Here’s an excellent article on the environment and economic (and therefore health and longevity) progress from Bret Stephens at the Wall Street Journal.
Some of my favourite points:
…
Facts tell a different story. When Deng Xiaoping began introducing elements of a market economy in 1980, Chinese life expectancy at birth was 65.3 years. Today it is about 73 years. The numbers are probably a bit inflated, as most numbers are in the People’s Republic, but the trend line is undeniable. In India, life expectancy rose from 52.5 years in 1980 to about 67 years today. If this is the consequence of following the “American economic model” then poor countries need more of it.
…
The rest is brilliant too.
Admission. Okay so my title was a bit tongue-in-cheek. I didn’t mean to imply everyone in Western nations are stupid. Capitalists come out well… and humanely.
As the man’s title says, “Arctic sea ice back to its previous level, bears safe; film at 11″.
Apparently all that melting ice which was supposed to doom all the polar bears, who can’t swim, has refroze. Possibly because it’s winter, but what do I know?
Maybe that explains why there was snow in Baghdad recently.
Awww, poor bears.
Tired from swimming.
I say with this wave of freak winter weather assailing the planet, we’re all in grave danger from global warming:
Tehran
China
Tokyo
Hawaii
Saudi Arabia
… and back to Baghdad
Well, I was told by several business professionals my preferred self-title of “Sales Buckaroo” gave the wrong image, that of a “cowboy”.
Well damn if that wasn’t the idea.
They saw this as a bad thing or something. Hmmmmm. I guess I watched too many westerns as a kid.
One thing I agree is it had a “shoot from the hip” quality. And certainly that was my plan.
Yet that plan wasn’t working worth squat!
Since I spent the last month getting organized and learning how to manage work flow — and only then did my purpose and goals come into clear focus — I’m professionalizing.
Sales Pro it is.
I had to throw out $120 worth of business cards and print some out on my inkjet. Which I hate. (I love my laser.) And I had to drag it out of a box and set it up again. Anyway. The new cards…
(Click the image to visit my new business homepage.)
(Click the image to visit my new business BLOG!)
Now, it’s time to find a client and make them a ton of money.
A great way to communicate, if rather hard on the thumbs.
But SMS and driving doesn’t mix:
Several minutes before the first 911 call about the crash, Goodman talked briefly with a fellow graduate trailing her in another vehicle. Two minutes before the crash was reported, her phone was used to send a text greeting to a friend, Povero said.
He sent a reply less than a minute before the first 911 call, the sheriff added.
Routine tests ruled out alcohol as a factor in the 10 p.m. crash, and police don’t suspect drug use was involved…
No real comments about this, just read it all.
Things are tough and things are coming together. But they are so much less tough than in that article although I’ve been there. I might even go there again if required.
No, not the genius superagents who are alleged to have poisioned Alexander Litvinenko, outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, using tens of millions of dollars of radioactive isotope polonium-210 that left a trail from one end of Europe to the other.
Because, if you want to assassinate someone you should:
- spend $50-100 million just on the weapon because bullets are just so passé
- choose a weapon that can be easily tracked over buildings, cities, and oceans… even to specific apartments and couches in Germany for ______ sakes
- select something that’s dangerous for you too because, well, who doesn’t like a bit of radiation poisoning?
No, if that was truly an assassination attempt, and I have my doubts (I believe it could have been nuclear material smuggling gone wrong and that Litvinenko could have been one of the smugglers and killed himself by accident), these agents are far too smart for a mere commoner like myself to comprehend.
The greatest spy ever is undoubtedly former WestJet vice-president Mark Hill.
WestJet is Canada’s second largest airline and Mark Hill decided to run a corporate spying operation on our largest, Air Canada.
Essentially, he used a confidential Air Canada employee password to snoop around their website and steal flight schedules and private data so he could plan WestJet’s routes to maximize their profits and hurt Air Canada.
This wasn’t the most brilliant part, however. That came later when he boarded an Air Canada jet wearing a WestJet denim shirt and a leather jacket with a large WestJet logo on the back.
He sat down beside this nice man who said he works in, “…international corporate intelligence,” and who introduced himself as an ex-CSIS agent (CSIS is the Canadian Security Intelligence Service — our spies responsible for foreign intelligence gathering).
This “ex-CSIS agent” (really a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police staff sergeant and private detective for Air Canada) was reading a book, “The Art of Deception,” by Kevin Mitnick. He easily struck up a conversation because apparently Mark Hill was very cocky and was making fun of Air Canada while sitting on their airplane wearing a WestJet logo and he liked to talk.
The private eye proceded to watch him pull out sheets of paper from a manila envelope and enter confidential Air Canada data into his laptop.
So let me get this straight. You’re running a spying operation yourself, you’re sitting on your target’s property making fun of them while wearing your company’s colours, a man who introduces himself as an ex-spy who currently works in corporate espionage sits down beside you reading a book about about deception and you decide to open up to him and let him watch you enter private Air Canada data into your computer… on an Air Canada plane?
And for that, Mark Hill, I dub you the world’s greatest spy.
[Source: The Gumshoe and his target at 30,000 feet by Brent Jang]
UPDATE: From the University of Victoria Alumni 2003 Legacy Awards page:
WestJet Airlines vice-president and co-founder Mark Hill, BA ‘85, accepts his Distinguished Alumni Award. Mark says his studies of military history and strategy at UVic helped him to develop WestJet’s highly successful business plan.
“It’s the wussification of America that’s killing us.”
I made a decision some time ago that Loving Jacqui would not be about politics.
And it still isn’t. I guess it’s about two people, how we feel about others, and sometimes on blessed days how others feel about us and what our goal is: To love each other this entire life and beyond.
It’s a hefty goal and neither of us is perfect.
Some people are pretty close though, or at their maximum, their beauty and nobility is so perfect that it shines through their lesser nature in a white light of goodness that a man of the cloth might be able to describe, maybe, but that I fall well short.
Here is a man doing something that I deeply admire. I don’t match it. I merely admire him for his clarity, his courage, and his love.
Unfortunately, he died while doing it. Here is his mom describing him and what he did with his life.
I don’t consider this to be about politics so much, as about people. A family with a mom (and dad) who loves and supports her son so much that she supported his work and his values and not just the continuity of his flesh. And how painful this must be for her.
It could have been a policeman or a fireman or even a stranger out for a walk. But in this case it wasn’t. It was a Canadian soldier.
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