China is not bad

An article by the BBC talks about China's $6 billion investment in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire for those who remember it from watching Carmen San Diego as a kid).  They plan to build hospitals, health centers, 2 universities, railways and roads.  In return, China gains the rights to harvest the Congo's abundant natural resources - namely copper and cobalt.  There are many human rights naysayers who argue that this is just a $6 billion exploitation and that the Chinese will end up winning more than the natives.  Winning?  If both sides win, who cares who wins more?  The DR of Congo is one of the most corrupt and dangerous places to live in the world - the argument can be made that it is worse than Sudan.  ANYTHING they can win is a vast improvement.  Of course, the Chinese are in it for their own gain - they're not pitching this as some sort of half business half humanitarian nonsense.  With the Chinese, it is strictly business.  So what you will see is a lot of warlords getting rich and a lot of shady dealings, but the end result will be on the plus side for the Congolese.  And eventually, this stuff trickles down to the poor.  When the warlords start getting really rich off of foreign investments like this, they will start to realize that there is no point to torturing and killing the lower classes.

Helping a war-torn country with a half business half humanitarian deal like the US and UN seem to enjoy always ends up with much of the humanitarian money floating its way into the wrong hands anyway.  Oil for Food anyone?  Why not just cut that part out?  The UN peacekeepers have been chilling in the African heat there for 5 years and every time I see a story about the atrocities that go on there, I am just about in tears.  So how about we try a different strategy - one that is all business?  This Chinese experiment is absolutely worth watching.

About the Oil for Food scandal - check out this podcast about it.  It blew me away.  The speech was held at Duke Law School and includes many of those who did some of the actual investigating.

Blogging from Crisler arena

I'm sitting in Crisler arena here watching my brother's College of
Engineering graduation ceremonies. I'll tell you what, the
commencement address was unlike any I've heard before at my alma
mater. What's the difference? Pretty simple if you ask me. He spoke
to the students! Imagine that! I never thought that at a college
commencement that the speaker would address the students. I always
thought it was a fundraising event.

The real point of this post is just to brag that I can blog from my
mobile phone from inside a sports arena.

--
Joe Petrides
comeonfranco.blogspot.com

Penis Theft on the Rise

I saw this story on Digg.  I don't know everyone who reads this, but you have to admit that this is hilarious.  Apparently, the worst part of living in the Democratic Republic of Congo is not child soldiers, mass rape, tribal battles resulting in torture and killing or any of that.  It seems a band of sorcerers are going around stealing penises.  Let's hope they don't make it to America.  It has me shaking in my boots.  If you think I'm kidding, I'm not.  It's a yahoo news story.

King Fed gets his first Title

So Roger Federer finally won his first title of the year knocking off Nikolay Davydenko.  Granted, Davydenko retired in the second set due to an injury - after breaking Roger.  Who knows what would have happened?  This is good news for this blog owner's hero and will certainly give Roger confidence heading into Monte Carlo and the French Open.

Porcupine Mountains

Last summer, my brother and I developed grand plans to hike the John Muir Trail out in California.  I was tired of doing everything in Michigan - the whole midwest gig was old.  Well, it turned out that it was going to be vastly more expensive than we thought and required much more expertise than we thought.  A trip for another time, I guess.  Anyway, I was blown away by the beauty in Michigan's Porcupine Mountains, our eventual destination.  I had taken many trips "up north" in Michigan, but they were always very structured.  In other words, anything "cool" we wanted to do was not allowed because of parents, tour guides, scout troop leaders etc..  When it was just my brother, Paul, and I and nobody else, I was simply blown away by everything.  Going outdoors didn't seem like a chore anymore when I was up there.  So what's the bottom line here?  First, you should check out the photos from the trip.  Trip Photos Second, as much as we look to far of places for beauty, sometimes it is right in our own backyard.  Hmm.. I wonder if it is the same for women?

In other news, what's with this constant paranoia about China?  I don't get it.  In fact, I'm one of their biggest cheerleaders, but the constraints of time preclude an immediate post.  Another day.

10 Things Better than Watching the NFL

In no particular order...

1. Burning in Hell
2. Living in Zimbabwe
3. Having Marcellus Wallace go medieval on me
4. Cutting off three of my fingers
5. Cutting off the rest of them with a rusty pair of scissors
6. Drilling a hole through my chest with maybe a 1/2" drillbit
7. Finding out the Muslims were right all this time
8. Being one of Jack Bauer's victims, specifically that guy whose neck he bit through vampire-style to escape captivity during the first episode of last season
9. Working for Idi Amin
10. Adolph Hitler

This is ridiculous - the NFL, except for the Patriots, is all about egos and individuals glorifying their achievements even though every play is a team effort. ESPN had a 2 hour special today when the NFL schedules for this year were released. The last thing any of us wants to do is listen to Sean Salisbury spout off for another 9 months. Blech.

Confessions of an Economic Hitman

I "read" a book during my travels for work called Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins.  I put "read" in quotes because it was an audio book.  Anyway, the book was absolutely fascinating.  It is the story of a man's life who got caught up in what he infers is an active plan to solidify America's imperialistic interests.  His job as an "Economic Hitman" consisted of visiting countries and creating falsified econometric reports.  These reports suggested that a developing country's economy would boom if the IMF and World Bank loaned them billions of dollars in order to pay American companies to install oil pipelines, build dams, or do a number of other infrastructure projects.  Of course, since these reports were fudged, the countries economies did not boom as projected.  So what happened?  Well, the American companies got rich.  What else happened?  Well, these developing countries ended up with an enormous loan debt that they could not pay off leaving them at the mercy of the World Bank and IMF.  In essence, they were at the mercy of the United States since we provide most of the funding for these organizations.  The US then used its position to force these countries to house US military bases and vote our way at the UN.  Pretty crazy stuff - maybe it's true.

 

The bottom line here is these large companies and international organizations are set up only to benefit the cronies and rich countries that created the systems in the first place.  If we really wanted to help these countries and the dire situation that their poor life in, we need to encourage them to open up their markets for free trade and for us to drop our tariffs and trade restrictions so the developing countries can compete.  It's not rocket science.

 

Well, maybe all those Christian missionaries that go down there on mission trips (vacations) to put on a sad face and pretend like they made a difference will get it done. Bah!

The Psychology of the Nerd

What is a nerd, exactly?  Well, in this post I will attempt to explain it and also attempt to explain why nerds do what they do.

My definition of a nerd results from 20 parts self-reflection, 40 parts high school observation, 30 parts online community observation (mostly digg), and 10 parts just making stuff up.  Keep in mind that this includes zero parts independent research or any attempt to read a book or other scholarly work on the subject even though there are many. 

Nerds tend to be in the outer rim socially.  They don't possess the natural ability to understand what is "cool", that is, what the right thing to say is and when to say it, how to dress, and a number of other things - I think you get the point.  However, unbeknownst to those not in nerdland, most nerds actually know that they don't have these traits which is why they tend not to show up to social events and get really nervous when they talk to cute girls.  Nerds tend to distrust authority and the status quo.  Just look at the presidential candidates everyone in Silicon Valley and on Digg seem to be going gaga over... first it was Ron Paul, and now it is Barack Hussein Ubama.  (Now, Barack Hussein Obama isn't necessarily outside of the status quo, but he certainly has all those fools convinced).  Both these candidates are seen as "different" and as individuals that will "bring about change."  Because of their general disdain for the status quo, nerds recognize bullshit very fast.  This probably explains why they hate politicians in general.

Nerds tend to be attracted to fantasy.  This can take many forms such as a strong like for video games, subjects such as Star Wars and Star Trek, science fiction novels and a number of other things.  Nerds don't have the ability to win by force or social grace, so they are naturally drawn to subjects that neutralize these qualities.  It is a way for them to live/dream in a world where technology and other things such as the Force, superweapons, or expert computer skills allow them to be the dominant species.

Nerds can be cool.  The one things that nerds don't understand is that all they need to do to be accepted by others is to admit who they are and be ok with it.  When I was in grade school, I was embarrassed to be in Boy Scouts.  I thought it was the nerdiest thing in the world and didn't want anyone to find out.  Once I got to high school and achieved the rank of Eagle, I realized that everyone thought it was cool and that they wished they learned all that I had.  Nerds tend to be more intelligent and this often leads to higher paying careers - women don't want to admit it, but a man's ability to provide makes them incredibly attractive.  All those ugly male billionaires don't have ugly wives - case in point.  Nerds' careers tend to be more interesting as well.  Think about it.  The cool guy that ends up being a financial adviser or insurance salesman can't really go home and talk to his family or friends about the sweet things he did on the job. A nerd can go home and talk about the code he's laying for Microsoft, and how it will completely change everyone's life in the next 10 years.  Honestly, whether you care about computers or technology at all, that's much more interesting than listening to some former homecoming king rant about insurance claims or commodity prices.  When the conversation at the bar gets to work, who has the better story to tell?

Nerds enjoy online communities.  Nerds frequent online forums and sites like Digg because nobody knows or cares what they looks like or how hot their girlfriends are or any of that stuff.  These nerds only care about what you type in.  When a nerd heads off to lunch period with messed up hair and wrinkled pants nobody will listen to him no matter how profound of a comment he might contribute.  Online communities are a great way to avoid such frustration.

These are just a few thoughts.  I'd be interested to know what you all think. 

Hillsdale College is the greatest college in the universe

There are many reasons why this is true. I won't have time to outline ALL of them, but here goes....


I've outlined several google services on this blog, but this one will be the most interesting. Most in the internet world know about google alerts. It's pretty simple. Each day (or week or month - whichever you specify), google searches its index for new appearances of a certain word of phrase that you specify. I know for a fact that many people at Hillsdale College sign up for a google alert for the phrase "Hillsdale College." Each day, they receive an email listing links of all the places on the internet where that text occurs. Some may be news articles about a speaker visiting campus. Others are results of a Hillsdale sporting event. Sometimes, there are random blog posts from alumni, prospective students, or parents.

So what's the point of this post then? Well, I'm running a little experiment here. Since the text "Hillsdale College" is in this post several times, I expect to see a spike in the visits to my blog since this post should be linked in the emails of many Hillsdale College employees - at least the ones who didn't exclude blogs from their alerts. Google analytics will work it's magic to log all the hits and tell me how many came from Hillsdale, MI. Pretty cool. This will give me an idea of how many individuals at the college sign up for this alert. Now, I only get a hit on my blog if someone actually clicks on the link that google sends them in their email. That is why I put in the sensationalist title. Hopefully, it will encourage folks to click the link.

Well, let's see what happens. Hmm.. maybe I'll get a comment or two.