The idea of specialism takes into account that there will be information asymmetry. The specialist will be able to understand more in their field than a generalist, plus the specialist will be able to make sense of more information relating to that speciality that a generalist may miss, or not understand.
That is all fine but it breaks down in democratic politics as the generalists get a say - even if indirectly - and since the majority determines who is in government, not to mention what constitutes social stability, specialism needs to walk a fine line in explaining actions to the general population. So when you see legislation that
contains language like this:
Sec. 8. Review. Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency
It is not good. Not only is it a blank check, and not only does it make no attempt to explain the treasuries actions or put it under scrutiny, it is also classic state of exception stuff; where the legislative aids the executive in subverting the doctrine of judicial review. This means law becomes politics and the judicial has to fight to maintain its relevancy. It is not good.
We are seeing subsidy after subsidy of taxpayer money being thrown to the financial sector in what is a trillion dollar wealth transfer from the American public to those that have poor business acumen. This is the worst of all worlds. The failed businesses are being propped up, the US government is
buying junk at market price without equity and when everyone knows it is worth pennies ... what a failure of government.
It is like New Orleans and Katrina all over again; just this time in the financial sector and not the emergency response arm of the Administration.
We are seeing arguments that it is the end of neo-liberalism, but really it should be an argument for the end of bad governance. Apparently there were
regulatory mechanisms in place to stop the over the top leveraging of the firms like Lehmann Brothers, but that was foregone - due to bad governance.
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
