The Economist is a newspaper. It was first published in September 1843 which, of itself, makes it a notable newspaper. Many years ago, more than I can recall just now, I became a subscriber to the newsprint version of this weekly paper. It has become such a companion, so to speak, that when I left the UK in September 2008 to come to Mexico I made arrangements to continue receiving The Economist each week.
However, the Mexican postal system, despite being thoroughly reliable, is rather slow and, rather logically if you muse on it, the postman always only delivers when there is more than one item. Thus the particular copy of The Economist that carried the story about Toyota arrived late and with three other editions!
A reflection on what ought not to be a legal difficulty
Yesterday, Dr Sherry Jarrell strayed outside her normal field of economics and voiced the feelings of an ordinary US citizen. That is that the “underwear” bomber should be seen as a combatant, not as a common criminal.
It’s easy to share the frustration of others that someone who allegedly was committed to blowing up an American airliner was clearly behaving as an enemy of the State and, therefore, should be treated and tried in a military manner.
What is the history of such definitions as combatants? WikiPedia provided an answer. (NB. Good reporting should cross-check a source with another source. I spoke with a Barrister friend of mine and he confirmed that the entry under WikiPedia appeared to be legally correct and reliable. Readers are asked to make up their own minds on this issue.)
Thanks to a small piece on AOPA Online (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association), a wonderful insight into a hitherto unheard of organisation and a most charming story.
That organisation is Mawson’s Huts Foundation, an Australian organisation that describes itself as:
The Mawson’s Huts Foundation has been established to conserve in perpetuity for the Australian people the unique, historical buildings known as Mawson’s Huts, base for one of the most significant expeditions in Antarctic history. The Foundation’s website provides a variety of resources concerning current and future efforts to conserve the huts and information about the archaeology and heritage of the site.
Sir Douglas Mawson was an Australian Antarctic explorer and geologist born in 1882. More background from the Mawson’s Huts website:
Sir Douglas Mawson, a geologist, who led the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911, landed a party of
Sir Douglas Mawson
18 at Cape Denison on Commonwealth Bay in January, 1912, and remained there until December 1913. The site was not visited again until Mawson returned in 1931 with the British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition and then not again until the 1950’s. Only a concerted public campaign would save and conserve this historic site for all Australians, and the Mawson’s Huts Foundation was formed in 1996 for this purpose.
I moved out to San Carlos, Sonora State, Mexico in September 2008 and while San Carlos is a favourite holiday & second home place for North Americans, it is still possible to watch the way that Mexicans approach their lives and view the world.
This lovely tale was sent to me recently (thank you Jonathan) and it is published because it not only illustrates the Mexican attitude but also reminds us ‘Westerners’ that we aren’t necessarily correct with our Western views.
There is a very interesting Post on the Blog TechCrunch. Let me quote a little from that Post:
Last week two bloggers, Steven Frischling and Chris Elliot, were visited by TSA agents and threatened with jail time if they did not reveal their source of the TSA Travel Directive that they each published shortly after the attempted terrorist attack on Christmas day. Frischling caved immediately and handed over his computer. Elliot did not. Since then the Department of Homeland Security has dropped the subpoenas, but there is a bigger issue here. The protection of sources is a cornerstone of our freedom of speech.As bloggers, we have a duty of confidentiality to our sources. And that means keeping information confidential even if threatened with the tyranny of government. And even if the legislatures and courts haven’t decided that as bloggers we have real rights protecting us from that tyranny.
I’ll never be surprised by a tyrannical government. In a sense, it’s their job. It’s our job as bloggers to stand up to that tyranny, even if our liberty has been threatened. Journalists have gone to jail rather than disclose their sources. If bloggers want the same level of respect, and protection from government by the courts, they need to stand up for what’s right.
In this first of two posts on John Bougearel’s guest post at Naked Capitalism, Paul Handover suggests that we read it and think about the implications.
A rather sobering reminder of the potential challenges for 2010
I am a subscriber to Naked Capitalism, thoroughly recommended by the way, and recently Yves published a guest post
John Bougearel
by John Bougearel, author of Riding the Storm Out and Director of Financial and Equity Research for Structural Logic.
I wrote to both Yves and John asking for permission to reproduce the article in full but, so far, no replies have been received. Therefore the following are some important quotes from the article which I recommend you read in full by going to Naked Capitalism.
Thanks to Naked Capitalism, we posted an item on the 19th December about an unknown wild-life ranger working in the wildlife refuge area of Lanseria, South Africa. Here was one of the pictures included in that Post:
The Post finished with an appeal to anyone that knew the name of this Ranger. Many of you did and responded; thank you!
The heads of US mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may each receive pay packages of up to $6m (£3.7m) for 2009, depending on company performance.
Now I’m not an American nor do I really understand the issues BUT when taxpayers put in $111,000,000,000 of THEIR money into these organisations (that’s $365 for every man, woman and child on the US Census!) and so many of those same US taxpayers are up the proverbial financial creek without a paddle, there has to be a better way of rewarding top bosses (of US publicly owned corporations) than the option of $6,000,000 each!
But the regulator which decided the pay levels said the awards were 40% lower than before the government bailout.
The sums involved reflected the need to attract and retain talent, it argued.
Frankly, I just don’t believe that there aren’t many other incredibly capable business leaders who would do these jobs for a fraction of six million dollars. (The present incumbents are Michael Williams at Fannie Mae and Charles E. Haldeman Jr. at Freddie Mac who will receive a base of $900,000 in 2010 with the opportunity to earn $5.1 more if “certain targets are met“.)
Read the article here – I’m going to lay down in a dark, quiet room for a while!
Not really understanding but knowing it’s important!
I recently read a glowing review of the latest book by Sir Roger Penrose, the eminent mathematical physicist, called The Road To Reality. Having previously read his book The Emperors’ New Mind and just understanding it, I thought
Roger Penrose
his next one would be a welcome companion for long winter evenings. Wrong!
I managed to the bottom of the third page of the preface before “According to the mathematician’s “equivalence class” notion …..” had me grasping for meaning. Well over a 1,000 pages of content was destined to gather dust on the bookshelf.
But wrong again!
The idea of matter out there in the universe that is essential to the universe as we know it but is unseen has been sufficiently fascinating for the popular media to refer to it from time to time. Most people are familiar with the term even if like me don’t really have a clue as to what dark matter is all about.
So a recent press release in a popular English newspaper suggesting that dark matter has been ‘discovered’, if discover is the appropriate term, had me reaching out for Penrose’s book again. There under the chapter headed Speculative theories of the early universe was, on page 773, a few sentences that almost made sense. Let me quote them:
For many years, it had become clear that the dynamics of stars within galaxies does not make sense, according to standard theory unless there is a good deal of more material in the neighbourhood of the galaxy than is directly seen in stars. A similar comment applies to the dynamics of individual galaxies within clusters. Overall, there seems to be about 10 times more matter than is perceived in ordinary baryonic form. This is the mysterious dark matter whose actual nature is still not agreed upon by astronomers, and which may even be of some material different from any that is definitely known to particle physicists – though there is much speculation about this at the present time.
I subscribe to Naked Capitalism, as much for the Antidote du Jour, as for the fine economic commentaries. In my inbox of the 16th December was this wonderful antidote. A quick Google search shows that these pictures are spreading like wildfire around the world’s email servers. Not without reason.
Maybe these pictures resonate in all of us when we long for some simpler way of life …..
This Ranger is assigned to prevent poaching around the wildlife refuge area of Lanseria, South Africa. The way these animals interact with him is absolutely stunning! The lions seem to know he’s there to protect them. His charm works with hyenas and cougars too. Hyenas are usually vicious. Check out the pictures taken in the river – amazing because lions hate water.
Learning from Dogs 