Not So Fast

America is headed to hell in a hand-basket.

We’ve rehearsed the fiscal stuff in this space before: China becoming the world’s biggest economy, another American downgrade, total U.S. liabilities equivalent to about three times the entire planet’s GDP. A “non-partisan” Pew Research study says the American middle class faces its “worst decade in modern history” — and the first bump down starts on January 1: The equally “non-partisan” Congressional Budget Office now says that the tax and budget changes due to take effect at the beginning of 2013 will put the country back in recession and increase unemployment.

DARPA looks to invent infinite improbability drive.

I see your problem here. This is what happens when people unclear on the concept make up what they thing words mean. Like the difference between rights and privileges and what are innate and inalienable and what are granted by the government and what should be protected from government intrusion and what are by definition government intrusion.

For instance: God did not grant us the inalienable right to drive our cars on well-maintained roads or guarantee our food is safe. We are however born with the right to think and say what we want. Or to live in our houses free from unwarranted searches*. See the difference between the two? They are listed out for our convenience, should you care to check.

*there are, of course, some limitations on these for the good of society. Too many these days, but hey.

Lets all smile and nod and say the DHS has done its job, 10 years, no major disasters.  Homeland secure. And now, lets get rid of it.

The Other Side must not win, lest civilization fall. Just like last time.

This is one of those rare occasions when a question asked in the headline should not automatically be answered “no”.

Does society really want extremely private mobile devices if they make life easier for criminals? Apple’s newly toughened standards sharpen the focus on that question.

As ever, the police will just have to rely on criminals being stupid instead of invading all our privacy (privacies?) in the name of safety. Hardly a nightmare scenario.

Usain Bolt vs. every other olympic medalist. It’s impressive that the biggest gap between them is only ~3 seconds.

Combining two awesome things: yo-yos and zero G. Added bonus: solid life advice for budding physicists and yo-yoists.

Oh look, Keystone pipeline is still moving forward. The timing is incredible. Oh wait, it’s completely credible.

The Hobbit is officially 3 movies long now. Peter Jackson better not blow it.

Perhaps Anil Dash said it best: “Since when have diehard fans of a giant fantasy universe ever been disappointed by a bloated prequel trilogy?”

Boston has a larger economy than Greece.  Cool chart comparing US cities and other countries economies from WSJ. They do make some interesting choices in what cities they group into metropolitan areas though.

I am so glad I live in America.

“We are now on the edge of a new horizon: using unmanned aerial systems within the homeland,” House Homeland Security Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Michael McCaul (R.-Texas) said as he introduced the testimony.

I grant you, the FAA saying that they can fly doesn’t mean all 106 “government entities” will. But since when has a government entity every stepped away from expanding warrantless search powers?

Nothing but bad news, it seems, today, so here’s some that’s not getting major play. I am mostly concerned about food prices. Because that’s the one that will effect me the most immediately. Also, I’m convinced that the economy will rebound to the degree that European uncertainty will let it as soon as the election is over.

But if those lousy Midwest Congressional representatives use the drought as an excuse for more farmer welfare I’m going to be perturbed.

Now, Patrick, get back to writing The Door of Stone. Also, I need to reread The Name of the Wind.

Author of Encyclopedia Brown.  Which my vague memories are getting confused with The Great Brain and The Three Investigators. If I remember right, I liked The Great Brain best.

So worthy of the LOL that’ I’m quoting it in full (also, inadvertently rhyming):

Apparently Canada only likes us when our economy buoys their economy. I agree with them about Keystone, it’s just political posturing and of course we’ll build a pipeline, but after the election….

Busy watching the Crossfit Games this week, that’s why there have been no updates or anything. Plus, really slow news time of year.

The Rolling Stones have been together longer than most marriages. Here’s the top 100 songs according to someone [warning: slideshow. Yes, 100 slides 😦 ]

Personal fave:

Microsoft lowers Windows 8 upgrade price to something reasonable. See, this will get me to upgrade those last few XP holdouts I have.

On a related note:

In no particular order:

The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years by Bernard Lewis. I’ve already started this, I just need to finish it.

The Mongoliad: Book One by EVERYONE, but mostly because Neal Stephenson.

Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal. Her first book Shades of Milk and Honey was a fun read, like the best Jane Austen fanfic you ever read, I expect this to be equally fun.

The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz.

The Wizard of Karres by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint and Dave Freer. Because Baen.

War Maid’s Choice: N/A (The Bahzell) by David Weber. When it comes out next month.

I have no problem with requiring Congress pay for the wars we choose to participate in up front.

The best Toto cover recorded in a pizza joint you will ever hear. I guarantee it.

IF scientists have found something significant, they won’t announce they’ve found the Higgs Boson, they’ll announce they’ve found some statistical thing that makes it likely and have to run more tests. Which I’m all for, but is way to math-like for me to be excited about.

The TSA: not a service.

The TSA should not be streamlined. Administrators should not “review screening procedures.” Screeners don’t need additional training. The TSA doesn’t need to be tweaked. It didn’t “go too far” in these specific instances. Its very existence goes too far. The TSA never should have been created in the first place, and it should be abolished now. Immediately. Without hesitation.

Boris speaks out about Greece. It’s better if you read it in his voice. I have no strong opinions about his conclusions, though, I only care about the Eurozone insofar as it is going to drag down my portfolio just as the stock market is (finally) making a recovery.

Canada has big plans for the bicentennial of the War of 1812.

It was a tie!

Everybody wants to cut the deficit, nobody wants to cut programs.

My solution: 10% cut across the board. Everything. Everyone. Defense, Medicare, Social Security, Unemployment, Education, DHS, FBI, all the Departments, if it’s federal, 10% percent budget cut. I don’t care what happens to the children, elderly or economy. Do eet. Go.

This is one of the things that amazes me most about the human body. Stupid cells, why duplicate yourself in an aged state instead of your pristine one?

You can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can judge a person by their shoes. Mine say, can’t be bothered to buy new ones.

Unfortunately, neutrinos don’t travel faster than light, but they might be transforming.

Israel wants more credit for Stuxnet. Which is weird. Shouldn’t they be happy to let the CIA take the credit? Isn’t that part of the whole “spy” thing, not telling others what you’re doing?

Sometimes doing nothing is the best option. Which isn’t to say there isn’t a better plan of action, just that I find it unlikely Congress will find the better plan.

The commencement address I would give, more or less, if I anyone asked and I could write well.

I would have to add Have I Got News For You, QI, Would I Lie To You and The Graham Norton Show, but yeah.

The FBI didn’t steal MegaUpload’s information from New Zealand police because — wait for it…. it’s digital and therefore not theft.

A gamechanging writer in science fiction. Not my favorite perhaps, but undeniably brilliant.

“If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.” -Ray Bradbury

Lileks goes to town on the power hungry food police.

Being concerned about fat people like being concerned about Tibet; it requries nothing but expression of the proper sentiment, usually containing sadness for The Children, but also some righteous anger for Big Food, which has tricked everyone into eating more. The idea thatsome kids are fat because they have lousy parents doesn’t apply, because whoa whoa whoa now we’re blaming the victims, the people who for some mysterious reason can’t arrange a family meal and influence their progeny’s ingestion. For those people, obesity just happens, somehow.

Personally, I think the tide has turned, America is about as fat as it’s going to get and as a nation were on the way back to thin. Which will make the food police look like winners, but hey, way to identify the way the wind’s blowing.

If the mucky-mucks aren’t going to read what they are signing, which I have no problem believing, then there’s no point in having them sign them.

Figure out how far up the chain people actually care about what they are signing and stop the buck there. Granted this will mean some relatively low-level staffers have the actual responsibility, but surely the higher-ups would welcome the lack of blame that can be attached to them since they are clearly just figureheads.

230% efficient lights. How awesome is that? Very awesome, that’s how awesome it is.

Oh look, another bit of malware fubaring Iran’s computers.

I am confident this will never be turned against the American public, by our enemies or our own government.

Oh, look grade inflation in college is being noticed again.

Finally someone gets it.

“I like PBS. I’d like my grandkids to be able to watch PBS,” the presumptive GOP nominee said. “But I’m not willing to borrow money from China and make my kids have to pay the interest on that, and my grandkids, over generations, as opposed to saying to PBS, look, you’re going to have to raise more money from charitable contributions or from advertising.”

I listen to Minnesota Public Radio, because The Current is brilliant and the best radio station in the country. And know what? I donate to them. Because I want them to keep doing what they do.

People will throw money at you if you give them what they want. During their membership drives, MPR says they get more than 60% of their income comes from donations (I don’t remember the exact number, but it’s a surprisingly high proportion). I think PBS viewers would chip in if they felt their beloved station was really in peril. But we all know PBS will go on, the government has their back, and my taxes are paying for it so why should I double down on my payment to them?

Caveat: I doubt that cutting PBS or NASA or any of these penny-ante bits of the government will help solve our budget problems. Cutting Medicare, Social Security and Defense is where the big savings are at that can actually pull us out of our hole, but I’ll take what I can get.

Except NASA. Keep your grubby little paws off NASA.

Quantum entanglement violates causality. Einstein nods sagely.

We’re going to try to mine asteroids. Which is awesome.

IT’S THE FUTURE!

/where’s my robot pal who’s fun to be with?

Tor had decided to go DRM free. I will buy a Tor book in celebration.

I got to Bill Connelly’s impression of Merida before I completely caved.

Do yourself a favor and watch it at the full 1080p.

Record numbers of people are giving up their US citizenship for tax purposes.

When was the last time boosting competition raised prices? Oh look, more people are providing a service or product and the price has gone up?!

Apple and Macmillan have denied that they colluded to raise prices and argued that the deals between Apple and the publishers helped boost competition in the e-book market, according to Bloomberg.

I post this mostly because just five minutes ago I was appalled when I went to buy an ebook that was $10.99. Ten freaking dollars. For an e-book. The used paperbacks of which were selling for $4.

Baen.

A disease is all but eradicated, everyone forgets how much it sucked when people were violently ill/crippled/dying from it, no one gets vaccinated and/or tested for it, the disease makes a comeback.

Why is there no mention of warrants in this CISPA thing? Is this such a hard concept for Congress to grasp? Do they not know about the Fourth Amendment?

 America has more debt than the Eurozone and the UK combined.To be fair, Europe as a continent is about equal to the US in population and size. Those things they call countries over there are only the size of states. And we do have a more coherent government and economy, which, I assume, makes us more efficient at spending other people’s money.

Watch the wind blow across the US.

What stands out to me is that people read for longer periods of time with e-readers.  Given that e-reader owners are willing to spend ~$100 to carry their books around with them, on top of the cost of the books themselves, the rest of it seems fairly obvious and in-line with what I would expect.

Glenn Reynolds on why science fiction needs to get out of the doldrums and start thinking big again. With handy recommendations. I’ve read about half of them and wouldn’t argue with them, though Heinlein isn’t really my bag. I’ve been looking for that sort of thing lately and it is thin on the ground.

That's what I'm talking about

Dave Freer philosophizes on the state of the publishing industry, politics and life.

My own point of view is well, _you_ CAN do it. If you can’t get there by the straightforward brawn, you can get there by brain, and if you can’t do it by simple intellectual bludgeoning, you can do it by finding away around. Whether you’re talking about exceeding lightspeed, overcoming ecological disaster, or publishing… you can. Human’s have, over and over and over again. The only thing that stops them is other humans.

Here’s his books. Some free, some moderately priced, all DRM free. Have I mentioned lately how awesome Baen is. Because they are.

Judge demands an essay from an attorney on the executive branch’s position on judicial oversight. The part that kills me is the three pages, single-spaced, by noon on Thursday. Are they in high school? Protip: use Courier if you need to make up a bit of space.

More.

GE opened a 100 year old time capsule buried in the cornerstone of one of their buildings and found…. light bulbs. And some papers.

It could be that income inequality has many complex causes that are intertwined. But I think we should keep reducing our problems to simple ideas that show up well on a graph.

Neil deGrasse Tyson on America’s faltering aerospace industry and the impact on all our innovation it has.

when I stand in front of eighth-graders I don’t want to have to say to them, “Become an aerospace engineer so that you can build an airplane that’s 20 percent more fuel efficient than the ones your parents flew on.” A laudable goal, for sure. But to attract the best students in the room, what I should be saying is, “Become an aerospace engineer so that you can design the airfoil that will be the first piloted craft in the rarefied atmosphere of Mars.” “Become a biologist because we need people to look for life, not only on Mars but in the subsurface oceans of Jupiter’s moon Europa, and elsewhere in the galaxy.” “Become a chemist because we want to understand more about the elements on the moon and the molecules in space.” You put that vision out there, and my job becomes easy; I just have to invoke the familiar vision, and kids’ ambitions rise up within them. Their engines get lit, and they become self-
propelled on the path to the frontier.

Science!

Communism: utter, disastrous, deadly failure. Millions senselessly killed, entire countries destroyed. Aligning yourself with it symbolically would be a bad idea. And sorry if you think it’s all about labor unions, I, being of a certain age, associate celebrating May 1st with the USSR, it being one of their big holidays. The use of socialist realism in the poster doesn’t help.

Unless They Might Be Giants has led me horribly astray, I pretty sure the answer to a lack of helium is fusion. So chop, chop science boy.

Victor Davis Hanson on the immorality of the Left.

Those in the Bay Area who idled critical food-producing farmland would not wish, as the proverbial Committee for Public Safety, the same environmental zealotry aimed at their own offices, cars, homes, and institutions. And they assume that they have the incomes to buy increasingly expensive food when others would not. The grand mufti would not like Billy Graham to announce that he wanted North America freed of all mosques. La Raza would not like a Volk movement that sought to waive immigration law for Germans on grounds they were once America’s largest immigrant group and should be again. Lovie Smith would not wish other rival coaches to pitch their own favorite presidential candidates on the basis of shared racial affinities.

…

Tit-for-tat factionalism leads nowhere but to chaos and carnage. But the Western tradition is not made of adamantine metal; it is fragile and singular. Anytime we do not stand up and defend it, however unpopular, we cede to barbarism ourselves.

Goldman-Sachs executive explains why he’s resigning today. It’s pretty awesome.

At least someone is proposing that spending should be slashed. It has a snowball’s chance of passing, but it’s the thought that counts.

The most reasonable explanation of the iPad 3 yet.

Gas prices? Gas PRICES??! That’s what decides your vote? An easily manipulated market item? When we have trillions of dollars (and growing) of deficit and everyone (except Ron Paul) refuses to acknowledge that something drastic and painful is going to have to be done about it? And while it will be painful either way, sooner will be less painful and less likely to lead to America becoming a banana republic with runaway inflation? I give up.

Thanks for 100 delicious years, Oreo!

O-R-E-O

The book this week is Why Capitalism? by Allan Meltzer. Allan Meltzer is a professor of political economy at Carnegie Mellon University. In light of the recent financial crisis, he mounts a defense for capitalism. It won’t be anything new to libertarians, except specific examples from the last 5 years. It reads like fleshed out class notes and I would have liked to have seen more documentation. He occasionally makes bald statements that I’m sure can be backed up with facts and studies, but aren’t.

His basic points: Regulation should incentivize desired behavior, because markets will find a way around regulations that cost them money. Witness: tax code and compliance. Meltzer also leans heavily on Kantian philosophy, or at least the part of it that says that people are greedy and you can’t stop them from being that way. The problem isn’t capitalism, the problem is people. And while you could say the same thing about socialism and communism, capitalism has provided more freedom and more wealth than any other economic system in the history of the world and by those lights should be the economic system of choice (Which is an interesting takeaway from Kant, I think). His other major point is that regulations are written by lawyers and are static while markets are dynamic and will circumvent regulations that stand in their way more quickly than the regulations can adapt leading to bad, bad situations.

He says these things a few times as he discusses why the welfare state will eventually fail, why we run deficits most of the time since going off the gold standard, why foreign aid hasn’t helped much and why we will eventually have to deal with inflation in this country.

Meltzer goes on to point out how regulation in the last 20-30 years has disincentived good behavior and incentivized unbridled greed. I found the chapter on the history of the Fed and why they made the decisions they did since the end of WWII particularly interesting. Amazing how much it makes sense when someone explains motives. But as the book looks ahead to the future, it’s like seeing a car crash coming that you really really hope someone swerves out of but there’s very little room to maneuver and the drivers don’t have the guts to do it.

To sum up: nothing ground-breaking but a good little book worth the read, especially if you aren’t familiar with why “evil” capitalism hasn’t been shut down yet for the “morally superior” socialism.

Cool photo gallery of scrapyard ray guns that you should want.

Sigh.

The White House says Keystone Pipeline still feasible.

Here I am in January saying that the White House would do just this thing.

BBC chief admits that Christianity gets hammered on more because its followers are more civil and less likely to shoot BBC chiefs. Which is not the message you want to be sending. The message you want to be sending is “get used to it religious people, this is a free society and we can say what we want (within the bounds of law and ratings guidelines) even if you don’t like it.”

Weird Al says he will do the Superbowl if asked. Do it! Do it! Do it!

I am all for tax cuts that encourage growth. Romney’s plan sounds like it might work. But without cutting spending it is all for naught. If there’s one thing Republicans, much less Democrats, haven’t done since Reagan started this deficit spending thing it is fiscal restraint. Republicans spend money on war and Democrats spend it on social programs. Either way we are still spending too much. We have to pay down our debt. I know there are vast swathes of the economics of countries that I don’t understand, but surely we can’t continue on the trajectory we are on.

UPDATE: Do you see my point here, kids? STOP SPENDING SO MUCH MONEY.

It looks like the FTL neutrinos caused by faulty cable, not faulty theory of relativity.

Google to release HUD glasses next year. And if Newt gets a moonbase built soon, I’ll be set. Except for my cybernetic body. And my rocket pack. But I don’t want to quibble.

Unnatural Death is the third in the Lord Peter Whimsey series. Themes dealt with: How many murders occur that no one knows about; Lord Peter’s meddling causes more deaths than if he had minded his own business; and there is also a surprising number of lesbians in it for such an old book. I’m becoming more and more convinced that WWII pushed the cultural revolution back from the 1940s to the 1960s. I’ve always wondered why there was such a long period of time between the thinkers of the revolution and when it happened. Anyway, everyone is very NTTAWWT about the lesbians. It reminds me very much of the running gag in Sherlock when everyone assumes that Sherlock and John are gay.

So, the basic plot is that Whimsey and Parker have a chance meeting with a doctor that is convinced that a elderly, cancerous patient of his shouldn’t have died. Naturally, the doctor can’t convince anyone else of this and is more or less run out of town for pushing the issue. The old woman had a phobia about her death (understandable, I think) and therefore could not bear to think about making up a will. Given that there is no direct descendent, a will would  have been particularly helpful. Whimsey begins to investigate and there are several very strange encounters, a kidnapping and a couple more murders. Ms. Climpson makes her debut, much to Parker’s consternation. And in the end it has to do with a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo.

This was different in tone from the previous two novels. Dark and introspective with flashes of humor and ridiculousness that I liked.

Leon Panetta’s “leaks” about Israel hitting Iran’s nuclear facilities has caused consternation around the world. I think it’s all a bluff to push everyone into negotiations and sanctions. Whoever is blowing up stuff in Iran is doing just fine. I like Israel’s moxie though.

The Economist goes all duh! about the regulatory nightmare America has become. They point out the essential balancing act that we have to do, though, in order to keep unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats from running roughshod over our lives. This is an important point we can’t forget if we start to sway too far to the other side.

From this article on how Obama’s NASA cuts will destroy the Mars missions and thus the future of humanity.

If the idea is accepted that resources are limited, then human activities must be severely constrained, and someone must be empowered to enforce the constraining. But if it is understood that the possibilities for human existence are as open as unfettered human creativity can make them, then the protection of liberty, rather than its restriction, becomes the first responsibility of government.

Also:

America’s planetary-exploration program is one of the great chapters in the history of our country, science, and civilization. Its abandonment represents nothing less than an open embrace of American decline, for the purpose of advancing a perverse ideology inimical to American liberty, prosperity, and fundamental values. This is unacceptable.

Someone translated the contract between the Dwarves and Bilbo visible in some of the Hobbit publicity photos. Bonus points to WETA for making it an actual contract.

Sigh.

On the one hand, I appreciate any attempt to cut the budget*. Really, it’s a big step for any politician to even say they want to cut funding. I don’t actually expect them to do it, but it’s nice when they mouth the words. And making us pay directly to the TSA is a brilliant way to anger Americans enough for them to rise up against the TSA. On the other hand, I don’t want to give the TSA more money. Why haven’t we gotten rid of them yet?

The last quote slays me:

“As long as it improves passenger safety,” said Ben Herrick, an engineer from Boxboro, “I’m pretty much OK with it.”

Poor, poor deluded man.

*Except NASA. Leave NASA alone. Give them a raise!

The defendant may have forgotten her password, possibly, when ordered to allow the prosecution access. Yeah, who didn’t see this coming.

Death or Glory is the fourth book in the Commissar Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM) series, which are purported to be Cain’s memoirs, arranged by the Inquisitor Amberly Vail as a resource for her fellow inquisitors. Cain lives in the Warhammer 40k universe where he is a commissar with the 597th Valhallan Imperial Guard, who are (mostly) unagumented humans fighting for the god-like Emperor in a grimdark universe where the trillions of humans spread across millions of planets are in danger of total annihilation and there is only war. War against the heretical Chaos space marines; war against the unimaginably ancient cyborg Necrons; war against the degenerate, technologically-advanced Eldar; war against the hilariously homicidal Orks; war against the voracious, hive-minded Tyranids; war against the Borg-like Tau; war against the Chaos gods themselves. And all their deluded human followers.

Cain just wants to stay alive, preferably in a cushy, far-behind-the-lines job. This is ironic as his job is to insure that the troopers under his command do not fall into such self-serving and disloyal thinking. However, as he tries to position himself in the safest places, he continually finds himself in dangerous situations where his desire to stay alive—and his martial and tactical skills—conspire to make him a HERO OF THE IMPERIUM.

Death or Glory chronicles one of Cain’s early triumphs as an exploding spaceship  forces him and his batman, Jurgen, into an escape pod which they land on an Ork-ridden planet. Through a series of fortunate events they end up marching  a growing army of the local PDF forces across the planet behind the Orks battle lines, turning the tide of the entire war. Cain then (accidentally, of course) challenges the Ork warchief to a duel. I leave how that works out as an exercise to the reader.

I thought Death or Glory was one of the better Cain novels. I would rank it second, right after For The Emperor. This one just seemed better to me than Nos. 2 and 3. Perhaps because I read the first three in a row and burned out on them. They are, of course, all basically the same story: Cain tries to find the safest place to be in any given conflict; in attempting to get back to safety he stumbles across something worse; Cain is a HERO OF THE IMPERIUM again. It could be because orks are a fun adversary that I enjoyed it more. Or possibly, watching Cain work with his ragtag bunch of PDF forces instead of the competent 597th is more interesting. Ariott, the vet turned medic, who went on to write the book All Life Forms Large And Small, was a highlight. All in all, it was an enjoyable read.

This made me LOL way more than it should have.

NASA has released the insanely hi-res image of the eastern hemisphere, to compliment the western one they released a couple weeks ago.

I am blatantly stealing this from Cute Overload because the occasional Dramatic Chipmunk is good for the soul.

I’m sure the Iranians don’t find their exploding bases, research facilities and important nuclear people amusing, but I do. It’s good to be king the most powerful nation on earth.

A month in and I’m already slacking. Mmm.

This week’s book report is The Spirit Ring by Lois McMaster Bujold, who you may know from the awesome Vorkosigan saga or the Chalion series. The Spirit Ring was Bujold’s first foray into Fantasy back in the day. If you approach it directly after a Vorkosigan book you may be mildly disappointed. Though I doubt Bujold could write a bad book, it just lacks some of the oomph of her others and the mad characters we’re used to.

The Spirit Ring is the story of a girl living in an Italian city-state sometime in medieval times. But there’s magic, curated by the Catholic Church. Mercedes Lackey readers will be familiar with the magical-historical setting. The girl’s father, a renowned sculptor/goldsmith, indulges her magical talent, allowing her to make a magical ring, though it’s not really appropriate for girls to be doing such things. Enter the bad guy, who shows up, wines and dines and takes over the town suddenly and with great violence. Oh, and he has a magical ring that has the spirit of some person in it, but that ring is broken in the putsch, so he has to make a new one. The guy that broke the ring has a brother, toiling in the mines, who has decided to come down out of the mountains to see if his brother can give him a job. The brother and the girl meet and through a series of harrowing events try to save the spirits of her father and his brother from being ensorceled into the ring.

Temptation and the choice of using power for good or evil are ongoing as the story ultimately ends up being a battle between a fallen priest and his rival, the abbot of a nearby monastery; and how Thur and Fiametta will live their lives faced with the temptations their magical powers give them.

Bujold’s characters are always well-written and this book is no exception. But somehow, this story doesn’t quite live up to the Chalion or the Vorkosigan series. I don’t even know why, there’s nothing particularly wrong with it, but there’s nothing spectacularly right either. It’s okay. Something to read on a Sunday afternoon when nothing else is going on. Perhaps my expectations are too high, given her other work.

From 1979, Milton Friedman on income inequality and why the “wrong” people prosper under free enterprise.

Sounds like loser talk over there at The Economist.

“Our workers are the most productive on Earth, and if the playing field is level, I promise you – America will always win.”

Leaving others, one is forced to conclude, to lose—not once, not occasionally, but always. And what is likely to be the outcome of unending defeat? Destitution? Are we to hope that other countries are left with no gainful employment opportunities at all? If that means dreadful poverty, then Mr Obama ought to be dragged before an international tribunal.

Really? That’s what you took away from that? That we want to kill anyone that gets in our way? Don’t be ridiculous, we don’t care about the rest of the world, except in how it might impact our bottom lines. You guys do what you want.

Cogress unwilling to give up its insider trading privileges? Really? Who could have seen that coming? On the other hand, it would be incredibly hard to police. How could you not hear things that could influence your stock trading habits.

This picture is more perspectivating than most. That’s a big shark.

(click to embiggen)

Background: Jay Leno used the picture of a Sikh temple in a “Mitt Romney is rich” joke. Some Sikhs are upset, naturally, and for some reason their embassy is talking to the State Department about it. Like they have anything to do with anything. Are things really so slow in the US-India relations that they have time to discuss such things?

“Freedom does not mean hurting the sentiments of others… This is not acceptable to us and we take a very strong objection for such a display.”

So, what does freedom mean then? The freedom to only say things that could not possibly offend anyone? Good luck with that.

You know what, your definition of freedom offends me. Oh, burn.

Bonus quote:

Petition signatory Simran Kaur says: “Jay Leno must apologise and promise not to make any direct or oblique references to Sikhs or their places of worship.”

Oooh-kayyy…

To make up for the bad news about the Fifth amendment, here’s some good news on the Fourth.

My book review a week continues with the strangely singular Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers (I know it’s a quote from Hebrews, but witnesses makes much more sense), in which Lord Peter Wimsey’s vacation to Corsica is interrupted when he finds out that his brother, George, the Duke of Denver, is accused of murdering his sister Mary’s fiancee, Cathcart.

Wimsey rushes home to find that things aren’t very straightforward. His brother will not speak about the incident other than to say he was out for a walk across the moors at 3:00am—as you do—when he stumbled across the body. At the inquest, his sister, Mary, says she was awakened by a gunshot and went outside to see the Duke standing over the body and blurted out, “you’ve killed him”. No one else heard this gunshot and when she realizes it further implicates her brother she has an attack of nerves and locks herself in her room, except when she appears to act weird and totally out of character. And Wimsey and Inspector Parker have found entirely too many clues at the crime site.

Following up on the clues leads to the discovery that Cathcart was not the sort of person Mary should have been engaged to. Strike one. But that’s okay because she was eloping with a radical socialist, who shoots at Peter when he goes to talk to him.  Things cool considerably between Mary and the socialist as his true nature is shown. So, strike two for Mary.  But that’s okay because Inspector Parker, rather charmingly, falls in love with Mary soon enough.

One of the clues leads to a murderously jealous farmer with a stunningly beautiful wife that lives in the middle of a bog. This leads to a lot of local color and tough reading as Wimsey and Bunter chat with the heavily-accented locals in the nearby town while checking his alibi. The bog almost claims Lord Peter’s life when a fog rolls in and he and Bunter get hopelessly lost. Which leads to Peter figuring out why his brother won’t say anything about his walk that night.

Another clue leads to France, where we spend some time wandering about with Inspector Parker, who seems like a decent chap.

Another clue leads to America, where Lord Peter goes, and then makes a stunning trans-Atlantic flight back (only adventurers and daredevils did it in those days), just in time to prove his brother’s innocence. Phew.

Also, we spend time with Mr. Murbles, the family attorney, and Sir Impey, the famous defense attorney, as they attempt to save the Duke from hanging. Sayers, following the 10 Commandments of Detective Fiction, always lays everything out in the most obvious fashion so it does go on a bit. I guess if you want to know how a trial in the House of Lords went on, this would be the way to do it. But since Blair disbanded the Lords, it seems unlikely this knowledge will come in handy.

All in all, it was interesting meeting Peter’s screwed up family, getting to know Parker better, but kind of meh.

The United States government has advice for you to help you get out of debt.

If the US Government is going to be like this with the crackdowns, I encourage the world to demand that the internets registrars be administrated by the United Nations. We’re not the boss of you.

Also, what do we need SOPA/PIPA for again?

What’s next for SOPA and PIPA.

I can tell you what’s next for Risch in his next election if he doesn’t change his mind. It’s not like I have to worry about progressive democrats taking his spot, either. My other representatives are clever enough to not take a stand on it yet.

Obama’s opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline is clever. He can say he’s all against it to appease the environmentalist crowd while everything moves forward to build it, appeasing the unions and the working Americans. TransCanada just needs to reroute around some sand in Nebraska. It is the clever move. It seems to me that the conservative commentators that are howling about this are playing into his hands as he can come in and calm the crowds by appearing reasonable and appealing to everyone.

Regardless, I think Canada will drag its feet long enough to see who gets elected in November before hastily signing any contracts with China. Both countries need/want the pipeline. China’s just a useful threat to make sure the US doesn’t get too extravagant with our demands.

I back all my opinions up with, you know, gut feeling.

One news station solves the problem of camera’s not being allowed in court with puppets spouting actual testimony.  Which is awesome. I would watch the news if puppets did it more often. Felt puppets, that is.

Here’s a link to Pirate Bay. So I can get WordPress.com’s IP blocked. Here’s Pirate Bay saying SOPA/PIPA will do nothing to stop them.

A very good overview of why it’s a bad bill.

People freaking out over the Wikipedia blackout on Twitter.

Chris Dodd is so ironic cAlanis Morissette is crying.

Even zombo.com blacked out. And an internet without zombo.com is an internet where you can’t do anything, anything at all.

Another stupid bill wants to put taxpayer-funded science behind a paywall, lest the unwashed masses and their doctors be allowed to learn from the science they payed for.

en.wikipedia, BoingBoing, ICanHasCheeseburger, Reddit and others are going offline tomorrow for 24 hours to protest SOPA and PIPA. I admire their willingness to forgo their daily revenue for the cause.

Find out how much money your Congresspeople are taking in from the media and the Silicon Valley and see where they fall on the issue. Unsurprisingly, there are generally strong correlations between amounts given and positions taken.

Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers is the first of the Lord Peter Wimsey novels. The book opens with Wimsey’s mother, the Dowager Duchess, calling on behalf of a Mr. Thipps, as there is a dead body in Mr. Thipps’ bathtub. The dead body is to be investigated by an Inspector Sugg, who, as his name suggests, is not the best the Met have to offer. Lord Peter has a look around and realizes Sugg is on the completely wrong track, as Sugg suspects Mr. Thipps, Mr. Thipps’ elderly and deaf mother or the housemaid and her boyfriend, and doesn’t let anything like a lack of evidence get in his way.

Meanwhile, Wimsey’s friend on the Force, Chief Inspector Parker, is looking into a missing persons case of a financier, Mr. Reuben Levy, who has disappeared into thin air sometime during that same night. As this is a novel and not collection of fictional newspaper articles, it turns out the cases are linked. Gasp. Wimsey and Parker look at each others cases, tut at Sugg’s ignorance, and decide to swap cases.

Through a series of interviews, red herrings and charging about town the main baddy is discovered, the identity of the dead body is established and motive uncovered. Along the way we are introduced to the Hon. Freddy, Peter’s dim, but financially genius friend; Bunter, Peter’s imperturbable and slightly insolent valet; and Peter’s hobbies; fine wines, collecting rare books and playing piano. Peter has a PTSD episode as the enormity of what he is doing crashes down on him the day before the murderer is cornered. The main baddy attempts to murder Parker and Wimsey and delivers his Hannibal Lecture on the nature of conscience and guilt in the form of a suicide note when Sugg goes to arrest him.

It was a short book, but entertaining. I am not a good judge of whether or not the mystery part is good, because I never try to guess whodunit, that’s not why I read whodunits. I read them to watch the interactions of the characters. The book bears striking similarities to other Golden Age detective fiction. I had a hard time not imputing Campion’s personality onto Wimsey. And, despite everything, Parker is not Inspector Alleyn or Inspector Oates.

As I had only read the Harriet Vane novels by Sayers I found Whose Body? to be surprisingly light on the philosophical bits. There was plenty of authorial opinion on “modern” psychology and detective fiction, however. I have no doubt that there are more sly jabs at contemporaneous thinking that went over my head. And I can only assume it is because it was Wimsey’s first book that he, rather annoyingly, kept dropping his ‘g’s at the end of his gerunds. I’m glad he grew out of that habit.

The book is in the public domain in the US (probably, God only knows what Disney and Congress are doing to screw us over from day to day) and readily available in the usual places you get your public domain ebooks.