Random Nuclear Strikes

Apple now has more cash then the US Government.

Finishing off the week’s theme

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Ralph Waldo Emerson – Self Reliance

Thus says Ezra Klein, finally convinced by brinkmanship on the debt ceiling that They Mean It. That’s right Ezra, that whole Tea Party thing? Not a negotiating strategy.Read the last few paragraphs of Klein’s piece to see what I mean. He admits that if the Republicans merely prevent any new taxes for the next few years. “something like the Ryan budget will become inevitable.” Which just warms the cockles, don’t it?

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I see a lot of back & forth regarding Norway, and how (as I stated before) their culture is relatively peaceful. Many think that this is indicative of the society wearing blinders to the danger of violent radicals, and I suppose this is true, to a degree. They’ve not had such issues with violence since about WWII, and I think it’s pretty safe to say that, as a people, they are mentally unprepared for such danger. But that is not to say that they are sheep, only that they were not prepared to deal with an event wholly outside their current experience.

Bad winters? Check.
Hungry polar bears? Check.
Violent Oceans? Good to go.
Fallout from Icelandic volcanoes?  Sure thing!
Mass Murderers? Not so much.

Being critical of them for not being ready to deal instantly with a mass murderer is akin to being critical of the people in the midwest for not being ready to survive a major earthquake, or people in California for their lack of tornado shelters, or New York for not having a plan to deal with volcanoes. These are, effectively, never events. Yes, the midwest has experienced earthquakes, but they are usually small, and it’s been a very long time since the last big one. California could experience a tornado, but it’s highly unlikely. Etc. ad nauseum.

Now, if this happens again in the next few years, and this current event is not their collective Flight 93, then it’s fair to be critical of their Pollyanna attitude.  And hopefully they won’t establish the police state we have in response to this single event.

Kids overcome fear of risk through play.  Make their play too safe, and they don’t learn to assess risk.

Makes sense, when I was 12, I climbed up the outside of Parnell Tower (it was only 50′ high back then).  I did it again after the tower was rebuilt, when I was 14.  Both times, I raced friends of mine to the top, while our parents watched from below.