Quick Roundup 59

Three Looks at Creeping Tyranny

No sooner do I post about our culture's failure to cultivate responsible behavior in its children do I find two other looks at the decline of individualism in our culture.

At Principles in Practice, John Lewis discusses "little dictators".

[O]ver the past two generations, our freedom has been subordinated, in myriad ways, to the "Little Dictators" among us. The language of despotism is proper to them, for they wield the force of the government and demand obedience to their commands. To disobey them is to risk loss of career, property, and even life.

When so many people are more than happy to abdicate the responsibility for living their lives, is it any wonder that those who would be perfectly happy to give out orders would come crawling out of the woodwork?

And Jennifer Snow notes that the typical reaction of those who see the government as their caretaker -- to whine any time things go mildly wrong -- doesn't exactly inspire substantive debate on the part of our politicians.

And this next bit seems especially apropos at this juncture.

Astrology for Government Functionaries

Mike reports the incredible: that psychics and astrologers may soon have to be LICENSED because customers are complaining about being -- snicker! -- ripped off!

And I know an aptly-titled book the licensing board can train up with, too....

An Alternative to Open Source

Enforcement might be problematic, but Zach Oakes offers a very creative solution to the closed source versus open source software licensing debate.

Closed source fails because it lacks peer review, hobbyist hacking, and bug-fixing. Open source fails because it is impossible to capitalize on it - your competitors can steal your code and free-ride on your programming. The alternative? I call it visual source.

Read on to see what he means.

With One Hand Tied Behind Our Backs

Gideon Reich takes the heroism of Task Force 145 as his point of departure in a long, thoughtful post about the foolishness of fighting limited wars.

It is still the case that we are winning every military engagement with the enemy but it may not matter, much as it did not matter in Vietnam. Since the strategy is not committed to outright victory but instead appears to seek very limited success via substantially restricted, indirect means, and without identifying, attacking, and defeating Iran as the main enemy, we may yet suffer greatly in this long war.

It's all Greek to me.

A foreign-language blog will point here from time to time. Today, when playing "follow the link", I found this Greek blog.

My "second language"? Classical Latin.

Time Waster

Fans of Mad Magazine will find themselves transfixed if they visit the very well-done CollectMad.com web site, which I found while doing a web search for 43-Man Squamish for a friend. And, especially, avoid this quiz like the plague!

You have been warned!

Blecch!

Chavez, Savior of Europe

Hugo Chavez, not content to buy the approval of poor people with stolen oil in his own hemisphere, has offered subsidized oil to Europe's poor. And he's sold quite a bit here already, we learn.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who sold almost 40 million gallons of discounted heating oil to the United States last winter, says he'd extend the program to Europe in a gesture to help the needy.

Venezuela, which has refining capacity in Germany and Britain, will hear suggestions on which groups should benefit from the discounted oil, Mr. Chavez said on Saturday, speaking to an audience of socialist activist groups in Vienna after a summit of European and Latin American leaders.

"I want to ask for your help so that here in Europe we try the same" as in the United States, Mr. Chavez said. "I want to offer our modest support to the poorest people that may not have the resources to ensure they have winter heating."

This is the same man who says he wants to lock in the price of oil at $50.00 a barrel. Why hasn't anyone asked Mr. Omnipotent why he doesn't just give it all away?

Although some foreign oil executives are concerned that Chavez may one day confiscate their companies' assets, Poleo says that PDVSA's lack of expertise and investment stands as the best argument against nationalizing the oil industry.

"They can't nationalize," Poleo said of Chavez's government, "because they don't have the money or the knowledge."

Oh yeah. It's because he's only as good as the chumps whose backs he rides, and he knows it, media adulation to the contrary.

-- CAV