Who Were the Sea Peoples?

The question is answered here . Also, find out if fair trade is a fair deal .

What is your favorite motto?

David Zetland was kind enough to thoroughly review my critique of carbon taxes. I have to drive to a conference so it might be a day before I can respond (on his blog). If people are interested in this topic, check his thread occasionally to see the melee unfold. (I.e. I won't mention it again here, unless Paul Samuelson posts a comment or something else really newsworthy.)

Has anyone else noticed that Gmail has been on the fritz lately? About a week ago it would get stuck in this endless loop, where it kept trying to refresh my inbox page. It lasted a long time, I think at least four hours. I couldn't believe Google let people go that long without being able to check their email. I bet that caused a TON of explicitly monetary consequences. (E.g. a guy is going to a meeting but left the address in his email.) Anyway, it's doing this again today. I haven't been able to check my gmail for a good two hours and counting. Umm, that's kind of a big deal, when I evaluate a potential email host. Yeah, keeping track of each conversation is neat, but it's rather irrelevant if I need to plan for my email being inaccessible for hours at a time. Of course I have no options because Yahoo! has been unbelievably frustrating in the past six months as well.

(One update below.) So yesterday I took my son to a Pizza Hut for some good wholesome toddler food. (It's pretty convenient because this particular location has a table of toys so I don't have to continually block the doors to the parking lot as in other fast food joints.) I ate with gusto, and now today...let's just say I exceed the regularity of an atomic clock. This prompted me to think back to the actual employees who were in there that day. They were friendly enough, but in retrospect I'm not sure why I put our lives in their hands. Fast food chains are a great illustration of the perversity of government regulations. In a truly free market, where people didn't think the government was "guaranteeing" safety, you wouldn't have to worry about something basic like, "I wonder if the employees here wash their hands before cooking?" It's true, people won't patronize restaurants that seem dirty. But this is mostly a relative compar...

From his pessimistic (but I can't say unrealistic) article : It is almost certain we will be at war with Iran before a new President is inaugurated: now that Obama has capitulated to the Lobby, nothing but Divine Providence can stop it. I have nothing intelligent to add at this time, except to say it would really s*ck if we started another war over there. No, this isn't even scratching the surface of the ramifications, but just for example, I think Raimondo is perfectly correct that oil could go to $300 per barrel. It's not just Iran that would shut us out; I think other OPEC countries would too. They're flush with cash right now; they could go cold turkey for a month or two if the US starting bombing Iran. I really hope Raimondo is wrong about this.

To the manufacturers of Igloo coolers: Although I've found your cooler (model "Igloo Cool 16") does a perfectly adequate job at keeping food cool, yesterday I discovered it to be less than satisfactory at performing another task, namely, substituting for the human finger at pressing elevator buttons. No matter how precisely I tried to maneuver the corner of your cooler, I could not help but pressing the buttons for at least two floors, whereas, even after a long night at B-61, I have always managed to hit at most one button with my finger. (Granted, sometimes I have hit somewhat less than one button, but that is a relatively minor a problem, as I then have the chance to try again. By the third attempt I'm always good to go.) If your fine company could see fit to build a model with little finger-shaped corners, it would be most appreciated. Do let me know -- I'd be happy to beta test for you. Sincerely yours, Gene Callahan ***** I sent this to Igloo today -- I...