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Thursday, January 27, 2005

Around the Internets: Pictures of Titan, Ken Layne on Sucession and the American Apartheid System of Voting

(To see these photos go to www.threeriversonline.com)

The above photo of Titan was rendered by an "amateur". It looks like a nice place to visit, even though it's all methane and explosive gases. Why doesn't it go up in a ball of smoke? They must get lightening on Titan. Looks pretty though.

Interesting Hellraising Atheist Site (He's starting a Carnival of the Atheists.)
A Presidential Run by Robert Kennedy? He would be great. I've seen him in action...And I now predict a plane crash and/or lone gunman will kill him in 3, 2, 1...
Dennis Roddy on Race Haters and the Local Rush Limbaugh Archetype that Sustain Them. More at Honsberger is a liar.

Also at Common Dreams:

10 Worst Corporations (From the guys at the Multinational Monitor)
New Essay From My Indirect Former Boss George Soros

Ted Rall on Tort Reform (Short Version: Won't reduce insurance rates, backdoor way to make your accidental death affordable...check out Public Citizen for more.)
Jackson and Palast on our Ever So American Apartheid Voting System

Why Do We Have Reproductive Choice Laws?

Excerpt:

"These women came in dying from botched abortions and infections. It was just such a waste of human life," says Tyrer.

The first deaths "sear the soul," says Tyrer, and they remain fresh memories for her, as do images of women lined up on gurneys outside the operating room 18 hours a day, "waiting for doctors to take them in and scrape out the remnants of what was causing the hemorrhaging and infection."

"One woman came in already in shock, she was hemorrhaging so much. The first thing we did was to give her blood to rebuild her strength so she could go through the surgical procedure to remove leftover tissue from the partial abortion. Despite getting a transfusion, she continued to bleed," says Tyrer, who then discovered that the abortionist had torn the cervix and the uterine artery. Tyrer had to cut through the abdomen and tie off the uterine artery to stop the bleeding
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Free Juliana Hatfield Downloads Right Here
The Essential Ken Layne Columns on Secession. Here, here, here and here.

Excerpt or two:

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

To Balkanize Or Not To Balkanize ...

Lots of people are asking -- on blogs, on talk radio, in my e-mails -- how do you chop up a country? Has it been done recently? Can it be done without horror?

Yes, it can be done peacefully, with good will and good riddance toward all.

A dozen years ago, I lived in a country that found itself in the same situation the United States faces today. One part of the country was mostly modern, intellectual, secular, democratic and (as usual) comparatively wealthy. Another part -- with only a third of the population -- was mostly economically backward, socially conservative, fond of "strongman" rulers, xenophobic, reliant on a state-sponsored economy, and (as usual) comparatively poor.

The country was already divided by culture and slight (though exaggerated) linguistic differences, but the elections of 1992 made that divide especially visible. The "Jesusland" in this case chose an authoritarian nationalist as leader of its region. He promised an impossible combination of independence and confederation. The wealthy side was led by a Thatcherite secularist and co-governed by liberal intellectuals.

It took about six months of tense meetings and the dismantling of the federal constitution, and then the two sides shook hands and walked away. That country was Czechoslovakia. (Here's a boring economics article I wrote at the time; none of the good stuff is online. Maybe someday ....) Interestingly, Czechs and Slovaks were overwhelmingly against breaking up the country. It was the political elite who brought about the "Velvet Divorce," mostly because the Slovak leader was impossible to deal with.

Today, the Czech Republic is stable and secure, with a GDP of about $160 billion, a strong export market, low inflation and robust foreign investment. It has weathered various political and financial troubles with relative ease and was rapidly accepted by political and economic alliances.

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology Has Built A
Timeline for Real Molecular Manufacturing (Short version:10 to 20 years)

You can now get your own Jesusland T-Shirt Here

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