Via Yves Smith, Michael Smith provides a great look at the infamous A.I.G. F.P unit that collapsed with $180 billion which US taxpayers now pay for.
Coming soon to a computer near you... visit mozilla.com to download your own copy!
xdanger has a funny and poignant comic on Flickr showing how hard it is for Mainland Chinese Internet users to get unfiltered information on the Internet.
This statement below has totally changed my position on Japan and the F-22.
Ex-chief systems engineer for the F-22 is "convinced that Japan can get fully equivalent capabilities in the areas of its needs at lower overall cost by other routes."
And that for the US to recommend the F-22 to Japan is like encouraging a good friend to drink and drive.
NBR'S JAPAN FORUM (POL) F22s for Japan: more signals to North Korea?
But there are what I regard as more substantial reasons to question the feasibility and desirability of purchasing the F-22 as well.I say this recognizing very well the strength of Japanese desire for the aircraft. During a recent visit to Tokyo I had occasion to speak with a number of top air force officers as well as civilians involved in defense matters, and all made it clear that they feel Japan must have F-22s.
More than two decades ago, at the inception of the program, I was the chief systems engineer for the F-22 at Lockheed. That is to say that I know a great deal more about it than one can read in the press. There is no doubt that it is a very impressive airplane with no equal in the world.
It is also an extraordinarily expensive airplane. The 50 aircraft Japan needs would cost roughly $10 billion to buy (with spares and support equipment), and would have high ongoing operating costs. It is likely that any aircraft needing major repair or modification would have to be shipped back to the United States.
I am convinced that Japan can get fully equivalent capabilities in the areas of its needs at lower overall cost by other routes. I recognize that Japanese do not like to be told what they need by outsiders, but for the United States to encourage Japan to buy F-22s would be like encouraging a good friend to drink lots of alcohol before he sets out to drive home.
Michael Lewis has a fascinating review of a new biography of Warren Buffett, The Master of Money, by Alice Schroeder. Buffett apparently had dinner at Akio Morita's house and did not eat any of the food.
He avoids social conflict, unless there is money on the line, and also all sorts of new experiences. His long-time partner Charlie Munger likes to call Buffett a "learning machine," but there are whole swaths of human activity he actively resists learning anything at all about, such as the entire high-tech industry. He confines himself to the diet of an eight-year-old, refusing to eat anything much beyond spaghetti, hamburgers, and grilled cheese sandwiches. [Warren Buffett biographer Alice] Schroeder describes a bizarre scene in which Katherine Graham escorted Buffett to dinner at the Manhattan apartment of Sony Chairman Akio Morita. Japanese chefs served plate after plate that Buffett left completely untouched. "By the end of fifteen courses, he still had not eaten a bite," writes Schroeder. "The Moritas could not have been more polite, which added to his humiliation. He was desperate to escape back to Kay's apartment, where popcorn and peanuts and strawberry ice cream awaited him. 'It was the worst,' he says about the meal he did not eat. 'I've had others like it but it was by far the worst. I will never eat Japanese food again.'" Buffett ate what he needed to eat to remain alive--and learned what he needed to learn to invest shrewdly.
Clearly, I'll never be a billionaire because I don't care about money in the single-minded way Buffett does.
Frankly, I don't think a billion dollars would be enough to force me into a diet of only spaghetti, hamburgers and grilled cheese sandwiches.
via Curzon at Mutantfrog Travelogue
I wanted to take a moment to recommend a 1 hour documentary, US Now, which bills itself as, "A film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the internet.
The film is a good look at how the Internet is impacting the way people communicate and collaborate in fundamental ways and asks if and how we might have more participatory governments due to these changes in human behavior. The open source software model is discussed but is only one of many examples used.
I especially enjoyed Clay Shirky's time on screen as he is clearly the leading thinker in this new arena.
Us Now is viewable on the Internet for free (at vimeo).
Google reshoots Japan views after privacy complaintsWed May 13, 2009 6:09am EDT
TOKYO (Reuters) - Internet search engine Google said it would reshoot all Japanese pictures for its online photo map service, Street View, using lower camera angles after complaints about invasion of privacy.
Google's Street View, which offers 360-degree views of streets around the world using photos taken by cruising Google vehicles, has already run into privacy complaints in other countries and activists have tried to halt the service in Japan.
Google said in a statement on Wednesday it would lower the cameras on its cars by 40 cm (16 inches) after complaints they were capturing images over fences in private homes.
Amazing kid. Watch through to the end and Ellen gives him a great surprise.
Hard Rock Hello Kitty
