tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:03:33 +0000<strong>Isegoria</strong> - From the ancient Greek, equality in freedom of speechhttp://www.isegoria.net/isegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)Blogger5000125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-7556867482757655316Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:31:00 +00002010-03-19T16:03:33.678-04:00PolicyGamesScienceEconomicsMediaTyler Cowen recently answered a reader's question of which books have influenced his world view the most. Some of the works I don't recognize, others I haven't read, others I've read about in great detail, and a couple I have in fact read. In that last category, Plato certainly held my interest, but I can't point to any lasting influence. (Camille Paglia neither held my interest nor had any http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/books-that-have-influenced-me.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-5695118885123162893Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:00:00 +00002010-03-19T14:00:00.419-04:00WarEconomicsMediaThere's a passage in Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population that suggests a certain amount of geographic determinism, given that he wrote the essay in 1798: The fertile province of Flanders, which has been so often the seat of the most destructive wars, after a respite of a few years, has appeared always as fruitful and as populous as ever. I suppose he's referring to the Eightyhttp://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/flanders.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-2951477756711033690Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:45:00 +00002010-03-19T09:45:00.681-04:00PolicyEconomicsThe relative economic development of post-colonial Africa has been miserable: A random sample of five former British colonies testifies to this negative trend. Interestingly, their economies in relative terms to that of their imperial master were not in a dire shape in the 1960-early 70s. Taking Rhodesia/Zimbabwe as an example, the Rhodesian GDP per Capita remained steady at the interval 15-20% http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/relative-economic-development.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-708542913386611541Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:50:00 +00002010-03-18T19:57:11.432-04:00WarA 16-year veteran police officer who has spent the last few years as a crime scene investigator offers up his observations from actual shootings: I'm not a researcher, nor an authority on anything. I have, however, investigated conservatively hundreds of shooting scenes where no one was hit, at least one person was hit, and/or at least one person was killed as a result of being shot. Another dutyhttp://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/observations-from-actual-shootings.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-8571290290433700817Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:16:00 +00002010-03-18T15:16:00.509-04:00PolicyAndrew BissetHenry GeorgeEconomicsI recently read Andrew Bisset's The Strength of Nations on a whim, because it was mentioned in Henry George's Progress and Poverty, which argues that land is fundamentally different from other forms of property: The English yeoman — the sturdy breed who won Crecy, and Poictiers, and Agincourt — is as extinct as the mastodon. The Scottish clansman, whose right to the soil of his native hills was http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/progress-and-poverty.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-9035595772403210860Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:54:00 +00002010-03-18T13:54:00.312-04:00EconomicsDonella Meadows is famous for her 1972 book, The Limits to Growth, which uses systems dynamics, as developed by Jay Forrester, to make Malthusian predictions about overpopulation.(It turns out you don't need sophisticated computer models to conclude that exponential population growth and linear resource growth lead to dystopia — but such scientism sells ideas.)Her understanding of systems http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/places-to-intervene-in-system.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-7767074462115438285Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:24:00 +00002010-03-19T10:23:14.438-04:00TechnologyWhen you heat dry biomass — like wood or crop waste — over 700ºC, in the presence of steam, it gasifies: At those temperatures, most of the biomass is converted to a synthetic gas. This "syngas" is made up of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which are the chemical building blocks for higher-value fuels such as methanol, ethanol, and gasoline. If you burn a third of the biomass to produce the heat tohttp://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/gasifying-biomass-with-sunlight.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-319071099539106667Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:06:00 +00002010-03-18T13:06:00.500-04:00TechnologyBusinessTo explain why Japan didn’t create the iPod, we need to look back to the digital gulf that had already formed between Japan and the West when the first 8-bit home computers came out in the late 1970s and early 1980s: One of the most important factors at this time was the complexity of the Japanese language. Put simply, an 8-bit computer with only 64k of memory simply does not have the capacity tohttp://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/why-japan-didnt-create-ipod.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-4522215753830060265Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:30:00 +00002010-03-17T15:30:01.036-04:00PolicyWarAndrew BissetWhen a typical American thinks of the Puritans, Pilgrims come to mind — or maybe superstitious witch-burners. I suppose the typical Englishman thinks of Old Ironsides: "Be sure and put up with no affronts," was the maxim of Cromwell; and when an English merchant — a Quaker — proved to him that a ship of his had been unjustly confiscated by the French, Cromwell, having first given the Quaker a http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/be-sure-and-put-up-with-no-affronts.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-8117609177017387525Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:11:00 +00002010-03-17T13:11:00.410-04:00WarPhillip Knightley gives a brief history of the honey trap via five examples. If you're unfamiliar with the term, which is used in the spy business, his first example should make it clear: In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli technician who had worked in Israel's Dimona nuclear facility, went to the British newspapers with his claim that Israel had developed atomic bombs. His statement was http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/history-of-honey-trap.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-5660904636254191079Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:13:00 +00002010-03-17T11:13:00.101-04:00WarPolice officer Dennis Tueller asked How close it too close?, in a now-classic 1983 article for SWAT magazine: Consider this. How long does it take for you to draw your handgun and place two center hits on a man-size target at seven yards? Those of us who have learned and practiced proper pistolcraft techniques would say that a time of about one and one-half seconds is acceptable for that http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/how-close-is-too-close.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-3298338880994911936Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:27:00 +00002010-03-17T10:27:00.185-04:00TechnologySoftware is just another kind of machine, Chuck Connell says, but we don't engineer software the way we engineer mechanical products, using tried and true materials and methods in well-understood ways. If we managed a mechanical engineering project like a software project, it might look something like this: The motivation for this project is that cars are a very poor form of transportation for http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/why-software-really-fails.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-4224733607529911691Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:30:00 +00002010-03-17T09:31:26.160-04:00PolicyEconomicsWhy did it take so long for humans to have the Industrial Revolution? Tyler Cowen emphasizes that extended periods of economic growth require that technologies of defense outweigh technologies of predation: They may also require that the successful defender, at the same time, has good enough technology to predate someone else and accumulate a sizable surplus. Parts of Europe took a good deal http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/why-did-it-take-so-long-for-humans-to.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-3034926406604932780Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:49:00 +00002010-03-16T17:49:49.492-04:00WarMediaRon Grossman of the Chicago Tribune took a quick survey in the newsroom the other day — something between a Rorschach test and a pop quiz — asking younger colleagues to identify an iconic photograph: While some instantly recognized the image, others couldn't quite place it."I know I ought to know it," one co-worker said. "It was in the movie, Flags of Our Fathers." Some, seeing uniforms, realizedhttp://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/it-was-in-movie-flags-of-our-fathers.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-4205469259877190249Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:22:00 +00002010-03-16T17:22:00.110-04:00WarAndrew BissetThe Father of the Royal Navy, Admiral Robert Blake, was then known not as Admiral Blake, but as General-at-Sea Blake: Blake's business was to demand reparation for all the injuries done to the English during the civil wars. Casting anchor before Leghorn, he exacted from the Duke of Tuscany satisfaction for the losses which English commerce had sustained from him. He then sailed to Algiers, and http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/general-at-sea-blake.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-3967092986877013350Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:42:00 +00002010-03-16T11:42:00.516-04:00PolicyWarWhy do we have an Air Force? It seems like an odd question, until you realize that the US did not form an air force when airplanes proved their worth in WWI, as the Brits did, and didn't form one for WWII either. All those planes strafing German half-tracks and shooting down Japanese Zeros belonged to the US Army Air Force and the US Navy.Only after WWII, in 1947, did the US Air Force become anhttp://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/why-do-we-have-air-force.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-4055806725156222062Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:03:00 +00002010-03-16T11:04:09.304-04:00PolicyEconomicsHow often have you heard the emergency room argument?, Robert J. Samuelson asks: The uninsured, it's said, use emergency rooms for primary care. That's expensive and ineffective. Once they're insured, they'll have regular doctors. Care will improve; costs will decline. Everyone wins. Great argument. Unfortunately, it's untrue.A study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that the insured http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/emergency-room-argument.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-5871282588253061219Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:40:00 +00002010-03-16T10:41:14.979-04:00ScienceAnimalsNASA scientists have found higher life beneath 600 feet of ice, where a three-inch shrimp-like Lyssianasid amphipod swam up to their video camera, and a foot-long jellyfish left behind a tentacle.http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/scientists-find-creatures-beneath-600.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-1452018620138282489Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:26:00 +00002010-03-16T10:26:00.074-04:00WarThe first case study in The Bear Went over the Mountain describes an ambush on a Soviet airborne battalion moving "secretly" to seal off Sherkhankhel village in search of insurgents. The American editor adds this analysis: Operations security is difficult, particularly when fighting on someone else's turf and working with an indigenous force which may not be 100% on your side. Yet operations http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/dread-stroevoy-smotr.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-8975045054342340795Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:18:00 +00002010-03-16T10:18:37.851-04:00ScienceAnimalsAnthropologist and animal behaviorist Lynne Isbell posits that Genesis has it right — the snake made us human: Coolly testing hypotheses and assessing evidence across an impressive range of disciplines — neuroscience, primate behavior, paleogeography, molecular biology, and genetics — she argues that our distant primate relatives developed their exceptional ability to see and identify “objects http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/snake-made-us-human.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-6880725780321667858Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:59:00 +00002010-03-15T14:59:00.736-04:00PolicyWarAndrew BissetThe only glory in conquest, Andrew Bisset says — writing in 1859 — must be in the valour and military skill displayed: A man who obtains the appointment of governor-general of the British empire in India by rhetorical displays in the British Parliament, and then, by way of adding to his rhetorical renown the military glory of a conqueror, sits and plans an annexation of new territory to an empirehttp://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/glory-in-conquest.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-267686629585603187Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:04:00 +00002010-03-15T14:04:00.162-04:00PolicyBusinessJohn Robb wrote a piece looking back from 2025 at how the loss of trust in the US government — and its ability to pay off its debts — led to a massive sell-off of assets. He doesn't advocate for USA Inc.; he merely predicts it — and its consequences: Nearly all roadways, from interstates to local networks, became toll roads. Further, toll road wireless billing systems, run by private companies, http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/usa-inc.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-7916490227092478468Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:57:00 +00002010-03-15T12:57:00.325-04:00WarIn his introduction to The Bear Went over the Mountain, David M. Glantz shares some of the stark realities of the Soviet experience in Afghanistan: The inability of the Soviet military to win the war decisively condemned it to suffer a slow bloodletting, in a process that exposed the very weaknesses of the military as well as the Soviet political structure and society itself. The employment of a http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/bear-went-over-mountain.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-2500711806366181019Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:40:00 +00002010-03-15T10:40:37.686-04:00WarSteven Pressfield (Gates of Fire) has managed to tag along on a trip to Afghanistan with Marine General James N. Mattis: Lashkar Gah is our next stop. The name means “camp of the warriors.” Alexander the Great’s warriors. His columns came through here in 330 B.C., skirting the Dasht-e-Margo, the Desert of Death, before setting up the tent city that would become Kandahar and trekking north acrosshttp://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/camp-of-warriors.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4116689.post-764960419849740519Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:25:00 +00002010-03-15T10:29:50.925-04:00FitnessEconomicsThis NY Times piece on the so-called obesity-hunger paradox has me lamenting that I have but two eyes to roll: “Hunger and obesity are often flip sides to the same malnutrition coin,” said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. “Hunger is certainly almost an exclusive symptom of poverty. And extra obesity is one of the symptoms of poverty.”The Bronx has the http://www.isegoria.net/2010/03/obesity-hunger-paradox.htmisegoria@isegoria.net (Isegoria)