sisu

Separated at birth?

It's all about attitude. Baby Cakes (left) and Durer's "Hare" (right) have it in spades.

The eloquence of emptiness, Part II

Merlin-Net photo

Boston Globe staff photographer David Ryan may have caught the spirit of the place at Ground Zero during the one-year anniversary of 9/11 far better than any of the memorial designs we've seen so far.

Barry Brukoff photo from The Enigma of Stonehenge

Think Stonehenge.

Worth a googol words

Merlin-Net rules!

. . . and Google shows the way.

I don't let it, let it get me down

Merlin-Net photo

What do First Lt. Joe Florczak and Frank Sinatra have in common?

Sinatra, singing "That's Life":

I've been a puppet, a pauper,
a pirate, a poet,
a pawn and a king;
I've been up and down
and over and out
and I know one thing:
Each time I find myself
flat on my face
I pick myself up
and get back in the race.

Florczak, describing his dealings with Iraqi security forces and civic leaders in what Drezner doing Sullivan calls "a great [New York Times] piece suggesting that the 101st Airborne, based in Northern Iraq, has successfully adapted to the role of nation-building":

I've been a rifle platoon leader,
a police officer,
a police trainer and a labor negotiator . . .

Take it from the top, Frankie . . .

Some people get their kicks
stompin' on a dream.
But I don't let it,
let it get me down . . .

Shrimp watch

Tiny attempts a daring raid on thawing shrimp.

One thing led to another

Fibonacci numbers in flower petals

What do the following have in common?

1. The Pet Umbrella

2. Florence Nightingale's pioneering work in information design

3. A video explaining The Fibonacci Series

4. Refer 2.1, a web application that tracks incoming referrers

They're all tasty fruits ready for the plucking out there on the World Wide Web. Thank you, sir Tim.

[via A Welsh View]

Eyes that do not see

Victor Davis Hanson and Larry Elder are on the Western elite's case. Here's Hanson in "The Western Disease: The strange syndrome of our guilt and their shame," at National Review:

There is something terribly wrong, something terribly amoral with the Western intelligentsia, most prominently in academia, the media, and politics . . . A Paul Krugman or French barrister neither knows anything of how life is lived beyond his artificial cocoon, nor of the rather different men and women whose unacknowledged work in the shadows ensures his own bounty in such a pampered landscape — toil that allows our anointed to rage at those purportedly culpable for allowing the world to function differently from an Ivy League lounge or the newsroom of the New York Times.

. . . and Elder in "Confronted by a 'radical socialist'" over at Jewish World Review: "Tell me, does my 'radical socialist' understand that the American system of capitalism, competition and free enterprise enable her to shop at this store where she, like my father, my uncle and me, sought reasonably priced quality?" [via Goomp]

Some contrast. The appreciation for America shown by the [self-made immigrant] Lebanese salesman vs. the lack of same demonstrated by the "radical socialist." The socialist showed little appreciation or understanding of the greatness of this country and its abundance, which results from economic freedom, separation of church and state, respect for individual rights, and relatively low taxes and regulation, all of which create an incentive for people like the Lebanese salesman to take risks that mutually benefit both himself and the "radical socialist."

The importance of feeling good about themselves as card-carrying members of the politically correct "progressive" elite blinds these individuals to the fact of their umbilical dependence on the Western civilization they trash.

Strange bedfellows of the world unite

Cranky Neocon interviews Jeff Kaiser, Chairperson of the Alliance For Global Anti-globalization and Marwan El Awad, Senior Martyr Trainer For McJihad:

So Mr. El Awad, you and Jeff come from such diverse backgrounds. How is it that you and Jeff and and your respective organizations have decided to partner together for peace?

MEA: Yes, it is quite amazing and no one was more surprized than myself. McJihad was operating a booth at the university Celebrate Diversity Day when, Allah be praised, I saw Jeff and the AGAG group bearing a banner with "Islam Means Peace" inscribed upon it.

JK: So we got to talking and found that we had more in common than not. We both seek Justice from oppression. Greedy Multinational Corporation or Zionists Accursed Of God; same thing. Semantics really.

[via Instapundit]

Their number's up

Bahrainian computer entrepreneur Mahmood Al-Yousif of Mahmood's Den sings the praises of the free market:

There is a passion for numbers in Bahrain, and I suppose in the rest of the world. Especially if those numbers are distinctive, unique and nice to look at. People pay vast sums of money for a nice number-plate, telephone number and even address. It's become a roaring trade in Bahrain in selling and exchanging "sim-sim" or pre-paid mobile phone numbers and I heard for a "nice" number you would pay upwards of BD 1,000 (US$3,770).

. . . The Batelco monopoly of decades has been at last broken with the entrance of MTC-Vodafone into the fray. They have started their operation in Bahrain today with several (Middle East) firsts like 3G and EDGE technologies, and they have already proved right on day one of their operation that they know the psyche of their Bahraini customers.

What is it you do, exactly?

When your friends ask "What's that thing you do?" point them to Kathy Kiely's USA TODAY article, " Freewheeling 'bloggers' are rewriting rules of journalism":

They call themselves bloggers. Their mission: to remake political journalism and, quite possibly, democracy itself. The plan: to run an end around big media by becoming publishers on the Internet.

Bloggers get their name from Web logs, a new form of publication on the internet. A blog is a cross between an online diary and a cybermagazine, aggressively updated to draw readers back. Just a few years ago, blogs were relatively rare. Now there are millions.

. . . The political "blogosphere," as habitués call it, is an ever-expanding universe filled with fierce argument and even fiercer camaraderie. There are well-known journalists who blog and bloggers who have never written for publication. Most run their blogs as labors of love. But some have raised thousands of dollars from loyal readers.

. . . Their audience tends to be an elite crowd of political junkies who have almost non-stop access to a computer and large amounts of time to surf the Internet for breaking news. In short: political consultants and journalists.

[via Lucianne]