Re: [silk] Bush's Arabian visit....
On Sunday 18 May 2008 1:26:50 am Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote: On Sat, 2008-05-17 at 15:14 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote: 4. The future markets based in US Europe (controlled by Rich Jews) is deliberately playing the markets to I was unaware that bigotry was considered reasonable discourse on this mailing list. the post was citing the saudi press. controlled by Rich Jews is perhaps a common phrase there. Hah! I missed that sentence - but no excuses - I didn't read it properly slaps self on wrist Perry's question IMO is not unreasonable, but it shows up bigotry that we live with in international relations pretending that normal discourse is occurring, ignoring the bigotry that is mocking us and hitting us in our faces. This quotation about rich Jews is only a whiff of that. I am referring of course to the state of Saudi Arabia and guidelines that are written in black and white in the Koran. In reasonable discourse the words I have written above are usually called Islamophobia. But the Koran itself specifically singles out Jews for punishment - basically for being Jewish. To ask a rhetorical question, does bigotry become bigotry only if it does not have sanction in some holy book or other? To be perfectly honest - I discussed the views I have posted above with my brother, who is currently visiting because of a bereavement in the family. He pointed out to me that some things have a cultural connotation that is more serious in some countries. A specific example he made was the word Gollywog - which to many Indians only connotes a black doll in a series of children's books by Enid Blyton and does not carry the same meaning that it would carry in the West. However - anyone who understands that Gollywog is offensive will be able to stop using it without claiming that it is in his sacred text, so there's a difference. IMVHO of course. shiv
Re: [silk] Bush's Arabian visit....
Brian Behlendorf wrote: I would much rather be hitting this curve due to refining capacity than to declines in the amount of oil being pulled out of the ground. If we could refine all we could pull, then total reserves would decline that much more quickly, and the wall we would hit (when oil really does start to run out) would be much sharper than it would be if prices crept up slowly from here on out, giving us a generation or two to switch to alternatives rather than just a few years. I totally agree with this. But with demand now rising so fast globally, will we hit that inevitable decrease in supply that much sooner? Behavior is changing, sure, but I'm not sure current prices in the US are high enough yet to really move the government (I'm talking about the next government, not the current one, of course) to invest in alternatives in a way that is serious enough to re-tool the country's energy infrastructure. I believe the US supply has been declining since the 70s, but I'm not sure the global supply has peaked yet. Jim -- http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/
Re: [silk] Bush's Arabian visit....
Brian Behlendorf wrote: And evidence that consumer behavior *is* changing: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/business/10transit.html?_r=1themc=th wow. I hadn't realized Americans were changing that much. Cool. If Americans are going to start using mass transit in a big way, I'll be interested to see how they deal with the restrictions in freedom of movement. When I came to Japan two years ago, I loved the efficiency of the trains here, but I also felt rather restricted. Sometimes I just want to go over /there/ and I don't want to have to go through /here/ with all those people just to arrive at my destination. Still an American, I suppose. :) Anyway, the trend is good. But I had to laugh at the lead pic in the article to illustrate the standing room only text in the second paragraph. That train has is down right roomy! My goodness. Try this http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/entry/packed and this http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5127313249780524359 :) Jim -- http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/
Re: [silk] Bush's Arabian visit....
On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 7:07 PM, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i was amazed driving down the 101 carpool lane at peak time with several km of stationery traffic on the other 3-4 lanes, when i realised that they were not moving because they were not in the carpool lane which meant that there were 1000s of cars with just a single occupant, all going to (almost) the same place. if they were on a train, they'd spend less money, less time, and be able to read, work, sleep, eat or whatever. or they could use the services of commute helper[1]. -- Vinayak 1. http://www.pfadvice.com/2006/06/21/creative-job-commute-helper/
Re: [silk] Bush's Arabian visit....
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote: i was amazed driving down the 101 carpool lane at peak time with several km of stationery traffic on the other 3-4 lanes, when i realised that they were not moving because they were not in the carpool lane which meant that there were 1000s of cars with just a single occupant, all going to (almost) the same place. if they were on a train, they'd spend less money, less time, and be able to read, work, sleep, eat or whatever. Sure, but that's California (assuming you mean Rt. 101 in Silicon Valley). There are only 40 million people in California, so there is plenty of space. A good rail system would be wonderful there. But during rush hours in Tokyo you can forget about reading, sleeping, working, or eating. :) The trains are cattle cars. Although I must say, they are remarkably quiet and clean (and on time) for cattle cars, which is extremely impressive. There are 130 million people in Japan, and Japan is the same physical size as California. So, more than triple the population in California and you'll need trains there, certainly, but those trains will be very crowded (perhaps not on a China or India scale of crowded but 130 million people in California would make most Americans quite unhappy). Jim -- http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/
Re: [silk] Bush's Arabian visit....
Vinayak Hegde wrote: Still not extreme enough. Sorry. I couldn't do better than that if I tried! :) Jim -- http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/
Re: [silk] 'Blade Runner' handed Olympic ban
On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 7:23 PM, B.L. Krieger wrote: couldn't 'able-bodied' athlets not just use 'protheses' as well? --bernhard http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics/athletics/7141302.stm Paralympic 400m star Oscar Pistorius has failed in his bid to compete at this year's Olympic Games in Beijing. The IAAF, athletics' governing body, ruled his prosthetic limbs give him an advantage over able-bodied opponents and contravene rules on technical aids. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/disability_sport/7405954.stm Ruling overturned... fastest man with no legs is now OK to compete against men with real legs...
Re: [silk] Bush's Arabian visit....
On Mon, 2008-05-19 at 00:06 +0900, Jim Grisanzio wrote: rush hours in Tokyo you can forget about reading, sleeping, working, or eating. :) The trains are cattle cars. Although I must say, they are remarkably quiet and clean (and on time) for cattle cars, which is extremely impressive. There are 130 million people in Japan, and Japan yes, and if you were in a car, you would also not be able to eat or sleep or work or read, and peak hour traffic in tokyo (or seoul) is awful so you would not have those advantages but a packed train would still get you across town way faster and cheaper! -rishab who just doesn't understand why they can't run high speed trains between narita and tokyo
Re: [silk] Bush's Arabian visit....
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: -rishab who just doesn't understand why they can't run high speed trains between narita and tokyo The Narita Express was pretty fast when I last took it. Not a Shinkansen by any means, but still pretty good, and it stops right inside the airport. (Also very comfortable, and it has assigned seating, although that's a bit of a problem for those who can't read the (two) kanji needed to find your seat...) -- Perry E. Metzger[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [silk] Bush's Arabian visit....
n Sun, May 18, 2008 at 06:10:52PM -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote: The Narita Express was pretty fast when I last took it. Not a it does 60 km in just under an hr. compare that to, say, the arlanda express in stockholm that does 45 km in 20 mins. or even horrible heathrow, 25 km in 15 mins. tokyo could do better than that! ok and we won't talk about shanghai's maglev since that doesn't actually go anywhere very useful yet. -r
Re: [silk] Bush's Arabian visit....
Re: [silk] Bush's Arabian visit....
On Sun, 18 May 2008, Jim Grisanzio wrote: Brian Behlendorf wrote: I would much rather be hitting this curve due to refining capacity than to declines in the amount of oil being pulled out of the ground. If we could refine all we could pull, then total reserves would decline that much more quickly, and the wall we would hit (when oil really does start to run out) would be much sharper than it would be if prices crept up slowly from here on out, giving us a generation or two to switch to alternatives rather than just a few years. I totally agree with this. But with demand now rising so fast globally, will we hit that inevitable decrease in supply that much sooner? Behavior is changing, sure, but I'm not sure current prices in the US are high enough yet to really move the government (I'm talking about the next government, not the current one, of course) to invest in alternatives in a way that is serious enough to re-tool the country's energy infrastructure. If all the U.S. government did was eliminate its subsidies to the petroleum industry, it wouldn't have to do anything more - $8/gal gas would compel alternatives all on their own. Lots of nations subsidies petroleum, not just the oil-producing ones; that will become less sustainable as prices go and remain high. Iran's in big big trouble because of this - they passed their peak crude-extraction years awhile ago and have been net importers of refined fuel for quite awhile, yet the government controls the price of fuel to be somewhere around 42 cents per gallon: http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_24506.shtml A lot depends on *how* China's and India's new wealth turns into consumer demand. In the same way that mobile phone technologies avoided the need for expensive land line infrastructures (and the monopolies they created), let's hope the new Chinese middle class gives up their bikes for electric cars (powered from nuclear or wind or whatever) rather than petro cars. There are some encouraging signs - the Tata nano car gets 60 mpg, from what I understand - but other discouraging signs, like the continued growth of electrical generation from coal in both China and India. Without carbon emissions controls (like a cap n trade system that includes China and India), there will be no economic incentive to modernize in a low-carbon-emissions way. Yet neither country wants to be a part of such a system (Kyoto, et al) as they see carbon emissions as an inevitable result of economic growth to which they feel entitled. Even a sensible-sounding policy like equal per-capita emissions limits would mean a huge emissions cieling would need to be created, nevermind bringing us down from current worldwide emissions levels. The only pathway out is to make it expensive to emit and pollute, expensive for all players. The good news is that there are significant economic returns from being a non-petro-dependent economy. Brian
Re: [silk] Bush's Arabian visit....
Perry E. Metzger [18/05/08 18:10 -0400]: The Narita Express was pretty fast when I last took it. Not a Shinkansen by any means, but still pretty good, and it stops right inside the airport. (Also very comfortable, and it has assigned seating, although that's a bit of a problem for those who can't read the (two) kanji needed to find your seat...) NEX has bilingual seat numbers, announcements etc .. everything (at least as of late march when I was last in Tokyo)
Re: [silk] Bush's Arabian visit....
On May 18, 2008, at 5:28 PM, Brian Behlendorf wrote: If all the U.S. government did was eliminate its subsidies to the petroleum industry, it wouldn't have to do anything more - $8/gal gas would compel alternatives all on their own. Every time I have bothered to look into the basis of the subsidized gasoline assertion and related policy arguments I have found little but specious reasoning, selective accounting, playing fast and loose with definitions, or some other type of deceptive argument. There may be subsidies of some type to the oil industry, but the magnitudes that could reasonably be argued one way or another are not remotely of the magnitude so often asserted. There are plenty of good reasons to move away from fossil fuels, but silly arguments will just make people ignore the good arguments. Global warming is a good example of this writ large: there are enough transparently stupid assertions loudly made by vocal advocates on both sides that they drown out and discredit by association the reasonable ones that could actually inform consensus. If people were more willing to police their own advocates we might be more likely to end up with reasonable policies and people would have less cause to be skeptical. Dubious arguments may be overlooked by the ideological choir, but they are not the ones the preacher is trying to convince. J. Andrew Rogers
Re: [silk] Bush's Arabian visit....
Eh? Did you intend to say anything, or was this a metaphorical clearing of the throat? Udhay On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 5:27 AM, Bonobashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
Re: [silk] Bush's Arabian visit....
On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 12:09 AM, Brian Behlendorf [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 4. The future markets based in US Europe (controlled by Rich Jews) is deliberately playing the markets to increase the price to infuritate the western world to attack middle-east as they succeded in doing in Iraq in 2003 at a much lower price level. Meanwhile they are gaining everyday in a bull market controlled by them (50%- most logical conspiracy theory) I've generally enjoyed the conversations on this list about cultures and ethnicities, I've found them to be intelligent and frank while being respectful. The above is a rare exception. I've read a lot of stuff that is pretty disrespectful to many cultures, ethnicities and religions (including my own) on this list. Get used to it. ;-) -- b
