The Agrinautica

   So apparently, a hacker managed to hack former president George W Bush's phone and email and that of his family members recently, which, I'd imagine, couldn't have been easy. Surely while he was president they'd make sure to lock that stuff down like nobody's business and a lot of that security would still be in place?

   And the hacker claims he's not worried about getting retaliated against, but I personally think he's probably about to wake up in Guatanamo Bay ... or one of those CIA secret prisons in Eastern Europe. And to a certain extent he may deserve it just for the absolutely hideous watermark he plastered on most of the released photos.

   But more to the point, he unleashed on the world NUDE SELF PORTRAITS OF GEORGE W BUSH!!

   Now before you gouge your eyes out pre-emptively, I'll let you know that you don't see anything "alarming" in said paintings:



   Now the commentary, at least on that article --which is the only one I've bothered to read about the incident-- refers to the paintings as "which are just as awkward and simple as you'd hope." But you know what? I'm actually impressed. I am way more impressed than if he had painting an absolutely stunningly beautiful farmhouse or something, because while it may not be masterfully executed, its one hell of a lot better than _I_ could do, and clearly he's doing something deeper here than just painting a pretty picture. This is something that can be psycho-analyzed, something about the vulnerability and relative facelessness portrayed (yet his face is in the mirror, is he looking at himeself or through the fourth wall at us?? WHAT DOES IT MEAN???). The revelation of these paintings expands the depth of his character in my perception by leaps and bounds. Turns out he's not just a cowboy who exclaims "yeehaw!" while pressing the bottom to blow something up in Iraq (as I've always imagined), he expressed himself artistically through painting.


   Now I've also got to touch on something that I'm sure has occurred to many, though it's a flagrant violation of Godwin's Law -- which OTHER historical world leader was famously in to painting?
   BUT, see, if you google "Hitler's paintings," which I now realize I'd never in my life bothered to do before, you'll see that he does exactly what I laud Bush for NOT doing -- he painted relatively well executed pictures of houses and landscapes ... which in my opinion shows a complete lack of real artistic depth.

M/V Fiana -   Remember the freighter that got hijacked off the Coast of Somalia? The M/V Faina with 33 Russian tanks and all kinds of other armaments (and 20 crew members)? As far as I can tell (google results in no new news) it is STILL sitting out there surrounded by US and Russian warships. A spokesman for the pirates has said "We are happy on the ship, and are celebrating (ARR?)"

M/V* Cosco Busan -   Remember the freighter that crashed into a bridge support in the San Francisco Bay and spilled oil everywhere about a year ago (Nov 7th, 2007)? Six of the crewmembers are STILL detained as material witnesses a year later.
   "Living rent-free in apartments and hotels, they are permitted to roam San Francisco and the surrounding area. They continue to draw their salaries, and each also receives $1,200 per month in witness fees, more than the monthly salary of at least one detained seaman." (from the article) -- Sounds to me like they've got it made!


   Going back to Somalia for a moment though, apparently Somalia loves Russia and has applauded their War on Georgia and promised to recognize the Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independant countries. Such sauce!


Picture of the Day

This picture was kind of an accident. I don't normally adjust curves or levels on my pictures but I opened up that function and it was set on this extreme adjustment from last time I messed with it, and I thought it was pretty sweet. You can see the normal version here, or the bigger sweeter version of this one.

Other new beekeeping pictures

emo_snal: twice your daily recommended diet of FACTS!

   If there's one thing I think people should care more about, but instead seem to have a shocking disregard for it is people in other countries.

   Sure people will always express a polite concern about the welfare of people in other countries, maybe even vaguely endorse policies or movements which they've taken a wild guess might help people in another country. But I found when it actually comes to seriously caring about them, people exhibit a shocking geographic discrimination.

   The most blatant example of this I think is during presidential elections, where for months you hear every day about both candidates stumping around about how they're gonna stop "us" from "losing american jobs!!" etc etc. And even outside the context of elections you hear people say that - losing American jobs to anyone in any other country is apparently always considered a tragedy.
   You see, if someone in Ohio loses their job to someone in Guatamala, all I ever hear is that thats an outrage. From politicians, from people in Ohio, from people here thousands of miles from Ohio.
   But the way I see it, someone in Ohio loses their job, three people in Guatamala gain jobs. That unemployed person in Ohio is probably STILL better off than the three people in Guatamala who now have better jobs than they did before.
   And so, I don't care if trade liberalization causes Americans to lose their jobs. And I submit that you too should consider people living outside your border to be just as human as those living within it.

Addressing the Excuses
   As I've run this argument past my friends, as I mentioned yesterday, nearly all of them balked at it. Lets explore some of the counter-arguments they raised:

(1) "Trade with oppresive regimes legitimizes them!!" was one I got from a number of my friends. And this is a convenient out that makes one feel really morally upright for not caring about people, but does it really make sense?
   First and foremost, do you know of any South American (those from elsewhere please bear with me on the focus on trade in the Americas, but it's the terms trade liberalization is usually talked about in here) regimes that are evil and oppressive offhand? I mean, yes there are certainly some sinister ones that come to mind in the past, and there's some now that have corruption problems or are otherwise less-than-optimal, but are any of them actually non-democratic? I think first and foremost this counterargument hinges upon a silly, inaccurate and patronizing idea of what life in South America is like.
   But furthermore, studies show* that democracy only flourishes when per capita GDP is higher than $5,000 per annum. Therefore the answer to helping oppressed people is not to refuse to have anything to do with them but rather support their economic development.

(2) "Yeah now those jobs are being done by people in sweatshops!" -- Yes human slavery does still exist and still do sweatshops. HOWEVER I know of no country, particularly in the Americas, where it's a regular part of the economy. People have a choice in what they do. If they're working in factories in conditions that we'd find deplorable or with a standard of living we'd find unacceptable, it's presumably because they didn't have better options. They chose to work at the factory because without the factory their options would be worse.
   I'm not saying we should call the situation all a-okay because of this logic, I believe everything possible to improve their conditions should still be done, I'm just saying that it's not because of free trade that their conditions are bad. And more to the point, because their conditions aren't optimum is absolutely not a justification for not wanting them to "take American jobs."

(3) "Hey I'M from Ohio!" objects hereticxxii at my use of Ohio as an example. "LOL but now you work in Korea" say I.

(4) "Well what if it was YOUR job that was taken overseas" Honestly I'm pretty sure if I got edged out by beekeepers in Mexico I'd feel the same way about it if I got edged out by beekeepers in Utah ("the Beehive State") or say that filthy squatter who set up his beehives on empty land not half a mile from our bees last week and the County has been dragging its feet on investigating. His bees are bad-tempered (one stung me in the ear while I was snooping around) and his practices unhygenic (leaving collapsed colonies side by side with healthy ones, is he TRYING to infect them all with something?!) ... but I digress.
   But yeah, if I lost my job I lost my job and blaming the guy that took it would just be focusing frustration in a wrong and negative direction.


What About Those Who Lost Their Jobs
   My main point here is that we shouldn't see Americans losing their jobs due to free trade causing those employment opportunities to move elsewhere as something deplorable, due to the fact that the people receiving those jobs are better off. But so as not to be completely insensitive to my fellow Americans, I thought I'd hit on why it's also better for America.
   The world is a better place when everyone is producing what they have a comparative advantange in producing. That is, everything is being produced by whomever it is most efficient for it to be produced by. The free market causes this to happen, and this is a good thing because it means there is more all around consumer goods being produced, meaning there is more for everyone to consume. To put it more simply, it's better for the economy.
   When we subvert free trade by trade barriers we keep our people happily doing stuff that they are not the best at producing. They may be happy, and if they're in a swing state the politicians will pander shamelessly to them, but they're not actually going to be producing as much as they would if economic restructuring were allowed to follow its natural course. Over time if we were to allow it to sit like this our economy would become increasingly backwards as it would fail to keep up with the global economy.
   Being unemployed sucks. Finding a new career can be daunting. However, these auto workers or factory workers who are losing their jobs DO presumably have the ability to do other things, and would presumably end up doing them if they had to.


In Conclusion
   In conclusion the fact that people care about the welfare and specifically employment status of people belonging to their own country infinitly more than they care about the same for people of a different country is an arbitrary discrimination. You should care just as much about the welfare of people in other countries and you shouldn't try to edge them out with protectionist trade policies.


* I wish I could remember my original source for this but I can't. But if you google for example "democracy $5,000 per capita" you get a number of references to it, including one from JSTOR that is surely a scholarly enough source to cite, but I no longer have JSTOR access /=

** Pictured at upper right: employees making use of gratuitous free space at the Budweiser factory I visited last week

See Also
The Making of Entry 3 - An outtake
Topic 3 Bonus Entry - Probably a better entry than this one!

   Kosovo has declared its independence. As you know its had de facto independence from Serbia since 1999 NATO air strikes. 16,000 NATO troops are stationed in Kosovo to protect it from Serbia, which has declared the declaration of independence "illegal." Serbia has vowed to fight the independence by giving any state that recognizes Kosovo a diplomatic cold shoulder (oh noes!), and Serbian mobs stormed the Slovenian embassy (?!) where they burned Slovenian and EU flags. Russia has called for an emergency Security Council session and vowed to veto any UN recognition of Kosovo as a state.


   On the subject of declaring independence, while researching Malaysia for the recent MUN conference I discovered that Singapore is the only state known ever to gain its independence against its own will -- it was expelled from the Malaysian Federation in 1965.


   And as long as we're talking about politics, I'm actually going to tell you which US Presidential candidates I support!
( The US Primary Candidate I Support Is... )

   It has occured to me, that IF Hillary Clinton were to be elected President, that would mean that for 24 years the Presidency will have had been held by two immediate families.

   Is this not rather alarming? And why haven't I heard the media point this out?

And They're Off!
   We already have postings by xiositecte, ironlioninzion, bartgroks, beastmario, eazyt, and (sort of) pavel_lishin. Additionally, forrest441, alonemirage2see, witless_nerd, abunchofcrap and the uncorruptable blueliquid13 (and of course add emosnail to the list) have pledged, implied, or drunkenly cursed themselves to participate. And you should too!


   And now its time for a game of...
Guess My Political Affilitiation!!
   Once upon a time, the minutes from an ASUCD Internal Affairs Commission meeting were submitted as evidence for a (ASUCD) court case I was presiding over. While looking over the minutes I was rather shocked to see that also included in that section of the minutes was a discussion among all the commissioners as to whether or not I was a Republican.
   A few weeks later ASUCD President Sara Henry tried to get me recused from a court case based on, as she told the Aggie reporter, the fact that she believed I belonged to the Green Party (the case involved something the Davis Greens had been behind). I subsequently recused myself from the case because regaradless of whether or not the charge had grounds, I didn't want even the perception of shadiness.
   Aggie writer Ian Watson once wrote an entire article about how I'm a horrible Communist ... and was subsequently fired for plagiarism.
   And somewhere in the mean time I ran into then-Senator (ASUCD) Cohen-Cutler who casually started a conversation with me saying that he didn't agree with my politics. When asked what politics of mine he was referring to he responded confidently that he was referring to Libertarians.

   Obviously there is some prominant confusion on the subject of my political views. Confusion that is interesting enough to be discussed in meetings and newspapers. To help figure it out lets review some of the controversial political statements I've made.

1. Down with Farm Subsidies! Gov't should buy the surplus and ship it to starving people in Africa.
2. Up with Estate Tax!
3. Outlaw smoking (Gradually)!
4. IF one is concerned about the "sanctity of marriage," isn't DIVORCE a graver concern than same-sex marriage? I say let them get their divorces ... but no second marriages!
5. Progressive taxation for corporations!! The entry that single handedly caused roter_terror to add me to the "enemies of communism" list I think.
6. Military recruiters: what better place to have them than on college campuses? Also don't join up and then whine about having to actually fulfil your military duty.
7. November 2006 Election Issues: (7A) No unnecessary government seizures of private property -- even if the private property belongs to a big and probably-evil corporation. (7B) More cigarettes taxes! (to use market forces to compel the gradual elimination thereof) (7C) More gas taxes! (to use market forces to compel reduction of gas consumption) (7D) Environmental Protection (in some obscure way I didn't really understand, see entry)! (via "no" on Prop 90)

   Also I thought I'd note that for several months on Nationstates.net I ran the Dominion of Blehtahepdakorum as a "Psychotic Dictatorship," with no human rights, no civil rights, and the most stringent environmental protection possible. This of course is not necessarily how I'd run a real country ;)

[Poll #995568]

Related
   Entry 1 of 30 in 30 I   - I Discover 30 in 30 - and "megabloggery / underbloggery," on the 16th of June. I immediately embark on 30 in 15 to catch up.
   Entry 1 of 30 in 30 II  - "The Blogging Begins" - Season two begins with 17 posts by 9:30pm on the 1st. Five more would join the second day
   Entry 1 of 30 in 30 III - Real World Happenings - Party at blueliquid13's, and circular arguments in the internal affairs commission.


   In unrelated news, ASUCD Commissioners were apparently recently awarded the "Paul Harms Commissioner of Freedom Award" for excellent commissionerhood or something. IMHO, this reflects rather crassly on the primate.. especially considering I don't think he finished more than half a term as commissioner before getting fired from that position.
   Note that I'm still planning on naming the most infamous and most excellent ASUCD politicians later on here. I may even award some particularly heroic individuals The Order of Trogdor or some such.

The Gazebo Incident
   Three years ago today there was no entry. Thats because at the time I was in the hospital due "blunt head trauma" due to getting kicked in the head while unconscious due to a lucky hit one of three guys who jumped me in a park got on my temple.

   We had leads on who these people were, but officer Calvin Chang declined to do anything about it. Needless to say, Officer Chang was fired within a month.

   The ASUCD Senate however decided to proclaim that Calvin Chang had done a good job. I wasn't very popular with them back then. Chang got rehired, its gone back and forth and now he's suing the regents.
   Fortunately UC Regents President Dynes has got my back.
   Just kidding. Sorry to those of you who don't get that one, but its pretty funny really.

   Incidently, in a situation roughly analogous to mine, which Chang termed "just a fight," a guy was given three years in prison for knocking their opponent unconscious and kicking them in the head, and he wasn't even the attacker.


Controvercial Polling
   Many people believe that one should be able to marry whomever they want. If we combine this philosophical tenet with a moral tenet held to be true by a major religion of today (yet forbidden by the dominant religion of the United States and not questioned here), we get an interesting question almost never discussed here:
[Poll #744737]

Picture of the Day

Guess which two people here ended up dating

Previously on Emosnail
   Year Ago Today: Controversial Political Topics! - Estate taxes & the gradual elimination of cigarettes from society


   Pick of the Day: emd, for drawing portraits of fellow bloggists. Keeping in mind there are two hours left of this day, I will still consider anything posted these last two hours, but right now I'm about to go over to Kristy's to work on my paper there so I had to get this done now.

   So I woke up this morning filled with regret over somethign I'd done the night before. Filled with regrets and second-thoughts. And my internet access was down so I couldn't see how bad it was, but I had a feeling that I'd written a rash and overly saucy theological rant the night before. Anyway I finally got around to looking it (in the computer lab) and its not as bad as I'd feared, so I'm going to go ahead and make some more saucy comments.

   But first to reemphasize from last night, and on further contemplation since then, I think the single most underrated misunderstanding in the history of theology is whether or not it sounds like it would be a pleasant arrangement has absolutely no bearing on whether or not something is theologically true.


   But now to cause controversy in another area. Military recruitment at universities. For the past two weeks or more the letters to the editor in the California Aggie have been filled with arguments back and forth on this subject. In particular I'd like to single todays letter by one Leah Sicat out for ridicule. Her thesis statement: "alternative information about the military is rarely provided to students. Usually the good side about the military, rather than its connection to war, is presented.   So, what does she want, a warning label similarly to the "caution: hot" found on coffee cups? Caution: military duty may involve war? I mean I try to think of the alternatives when someone argues against something and two occur to me on this subject: (1) as Sicat advocates, have them deliver a stern disclaimer to potential recruits, or (2) the more commonly advocated removal of them from universities. As to point one, I can hardly imagine it being anything other than just that, a stern warning that joining the military isn't a decision to be taken lightly and may bring the participant under hostile fire in a foreign war. I must say however, that I think they should already know that and it seems like a silly solution, though easily implemented if one feels its really prudent.
   And as to point two, this implies there are better places for recruiters to hang out ... like high schools?? If one's believes, as Licat and many others seem to, that military recruiters exploit those who don't see any other opportunities for themselves, it seems like this solution would have the opposite of the intended affect. In conclusion on this point, I think university students are probably much better prepared to intelligently consider the offers of military recruiters than potential other audiences, and more likely to have other opportunities and thus not be compelled to join through "lack of other opportunities."
   And for a grande finale of ruining my sensitivity credentials, two more bonus points. Firstly I'd like to note that Licat refers to herself and others as "students of colour" throughout her article, a term which I personally find racist as it describes persons of european descent as being "colourless" and inherently different from everyone else. But moreover, I'd like to mention the perpetual argument that people join the military for the "opportunities" and are then exploited when they are sent into military operations. There is one reason and one reason only people are paid to be in the military: to fight, or to be prepared to fight. During peace time, military personnel are maintained and paid beyond their necessity because they are being paid to be PREPARED to fight when needed. If one joins the military for the opportunities, but is not prepared to fight, one is being paid for something they are representing to have but in fact do not -- they are committing nothing short of fraud. The military is not a welfare organization whose purpose is simply to provide jobs.

   In other news, my little brother is currently on his second tour of duty in Iraq. Apparently he'd injured his hand before heading out there again, but didn't tell anyone lest it cause him not to be sent to Iraq. I must say that his courage and honest desire to fulfill his duties makes me very proud.

   While eating my breakfast of pizza at 1pm this morning and reading Time magazine, I had another revelation, one I think may be more controversial than my anticlimatic subsidy declaration:

( Al-queda & Iraq )

Picture of the Day

Kris and Alex
Kristinehamn, Sweden
© Chris (lastname?) 1999

   This relates to this post because: it'll surely encourage you to take my opinions more seriously.

Posted: 1454 hours