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Thursday, February 27, 2003
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Victor Rehorst posted a State of the Newton Address on the Newton Talk mailing list this morning.
Today, some key developers have joined those few and created applications that we only dreamed of: MP3 players, ATA support, desktop synchronization, and TCP/IP and IR connectivity, to name a few. NewtonTalk has grown by 60% since June 2001. The Newton still gets positive press coverage from publications such as Wired and MacAddict. There's been an explosion of Newton-based Websites. People want to use their Newtons and seem willing to do so through any means necessary. I believe that we are in the midst of the Newton's renaissance, five years after it all seemed like the end was nigh.
12:33:23 PM 
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The End of Democracy. The end of democracy for Venezuela occur a few years ago. What we are witnessing now is the end of any pretension of democracy. Not only we have people tortured, disappeared and killed, not only we have opposition leaders thrown in jail and persecuted on phony charges such as rebellion, but now the government will ask all international presence to leave. They don't want foreign intervention in Venezuela. Why? It prevents them from blowing up embassies and killing opponents. Now is the real test of the international community. Will they allowed my country to become another North Korea? Do we have to wait until Chávez attempts to export his revolution to get the OAS and UN to act? This is the first chapter of a different history for this hemisphere... [Tyromaniac]
The real test is of the Venezuelan people. Will they be able to get rid of Chavez and establish a government based on liberty? Or will they wait for foreigners to throw Chavez out? If the UN or some other outside group has to do it, then the people of Venezuela will be in the position of accepting what outsiders think is best for them--because they will have demonstrated that they can't take care of themselves.
Personally, I think the people of Venezuela are capable of taking care of their own problems. They've made a very impressive start with the strike and various protests.
10:48:46 AM
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World economy headed for catastrophic meltdown?. "As strong as our economy may still seem to everyone, it's actually rife with weakness. The only thing keeping it afloat right now is a mass societal consensus that it's going to be O.K. How long can that hold?" -- Robert Prechter, February 2003 "The world economy is about to turn for the better." "We have reached the bottom." "The downturn is slowing down." The naive and overly optimistic comments on world economy made by economists and politicians have been reported with headlines like "Have We Reached the Bottom?" and "IMF Upbeat On World Economy". But economists and politicians have a vested interest in the Big Lie: they are paid to produce good news, not to provide objective economic information. Almost nobody hires an economist who predicts bad times ahead. Voters don't vote for politicians who promise worse times. They both try to support the idea behind the quote above. But Bob Prechter is one economist who is not afraid to warn about a possible worldwide economic crash. [kuro5hin.org]
More discussion of impending economic problems.
10:19:59 AM
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Davos.... Here is some back of envelope calculations on why the power elite at Davos (depicted so well in Laurie Garrett's recent public e-mail) are so mad at the US. It's pure economics. The delayed recovery of the US (the only major economy in the world not mired in the muck) and the huge run up in oil prices has body slammed the global economy. I am fairly sure that the case could be made that this war has already cost the global economy ~2% in growth. On a $40 trillion combined GDP that is a $800 b loss, 3/4 of which is borne by people outside the US. That's $133 in income for every man, woman, and child on the globe that is now gone forever. If the potential 5-10 year global stagnation (ala Japan's situation) scenarios some economists are predicting come true as a result of this shock, we may see this "lost" growth extend across the decade. It may now be possible to become the Herbert Hoover of the global economy. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]
I think this is only partially correct. I think the economy would be in serious trouble no matter what, because the system of global fiat currency appears to be approaching collapse. However, the war scare is certainly making things worse, and making bad things happen sooner than they otherwise would have. The war will provide a convenient scapegoat if the economic crisis comes close enough to the war, though.
9:56:07 AM
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Some observations on today's events.
- Thirty six hours after the assassin of Altamira confessed minutes after his crime; President Hugo Chavez defended him and called him "this gentleman". Thirty six hours after Hugo Chavez had sharp words for the Governments of the US, Spain and Colombia, the Embassies of the last two countries were bombed in a criminal act. Thirty six hours after this terrorist act, the world has yet to hear from Hugo Chavez, he has simply not condemned them. Meanwhile, only hours after the bombings, the Heads of State of Colombia and Spain had already expressed their condemnation
- The US Embassy just announced that it will be closed tomorrow due to "reliable" information that there is a threat of an attack against it.
- The Government representatives to the negotiation table did not show up for the scheduled meeting, due to "security" concerns. Now, I wonder, the Government can not protect its own Cabinet, what is left to us!
- The Government showed some nervousness that the Colombian police announced that it will "aid" in the investigations of the bombing to its Embassy. It quickly clarified that the "aid" will be restricted to the Embassy itself. Now, as I understand C4 can be traced, but the Colombian cooperation was not expected and may complicate matters, no?
[Miguel Octavio: Venezuela]
It will be interesting to see if Chavez tries to keep those Colombian police away from the blast site.
9:45:06 AM
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Charley Reese -
Don't Worry About Terrorism - terrorist acts have a very limited
range. Especially chemical weapons. They cannot be properly called
weapons of mass destruction. [rrnd]
I hope no one thinks that the participants in World War II declined to
use chemical weapons out of humanitarian concerns. Hardly. They
managed to kill 55 million people with conventional weapons. Chemical
weapons weren't used because everybody learned in World War I that
they simply aren't that effective.
...
Biological agents probably have a greater potential to kill a lot of
people, but even these are no reason to panic. Mankind has been living
with anthrax, smallpox, plague and whatever for thousands of
years. Anthrax and plague can be treated today. Smallpox was still
around when I was a kid, and we all got a vaccination. Today, there
are no known cases of smallpox anywhere on Earth, and so far as anyone
knows for a dead certainty, only Russia and the United States have
smallpox viruses in storage.
I heard one moron on television recently say that smallpox could kill
25 million people. Well, only if 75 million people were infected,
since smallpox's mortality is only about 30 percent. For a terrorist
to infect 75 million people is impossible.
In 2001, 3,000 Americans died in the terrorist attacks; 91,000 died in
accidents; and 19,000 were murdered by homegrown criminals. In
addition, about 2 million Americans died of various natural
causes. There are 6 billion people on this planet. Do you know how
many were killed in 2001 by terrorists in addition to the 3,000? Just
409.
Of all the things you can worry about, being killed by a terrorist is
one of the least. Gertrude Stein once described America as having
"more places where people aren't than there are places where people
are." That's still true. We are 268 million people living in 3 million
square miles. The chances of any one of us being killed by a terrorist
are infinitesimal.
[End the War on Freedom]
Another article on how the threat of chemical and biological weapons (and terrorism in general) is overrated. Recent events show how this works in practice. Since the government and media began whipping up hysteria, five people have died from terrorist attacks using anthrax. On the other hand, 21 people died a few days ago from a hysterical reaction to the use of pepper spray in a club in Chicago.
Which is really the weapon of mass destruction--anthrax used by independent terrorists, or hysteria used by governmental terrorists?
9:31:14 AM
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© Copyright
2005
Ken Hagler.
Last update:
3/9/2005; 2:48:37 PM.
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