Emptying My Cup: 2003-06-17

There's a bunch of stuff in my head I've been meaning to blog, but haven't. Time to fix that.

Topics will include: The human genome, aikido, a rice strain crossed with daffodil that prevents blindness but can't be given away, aging boomer relatives spawn a left-leaning anti-idiotarian, military transformation, what peace in the Mideast has to do with alcoholism, "gypsy blogging," commercializing space, and are we headed for a depression/Kondratieff Winter?

M. Simon points me to Matt Ridley's "The Humbling of Homo Sapiens". It's a very good article on the human genome, whose source of uniqueness may not be what you think. See also the story of "golden rice" engineered with daffodil genes. It breeds true, would make nobody rich, and holds the promise of preventing blindness in thousands of children. Why can't its inventor give it away?

Key military reformer and transformation advocate Chuck Spinney is set to retire. Phil Carter's Intel Dump briefly explains who Spinney is and why he matters to people interested in Col. Boyd's legacy, military transformation, and 4th Generation Warfare.

I've been remiss is linking to Sean LaFreniere's article on becoming a left wing anti-idiotarian. The stuff about his aging Boomer relatives at a family BBQ is priceless.

Sean also writes: "Peace is a gift that only the Arabs can give themselves. We don�t ask the bartender to cure the alcoholic, the alcky has to want to be cured and they have to do it essentially by themselves."

Is Jay Solo onto something when he talks about the possibility of a low grade depression on the horizon, or even market analyst John Mauldin's writings on stock cycles & P/E ratios, unfunded liabilities ("The Bankruptcy of America"), etc? Are we heading into a Kondratieff Winter? It's worth thinking about, if only because the implications are so significant.

LaughingWolf's article on "The Real Problem with Commercializing Space" is excellent. I quite liked his post about Aikido, too.

Why can't your comments in other blogs become part of your blog too? Quest of the GypsyBlogger asks a good question, which should be doable with only a slight modification to Trackback. See also Ross Mayfield's neat way of using Technorati to track blog conversations.

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