Precut – Modern Japanese Timber Construction from BAKOKO on Vimeo.
H/T to Popular Woodworking for the link.
December 28, 2011
Going beyond merely precut lumber for homebuilding
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“Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred”
Matt Welch returns to Prague for Václav Havel’s funeral:
It’s a safe bet that in the history of state funerals, no former president has been sent off to the Absolute Horizon by not one but at least three different live, nationally televised rock songs about heroin.
Such was Václav Havel’s genre-straddling life and thoroughgoing conception of freedom that it seemed as natural as tartar sauce on fried cheese to bookend a portentous, Dvořák-haunted National Requiem Mass in Central Europe’s oldest Gothic cathedral with a loose-limbed, hash-scented rock and roll celebration at the Czech Republic’s most storied music venue, all while the non-VIPs on the streets of Prague (and their counterparts outside the capital) lent the most dignity of all to the three-day National Mourning by creating ad-hoc candlelit shrines in whatever patches of cobblestone reminded them of the man who made them most proud to be Czechs.
It was a remarkable memorial, one that — like Havel himself — could not have happened in any other city or country. Yet the celebration offered enough bread crumbs for non-Czechs to stumble upon the promise of forgotten political alchemies lurking just outside our daily view. I was there to pay my respects; here are some observations and pictures.
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December 27, 2011
Finding the motivations for those scary “libertarian” folk
Jacob Sullum on a recent New York Times article that tried to define the typical Ron Paul supporter (and whether Ron Paul is responsible for their views):
Why does the Times think it is relevant to note that libertarians who focus on economic freedom are “backed to some degree by wealthy interests”? Isn’t that true of pretty much every political movement and organization, including Marxism and the Democratic Party? The implication seems to be that defenders of economic freedom are carrying water for special interests, who are in it only for the money.
Weirdly, the Times locates the scary militants in the part of the libertarian movement that focuses on “personal liberty,” which includes not only the rights explicitly protected by the Constitution (such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, due process, and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures) but also such unspecified rights as freedom to engage in consensual sexual relationships, to marry people of either sex, to bet on games of chance, and to ingest psychoactive substances (or even raw milk). So according to the Times, the right-wing extremists attracted to Paul are a tolerant, cosmopolitan group that nevertheless harbors odious views about blacks, Jews, and gay people. Also note that the Times, perhaps unintentionally, says the Constitution “at its extreme has helped fuel militant antigovernment sentiment.” All the more reason to be wary of defending this radical document.
In short, the libertarian movement consists of two parts: 1) self-interested tycoons seeking low taxes and minimal regulation in the name of economic freedom and 2) crazy right-wingers who take the Constitution too seriously and worry about personal freedom. I always thought the distinguishing feature of libertarianism was defending both economic and personal liberty, based on the insight that they are two manifestations of the same thing. But what do I know? I did not realize that the rule of law was a concept invented by F.A. Hayek until the Times explained it to me.
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RCAF reportedly considering expansion of northern base
David Pugliese on the possible upgrade of air force facilities in the far north:
The Royal Canadian Air Force has looked at a major expansion at Resolute Bay, Nunavut, as it considers transforming it into a key base for Arctic operations, according to documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen.
The construction of a 3,000-metre paved runway, hangars, fuel installations and other infrastructure has been proposed for the future as part of an effort to support government and military operations in the North.
Resolute Bay in Nunavut would be able to provide a logistics site for search-and-rescue operations as well as a base for strategic refuelling aircraft, according to the briefing from the Arctic Management Office at 1 Canadian Air Division, the air force’s Winnipeg-based command and control division. The briefing was presented in June 2010 and recently released by the Defence Department under the Access to Information law.
[. . .]
The RCAF briefing also examined establishing a forward operating base on central Ellesmere Island by expanding the current facilities at Eureka, Nunavut. That initiative proposed adding new facilities and turning the location into a regional asset for government departments. Also included in the “FOB Eureka” concept is the proposal that the existing airfield be expanded.
Creating a Forward Operating Base Eureka could allow the military to downsize or rebuild the existing Canadian Forces Station Alert, according to the presentation.
CFS Alert is on the northeastern tip of Ellesmere Island and is used for the interception of communications.
The presentation noted that Eureka would be easier to sustain as it could be resupplied by sea while Alert has to be resupplied by air. Making Eureka the main Canadian Forces “very high” Arctic station would also allow the military to separate the missions of sovereignty enforcement and the role of communications intercepts, it added.
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The plight of Japan’s “herbivore men”
Think you had it tough as a teen? It’s not a good time to be a teenage boy in Japan:
It’s not easy being a young man in Japan today. Every few months sees the release of a new set of figures, stats and stories trumpeting the same meme: today’s Japanese men are unmanly — and worse, they don’t seem bothered by it.
Tagged in the domestic media over the past few years as hikikomori (socially withdrawn boys), soshoku danshi (grass-eating/herbivore men, uninterested in meat, fleshly sex and physical or workplace competition), or just generally feckless, Japan’s Y-chromosomed youth today elicit shrugs of “why?”, followed by heaving sighs of disappointment from their postwar elders and members of the opposite sex. With the country’s economy stagnant at best, its geopolitical foothold rapidly slipping into the crevice between China and the United States, and its northeast coastline still struggling with the aftermath of disaster and an ongoing nuclear crisis, the reaction to a failure of Japan’s men to take the reins, even symbolically, has evolved from whispers of curiosity to charges of incompetence.
[. . .]
Why the generational malaise and indifference to sex? Theories abound. The most provocative to me, a Japanese-American and longtime Tokyo resident, is that Japanese women have become stronger socially and economically at the very same time that Japanese men have become more mole-ish and fully absorbed in virtual worlds, satiated by the very technological wizardry their forebears foisted upon them, and even preferring it to reality. “I don’t like real women,” one bloke superciliously sniffed on Japan’s 2channel, the world’s largest and most active internet bulletin board site. “They’re too picky nowadays. I’d much rather have a virtual girlfriend.”
[. . .]
The phrase “herbivore men” was coined by a female Japanese journalist in 2006. By 2009, the Japanese male’s lack of ambition, sexually or otherwise, had become a media meme. With the latest reports in Japan, of men who can’t get it up for real women who won’t get married or have kids, the mutual gender-chill phenomenon has become mainstream. It may be the future, but is it really Japanese?
“Maybe we’re just advanced human beings,” says a Japanese friend of mine over dinner this week in Tokyo, who won’t let me use her real name. She is an attractive, 40-something editor at one of Japan’s premier fashion magazines, and she is still single. “Maybe,” she adds, “we’ve learned how to service ourselves.”
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Retirement age will have to rise: The Economist
In a development that should surprise nobody at all, governments around the world are slowly, reluctantly, grudgingly starting to make changes to their state pension systems:
Put aside the cruise brochures and let the garden retain that natural look for a few more years. Demography and declining investment returns are conspiring to keep you at your desk far longer than you ever expected.
This painful truth is no longer news in the rich world, and many governments have started to deal with the ageing problem. They have announced increases in the official retirement age that attempt to hold down the costs of state pensions while encouraging workers to stay in their jobs or get on their bikes and look for new ones.
Unfortunately, the boldest plans look inadequate. Older people are going to have to stay economically active longer than governments currently envisage; and that is going to require not just governments, but also employers and workers, to behave differently.
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NFL week 16 results
A good outing this week, but still not enough to move me very far back up the leaderboard in the AoSHQ pool. I’m now sharing 34th spot with two others (15 points behind the group leader).
∅ Houston 16 @Indianapolis 19
∅ Denver 14 @Buffalo 40
√ @Cincinnati 23 Arizona 16
∅ @Tennessee 23 Jacksonville 17
√ @Kansas City 13 Oakland 16
√ @New England 27 Miami 24
∅ @New York (NYJ) 14 New York (NYG) 29
√ @Pittsburgh 27 St. Louis 0
√ @Washington 26 Minnesota 33
√ @Carolina 48 Tampa Bay 16
√ @Baltimore 20 Cleveland 14
√ @Detroit 38 San Diego 10
∅ @Dallas 7 Philadelphia 20
√ San Francisco 19 @Seattle 17
√ @Green Bay 35 Chicago 21
√ @New Orleans 45 Atlanta 16
This week: 11-5 (9-7 against the spread)
Season to date 142-98
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December 26, 2011
Brian Doherty doesn’t think the Ron Paul newsletters matter very much
Over at Hit & Run, Brian Doherty outlines why he doesn’t think the Ron Paul Newsletter kerfuffle matters:
Many voices whose accomplishments I otherwise respect think that the fact Ron Paul had associates who, for a brief period over a decade in the past, wrote some mean-spirited, nasty, and dumb stuff rooted in race and sexual orientation under his name is the most important thing to discuss about Ron Paul, and that the public condemnation and humiliation of those supposedly responsible is the most important public policy issue surrounding Paul’s campaign now.
Part of this seems to be based on a so-far completely imagined belief that this particular repetition of the newsletter story cycle is somehow destroying Ron Paul’s campaign and that such name-naming or “grappling with the past” is necessary to save that campaign. While this may become true (and the consistent harping on and reminding people of it can’t help), there’s no evidence for it yet; Paul’s still gaining in polls. Note this Fox story headlined “Newsletters, Statements Cause Campaign Problems for Ron Paul” where the only voices they can find who actually thinks it’s an important issue belong to Paul’s opponent Newt Gingrich and GOP apparatchik Karl Rove and National Review editor Rich Lowry (whose own publication’s history has worse to answer to in terms of racial insensitivity combined with actual expressed support for legal actions against the rights of African-Americans, which leads Paul fans to believe that none of this has to do with actual objections to anyone with connections to past awful race-based comments, but with scuttling what is good about the Ron Paul campaign).
[. . .]
By any standard of political or moral judgment that I can respect, that is what is important about Ron Paul and the story of Ron Paul now. And from my five years of experience reporting on the Ron Paul movement that’s arisen since 2007, both for Reason and for my forthcoming book, I can assure any old libertarian worried about old libertarian movement business that it is the good things about Ron Paul that have won him the support and love he has won, and that this old business is irrelevant to them, and thus irrelevant to the actual important political and cultural story about Ron Paul now.
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Delingpole: “I wouldn’t write a rude song about Islam if you paid me a million quid”
James Delingpole is upset with the easy laughs that comedians can get for poking fun at Christianity, yet the same comic geniuses are terrified to offend the equally parody-worthy Islam — and for good reason. Write and perform a ditty about Jesus and you’re the toast of the town and get invited to all the late-night TV talk shows. Do something remotely the same on the topic of Mohammed and get a set of real death-threats and the constant need to check under your car for explosives:
Did you hear the song Aussie comic Tim Minchin wrote savagely satirising Islam for Channel 4’s Eid special? No, I didn’t either. It didn’t happen and it never would happen: first because no broadcast station in its right mind would ever allow it; second because I don’t believe that Minchin would be stupid enough to write it.
And I’m not calling Minchin out for physical cowardice on this issue. From the Danish cartoons to the Paris bombing, we’ve seen far too many cases of artists testing the right to free speech — only to find that where certain religions are concerned, such matters are strictly verboten. But what I am definitely accusing him of is hypocrisy and moral cowardice, as regards the banned song he wrote for a Jonathan Ross Christmas special likening Jesus to a blood-drinking zombie.
[. . .]
Again, let me stress, this isn’t a plea to Minchin to acquire set of cojones and commit suicide through the medium of satire. I wouldn’t write a rude song about Islam if you paid me a million quid. Or even ten million. But what I equally wouldn’t do is compromise my integrity by laying heavily into one soft-target religion while treating a rival one, far more ripe for satire, with kid gloves. To do so would, I think, make me look a hypocrite and a fraud.
Update, 27 December: Sorry, fixed the broken link. Didn’t realize it wasn’t working properly until now.
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Montana voters angry over “indefinite detention” vote, seek to recall their senators
Jonathan Turley has the details:
We have been discussing the disconnect between citizens who have repeatedly opposed continued rollbacks of civil liberties and the Democratic and Republican leadership pushing for such rollbacks, including the recent provision allowing indefinite detention of citizens under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 (NDAA). Now Montana citizens have decided to try another approach given the non-responsive attitude of our leaders — they are moving to remove their two Senators from office over their votes in favor of indefinite detention powers.
Montana is one of nine states with recall laws. The other states are Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Michigan, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, and Wisconsin. Eighteen states have recall laws, but most do not apply to federal officers.
H/T to Radley Balko for the link.
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The Tough Guide to Fantasy Cities
Charles Stross linked to this guide, suggesting that it is worth reading:
Introduction
If you are not attracted by the promise of an extended trek over rough terrain, with little access to hot showers or decent restaurants, the classic Tour of Fantasyland is probably not for you.That is why the Management now offers separate Fantasy City Tours, available to tour groups as well as single individuals. The cities on offer have been carefully selected: they are relatively modern, if not downright futuristic, and offer seasoned travellers the comforts they have come to expect. You will not encounter any rustic taverns, bards, or bowls of stew on these tours! Instead, expect nightclubs, rock singers, and lots of gourmet coffee.
In the Toughpick section, you will find details on the people, places and things you are likely to encounter in your chosen Fantasy City. Please note that while you will not encounter all of them, you will inevitably encounter some of them before the conclusion of your Tour, and it is best to be prepared.
As always, we have carefully marked certain words as Official Management Terms. You are advised to commit these to memory, as you will certainly encounter them everywhere in your Tour.
[. . .]
Civic Pride
When you visit a Tainted City, you will likely encounter a large variety of refugees, wanderers, outlaws, and criminals. Occasionally, if you are very lucky, you may even meet some honest Workers.Given the nightmarish and unhealthy environment, you may be tempted to ask a few of these people why they choose to stay in a city that is chock-full of Zombies or Mysterious Blight. Do not bother. They will not be able to produce a reason, at least not one that makes sense to you; you may recall the ancient anecdote about the man who cleaned up after the elephants in the circus.
Demons
Demons are often almost indistinguishable from mere humans. This goes especially for male demons, who for some reason greatly outnumber female demons in Undead Cities.Watch out for strange eyes (ebony OMT, fathomless OMT, unearthly blue OMT), a cruel mouth, and a general tendency towards boorish sarcasm. Admittedly nine tenths of the men you are likely to meet in Undead Cities will fit this description, so it does not really narrow things down much.
[. . .]
Goggles
They do nothing. However, they look cool. In a Steam-driven City, you will find these indispensable if you wish to look like a native.
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Evaluating French aircraft carrier performance in the Libya campaign
Strategy Page summarizes the efforts of the French aircraft carrier de Gaulle in the recently concluded Libyan operations:
The French nuclear aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, put in an epic performance of sustained combat air operations off Libya this year. From March to August France was one of the major contributors to the effort, flying 25 percent of the air sorties and contributing many of the warships off the coast of Libya. The 4,500 French air sorties put their aircraft in the air for 20,000 hours. About 30 percent of French sorties were flown from the de Gaulle and over half the French strike sorties were flown from the de Gaulle. Most (62 percent) of the carrier sorties were combat missions (usually bombing). The de Gaulle averaged 11.25 sorties per day when it was conducting air operations. The de Gaulle spent 120 flying days off Libya, in one case 63 straight days conducting combat operations. Aircraft operating from the de Gaulle spent 3,600 hours in the air and conducted 2,380 catapult takeoffs and carrier landings.
French warplanes carried out 35 percent of the bombing missions, using 950 smart bombs. These included 15 French made SCALP missiles and 225 Hammer GPS guided bombs. French helicopter gunships flew 90 percent of NATO helicopter attack missions, using 431 HOT missiles and thousands of cannon rounds. French warships fired over 3,000 rounds of 100mm and 76mm naval gun rounds at sea and land targets off the Libyan coast.
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December 25, 2011
Vikings win yesterday was bittersweet: they won the game, but lost Adrian Peterson
The game at Washington was never going to change much in the playoff picture: neither team is going to the post-season this year, but both teams were playing for pride. In the end, the Vikings won despite losing their starting quarterback and all-world running back on sequential plays. The win was a bit of a palliative for a doomed season, but the injury to Adrian Peterson sets next season into question.
Christopher Gates dips into his history texts to find the best way to describe yesterday’s game:
Pyrrhic victory (PIR-ik VIK-tuh-ree) n. A victory that is offset by staggering losses
The term “phyrric victory” is named after King Pyrrhus of Epirus, who did battle with the Romans in the Battle of Heraclea in 280 B.C. and the Battle of Asculum in 279 B.C. In both battles, the Romans suffered greater casualties than Pyrrhus’ army did. . .however, the Romans had a significantly larger base from which to draw troops. So, in essence, Pyrrhus’ victories came at too high a price, as he even went so far as to say that another such victory would be his undoing.
That’s pretty much what we saw today at FedEx Field in Washington, D.C., as the Minnesota Vikings fought like hell when it would have been easy to roll over, and got themselves a 33-26 victory over the Washington Redskins. The victory guarantees that they will a) not be the single-worst team in Minnesota Vikings’ history in terms of win-loss record, and b) no longer eligible for the top overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft.
While I still think Christian Ponder will develop into a good, dependable NFL quarterback, I’ve been a fan of Joe Webb since he was drafted. I’m delighted to see that he is getting the opportunity to showcase his diverse skill set, and I’d be even happier if the team can work him into games more regularly.
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The top 100 images from ESA/Hubble
Some breathtaking images from everyone’s favourite vantage point in space.
H/T to Lois McMaster Bujold for the link.
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QotD: The Prince Regent’s Christmas story
Edmund: So, shall I begin the Christmas story?
Prince: Absolutely! As long as it’s not that terribly depressing one about the chap who gets born on Christmas Day, shoots his mouth off about everything under the sun, and then comes a cropper with a couple of rum-coves on top of a hill in Johnny Arabland.
Edmund: You mean Jesus, sir?
Prince: Yes, that’s the fellow! Just leave him out of it — he always spoils the X-mas atmos.Blackadder’s Christmas Carol, 1988
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