I, for one, welcome our new extinct pygmy underlords
NewScientist:
Tiny new species of human unearthed
Tool and fire users with brains the size of grapefruit. Mmm, grapefruit.
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North Korea -- or Mordor?
Via
Marginal Revolution:
A social experiment
The darkness covering North Korea is evident from space... and there's even a sinister, albeit uncompleted, dark tower.
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The Kurzweil 250?
CIO Magazine:
Machine Dreams - Interview with Ray Kurzweil
I keep seeing reports that Ray Kurzweil takes "250 supplements a day" to help extend his life -- but no mention of specifics. Where's the list, Ray? (And, are they all plausibly legal in the US?)
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I want to pay the same tax rate as the Heinz-Kerrys
Stephen Moore in the WSJ:
A Wild and Crazy Guy
In 2003, George and Laura Bush paid an effective tax rate on their income of about 30%. I estimate that I paid an effective tax rate of 28%. The average middle-class family paid an effective tax rate of 20%. Billionaire couple John Kerry and Theresa Heinz Kerry, with an income ten times the Bushes, paid an effective tax rate of just 13%.
It's awfully hard to soak the rich. They know how to work the system to their advantage; that's one of the ways they got rich. Our best chance at a fair system is a simple, flat tax, with a generous individual deduction that frees anyone at a subsistence level of income from any taxes.
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Breasts and Wings
Perhaps the
Wing Women should offer an upsell where your wing woman is actually
breast-feeding during your outing.
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IPac - "A PAC for balanced intellectual property policy"
A new PAC which electioneers for more sensible intellectual property laws has launched:
IPac. Its tagline: "Defending the public interest where culture and technology meet."
Good idea. Unsure of the name, though. Should it be said "I-Pac," like IPod? Such an association -- while cute now -- could eventually seem dated as fads change. They might also be misheard as AIPAC -- though that might not be such a bad thing when phoning legislators to get a meeting.
Or is it "I.P. Ack!", an exasperated exclamation?
Or should it be said "I.P. Action," like their domain name if not their logo? (What's up with promoting a name different from the domain? That tends to dilute the identity-juice...)
But these are nits. Whatever the name I'm rooting for them.
("IPac" also somewhat reminds me of Robin Gross's IPJustice, whose name has always struck me as a little funny. "Hey, take me out for a night of beers around the corner from the RIAA's offices, and by the end of the night I'll pee a little justice, too!")
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India, from a globalist and a tourist
Rediff.com:
'India has the innate ability to glocalize'
A 2-part interview with Thomas L Friedman of the NYTimes highlights Friedman's sunny view of outsourcing and offshoring. His cutesy coinages -- "glocalize," "the world is flat," "Globalization 3.0," "the McDonald's theory [of peace between nations]" -- get a bit cloying, but he has an important message. Meanwhile...
Slate: Trying Really Hard To Like India
A 5-part travelogue which, seeing brutal poverty in India from a tourist's perspective, finds dark humor in it. Slate may get indignant nastygrams, but levity can be a legitimate way to face horrors honestly, rather than simply turning away or adopting a hypocritical solemnity.
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