had quite good weather for most of our stay.
On board ship we had a geologist, a marine biologist, an ornithologist, and a historian. They gave talks on their specialties that were well attended and appreciated. Once we got into calm waters along the Antarctic Peninsula meals were well attended as well. On our final day in Antarctica we visited Deception Island which is a six mile wide volcanic caldera into which our ship sailed. Hot springs there make swimming along the shore possible and perhaps a third of our party donned swim suits and went in the water. All too soon our tour of Antarctica was over and we had to face the Drake again.
With this entry travel blogging is over for the next six weeks or so. Now it is back to the management thoughts, domestic politics and world affairs we usually cover.
More on Global Warming
Recent studies show that both Mars and Earth are warming. This article suggests that the same thing may be causing both: increased solar radiation. As noted earlier, warming on a global scale has happened before. There are petrified trees in Antarctica where no trees grow today.
When warming happened before, man-made pollution was not the cause. For sure man-made pollution is not yet the cause on Mars. Are we having some effect on the warming of Earth? Probably. How much impact are we having relative to solar heating? Who knows? Is there any way to determine our impact? Doubtful, since we inhabit the petri dish we need to study.
When warming happened before, man-made pollution was not the cause. For sure man-made pollution is not yet the cause on Mars. Are we having some effect on the warming of Earth? Probably. How much impact are we having relative to solar heating? Who knows? Is there any way to determine our impact? Doubtful, since we inhabit the petri dish we need to study.
Performance Appraisal Doesn't Work
Ask most executives the purpose of performance appraisal and they'll tell you: "to give feedback to my employees about their performance with the aim of improving it." I believe these executives are almost entirely wrong.
As B. F. Skinner and his disciples have demonstrated empirically, the more time that elapses between behavior and its consequences, the less those consequences shape future behavior. Thus, the typical annual performance appraisal has almost no utility as feedback directed at improving behavior. This is because too many weeks or months have elapsed between the behavior and the time employees learn their manager's reaction to that behavior.
The only actual utility of formal annual performance appraisal is to document feedback that has already occurred during the year. In other words, virtually every sentence or paragraph should begin with the words "As I told you on (insert date), ..." A formal performance appraisal should only contain things the boss and subordinate formerly discussed at the time they took place. Ideally, employees would see nothing in the appraisal document that they hadn't already heard from the boss some weeks or months ago.
In order for this documentation to occur, bosses must be communicating with their employees on a regular basis about their reactions to the employees' work. For busy bosses, this is difficult to do but absolutely essential. And it doesn't need to take much time, a quick "nice work on that report you gave me yesterday" or a "you need to put more effort into getting me that report on time" should do it. Also, bosses need to log such comments when given so they can include them in annual performance appraisals.
As B. F. Skinner and his disciples have demonstrated empirically, the more time that elapses between behavior and its consequences, the less those consequences shape future behavior. Thus, the typical annual performance appraisal has almost no utility as feedback directed at improving behavior. This is because too many weeks or months have elapsed between the behavior and the time employees learn their manager's reaction to that behavior.
The only actual utility of formal annual performance appraisal is to document feedback that has already occurred during the year. In other words, virtually every sentence or paragraph should begin with the words "As I told you on (insert date), ..." A formal performance appraisal should only contain things the boss and subordinate formerly discussed at the time they took place. Ideally, employees would see nothing in the appraisal document that they hadn't already heard from the boss some weeks or months ago.
In order for this documentation to occur, bosses must be communicating with their employees on a regular basis about their reactions to the employees' work. For busy bosses, this is difficult to do but absolutely essential. And it doesn't need to take much time, a quick "nice work on that report you gave me yesterday" or a "you need to put more effort into getting me that report on time" should do it. Also, bosses need to log such comments when given so they can include them in annual performance appraisals.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Who Says We All Just Want to Get Along?
Here is an interesting short article from the Washington Post concerning whether Americans are centerists or polarized. They find that we are polarized and tending to go live where others who agree with us also live. The red state, blue state dichotomy lives!
Brasil, Brasil
This blog entry was supposed to come to you from Rio de Janeiro but my Internet connection there was too weak to post it. Now I'm back in the States and here is my concluding travel blog concerning Brasil, Brasil.
We flew from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires and then on to Iguassu Falls, which is located where the borders of Brasil, Argentina, and Paraguay come together. Much cross-border smuggling happens here, as well as even more tourism. Some falls may have more water (Niagara) or be higher (Angel) but none is longer than Iguassu. Imagine if you can beautiful falls that go on for nearly 2 miles, not in a straight line but with curves and arcs. There is nothing even close in the world. The roar, the mist, the sheer sense of movement are awesome. The setting is pure tropical; at this time of year (summer) the conditions approximate the inside of your mouth: 98.6F degrees and 100% humidity. It is as big a tourist attraction in South America as Niagara is in North America or Victoria Falls is in Africa. The area is booming, the population is ten times what it was maybe forty years ago.
While in this area we also visited the Itapu Dam which takes advantage of the immense volume of water and the drop in altitude also responsible for the falls. Itapu is jointly owned by Brasil and Paraguay and is one of the world's largest hydroelectric projects. For some reason hydroelectric power has a bad reputation in the U.S. but the rest of the world sure loves the naturally renewable power resource of rainwater running toward the sea. This is one time they are right and we are exhibiting an excess of environmental puritanism.
After Iguassu we flew to Rio de Janeiro. The second largest city in Brasil, after Sao Paulo, Rio has one of the world's most spectacular natural settings. The city runs for miles along a bay and coastline with islands and peninsulas and causeways and bridges and lagoons and beaches and more beaches and all of this punctuated with steep mountains like Sugarloaf and Corcovado (means "hunchback," not very PC) which is the one with the 100+ foot statue of Christ the Redeemer standing with his arms spread in the shape of a cross. A cog railway runs to the top of Corcovado and a pair of sequential cable cars take you to the top of Sugarloaf - fantastic views from both that approximate flying over the city in a small plane.
In many ways Rio is best viewed from upon high. Up close its status as a third world city becomes evident. The city's slums, locally called favelas, run up hillsides in tightly packed clusters of homemade buildings which house the city's poor, mostly migrants from the countryside. Favelas are ruled by drug lords, the police mostly enter to pick up the bodies. The situation is like the warlord fiefdoms in Afghanistan or Somalia. Fights over turf tend to be brutal and drug enforcers deal out street 'justice' to folks who can't get along. However, 3-4 blocks from favelas you find apartment buildings with units that sell from 1/2 million to 5 million U.S. dollars, depending on the amenities, size and view. The rich and poor live near each other and the working class lives elsewhere. Unfortunately, a middle class of the sort we have in developed countries isn't very strong.
We arrived just in time to see the last night of Carnival, Rio's version of Mardi Gras. Their celebration goes on for about 10 days and can lay a fair claim to being the world's biggest party. Rio dudes can really boogie, I mean samba. The role of krews in New Orleans is fulfilled in Rio by many samba 'schools' with roughly 5000 members each. They dress up in a panoply of fantastic costumes, or wear nearly nothing, or both, then they parade with several giant floats for each 'school' while dancing and singing and shooting off fireworks more or less continuously. Their samba song often has a political or social message but everybody is having 'way too much fun to take the message seriously. The last night, which we saw, featured the five winning 'schools' and lasted from 9 p.m. to maybe 4 a.m. (we didn't stay that late). The stands in the samba stadium hold maybe 100,000 people who are all standing, dancing, drinking, singing, taking pictures, and milling about while grinning. It was a happy crowd, we never felt at all threatened although pickpockets were probably at work. Security was much in evidence but we never saw them hassle anybody, nor did we see anybody who needed it.
Rio has a "beach" culture. Office workers will sometimes take a quick swim on their lunch hour. The "girl from Ipanema" is alive and well; I must have seen a thousand ladies who could have inspired that song. It is quite common to see young women walking down the street in a skimpy bikini top, tight shorts or jeans, high heels, and sun glasses. The heat and humidity are good excuses for this attire. Because people spend a lot of time in beachwear, they tend to be trim and body conscious.
Brasil hasn't caught the Peronist disease that hobbles Argentina, with the result that it is doing well economically. It and Canada are the world's two main exporters of commuter aircraft and it produces most of Latin America's automobiles. Brasil has achieved energy independence, which means they no longer import petroleum products. They have some oil production and have covered most of the shortfall with alcohol distilled from sugarcane which grows nicely in the warm, wet climate. They are also beginning to produce biodiesel from soy beans. One guesses that the energy independence comes at the expense of thousands of square miles of rainforest converted to farmland. Life is full of tradeoffs.
We flew from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires and then on to Iguassu Falls, which is located where the borders of Brasil, Argentina, and Paraguay come together. Much cross-border smuggling happens here, as well as even more tourism. Some falls may have more water (Niagara) or be higher (Angel) but none is longer than Iguassu. Imagine if you can beautiful falls that go on for nearly 2 miles, not in a straight line but with curves and arcs. There is nothing even close in the world. The roar, the mist, the sheer sense of movement are awesome. The setting is pure tropical; at this time of year (summer) the conditions approximate the inside of your mouth: 98.6F degrees and 100% humidity. It is as big a tourist attraction in South America as Niagara is in North America or Victoria Falls is in Africa. The area is booming, the population is ten times what it was maybe forty years ago.
While in this area we also visited the Itapu Dam which takes advantage of the immense volume of water and the drop in altitude also responsible for the falls. Itapu is jointly owned by Brasil and Paraguay and is one of the world's largest hydroelectric projects. For some reason hydroelectric power has a bad reputation in the U.S. but the rest of the world sure loves the naturally renewable power resource of rainwater running toward the sea. This is one time they are right and we are exhibiting an excess of environmental puritanism.
After Iguassu we flew to Rio de Janeiro. The second largest city in Brasil, after Sao Paulo, Rio has one of the world's most spectacular natural settings. The city runs for miles along a bay and coastline with islands and peninsulas and causeways and bridges and lagoons and beaches and more beaches and all of this punctuated with steep mountains like Sugarloaf and Corcovado (means "hunchback," not very PC) which is the one with the 100+ foot statue of Christ the Redeemer standing with his arms spread in the shape of a cross. A cog railway runs to the top of Corcovado and a pair of sequential cable cars take you to the top of Sugarloaf - fantastic views from both that approximate flying over the city in a small plane.
In many ways Rio is best viewed from upon high. Up close its status as a third world city becomes evident. The city's slums, locally called favelas, run up hillsides in tightly packed clusters of homemade buildings which house the city's poor, mostly migrants from the countryside. Favelas are ruled by drug lords, the police mostly enter to pick up the bodies. The situation is like the warlord fiefdoms in Afghanistan or Somalia. Fights over turf tend to be brutal and drug enforcers deal out street 'justice' to folks who can't get along. However, 3-4 blocks from favelas you find apartment buildings with units that sell from 1/2 million to 5 million U.S. dollars, depending on the amenities, size and view. The rich and poor live near each other and the working class lives elsewhere. Unfortunately, a middle class of the sort we have in developed countries isn't very strong.
We arrived just in time to see the last night of Carnival, Rio's version of Mardi Gras. Their celebration goes on for about 10 days and can lay a fair claim to being the world's biggest party. Rio dudes can really boogie, I mean samba. The role of krews in New Orleans is fulfilled in Rio by many samba 'schools' with roughly 5000 members each. They dress up in a panoply of fantastic costumes, or wear nearly nothing, or both, then they parade with several giant floats for each 'school' while dancing and singing and shooting off fireworks more or less continuously. Their samba song often has a political or social message but everybody is having 'way too much fun to take the message seriously. The last night, which we saw, featured the five winning 'schools' and lasted from 9 p.m. to maybe 4 a.m. (we didn't stay that late). The stands in the samba stadium hold maybe 100,000 people who are all standing, dancing, drinking, singing, taking pictures, and milling about while grinning. It was a happy crowd, we never felt at all threatened although pickpockets were probably at work. Security was much in evidence but we never saw them hassle anybody, nor did we see anybody who needed it.
Rio has a "beach" culture. Office workers will sometimes take a quick swim on their lunch hour. The "girl from Ipanema" is alive and well; I must have seen a thousand ladies who could have inspired that song. It is quite common to see young women walking down the street in a skimpy bikini top, tight shorts or jeans, high heels, and sun glasses. The heat and humidity are good excuses for this attire. Because people spend a lot of time in beachwear, they tend to be trim and body conscious.
Brasil hasn't caught the Peronist disease that hobbles Argentina, with the result that it is doing well economically. It and Canada are the world's two main exporters of commuter aircraft and it produces most of Latin America's automobiles. Brasil has achieved energy independence, which means they no longer import petroleum products. They have some oil production and have covered most of the shortfall with alcohol distilled from sugarcane which grows nicely in the warm, wet climate. They are also beginning to produce biodiesel from soy beans. One guesses that the energy independence comes at the expense of thousands of square miles of rainforest converted to farmland. Life is full of tradeoffs.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Greetings from the Beagle Channel
Ushuaia, Argentina, is supposedly the southernmost town on the planet. Anyway, it sits here on the Beagle Channel, named after the ship on which Charles Darwin sailed, HMS Beagle. The weather is unusually warm and sunny, I think we managed to arrive on their one day of summer. The scenery here is spectacular, quite mountainous with glaciers and at lower elevations forests of southern beech quite similar to those in New Zealand. In fact this country looks like the lake country in southern EnZed.
Buenos Aires was its usual mixture of Parisian chic and third world decay. Argentina is a country with many advantages and one serious disadvantage: Spanish colonial heritage. That last is enough to outweigh all of the former. With amazing natural resources and an educated population, they manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory time after time. When they needed Margaret Thatcher as a leader, they instead got her as an enemy. Poor Argentina.
This afternoon we board the ship and sail off into the Drake Passage - arguably the roughest seas on the planet. We´ve taken our seasickness meds and we hope for the best. I understand internet time on this ship costs $1/minute so I probably won´t blog until we return.
Buenos Aires was its usual mixture of Parisian chic and third world decay. Argentina is a country with many advantages and one serious disadvantage: Spanish colonial heritage. That last is enough to outweigh all of the former. With amazing natural resources and an educated population, they manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory time after time. When they needed Margaret Thatcher as a leader, they instead got her as an enemy. Poor Argentina.
This afternoon we board the ship and sail off into the Drake Passage - arguably the roughest seas on the planet. We´ve taken our seasickness meds and we hope for the best. I understand internet time on this ship costs $1/minute so I probably won´t blog until we return.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Travel Blogging
I will be traveling to Latin America and Antarctica for the next three weeks. Blogging during the balance of February will be (a) irregular, and (b) travel-focused. I will try to send an entry from Ushuaia, Argentina, which felt like the end of the world when I was there three years ago. I'll also try for impressionistic posts from Buenos Aires, Iguassu Falls and Rio de Janeiro.
This blog will be back to its ususal fare of domestic politics and world affairs in March. Have a good February....
This blog will be back to its ususal fare of domestic politics and world affairs in March. Have a good February....
Legislators Resemble Diapers?
As noted above, I will be traveling to Latin America in a few days. This article identifies some of the trends in Latin America about which one can be sad. It quotes Juan Peron of Argentina as saying "when one enters politics, one throws his honor to the dogs."
On the other hand, I particularly enjoyed the wisecrack: "Legislators and diapers need to be changed frequently, for the same reason." That is perhaps the best argument for term limits I've ever heard.
On the other hand, I particularly enjoyed the wisecrack: "Legislators and diapers need to be changed frequently, for the same reason." That is perhaps the best argument for term limits I've ever heard.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Global Warming, or Not?
Al Gore says we are at dire risk from global warming. Others say it just ain't so. I'm no climate scientist and I don't claim expertise. One thing I do know: there was naturally occurring global warming (and cooling) long before humans were able to affect the climate. Those natural forces still exist.
If there is global warming going on now, we humans may or may not have much influence upon it. Scientifically, it is difficult to tease out the relative impact of natural and man-made forces when both are acting at the same time. This is especially the case since the natural forces have already demonstrated that they alone can cause what we are experiencing.
Check out an article on global warming written by Mark Steyn in the Sunday Chicago Sun-Times online. He has a point of view which may even be right, but he is for sure entertaining and his facts are normally correct.
For a more serious approach to the same topic, see George Will's article in Newsweek online. He makes a number of the same points, as well as providing some political insights about the issue.
As always, gentle readers, the sharing here of your own climate change insights, thoughts, and fears is welcomed.
If there is global warming going on now, we humans may or may not have much influence upon it. Scientifically, it is difficult to tease out the relative impact of natural and man-made forces when both are acting at the same time. This is especially the case since the natural forces have already demonstrated that they alone can cause what we are experiencing.
Check out an article on global warming written by Mark Steyn in the Sunday Chicago Sun-Times online. He has a point of view which may even be right, but he is for sure entertaining and his facts are normally correct.
For a more serious approach to the same topic, see George Will's article in Newsweek online. He makes a number of the same points, as well as providing some political insights about the issue.
As always, gentle readers, the sharing here of your own climate change insights, thoughts, and fears is welcomed.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
They Chose Civil War?
Every now and then Charles Krauthammer says what needs saying. Writing in the National Review Online, he has an interesting 'take' on the situation in Iraq.
He argues that blaming Americans for the violence in Iraq is nonsense. He concludes "It willfully overlooks the plainest of facts: Iraq is their country. We midwifed their freedom. They chose civil war. "
If he is correct, that makes a good argument for leaving and letting the Iraqis get on with the bloodletting.
He argues that blaming Americans for the violence in Iraq is nonsense. He concludes "It willfully overlooks the plainest of facts: Iraq is their country. We midwifed their freedom. They chose civil war. "
If he is correct, that makes a good argument for leaving and letting the Iraqis get on with the bloodletting.
Friday, February 2, 2007
Final Harry Potter Book on Sale in July
July, 2007, will provide a double jackpot for Harry Potter fans. The movie version of book five: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will open in theaters on July 13. In this book Harry matches wits with the High Inquisitor, Professor Umbridge.
A variety of sources are carrying the news that the seventh and final book in the best-selling Harry Potter series will be on sale July 21, just eight days later. Entitled "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," it will conclude the series which documents young Harry Potter's adventures during seven years at the wizard boarding school, Hogwarts.
Jo Rowling, the author, has indicated earlier that two major characters die in book seven. She has also indicated that the final chapter will describe the futures of the books' major characters. It will be interesting to see if Rowling leaves room for future books set in the wizarding world. Alternatively, she may tie everything up so tightly there is nothing left to say.
Rowling probably won't write further books because she needs the money. She is reported to have become the richest woman in the United Kingdom, richer even than the Queen. On the other hand, she may continue to write because she has stories she wants to tell.
If you liked the Potter books and movies, check out the unabridged versions of the books recorded on CDs by British stage actor Jim Dale. He is simply excellent. He does all of the voices himself and each major character has his or her own distinctive voice. I believe that he won a Grammy for one or more of the recordings. The other DrC and I enjoy listening to them in the car on long drives.
A variety of sources are carrying the news that the seventh and final book in the best-selling Harry Potter series will be on sale July 21, just eight days later. Entitled "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," it will conclude the series which documents young Harry Potter's adventures during seven years at the wizard boarding school, Hogwarts.
Jo Rowling, the author, has indicated earlier that two major characters die in book seven. She has also indicated that the final chapter will describe the futures of the books' major characters. It will be interesting to see if Rowling leaves room for future books set in the wizarding world. Alternatively, she may tie everything up so tightly there is nothing left to say.
Rowling probably won't write further books because she needs the money. She is reported to have become the richest woman in the United Kingdom, richer even than the Queen. On the other hand, she may continue to write because she has stories she wants to tell.
If you liked the Potter books and movies, check out the unabridged versions of the books recorded on CDs by British stage actor Jim Dale. He is simply excellent. He does all of the voices himself and each major character has his or her own distinctive voice. I believe that he won a Grammy for one or more of the recordings. The other DrC and I enjoy listening to them in the car on long drives.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
President Reagan Remembered
Most political pundits write from their heads, or their guts. Peggy Noonan writes about politics from her heart, and it shows. When she is on her game, nobody does it better. Writing in the Wall Street Journal she fondly remembers the man and the President.
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