Let me kick this off by soundly distancing myself from the common meme that all those emerging nations should suddenly propel themselves into a democratic system as fully developed as the west has done over several hundred years. I wholly disagree with the concept on the practical grounds that emerging societies must be given reasonable time to find their political way; as well a on the philosophical grounds that it is absurd to assume that our political evolution has peaked at current democratic systems and practices and does/will not need further adaptation, or indeed revolution. It may be the best we can offer now, but there is no evidence that it is the best of all possible worlds.

BUT! Every democratic state, reaching out to aide Pakistan in its assumed reach for democracy should roundly and soundly denounce the idea that the leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party – being first transferred by last will and testament to Bhutto’s husband, and then transferred by the fathers supposed divine right to the son Bilawal Zardar – has anything to do with democracy! It is Monarchy, plain and simple. In a democracy system, party leadership must first be selected by election within the party not through succession to the seat of power.

The young prince of the PPP may well lead his people to democratic reform, no matter how he takes his throne; but at the start he appears to have no greater claim to the right to stand for election and lead Pakistan than does Pervez Musharraf.

It is excellent to support the democratic aims of any people – but there is no need to politely ignore the ridiculous and obviously undemocratic behavior they undertake in the process. By failing to point out these errors, democratic people confuse the concept of what it is to be democratic to the emerging states as well as to their own society.

Spent most of my blog time today adding a blog roll. These are the pod/vod casts I like, the blogs I read, and the pages I frequent. Please visit the links and given them a try.

Henry and I went to see The Golden Compass during my afternoon break, and my official rating is: Not bad on the big screen, but if you are tight on cash you can wait for the video. In any case, absolutely positively read the books.

Though not quite on par with Tolkien’s work, Pullman does create a fairly complex multi-verse cosmology, which the first movie with its rather short (now a days) runtime, fails to explain very well.

Quite a bit of the plot seemed rushed to me, and they also mixed things up a bit for unfathomable reasons that didn’t seem to aid continuity at all. The movie also ends quite lamely and far short of where the first book does, and suffers greatly for it. The book ends with shock and enticing suspense as well, but the movie ends in an airy fairy dreamy sort of “y’all come back now ya hear?” way that wasn’t at all captivating.

By the way, Henry – who has not read the books- gave it a 7 out of 10, and he will definitely go to see the next edition.

On the whole brouhaha regarding atheism – well I thought the outrage over the books was silly, doubly so for the movie which has diluted much of the connection to any church we would recognize. It would be hard to claim there was an atheist message at all – the film presented much more an anti dogma meme than anything else; to me a good meme to hold regardless of your religious inclination.

I read with no interest the CNN breaking news that Sean Penn will divorce. JUMPIN’ JESUS ON A POGO STICK! How the hell is that personal tidbit newsworthy to anyone outside of the immediate Penn family, whom one hopes do not need to learn of this from the press?

Why has news become so petty and cheap? What the hell is the matter with our society that we have to keep hearing about the personal lives of anybody? And if Penn why not everyone? I’ll bet you that hundreds – probably thousands of people decided to divorce today – why is their personal story any less news worthy than Penn’s?

But a better question to ask is how can we get a handle on the invasive non-news that has gripped our world?

To me it is the thin edge of the wedge that is eroding liberty. The fourth estate was supposed to be the independent source of information that fueled and sustained liberty – but the responsibility that came with its great power was absolute discretion. When this source of information becomes corroded and distorted through misuse and lack of discretion, it loses its power and liberty itself is weakened as a result.

I’m really getting annoyed at our failure to grasp what to me should be a first step, in this the 21st century, to reduce human environmental impact; as well as provide a new level of service.

I want to subscribe to Skeptics Magazine, but I don’t want them to waste resources, time, and energy; to take their digital information, make it into matter, expend huge amounts of time and energy to move it geographically, all for me to convert it back into data with my eyes.

I buy product from Landsend through their online catalogue – it is superb. But then they keep sending me monthly printed catalogues that I never asked for and do not want! The online catalogue and ease of use is what captured my business, but it may be the unwanted printed junk mail that drives me away!

Same goes for the dozens of reference books I have bought. I know all of these books are digitally stored somewhere and it seems awfully wasteful to print them when I would be happier with them accessible in my computer – where I could actually smart search for info. And the new Amazon reader to me is like re-inventing the fax machine. Why make a proprietary gizmo that I have to buy to read a book. Why not just let me read on my own selected gizmo? Audio books are fine for some applications but for many things like reference work they can’t be searched.

Music and Movies also – I know there is iTunes now, and I would love to use it. But alas due no doubt to some copyright silliness the iTunes service is not available anywhere in Asia outside of Japan ad Australia. It seems insane to me that my payment has to have a nationality (they ask for the credit cards US address – not mine) for me to buy something online.

And the real idiocy is computer software delivered on a plastic disk in a box that could hold a hundred of them. What is software? It is digital code. The disk and box have zero value to you or your machine. It is the digital code that is inside that has value to you.

So all this talk about SUV’s and global warming – I’m primed for a war on matter – I’m primed for the digital revolution – if it ever arrives.

For much more on this theme try reading Being Digital by Negroponte. He makes a lot of sense – sadly his predictions fail to allow for how slow we are to adopt reasonable change.

I’m addicted to stress that’s the way that I get things done
If I’m not under pressure then I sleep too long
And I hang around like a bum
I think I’m going nowhere and that makes me nervous
Everybody’s out to get me but I feel alright (3x)
Everybody’s thinking about me

It’s the little things that get you
It’s the little things that get you when you weren’t paying attention
It’s the little things that get you, it’s the little things that get you
It’s the little things that get you, when you weren’t paying attention

I’m trying to cut down on my caffeine consumption
So when I get up I just have one cup of coffee
And I like to have another cup of coffee with my breakfast
And on the way to work I like to get a cup of coffee
Like the kind of cup of coffee that you get with a doughnut
‘Cept I never get the doughnut I just have the cup of coffee
And when I get to work I like to have a cup of coffee
‘Cause I like to have a coffee when I’m talking on the phone
But it usually goes cold and I need to get another
Cup of coffee and it’s lunch and I have an espresso

And when I get back it’s not morning anymore
So I have a diet cola and another diet cola
And by then I’m feeling fine and I’m feeling pretty sharp
And I’m feeling pretty wired and I’m getting things done
But right about two I get this little tiny migraine
And it starts behind my eyes and it moves to the back of my
Neck and it moves to the bottom of my spine
But it doesn’t get there until five or six o’clock
Which is the end of the day so I’m fine!
So I’m fine! so I’m fine, so I’m fine, so I’m fine
Except when I have to work late
When I have to work late which I usually do

I love to work I love to run I love to play real hard
I love to steal little things from the grocery store
Like a piece of bubble gum or sometimes I just
Stick my thumb in a peach and leave it there
I love to work I love to run I love to waterski, snowboard, jetski
Skydive, parasail, hang-glide, rollerblade, mountainbike, bungee-jump
Well I mean I’d love to do these things if I ever had the time
I love to work, I love to work, I love to work out after work
I love to spend a little time with this woman that I’m seeing
‘Cept we never really get a little time to spend together
So we call each other up and we talk about work

But what I think I’d really love is to get out by myself
On a little tiny island in the middle of the ocean
With just me and a book and a cellular phone
And a personal computer in case something came up
And I’d eat and I’d drink and I’d run and I’d sleep
And I wouldn’t do nothing except swim all day
‘Cept, you know, my beeper doesn’t work under water
Where are the sharks? where are the sharks? where are the sharks?
And there’s this kind of anemone that sticks in your foot
And the poison goes up to your brain and you die
And sand fleas? sand fleas – yuck!
But actually I think it’d be really relaxing
Just me by myself in the middle of the ocean
And that’s what I’d really love to do more than anything else
Except I’d probably hate it

Two of my Skepticality friends EJD and Sculptingman are having a discussion on – well on a lot of things I guess, but one bone of contention is weather Eastern Philosophy, has any value to living a better life. I won’t wade in and choose a side in the debate, but I did notice something interesting in a recent trade off of points.

In describing the dress style of Buddhist monks EJD (who has taken the con stance) used the basic (and I think intentionally) unflattering term “bright orange robes”, while Sculptingman, (taking a pro stance) used the much more flattering term “saffron robes.”

My own interest is in the fairly common argument style of throwing off even mild appeals to emotion in the language we choose. These forms of framing our sentences amount to a red herring fallacy, where the logic is not really challenged in any important way by either side, but it is dressed up with words to appear to be a harsh rebuttal.

Red Herring is a term that comes from a particularly pungent smoked fish used to try to throw hunting dogs-in-training off the scent of the actual prey.

Of course the most common and egregious form of red herring is the ad hominem argument where instead, or as part of attacking the logic of ones opponent, we also attack the opponent. The attack on the opponent should be irrelevant to any logical argument, and therefore is only a distraction.

In this particular case it seems to me that EJD used a form of poisoning the well to cast pallor over monks, while Sculptingman used a form of appeal to flattery to try to elevate the image of the monks.

Of course monks wear all sorts of robes and colors and just like the rest of human kind, come in all sorts. Some may be wise and peaceful and others may be right gits. The robe will tell us nothing – if you read about my fake monk beggar it doesn’t even tell us that they are in fact monks.

One last thing: I may be entirely wrong and EJD only used Bright Orange as that’s his standard vocabulary while the artist Sculptingman may have chosen Saffron from similar personal habit.

But the lesson remains true even if the example is false. We are tempted (almost habitually) to use emotive red herring to score points in argument and debate, but any points we do score are really meaningless in addressing the logic of the opposition.

Merry Merry Ho Ho Ho

Tonight was Christmas Eve, in Hong Kong the second busiest day of the year, following New Years Eve. Henry – my partner reminded me that to people not in my line, find what I do interesting. I could count on one hand the number of Christmases I have not worked in the past 28 years, so to me most of this is mundane. But enjoy.

Planning for today started in mid October, where we began having regular brainstorming meetings on menu, service, decorations, music, media and marketing, all things restaurant.

This year we didn’t settle on the menu until early December. Though in years past we have settled on it usually by mid November. I wanted to do this 5 bird roast, while my staff (and own skeptical nature) kept urging a more traditional Christmas Roast Beef and Goose. By my birthday I had more or less made up my mind and within that week had silenced any dissent.

Jimmy (the most important person in my kitchen) went about ordering all the goods (with some guidance) and we started sharpening our knives and our minds. We often do rehearsal type stuff in my shop where I go buy a bit of this or that from a supermarket and try to do food dress rehearsal. We did this in mid December and fine-tuned our assumptions.

Late last week the goods were arriving and we began hacking, peeling, trimming, boning, marinating, stock making and all the myriad minutiae of doing homemade cuisine.

And today we were spot on. Lunch was good but a steady pace that stretched from noon until 3. The first wave of dinner started promptly at 6 and by 7 we were humming along at full pace. We pulled off full first seating by about 8pm without a hitch. Food looked good and comments on taste were all good too.

Then there is the turn. Restaurants rely on what is known as “table turn” – we expect that a table will be seated with at least a few different groups on a given night. Most restaurants work on a 2 to 3 turn average. That means 2 to 3 separate parties at a given table per day. On weekdays we may only get 1.5, but on weekends we expect 3 or 4. Holidays like Christmas are a bit odd, because everyone wants to eat about the same time, there is not the usual flow of business, and so the turn is always a challenge.

I don’t know why but most restaurant staff, between the dessert and the turn, do not prepare. They relax and rest for a few minutes and then inevitably they get hammered at the turn. We didn’t do too badly tonight but the turn was not as smooth as I would have like or know it could have been with more attention to detail.

Second round tonight was also mostly a success, though we had several no show tables. That always sucks on holidays because we are fully booked and we triple confirm. Then a no show may mean 5 percent cut in daily sales.

Our food runner (the server responsible for delivering food from Kitchen to table) also messed up an order that had switched tables in midstream. Because she forgot the change of tables she brought the wrong food to two tables. By the time she realized her mistake, it was too late, as one table had started eating already. But tell me, how can you think the Osso Buco and Pasta Nachos that were delivered are the Spaghetti with Clams and a 5-bird roast, you ordered? Anyway aside from that and a few other minor hiccups another Christmas Eve has passed.

Ho Ho Ho

Not much to report. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, very busy, but all seems to be ready.

I spent much of today discussing and then sharpening knives. I have an 11-inch Global that I put a deep (1cm) notch into a few years ago, trying to cut through a frozen lamb bone. I had asked my staff to get it re-cut as a birthday gift, but that didn’t happen. So I spent some time today grinding it down by hand – it took about 2 hours.

I think I am getting a bit arthritic in my hands as well as my feet. I notice these days when I do stuff like that or say, whisk cream, I get deep pain from my wrist to my small fingers.

Too bad we are not made like my knife. Where our wear and tear can be ground away to new solid steel…that would have shown intelligent design…like my knife does.

So if I were a religious man I would call it a sign from above, and if I were a gambling man I would lay a heavy bet tonight. As if on cue, we had a beggar visit the restaurant. Kind of common at this time of year, and being the big bully in our troop it is my job to move them along (I’m not allowed to sublet, you see). I have never had to raise my voice or my hand in doing this – which is a testament to how menacing a human body (mine anyway) with just the right cold look, can be. I just move in real close, give them the look that says I will not be deterred, and I tell them with no hesitation, leave now. Works like a charm.

So if you believe in all the Christmas symbology, pageantry and culture – tell me this: By being the evictor of poor beggars, am I the grinch or more Scrooge?