greymullet

Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James Goodfellow, when his careless son happened to break a square of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the fact, that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them, by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this invariable consolation—”It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?”Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our economical institutions.Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the accident brings six francs to the glazier’s trade—that it encourages that trade to the amount of six francs—I grant it; I have not a word to say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task, receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen.But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, “Stop there! Your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen.”

It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.

-Frédéric Bastiat, via Wikipedia

I would take this to be a condemnation of traditional economic thought, and, according to Wikipedia, “Bastiat demonstrates that people actually do endorse activities which are morally equivalent to the glazier hiring a boy to break windows for him.” On the other hand, Bastiat was, apparantly, a classical liberal, so, while we (apparantly) agree that people do economically endorse activities that are morally questionable, I don’t suppose we follow through to the same conclusion, seeing as I am very much not a classical liberal.

Always good to have a nice think, though.

From BBC News - Burmese women in Thai ‘human zoo’

Actually they aren’t refugees

-Thai Official

They absolutely are refugees

-UNHCR Official

Doesn’t get much simpler than that.

From the Greens-EFA and thus, in some small way, me, comes http://iwouldntsteal.net/.

Whenever you rent a movie, the multinational media industry forces you to watch their propaganda. They claim that downloading movies is the same as snatching bags, stealing cars or shoplifting. That’s simply not true – making a copy is fundamentally different from stealing.

The media industry has failed to offer viable legal alternatives and they will fail to convince consumers that sharing equals stealing. Unfortunately, they have succeeded in another area – lobbying to adapt laws to criminalize sharing, turning consumers into criminals. They argue that their laws are necessary to support artists, but in reality all they’re protecting is their own profits.

The Greens in Europe and worldwide has been opposing these laws. We believe that consumers are willing to pay if offered good quality at a fair price. We also believe that sharing is expanding culture – not killing it.

To protest against the faulty propaganda from the industry, we made our own film. The difference is – you can choose whether you want to watch this one.

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Click through to IWouldn’tSteal or Youtube to watch the video.

From Wikipedia:

A letter of marque is an official warrant or commission from a government authorizing the designated agent to search, seize, or destroy specified assets or personnel belonging to a party which has committed some offense under the laws of nations against the assets or citizens of the issuing nation, and has usually been used to authorize private parties to raid and capture merchant shipping of an enemy nation.

Basically, piracy on behalf of a government. It doesn’t happen anymore, because in 1856 most countries agreed to stop issuing Letters of Marque.

Except the United States…

From Ron Paul’s website:

Congressman Ron Paul today presented Congress with the “Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001,” legislation designed to give President Bush an additional tool in the fight against terrorism. He also introduced legislation that changes the federal definition of “piracy” to include air piracy.

The act didn’t pass, but this man is running for President! Oh, dear Lord…

I’ve been meaning to link to/comment on more of the random online news articles that I read. I mean to set up a feed from my del.icio.us page for that very purpose, in fact.

In the meantime, I draw your attention to this article on synthetic life. What fascinates me most about this article isn’t the incredible synthetic biochemistry at work. It isn’t the philosophical and theological issues. It’s that one of the guys interviewed in this, an article about synthetic life, is called Voigt.

That must be deliberate.

Me: It cold out today?
Kat: Only -17, plus wind chill.
Me: Oh, ok.
Kat: But it feels colder.
Me: Damn!

When. The hell. Did -17 °C (plus wind chill). Become “ok” ?

Why. Am I typing. Like William. Shatner?

Although this post is about music, Montreal, and contains the word “Of” in the title, it is, confusingly, nothing to do with the band “Of Montreal”. Except for this disclaimer.

As far as walking around Montreal in the snow goes, I prefer not to do it too much. I love Montreal, and snow is a wonderful, rare thing, that must be treasured. When in England. In Montreal, I’m sorry to say, the snow becomes more of a hinderance than a joy. So does the wind chill. However, on those occasions when I simply must amble about while flakes of frozen water fall from the sky, there are worse things to listen to than Lush’s Light From a Dead Star (although preferably a better version than this one).  For me, this song is always going to be swirling flurries of snowy goodness. And cold feet.

For anyone looking for something bouncy and joyous to listen to in the early hours of the morning, while blogging and/or putting off an assignment about Krogmann’s salt, you can do worse than Patrick Wolf. I’ve linked to the album’s title track, because the album as a whole doesn’t seem to be indexed yet on last.fm. I’ve yet to listen to the previous two albums. I think they’re a little less sugary-sweet, so I’ll listen to them at a more appropriate time. I’m not normally one for the cheery bouncyness, but this album is rather infectious (in moderation, I’m sure).

Two items seems a little short for a list, so, err… listen to The Cure, and, if you already do, listen to some more. Can’t go far wrong with that advice. Cold for the darker days, Lovecats for those when you just feel like wearing a polka-dot shirt and playing with kittens.

Addendum: Having had a conversation tonight with my Canadian flatmates about pronunciation (specifically the letter “a”), Patrick Wolf’s singing on Bluebells keeps catching my ear. He’s rolling his “r”s, which makes him sound a little North American, but he sticks very firmly to his Southern English long “a”s.

I say “his”, but they’re mine too, and I adore them.

Once again, I’ve gone an unacceptably long time without an update. Googling around this afternoon, while I waited for my NaBH₄ to do its thing, I realised that a frequently updated, detailed blog is far more interesting to read than constant ramblings on how the writer is not posting enough.

Bearing those sentiments in mind, bring you a few thoughts, divided into separate posts for the sake of organisation.

Wrapping up the topic of my lack of posting, I pin the blame on procrastination, combined with the desire to do a dedicated redesign. The start of a new semester, with grad-level courses and copious amounts of lab hasn’t helped either. The same goes for moving into a new flat/apartment, which I am slowly but surely decorating. Once that’s done, perhaps I’ll get around to finally doing the site redesign. I’m thinking something white, with flowers.