Thanks, Keith Olbermann — that was excellent.
one expensive VISIT
Since January 2004, the US-VISIT program has apprehended nearly 1,000 people. Out of 44 million. At a cost of $15 billion.
cash cows explained
at work, i posed the question “can vegetarians have cash cows?”
the answer:
since a cash cow is something that generates cash, and vegetarians are okay with consuming animal products (but not animals), vegetarians can indeed have cash cows.
vegans, on the other hand, cannot.
musician bingo
Some musicians are more comfortable in studio than on stage, and it shows. While on stage, they often resort to clichés and canned lines.
We should have a game called “musician bingo.” We can print out cards and bring them to shows. Here’s what I have so far:
- musician mentions name of city
- musician asks how crowd is doing
- musician mentions name of city, but gets it wrong
- musician mentions name of bar
- musician mentions name of bar, but gets it wrong
- musician thanks audience for coming
- musician thanks sound guy
- musician thanks lighting guy
- musician thanks bartender
- musician tells audience to put their hands up/together/in the air
- musician mispronouces other performer’s name
- musician mispronouces city
- musician mispronouces bar
- musician asks if anyone is from other city
- musician tosses guitar picks or drumsticks into crowd
- musician toasts (with) audience
16 four down, 8 to go.
the west wing
Why Farhad Manjoo still watches The West Wing:
The show is a fiction, certainly. There isn’t a politician in the world like Jed Bartlet, an exceedingly smart, (mostly) honest man with principles, who doesn’t govern by politics, who takes counsel from the cooler, calmer heads on his staff, and even from his opponents. Today in politics, you won’t find anyone half as good. And that’s precisely why I watch: Some people might look at “The West Wing” under the Bush administration as a fantasy. I look at it as a blueprint. We should be so lucky to have a real White House like that. And maybe, one day, we will. Until then, it’s nice to have it on TV.
great speeches of the 21st century
Robert F. Kennedy at the Sierra Club, September 10, 2005 [via Wil]:
I do 40 speeches a year in red states, and there is no difference between how Republican audiences and Democratic audiences react when they hear what this White House and this Congress are doing. There is no difference except that the Republicans come up afterward and say, “Why haven’t we ever heard of this before?” I say to them, “It’s because you’re watching Fox News and listening to Rush.” Eighty percent of Republicans are just Democrats who don’t know what’s going on.
…
If you talk to these people on Capitol Hill who are promoting these kind of changes and ask them, “Why are you doing this?” What they invariably say is, “Well, the time has come in our nation’s history where we have to choose between economic prosperity on the one hand and environmental protection on the other.” And that is a false choice. In 100 percent of the situations, good environmental policy is identical to good economic policy.
Al Gore at the Liberty Coalition (2, video) [via bn]:
A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. Indeed, they recognized that the structure of government they had enshrined in our Constitution – our system of checks and balances – was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law. As John Adams said: “The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men.”
saying no to diamonds
A couple of months ago, Sarah got engaged. She declined to get an engagement ring (she doesn’t elaborate on her reasons). This, in my opinion, was an excellent decision. Why? Since then, I came across an Econ-Atrocity Bulletin “Ten reasons why you should never accept a diamond ring from anyone, under any circumstances, even if they really want to give you one,” which seemed like a good time to remind people of why diamonds are a Bad Thing.
The extensively footnoted Bulletin empahsizes the human rights and economics angles:
- You’ve been psychologically conditioned to want a diamond
- Diamonds are priced well above their value
- Diamonds have no resale or investment value
- Diamond miners are disproportionately exposed to HIV/AIDS
- Open-pit diamond mines pose environmental threats
- Diamond mine-owners violate indigenous people’s rights
- Slave laborers cut and polish diamonds
- Conflict diamonds fund civil wars in Africa
- Diamond wars are fought using child warriors
- Small arms trade is intimately related to diamond smuggling
A couple years ago, Anil Dash’s daming indictment of the business, “Diamonds are for never,” hit on the sleaziness and misogynism of the ads:
But how can you look at a list on the industry’s own marketing website and see “Of course there’s a return on your investment. We just can’t print it here.” and not be aware that they’re selling, along with war and market dominance, dysfunction. Want your materialistic, easily-misled wife to stop being such a frigid bitch? Buy her a diamond! Did your husband decide to increase your consumer debt in order to buy you a pair of earrings that were mined at gunpoint by children in Africa? Reward him with grudging sex and a temporary cessation of your relentless nagging!
The best resource for this, hands down, is the 1982 Atlantic Monthly essay, “Have You Ever Tried To Sell A Diamond?” by Edward Jay Epstein. It’s long, like every Atlantic Monthly piece, but also very much worth your time. Here’s the lede to get you started:
The diamond invention — the creation of the idea that diamonds are rare and valuable, and are essential signs of esteem — is a relatively recent development in the history of the diamond trade. Until the late nineteenth century, diamonds were found only in a few riverbeds in India and in the jungles of Brazil, and the entire world production of gem diamonds amounted to a few pounds a year. In 1870, however, huge diamond mines were discovered near the Orange River, in South Africa, where diamonds were soon being scooped out by the ton. Suddenly, the market was deluged with diamonds. The British financiers who had organized the South African mines quickly realized that their investment was endangered; diamonds had little intrinsic value — and their price depended almost entirely on their scarcity. The financiers feared that when new mines were developed in South Africa, diamonds would become at best only semiprecious gems.
There is hope, however: Wired‘s “The New Diamond Age” offers a glimpse of a cartel-free future.
writing great email
Like many people, I get a lot of email. Maybe not as many as Cory or Steve, but a few hundred a day, fairly easily. I manage to read and respond to most of it pretty quickly.
Last March, boingboing pointed out Stever Robbins’ article at the Harvard Business School, Tips for Mastering E-mail Overload. In September, they followed that up with Merlin Mann’s 43 Folders piece, Writing sensible email messages.
Update: Guy Kawasaki has more tips.
Update 2: tips from Richard Jones.
Go read these. I’ll wait.
on originality
Delicious Library was not an original idea. It was a new approach to an idea that’s been around for as long as computers. Hell, longer. I think the first cavemen carved on rocks when they lent out their, uh, sticks to other cavemen. Which wasn’t efficient, but still worked better than Microsoft Windows.
where the money went
Florida university discovers misplaced $275,000:
Three University of South Florida officials were fired after the school discovered $275,000 in misplaced checks and cash scattered throughout an office.
Nearly half the money at the school’s English Language Institute — $133,647 — was in checks up to 10 years old and could not be deposited, said university spokeswoman Michelle Carlyon.