You Can't Stand Me
Michael Jennings wonders why terrorists don't have nuclear weapons yet.#
Al Qaeda is not like this. It seems to be more a loosely federated organisation of semi-autonomous cells. The disaffected middle class Saudi quality of the September 11 terrorists notwithstanding, Al Qaeda isn't an organisation of much appeal to people of a scientific mindset, even Arabs of a scientific mindset. Most Arab scientists I know are not entirely free of anti-Americanism, but they despise the fundamentalists just the same. (Both Aum Shinrikyo and Al Qaeda have a curious fondness for Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy though). A structure consisting of loosely federated small cells doesn't really allow for the development of much technical sophistication or institutional knowledge. Which possibly explains why the terrorists are seemingly such amateurs in terms of obtaining and building weapons. The extraordinary thing about September 11 was the sheer novelty of what was achieved. A weakness in America's systems was expoited in such a way that two of the largest buildings in the world were destroyed with a few knives and a couple of sets of boxcutters (or whatever it was). This was a triumph of planning over resources. Al Qaeda went to this much trouble because as I see it it was forced to by a lack of resources.
None of this really makes me sleep any easier. This is merely an attempt to answer a simple question. "Given how easy it is to make weapons of mass destruction, why do the terrorists not have them?". Given how easy it is to make them, I suspect terrorists will have them at some point. However, when it comes down to it I am amazed they do not have them already. And the only reason I can think of for why is incompetence. And this is the only way I can explain the incompetence.
Bruce Caldwell on F. A. Hayek.#
The intellectual distance the Western world has traversed over the past two generations in how we think about markets, the state, and economic policy is nowhere better illustrated than in the changing reputation of the Austrian economist Friedrich A. Hayek (1899—1992). In the decade after publication of Hayek's tract The Road to Serfdom (1944), in which he argued that expansion of the European welfare state was of a piece with spreading totalitarianism, he was regarded as little more than a right-wing crank, a provocateur who dressed up his own normative preferences for markets and individual freedom in the language of science. Today, by contrast, Hayek wears a richly de-served mantle of intellectual respectability. Win-ner of the Nobel Prize in economics in 1974, he is rightly seen as the intellectual godfather of the pro-market revolution that swept the West with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. He has spawned an enormous following that extends well beyond the social sciences.
Mark Cuban continues on the stock market as a Ponzi-scheme.#
I love going on CNBC. All day long all the so-called experts parade through the studio or satellite feeds and let fly with their best sales pitch.
They may be selling a stock, the direction of the market (I'm so bullish or bearish), or themselves, but they all want you to buy something. Of course they offer the obligatory disclaimer of what they own, or who is paying them, as if it's a bullshit enema. It doesn't change reality. CNBC and its competitors have become shopping channels for stocks, bonds and mutual funds.
Moxie hired some new workers, awesome.#
Hired a few more illegal aliens outside the Post Office today.
I like to tell my rich Republican friends, "I had a need for 'Manuel' labor at the compound."
And then we laugh and steal money from environmental groups. Some people would call this "cruel," but here we call it "Tuesday."
Paul summarizes coverage of the beheading.#
Richard posts some chapters notes on a book he is reading.#
I will note, that the main reason I post after I have read a book is so that I don't make arguments that are made in the book (i.e. I don't flatter myself by following obvious conclusions.) And generally so that I have a complete understanding of the book before I offer an opinion or summarization. I do, however, make notes to myself during the reading of the book on a small piece of paper. I use this to write the post notes.
The book looks interesting too.