Book Of Norm

“If you talk to Warren [Buffet], he’ll tell you his preference is not to meddle in the economy at all — let the market work, however way it’s going to work, and then just tax the heck out of people at the end and just redistribute it ,” Obama said. “That way you’re not impeding efficiency, and you’re achieving equity on the back end.”

No, I am not talking about that the fact that the rest of the world is watching this race with more interest than ever before, nor the fact that there are screaming legions of Obama supporters across most of Europe, nor the fact that three Brazilian senators just petitioned to change their names to Barak Obama,  or the fact that the election will set US policy at a vital time, I am talking about the fact that neither of the candidates were born in the US. Well, Obama might have, but there is doubt (and a lawsuit, see post), but McCain was distinctly born in Panama, in the then US controlled canal zone. Some have claimed that because of this, he is not a "natural born citizen" and thus not eligible to be the head honcho.   Seems as though most experts are pretty clear they see someone being born of two US citizens, the father stationed abroad on orders of the US govt. (Navy), is a "natural born citizen." The reason it is interesting is that the case h...

Short version is that Russia is good a propaganda and had long planned the assault, as well as for all intents and purposes initiating the assault. From the WSJ: How the Georgian Conflict Really Started By MELIK KAYLAN August 28, 2008; Page A15 Tbilisi 'Anybody who thinks that Moscow didn't plan this invasion, that we in Georgia caused it gratuitously, is severely mistaken," President Mikheil Saakashvili told me during a late night chat in Georgia's presidential palace this weekend. "Our decision to engage was made in the last second as the Russian tanks were rolling -- we had no choice," Mr. Saakashvili explained. "We took the initiative just to buy some time. We knew we were not going to win against the Russian army, but we had to do something to defend ourselves." I had just returned from Gori, which was still under the shadow of Russian occupation. I'd learned there on the ground how Russia has deployed a highly deliberate propaganda ...

It is interesting that on Star Trek, most every race encountered seems to be bipedal, human shaped, and generally very similar in both ability and intelligence. My idea is that it is possible the level of intelligence does not vary greatly between advanced beings, though size and shape will vary widely. Then again... Following the model of evolution on earth, we know a few things to be true. The first is that intelligence only comes about when there is an evolutionary benefit: increasing survival and the size of the next generation. The second, and vital question, is at what point does evolution stop? And I believe that to be directly tied to the notion of a self-aware individual, no longer following instincts. It is of course more complex than that, level of support for all individuals must be relatively similar regardless of intelligence etc, but this is something which came about hundreds if not thousands of years ago for humans. At that point, there is no greater likelihood that an...

"To evolve is to survive" err, not sure who said that, or if anyone ever did.. but regardless, I have taken the message to heart. If you dont have firefox 3, get it now. Then get a little app called Gmail file space. Its about 200k, and its completely inconspicuous, and turns your gmail account into an online harddrive. Not sure how they do it, but its fantastic. Then, log in with the account BookOfNorm@gmail.com and the password normspace thats: bookofnorm@gmail.com normspace In there you will find more rich media Norman content than you could ever hope to find. Well, actually, you will currently find: Owl City - One of my new favorite bands, basically a cross between Postal Service and Shiny Toy Guns A bunch of my favorite pictures Carolina Liar - One of my other new favorite bands. Get this, or you will be the last one left out when everyone around you is humming "I'm Not Over" and you dont know why... Transport Tycoon Delux - Quite possibly one of the best s...

Long talked about, long written about, we are now at the cusp of a new era. A few days ago a Reaper aircraft (the bigger meaner brother of the predator which has become so famous), sighted, target, and destroyed a remote controlled vehicle being used as a bomb by the insurgency in Iraq. Both vehicles were of course still remotely controlled, and the insurgency vehicle presumably only in a rudimentary line-of-sight manner, but regardless it marks the first robot-on-robot kill in human warfare, and it will be far from the last.

The UK stands 4th on the overall medal table at the end of the Olympics, with 19 gold medals. That is pretty damn impressive for the motherland, and a far better showing than they were hoping for (they targeted 8th overall as their goal). Article on their return home from the BBC: Members of the Great Britain team arrived back in the United Kingdom from China on Monday following their best Olympic performance for 100 years. British competitors won 19 golds in Beijing to finish fourth in the medal table with a haul of 47 medals. The team landed at Heathrow Airport on a dedicated British Airways Boeing 747 featuring a special gold medal "nose". The biggest cheer was for the first sight of all the gold medallists led by Becky Adlington and Chris Hoy. Hoy, triple gold-medallist in the velodrome, said: "It's quite overwhelming. It's an incredible reception. You're living in a bubble in the Olympic village and it's only when you land and see quite how many peo...

So, and this is scary stuff I warn you, I just got back from a day trip out on the Dip (family boat), and I have to say the jellyfish bloom in the Mid-Atlantic is quite amazing and appalling. There are a few species, one small and translucent that does not sting and one up to about 8in in diameter, red, and with long nasty looking tentacles, and they are everywhere. There are, quite literally, millions of them. Far more than I have ever seen before. You sail along, and there they are, all around you, all around the boat, everywhere. Colleen and I went ashore on a small island and found a spot where about 200 of them were clumped together in a few square yards of ocean because of the tide and current. Makes me nervous just to go in the water (and I know that some beaches in Europe have already had to install jellyfish nets so that people could go swimming.) To me, loving going in the ocean and out on the water, this is one of the most apparent and appalling symptoms of the destruction o...

This is, in my eyes, a major blow to the Obama campaign, and it came from.. Hillary Clinton. A Clinton ally has filed a lawsuit against Obama claiming that he was actually born in Kenya (his mother was meant to fly back to Hawaii for the birth, but there is pretty good evidence she did not make it back). This is interesting because it cannot be dismissed easily by the Obama campaign coming as it does from inside the democratic party, and two because I have been very surprised all along at the very limited airing of the question of whether or not Obama was actually American. I have actually thought about the issue many times before, as I am both interested in public office and a dual citizen. I have been amazed and impressed that the US public has been so muted on Obama's ties to other nations, and specifically (and most surprising of all) the fact that he is or at least was raised Islamic. To some degree I wonder how much of it is the fact that the US public simply does not know or...

Valerie's letter has 5 pages. The title "V for Vendetta" contains 5 syllables. The title of each chapter begins with the letter V. The character V is seen reading and quoting from Thomas Pynchon 's novel, V. Beethoven 's fifth symphony is used by V and noted for the prominent use of three short notes and one long, which is the Morse Code identifier for the letter V (this code was used as a call sign by the BBC during World War II, most famously in the sense of V for Victory). Evey's name is composed of "E" (the fifth letter of the alphabet), "V" (5 in Roman numerals, and the fifth letter from the end of the alphabet), and "Y" (25th letter of the alphabet, or 5 squared). The woman who dies in the cell next to that of V at Larkhill is named Valerie Page. V leaves a violet carson after he kills someone. V is eventually identified as the prisoner from Room 5 at Larkhill Internment Camp. The five doors are labeled with Rom...

Frontier markets market cap growth. This is not in my paper, but I just really like this chart--though it is hard to read... pretty incredible growth.

It was a rubber suit. No real shock there.

It really means very little, but my hope is that it makes the media get their head out of their ass and realize that a lot of the country does not see Obama as the Messiah. My central worry is that the more that I hear of McCain's policies (as he has moved to the middle on the economy to garner support), the less I like. E.g. the way to lower gas prices is not by implementing a "windfall" (thieves) tax on oil companies. He is at least also further towards the middle on social issues as well (other than the necessary support for abortion during a Republican election campaign), and is certainly more protective of the environment than the public land-use and CO2 happy GWB. For those confused on how that last sentence meshes with being a libertarian, libertarians generally speaking see a role for the government in protecting common goods. While some would argue that there is no such thing, or the definition is very narrow, I see the environment and environmental resources as ...

So, its been all over the mainstream news now: a couple of local guys down in Georgia claim to have the body of a bigfoot. Most within the bigfoot community think that they are doing it just to get money and attention, as they run a bigfoot tour business and have set up a online store etc. I tend to agree. The most interesting part of the story to me has been just how good these guys are at marketing. Stanford has in fact offered both of them honorary professorships of entrepreneurship, quite impressive in its own right.

A group of dolphins off of Australia have been seen tail-walking, and teaching each other the trick. One of the females in the group spent a couple weeks and a dolphinarium when after becoming sick from being trapped in a lock, and she likely saw the behavior there, picked it up, and then taught others in the wild. There is of course no benefit to this behavior other than that it is fun, and a new trick to play around with. The transmission of ideas and indeed the creation of a "culture" shows the high level of these animal's intelligence. I wonder whether the very medium of water acts as a barrier to higher levels of intelligence, as intelligence is directly related to the need to manipulate and control the environment around you. This is a) more complex in the three dimensional world underwater, and b) more difficult with streamlined shapes best suited to aqueous environments.

Sweden is generally viewed from the US as a shining example of a successful socialist state. A nation where citizens identify with each other so strongly, and social norms so powerfully affect individuals that it is often seen to operate outside of normal rational human behavior. In reality, it is a highly controlled society, using authoritarian tactics to maintain stability. Great article forwarded from my brother: While Sweden Slept By BRUCE BAWER | December 8, 2006 http://www.nysun.com/opinion/while-sweden-slept/44831/ The approach of the New Year and departure of the old inevitably brings a flurry of "year's best" lists. This even applies to nations, which some organizations make it their business annually to rank in order of wealth, quality of life, and what-have-you. Surprisingly often, the Nordic countries come out on top. This placement is usually a reflection less of objective reality, however, than of the list-makers' enthusiasm for the Nordic welfare-...

Naked shorting should be banned. The industry's opposition to this is understandable, but has no place in legitimate and well regulated market. Interestingly, the financial media have been trying as hard as possible to make the SEC's naked short selling ban look like a foolish mistake, as for a long time, most have been against the idea that naked short selling is an issue at all. It is, and lets just hope the SEC has the balls to go through with regulations. Not the best written or least biased article out there, but interesting nonetheless: Media Herd Lassoed by a Lie August 19th, 2008 by Mark Mitchell In the middle of last week, a previously unknown professor in Switzerland published a report that purported to show that the SEC’s emergency order preventing naked short selling in 19 financial companies had been a mistake. By the end of Friday, that report had become the basis for stories by reporters at the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Economist, Th...