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Cziltang wanders the trackless wastes in search of truth, beauty and personal enlightenment. He had tried to be self-sufficient, growing his own ideas, but they withered and died in the great intellectual drought that gripped the land in his youth. One day, as he gazed at the parched landscape around him, he realized that somewhere there must be ideas growing. Somewhere, rational discourse must still survive. Since that day, he has searched for a mythical land of fields and forests of living ideas. Now and again he finds a thought or two in the rubble of an occasional deserted outpost of civilization. Its a hard way to live and its not much of a life, but that's just how it is, out here in the Ratlands |
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Inauguration Package
link I thought I was done for the night. After all, UN-bashing does take it out of you... But this was worth a link. The Wal-Mart Inauguration Package at Scrappleface. And you don't have to meet any actual politicians... by CziltangPosted: Friday, January 07 2005 10:34:15 PM
Coordination of Relief Efforts
link I've seen lots of appeals for aid for the tsunami victims. Little blurbs on the Weather Channel, notes on various web sites, and the ubiquitous appeals from well-meaning web logs (including mine). Now I realize that, out here in the Ratlands, we are often behind the curve when it comes to items of culture. But I think it is significant that the only actual commercials I have run across soliciting aid for tsunami victims have been for UNICEF. Now God forbid anyone jump to the conclusion that I am discouraging anyone from contributing to the relief effort. Far from it. I wholeheartedly encourage you to dig deep. But before you send that donation, consider the following: You may have seen the news stories about the US Military (along with Australia, Singapore, India, New Zealand, and probably others by this time) providing aid to tsunami vicitms. (Please forgive the CNN link. It rubs me the wrong way to use it, but it is decent article.) After you've read the "officially sanctioned media version," read what is going on behind the scenes. I found this article (via Powerline via Instapundit) at The Diplomad. I'm going to quote a bit of it: This Embassy has been running 24/7 since the December 26 earthquake and tsunami. Along with my colleagues, I've spent the past several days dealing non-stop with various aspects of the relief effort in this tsunami-affected country. That work, unfortunately, has brought ever-increasing contact with the growing UN presence in this capital; in fact, we've found that to avoid running into the UN, we must go out to where the quake and tsunami actually hit. As we come up on two weeks since the disaster struck, the UN is still not to be seen where it counts -- except when holding well-staged press events. Ah, yes, but the luxury hotels are full of UN assessment teams and visiting big shots from New York, Geneva, and Vienna. The city sees a steady procession of UN Mercedes sedans and top-of-the-line SUV's -- a fully decked out Toyota Landcruiser is the UN vehicle of choice; it doesn't seem that concerns about "global warming" and preserving your tax dollars run too deep among the UNocrats. (emphasis mine -- cziltang) Actually, I would encourage you to read the posts on The Diplomad for the past several days. Especially the one that contains the note about UNICEF providing selective in-service training for teachers to address the psycho-social needs of children in the affected areas. And the one about the US being condemned for what it has already done because it doesn't have the moral authority to do so. (I'm not making this up. Read it for yourself.) In the lead-up to the war in Iraq I became spectacularly unimpressed and profoundly disenchanted with the United Nations. A few years ago, on our first trip out to Oregon, I saw a billboard in Boise, Idaho that said "get US out of the UN." At the time, I thought that was profoundly reactionary and short-sighted. Now I'm of the opinion that those rednecks out in Idaho have a point. by CziltangPosted: Friday, January 07 2005 09:26:59 PM
Just a little colder...
link We are in the middle of a day of heavy rain out here in the Ratlands. Not a problem, and a welcome event, under most circumstances. Unfortunately, the temperature has been hovering around freezing all day and we're getting quite a bit of an ice storm. Tree limbs are taking out power lines all over the area. A couple of hours ago I heard that 11,000 people in the area were without power. (I've always wondered: does that mean 11,000 households or is that a smaller number of households multiplied by the average family size in the area?) At any rate, it looks like it isn't going to stop anytime soon. The lights have been flickering here in the Rathole, so I don't know if the power will stay on here or not. The juxtaposition of beauty and destruction in this kind of weather fascinates me. I was looking out the back window earlier when the weight of the ice broke a fairly large limb in a tree. As the ice-covered branches fell through the ice-covered branches that still remained on the tree, the multiple ice-on-ice impacts produced an amazingly beautiful tinkling sound. I will, of course, be considerably less enamored of the whole mess when I'm scraping ice off the truck at 4:00 AM tomorrow. A few degrees colder and we would be having a huge (for Kansas) snowfall. But as Maxwell Smart used to say, "Missed it by that much..."
by Cziltang Posted: Tuesday, January 04 2005 06:44:05 PM
Birdseye
link I heard about a company called Digital Globe today. I don't know anything about them, other than they provide satellite images. They have a web page that has before and after satellite images of some places affected by the recent tsunami. The images are stunning and well worth a look, especially if you still need convincing that providing assistance is a good thing. On a more cynical note, they also have available for your perusal, images of some of Iran's nuclear power plants and some sites in Iraq. by CziltangPosted: Monday, January 03 2005 08:35:43 PM |
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