On The Third Hand

Saturday, 09 March

Must Read [permalink]

The Muslim Pundit is on a roll today. He was on one yesterday as well. Just click and scroll down.
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Information theory and Punditry [permalink]

Beauty of Gray has a fascinating theory on the link between unpredictable signals in information and in punditry. It contains a good quick overview of information theory for those who don't know what that is. It occurs to me that his theory could be used in psyops communications (probably not what he was thinking about). I'm going to have to think about this for a while. Oh -- if you like his article and mail him to tell him so, tell him a fan of Claude Shannon sent you...
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Illuminating Excuses [permalink]

" Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said on Saturday the U.S. and Britain wanted arms inspectors back in Iraq to find excuses to launch a fresh attack" He also said we intend to "manufacture a crisis". I think those two comments, plus some others made recently, have a simple translation: "If we let inspectors in, they will find something." Any bookies want to put odds on whether I'm right?
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Something for the wish list [permalink]

I think the Vodka Pundit and many other members of the Blogosphere ™, would dearly love to have this creative application of GPS technology. Cheers, everybody!
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Geek time [permalink]

I'm revamping the site; I should be done by Monday. Whatever I do should not affect the site, as I'm doing it in all in test mode first. However, just in case I do something stupid, I just wanted you to know!
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Arming the population...[permalink]

According to this article in the Washington Post, the Israelis are getting the right idea. According to the article "Police and Interior Ministry officials decided this week to make 60,000 more gun permits available to civilians, particularly reserve army officers and veterans of combat units. Guns also are being issued to firemen and municipal inspectors while they are on duty." If they really want to get serious they should issue permits for anyone who has served in their military. They'd be a lot safer. [Thanks to an alert reader for the heads up on this one]
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Bellicose Babes and Craven Columnists [permalink]

A few bloggers have commented on the NY Times article, by Nicholas D. Kristof, titled 'Chicks With Guns'. Horrifying thought to some liberals, it seems. If women carry guns, rapists and muggers might (gasp) get hurt! Too bad. He also claims: "But it is pointless to try to deny the link between more handguns and increased murder and suicide." It's pretty obvious that he hasn't read this article (and the other studies it links to), which did just that.

I was rather interested to see an update to an article I blogged back on January 31. Christie Caywood, organizer of Mt Holyoke's 'Second Amendment Sisters' chapter, did not then own a gun. The latest article didn't say whether or not she now owns one, but at least it seems she's been getting lots of target practice: "...there's also a stack of paper targets with holes from .22, .38 and even machine gun bullets." Good for her!
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