From Tikun Olam, a fine and thoughtful blog about Israeli-Arab peace.

I think I can count on one hand the number of times a candidate for higher office has defended himself from such an attack by publicly fighting back and attacking Aipac by name. As I said, that takes guts. And I don’t think Joe Biden is foolish. He knows what he can and can’t get away with. He is confident enough in his record to warn Aipac that their supporters are mouthing nonsense and that he will take them to task by name if they persist. I think too he knows that Aipac no longer rules the roost in DC. They used to maintain their power with an iron fist. But I think that now there is more room to breath for candidates.

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Sue, a CPA who is currently taking a Masters in Taxation program, uncovered proof - proof I tell you - that the federal government deliberately stifles the ability of some small businesses to get ahead.

From the Internal Revenue Code.

SEC. 280E Expenditures in connection with the illegal sale of drugs

No deduction or credit shall be allowed for [any business that] consists of trafficking in controlled substances.

However, you can get a deduction for cost of goods sold from trafficking in drugs to “preclude possible challenges on constitutional grounds” (Joint Committee Report on P.I. 97-248 .25) - assuming drug dealers wanted to risk filing at all then have to explain where the income came from.

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80,000 homes to be powered by chicken manure.

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Not only does this new Sanyo washer wash the clothes, it also dries them - and recycles water too. Ecogeek has more.

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John Robb

Globalization will destroy incomes for the vast majority in the developed world, guaranteed. We’ve been at a plateau for the last thirty years (the average person in the US makes slightly less than he did in 1973). A descent to global norms for similarly skilled/trained labor is inevitable. Work is now globally fungible. Comparative advantage only applies to corporations, not nation-states and their populations.

A descent to the global norm means a reduced standard of living for the US, something which will have unsettling and unpredictable social consequences.

Of course we could reinvent the country with cleantech, thus creating huge numbers of new jobs and technologies. Then maybe the descent won’t happen. But we need to start now.

Robb makes a good point, and one I’ve not seen elsewhere. Yes, globalization doesn’t help counties or people, only corporations. And even then, it’s a race to the bottom, doing everything as cheaply as possible.

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Chinatown in San Francisco has a multitude of tea shops, all with dozens of varieties of tea. Was recently at one that had free samples. Asked for gingseng oolong. The fast-talking salesman said they infuse theirs with ginseng powder and that it would have a sweet finish, which it did. But something about the store rubbed me the wrong way, I felt like a mark. So, I tried the next store. Their ginseng oolong had no taste of ginseng at all. Hmm.

So back I went to the store I usually buy from Red Blossom Tea Company and asked for ginseng oolong. She showed me the tea in a canister, and said, notice the pieces of ginseng in it. Ginseng doesn’t dissolve in water, so many companies who say they infuse their oolong with ginseng powder actually just spray it with aspartame, which makes it taste sweet. Oh…

Red Blossom Tea Company got my business again.

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A startup, Detroit Electric, says their proposed electric cars will do 0-60mph in less than 5 seconds, go 200 miles on a charge, and have dramatically lighter motors. I want one.

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S.F. Bay Bridge in the background. Click image to view it larger.

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ultimatejosh twitters from the streets of Minneapolis

At the jail. No vigil just a million cops milling about. They’re grilling steaks. Wonder what protestors get to eat.

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This is the first panel for a Sinfest comic strip earlier this year. Click to view the entire 4-panel comic on Sinfest. Then check out the whole site. I lost touch with Sinfest for a while. Glad I’m back.

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Blogging may be a bit erratic these next few days, as I’m travelling. But I do have lots of posts stacked up.

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People can try to return home now after Hurricane Gustav, but the power might not be stable, or even functioning. 13 of 14 transmission lines serving the New Orleans metro area are not functioning. That mean that area can not get electricity from anyplace else.

It could take weeks to repair all the damage.

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Trying to access YouTube videos from Chrome often results in a long delay while the video downloads and then the video refuses to play. But, it’s just version 1.0. I’m sure they’ll get the bugs out of it. How odd this wasn’t tested and fixed before shipping.

On the other hand, Chrome updates Google Calender better than Firefox. In Agenda mode, if I add an event in Firefox, it doesn’t display immediately upon returning to agenda. But it does display immediately in Chrome.

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Georgia and Russia both prepared for South Ossetia war.

Ukraine ruling coalition crumbles under pro-Russian pressure.

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Obama might pursue criminal charges against Bush Administration

FBI wanted Obama plotters charged, but Rove appointee said no

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Asymptotic Life finds some disturbing parallels!

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They think China demand after Olympics will force prices back up.

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I’ve been using the new open source Google Chrome browser since noon yesterday. It is quite amazing.

First off, it’s fast, faster than Firefox, IE, or Safari. Second, they wrote it so browser lockups can’t crash the entire browser, just one tab. In other browsers, a faulty Javascript routine can clobber the browser. With Chrome, you get a sad face icon on that tab, and you simply close the tab.

Other cool internal stuff includes better garbage collection. Freed up memory is quickly released to be reclaimed when needed and doesn’t leak, which can cause slowdowns and problems. Plus it blocks popups and malware quite efficiently.

Sure, this is still a beta product and lacks bells and whistles. They will come. My prediction: Google Chrome will become a major browser in the coming months and years.

Download Google Chrome

Read their comic book about it!

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Now available. (Windows only for now.)

Silicon Valley Insider sums it up correctly

Google launches cloud operating system ‘Chrome’ and calls it a “browser”

Google wants you to do everything in the cloud. Chrome is a major step in that direction. Microsoft should be worried.

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Yesterday, I attended a meeting organised by the German Marshall Fund in Brussels. Speaking were:

Temuri Yakobashvili, State Minister of Georgia for Reintegration
Radoslaw Sikorski, Foreign Minister of Poland
Radoslaw Sikorski, Foreign Minister of Poland
Matthew Bryza, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
Vladimir Chizov, Russian Ambassador to the European Union
Eckhart von Klaeden, the foreign-affairs spokesman of the CDU-CSU

This is an interesting line-up and the sparks flew.

Poland and the US felt that Georgia had fallen into a trap by responding to Russian provocation and had used passports, given to South Ossetians, to fuel the situation.

The Russian ambassador made some startling claims, that they didn’t use excessive force, their actions ’saved lives’ and that theywere trying to calm the situation and reduce tension. He justified their actions by saying Kosovo was a precedent.

The US State Dept representative pointed out that the South Ossetian army was commanded by Russian officers.

Russia claimed it didn’t want to start a second cold war, and that wouldn’t happen because that was a clash of incompatible ideologies, something that doesn’t exist today. The Polish foreign Minister disabused that by saying there is something of a clash because the EU seeks to remove borders, not to redraw them.

He also detected a hardening of Russian authoritarianism and wondered if there was a competition between the Russian President and Prime Minister.

Listen to the meeting: The Future of Georgia (mp3 38mb 1:23:15) First speaker is Temuri Yakobashvili, State Minister of Georgia

Photos of the Meeting: Flickr Set

Photos From Gori from our contact

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No-fly lists and photo IDs are supposed to help protect the flying public from terrorists. Except that they don’t work.

Bruce Schneier, noted security expert, explains why.

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Google Chrome, their new web browser, goes live tomorrow. Yes, a web browser.

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But the floodwall itself is holding. “Army Corps of Engineers officials said the spillage does not pose a major threat.”

So far, no catastrophic damage and the authorities have, by all accounts, done an excellent job with the evacuation and contingency plans. Nagin absolutely did the right thing by ordering an evacuation. Cuba routinely does this during hurricanes, and their highly regarded hurricane contingency plans unquestionably have saved many lives.

Check The Oil Drum for constantly updated reports on damage to oil infrastructure. One major concern, the LOOP took a direct hit.

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, or LOOP, and Port Fourchon, which has historically been a land base for offshore oil support services in the Gulf, was directly in the path of Gustav and is expected to be damaged. As you will see below, a good bit of oil and natural gas is also expected to be taken offline: some for weeks, some for much longer.

LOOP is the only facility in the Gulf to unload VLCC tankers which carry over 2 million barrels of crude.

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Gusts could be up to 150 mph

The evacuation and logistics appear to be way better organized this time. Good. Let’s hope the levees hold and the LOOP isn’t badly damaged.

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Abraham Lincoln Brigade Memorial. San Francisco. Detail from the memorial. it was dedicated on March 30, 2008 and is the first such memorial in the US.

(View much more of it full-sized on Flickr.)

I took this photo at the 2004 RNC protest march in NYC. At least NYPD mostly respected freedom of speech and assembly unlike Twin Cities police currently at RNC 2008, who clearly haven’t a passing acquaintance with the concepts.

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