Jinn of Quality and Risk

Bayer has an interesting site devoted to aspirin (which, believe it or not, is a registered trademark): Since its market introduction under the trademark Aspirin in the year 1899, acetylsalicylic acid has attained a leading position world-wide in the prescription-free therapy of painful, inflammatory and feverish states. The substance's tolerability and special pharmacological traits allow for an easy controlling of therapy. Aspirin is known to be good for the heart, among other things. However, doctors are not allowed to say so openly, because it has not been approved as a preventive treatment by the FDA and similar agencies world-wide. Here's what the doctor is forbidden from saying: one aspirin and one glass of (red) wine a day are excellent for the heart. 

Most industrial and developing countries tax individual and corporate capital gains more lightly than does the United States, according to a survey of twenty-four industrialized and developing countries. Also, missing from the survey are countries without capital gains tax, such as Switzerland. The comparatively harsh US taxation of capital gains creates a relative bias against saving and investment, raises the cost of capital for new investment, and slows economic growth. Short-term gains are taxed at 39.6% in the USA compared to an average of 19.4% for the sample. Long-term gains are taxed at 20% in the USA compared to an average of 15.9% for the other countries in the sample. [source: ACCF CPR] 

Marketing Hall of Shame 2002: Once one of the most trusted brands in the airline industry, Swissair ... is in ruins. Until the late 1990s, the company was well-known for being on time and providing exceptionally pleasant service to flyers. Its brand reputation could have sustained it during the post-September 11 travel slump--in fact, many Swissair passengers told reporters the reason they continued to use the [airline] was because they could trust the brand--if Swissair had continued to focus on delivering the qualities that had won it so many loyal customers. Instead, at the direction of management consulting firm McKinsey, Swissair started buying stakes in [already failing] second-tier European airlines ... spending $1 billion. When losses at these other airlines mounted, Swissair found itself in serious trouble... McKinsey is reported to have billed $60 million for the destructive advice. [emphasis added] 

by Louis L'Amour

This is the first Louis L'Amour book I've read (I have heard a lot of praise for him, and I know a bishop who has read most of his works...). It's packed with action, adventure, nature, mystery, and historical detail. More than that, it's fun. Jubal Sackett, a second-generation American in the 1600s, pursues his destiny my exploring westward, into a vast, unmapped wilderness, towards what came to be known as Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. He seeks, and finds, a life and a woman worth dying for. A true pioneer, he faces nature, nurtures his friendships, and confronts his enemies.

I bought the book while in Colorado, last summer. I read it in two nights at Xmas, and liked it so much that I've just bought the 16 other books of the Sackett saga... they're short stories, which should be entertaining and thrilling. Good for relaxation.

Last May, I quoted a very positive article about Louis L'Amour: In [his] moral universe, the good people confront terrific challenges and make hard choices between right and wrong. The bad ones are forces of nature who must be reckoned with. ... He dropped out of school in the 10th grade and spent the next three decades traversing the West as an itinerant laborer and circling the world as a merchant seaman. He was a miner, a rancher, a lumberman, a cattle skinner and even a circus-elephant handler. 

by Oriana Fallaci, September 2002

The Islamic world is engaged in a cultural war with the West and the worst is still to come, says Italian author Oriana Fallaci. The hate for the West swells like a fire fed by the wind. The clash between us and them is not a military one. It is a cultural one... Such is the thesis of The Rage and The Pride — the short book Miss Fallaci felt compelled to write immediately after the September 11 massacre. Written in two weeks, it is a striking, emotional essay, mixing anecdotes about the modern Muslim world, fighting in the Italian Resistance during WW II, histories of heroic radicals for freedom, and the conflict between Western freedom and Islamic tyranny. Some of it is pride in ancestors, some of it is a scream of rage, some of it is Italian history, some of it is autobiographical (and some parts are personal gossip). Unfortunately, beyond the rage, and beyond the pride, there is no advice to the reader, because emotions are neither tools of cognition nor proper guides to long-range action. Still, worth reading, despite its faults. My only regret is that it could have been an extremely powerful book if it had been the work of someone who believes in objective writing (Fallaci doesn't, and it shows).

Miss Fallaci has received death threats and been sued in France because of what she says and writes about Islam. While her book is a bestseller in Italy, it has barely been noticed in the US (the copy I have was printed in Italy) and it is nowhere to be seen in the UK. 

Hilary Burden: Dysfunctional institutions mobilise to defend themselves at their weakest points. They want passion in their organisation, but when they woo it, they try to control it because they fear it more than anything. So creative energy is tamed and cooled by the twin weapons of hierarchy and silence. [The Guardian] 

Matt Blaze: Last year, I started wondering whether cryptologic approaches might be useful for the analysis of things that don't use computers. Mechanical locks seemed like a natural place to start, since they provided many of the metaphors we used to think about computer security in the first place. So I read everything I could get my hands on about locks... Once I understood the basics, I quickly discovered, or more accurately re-discovered, a simple and practical rights amplification (or privilege escalation) attack to which most master-keyed locks are vulnerable. The attack uses access to a single lock and key to get the master key to the entire system, and is very easy to perform. For details, see http://www.crypto.com/masterkey.html [The Risks Digest Volume 22: Issue 51]