Hitchens on "America the Banana Republic"

In Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens considers the present financial crisis, and in particular the abdication of responsibility by those involved:

Now ask yourself another question. Has anybody resigned, from either the public or the private sectors (overlapping so lavishly as they now do)? Has anybody even offered to resign? Have you heard anybody in authority apologize, as in: “So very sorry about your savings and pensions and homes and college funds, and I feel personally rotten about it”? Have you even heard the question being posed? O.K., then, has anybody been fired? Any regulator, any supervisor, any runaway would-be golden-parachute artist? Anyone responsible for smugly putting the word “derivative” like a virus into the system? To ask the question is to answer it.

Predictably negative

The McCain campaign really has been predictable. Predictably negative. Predictably cynical. In fact, back in June Obama predicted exactly what they would do. Check this out:

On reflection, I think perhaps that Obama did get a few of his predictions wrong. Not the what, but the how. Did anyone really believe that McCain would stoop to mob incitement? See John Scalzi’s “Your Rallies Are Beginning to Look Like Lynch Mobs”. Or from the Inverse Square Blog:

The grotesque sight of major party candidates standing mute and in apparent agreement as their supportors call for the murder of their opponent is not supposed to be part of the American political process.
It is now.

(And I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s read Allen Drury’s “Advise and Consent” novels….)
UPDATE: Well, better late than never. According to Time, McCain…

… just snatched the microphone out the hands of a woman who began her question with, “I’m scared of Barack Obama… he’s an Arab terrorist…”
“No, no ma’am,” he interrupted. “He’s a decent family man with whom I happen to have some disagreements.”

Perhaps he should tell his Veep candidate….

Another complicated trip… including a new airline (for me)

On Saturday I’m heading off on a four-city business trip to Europe. For various reasons, this is going to involve quite a number of hops:
First, Seattle to Edinburgh:
Oct 11 2008: UA958 SEA-ORD; UA958 ORD-LHR
Oct 12 2008: BMI52 LHR-EDI
Next Wednesday I’ll drive from Edinburgh to Slough, and then on Saturday fly to Iasi in Romania. The only major cities with service to Iasi are Vienna and Bucharest, so I’m taking BA to Bucharest and Tarom ((My first time on RO.)) to Iasi:
Oct 18 2008: BA886 LHR-OTP; RO707 OTP-IAS
The following Wednesday, I’ll fly from Iasi to Dublin, via Bucharest and Heathrow. The LHR-DUB leg is actually a code share operated by Aer Lingus:
Oct 22 2008: RO704 IAS-OTP; BA887 OTP-LHR; BA5979 LHR-DUB
And finally on Saturday I’ll fly back to Seattle:
Oct 25 2008: BMI122 DUB-LHR; UA949 LHR-ORD; UA949 ORD-SEA
A two week trip, with four travel days, comprising eleven hops on five different airlines, with each travel day involving transit through Heathrow. I’m planning to carry on my bags for every hop; the probability of something going astray is far too high. (My worst ever baggage experience was on a trip from Boston to Stockholm and Grenoble in the mid-90s, during which BA managed to lose my checked bag TWICE – once at Heathrow and once at Lyons.)

Global recession, Internet style?

Charlie Stross wonders about what an Internet-age recession is going to look like.

We’ve never actually seen a true global recession in a Web 2.0 world. What’s it going to look like? How is it going to differ from a recession in a pre-internet world? Is it going to accelerate the hollowing-out of the retail high street as economy-conscious shoppers increasingly move to online shopping and comparison systems like Froogle? Are we going to see homeless folks not only living in their cars but telecommuting from them, using pay-as-you-go 3G cellular modems, cheap-ass Netbooks, and rented phone numbers to give the appearance of still having a meatspace office? Is the increasing performance curve of consumer electronics going to give way to a deflationary price war as embattled producers try to hold on to market share as Moore’s Law cuts the ground away from beneath their feet?

This is disingenuous: “We’ve never actually seen a true X in a Web 2.0 world” applies to a vast range of X‘s. But setting that aside, let’s add a few more questions. How will the fact that the recession is coinciding with the retiring of the boomers affect things? What about the (independent and permanent) increase in energy prices? How will this influence agriculture? (Pumping water is expensive.) Will we all move south, live in cities, become vegetarians, and work from home (except for nurses and teachers)?

Make-Believe Maverick

There’s a devastating bio of John McCain in the latest Rolling Stone. The guy comes across as a total narcissist and a thoroughly unprincipled jerk. And his colleagues apparently agree.

Last year, after barging into a bipartisan meeting on immigration legislation and attempting to seize the reins, McCain was called out by fellow GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. “Wait a second here,” Cornyn said. “I’ve been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day. You’re out of line.” McCain exploded: “Fuck you! I know more about this than anyone in the room.” The incident foreshadowed McCain’s 11th-hour theatrics in September, when he abruptly “suspended” his campaign and inserted himself into the Wall Street bailout debate at the last minute, just as congressional leaders were attempting to finalize a bipartisan agreement.

At least three of McCain’s GOP colleagues have gone on record to say that they consider him temperamentally unsuited to be commander in chief. Smith, the former senator from New Hampshire, has said that McCain’s “temper would place this country at risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, it should disqualify him.” Sen. Domenici of New Mexico has said he doesn’t “want this guy anywhere near a trigger.” And Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi weighed in that “the thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded.”

Read the whole thing – one piece of outrageous nepotism after another, his less than honorable military service, the Keating Five, the carefully calculated “maverick” moves designed purely to attract attention, the pure egotism and lack of any moral center. The man is a monster.

"…were she not a Republican"

Larison on Palin’s debate performance:

She cannot be blamed for not knowing that civilian casualties from NATO airstrikes have been a major political problem in the Afghan war or that this reliance on air power stems directly from our lack of ground forces in the country, because I’m sure her handlers were never going to brief her on the existence of civilian casualties in a war zone.  For the Scheunemanns and Bieguns of the world, these casualties either don’t exist or are irrelevant.  Regardless, her clear lack of knowledge about a critical detail concerning one of the two combat theaters where American soldiers are fighting today would, were she not a Republican, be considered among conservatives automatically disqualifying and a cause for ridicule from now until eternity.  Obviously, had Biden made an error of this magnitude he would be attacked as unfit – and rightly so.  It can be no less disqualifying with Palin.

Gene Saunders

Here’s the full announcement. Please forward to anyone that you think might be interested.

Gene Saunders

Gene Saunders - picture from Detlef Schmier

Gene Saunders, one of the longest serving members of the Sun Microsystems family, passed away unexpectedly on September 19th. Gene had many friends and colleagues at Sun, in the United States and around the World. He was also in constant contact with Sun alumni and his many other friends via email and his blogs. (Even his dog had his her own blog, “Beta the Wonder Dog”.)
Gene is probably best known for creating “onestop”, which for many years was the single most used technical website within Sun. Onestop was started in 1993, hosted on an Ultra 1 SPARCstation 1 in Itasca, IL. It won the “Best SWAN Website” contest several years in a row; at that point, Gene stopped entering to allow others a chance to win!
Gene worked in many groups during his 17 years at Sun. (He joined Sun 19 years ago, but like many of us, he went through a RIF-induced “holiday” which lasted 20 months.) He was a General Territory SE for SunSoft, a Telco focused SE, a member of the Data Center Practice team, and involved on several named accounts. Gene supported many of the User Groups in the Dallas Fort Worth Area, was a very popular speaker at Partner training events, and loved to share his knowledge of technology.
Gene had a rich life beyond his work at Sun. He was passionately involved in political and social issues, nationally and in Dallas. He was an ardent freethinker and skeptic, with a wonderful sense of humor. And he had many friends, from all parts of the world and walks of life, who came to love him deeply.
Gene will be greatly missed by his many friends and colleagues at Sun, in the Technical Community, and around the world.
There is an email alias for friends of Gene to exchange information and share memories of Gene. Please visit: http://grommit.com/mailman/listinfo/friendsofgene to sign up.
– Geoff Arnold
– Roger Lippert