jra's thoughts

Category: Rants

  • With all due respect Mr Holmes…

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    You can kiss my ass. Talking about the risks faced by humanitarian workers, you said: People in this business have always accepted the risks, there have always been losses, there have always been horrific incidents There is NO SUCH THING as acceptable losses for humanitarian aid. Period. PS: I noticed that, according to your bio,…

  • MoveOn: Wrong on the environment, wrong for America

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    MoveOn suggests that the best way to further your liberal agenda of reduced carbon emissions is to… (wait for it, wait for it…) Driving Change: Carpool to a swing state If you don’t live in a swing state, how can you volunteer in one? Drive! You can’t make this stuff up… This is like Daily…

  • Too Much Travel is Bad for the Soul

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    There’s an interesting little nugget of reality near the end of the first page of Ask the Pilot this week: If I have grown more cynical in recent years, it is travel, I think, that has pushed me in this direction. Exploring other parts of the world is beneficial in all the ways it is…

  • How to ride a bus

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    Marina and I could have used this useful training film before we arrived in England. It seems the film needs to be updated some to reflect the current state of the privatized English bus system: First, be sure to find out which company has bought the route you want to ride from the government. Be…

  • Banks: You’re Under New Management… Listen Up!

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    A wonderful open letter from a fellow stockholder to our new investment’s board of directors. If only it were so easy… This is what justice would look like in a society that craved social justice and capitalism in equal parts.

  • Same conversation, different venue

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    The dirty secret of aid work… it always comes down to this… the navel-gazing, “why am I here”, “why is it so ineffective” conversation. Usually it happens around the campfire, over a bottle of locally made beer, or perhaps for the lucky coordination team in the capital city, at the nearby expat-only restaurant over a…

  • 21 words that should change your life (but probably won’t)

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    Clarity on what’s wrong with our economy and our society, and advice on how to correct it, all in just 3 lines, and 21 words: You buy things and you don’t need. With money that you don’t have. To impress people that you don’t even like. From Aaron Stewart, “Our economic woes in three lines“.

  • And now a word from your local public health authorities…

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    Headline from a Scientific American blog posting: Measles is back, and it’s because your kids aren’t vaccinated There was a measles epidemic in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland this year. MSF was thinking about intervening and setting up a vaccination site in Place Ripon, but the corrupt, inefficient, and chronically underfunded local health authorities…

  • Compare the Candidates

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    Compare The Candidates is a nifty web app that I found when looking into AppSpot, a Google cloud computing thingie. It shows a new style of design that rose in the last few years. I really admire it, and I love interacting with sites like this. It’s a little scary though, it feels like a…

  • Another Measure Q blogger

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    I got an email from Chris Shipley today, who is also writing a blog about Measure Q. Chris is right, I did vote no on Measure Q when I sent in my absentee ballot last week. I did so for two reasons, each of about the same importance to me. For one thing, I feel…