31 Dec 2007
Women playing greater role in farming

The way the article is phrased, this is a positive thing. But notice the reason given by the principals for this change:

"... somebody has to work elsewhere to get health insurance, and often it is the man because they usually can find better paying jobs," she said.

That sounds neither pro-woman nor very positive to me. 'Nuff said.

AP - Diane Grezenski grew up a city girl, but now she and her husband run a dairy farm where she has taken on more and more of the work over the years.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

07:08 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

30 Dec 2007
Long Live Closed-Source Software?

I've never really understood the near reverential attitude some folk in information science have for Jaron Lanier, and after digesting this, I think I've been justified in my skepticism.

In an article for Discover Magazine, Jaron Lanier writes about his belief that open source produces nothing interesting because of a hide-bound mentality. "Open wisdom-of-crowds software movements have become influential, but they haven't promoted the kind of radical creativity I love most in computer science. If anything, they've been hindrances. Some of the youngest, brightest minds have been trapped in a 1970s intellectual framework because they are hypnotized into accepting old software designs as if they were facts of nature. Linux is a superbly polished copy of an antique, shinier than the original, perhaps, but still defined by it."

(link) [Slashdot]

20:10 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

World outsources pregnancies to India

This is quite possibly the most disturbing, if predictable, consequence of globalization.

AP - Every night in this quiet western Indian city, 15 pregnant women prepare for sleep in the spacious house they share, ascending the stairs in a procession of ballooned bellies, to bedrooms that become a landscape of soft hills.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

20:05 /Politics | 3 comments | permanent link

29 Dec 2007
A Football Fantasy

I don't normally blog about sports: about the only thing I follow is football, and I'd certainly not classify myself as a rabid fan. But ...

I have two favorite teams: the Colts and whoever is playing the Patriots. Or, as we refer to them around our house, the "Eye Poking Cheaters", after the 2003 championship debacle, and the Spygate scandal earlier this year.

Frankly, after being caught cheating so blatantly, I would've expected that the man responsible, Bill Belichick, would've been banned from the game, or at least suspended. But apparently, the rules once more no longer apply to the league darlings, and so the Pats go up against the Giants tonight in their quest for a "perfect" season. If they win, I wonder if the Jets will request an asterisk be placed in the record books, as is done for cheaters in the baseball?

Be that as it may be, I find myself almost hoping for a Pats victory tonight, and a perfect run of the regular season. Because it'd make it that much sweeter when the Colts return to Foxboro for the 2008 AFC Championship Game and beat them, denying them their "perfect season".

Like I said, it's just a football fantasy...

12:12 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

28 Dec 2007
The Code of the West

Don't believe that our culture is infused with heathen values? Compare this secular list to the Nine Noble Virtues. Nary a difference.

If, on the other hand, you believe that we're more inspired by the "Judeo-Christian" ethic, I invite you to compare these to the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes or other Christian teachings. A few similarities, but lots of differences.

I'm just sayin'...

I use the term, "code of the west," a lot to signify all those things that are so great about our industry but are kind of unspoken intangibles. Of course, there never was a formal code truly defined, and I've read that Zane Gray first actually used the term, which has nothing to do with geography but rather a mindset.

(link) [Beef Magazine]

via Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

07:41 /Asatru | 1 comment | permanent link

Priests brawl at Jesus' birthplace

I gotta wonder what the "Prince of Peace" would think of this sordid tale...

Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests attacked each other with brooms and stones inside the Church of the Nativity as long-standing rivalries erupted in violence during holiday cleaning on Thursday.

(link) [CNN.com]

07:30 /Humor | 1 comment | permanent link

Credit Crisis? Just Wait for a Replay

There's a cloud on the horizon, that's for sure. And in the humble opinion of this non-banker, it has everything to do with financial institutions being allowed to "repackage" their loans as "derivatives" and foist them on unsuspecting investors.

If this plays out the way I think it will, pretty much everyone involved is going to get pretty much exactly what they deserve.

Just how different was subprime lending from other lending in the days of easy money that prevailed until this summer?

(link) [NYT > NYTimes.com Home]

07:23 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Why I Canceled All My Music Subscriptions

The end is here for DRM'd music subscriptions.

With Warner Music ditching DRM, Listening Post blogger Eliot Van Buskirk decides to do the same. But leaving Napster and Rhapsody isn't as easy is it should be.

(link) [Wired: Top Stories]

07:19 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

27 Dec 2007
How to copyright Michelangelo

This just keeps getting more ridiculous - yesterday it was the Pyramids, today it's the Sistine Chapel...

Some of the world's greatest artworks are turning into copyrighted properties.Five hundred years ago, Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Today, those images are copyrighted. How can ancient cultural icons become commercial properties, centuries after they fall into the public domain?

(link) [The Register]

07:59 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

26 Dec 2007
Egypt to Copyright Pyramids and Sphynx

"Absurd" doesn't begin to do this justice...

We all know the usual pro-copyright arguments. Most of them hinge on the fact that the individual or company that has a copyright needs an incentive to make something that is copyrightable, and therefore ensure a revenue stream in a period after the copyright has been granted. In a never-surpassed move, Egypt is working on legislation to extend copyright well above 3000 years — they are going to start claiming royalties for using likenesses of the Sphynx and the Pyramids. It is still unclear whether the original intent of the Pyramids included 'making sure them bastards pay for a plastic copy in 3000 years' alongside 'securing a pathway to the heavens for the God King.'

(link) [Slashdot]

17:39 /Copywrongs | 1 comment | permanent link

Dec. 26, 1982: Time's Top Man? The Personal Computer

How quaint.

The computer age for the rest of us may have officially begun with the news magazine's unusual choice for its "Man of the Year" award.

(link) [Wired Top Stories]

07:17 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

25 Dec 2007
Many TV Stations Won't Make the Digital Switch

What a scam! The DTV switchover, mandated by the FCC, is a windfall for consumer electronics companies and broadcast equipment manufacturers, but will prove to be a gigantic pain in the rear for everyone else.

What fascinates me, though, is a subtext that few have noted. The Fairness Doctrine went away in the 1980's, and despite repeated attempts to bring it back, remains dead. Most conservative commentators are virulently opposed to the re-imposition of this onerous rule, complaining that it violates their private property rights, and curtails their First Amendment rights to free speech.

Where is their outcry now, over the mandate that all broadcast be digital by February of 2009? Does not the government mandating a specific technology violate their private property rights?

Not as things currently stand it seems: they're willing to acknowledge the governments ownership and control of the airwaves when it comes to the physical plant required to run a TV station, but not when it comes to the content that station carries. But doesn't the owner of a medium have a say over the content transmitted by that media? "He who pays the piper calls the tune".

I've blogged about this before - it's just another example of the inconsistency of the vulgar libertarian movement.

Some religious, minority, and shopping channels may see their transmissions lost in translation.

(link) [U.S. News & World Report]

08:38 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

23 Dec 2007
Credit-card defaults rise alarmingly

The piper will be paid, and the price is going to be steeper than anyone has imagined.

Americans are falling behind on their credit card payments at an alarming rate, sending delinquencies and defaults surging by double-digit percentages in the last year and prompting warnings of worse to come.

(link) [CNN.com]

22:15 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

First Dec. 25 Xmas tied to pagan shrine

How many other early churches were built in such places? Nearly all of them ...

And as for religious holidays, well, except for Easter, where the Christians stole only the name, all of them were originally pagan/heathen as well. And even in the case of Ostara (Easter) the bunnies and eggs managed to slide through - I remember wondering as a kid what chickens and rabbits had to do with some dude being crucified by the Romans.

AP - The church where the tradition of celebrating Christmas on Dec. 25 may have begun was built near a pagan shrine as part of an effort to spread Christianity, a leading Italian scholar says.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

09:53 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

Santa Claus Comes for Failed Business Executives

If there is a story more representative of the chronic malaise that's afflicting American business, I'd like to see it.

The Washington Post had a good story on the dealings of the electronics retailer Circuit City. Unfortunately, it was buried in the business section where no one will see it. It should have been plastered at the top of the front page.

(link) [Beat the Press]

via Slashdot

09:49 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link