Citizen of the world, huh?

I remember when I became a citizen, I swore an oath:

"I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen".

Should we add the same words to the oath of the President of the US? Or may be Obama is running for UN Secretary General? In that case the speech makes more sense.

Advantages or marriage

It occurred to me today in the morning: if it ever strikes my fancy to tattoo my wife's initials on my arm, I only have to suffer through one letter, not two.

Picasso's Bull

I've just got introduced to this (through Programming Reddit, no less).

My reaction surprised me - Picasso loses me at plate 4, only to completely win me back at plate 11, the last one.

The art experts will have to forgive me, but I think that #11 is almost perfectly disconnected from #10. 4 through 10 represent a formal process of reduction. 11 is the leap beyond formal rules, straight into the quantum heart of the matter. I have a feeling that those intermediate plates are Picasso's post-factum justification of his genius, his attempt at expressing logically that which cannot be logical.

Many lesser men (women too I guess) went that way, only to fail the last stage. Unfortunately, due to Picasso's need to explain, the intermediate stages now qualify as art. I wish we were spared the sight of half-done sausages...

Heard on NPR a while ago

(This brought it to my mind)

They were doing a profile of a welfare recipient. She had no job, her daughter was going in rehab, the daughter's husband (SO?) was in jail. She had to postpone her education to take care of her grandchildren. The education she was postponing? Writers' workshop.

Bailout, "rescue package" and so on

NPR can't spend fifteen minutes without saying "buyout" or "rescue". For those with ADD in the news room: not a single cent changed hands yet. All Feds did was to _promise_ that they will give money to Freddy and Fanny. That should be enough to calm down the markets. Somebody has to pay attention to the numbers - unless the Fs were heavily concentrated in subprime debt, the rate of failure of ordinary loans does not warrant the kind of excitement that we see in the markets. According to Mortgage Bankers Association, "The percentage of loans in the foreclosure process was 2.47 percent at the end of the first quarter, an increase of 43 basis points from the fourth quarter of 2007 and 119 basis points from one year ago." (http://www.mortgagebankers.org/NewsandMedia/PressCenter/62936.htm) I really doubt that this kind of failure rate can bring down Fs in the absence of market panic.

Cartoon idea

While listening to discussion on of FDA warning for epilepsy drigs on NPR, it occurred to me that someone who is better with drawing than I am would do well to produce a comic: A book, with words "Holy Qoran" on it, and then below: "FDA Warning: may cause suicidal thoughts and actions".

Wall-E

Since everybody and his brother is reviewing "Wall-E", and I've actually seen the movie, I guess I'll join in.

I found the movie to be OK on average. The first part was fabulous, including the Buy'n'Large commercials and post-apocalyptic humor. I was enchanted, right up to the point where the robots reach the spaceship and the captain /autopilot controversy starts. From that point on, the move gets more and more artificial and unbelievable (in the Stanislavsy' "I don't believe!" sense). Objectively speaking, the evil autopilot was actually right. But to admit it would spoil the movie, so happy end is, to use a Russian expression, pulled on by the ears.

Pixar build up quite a store of goodwill with me. I've seen their every movie after "Toy Story". So I will still go see their next movie. However, if this was their debut, I would not be so sure.

Bush must be out of his mind!

According to a report heard on NPR, Iraqi leaked our demands in the ongoing negotiations on the status of US troops in Iraq. They want us out in 3 years. Bush is asking for 7+.

I think Mr. Bush is mad. What should our troops be doing in Iraq in 3 years? Building sewers? Organizing school boards? Three years are perfectly reasonable period to get out - too long if anything. And getting out in three years ensures that in 10 we'll be in a position to negotiate for bases, not as a hated occupant, but as a friend who helped in need and then stepped aside.

Get the idiot out of White House, I say, and then negotiate with the successor. Mr. Bush is "stuck on stupid".

Declaration of Independence as editorial

That's what Stamford Advocate did today. They published the full text on their Editorial page. I really appreciate the gesture. How much more pathetic, in comparison, was a tiny piece on Iran jammed into the leftover space! The paper basically says that destroying Iran's nuclear program may be the right thing, but we're afraid of what Iran will do in return. The idea that Iran should be afraid of what we do in return does not even surface.

This is something that Cold War and United Nations did to international relations. Between 1948 and 1989, a conventional war where US attacked a nasty dictator and took over his country was simply unthinkable. It could easily trigger a nuclear exchange with Soviet Union. This got institutionalized in UN framework. A weak and nasty countries lost the fear of strong and righteous ones under Soviet nuclear umbrella. Now that Soviet Union is gone, decent countries could get to punishing the nasty ones again. Being a dictator and running your country into the ground could have some consequences again. The very first experiment, in Serbia, was succesful. Iraq proved to be so costly and mismanaged that we'll likely lose any appetite to do this. But Iraq is a special case. In Iran, we could deploy different tactics, similar to ones used in Serbia. Iranians, unlike Iraqi, may actually kick out the government that got them into a war with US. Or am I being too optimistic? In any case, running a disastrous government should have consequences, and US is in the position to actually provide them.