Contest for the gnostics! Find the 10 mystical secrets hidden in this page. Calculus and/or graph theory may be required.
Everyone else talk about whatever. Or, you know, look like you’re talking about whatever.
Tortured Hypotheticals
Sebastian Holsclaw at ObWi responds to Pattterico’s torture hypothetical (that many of you brought up in the comments) here and here. The most important part, of course, is precisely what I have stated over and over until I am blue in the face:
Let me say that again. Bush’s administration has tortured men who were factually innocent.
Not men who got off on technicalities. Factually Innocent.
Your hypothetical demands that the government be CERTAIN of the following things:
This man is who we think he is.
This man knows what we think he knows.
No non-torture technique will work.
Patterico, you work with the government. You know for a fact that it gets things wrong all the time. Even when we go through the huge and complicated process of a trial, it gets things wrong. And we aren’t talking anything like a trial here. In reality, we are talking about torturing *suspects*. That is not a power to be given to the government.
Your hypothetical doesn’t speak to the question of what the policy of our government ought to be, because no important part of the hypothetical actually has anything to do with the empirical reality of governmental torture. You pride yourself at not being distracted by stated intentions which have bad consequences in areas like rent control, housing policy, and education policy. Don’t let Bush wave the national security flag and make you forget everything you know about how the government actually operates.
Following Patterico’s lead, I have my own hypothetical:
If a right wing blogger is about to write another stupid post attempting to justify the use of torture, would it be ok for me to run over and kick them in the junk, rendering them unable to blog?
Foodie Tips From Anthony Bourdain
Just got back from seeing Anthony Bourdain in in the city, and it was an absolute treat. He is every bit as much fun as you would imagine him to be. Lots of good and useful stuff in the talk, but two stick in my mind:
1. Truffle oil is the ketchup of the newly affluent.
2. To find good places to eat, provoke the nerds.#2 showed a remarkably precise understanding of the internet. The question at hand was how to find good restaurants, and his answer was to take the city you want to go to and just google up some restaurant names that serve the dish you’re after. Then got to chowhound or another foodie site, and rather than asking about restaurants, you put up an enthusiastic post talking about how you just had the best whatever you’re looking for at one of these restaurants.
At that point, what drivingblind likes to call the nerdfury will begin. Posters will show up from nowhere to shower you with disdain, tell you how that place used to be good but has now totally sold out and – most important to your quest – will tell you where you would have gone if you were not some sort of mouth breathing water buffalo.
The post title is also pretty funny.
***Update***
Hat tip to John via IM, who clearly neglected to tell me that he read about this at Jim Henley’s. Tsk.
Also, don’t waste any more votes on us at the Webbies. As per Michael’s orders, vote for the Jawa guys instead.
Because You Didn’t Need To Get Any Work Done Anyway!
Ebony or Ivory?
Diversifying Reserves
That is one way of saying that China has started looking for alternatives to the dollar.
The dollar fell the most since September against the currencies of its six biggest trading partners after Chinese officials signaled plans to diversify the nation’s $1.43 trillion of foreign exchange reserves.
[…] “We will favor stronger currencies over weaker ones, and will readjust accordingly,” Cheng Siwei, vice chairman of China’s National People’s Congress, told a conference in Beijing. The dollar is “losing its status as the world currency,” Xu Jian, a central bank vice director, said at the same meeting. […] Chinese investors have reduced their holdings of U.S. Treasuries by 5 percent to $400 billion in the five months to August. China Investment Corp., which manages the nation’s $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, said last month it may get more of the nation’s reserves to invest to improve returns.
However:
“The world’s currency structure has changed,” Xu said at the conference in Beijing. Cheng, speaking to reporters after his speech, said his comments don’t mean China will buy more euros. The National People’s Congress, China’s legislature, isn’t involved in setting currency policy.
“Cheng has a history of speaking out on a range of financial market and economic developments, and his comments are not always accurate,” said Glenn Maguire, chief Asia economist at Societe Generale SA in Hong Kong.
Cheng’s remarks on Jan. 30 that China’s stock rally was a “bubble” caused the benchmark index to fall the most in almost two years the following day. The Shanghai and Shenzhen 300 Index, then over 2,500 points, has since climbed above 5,300.
I feel like I ought to be worried about this, but I also feel as though I don’t know enough about the situation to comment authoritatively. Let’s split the difference – I put the story up and better informed readers can hash out what it means in the comments.
George Ryan: Jailbird
“I’m ready to go,” said former Gov. George Ryan, who planned to caravan with his family to the federal prison in Oxford, Wis., today.
“Look, I’m fine. It’s the beginning of a journey I hadn’t expected, but it isn’t over,” Ryan told Sneed in an exclusive interview Monday night.