That’s right, blame America for high food costs

OK, the US has offshored how many jobs to India, millions of them??, and so naturally we believe that Indians are now getting (relatively) rich so they are driving up food prices by demanding you know, Western style diets with meat and dairy and stuff. Something President Bush said to that effect.

One Indian official said in response to this sentiment that

if Americans slimmed down to the weight of middle-class Indians, “many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates.” 

and

  that the money spent in the United States on liposuction to get rid of fat from excess consumption could be funneled to feed famine victims.

So we should expect Tata Motors to start sponsoring the TV shows “Celebrity Fit Club” and the “Biggest Loser”? And wouldn’t lipo procedures be cheaper in India?

Well!, they’re mad at something Bush said about the Indian economy, nothing new there. People in the US are mad about Bush says about the US economy.

 

D.C. Gang Map

I saw this gang map of Washington, D.C. on a GIS vendor’s website in a gallery of mapping products being showcased.
I go to D.C. a few times a year, so this is interesting. Shaded areas showing gang territories is overlaid on an aerial image of the city.

 

Quantum cryptography breakable?

Quantum cryptography is breakable? I had read about the theory before, hmm.

Well, there is always the man-in-the-middle attack vector.

Unstaffed 24 hour gyms are really not safe

I have a membership at a newfangled 24 hour gym because it is very close to my house and is half the price of the YMCA, the only other real alternative to me. I’ve been there a while, and I’ve noticed that the ’security’ during non-staffed hours is not too good.

A lot of the articles I’ve googled on this subject are from the Midwest and two of the largest chains, Anytime and Snap are Minnesota companies. Who says ideas don’t come from the Minnesota?

St. Paul, Minnesota, oddly enough, has an ordinance that apparently disallows unsupervised gyms. St. Paul is more worried about patrons keeling over from sudden cardiac arrest than hold-ups or assaults.

Here’s a description of how security is supposed to work at a  24 hour gym:

At his business, patrons sign a policy not to let anyone in, even if they think the person is a member, Collien said. The measure prevents people from entering with stolen cards.

Customers who lose their cards receive new ones, he added. The old code is cancelled so others can’t use it.

Even when they aren’t working, operators can still watch their establishments. All local 24-hour centers have surveillance, and many owners can control the cameras from off-site. Collien said his cameras are connected to his home computer so he can monitor the business anytime, even when he’s home with the flu.
The reality comes down to social engineering factors. If you want to get into my gym after hours, you have two options. Both involve ringing the doorbell to the facility. You have a reasonable chance of somebody just walking over and letting you in! Failing that, you could just stand at the door and wait for someone to leave the place then walk in with the door open. That’s it. There are security cameras, but they don’t deter unmasked robbers in lots of other contexts.

OK, you’re not supposed to let anyone in if they don’t have the keycard (or in my case, a keything) but this doesn’t work. Even at my highly sensitive workplace, people piggyback through the doors behind someone with card access. People (speaking of Americans right) generally don’t confront other people tailing them through a door like that. Even if you feel like minded to do so, would feel like say, confront a gang of teenagers in a fairly dark, isolated area?

It’s not so likely that anything would happen in an exurban area as opposed to an inner city or downtown area, but anything can happen.

Racial attitudes, the election and miscegenation

I had a disagreement with a friend yesterday over whether Obama is electable. I am skeptical, and the results from West Virginia yesterday were certainly not promising. I thought about Jim Crow, miscegenation laws, and so on and remembered that Alabama had just recently taken out a clause in their state constitution banning miscegenation. Of course Federal law trumps state law on this issue, so the clause was inactive or whatever the legal term is. But the Alabama took out the clause based on the result of a voter referendum in 2000.

In 1970, twelve states, mostly Bible Belt states, still kept these unenforceable miscegenation (sic) laws on their books. The last one to be removed wasn’t removed until November of 2000 in Alabama. Strange indeed was it was done by ballot referendum because it was a Constitutional measure. Unbelievably, forty percent of Alabamans still voted against taking the laws off the books even though it was unenforceable. Amazing!

Salon.com commented after that election result:

“In November 2000, after a statewide vote in a special election, Alabama became the last state to overturn a law that was an ugly reminder of America’s past, a ban on interracial marriage. The one-time home of George Wallace and Martin Luther King Jr. had held onto the provision for 33 years after the Supreme Court declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. Yet as the election revealed — 40 percent of Alabamans voted to keep the ban — many people still see the necessity for a law that prohibits blacks and whites from mixing blood.”

Don’t know what the racial breakdown of the “no” voters were, I could imagine that some blacks aren’t too fond of mixing with whites. But you know, this isn’t promising, although I realize that Obama or Hillary haven’t a snowflake chance in Hell in winning Alabama.