Revolutions & Violence

Found these comments on BAEXPATS dot org and I think they are pretty good.

EdRooney: ... Coups that are accepted by the majority do not need mass disappearances and states of siege as did Videla, Pinochet, Ríos Montt et al. Certainly there is always an element of the monied interests that welcome a coup d'état, as was the case in Czechoslovakia, Iraq, Poland, El Salvador and Argentina, and just about anywhere else., but they are the MINORITY, and that is why the perpetrators needed violence to enforce their rule. You will always have somebody welcoming a non-popular conqueror, as has happened every time in every invasion or coup in history. This does not make them popular governments. ...

Newcomer: Kudos to your comment. Money and opportunity always play a role in the perceived support of a regime.
Every government, good or bad, left or right, military or pacifist, has supporters and detractors. And history has shown every government also has the ability to lose these supporters quite quickly. Violence does not regain popular support, it just makes this support unnecessary and irrelevant, inducing in the population a sense of sheer impotence. When things go wrong, any change is welcome (just as any treatment feels good when you're sick). People do not welcome violence, they welcome change when they feel they need it. When the remedy is proven to be worse than the disease, well, then they just stop drinking the kool-aid. 

Art

Tam bought a sort-of-a-knife at her local art fair, which reminded me of all the artified AK-47's I found on Military Photos dot net yesterday. I actually liked this one. Most of the rest didn't do anything for me.

Orchids

Color plate from Ernst Haeckel'sKunstformen der Natur

Came across this picture during a wiki-wander inspired by Dustbury. France Nuyen (or Nguyen)  was raised in Marseille by a cousin she calls "an orchidaceae raiser who was the only person who gave a damn about me." On first reading I missed the word "raiser" so I'm thinking an orchidaceae is some weird title, but it's just the fancy name for orchids, which is where this picture comes from.

A Steal - 1958 Philco Predicta TV restored (retro '50s) - $1800 (Skamania Co, WA)

From Craig's List. Via Scott. 

Welcome, Robot Overlords. Please Don't Fire Us?

Scott stirs the pot again. Today he sent out a link to a story in Mother Jones about how real smart computers may be here in ten or twenty years. The story makes use of an interesting example of exponential growth. That's all fine and wonderful, but the title (I stole the title for this post) is what worries me. If computers are doing all the work, nobody will have a job. On one hand it's paradise, you can just lie around and eat grapes all day. Ha. Who's buying the grapes? We have lots of people with nothing to do right now, and a lot of them are using their new found leisure time to make trouble. Dealing drugs, trafficking in arms, running credit card scams, dreaming up new class action law suits, starting religious revivals, recruiting jihadists, starting political action committees, the list just goes on and on. The more automation we have, the more people don't have any direction and the more trouble they get into. Maybe that's why the government is growing Homeland Security so much. Not because there are threats, but because we need something for people to do so they aren't out making trouble. We need a new model for society.
    Perhaps the expanding organic-free-range farming business will start employing more people. For it to expand enough to make a difference would mean people would have to give up some of their shiny new toys, and that could impact corporate profits, and lord knows we can't have that. I see trouble no matter which way we go.
    Update: Somehow I missed page two of the Mother Jones story, and that part talks about my concerns. He doesn't have any solutions either. Maybe join the Amish.

Say Hello to my Leetle Fren'

From the Internet Movie Firearms Database

What have I been saying about just scratching the surface of knowing how the human body works?  Turns out I was righter than I thought. Story by Micahel Pollan (author of The Omnivore's Dilemma) in The New York Times about how microbes rule, we're just along for the ride. Via Scott (who else?).

Pax Vobiscum

We've started watching Season 2 of Borgia: Faith and Fear on Netflix, not to be confused with The Borgias on Showtime. In the last couple of episodes there has been a priest making trouble in Florence, and we recognized the actor as the advisor to the dragon lady from Game of Thrones. I'm trying to track this guy down and I'm looking for a summary and I'm not finding one. How can this be? Is this show really that far out on the fringe? I finally locate one in French. Google translates, and then I edited it. All I really needed were the names.

Borgia, Season 2, Episode 4 - Pax Vobiscum 

Cesare arrests Savonarola and has him tortured until he "confesses". Pope Alexander VI sentences him to death by hanging, and Cesare carries out the sentence. Savonarola uses his last breath to curse Cesare Borgia and his whole family. Cesare attends Midnight Mass and lights the traditional fireworks Florentine. Alessandro, his lifelong friend, wishes him "peace of God", but the peace of God no longer interests Cesare.

Iain Glen plays Savonarola, who was the instigator of the most infamous Bonfire of the Vanities. And here I thought it was just a clever name for a book.