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You can’t beat cool
Tim from Neighbor’s Heating and Air (I did the site some time ago) just left after fixing my air conditioning and I have to say; quality really shows. The other two people I’ve had over here over the years both were constantly going back and forth to the outside unit and inside, before pronouncing that I had a Freon leak somewhere.
Tim (who also pronounced the Freon leak) just pronounces “Oh it’s a Lennox A-83” twists some knobs on the inside unit and does everything from there. And then it got very cold….
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China and India
While various members of the Commentariat (I’m looking at you Charlie Rose) talk quite a bit about the “peaceful rise of China” articles like this one about Indian Medical Vacations make me think that it will be India that will rise much higher. China seems to be putting a lot of effort into posturing lately, and their currency machinations will come back to bite them big time.
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Unbelievable
I just pulled a chicken bone out of my dog’s throat. Who doesn’t know that dogs choke on those?
Here I am walking my dog (on a leash, as always) on my private (but physically accessible to outsiders property) and I notice my dog acting a bit funny. After a quick check his mouth seems a bit strange so I open it up, see the bone, and then have to pull it out of his freaking throat. He’s fine now but who doesn’t know that chicken bones kill dogs? And what the hell are they doing littering on private property anyway?
No one who lives in this condo complex ever actually parks there (it’s not that convenient to any of the units) and the only person I’ve ever seen there is some woman checking a map, though I’ve seen her do that several times.
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Oil Books
Via Instapunit, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy – which has the theory that the Saudis are running out of oil (not likely IMHO, if they were their behavior would be much different)
Via the too shrill Huffington Post, Secrets of the Kingdom – which has as one of it’s major points the contention that the Saudis have rigged the entire country with explosive and radiological material as an incentive for everyone to stay on their good side. Again, not that likely, but interesting. It is written by Gerald Posner who usually does fine work.
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Something worth reading
Radley Balko had an excellent post on the abhorrent Soviet Chic trend that is spreading in some circles. It all goes to show the importance of marketing and identity to people I suppose.
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Thoughts on Self Selection
While picking some with JP this evening he brought up some new show on CNN that feature two people reading headlines from the blogosphere. Oddly enough the Daily Show on Comedy Central also had a piece on that as well.
JP also said something to the effect that with all of our technology we aren’t any better informed. After some thought, here’s what I think about that.
For the purposes of this post, there are three kinds of information
- Identical Knowledge – this is information that is seen and believed identically. Example are Columbus landing in this hemisphere in 1492, Water boiling at 100 degrees Celsius, etc. Generally this is value neutral.
- Shared Knowledge – Knowledge that is generally attached to a point of view or some moral value where two people can know basically the same facts but arrive at different conclusions. Examples are the designated hitter in baseball, politics, conspiracy theories, etc.
- Personal Knowledge – this is knowledge that one person knows, but that other people in his or her social group do not. An example are highly specialized data that comes from hobbies or one’s job.
I think that with the ever present technology Personal Knowledge has increased dramatically in relation to the other two types, giving the appearance that we all know less since Identical Knowledge (which is largely verifiable) is an ever smaller percentage of what people know.
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Worth Reading
Is this article on the practice of rendition in the Weekly Standard. It’s written by a a former CIA officer who argues against it mostly on efficiency grounds.
It’s worth reading all of the article, if only for insight on what a strange topic this is, and how important self image and membership in the group is to some people.. I’m reminded of the old South Park insight of “America is a big enough country to go to war without wanting to“.
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Iraqi Insurgency
Some very interesting reading; Tom Palmer refers to this WAPO article on the goals of the insurgency in Iraq, and it raises some interesting thoughts.
The article breaks it all down into 3 groups: al Qaida in Iraq, headed by Zarquai, hardcore Baathists, and non-hardcore Baathist sympathizers. It’s all very good reading, most particularly the goals of the hardcore Baathists, which are to regain control of Iraq should the US leave. They thing they have the capability to do so based on their superior organization and ruthlessness.
All of which makes me wonder, the US death rate seems to be holding at around 15 or so per week, with a variance of 5 or so. However they seem to be coming in offensive action, not random murder, and the number of insurgents killed has been skyrocketing lately. Hopefully this is a good sign.
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Irish Gypsies
Who knew they actually existed, Irish Gypsies are distinct from regular gypsies (or the Roma), most notably in that they are ethnically Irish, but they have a gypsy lifestyle and are only in the UK, US and Ireland. This was who Brad Pitt was portraying the movie Snatch.
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Weird Things You Find On Wikipedia
In this case, an entry on the last major Nazi war criminal believed to be alive, Alois Brunner. Evidently he’s hiding in Syria which is not great surprise I suppose. The strange thing about him (besides still being alive and unpunished) is that he has lost several fingers and an eye from letter bombs sent to him by Israeli intelligence. It’s good that the Israelis still go the extra mile in these matters but it’s astonishing that after losing an appendage to a letter bomb, Brunner would still open suspicious packages.