FolkWolf.Net

an exec working for the Chinese division of GM designs a minivan that gets 43mpg and sells for $5000. It makes the Chinese division of GM the most profitable car company in China. So, does GM bring him to the US to revamp their product line? Do they follow his success in building modern small vehicles?

No, he's seen as a threat to other executives and so they fire him

I wish everyone would pay attention to this judge. Human Rights, including the right to a free and open trial are the cornerstones of any decent civilization.

The transcript of U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour's comments during Wednesday's sentencing hearing for Ahmed Ressam, the Millennium Bomber

Some of my favourite points:

Secondly, though, I would like to convey the message that our system works. We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, or detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant, or deny him the right to counsel, or invoke any proceedings beyond those guaranteed by or contrary to the United States Constitution.

Most importantly, all of this occurred in the sunlight of a public trial. There were no secret proceedings, no indefinite detention, no denial of counsel.

As some of you may know, I spent two years (1985 - 87) in Somalia, I left Mogadishu while it was at its peak, before the civil war that started to destroy the country. I read all of the articles on this page from the BBC. It makes for fascinating reading.

This NY Times article talks about a study that once again, and in new ways, refutes any claims to a cold remedy.

Some cool quotes.

The study, being published today in The New England Journal of Medicine, involved 437 people who volunteered to have cold viruses dripped into their noses. Some swallowed echinacea for a week beforehand, others a placebo. Still others took echinacea or a placebo at the time they were infected. Then the subjects were secluded in hotel rooms for five days while scientists examined them for symptoms and took nasal washings to look for the virus and for an immune system protein, interleukin-8. Some had hypothesized that interleukin-8 was stimulated by echinacea, enabling the herb to stop colds. But the investigators found that those who took echinacea fared no differently from those who took a placebo: they were just as likely to catch a cold, their symptoms were just as severe, they had just as much virus in their nasal secretions, and they made no more interleukin-8.

Now, with increasing evidence that echinacea does not work for colds, scientists are confronting a problem, Dr. Sampson said, in that "there is no 'demarcation of the absurd,' a point at which it is unwise to pursue an investigation further." For Dr. Turner, that point is here. "We should assume that echinacea does not work until somebody proves it does," he said. That, he added, "is the flip side of where we've been."

I'm sitting here listening to Buck 65, Riverbed part 4. It's an oddly hypnotic song that goes along with a blog entry from one of the Gnome developers.

Our might does not make right. Our present and historical invovlement in the mideast is conveniently unknown or forgotten. Effects and causes are disjoint. The West Wing's Toby Ziegler might be right - maybe they will like us when we win. But maybe they'll like us if we simply stop doing everything within our power to fuck with their lives. There's a good New Testament quote to the effect of "they will know you are a Christian through your actions and good deeds." Let's spread freedom through our good example instead of our tanks.

Maybe we need a more Buddhist, kung-fu style approach to the War on Terror. I don't understand how we can win a War on Terror, when our enemies are ourselves. They could be our friends, our neighbours, or they could be people a million miles away. Terrorists are our enemies, but how can you tell a terrorist? They don't wear uniforms, they're not all one colour,creed, or race. They could be our friends, our neighbours, or they could be people a million miles away. There's now way we can tell them apart, there's no way we can fight the terrorists without fighting ourselves as well. As soon as you declare a War on Terrorists, you're declaring a war on the whole population. So what to do? We can't lock everyone up who looks at us funny, try as we might, maybe the only way to end the War on Terror is to follow the teachings of the Buddha.

"Everyone fears punishment," he says, "everyone fears death, just as you do. Therefore do not kill or cause to kill. Everyone fears punishment; everyone loves life, as you do. Therefore do not kill or cause to kill." He also said, "Hatred cannot put an end to hatred; love alone can. This is an unalterable law."

Or Jesus, as he said in the Sermon on the Mount:

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.
Matthew, Chapter 5, verses 35 - 44

.

Hillary Rosen finally gets the fact that suing grokster, napster, kazaa, whatever music stealing app is in this week, etc is not going to make any kind of dent in the online music sharing phenomenon. People are going to continue sharing music until the labels under the auspices of the RIAA ( the almost universally loathed big Five) dramatically change their business. They can continue to play whack-a-mole suing various companies, but people aren't going to be told what kind of music they can listen to for much longer. Excerpt is below.

Why was this not shown all over CNN? Hell, why was it shoved in some back page of the fucking NY Times?

I'm from Canada. We had 4 soldiers mistreat a Somali boy in custody, who was caught breaking into a Canadian Army base. Because of the mistreatment of one Somali boy, our entire Airborne platoon was disbanded, and never recreated. It was front-page news for months, and it left a permanent and deep scar on the Canadian military. But apparently, American soldiers can torture whoever they like, whenever they like without repercussion or at worst, a possible slap on the wrist.

The entire article is below.

"What good is fresh air if you have a lot of unemployed people breathing it?" -- Robert Stec, president and CEO of Lexington Home Brands

To which I respond:

"What good is money when you have a lot of CEO's spending it?"

You know, at some point between Wells, Nevada, and Elko, Nevada (see below for HST's apt description of this part of the world), on the I80 there's an unnumbered exit onto some two-bit tarmac road that leads two tiny towns that don't even merit the term "one-horse" These two towns are called Deeth, and Starr.

So when you're really tired, driving down the I80 in the middle of the night after driving for 48 hours without breaks, and you come across a freeway sign that says "Deeth Starr 1/2 mi.", you really think you've gone to a galaxy far, far away.

This is a fitting tribute to HST. I suggest everyone read it.

He has the best description of Northern Nevada that I ever heard.

So what? I thought. I know this road -- a straight lonely run across nowhere, with not many dots on the map except ghost towns and truck stops with names like Beowawe and Lovelock and Deeth and Winnemucca....

Jesus! Who made this map? Only a lunatic could have come up with a list of places like this: Imlay, Valmy, Golconda, Nixon, Midas, Metropolis, Jiggs, Judasville -- all of them empty, with no gas stations, withering away in the desert like a string of old Pony Express stations. The Federal Government owns ninety percent of this land, and most of it is useless for anything except weapons testing and poison-gas experiments.

Read this editorial in the Daily Nebraskan, then this article in the Lincoln Journal Star.

Nothing defines irony better than this.

btw, Lincoln, NE is a nice oasis in the desert that is the midwest.