3 of a kind...

These were some reads to good to pass up, to good not to share, just too damn good. Take a look at what people are talking about, you might learn a thing or two, or 3. Kudos to Le Colonel, BLDG, and Thinkers all of you set it off. Your words my images, all forms of thought...


Le Colonel Chabert: What it is.
"The Arab people admire Hizbullah for reasons completely different to the ones people in the West and Israel suspect. The Arab public is drawn to Hizbullah precisely because it stands apart from Arab regimes and, simultaneously, from organisations like Al-Qaeda. Hizbullah is not corrupt and impotent like Arab regimes, and it does not cowardly target civilians like terrorist organisations. Rather, it has waged a valiant fight directly against the Israeli army"

"Speaking of logistics, Wal-Mart has suddenly and – at least to me – unexpectedly become a kind of one-man cartographic avant-garde. In other words, Wal-Mart’s attempt to track all its goods in real-time – streamlining delivery, stocking shelves, tallying merchandise – has led to literally classified techniques for understanding economic geography: algorithms and radio technologies and so on. Which means that we’re at this rather strange moment when Wal-Mart, of all things, has become the most sophisticated modeler of data sets outside of, say, the NSA or DARPA – and yet it’s all to sell bath towels and non-stick pans. What do you make of Wal-Mart’s sudden ascension to the heights of geography, and how has Wal-Mart’s use of radio-frequency ID chips (RFIDs) facilitated this mastery of commercial space-time?"

Thinkers Room: A Hero Passes
"And as soon as the television cameras are off motorcades and helicopters will be hurriedly made for, and within a week, just like the many before him – Bildad Kaggia, Paul Ngei, Makan Singh – he will be forgotten.
Which is why I admire him even more and wish when the time comes I will be able to sacrifice everything for the good of my countrymen and women. Because he probably knew what he was doing was thankless and that he would suffer for the rest of his days.
But he did it anyway."

Around the world with a flick of the wrist
NARO%