Terrorists: buy your guns in USA!

Great report from "60 Minutes", showing how easy it is to buy the most dangerous guns in the USA, and then either use them or send them abroad to militant groups.

I am truly amazed that Americans (at list the legislators) stil don't (or don't want to) understand that guns is the problem, not the solution.

I guess the NRA and the gun industry is really too powerful. it is either that or Americans are real thick!

I recommand the very good documentary from Michael Moore "Bowling for Columbine" for more info/society study.

The battle to purify American sex-lives

Follow to link to the article by clicking on the title of this post.

Having ideals is a nice thing, but not when it blinds you from the reality of living on Earth.
Then you simply become plainly irresponsible!
It is a bit like throwing somebody from a 100m high building and tell the person: "If you believe you can fly, you will!" It works great in the Matrix (eventhough not even Neo made it on the first try), but in the real world the law of physics are unbendable.

My 2 favorite quotes from the article:
- A typical American boy hits puberty in his early teens but does not marry until he is 27. (The median age for women is 25.) Remaining chaste for the entire decade during which sexual desire is at its peak requires extraordinary willpower. For most youngsters, the fear of disease is not a sufficient motivation.
- What about homosexuals, though, who cannot legally marry in any American state bar Massachusetts? On health grounds, one would surely favour strict monogamy for gays. But no. For them, says Ms Hayes, “We promote the healthy message of abstinence.” Period.

Extremism is never the answer. Pragmatism is much closer to it!

Wealth vs Leisure

Follow the link by clicking on the title of this post and read the article from Mr Krugman.

It is interesting to be reminded that different countries have different ways of life and put the emphasis on different things. Working a lot and being wealthy, or working less and enjoying more free time.
I am not sure indeed that each system really knows that the other one is possible, that people (in theory) have a choice. Go and tell Americans that here in the EU we have twice as much paid holidays as them, I am not sure they will really understand what it means.

I am not trying to say that the US way of life is bad, but that cultures are different and people don't really know about it hence they can't choose. They are passengers.

For those of you who want to smile, go there and scroll down to the letter called "The American way of life" :)

The law of the jungle is not always the best

Toyota is moving its plant from the south of the USA to Ontario, Canada.
Isn't it strange that they are moving to a more expensive place?

Well, read the article from Paul Krugman (click on the title of this post) and you will see that cutting taxes and hence cutting on programs for the good of all citizens (public transports, health care, education) is not necessarily a good idea in the long run.
The law of the junngle is simply not always the best thing.

But as always, it is the implementation of the system which tells.
A system where the government is in charge and where costs are shared by all the citizens in order to share the risks can be very efficient because centralized, but a complete waste if corruption settles in.
The law of the market can be efficient because firms always compete and better their products and productivity, but can end up paralized, unfair and dividing (the have vs have-not) when a monopoly emerges or corruption (yes, again :) ) settles in.

Spreading Democracy, the US way...

GET OUT THE VOTE
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Did Washington try to manipulate Iraq’s election?
Issue of 2005-07-25
http://tinyurl.com/a6xjp


Here is the interview of Mr Hersh on Democracy Now.

Pulitzer prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reports that President Bush authorized covert plans last year to support the election campaigns of Iraqi candidates and political parties with close ties to the White House. Hersh cites unidentified former military and intelligence officials who said the administration went ahead with the plan over congressional opposition.
http://tinyurl.com/9x3mq


You have to admit that this fits pretty well with this book! :)
http://tinyurl.com/ardes

I am not sure this can attract many comments since shaping Iraq the way they want has been pretty obvious from the start. But we'll see!

6h is not enough

Today I would like to talk about sleep...

According to my experience, if one doesn't want to be tired the next day, one has to sleep around 7,5h during the night. If you go down to 6h, you feel it next day!

So now I am wondering if you guys have experiences about sleep and the best way to sleep efficiently...
Is it better to get up always at the same time, or go to bed at the same time?
Is it better to sleep during the same period of the day (say between 12:00 and 7:30) ?
Or is it better to sleep when one is tired, i.e. any time during the day, if one can?

If you have experience, link to studies, books you wanna share, please do so :)

Magnatune.com

Below is the mission statement of Magnatune.

What do you think of that kind of strategy/business model?
Would you be willing to pay a reasonnable amount of money for MP3 files if the author gets his/her fair amount of it and the majors get bypassed (or at least get less)? Or do you think that MP3 should be free on P2P anyway and that artists should make money with merchandizing and concerts only? Or do you have another view?

Please comment! :)


"We call it "try before you buy." It's the shareware model applied to music.
Listen to 373 complete MP3 albums we've picked (not 30 second snippets).

We let the music sell itself, because we think that's the best way to get you excited by it.

Our selection is intentionally small: we never waste your time with mediocre music.

If you like what you hear, download an album for as little as $5 (you pick the price), or buy a real CD, or license our music for commercial use.

Artists keep half of every purchase. And unlike most record labels, our artists keep all the rights to their music.

No major label connections and no venture capital.

We are not evil."

First post!

Here we start!

This is my first post. Let's see how many will follow :)

On this blog I would like to talk about things that I care about or things I think will bring something to others. It will mostly be Geek stuff and Politics. I might as well write some philosophical thoughts and everyday remarks about the worl around me, who knows :)