The Exercise of Vital Powers

Apparently the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church wasn’t driving from Istanbul (Was Constantinople, now it’s Instabul) after 1453. Instead the Caliphs allowed him to remain. Now is seems the Government of Turkey has taken steps to get rid of him by attrition.

Georgia Legislative Watch » HR415 - Government of Turkey; urge to grant the Ecumenical Patriarch international recognition

There has been a lot of talk about commuter rail recently. Gwinnett developer Emory Morseberger is spending a lot of money promoting his “Brain Train” from Atlanta to Athens. Other groups are pushing for a rail line from Atlanta to Lovejoy and then down to Macon. Of course these folks want the government (Federal, state and local) to pay for the rail, saddling taxpayers with an expensive boondoggle that many believe won’t really solve the traffic problems in the Atlanta metro area.

Why Rail Won’t work
Railroads are point-to-point. Marta is great if I need to get from Georgia Tech to Lenox Mall or from the airport to CNN Center. It does me no good if I need to get from Howell Mill to Emory, CabbageTown to Vinings, or Tucker to Peachtree City. Atlantians work all over the Metro area: Windward, Interstate N. Parkway, Norcross, McDounogh, Peachtree City. The amount of rail needed to meet the needs of the Atlanta workforce will break the budget.

For the past year I commuted from Gwinnett to Midtown every morning. I85 from Sugarloaf to I285 was stop and go. Once I crossed inside I285, I was regularly able to do 70-80Mph. The traffic from the burbs isn’t going into the heart of the city where these rail lines want to run.
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Story

In other news, the British Government will be re-attaching the head of Ann Boylin.

Interesting List

Background here.

HT: The Agitator

The President has directed agencies not to accept earmarks from Congress unless they are encoded in statute. I’m not sure what percentage of earmarks are just strong-armed in by Congress critters, (vs officially appropriated), but Sens DeMint and Colburn and Rep. Flake seem to think this is a good thing, so I’ll defer to their judgement.

I will say this, Mr. President: It would have been nice if you did this before we lost the majority in Congress.

Three schools in the north Phoenix suburb of Cave Creek were on lockdown for about 45 minutes Wednesday morning after a student at Desert Arroyo Middle School reported seeing a person dressed as Batman run across campus, jump a fence and disappear into the desert, (source)

Ok, this lockdown thing is getting a bit ridiculous.

I’ve gone ahead and created a category of Stupid Government Tricks.

“I hope they can see this cause I’m doing it as hard as I can”

Here is an old letter to Paul Krugman on the difference between arguing consequences and motives.

11 Most Important Philosophical Quotations.

The human side of Jack Abramoff

Bono’s remarks to the National Prayer Breakfast with George W. Bush & King Abdullah of Jordan. Bono, Bush, King Abdullah - that sounds like the start of a joke.

The GOP’s Cassandra

Headline on Drudge just now:
“HEARING ON ‘WARMING OF PLANET’ CANCELED BECAUSE OF SNOWSTORM”

And a local thug abuses his power

Get a First Life: A One Page Satire of Second Life

This is Hilarious. For those who don’t get the joke, Second Life is a Stephensonesque virtual world where people go to create a second personality. I don’t see it any different that hanging out with friends at a pub/mall/racetrack - Its just another venue for socializing. Some people do take it a bit far.

That said, Western culture has moved from the industrial age to the information age and from manufacturing to intellectual property. I think its perfectly reasonable for someone to create a fulfilling career inside a game like Second Life. Musicians, artists and movie producers are obvious examples, but it applies to engineering related pursuits too. I can write software as Moldar the Magnificent^* just as easily as Chris Farris, and lets face is Moldar is a cooler name.

In one of my recent “I hate my job and what I do moments” I decided it would be fun to become a Central Banker in World of Warcraft. Several Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMORPGs) had run into issues where either too much gold is in the system that they experience currency devaluation (think Wiemar Germany) or they make it too easy to create value (if you’re a geek think magic items) and suffer massive inflation. In a digital world a simple sql statement can double the amount of precious metal. A way is needed to maintain a robust economy while adjusting for changes in population (aka subscribers). This becomes even more important in games like Second Life where the user base wants to be able to exchange in-game currency for real dollars/euros/yen.

Finally, Kudos to Second Life creator Linden Labs for not going nuts over the parody site. See their response.