23 January 2010

New York Times Whines about Expanded Free Speech

Does Corporate Money Lead to Political Corruption?
Their corporate editorial conclusion is yes, of course.

The Court’s Blow to Democracy
Because nothing says freedom like a muzzle from the Congress, backed up by the muzzle of a gun.

Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit
Oh the humanity!

24 States’ Laws Open to Attack After Campaign Finance Ruling
A step in the right direction if you ask me.  But they never ask anybody like me.

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The Female Terrorists Robert Steele has been Warning of

Open Source Security advocate, Robert Steele has been trying to warn people for years about various Middle-eastern bad-players recruiting and training women for all sorts of things against the West.  From intelligence gathering to actual attacks.  So, this does not really come as a surprise:

ABC: Female bombers may target US

Al-Qaeda training female suicide bombers who may not look Arab, carry Western passport ABC says

WASHINGTON - Al-Qaeda is training female suicide bombers in Yemen, including at least two who do not look Arab and carry Western passports, ABC reported.
According the report, the current threat is tangible but the female bombers have not yet been sent on their suicide missions.


Former White House counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke reported that al-Qaeda trains the female terrorists in Yemen. American officials have said that a recent US air strike on the terror network's training camp in the country killed many would-be suicide bombers but not all of them.
According to Clarke, many of the terror activists training at the camp have light skinned and may not look Arab.
I do object to the phrasing "look Arabic," more to the idea that there is just one look.  I've run into enough Arabic people who "look Western" to know these phrases are meaningless.
 
Meanwhile in Iraq:
 
Iraqi Forces Arrest Suspected Terrorists
 
In northwest Baghdad, Iraqi security forces and U.S. advisors searched a residential building for a suspected female terrorist who is believed to be actively recruiting female suicide bombers for use in high-profile attacks against government officials and civilians.


The Iraqi forces identified and arrested the alleged terrorist and another suspect without incident.

During a second operation in Esaiwid, northeast of Baghdad, Iraqi security forces and U.S. advisors searched for a member of a Kirkuk-based improvised explosive device cell. The man also is suspected of aiding terrorist leaders.

Isreal has been dealing with those for quite a few years too.

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22 January 2010

Suki I the paperback coming soon

Decided to make individual books in the series available as paperbacks too.

Cover image:



358 pages, 94,000 words or so, $13.69 list ($9.69 with ebookstore discount)

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The big news

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20 January 2010

Healthcare in the Suki Series

I may have touched on this before, but it was months ago and the topic is hot again in the news.
In the future (2030s) I imagined for the Suki series I had the couple as ahead of their peers in Libertarian thought and action, but I didn’t want to be preachy about it. Several times they are described as having some sort of medical care. In Suki I they both get checkups and pay with credit or money cards. They also happen to have the same general practitioner and discover that the day before an appointment.

In Suki II: Sunshine Returns, Suki’s therapist, also and MD, actually does house calls and she gets paid the same way too, cash.

The idea behind all of this was that they have doctors who do not deal with insurance companies or the government health system. ALL of their patients pay cash and their patients get to set unique terms that are not heard of or very rare now.

Suki’s deal with her therapist, Dr. DiMarco, is that Suki gets copies of all of her notes if she likes. She orders a complete copy of her file to give to John. Their individual deals with their GP, Dr. Donna, is similar. John has a copy of his complete medical file made for Suki.

I was not thinking that this would be the 2030s norm, but more common that what we have today. Plenty of people do similar things, but I don’t see it as customer driven, or at least it is not as customer driven as I would like. So I made the future more customer driven and a backlash against a period (between now and the 2030s) of imposed health insurance, doctors being forced to accept government and private insurance and all the rest that we are being threatened with today.

When I spoke to a therapist about the transaction structure for the future it seemed like it was so alien to him that I was a little worried it might be too far out there. Too bad, my future is my future. He was mentioned doctors today tiering their feed based on patient income. Nothing wrong with that, but I was thinking more of a self-tiering market, where better doctors charge more and patients see who they can afford based on the doctor’s pricing or other agreements.  He also said that letting a patient have their notes was just not happening.  Maybe now, but in a free market there may very well be therapists who do that.

Not mentioned in the books, but it was a thought for how the medical industry would be working, many small clinics for various specific procedures, like we have today for laser eye surgery and other things. I see this as only expanding, with more cosmetic surgery procedures available on an outpatient clinic basis.

In Suki III: Never Let Us End, John is hospitalized for a week. The couple subscribes to an ambulance service and that is what they take to the private hospital I invented (Admiral Grace Hopper Memorial) where they have a private room, smoking allowed. They pay for the whole ordeal cash (plastic).

A reader today may think that the couple is fabulously wealthy, but they are not. They are very successful, but they live in a freer-market world than we live in today. Technological advances and competition keep prices at their natural levels, not the inflated ones we have today due to overregulation. I note near the end of Suki I, through the dialogue between Patricia and Suki, that back when their mother’s were young a refrigerator cost more that the entire kitchen that Suki and John have at the condo. This is due to global competition on durable goods, and most everything else.


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19 January 2010

Avatar pulled from Chinese cinemas

Avatar pulled from Chinese cinemas


January 19, 2010





Beijing - Chinese authorities have ordered cinemas to stop showing box-office smash Avatar, in a move apparently motivated by both commercial and political concerns.

Two Beijing cinemas confirmed that they would stop showing the ordinary version of Avatar, but not the 3D version, from Saturday, despite the movie's high popularity.

Newspaper reports said the state-run China Film Group had ordered all Chinese cinemas to stop showing the film. It had been reportedly scheduled to run until February 28.

Avatar reportedly took about 300 million yuan (R297m) at the box office in the first eight days after its release in China on January 4.

Many commentators in China found a political resonance in the film's story of the Na'vi's battle to protect their land and culture from outsiders, comparing them to Chinese citizens fighting to protect their property from the government and developers.



"Somehow, the film struck a chord with Chinese audiences and created a social phenomenon," Huang Hung wrote yesterday. "Why? All the forced removal of old neighbourhoods in China make us the only earthlings who can really feel the pain of the Na'vi," she said.





Cultural officials also wanted to ensure the success of a big-budget, state-approved film of the life of social philosopher Confucius scheduled for release nationwide on Friday, the Apple Daily said. - Sapa-dpa


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ORDER SUKI SERIES eBOOKS AND PAPERBACKS
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17 January 2010

Avatar's depiction of flight

Forgot to mention in my observations in an earlier post.  Cameron's depictions of formation flight in Avatar looked dead on to me.  Especially when Jake was flying trail behind Neytiri.  He was "stacked" a little higher than her to stay out of wake turbulance.  Maybe banshee was doing that for him.

The human formations were very good too.  The way formations bank, rotating about the inboard aircraft, outboard aircraft increase altitude and return abeam when the turn is complete.  Looked perfect to me.

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Slashdotted

Yea!  Story submission accepted!


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Suki Series Duh

Okay, okay . . .

I was wondering why John wrote Suki saving John different times in different parts of the series.  She is either ready to save John, in Suki I, or she saves him for real in Suki III.  I think I mentioned more than once he needed to save her some too.  He does in Suki II, but still.

Then I see Avatar and it takes me from Thursday until today (Sunday) to realize that Neytiri saves Jake like A DOZEN TIMES or something!  It did seem right, maternal I guess?  I don't know but I didn't think it was strange at the time.  More thinking, this happens in the movies all the time.


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